By Jim Lundy
It wasn’t just the new products that were so interesting about Apple’s March announcement – it was the fact that Apple had a March announcement. Generally, we have seen two major announcement timelines from Apple over the last 5 years: June and the Fall.
Now, Apple appears to have enough new products in its pipeline that it can do a March release – and it didn’t disappoint. There are two reasons Apple can do this – the biggest being that Apple controls its own CPU journey. Enter the M1 Ultra.
The M1 Ultra – Powering the New Mac Studio
The new Mac Studio is just like a Mac mini, except screamingly fast. It has a small unit footprint and it is powered by the new M1 ultra, an extension of the M1 processor that can be extended even further with the M1 Max bundled together to act as one – hence the name of M1 Ultra.
Mac Studio Powered by the M1 Ultra and M1 Max
The Mac Studio that is powered by the M1 Ultra is two pounds heavier than the Mac Studio with just a single M1 Max processor. This is due to the fact that the M1 Ultra has a copper heat sink module. Copper is substantially heavier than aluminum, and this must be due to the heat generated by M1 Max processors.
iPad Air Powered by M1
On top of the Mac Studio, Apple also introduced a new iPad Air, which starts to come closer in performance to the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro still has features that pros want, but for many the iPad Air, with its 200 lower price point, may be perfect for the non-power user.
The Full Line-up of March Announcements
The products Apple announced go beyond the Mac Studio. They include:
- Mac Studio
- iPad Air – powered by M1
- iPhone SE – smaller footprint, lower price
- iPhone 13 and 13 Pro – now in Green
Bottom Line
The M1 processor is allowing Apple to move faster. They just proved that by revealing new products in a quarter that was usually devoid of product introductions. As Apple continues to innovate with the M1, expect to see even more new product introductions at a faster pace than in the past.