I would have bet money that Apple was going to announce
a replacement for the Mac Pro at this year's WWDC
because two years ago when they announced that they were going to be transitioning to Apple Silicon,
they committed that they were going to finish it within about two years.
Well, they didn't. But what Apple did show is that there is a whole new generation
of Apple Silicon already, a brand new laptop,
a leap in iPad productivity,
and a whole bunch of features, further services, and software.
So let's unpack all the announcements and I'll tell you what I think.
It looks like less than two years after the M1 release, we're getting its successor, the M2.
This update cadence is interesting to me as we only just got the M1 ultra variant a few months ago,
which means that the M2 can't be faster than the M1 Pro found in the MacBook Pro.
And it isn't. While the CPU core count remains the same as the vanilla M1,
there are modest improvements everywhere. Two more GPU cores, a media engine with ProRes acceleration,
more memory up to 24 gigabytes, faster memory bandwidth at 100 gigabytes per second,
and a new five nanometer process, probably like the A15.
Aside from significantly faster ProRes performance,
things remain modest with Apple's claimed 18 and 35%
performance increases compared to the M1. Still absent, his support for Thunderbolt 4
and more than one display, the latter of which this much slower Intel MacBook Air
can do, by the way. And speaking of MacBook Air, there's a new one.
Arguably Apple's best and most important laptop has become much better.
It essentially cribs the current MacBook Pro design in a much thinner package.
It gets the same lovely MagSafe connector, same keyboard, and same notch.
Despite the shape, this isn't the same screen
you get in the Pro models with their ProMotion and XDR.
But it is improved compared to the last year. Brightness is up 100 nits to 500,
and it supports more color, billions, apparently.
What I'm most disappointed with is the colors on the outside.
Instead of the bright colors we have come to love on the iMac, what we get is midnight and starlight
alongside the traditional silver and space gray.
And I really can't figure out which one I would choose.
Probably midnight, just because it's novel. New MacBook Air also costs more too,
with a starting price of $1,200. For $100 more, you can get 10 GPU cores,
or the still confusingly named 13-inch MacBook Pro,
with the same chip and fan. Lovers of the touch bar, I'm guessing this is your last chance.
This and the fact that Apple will still be selling the M1 MacBook Air for $1,000
really completes the Apple laptop price spectrum.
No longer do you choose the Mac you need and pay the price,
now you can pick the price and get the MacBook to fit,
because there are no deals. So I've been having pretty big arguments
with people at the office about the iPad. There's a real desire to see the iPad
become more Mac-like, something I don't agree with.
Really, what a lot of people want is for the iPad to run macOS.
Well, it still doesn't. But the improvements to iPad OS bring it closer,
ever so slightly. Craig Federici announced desktop-class apps,
which really just means that Apple's first-party system apps on iPad have features
that have been in macOS for 20-plus years now. So customizable toolbars and find and replace.
More importantly, the iPad now supports resizable Windows.
And to organize all the Windows, Stage Manager groups them on the side,
enabling you to retrieve and group them as you see fit.
I'm not sure that this is all that great on a small iPad screen, but it is great for external displays with display scaling,
which the iPad now supports. Stage Manager is coming to the Mac too, for some reason.
Multitasking on the iPad has undergone a confusing evolution with mixed metaphors
and undiscoverable implementation. So I'm curious how it's going to work in practice.
It shows that the iPad is getting more capable, which is good, but there are still some structural issues
the platform is going to have to figure out first.
iPhone users should enjoy their lock screen getting more purposeful and customizable.
Notifications have been pushed down to a bottom wheel to free up your background picture.
The clock numbers can peek behind your image subject and be in a different font.
You have a choice of six and you can add widgets.
By all appearances, the customizations look a lot like Apple Watch complications.
Speaking of Apple Watch, the focus on health has been interesting.
For runners, the watch gets a feature called sensor fusion,
which interprets how you're running just from your ARM movement.
This includes measurements of vertical oscillation, ground contact time and stride length.
For me, I'm happy to see sleep track and get improved with sleep stages
until it tells me I'm sleeping badly. I felt a bit of deja vu during this event.
They literally mentioned that you can get sports scores from Siri.
Being able to ask Siri about players or teams. Scott Forstall announced that 10 years ago with iOS 6,
then there's iCloud shared photo library. This is a new feature specifically for families
using family sharing, allowing them to have one place
where all their family photos can go. This is great for that very specific circumstance,
but you might be interested in knowing that Scott Forstall also announced iCloud photo albums
10 years ago too. Those albums are lower quality,
but they also don't use your iCloud storage either.
Now, if only Apple made their operating system look
like iOS 6, bring skeuomorphism back, please.
Likewise, collaboration was already a part of notes in Apple's productivity suite for years,
but it was announced here. Sure, the interaction is a little more robust
as it's integrated in the operating system share sheet, letting you collaborate within iMessage chat groups.
All the more reason for those Android holdouts in your life to switch over.
iMessage. Apple also announced that CarPlay will now be able to go much deeper into your car
with the ability to take over all of your dashboard screens
with Apple's interface. As a car guy, I found the concept design they showed
not very compelling. Bunch of car makers have signed on, including ones who are switching over to Google's
infotainment operating system. I'll be really cross though, if they don't have an option for classic CarPlay,
if I prefer my car's instruments, but Apple's infotainment.
This feature is a long ways off. If you remember, CarPlay was originally announced
with iOS 7, but didn't get added to car systems for two years,
which brings me back to these updates. There's a lot in here that got announced,
editable and deleteable iMessages, pass keys instead of passwords in Safari,
cool machine learning intelligence with text recognition and the ability to lift the subject out of images.
In terms of what devices will get these updates, well, the iPhone 8 and 10 are now the oldest to get iOS 16.
iPad OS cuts off with the A9 powered fifth generation model.
Okay. And WatchOS 9 is not available with the Series 3,
which is still available in the store.
But what I felt was missing here was a cohesive story.
What are the problems Apple is trying to solve for their users and developers?
I heard a lot of everyone requested this, but with no curiosity or explanation as to why.
I think that would help with the development of these features, no?
Apple has diversified itself into remarkable complexity.
There are so many different hardware models you can buy now. It almost feels like the 90s all over again.
And the list of features to go through is exhausting,
even if many are really just part of cross-device services.
My big question is, how many will make it to launch in the fall?
Last year with iOS 15, many of the headline features weren't ready yet.
Some not even until a few months ago. It begs the question,
is Apple running faster than it needs to?
Thanks for coming outside for this Mac Address. If you like the new MacBook Air,
then give this video a like. And if you are a lover of the touch bar,
then you must subscribe. Now, I'm curious in the comments,
what of the new features announced today at this WWDC? You're most interested in.
I'm curious, who are there for?