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Quieter, more powerful and cheaper: Apple equips its Mac notebooks with the M1 chip that it developed. But the Intel split only works gradually.
Apple manager John Ternus introduces the new M1 processor.
The “PC” is back. Apple ran a series of commercials in the late 2000s in which a cocky man with a mustache, tie and tweed jacket personified a classic computer that was infected with viruses and always looked bad against the younger, casual “Mac.” .
At the end of Apple’s event on Tuesday, comedian John Hodgman came back as “PC” and complained about all the innovations Apple had just introduced. “I just do GNGNGNGNGN, that’s my fan,” Hodgman said. It can be as fast as the Mac: “PC” swings its arms, runs on the spot, and soon runs out so much that it has to plug in its charging cable.
Apple boss Tim Cook and his managers had already spread the word about the benefits of the new generation of Macs in the previous 45 minutes. The MacBook Air, Pro, and the small square Mac Mini desktop are said to be more powerful and quieter. The battery should last six more hours on the flat MacBook Air and stay so cool that it no longer needs a fan.
This is made possible by the M1, Apple’s first self-developed PC chip for 15 years, which will be found in all three devices with a 13-inch screen diagonal. The company had already announced at its WWDC developer conference that Intel will be phased out as a supplier of Mac chips. Apple’s oldest product follows the latest in the “Apple Silicon” arena. The chips, with a frame size of five nanometers, are based on a design by British company ARM, and will be produced by Taiwanese contract manufacturer TSMC.
M1 combines various functions such as processor, memory and security on a single chip, making it the fastest and most energy efficient core processor on the market, says Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware development. The M1 partially delivers twice the computing power per watt, contributing to longer battery life; however, with specific comparative figures, the presentation is paltry in many places.
PCs are a growing market again
The PC industry, which has long been a shrinking market, is experiencing a renaissance during the Corona crisis as more people are working and studying at home. In the last quarter, Macs jumped the $ 9 billion mark in sales and even surpassed accessories, also thriving, such as Apple Watch and AirPods on Apple’s balance sheet.
Vertical integration is one of Apple’s recipes for success that is not so secret. Because the Cupertino IT company performs important functions on its own rather than outsourcing them to vendors, it manages to closely coordinate hardware and software. Now this should also happen with Macs.
Apple’s first Mac Silicon:
MacBook Air with M1 pic.twitter.com/hbuUuNjsDF
– Marques Brownlee (@MKBHD) November 10, 2020
Because the chip design and the new Big Sur operating system come from a single source, the MacBook screen now appears when opened, and applications and websites in the Safari browser load faster, says Craig Federighi, member of Apple’s software development board. Applications using JavaScript ran one and a half times faster than before.
This is particularly important for the MacBook Pro’s main creative target group, in which Apple devices enjoy sacred status: designers, video artists, or game developers. The M1’s central processor calculates almost three times faster in the professional laptop, the graphics processor is five times faster.
One app for all Apple devices
Additionally, Apple brings up a legion of filmmakers, app developers, and musician Fineas O’Connell, Billie Eilish’s brother. They praise how quiet and cool the laptop is even after hours of work and that the battery has enough power for 20 hours of video playback. “Longer than I stay awake” is the verdict of a neurotechnologist in the video that connects the computer to his head via EEG electrodes.
The closer integration of Macs into the Apple ecosystem should also bring other benefits: iPhone or iPad applications can now run on the Mac as well, reflecting the trend of the home office era, where work and private lives flow into each other when working. starting on the couch with the smartphone and ending on the Mac at the desk.
However, many large application developers such as Google or Facebook and popular applications such as Candy Crush have not yet adapted their applications to the new Mac Store, as reported by the specialized portal 9to5Mac.
Even Adobe Photoshop, one of the most important applications for designers, will not be adapted to Mac until next year. Until then, such applications must be compatible with a program called Rosetta, which, however, should cost some of the newly acquired performance.
This shows that switching to its own chips is a process for Apple. Even without Intel, the despised vendor, the Mac maker can’t handle it. Analyst Patrick Moorhead teased on Twitter that the 13-inch MacBook Pro is available for $ 300 more with Intel chips that have more memory, for example; in Germany, it even costs 600 euros.
“M1 is the entry-level processor, Intel the highest quality product,” writes the director of the analysis company Moor Insights. The 16-inch devices will run on Intel chips until further notice. Deutsche Bank analyst Jeriel Ong expects half of the Macs sold in the next year to have M1 chips, the other half Intel processors.
After all, Apple keeps the prices of its M1-equipped PCs constant or even lowers them compared to previous models: The Mac Mini will be available for 778 euros in the future, 112 euros less than before. The MacBook Air will cost 1,100 euros, the MacBook Pro 1,412 euros.
The M1 is now also available on Apple computers.
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