As expected Apple’s “One more thing” event was the launching pad for the company’s first wave of Apple Silicon powered machines in not one, but three families of Macs.
The M1 chip is Apple’s Mac do-it-all chip akin to the “A” range that powers their iPhones & iPads. Inside the 5nm M1 chip you’ll find 7 or 8 cores (depending on the model) filled with 16 billion transistors (wah-wee-wah, that’s a lot?) a custom CPU, GPU and Apple’s Neural Engine.
Why have they done this? Well the custom silicon allows Apple to control the whole picture. From the instruction set that software interacts with, to how the components communicate, power management and more. This in turn gives back a significant performance boost, Apple saying up to a six times on the CPU and graphics fronts when compared to the previous Mac Mini for example.
All three versions of the Mac getting the M1 chip are available to order now and are shipping November 17th.
13″ MacBook Air
The new M1 powered MacBook Air is the company’s thinnest yet. It has an expected 3.5x CPU boost and 5x GPU performance increase over it’s Intel powered predecessor. It also has an impressive 18 hour battery life, something that will have road warriors salivating in a great combination of size, weight and battery. Available
There are two versions available to buy today. The cheaper A$1,599 model has an 8 Core CPU & 7 Core GPU with 256GB of storage, whilst a more powerful 8×8 CPU/GPU version with 512GB storage for A$1,949.
13″ MacBook Pro
The “mini” Pro is the only version getting the M1 chip. The 16″ still sports an Intel offering and is likely there to appease a lot of people like me that still need an Intel based CPU (for now).
Unlike the Air the performance boosts are quite as impressive. Only 2.8x CPU and 5x GPU (I’m being sarcastic, that’s still insane) and has a 20 hour battery life!
Similar to the Air the Pro is available in 2 versions. Both have an 8×8 CPU/GPU combo and 8GB of memory. The only difference being a 256GB version costing A$1,999 and 512GB A$2,299. Which is a total scam for double the storage.
Mac Mini
3x faster CPU performance and 6x on the GPU front, the old Mac Mini is your king of the M1 performance gains mountain. Like the MacBook Pro there are 2 versions that only differ in their storage. A$1,099 for 256GB and A$1,399 for 512GB.
You can still buy an Intel powered Mac Mini if you wish. An i5 3.0GHz version is still lurking about for A$1,699.
Apple also showcased a new “Behind the Mac” feature that harkens back to their groundbreaking “Here’s to the crazy ones” campaign in the 90s.