Up to 3x more things
One more thing turned into three new products and one new chip. Takeaways from Apple’s presentation of their new Mac’s and the new chip for them.
On Tuesday, November 10th, Apple held its third digital event in two months. This time around, they presented three new Mac’s, all running on the new M1 chip. Once again, the event was produced gorgeously, taking the viewer through the company’s headquarter and showing off cinematic proficiency.
Even though Apple did not communicate officially that the event would be about the new Mac’s, it was apparent, as it was the last product that already had been announced but not yet showed. Hence, the stage was set for the Cupertino company to present their newest, best computers.
The Thing
The obvious star of Apple’s keynote was the new M1 designed. The event provided extensive descriptions of it’s computing power, the integration into macOS Big Sur and the support for various Apps.
The chip is optimised for high-efficiency usage, illustrated by the different cores used. Of the eight CPU cores, four high-efficiency cores while the other four are high-performance cores. Furthermore, the chip also has an integrated eight-core GPU, which, according to Apple, are the fasted integrated graphics in a chip. In addition to the CPU and GPU, more things are on the 5nm chip, including the unified memory. The unified memory is one of the key features of the new chips; it allows the seamless exchange of data throughout components, which can be a bottleneck limiting the speed of operations on a computer. Apart from these parts, the M1 also features the most advanced neural engine (according to Apple) and the secure enclave which provides best in class security.
All in all, Apple’s new chip should be extremely efficient while also providing a lot of power for that efficiency. In the keynote, Apple stated that the M1 chip has the best performance per Watt in the industry and simply outclasses comparable chips.
The new Mac’s
After the extensive introduction to the new chip, the big revelation of the first Mac with the M1 chip was due. Unsurprisingly, the first device presented that features the M1 chip was the MacBook Air. It seems fitting that the device geared towards efficiency is the first one to have the new chip. Apple presented a lot of innovations, yet in summary, the new chip makes the MacBook Air faster than ever before while also providing a prolonged battery life. Apple even trusts the chip that much that they removed the fan of the MacBook Air, which allows for a completely silent operation. Yet, only time will tell if removing the fan was wise, as Apple laptops haven’t been known for exceptional heat management (I am talking with you, 15-inch 2019 MacBook Pro with an I9 processor).
Opposing the one more thing title of the keynote, two more Mac’s with the new chip were presented. The new Mac mini and the new MacBook Pro 13-inch.
Similar to the MacBook Air, the Mac mini has a sleek form factor and is designed with versatility in mind. According to the Keynote, it is just one-tenth of the size of other desktop computers while providing more power. The new chip allows it to power Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full resolution. Also, the Mac mini features an active cooling system with a fan.
Similar to the Mac mini, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro also has an active cooling system. Again, the selling points for the new MacBook Pro were increased performance with increased battery life. The 13-inch MacBook Pro now even features the best battery life ever in a Mac, and it also can power the Pro Display.
The theme of the Mac’s with the new chip was clear. They are faster while simultaneously being more efficient.
Is there more?
During the presentation, also other features of the interactions between the new macOS Big Sur and the M1 chip were shown. The operating system and the chip are deeply tied in to each other and take advantage of their unique capabilities. One of the most impressing perks was the instant wake feature. Craig Federighi showed that the new Mac’s are as quick to wake from sleep as the iPhones and iPads.
This wasn’t the only time during the keynote when iPhones and iPads were mentioned, though. During the keynote, there were several references toward Apple’s mobile devices, also because the new Mac’s can now run all the App’s for iOS devices because of the shared chip architecture. Also, a lot of comparisons to the iPhones and iPads were drawn, such as the Mac’s now also have an industry-leading performance with high efficiency and more.
During the prolonged presentation of the M1 chip, Apple also showed off Rosetta two, their program to make applications not yet programmed for ARM Macs available to the new devices, and Universal Apps. Especially for people who recently bought an Intel Mac, the presentation of Universal Apps was pleasing, as Apple stated that these Apps are optimised for both Intel and ARM-based Mac’s.
The confusing parts
While most of the time, the keynote was logical, easy to follow and well done, some questions arose.
Firstly, there was a lot of talk on how the new macOS Big Sur could take advantage of the different cores on the M1 chip and how Big Sur is perfectly optimised for the new chip. This left a strange feeling for a lot of Intel-Mac users because it sounded like the Intel-based Mac’s weren’t considered that much. Which hopefully isn’t true at all but the way it was presented was certainly worrying for owners of Intel-based Mac’s.
Furthermore, the divisions between the different products begin to blur. Apart from the design and the storage options, it gets harder and harder to differentiate the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air. Right now, the active cooling and the storage options seem to be the main differentiating factors between the two devices. Of course, there is the Touch Bar and better microphones on the MacBook Pro, yet the chip is the same. What makes it more confusing is that on one device, the MacBook Air the chip does not seem to need active cooling yet on the MacBook Pro the engineers deemed it necessary to include one. As a customer, you’re left wondering what’s the right choice.
Lastly, why did the Cupertino company chose to only equip the 13-inch MacBook Pro with two Thunderbolt ports with the new chip It seems kind of odd that the device with double the input ports does not get Apple’s first chip for computers while the one with less connectivity gets it. Referring to the aforementioned confusion about the product portfolio, this is also not promoting clarity.
All in all, the keynote once again had stunning visuals and introduced exciting products. However, they have to prove themselves in the real world first before one can really be sure about the enormous stat boosts Apple claims they have.
Stay safe
Raffael