Okay, creative gurus or roving machine art makers or runaway digital technologists or whatever we call ourselves – lots of news just released at WWDC, but here are the ones that might matter most to you.
M2 Architecture – and the new MacBook Pro 13 ″ and MacBook Air. The M1 is a first-generation Mac, and it feels a bit more like the original user’s tech than the M1 Pro and M1 MAX. Now, there’s both the new architecture – the base M2 – and the updated 13-inch MacBook Air and MacBook Pro. I hope that makes budget entry much more competitive and we will of course keep an eye on the Pro and MAX versions as well as other updates of the M2 Pro and M2 MAX. You also get the things I love on the higher end models, for the entry price. For now, check out the 13-inch models while we wait for what the larger sibling will bring.
The MacBook Air also has a very attractive hardware redesign. You get a dedicated MagSafe charging port, two Thunderbolt ports, a full-height function row on the keyboard with Touch ID, and generally the form factor and touchpad you know from higher-end models.
Big surprise – both the new Air and the new 13-inch Pro models are promised to be available next month, though we’ll see in how many. (Surprise as in – despite the ongoing pandemic.)
And I’m still excited to see what MAX can do with Houdini. (For now, these performance gains – while great – mostly beat rival PCs at the same price point plus previous Macs at that level, though they’re impressive.)
Oh, there’s also a 13.6-inch screen, better camera and battery on the Air?
About that M2 – new features. Apple promises 40% more operations per second for the Neural Engine, a new high-bandwidth video codec that supports 8K H.264 and HEVC (hey VJs!), 4K and 8K multi-stream video playback, and noise reduction. New improved image .
On the CPU front, you’ll get 18 percent more multi-threaded performance than the M1, Apple says, and… it beats PCs in performance and power, compared to the latest 10-core PCs, but I’ll give you that. Read the published statistics.
GPUs have larger cache and higher memory bandwidth with up to 25% higher graphics performance.
I still prefer the Pro as a hot spot, but the Pro and MAX have also solved some of the hiccups on the original M1 so – I’m also optimistic with the base M2.
macOS coming soon. Spotlight has some cool new tricks that remind me of third-party stuff I’ve been using for years. Stage manager – uh, hot, can we finally put the tiles together easily? But yes, there are now some flashy ways of moving windows around. I think the big bonus here is built-in, internal support to use iPhone as webcam (and mic), which is always a bit tricky with third-party utilities. You can also center the camera with the Ultra Wide camera and smart special effects like “Studio Light”. Camera improvements yes i am very happy.
Other things we need to dig deeper – think speed up visual performancewhich they are touting for gaming but can also be applied to a wide variety of creative and intuitive applications.
Also new accessibility features that I would be curious to discover about innovative apps. Apple has truly led the industry in accessibility in many ways, and many musicians and artists use it every day.
I’m sure I could possibly be sold on Stage Manager. I also like what Apple has (eventually) done with Focus on iOS, so I’m happy to see that on the desktop as well.
And uh – they have the ability to favorite music artists and get notified when I drop a recording. Sorry, I mean, when an artist you actually listen to drops the record.
Current list of changes, overview.
iPadOS 16 + iOS 16. iPadOS 16 is interesting from a collaboration point of view. Both look like worthy updates, although what’s new for developers, cutting-edge graphics, and music, we’ll need to repeat.
What we are not understand: There are no widely expected mixed reality/augmented reality announcements. But I think “we don’t get to see the new hardware we expect” could also be the theme of 2022, given the massive supply chain disruptions underway. Read: COVID-19 means people can’t get to work in China and other locations, goods can’t move, and war in Ukraine means raw materials from Ukraine and Russia don’t reach their destinations surname. Not, like, lowering the mood, but we should completely get out of the sense of entitlement we tend to have.
Of course, the absence of the rumored augmented reality engine has nothing to do with that either. Apple tends to be conservative about showing content only when it’s finished and ready. And this is the new technology for them. I would say wait and see.
Meanwhile – Mac is certainly still a sane platform with speeds, battery life, and features beyond the imagination of so many users. Stay tuned for more on the new OS(s) and silicon. Personally, I will continue to focus on upgrading my brain and learning more about Houdini and other things, while… giving my brain a rest by the lake.
Full speech:
And edit from Verge:
One more thing: Well, we should end up calling it “Apple Silicon”, not “M1”.
Or just, you know – Mac.
