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Apple decided to shake things up for its final event of 2023 and decided to enter the prime-time television slot in the US. The event aired on the eve of Halloween, instead of the morning, when Apple events generally take place, perhaps highlighting that Apple can command the audience’s attention, no matter what time of the day, or night, it is. The Apple Scary Fast event was entirely focused on the company’s Mac lineup and new Apple silicon for its Mac products. The event was a pre-recorded online-only showcase, that lasted about 30 minutes. In case you missed it, these are the 10 things you should know about.
10 things to know about the Apple Scary Fast event
1. The online-only event was themed around Halloween. There was fog in the Apple Park, everyone was dressed in black, the sets had a spooky theme, and even the background of the product images during the set was kept black. Even the graphics and shows running on the showcased products’ screens had dark and scary themes! The ending title card also focused on a Moon with dark clouds, only, the moon was the Apple logo. Apple’s dedication to even the minutest details was remarkable.
2. The event began with CEO Tim Cook taking the stage with the lines “We’re doing something special to celebrate a product we all love”. He explained the importance of Apple silicon and the need to innovate with the technology to deliver powerful systems. “Tonight we’re introducing a new family of breakthrough chips and bringing them to the world’s best laptop: the MacBook Pro,” he said, setting the event in motion.
3. The first to be announced were three chipsets: M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max. These are the first personal computer chips built using the industry-leading 3-nanometer process technology, allowing more transistors to be packed into a smaller space and improving speed and efficiency. Apple says M3 architecture is twice as fast as M1 CPU and GPU. And that’s just the base variant M3.
4. M3 contains 25 billion transistors, M3 Pro gets 37 billion transistors, whereas M3 Max comes with 92 billion transistors. For gamers, this chipset supports hardware-accelerated ray tracing and hardware-enabled mesh shedding.
5. Up next were the MacBook Pro devices that were being upgraded from last year’s M1 chipsets to newly launched M3 chipsets. Apple says the 14-inch MacBook Pro that runs on the M3 chip is 60 percent faster than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1. Similarly, the 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 Pro is 40 percent faster than its predecessor.
6. All MacBook Pro models support up to 128GB of unified memory, a Liquid Retina XDR display, a built-in 1080p camera, an immersive six-speaker sound system, and a wide array of connectivity options. The company also claims it to have a 22-hour battery life. It also comes in a new Space Black colorway.
7. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with the M3 starts at $1599. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Pro starts at $1999, while the 16-inch starts at $2499. The 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max is priced at $3199, while the 16-inch starts at $3499.
8. The main event of the show was the announcement of the new 24-inch iMac, which is being powered by the M3 chipset. The iMac is getting a refresh after more than 900 days. Incidentally, it is also the 25th anniversary of Mac devices, the first product Apple ever made.
9. The iMac is identical to its predecessor in design and overall appearance but is getting a big boost in terms of performance. It is available in 7 different colors, but only 4 of them are available in the base variant. The iMac features a 24-inch 4.5K Retina Display, a six-speaker sound system, WiFi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, up to 24GB unified memory, and up to 2 TB storage. The iMac runs on MacOS Sonoma.
10. The 256GB storage variant that comes with the magic keyboard but no Touch ID has been priced at $1299. The 10-core 256GB storage variant that comes with both magic keyboard and Touch ID is priced at $1499. The 8-core 512GB variant is priced at $1699.
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