“The performance comes into play. » A slogan as much as an index and a promise! It is with his words that Apple announced its event tonight. Obviously, the term “performance” had to apply to all the products presented.
On the occasion of the first keynote of the year, the Cupertino giant almost followed the path traced by predictions and rumors. We were thus entitled to an iPhone SE 5G, an iPad Air equipped with an M1 chip, and also compatible with 5G. But it was especially on the Mac side that the party was wildest with the announcement of a new processor for the M1 family, the M1 Ultra, a brand new Mac, the Mac Studio, and a screen, the Studio Display. Find all the details of the announcements.
A small iPhone for the road?
After a short stint on Apple TV +, Tim Cook got into the hard part of what we expected: the iPhone. It started with the arrival of two new colors: for the iPhone 13, a bright green and for the 13 Pro an alpine green. These finishes will be available on March 18.
But the most anticipated was obviously theThird-generation iPhone SE. As we suspected, Apple’s entry-level smartphone is entitled to the A15 Bionic, and does not change its design. It will thus be 1.8 times more efficient than the iPhone 8, released in 2017…
Above all, this opens the door to new features in handwriting or voice recognition and other functions related to neural engine. The diagonal of the screen is still 4.7 inches, the Touch ID button is still there, and the set is still available in the three existing colors.
As expected, it now includes 5G, and should even offer better autonomy, thanks to its new SoC. A SoC which will also improve the photo part, with Deep Fusion, in particular, and a new version of Smart HDR (4).
It is sold from 529 euros and will be available from March 18, for pre-orders open next Friday.
And a little iPad, of course…
As Mark Gurman wanted, Apple did update its iAirpad, forgotten since 2020. The unchanged design now embeds an M1 chip, and not the A15 Bionic, as one might expect. A nice surprise, which continues to prove that the iPad Air is a more affordable iPad Pro…
The overall performance is up 60% compared to the previous generation, with also a small x2 for the graphics part. As expected, the Center Stage function is also available for video conferences.
5G is also making an appearance, while the USB-C port is now twice as fast. The iPad Air is obviously compatible with the Magic Keyboard, and the second generation Apple Pencil.
Apple also announced a new iMovie, which will arrive next month.
The iPad Air is available in five colors, including a new blue, and will be sold from 699 euros, and available in 64 and 256 GB. It will be pre-orderable from Friday March 11 and marketed from March 18.
Macs, even more powerful, with the M1 Ultra
Tim Cook then moved on to the big party, Macs powered by Apple Silicon chips. A show that continued with a new chip, the M1 Ultra, even more efficient than the M1 Max, and for good reason…
If the name attests to even more power, the promise is the same: performance and low consumption. Engraved in 5 nm, the M1 Ultra offers a different approach to chips, which is based on a hidden function of the M1 Max: the connection of two dies thanks to a technology called UltraFusion. It allows a bandwidth of 2.5 TB/s between the two contiguous M1 Max… For a very fast and efficient SoC, with its 114 billion transistors. The memory bandwidth is 800 GB/s.
The SoC can also manage up to 128 GB of unified memory, it embeds up to 20 CPU cores and 64 GPU cores. the neural engine has 32 cores.
The M1 Ultra promises 90% more performance for the same power consumption than the most powerful competing 16-core CPU. And consumes 200 W less for the same graphics performance.
The Mac Studio, the first Mac with the M1 Ultra
Where does Apple intend to slip its new chip? In creative studios, in particular. Where performance, connectivity and modularity are key.
So Apple introduced the Mac Studio, an all-new Mac, and the Studio Display, a display for all Macs.
The Mac Studio looks like a Mac mini, thicker, taller, but still offers a unibody aluminum shell. Two large fans dominate the motherboard and evacuate the heat produced by the M1 Ultra.
Connectivity includes four Thunderbolt 5 ports, a 10 Gigabit Ethernet port, two USB-A ports, an HDMI port, Wi-Fi 6 (not Wi-Fi 6E…) and Bluetooth 5. At the front, we finds two USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4) and an SDXC card reader.
The Mac Studio will be available with the M1 Max, and will then be 50% more powerful than the highest performing Mac Pro with Intel’s Xeon processors. It is 3.4 times faster for the graphics part.
With the M1 Ultra, the performance is even more impressive. 3.8 times faster than the 27-inch iMac, and 90% more powerful than the Mac Pro. For the graphics part, it is 4.5 times faster than the iMac and 80% faster than the most powerful Mac Pro.
In addition, this new chip can manage up to 128 GB of unified memory. The SSDs display speeds of 7.4 GB/s and up to 8 TB. All this configuration will allow you to juggle 18 8K Pro Res streams!
Apple also insists that the Mac Studio is a “green” machine, which will consume 1,000 kilowatt-hours less than a high-end desktop PC per year, which would ship a Core i9 12900KF and a GeForce RTX 3090.
A new screen, Studio Display
Last announcement of the evening: a 27-inch panel and 14.7 million pixels, and a billion colors, for a 5K Retina panel, and a brightness of 600 nits. True Tone technology is included and an anti-reflection treatment is also applied. Apple’s nano texture technology is also available as an option.
The screen embeds an A13 Bionic chip to manage the camera and sound. It manages the 12 Mpix front camera compatible with Center Stage, and the three onboard microphones.
Six loudspeakers are also integrated, with four woofersAnd two tweeters for the treble. The Studio Display is compatible with Apple’s Spatial sound.
It can be mounted on an articulated stand, or be fixed to a wall (VESA).
The screen offers three USB-C ports, and a Thunderbolt port to connect it to a Mac, which provides 96 W and can therefore power a MacBook Pro.
The Studio Display is made to be attached to any Mac… whether laptop or desktop.
The Mac Studio is sold from 2,299 euros with the M1 Max, 32 GB of memory and 512 GB of SSD, and 4,599 euros with the M1 Ultra, 64 GB, and 1 TB of SSD. The Studio Display is sold from 1,749 euros. They can be pre-ordered now and will be available from March 18.