On June 5th, this year's WWDC23 keynote took place, one of the most anticipated Apple® events every year. This developer conference focuses mainly on software news, but this time three hardware innovations were announced - in addition to the Vision Pro, of course, which won't be mass produced until next year, the 15-inch MacBook Air®, the new Mac Pro® and Mac Studio™ equipped with the M2 Ultra chip. Here is our Apple team’s take on the best announcements of the event:
It says a lot that Monday's opening was more than two hours long, one could have guessed that Apple had a number of announcements in the pipeline. As such, it would be impossible to write a blog article on the entire event, so without being exhaustive, I'll highlight a few innovations that could really give both business and personal use a boost.
The first one that we should definitely highlight is the "world's thinnest 15-inch notebook", the latest MacBook Air, which now enters the market with a significantly larger screen than before. And later this fall, it will also get the latest macOS Sonoma®, another great announcement of this keynote. Undoubtedly, it was timely for Apple to come out with a larger-screen MacBook Air, as it can make working on a Mac® easier in many situations. However, not everyone needs a MacBook Pro®, so a MacBook Air in the "classic notebook" size is a big hit, since it’s a great companion for those who work on the go or who can't take advantage of the MacBook Pro but still want a powerful and comfortable device. And the new 15-inch model comes with an M2 chip, a new, even stronger operating system (this fall) and a 10-core GPU. The latest addition to the Air range is sure to be a big hit, as it doesn't compromise on performance, size or mobility. In addition, its battery life will be excellent, lasting up to two working days, but it will also last the day using power-hungry applications such as Teams.
The stunning 15 inch MacBook Air in Starlight color
And speaking of Mac... It's essential to mention the other big announcement at the keynote, the M2 Ultra. We all remember how revolutionary it was when Apple made a complete switch in 2020 to a very different and unique chip design, Apple Silicon, which took a complete departure from Intel. Since then, the M1 and then M2 chips have proven that it was really worth it to make such an innovation, as Mac users are even more satisfied with their notebooks now, and the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips in the MacBook Pros have made their way into the workplace with the robust performance they can provide to developers, IT workers, graphic designers and to many other professionals.
Now Apple is taking this even further with its M2 Ultra chip, which is sure to deliver even more serious and overwhelming performance for those who really need the best of desktops to get the most out of their work. Mac Proand Mac Studio , with M2 Max also being introduced on the latter. Mac Studio promises to be one of the most powerful and professional Apple desktops available today, taking serious studio work to a new level.
Apple's biggest and most powerful chip yet is great for those who have used Mac Pro and Mac Studio but need even more performance. The M2 Ultra delivers the performance of two M2 Max chips combined in UltraFusion and uses a second-generation 5-nanometer processor. The M2 Ultra consists of 134 billion transistors - 20 billion more than the M1 Ultra. Its unified memory architecture can support up to 192 GB of memory capacity, 50% more than the M1 Ultra, and has a memory bandwidth of 800 GB/s. So, overall, the M2 Ultra is 20% faster, and it's also stronger than its predecessor in terms of CPU, GPU and Neural Engine. In short, it's the most rugged Apple computer on the market so far and we sure can expect amazing performance from it.
The robust, new Mac Studio
And last but not least, for those building server farms, for example, the M2 Ultra Mac Pro is a great choice, offering three times the performance of its predecessor, while performing much better than its competitors in terms of power efficiency. The Mac Pro was previously powered by an Intel chip, which put some limits on optimizing performance and power consumption. There will no longer be any need to compromise if you want to harness the power of the Mac Pro, except that its storage won’t be as expandable as the Intel one’s. In addition, the new Mac Studio can be connected to many more screens and devices, becoming optimal for building a very powerful workstation. They are perfect for those working with serious video and image content or for developers who need that kind of power and performance, in addition, both devices are more environmentally friendly and consume less power.
And here is the latest Mac Pro.
Of course, these are just a couple of the really ground-breaking innovations among the many keynote announcements, but it would be impossible to write about them all. And the most revolutionary and highly anticipated announcement, Vision Pro, is not listed here on purpose. Apple's most extreme and exciting new product is inevitable to be the subject of a separate article, which you can read about in this excellent and very personal piece by our colleague.
