After seemingly a lot of confused chatter in the rumor mill over the last several weeks, Apple managed to scare up some fun surprises during last night’s “Scary Fast” event. (Look, Apple didn’t shy away from corny Halloween metaphors, and your author won’t either.) We got the official unveiling of the M3 family of chips with the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, we got new MacBook Pros, and new iMacs. Let’s break this down a bit:
Here Lies Touch Bar
Apple finally killed off the last Mac laptop with a Touch Bar. The oft-forgotten (by Apple writers, not Apple laptop customers) 13-inch MacBook Pro, which featured the pre-M1 form factor including the Touch Bar, has been discontinued. In its place is a new entry level 14-inch MacBook Pro. It features the current MacBook Pro design, but with one fewer USB-C port, Thunderbolt 3 instead of Thunderbolt 4, support for a single external display, and the M3 chip. It starts at $1599.
Now budget-conscious companies and consumers can buy a performant MacBook Pro that looks more expensive than it is. Given that a lot of buyers of the old 13-inch MacBook Pro bought it because it was named “MacBook Pro” and/or looked more professional than a MacBook Air will have an even more appealing choice to make without having to spring for the M3 Pro model, which still retails for $1999.
More Power, More Confusion
I’m not the best at assessing Apple’s performance claims, so I’ll be relying on YouTubers to run benchmarks on the new models once they get them. I’ve always been more of a software and product guy than an under-the-hood hardware guy. That said, it feels to me like this is much more of a GPU upgrade than a CPU upgrade. Hardware ray tracing was a big GPU feature that Apple Silicon Macs had previously not been able to deliver. Now they do. I hope this means more AAA games for the Mac, but I fear that Apple still isn’t doing enough from a business standpoint to woo game developers. We’ll see.
Confusingly, there are a LOT of CPU/GPU/ram/storage options this generation. It seems that Apple is pushing its chip manufacturing partner, TSMC, to their limits. As a result, they’re selling a lot of “binned” chips. The overwhelming majority of MacBook Pro buyers should buy either the $1599 or $1999 14-inch models. For anyone with more specific hardware needs, shop carefully.
New Cadence?
Ever since Apple announced the switch away from Intel, we’ve wondered what this would mean for Apple’s Mac processor cadence. Now that we’re three generations into the Apple silicon era, is it now appropriate to expect a major new chip generation to emerge every 12 months (on average)? It’s been a much more aggressive upgrade cycle than I initially expected, and it feels like maybe Apple wants to be as regular with M-series chips as they are with A-series chips.
An Interesting Sales Pitch
I think Apple and its customers are finding that the M1-generation of Macs are holding up very well. I’m still using a 14-inch M1 Pro MacBook Pro and expect it to serve me well for years to come. I think this was reflected, at least somewhat, in the fact that the M2 generation products had softer sales. In this event, Apple made a lot of pitches to customers who are still on Intel Macs as to why they should upgrade. (And if you can, you definitely should.)
Oh, Hey, iMac
The iMac never got an M2 processor upgrade. It’s been stuck on the M1 chip since its release over two years ago. It skipped right to the M3 with this announcement, with no other obvious changes to the lineup. Same design, same colors. This makes perfect sense as my guess is all-in-one desktop Macs don’t sell in large quantities any more. However, as someone who appreciates the whimsiness that colorful iMacs bring to the Mac lineup, I like that these are still around, and now updated.
Space Black
You can still get a Space Gray MacBook Pro if you get the one with the M3 chip. For any MacBook Pro shipping with an M3 Pro or M3 Max chip, the new non-Silver option is Space Black. A black MacBook Pro has been a popular request for a long time now, and I can’t wait to see what these look like. And because it’ll now be immediately obvious at a glance that you have the new M3 MacBook Pro, that’ll certainly up everyone’s envy factor. Smart, Apple.
Nice take. I was waiting for it. I have both an M1 iMac and M1 Pro 14, each with 16 gigs RAM. The M3 isn’t especially exciting for me. The speeds they were quoting didn’t feel especially compelling.