The IT Nerd

Apple decided to hold an event last night called “Scary Fast” at 8PM EST. Which in itself was weird as Apple has never done a prime time event before. Plus they did it the day before Halloween. And it was over in 30 minutes. Which is the shortest Apple event that I can remember. But despite that, there were a couple of things that stood out. And a bunch of things that the Apple rumour mill predicted would happen. Let’s dive in to both:

• Apple Announced The M3 family of processors: As predicted by the rumour mill, Apple’s new M3 processors broke cover. Apple spent a lot of time comparing the M3 family of processors to the M1 family of processors. They also didn’t mention Intel all that often. My feeling is that they really want those of us with M1 based Apple hardware to upgrade. On top of that, I suspect they also want to get the last Intel holdouts to move to Apple Silicon. Here’s the TL:DR on this new family of chips:
  • The M3 chip has up to an 8-core CPU and up to a 10-core GPU with up to 24 GB of RAM
  • The M3 Pro chip has up to a 12-core CPU and up to a 18-core GPU with up to 36 GB of RAM
  • The M3 Max chip has up to a 16-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU with up to 128 GB of RAM
  • All chips are on Apple’s 3 nanometer process which allow for lower power consumption and more density of the chip components.
  • The GPU supports  “Dynamic Caching” technology, meaning the GPU allocates the use of local memory in hardware in real time, ensuring only the exact amount of memory needed is used for each task. It also supports raytracing for higher quality graphics.
• Apple Announced The New iMac: The Apple iMac which hasn’t been updated since it was released in 2021 got the new M3 processor. Besides all the features of the M3 processor, it  also features Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 and still comes in the same colour selection as the M1 version.
• Apple Kills The 13″ MacBook Pro And Introduces A 14″ MacBook Pro With The M3 Processor: This is something that the rumour mill didn’t get right. Apple finally killed off the 13″ MacBook Pro which was a computer that I have argued that had no reason to exist. Twice. In its place, there’s now a 14″ model with the M3 processor.
• The 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pros have been refreshed with the M3 Pro and Max chips with a brand new colour called “Space Black”: I’m going to go out on a limb and say some people are going to upgrade simply for the colour alone. But you might want to hold off on doing so for reasons that I will get to in a minute.

Now with that out of the way, here’s what the rumour mill didn’t get right:

• There was talk that Apple was going to move all its accessories such as keyboards and mice to USB-C. That did not happen.
• There was talk that Apple was going to drop a new iPad mini on the world. That didn’t happen either.
• There were less reliable rumours that a 32″ iMac was going to appear. That never materialized.

Next is some random stuff that the Mac media has noticed:

• MacRumors has noted that the new MacBook Pros have 20% brighter displays. But they also note that the M3 Pro has 25% less memory bandwidth than the M1 Pro or M2 Pro version. What kind of difference the latter makes in the real world is unclear. But on the surface, that to me is a huge incentive to not upgrade if you’re going for the M3 Pro. My advice would be to stay tuned to Tech YouTube and the Mac media who will benchmark these machines to death and get all the answers for you before you spend your hard earned money.
• 9to5Mac is reporting that the “Space Black” model is not really black. It’s more like a dark grey. Thus those who want a black MacBook Pro are still going to have to pay a visit to dBrand to get hooked up.
• The 14″ MacBook Pro with the M3 processor only has two Thunderbolt ports according to MacRumors which is a limitation of the M3 processor. I don’t see this as a big deal as the target audience will likely not care about this.

Finally, the entire event was shot on the iPhone 15 Pro Max. And Apple has a behind the scenes video that is currently private on YouTube, but has been found and surfaced to the public:

So, what are your thoughts on the “Scary Fast” Apple event? Share your thoughts below in the comments and let’s get a discussion going.

This entry was posted on October 31, 2023 at 10:03 am and is filed under Commentary with tags Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.