Here’s all the things Apple announced Tuesday at its “Peek Performance” event
All the deets about the new iPhone SE, iPad Air, Mac Studio, and Apple Studio Display
Apple’s been really hitting it out of the park with its new product announcements over the last 18 months, so I kind of feel like I’m saying this after every event now, but this week’s event felt like one of their best ever. Some of the announcements were less exciting than others, but everything ranged from solid improvement to incredible, and the event was paced really well. Apart from maybe the short segment with the developers, there wasn’t much that wasn’t genuinely engaging about this event. So let’s go through it in the order that Apple did:
Apple TV+
Apple spent a good deal of time focusing on its original films and the acclaim that they’re receiving, and they also showed a highlight reel with clips from some of their already-released films as well as new footage I hadn’t seen before from upcoming original movies. The most exciting news, at least for me, was that Apple has indeed secured the rights to Friday night Major League Baseball games for this upcoming season. I have more to say about this in the future, but be sure to check out what I wrote about this when it was first rumored back in January of this year. Let’s also hope the MLB contract negotiations get worked out and we actually get a baseball season this year.
iPhone
As expected we got a new Spring color for the iPhone 13 family of products: Green for iPhone 13, and Alpine Green for iPhone 13 Pro. The biggest news of the day was the new iPhone SE. As predicted, it retained its existing form factor, but now comes with the iPhone 13’s A15 Bionic chip and a 5G radio. Getting the upgraded chip not only means it’s faster than before, but also has some upgraded photography capabilities, including the iPhone 13’s “photographic styles.” Of note, the iPhone SE’s 5G radio isn’t compatible with as many 5G frequencies as the iPhone 13/iPhone 13 Pro’s radio is, though that’s unlikely to make much of a difference to most people, at least at this stage of 5G rollout.
iPad Air
Also meeting expectations, the iPad Air got a processor bump, but an even better one that most of us saw coming. The iPad Air now has the M1 chip, just like the iPad Pro. It also gets the ultra wide angle front facing camera, which facilitates Apple’s “Center Stage” video conferencing zoom-and-pan feature. And as with the iPhone SE, the iPad Air now also gets a 5G radio on the cellular models, but one with a smaller frequency compatibility range than that of the iPad Pro.
M1 Ultra
This had been rumored, but we didn’t know the name. It’s an impressive chip. They essentially mated two M1 Max chips together to double the performance. But unlike traditional two-CPU designs, data doesn’t have to flow across a circuit board between the two chips, which results in latency. Instead they’ve designed a die-to-die interconnect system they call UltraFusion that lets the two chips operate as one, presumably without the latency. It also means developers won’t have to update their apps to address two CPUs since the system treats them as one chip. This will see its first (and so far only) application in the Mac Studio computer.
Mac Studio
As I wrote in my preview piece, this is an odd model in some ways. It’s neither a “Mac mini Pro,” nor a replacement for the Mac Pro. The Mac mini lineup remained untouched, and Apple specifically pre-announced that they will be doing a new Mac Pro at some point in the future. It certainly looks like a member of the Mac mini family though as it essentially has the same footprint as a Mac mini, but is noticeably taller. Most of that extra thickness is dedicated to the M1 Ultra’s cooling system. Unlike the Mac Pro, it isn’t in any way modular. What you buy is what you get, so make your options choices wisely. But in some key benchmarks it’s faster than both the 27-inch iMac (which is now discontinued) and the Mac Pro. This is an incredibly powerful machine. It really hearkens back to the year 2000 and the days of the PowerMac G4 Cube. Not only because it physically resembles the G4 Cube in some ways, but because the desktop Mac lineup is similar as well. In those days you had the iMac for consumers, the PowerMac G4 for the highest end users, and the PowerMac G4 Cube for users in the middle of those two extremes. And that’s exactly where the Mac Studio sits today, or at least where it will sit once the Apple Silicon transition is complete and Apple unleashes an absolute beast of a future Mac Pro. I think the pricing is compelling too. You can get a model equipped with an M1 Max chip for $1999. That’s the same price as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, but with an M1 Max instead of an M1 Pro. The second configuration Apple offers is double the price at $3999, but it’s also double every major spec: GPU cores, CPU cores, RAM, SSD capacity, etc. And if that seems expensive, keep in mind that it’s $2000 less than the entry price for a Mac Pro that it significantly out-performs. Also, most of us don’t need the power of an M1 Ultra-equipped Mac Studio. This is aimed squarely at creative professionals who can recoup the hardware cost in time saved (and thus more work produced). I can’t wait to see real world benchmarks on this thing, and I can’t wait to see what Apple has in store for the Mac Pro.
Studio Display
A lot of people have been asking for an Apple-branded display that’s not ultra high end for a long time now. It used to be the kind of product that Apple kept in its lineup, but hasn’t had in ages. I’m having a hard time mustering excitement for this product, because even though it’s way less expensive than Apple’s Cinema Display XDR, it’s still going to serve a relatively small customer base. Most education and enterprise Mac buyers just buy less expensive displays from Dell or LG, and wouldn’t give a $1500 display like the Studio Display the time of day. I doubt I’ll ever see one outside of an Apple Store. But it does have some unique features you won’t get on any other display. Its microphones and speakers are likely significantly better than anything else in a comparable display, and it features the Center Stage ultra wide angle camera, something you definitely won’t find anywhere else.
No one’s perfect, and I definitely didn’t get all of my predictions right. Check out my preview piece written before this event to see how I scored. (I’d say pretty well for the most part.) Here are the two biggest things we didn’t get at this event:
Mac mini
Though the Mac Studio may resemble a Mac mini, it’s not one. The base Mac mini received no update, and the Intel Mac mini is still for sale in Apple’s lineup. I doubt we’ll ever get anything called “Mac mini Pro,” but given that the higher end Intel model remains in the lineup, I still think we’ll eventually get an M1 Pro (or maybe M2 Pro) model with more ports.
M2 Preview
Now that we know what Apple did announce at this event, it makes sense that they didn’t unveil the M2 chip. The M1 Ultra had to be in the spotlight today. We’ll likely get our first M2 Mac later this year, and I’d bet it’ll be in a redesigned MacBook Air and a redesigned Mac mini.