It’s been a few hours since Apple released a few new products. The most anticipated undoubtedly being the new MacBook Pros sporting the new Apple Silicon. But there are also new AirPods, a new Apple Music tier, and new colors for the Apple HomePod mini. Let’s take a quick look at what the tech giant just introduced.
M1 Pro and M1 Max
If you thought the 2020 M1 chip was fast and efficient, Apple wants you to expect more from TWO new M1 chips. And the company imports its Pro and Max brand names into these new Apple Silicon.
The M1 Pro CPU is expected to be up to 70% faster than the original M1. It has a GPU up to 2x faster, 32GB of unified memory, and 200GB/s of memory bandwidth. Meanwhile, the M1 Max gets a unified memory of 64GB.
Both chips support up to 10 CPU cores. On the GPU front, the Pro gets up to 16-core while the Max supports up to 32-core.
If you want more details about the new chips, you can read more here.
MacBook Pro
There are steps forward with the new, more powerful MacBook Pros and some backpedaling from Apple over some of its heavily criticized recent changes.
The new MacBook Pros come in two sizes: 16-inch or 14-inch. Both get 120Hz ProMotion support for smoother scrolling and Liquid Retina XDR displays.
Apple also adds a notch. Yes, you read that right. It gets a notch, so it can squeeze in more screen. Like on smartphones, you probably won’t notice it after a while. But we won’t blame you if you don’t like it there. That camera in the notch gets upgraded to 1080p, though, with Apple promising double the performance in low-light.
As shared in the rumors, MagSafe makes a comeback, and so do some of the essential ports like an SDXC card slot, HDMI port, Thunderbolt, and headphone jack. Apple concedes and gets rid of the Touch Bar.
The audio system also gets revamped with larger tweeters and woofers for better audio fidelity.
The new models, of course, use the latest M1 chips, with the 14-inch model getting a starting price of USD 1,999 (around PHP 101,404 converted), while the 16-inch model‘s pricing starts at USD 2,499 (PHP 126,768).
AirPods 3rd-generation
Here’s another rumored device brought to life. Apple’s standard AirPods final gets an upgrade. It gets a new look along with Spatial Audio support and better sweat and water resistance with an IPX4 rating. It also adopts the AirPod Pros “force sensor” for controlling music and calls. These new AirPods get an extra hour of run time at six hours on a single charge and up to 30 hours with the case. And yes, these AirPods now support MagSafe.
Apple retails the third-gen AirPods for USD 179 (PHP 9,080).
Siri and Apple Music
You can now ask Siri to play you different themed playlists on Apple Music, like a playlist for a dinner party, hiking, brunch, work, and so on. The streaming audio service also gets a new cheaper Voice Plan. This USD 5 (PHP 254) plan won’t give you access to the Apple Music interface. As the name suggests, you will use Siri to queue up songs.
Here’s what the different Apple Music plans look like side by side:
New HomePod mini colors
If you felt like the HomePod mini’s original colors didn’t reflect your personality. There are now dark blue, orange, and yellow colorways, too!
