The M1 was announced in November 2020. The M1 Ultra wasn’t announced for another sixteen months, in March 2022. It was clearly late. Very late. The M2 was presumed right around the corner (and it was, released just four months later). Why would anyone buy an M1 Ultra, using a two year old CPU architecture designed for phones, when its successor was due any day (and would surely be a big leap again in performance)?
So I didn’t buy an M1 Ultra.
The M2 was announced in July 2022. The M2 Ultra wasn’t announced for another eleven months, in June 2023, and offered only a small performance gain over its predecessor. There were rumours that the M3 was right around the corner (and it was, released just four months later). Worse, the M3 Pro and Max were released simultaneous to the base M3, and the M3 Max actually outperforms the M2 Ultra in many workloads.
So I didn’t buy an M2 Ultra.
So now the question is: when will the M3 Ultra come out? If it takes eleven to sixteen months, like its predecessors, then we’ll be expecting the M4 by then, and this sad cycle will have repeated yet again.
Will I buy an M3 Ultra?
I hope so, but it’s up to Apple.
