On Tuesday, Apple held its ‘Peek Performance’ event, during which it made a range of announcements, including the launch of two new products. In case you missed all of that, this is your wrap up of the event.
First off, Apple, along with Major League Baseball (MLB), announced Friday Night Baseball, a weekly doubleheader with live pre and post game shows that will be available exclusively on Apple TV+ in the United States, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Japan, Mexico, Puerto Rico, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.
Next, Apple announced that the iPhone 13 and the iPhone 13 Pro will now come in a new shade of green. The iPhone 13 and iPhone 13 mini feature a deeper, mossy hue simply titled green while the iPhone 13 Pro and iPhone 13 Pro Max feature a lighter shade called alpine green. The new colors will be available March 18.
The next announcement was of the new 3rd generation iPhone SE. This model features the latest generation A15 Bionic chipset. Apart from improving performance, the new chipset also enables camera features such as Smart HDR 4, Deep Fusion, and Photographic Styles, although it’s not clear if the camera hardware has been changed in any way.
The iPhone SE now also features 5G connectivity and also improved battery life. The rest of the hardware is identical to the previous generation model. The new 3rd generation iPhone SE starts at $429 for the 64GB model and is available on March 18.
Next, we got the updated 5th generation iPad Air. The big change with this version is the upgrade to the Apple M1 processor, replacing the previous A14 Bionic. The new iPad Air also features a 12MP f2.4 ultra-wide front camera with Center Stage and 5G connectivity. It comes in new colors, including Purple and Blue. The new iPad Air starts at $599 for the 64GB model and will be available March 18.
Apple also announced the next model in its M1 series of ARM-based custom processors, the M1 Ultra. The M1 Ultra is essentially two M1 Max connected together and thus features twice of everything. This includes a 20-core CPU, a 64-core GPU, 32-core Neural Engine, 128GB of unified memory, and the ability to playback 18 streams of 8K ProRes 422 video, thanks to the doubling of the media block on the SoC.
The first computer to use this powerful new chip is the new Mac Studio. The Mac Studio is a supersized Mac mini running either the M1 Max or the M1 Ultra with new custom cooling system and an array of connectivity options. Apple claims the Mac Studio running the M1 Ultra is more powerful than the 27-inch iMac and the most powerful Mac Pro configuration.
The Mac Studio starts at $1999 for the M1 Max variant and $3999 for the M1 Ultra variant.
To go along with this new computer, Apple also announced a new monitor. The Apple Studio Display features a 27-inch, 5120×2880 60Hz panel with 600 nits of peak brightness, wide color (P3) support, and Apple True Tone. The display can be configured with an etched nano-texture glass for reduced glare.
The Studio Display features the same 12MP f2.4 ultra-wide camera as the new iPad Air with Center Stage support. It also includes a six-speaker audio system with Spatial Audio support. There are three 10GB/s downstream USB-C ports and one upstream Thunderbolt 3 port. Powering all of this is the A13 Bionic processor integrated into the monitor.
The Studio Display starts at $1599. The price includes a standard tilting stand but you can get an optional height adjustable stand or a VESA mount. The Studio Display along with the Mac Studio will be available March 18.
Finally, Apple also briefly mentioned the Mac Pro running Apple silicon. However, the company refused to elaborate further, stating that the announcement is for another day.
