If you can grub up the cash you will want these insanely great machines
Better sell some Crypto, perhaps all your Shiba and Dogecoin, cause the beasts are loose, beefy and pricy.
In the scheduled “unleashed” event today, broadcast virtually from Cupertino, Tim, Craig and the gang managed to surprise, not with the fully expected hardware items unveiled, but with the specs and otherworldly power of what they so aptly dubbed the Beasts.
The event was billed as being about music and creativity, and yes there were new AirPods and HomePod Minis, but without any doubt it was the incredible mac upgrades, in the form of 14” and 16” MacBook Pros that stole the show.
The format was no different than previous recent virtual events, but the details that exposed the extent and depth of the technological leap forward blew the format off it’s own hinges.
Although every spec was touted, from the screen upgrades, to endless new ports, to upgraded battery life, still the focus and excitement returned, again and again, to the Beasts: the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips and the system architecture built for them.
The animal analogy is no flight of zoological fantasy, with, at the high end, the M1 Max having 6x the speed and power of the current M1 – which already blew away reviewers and users with it’s own shocking ability to best what came before.
photo credit / apple
The party is on, but without a doubt, it is also exclusive
There are only two “downside” caveats, both kind of interrelated reverse compliments: There was no Mac Mini announcement, which is extremely sad for the great unwashed (like me!) and the prices are almost more beastly than the machines themselves.
A fully Maxxed out 16” MacBook Pro comes in at a hefty $6099, though that is with 8TB of SSD storage and 64GB of unified memory). Even a more modest configuration, dropping the SSD storage down to 4TB, while retaining the exalted 64GB unified, the toll is still $4299.
These are no everyday machines, but truly in the realm of Pro, in both specs and financial exclusivity.
And, hey, Apple has been here before, so an M1 Max based Mac Mini is likely to be delayed, if for no other reason, than to make sure that as many Pro users drop in for the whole mobile package – rather than building a budget system with money saved on 3rd party monitors and other practical cost cutting tricks.
All in all there’s an excitement in Today’s unleashing that slams into the core of any creative professional’s very being. Beastly power is tantalizingly within reach, all for a mere four to six thousand dollars… Or 1/10th of a BitCoin.
The Apple Tower Theater is officially open and marks one of Apple’s most significant and iconic restoration projects. The company worked alongside restoration artists and the City of Los Angeles in order to preserve the theater which was originally designed back in 1927 by architect Charles Lee.
CEO Tim Cook was in attendance of the grand opening alongside Retail Chief Deirde O’Brien. He took many pictures and selfies with attendees and welcomed the first customers into the Downtown Los Angeles Store.
Customers were excited to explore the Apple Tower Theatre and took the opportunity to snap photos of the beautifully restored arches, as well as getting their hands on the latest products like the iMac, iPad Pro and new iPhone 12.
Though many ambitions and luxurious Apple Stores have be build, including the biggest in NYC, Apple Fifth Avenue, and more recently Apple Store Singapore (see video below), the new downtown LA location is unique in that it simultaneously reincarnates an amazing former mecca for filmmaking and Hollywood glamour and also reimagines it in a compatible and yet up-to-date style.
As the company has surpassed $2 trillion in market capitalization, and is the largest of the big tech giants, the emphasis on community, yet in a beautiful, luxurious setting, is befitting of this giant, yet often underestimated behemoth.
Apple Tower Theatre will be open from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. from Monday to Saturday, and 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. The Tower is located on the corner of Eighth and Broadway: 802 S Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90014.
An eco-system about to emerge at a level beyond what any other company can match
The ultimate superiority of the “whole widget” concept at Apple: making not only the computer or device, the system software, add on software, and now, with the M1 chip, even the most important components that power the “widget” is something we’ve been writing about for years.
With the release of the first macs powered by M1 chips, it was surprising, even to adherents inside our building, just how dramatic that superiority is turning out to be, and how quickly it has been confirmed in real-world tests.
The focus has, rightly, so far been on benchmarks and tests using various software in typical real world situations. The consensus on the results has been in general; “astounding” or “amazing” or “shockingly good”, nearly unanimously.
Why this has far more to do with the overarching “whole-widget” ecosystem than the traditional stand-alone cpu / gpu / architecture, however, seems, at least partially, lost in the brouhaha.
The layers of “synergistic” (not a word used by Apple) interaction and integration between the cpu, gpu, machine learning, code within the system, and, initially, the apple applications that are either free or standard paid software such as Final Cut ProX or Logic Pro X are where the real magic happens. Other developers such as Adobe, are going to have M1 optimized versions out soon, as well.
While the long vaunted Moore’s law at a virtual standstill for nearly a decade, the timing couldn’t be better for Apple’s revolutionary “revenge of the turtle” strategy – where a long term end-game they have been working on the probably at least a decade comes to fruition – big time.
Looking ahead, even more exciting possibilities are beginning to emerge
All this leads to today’s headline, courtesy of Bloomberg. I can summarize but let’s quote directly the introductory paragraphs:
“Apple Inc. is planning a series of new Mac processors for introduction as early as 2021 that are aimed at outperforming Intel Corp.’s fastest.
If they live up to expectations, they will significantly outpace the performance of the latest machines running Intel chips, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the plans aren’t yet public.
For higher-end desktop computers, planned for later in 2021 and a new half-sized Mac Pro planned to launch by 2022, Apple is testing a chip design with as many as 32 high-performance cores.
With today’s Intel systems, Apple’s highest-end laptops offer a maximum of eight cores, a high-end iMac Pro is available with as many as 18 and the priciest Mac Pro desktop features as much as a 28-core system.”
-Bloomberg
Buckle up, Sunshine, the worm has turned and soon there’ll be no looking back
The bottom line here is: If you think the M1 MacBook air is faster, take a seat cause “you ain’t seen nuthin’ yet”. But this emphasis on the chip itself and various stats, such as, the number of cores, etc. belies just how backward the entire industry is, and how ground breaking the total concept is that Apple has planned to roll-out over, roughly, the next two years.
In short, just as the entire world was changed forever once the iPhone took hold between 2007-2012, something similar will happen between now and 2024, but on a much larger scale.
The most radical reality of this, that is in many ways so hard to comprehend, let alone explain, is that this is a “virtuous battle” that is being fought on so many different fronts simultaneously, that the actual outcome, should the potential be realized in full by 2022, goes far beyond what can be imagined today with regard to what a “computer” or “mobile device” is.
In short, just as the entire world was changed forever once the iPhone took hold between 2007-2012, something similar will happen between now and 2024, but on a much larger scale.
The unification of the various system softwares, between iPhones, iPads, Macs, as well as peripheral devices such as Apple Watch, Apple TV and even the HomePod mini, will be combined with increasingly powerful “A” and “M” chips and that combination will be even more improved by integrated machine learning upgrades and applications that are specifically coded to maximize the benefits of the entire inter-dependent system, meaning the systems within each device and the larger ecosystem of devices, machines and software.
This is not Apples to Oranges, this is Horses to “beam me up Scotty” in magnitude. Don’t believe it? Check back in 2022 and we’ll talk…
Apple software upgrades are now so deep and extensive that it will take months to absorb the potential benefits
Mac OS upgrades, which have been free going back more than 20 years, have been bordering on spectacular recently, but also do carry some dangers. Early adopters have been known to experience buggy not-100%-ready-for-primetime features that do, however, generally get fixed fairly quickly once live bugs are identified.
The upside is that there is, just as in the iOS systems, a literal cornucopia of free built in apps and features most of which benefit from the periodic upgrades.
As a matter of fact, many, many of the improvements are not detailed or listed in any manual and not used in the marketing materials for the free software upgrades. As the saying goes, they just “work”.
Probably the biggest of these invisible improvements, one that spans multiple apps and functions is the now, fully established, system known as iCloud. Born as “Mobile-me” and a nightmare until about 3 years ago, this system for syncing across all Apple devices, apps and software has become a powerhouse that has no comparable rival.
An evolving system nearly two decades in the making
The idea, sometimes maligned as overkill, is simple in theory. An Apple aficionado might own a desktop mac such as an iMac, Mac Mini or Mac Pro. For travel; a MacBook Air, Pro, etc, an iPhone (of course), an iPad and, whew, maybe wear an Apple Watch. There might be an Apple TV unit in the house and perhaps a HomePod mini (and so on!).
All of these can benefit from iCloud. Many functions, particularly with the Apple Watch, for example, are mandatory and help to link various functionality between devices.
But where this software enhancement has really begun to shine is when using built in apps that have a version on both the mac family and also within iOS and iPadOS, such as Notes, Photos and, of course, Safari.
Although these have been around since Yosemite and have had the benefit of iCloud Sync since at least that time, with Catalina they really started to function at a very high level. With Big Sur the potential is off-the-charts.
One caveat that is still a work in progress is the need for identical, or nearly identical, functionality across all devices (mac, iPhone and iPad at least). For the photos app this is nearly the case but for Safari and Notes there is still a way to go before all functions match on every device and OS.
Of course, this is the very lofty goal, already underway with the new M1 chips and the gradual goal of total interchangeability between macOS and iOS / iPad Os.
Many actions are still more functional on a mac than on iPhone or iPad: but that’s changing
Much attention is paid to the idea of using and featuring iOS apps on a mac, but for practical applications it is the ability of the software on iOS devices to have all the functionality of the macOS versions that is even more important and desirable.
A great example, and a glaring one, is Safari. Differences between browsing on a mobile platform (with iPad being a sort of in-between experience) and on a desktop or laptop can be frustrating and difficult.
For surfing news or browsing static content the differences are not significant, but if you start trying to do banking, or eCommerce or other more complex tasks you can hit a brick wall.
Much of this is on the server side where the websites themselves either block or are not compatible with all versions of Safari in every OS version.
However, particularly on iPad, there should be an eventual ability for Safari on iPad to emulate laptop / desktop browser specs for those purposes. And, with macOS Big Sur that is already nearly a reality.
Similarly when using the Notes app, which we do at Lynxotic extensively for story development and shared processing, the functionality is nearly seamless between macOS Big Sur and iPad or iPhone.
As a matter of fact, the differences are so minimal that, when switching between devices, finding a “missing” function, such as the ability on an iPhone to format the text into Title, Heading, Body and so forth, as you would do in WordPress or other text editing system, it is a shocking experience.
Beyond detailed individual features it’s the overall end-result that’s astounding
The overall experience from mac to mac – when using full iCloud Sync, is that you can move from machine to machine and a have 100% seamless transition. Although some files can be specially segregated by machine, if you choose, making them only available locally on that machine, this is up to the user.
You can have an expanded iCloud storage limit added to your account (2TB is currently $9.99) and have access to all files on all machines and devices.
Although still not 100% functional in all situations, even the files app and iCloud storage system on the iPhone can access and store all files and allow you to save or access many important documents on the go.
Starting with macOS Catalina, and now even more with Big Sur, the invisible and seamless “clone” experience when moving from desktop to laptop has been very functional and hugely beneficial, and now the iPhone and iPad are rapidly realizing a similar potential.
Shared Albums in photos, Shared Notes, Safari’s vast and ever improving ability to safely store 1000s of passwords and other site specific data, obviously the huge privacy upgrades, and soon, the identical user experience for all these apps across all devices, this amounts to a must-have success in software that easily matches the acclaim that the new hardware built-in with the new M1 chips have rightfully received.
The future is coming, faster than you think, and that’s a good thing (in this case)
Another big, I mean huge, factor that is coming into play with Big Sur and the various OSs, is the emergence of machine learning and “over-the-air” updates, including some that are unannounced and take place within individual apps without requiring user interaction.
The photos app is a huge example of this but the phenomenon is also spreading into other built in software.
This means that improvements in functionality and sometimes even added features are taking place faster and can be major, even between the official updates themselves.
In the end the “whole widget” approach will provide benefits so astounding that a user of Apple products will be in a “universe of capability” that has no comparable alternative and certainly no rival.
The improvements across all apps and functions are so vast that it would take thousands of pages to catalog even a fraction of them – basically it is better to do what we have always done with Apple system software; wade through while learning by doing and rejoice each time the “singularity”, that is now a stated goal, becomes a little bit closer.
With macOS Big Sur, your mac via iCloud and your other Apple devices are now already a vastly more powerful network of tools working together than they ever could be separately.
