The most comprehensive summary of Apple’s new product launch: Apple’s strongest chip debut, 3 Mac models starting at 5299 yuan, iOS applications finally moved to Mac
One event in September, one event in October, and another event in November. In just three months, Apple’s conference has already scored three times.
The protagonist of the first conference is the wearable device Apple Watch, and the second one is naturally the annual highlight of the iPhone 12 series. Both conferences are the upgrades of the two series of products. Although the improvement is still huge, it seems that there is no "surprise" feeling from the previous conferences.
The shocking Apple surprise is naturally the inadvertent "One more thing" at the end of the press conference. It has been 3 years since the last time this classic line was said. This time Apple directly used this final line as the theme, which means this year. The biggest surprise is still hidden in this long overdue conference.
The new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro equipped with M1 chip are undoubtedly the absolute protagonists of this conference. Although Apple has released a preview at the WWDC conference before, it can't help but sigh at the moment when the mystery is really revealed: "My lord, times have changed."
In addition, Apple also released the new Mac mini with the same M1 chip and the latest macOS Big Sur. I don't know why, although I haven't seen him for a month, I always feel that Cook has a kind of kindness of "I want you to die."
Apple's strongest self-developed M1 chip comes out
The most important part of the conference is the Apple Silicon processor, which is Apple's desktop-level self-developed processor and is currently Apple's strongest self-developed processor. How strong? Probably it is as strong as beating its own products.
In terms of specific models, it is no longer the familiar A series naming method on the iPhone, but a new naming-M1 chip.
As the strongest self-developed chip, the M1 chip naturally integrates the current Apple’s strongest technology, using 5nm process technology, up to 16 billion transistors, from CPU, GPU, Nerual Engine to Apple T2 chip, a brand new design by Apple SoC is present before our eyes.
The CPU part adopts a 4+4 size core design. Apple compared the latest PC processors. The performance reached twice the performance of the "friends" at 10W power consumption, and the power consumption is only a quarter of Intel chips under the same performance. One.
The GPU is also designed with 8 cores. When the power consumption is at the 10W level, it also has twice the performance of the "friends", and the power consumption is 1/3 at the same performance.
In addition, M1 also has a 16-core Neural Engine, which can perform 110,000 operations per second, and its machine learning capabilities have also been greatly improved.
After the birth of the M1 chip, Apple’s desktop environment will temporarily split into two camps, Arm and Intel. Many people are worried about the changes in the application ecosystem. Apple has given three different application solutions this time. There is one for you:
- Universal application
- Rosetta 2 rendering application
- Native Arm application
Among them, the Universal app is an application across Arm and Intel platforms. For example, Adobe's Lightroom will be updated to the Universal app, and Photoshop will be updated next year. Image editing software is already a relatively large-scale productivity application. Apple hopes to use these applications as a transition and dispel users' doubts about the Arm chip platform.
Those native x86-compiled applications can be translated into applications that can run on the Arm platform through the official tool Rosetta 2 provided by Apple. Although some performance will be lost, the compatibility can be greatly improved, which means to tell you that the current Mac applications you still have You can use it with confidence.
The last one is the apps originally developed for the Arm platform. These apps can now span iOS, iPadOS and macOS, opening up major devices from small screens to large screens. In the future, apps developed for iOS can also be directly displayed with outstanding performance. Run on macOS.
In addition, the macOS Big Sur running on the M1 chip now has stronger hardware and software than before, wakes up faster than before, and edits 8K video smoothly.
From the confident comparison of the hardware to the comprehensive optimization of the software, it is not difficult to see that Apple has been preparing for this moment for a long time, but some people are happy and some are worried. The new products using the M1 chip are undoubtedly a comparison of the products that have been updated in the first half of this year. subversion.
MacBook Air with a leap in performance
After the powerful M1 is released, the most important thing is of course the equipment. The first M1 device to be launched is the new 13-inch MacBook Air. We will not elaborate on the mold. It is the same as the Intel platform updated this year, mainly due to replacement. After the M1 chip brought a leap in performance and battery life.
Apple directly stated that it is "faster than 98% of PCs", which seems to be an incomparable confidence in the performance of the M1 chip.
CPU performance is 3.5 times higher than before. Whether it is editing videos or editing high-quality pictures, it is more handy than before. Now using MacBook Air to edit multiple 4K videos at the same time is no pressure. The comparison object is the "2020 MacBook Air with 1.2GHz 4-core Intel Core i7 processor".
In addition, the performance of SSD has also been doubled. Compared with the startup speed of large-scale applications, there will be a significant improvement. Those who complain about insufficient performance of MacBook Air SSD in the past six months have won.
However, the most exciting possibility is the improvement in battery life. The MacBook Air equipped with M1 chip can reach 15 hours of battery life in web browsing and 18 hours of video playback. The overall battery life is increased by more than 6 hours at most, which is the longest battery life in history. Good MacBook Air.
In addition, the M1 chip can even better process images such as when using the front camera to video. In addition, Apple T2 has not fallen, which can better protect your privacy.
In addition, MacBook Air uses a fanless design, which will maintain quiet work while maintaining high performance and long battery life. In addition, the interface newly supports USB4 support, as well as new support for Wi-Fi 6 wireless networks.
Finally, Apple also conscientiously upgraded the screen. Although the brightness and resolution have not changed, the color gamut has been upgraded from the previous sRGB to the P3 wide color gamut, and the color performance has increased by 25%.
In terms of price, the starting price of the M1 version of MacBook Air is still 7999 yuan, 8GB RAM and 256GB SSD, there are two versions in total, of which the 7999 yuan version is a 7-core GPU, and the 9799 yuan version is an 8-core version. GPU, while upgrading to 512GB SSD. The maximum memory is 16GB, and the SSD is 2TB.
Bank Negara’s release time is currently unknown, and the US official website is open for purchase, and shipments are expected to start in a week.
The best Mac ever
The result of MacBook Air is just the beginning. There is also a 13-inch MacBook Pro with stronger performance. It is also the 13-inch version just updated this year. The mold has not changed, so there is no narrow bezel design like the 16-inch version.
Although the MacBook Pro series originally focused on performance, the performance improvement of the M1 chip feels even more exaggerated than Air. The CPU performance is 2.8 times the previous, the GPU performance is 5 times the previous, and the 16-core Neural Engine improves machine learning by up to 11 times. This performance improvement is based on the "2020 13-inch MacBook Pro with a 1.7GHz 4-core Intel Core i7 processor".
The best manifestation of the performance improvement is that MacBook Pro can play back 8K ProRes full-resolution video in the software "Da Vinci" without worrying about frame loss.
The main performance of the MacBook Pro is naturally a fan design, but the battery life improvement is still terrifying, 17 hours of web browsing battery life, 20 hours of video playback battery life, the overall increase is up to 10 hours, Apple directly gave the "best battery life Mac ever" evaluation .
Like MacBook Air, it also supports the USB4 standard and Wi-Fi 6 wireless network.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 chip starts at 9999 yuan, with 8GB of memory and 256GB SSD, and the high-end version is 11499 yuan. The SSD is upgraded to 512GB. Like the MacBook Air, if you feel that the memory is not enough, you can further customize up to 16GB. RAM and 2TB SSD.
The current time of sale of Bank Negara is unknown, and the US official website is open for purchase, and it will be shipped as soon as a week.
Still a mini, a more sophisticated Mac mini
If MacBook Air and MacBook Pro equipped with M1 chip are still expected, then the upgrade of the long-silent Mac mini can be said to be unexpected.
The only difference in appearance between the new Mac mini and the 2018 model is that it is replaced with a silver metal case. The length, width and height are the same as those of the previous generation. It is still the mini size, weighing 1.2Kg, which is 0.1Kg lighter than the previous generation. However, thanks to the support of two unchanging MacBooks, the new Mac mini can be said to be the most changed product at this conference.
It is worth mentioning that the new Mac mini has a big difference in interface compared to the 2018 model. On the basis of still retaining HDMI 2.0, the original 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports have become 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports. .
Therefore, in terms of the number of external monitors, the new model can only support up to two monitors, but the good news is that it can support up to 6K resolution (60Hz) monitors. Probably this is "I am less and stronger."
The Mac mini equipped with the M1 chip also supports the Wi-Fi 6 protocol. Thanks to the high energy efficiency of the M1, the Mac mini’s processor performance is up to 3 times higher than the previous generation, the graphics performance is improved 6 times, and the machine learning performance is improved 15 times, now Mac mini can handle more and more complex rendering tasks, such as using Unity to design games, or playing Baldur's Gate 3 and other games.
The new Mac mini is available in 256 GB and 512 GB SSD versions, and if you have the money, you can still choose up to 2TB SSD. However, the memory is 8GB unified memory, and the maximum size is only 16GB.
Compared with the previous generation, the price has the meaning of increasing volume and reducing price. The 256GB version is priced at 5299 yuan, while the 512GB version is priced at 6799 yuan. The current release time of Bank Negara is also unknown. The US official website is open for purchase and will be shipped as soon as one week later.
There is a joke in the technology digital circle called "Technology is based on changing the shell." It is about the many products on the market that are "changing the soup but not the medicine", but this time Apple did the opposite, replacing the core chip. On the contrary, it is actually an essential change.
The performance has been improved several times, and the long-term progress in battery life is just the changes brought about by the new MacBook equipped with the M1 chip. The perception is strong and the improvement is great. For Apple's overall ecological significance, its importance is more important than the iPhone 12 series.
In terms of the entire ecology, Apple has finally fully opened up the mobile and desktop application ecology. iOS applications can run on Mac products almost without obstacles in the future, but this is at the expense of Intel and the entire x86 camp. It's not too heavy.
This is something that Google, which has weak hardware manufacturing capabilities, cannot do. It is also something that Microsoft had previously tried to open up the ecosystem with UWP applications but failed. I am afraid that only Apple, which has the extreme control of software and hardware, can be so decisive. This requires not only a strong and vigorous iOS ecosystem, but also on Apple's chip development and manufacturing capabilities. Both factors are indispensable.
When apps on iOS can run on Macs freely, the impact on the Mac ecosystem in the past is not only huge, but even disruptive. When an all-you-can-eat platform is developed once and the number of applications soars, the prosperity of the Mac ecosystem is predictable Arrived.
So it doesn't matter whether the first-generation Arm core MacBook can sell well, as long as the huge iOS developers can benefit the desktop, the day when more people are excited is not far away.
This article was jointly completed by Li Chen and Huang Zhijian
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