Peak Performance March 8 Event

[OtinG]

Hmmm, lots of click-baiting this time around on MacRumors, MacWorld, AppleInsider, 9to5Mac, etc. I made a list of the most prevalent rumors I read about. I suspect that only a few of them, if any, will actually be announced today.

• iPhone SE 5G YES
• iPad Air 5 2022 YES
• Mac Pro NO (however Apple did say it was coming another day)
• Mac Studio YES
• Studio Display YES
• 13” MacBook Pro NO
• Green iPhone 13 YES
• New iPhone case colors NO YES (quietly released after the Event)
• Various OS release dates NO
• Redesigned MacBook Air with M2 NO
• 27” iMac NO
• Standalone display running iOS NO

Ironically, the Spring Event is where new/refreshed iPad Pros get introduced, yet no one seems to have even mentioned them in their wild imaginations. We shall finally see in about two hours, then hopefully we can put the wild speculative BS to rest until WWDC when the morons will again be wildly speculating on crap they know little to nothing about.

[OtinG]

Here are the new/refreshed devices:

iPhone 13 and Pro gets new colors

New iPhone SE with A15, 4.7” screen, 5G, available March 18, $429

iPad Air 5 (2022) with M1, 12MP front camera, 5G, available March 18, $599

Spoiler:

WOW, M1 Ultra chip slipped by all the rumors and guessers!

M1 Ultra chip, UltraFusion architecture, 114 billion transistors, supports 128GB memory, 20-core CPU, 64-core GPU, 32 Neural cores

Mac Studio, M1 Max and M1 Ultra options, M1 Max up to 64GB unified memory, Mi Ultra up to 128GB unified memory, available March 18, $1999, M1 Ultra M1 Pro $3,999

Studio Display, A13, 27-inch display, supports TrueTone, 14.7M pixels, 5K retina, antireflective, and nanotexture glass option available, six-speaker sound system with spatial audio, available March 18, $1599

SUMMATION: A lot more good stuff than I expected. Most of it is WAY out of my budget! The iPad Air 5 2022 was a good upgrade, but the iPad Air 2020 is good enough for the crap known as iPadOS 15 which doesn’t allow much in the way of useful computing.

ETA: Although the redesigned Mac Pro that had been rumored didn't get released, Apple did say it was coming another day. The Mac Studio is intended as a mid-level desktop, but the Pro will be the professional level M-series desktop when it arrives.
……….

[tomsem]

So no ‘M2’, more like M1x2.

I’m wondering about the likely upgrade path for iPad Pro: will they offer M1 Pro chip, now that Air has M1?

I see that despite having M1, iPad Air does not support Thunderbolt / USB 4 as do the iPad Pros.

And yes, Mac Studio looks great but even entry level one is out of budget (my 2019 iMac 27” gets about $1200 trade in but I’d have to get a display as well).

[ilovejedd]

Originally Posted by tomsem

So no ‘M2’, more like M1x2.

I’m wondering about the likely upgrade path for iPad Pro: will they offer M1 Pro chip, now that Air has M1?

I see that despite having M1, iPad Air does not support Thunderbolt / USB 4 as do the iPad Pros.

There's still time for M2 for back to school or fall release.

I don't see M1 Pro making its way to the iPad considering thermal considerations. Don't all Macs with M1 Pro have fans? Seems kinda pointless to put it on iPad when it's just going to thermal throttle under sustained heavy load.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the M1+8GB RAM on the Air 5. That's a pretty nice upgrade especially at the same $599 starting price point.

[OtinG]

Yep, a nice upgrade for the iPad Air 5, but unfortunately they still hobble it with lack of Thunderbolt/USB4 support and an iPadOS which is geared for little more than media viewing, some gaming, and social media activities. I’ll get excited about ipados again if they ever add a truly usable file system rather than the garbage they currently use.

The studio looks like a really good high end machine, but way more than I could ever afford, not that I really need that kind of computing power anyway! Rather strange that rumors for it only appeared a few days before the actual reveal. I didn’t hear much about it per se until yesterday. I did hear that a new Mac mini would have a M1 Pro or Max chip and be turned into a Pro type Mac. That was kind of accurate, but not really. No new Mac mini, but the Studio looks similar to a Mac mini, but it is a whole new device.

Most of the rumors were wrong again, and several that were right were pretty much a given as we get new colors nearly every year. So totally wrong rumors on new MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and iMac. I guess Tim’s secret squirrel security folks are finally getting a handle on leaks.

My hope is that we will start to see a lot of bug squashing with the updates to the OSes this summer. iPadOS 15 is a buggy mess!

[tomsem]

Originally Posted by ilovejedd

There's still time for M2 for back to school or fall release.

I don't see M1 Pro making its way to the iPad considering thermal considerations. Don't all Macs with M1 Pro have fans? Seems kinda pointless to put it on iPad when it's just going to thermal throttle under sustained heavy load.

I'm pleasantly surprised by the M1+8GB RAM on the Air 5. That's a pretty nice upgrade especially at the same $599 starting price point.

Good points about the M1 Pro needing a fan (at least for more demanding tasks). So open question on CPU upgrade for next iPad Pro, it’s not gonna have a fan in it, right?

I would like to see iMac mini with one of the more powerful M1’s.

[OtinG]

Apple has introduced two extremely overpriced options for the Studio Display.

• Add-On Height-Adjustable Stand Costs an extra $400
• Nano-Texture Glass is $300

[OtinG]

FYI: After the event, Apple quietly released new iPhone case colors and Watch bands.

[OtinG]

Hopefully this Fall they will refresh the Mac mini M1 without increasing price or deleting ports. If not, I’ll get the current model, but a refresh would be better.

[JSWolf]

The MAC Studio looks good. But it's rather expensive.

[Deskisamess]

I'm happy they released a green iPhone again. I'll be getting the 13 Pro at some point. Hubby just bought a black 13, his iPhone 6 wouldn't run a bunch of apps he wanted anymore. I'm still using a 7+.

[drofgnal]

The studio display looks nice. I was looking for a display when I bought my M1 mini last fall. LG made a 5k display for Apple but I couldn't find one in stock or I"d have bought it. I ended up getting a Dell 4k display for significantly less, like around 550 bucks. I'm not sure the bit extra resolution is worth the increase in price. At least the studio display can be had for significantly less than the Pro displays.

[OtinG]

Apple stated that the Mac Pro M-series will be introduced on "another day". At least that is how I interpreted the statement they made. That will position the Mac Pro as the professional level of the M-series desktops. With the introduction of the Mac Studio, Apple seems to have introduced the new mid-level desktop. The Mac mini will likely remain the introduction/consumer level desktop. It begs the question, "What about the iMac?" What is Apple's intention with the iMac line of desktops? Will they keep them or phase them out? The Studio might be their replacement, or maybe not. It will be interesting to see if Apple keeps them on the upgrade path.

At any rate, the Studio and Pro are way out of my price range as a retired hobbyist. My budget is more in the Mini and MacBook Air range. So I'm hoping Apple eventually updates the Mini with a M1 Pro chip without blowing the price way out. I suspect the Mini will eventually get the M2, but that will be an update to the M1. A M1 Pro would be good as it would bridge the void between mini M1 and Studio. The iMac could bridge that gap too if they keep it around, but I’m not an iMac fan. I shy away from all-in-one designs, although they are great computers, but they are also expensive.

[JSWolf]

Does anyone know if Apple has fixed the bugs in the M1 chip where it will end up wearing out the SSD drive long before it should?

[OtinG]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Does anyone know if Apple has fixed the bugs in the M1 chip where it will end up wearing out the SSD drive long before it should?

According to this article from AppleInsider published last summer the issue has been fixed, and might actually have only been a reporting error anyway. I haven’t heard anything else recently, so apparently they fixed it.