Apple surprised us in 2022 with the Mac Studio, M1 Ultra, Studio Display and even some of the performance gains of M2. What wasn’t surprising was that the iPhone 14 and 14 Pro would have different processors, with the newest being reserved for the Pro systems.
Regardless of how you slice it, you cannot be mad about anything Apple has done in 2022 with their new products. The performance they are getting out of sub-3Ghz chips puts AMD and Intel to shame in the CPU space, and AMD and Nvidia to shame in the GPU Space. Most tech journalists and influencers try to compare the performance of the new Apple Silicon Macs to top of the line CPUs and GPUs, forgetting that Apple, much like its video game soulmate, Nintendo, doesn’t always focus on the best hardware, but getting the most performance out of their hardware. Apple isn’t throwing 800 Watts of power at a CPU and GPU to get 80% of the performance of an i9-12900K and RTX 3080, they are getting that performance with 50 to 100 watts. I have no doubt that if Apple wanted to compete at the bleeding edge of performance, they could, but that currently has so many downsides it isn’t worth it.
That isn’t to say that Apple doesn’t have impressive numbers, it does. But it also shows how much headroom it has to grow, if it wants to. Remember, we still haven’t seen a replacement for the Mac Pro. Sure, the Ultra Studio beats the current Mac Pro, for half the price, but a full tower, with some sort of upgradability and/or longevity isn’t here yet. And if the gains from M1 to M2 translate to M2 Pro, Max, Ultra, and whatever descriptor they give to the Mac Pro chip (Extreme?), we are in for a treat. Something that legitimately competes with Intel’s 13th Generation Core™ chips, and Ryzen™ 7000 series, along with 40-Series and RDNA3, not to mention ARC. The computing space hasn’t been this rich for a long time, at least not since we were largely cut down to two major CPU and GPU vendors.
That being said, I’m still disappointed that we don’t have an M2 Mini or even a Mini Pro. In fact, with what the M1 Pro can do, I’m disappointed that it is only in one machine. However, I’m convinced that Apple created these different chip identifiers for their binning process, then found out that the prices for creating Max and Ultra was so good, they didn’t really have bad chips to convert to M1 Pro. This also explains some of the extreme lead times when purchasing a MacBook Pro with M1 Pro (some times several months), versus the M1 Max. That might explain, however, why we don’t have a Mini Pro, is down to binning. Not enough failures to make Pro chips without cannibalizing the higher margin Max and Ultra Chips.
The other disappointment was in the speed of the SSDs for the M2 machines. However, this comes down largely to NAND volumes. When the M1 was launched, there was plenty of suitable NAND in various sizes, so Apple used two 128GB chips for their 256GB storage platform. However, post-COVID, NAND is the smaller sizes is harder to come by, and Apple is using that storage in their iPhones and iPads (along with M1 machines), so it was logical that they would transition to 256GB packages, which provided the same storage, but not the same speed. That being said, those who care about the speed of their SSD won’t be getting the base storage anyway, so I doubt it will be an issue.
What is a bit of an issue is the SSDs in the Mac Studio. Apple chose to integrate the SSD controller directly into their Apple Silicon chips (a function that was previously done by the T2 chip). That wasn’t an issue for the longest time, since the NAND packages were soldered directly to the motherboard/logicboard. However, with the Mac Studio, in order to allow for more flexibility in their SKUs, they use a removable NAND package, similar to what they used to use on the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, just much shorter. Most tech journalists when they discovered this, tried various methods to try to upgrade their storage, only to find that they were locked out. They were understandably upset at this. However, they failed to recognize several things; Apple tells you flat-out that the storage isn’t upgradable; these were new machines, and the software and processes for replacing or upgrading may not have been developed; and many didn’t realize that the NAND didn’t also contain a controller, as they were used to M.2/NVMe SSDs that were all inclusive. I suspect that much like the MacPro, we will see storage upgrades as an option for the Mac Studio, and the future MacPro, but it hasn’t been a priority while launching not only new hardware, but an entire new line of systems.
As for the iPhones, the satellite SOS system looks promising, as does the better cameras. However, for most people that is all that matters. On the Pro, the dynamic island gives us new ways to interact with content, something that should be possible with the notch/ears as well. Let’s hope this lasts longer than 3D Touch.
Having a rugged watch seems like a logical brand extension, and we’ll see how well it works. The rest of the Watch lineup got a decent upgrade, but I’m still looking for Blood Glucose monitoring, before I take the plunge.
Overall, it has been a great year, and while we won’t likely get an October event, we are likely then to get a November event, as the Mac Pro is due then, and we are champing at the bit for M2 Pro, Max, Ultra, and Extreme machines, along with some iPad announcements. I’m estimating 11/15 or 11/16 for that event.