Apple Unveils MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac Mini with New M1 chip
Apple unveiled a new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini powered by the its new M1 in what the company says is a family of chips designed specifically for the Mac.
Apple says with its industry-leading performance per watt, together with macOS Big Sur, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning (ML) capabilities, and battery life up to 2x longer than before.
It says with M1 and Big Sur, users get access to the biggest collection of apps ever for Mac.
CEO Tim Cook says the introduction of three new Macs featuring Apple’s breakthrough M1 chip represents a bold change that was years in the making, and marks a truly historic day for the Mac and for Apple.
“M1 is by far the most powerful chip we’ve ever created, and combined with Big Sur, delivers mind-blowing performance, extraordinary battery life, and access to more software and apps than ever before.”
MacBook Air
Apple also introduced it’s popular 13-inch MacBook Air with the new M1 chip.
Apple says with the M1 chip, MacBook Air speeds through everything from editing family photos to exporting videos for the web. The powerful 8-core CPU performs up to 3.5x faster than the previous generation. With up to an 8-core GPU, graphics are up to 5x faster,
Workloads are up to 9x faster, so apps that use ML-based features like face recognition or object detection can do so in a fraction of the time.
The M1 chip’s storage controller and latest flash technology deliver up to 2x faster SSD performance. The MacBook Air also has no fan and remains completely silent.
The MacBook Air features a an extended battery life with up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 18 hours of video playback.
Other new features in MacBook Air include Apple’s latest image signal processor (ISP) in the M1 chip, which improves camera image quality with better noise reduction, greater dynamic range, and improved auto white balance and ML-enhanced face detection so users look their best during video calls.
The new MacBook Air will retail for £999 with a discount for education customers.
13-inch MacBook Pro
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is Apple’s most popular pro notebook.
The 8-core CPU, when paired with the MacBook Pro’s active cooling system, is up to 2.8x faster than the previous generation, delivering exceptional performance when compiling code, transcoding video, editing high-resolution photos and more.
The 8-core GPU is up to 5x faster, allowing users to enjoy super-smooth graphics performance whether they are designing a graphics-intensive game or a new product.
With up to 17 hours of wireless web browsing and up to a staggering 20 hours of video playback, MacBook Pro delivers up to twice the battery life of the previous generation and the longest battery life ever in a Mac.
Other new features in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro include studio-quality mics for super-clear recordings and calls, and Apple’s latest camera ISP in the M1 chip enables sharper images and more detail in shadows and highlights on video calls.
The new MacBook Pro also features two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution.
The MacBook Pro is priced at £1299 with a discount for education customers.
Mac mini
Mac mini is Apple’s most versatile computer bringing an 8-core CPU with up to 3x faster performance than the previous generation.
An 8-core GPU delivers up to a massive 6x increase in graphics performance, allowing Mac mini to tackle performance-intensive tasks like complex 3D rendering with ease.
ML workloads also take a quantum leap forwards with up to 15x faster performance over the previous generation.
Mac mini also features a thermal design to sustain its performance while staying cool and quiet, support for up to two displays including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution, Wi-Fi 6 for faster wireless performance.
Mac mini is now available for £699, £100 less than the previous-generation quad-core model.
macOS Big Sur
All new Macs come with Big Sur, the latest version of Apple’s desktop operating system.
It introduces a redesign that is entirely new yet instantly familiar with updates to apps including Safari, Messages and Maps.
Just like iPhone and iPad, the Mac now instantly wakes from sleep. Browsing with Safari is now up to 1.5x speedier at running JavaScript and nearly 2x more responsive.
With Big Sur and M1, Mac users can run a greater range of apps than ever before. All of Apple’s Mac software is now Universal and runs natively on M1 systems.
Existing Mac apps that have not been updated to Universal will run seamlessly with Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology. And iPhone and iPad apps can now run directly on Mac.
Additionally, the foundations of Big Sur are optimised to unlock the power of M1, including developer technologies from Metal for graphics, and Core ML for machine learning.
Mac OS Big Sur will be available for download from the 12th November 2020.
The new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini with M1 are available to order today on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. They will begin arriving to customers and will be in selected Apple Store locations and Apple Authorised Resellers from next week.
