New overpowered Macbook Pro, Airpods 3, M1 Pro and M1 Max chips … all Apple announcements – 01net.com

Let’s go for the second Apple conference this fall! On the program: new Macs, and above all, new Apple Silicon chips. Find all the live announcements here.

It all starts with music …

Today, Apple wants to talk about music … and Mac. And Tim Cook started with music and Apple Music, and his 90 million songs.

But to enjoy the music, Siri is at the heart of the experience. So Apple worked with curators to come up with playlists based on your mood, time of day, etc.

Apple also introduces Voice Plan for Apple Music, a subscription for 4.99 euros per month which allows access to the entire Apple Music catalog by voice only … This subscription is in addition to individual and family subscriptions.

Apple also took the opportunity to introduce three new colors for its HomePod mini, in yellow, orange, and blue. Obviously, the design remains the same, and the mesh fabric is still the order of the day. The price remains the same, too, at 99 euros.

AirPods, a new generation

Apple started talking about its true wireless headsets by talking about spatialized sound, with head tracking on the AirPods Pro and Max models. But, this conference was above all an opportunity to announce the third generation of AirPods.

It takes a lot of inspiration from the design of the AirPods Pro, with four new sensors, but no soft tips. However, the shape of the headset has been adapted to match the largest number of ears. To be able to accompany you during your physical activities, these new headphones are resistant to sweat and water.

The new AirPods can last 30 hours in total, thanks to their case, which can be recharged via MagSafe. The Third-generation AirPods sell for $ 179, they are pre-orderable today and will be available next week.

Mac time … and M1 Pro

But the biggest of the announcements were obviously new Macs, which obviously run on Apple Silicon, the chips designed by Apple teams.
The engineers of the American giant have thus introduced the M1 Pro, a chip for truly Pro machines from Apple. An SoC, the aim of which is to reduce the communication times traditionally observed between the CPU and the GPU.
The M1 Pro supports up to 32 GB of memory, embeds 33.7 billion transistors. With 10 CPU cores, 70% more efficient than the M1, and 16 GPU cores, which are twice as efficient as the M1. A Media Engine ProRes is also introduced for processing professional multimedia creations.

and M1 Max

But Apple has also introduced M1 Max (400 GB / s of memory bandwidth), which manages 64 GB of memory, has 57 billion transistors. It offers 10 GPU cores and 32 GPU cores, even faster video encodings. It is therefore a monster, which is also, according to Apple, more energy efficient. It would consume 70% of energy for superior performance.

The M1 Max would be capable of impressive performance whether it is running on battery or connected to the mains. The M1 Max would thus be up to three times more powerful for the graphics partition than the most powerful laptop chip, in these cases.

Aimed at the professional world, the M1 Max is also capable of managing up to four external screens. And for the machine learning part, these two new chips are making great leaps forward.

Obviously, on the software side, Apple continues to use Rosetta 2, and iPadOS applications, in addition to the optimized Universal applications (there are 10,000 today). Apple’s Pro apps, like Logic Pro, are getting richer. With the music creation software, it will be possible to create Dolby Atmos tracks on a laptop.

And Apple also made promises for other Pro tools, like Da Vinci, which would be four times faster on certain tasks. Cinema 4D would be almost three times faster, etc. The M1 Pro is 2.5 on the graphics side than the last 16-inch MacBook Pro, equipped with a Core i9 … from 2019. Machine learning tasks are also given to be 11 times faster on the new MacBook Pros compared to to the latest 16 inch models.
This is in fact possible, in part, thanks to the amount of memory supported, which is shared. Thus, the GPU can take advantage of 64 GB of RAM.

MacBook Pro, new, lots of new …

But, of course, new chips without a Mac wouldn’t make much sense. Apple has therefore announced two MacBook Pros: a 16-inch, and another 14-inch.

Always in aluminum, it embeds a new heat dissipation system, more discreet, which will sometimes not even have to launch, promises Apple. The 16-inch MacBook Pro measures 16.8mm thick while the 14-inch model measures 15.5mm.
Apple also introduced a new keyboard, which gets rid of the Touch Bar. The connection is also enriched, with, on the right, an HDMI port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, and an SD reader. On the other side, Mag Safe is back with two Thunderbolt ports by its side and a headphone jack.

The borders are 24% thinner on the sides and the appearance of a notch reduces them to almost nothing at the top of the screen. The 16-inch model has a 16.2-inch panel, and displays 7.7 million pixels. The 14 has a 14.2-inch panel.

The panels of the two MacBook Pros benefit from variable refresh technology, at 120 Hz, and are stamped Liquid Retina XDR, for HDR content. The stable brightness is announced at 1000 nits, and 1600 nits peak.

In addition, the WebCam passes to 1080p, and uses the ISP of the M1 Pro and Max chips. The sound has also been revised, with improved microphones, while the 16 and 14-inch models incorporate six speakers, compatible with Dolby Atmos sound.

SSDs are capable of delivering speeds of 7.4 Gb / s, twice as much as the previous generation, with a maximum storage of 8 TB …

According to Apple, the MacBook Pro 14 would last 17 hours of video playback, and 21 hours for the 16-inch model. MacBook Pros are also compatible with a fast charging system, which gives 50% battery in 30 minutes of charge.

The two new MacBook Pros can be pre-ordered today and will ship from next week. The 16-inch model starts at $ 2,499, while the 14-inch model will start at $ 1,999. Note that the 13-inch MacBook Pro M1 remains in the catalog.