At the beginning of the new year, Apple began to “circle money” again.
Last night, Apple quietly launched three new Mac products on the official website, namely Mac mini, 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro. On the whole, the new product is just a regular iteration of the previous model, so the first new product launched in the new year was not launched in the form of a press conference with much fanfare.
In fact, these products were supposed to be released last fall. Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said Apple has canceled plans for a second event in the fall and is instead announcing its remaining 2022 products through a press release on its website. In October last year, Apple released an iPad Pro equipped with an M2 chip and a redesigned tenth-generation entry-level iPad through a press release.
Looking at it now, the Mac and iPad conferences in the second half of 2022 have indeed been cancelled, and the products will be released separately through press releases.
Some of the newer MacsVariety
The biggest upgrade in the new MacBook Pro is the chip. In addition to chips, the following changes are more worthy of attention.
The space gray model now comes with a MagSafe charging cable that matches its body color, rather than the previous silver. Secondly, the MacBook Pro and the updated Mac mini support Wi-Fi 6E for the first time (the National Bank version does not support it) and Bluetooth 5.3 standards. These two new improvements will improve connection reliability and performance, especially in high-density areas.
The new MacBook Pro also includes a brand new HDMI port, which now supports HDMI 2.1. HDMI 2.1 will allow the MacBook Pro to run displays at up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.
It is worth mentioning that the old MacBook Pro is only equipped with an HDMI 2.0 interface. When users use this interface, they can output a maximum of 4K 60 frames. The new MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch equipped with M2 Pro and M2 Max are already equipped with HDMI 2.1 interface, and the bandwidth has doubled from the previous 18Gbps to 48Gbps. The huge increase in bandwidth enables the new MacBook Pro 14-inch and 16-inch to support a maximum 8K 60-frame image output, while a 4K display can output a refresh rate of up to 240 frames.
Thanks to the improved performance of the M2 Pro and M2 Max, the new 16-inch MacBook Pro boasts up to 22 hours of battery life, the longest battery life ever in a Mac.
In addition, the previous generation MacBook Pro can only be configured to 64GB of unified memory. However, the new M2 Max chip allows customers to configure their MacBook Pros with up to 96GB of RAM.
Accelerate the decoupling from Intel
Today, Apple announced that it will stop selling Mac mini models powered by Intel processors. This Mac mini, which was first released in 2018, is equipped with Intel’s eighth-generation Core i5 chip, with Intel UHD Graphics 630 image processor, and has 8GB of memory and 512GB SSD.
The discontinuation of this product means that the Mac Pro will become the only device with an Intel processor that Apple is still selling, and it is likely to announce the discontinuation of the next-generation Mac Pro after the launch.
At WWDC in 2020, Cook promised that Apple would spend two years transitioning the Mac product line from Intel to Apple Silicon. According to a previous report released by market research firm Strategy Analytics, Apple’s revenue from A-series and M-series application processors increased by 54% in the first quarter of 2021. “Apple’s iPhone, iPad and Mac devices have benefited significantly from its in-house semiconductor investments,” the agency said.
According to overseas media Hardware Times, the person in charge of Intel Japan revealed that Intel plans to launch the 3nm (Intel 3) process node by the end of 2023. The 5th generation Xeon Emerald Rapids-SP will be manufactured using the Intel 3 process. However, compared with the 4nm process that can be mass-produced, the advantages are not obvious for the time being.
Previously, Intel’s R&D progress had been unable to meet the Mac’s iteration speed, so Apple made up its mind to change the Intel X86 platform to the ARM architecture, redesigned the Mac chip and launched the M1 to replace the long-term use of the Intel processor in Apple’s Mac product line. , not only get a better energy consumption ratio, but also have an opportunity to redesign the appearance of the product.
How long can you be confident
In the fall of 2021, Apple will launch the most updated MacBook Pro in history, with a brand-new appearance design, richer interfaces, a top-level XDR screen, and a powerful M1 Pro/Max chip, opening a new era when the global PC market is gradually dimming. growth curve.
IDC recently released a report on global PC shipments for the fourth quarter of 2022. Specifically, global PC shipments in the fourth quarter of 2022 were 67.2 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 28.1%. Among them, Lenovo’s shipments were 15.5 million units, down 28.5% year-on-year, but its market share remained stable; HP’s shipments fell 29% to 13.2 million units; Dell’s shipments fell 37.2% to 10.8 million units; Shipments fell 2.1% to 7.5 million units; Asustek’s shipments fell 20.9% to 4.8 million units in the fourth quarter.
It can be seen that except for Apple, which is less affected, the rest of the manufacturers have experienced a relatively large decline, and the gap between Apple’s shipments and Dell’s shipments is gradually narrowing.
It’s important to note that these shipment estimates don’t mean that Apple has regained market share simply by delivering a great product. There are many other factors to include, such as a global chip shortage and a surge in remote working and learning opportunities caused by the new crown pandemic, which has increased demand for laptops.
Back in October, analysts agreed that the PC market was in its worst decline since records began collecting in the 1990s. The decline intensified further in the fourth quarter, and the outlook for 2023 is also less promising, according to IDC data.
The Gartner consulting firm of the United States also analyzed that the demand for personal computers will grow rapidly from 2020 to 2021, but then enter a period of shrinking. The downward trend in demand “will continue until early 2024,” analysts said.
The price of Apple’s Mac products has continued to increase. According to Apple’s official data, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at 15,999 yuan, the 16-inch MacBook Pro starts at 19,999 yuan, and the Mac mini starts at 4,499 yuan. However, in the Intel era, the starting price of the 13-inch MacBook was basically maintained at 10,000 yuan. The current gradually high price can easily dissuade consumers who want to experience Mac.
