The MacBook Pro M1 has only been on the market for five months, but Apple is reportedly already looking to the future with a refreshed model featuring the M2 chip.

According to a new report from DigiTimes, Apple is currently booking production of new in-house designed chips that are very likely to be used in the next generation of Macs. These are widely believed to be M2 chips.

These new M2 chips, to be manufactured by Taiwan's TSMC, are based on a 4-nanometer process node. Current Apple M1 chips are based on a 5nm process, so the move to 4nm could be a major boost for the next generation of Macs.

Apple's M1 chip broke new ground by offering a lot of performance from a chip based on the ARM instruction set, usually found in smartphones rather than laptops, and with the M2, Cupertino could build on that success and move the MacBook away from Intel CPUs further away from Intel CPUs.

The earliest we can expect to see M2 chips in Macs is this fall, when new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models are expected to be introduced. iMac 2021 is expected to use a custom M1 rather than a second-generation Apple Silicon chip.

However, the iMac2021 is expected to use a custom M1 chip rather than the second-generation Apple Silicon chip.

However, this rough release date is far from certain, as the current global chip shortage could delay production until next year. In that case, Apple is expected to use a more powerful version of the current M1 chip in its MacBook series, which will be refreshed in 2021.

It would be very surprising to see Apple settle for a processor upgrade of at least some form this year and not move the MacBook forward. Whether that will be the M2 chip remains to be seen.

We still expect to see an Apple event this month. However, it is unlikely that a new MacBook will debut at that time.

According to DigiTimes, the M2 chip for the MacBook is not the only new chip Apple is reportedly working on; according to DigiTimes, the A15 chip, supposedly for the iPhone 13, will be in production in late May for a fall release. This new iPhone chip will be the first of its kind. This new chip for the iPhone is believed to be based on 5nm technology, like its predecessor, the A14 Bionic; the 2022 iPhone is rumored to jump to 4nm.