It has been said that the Mac will be added to the new product rush that follows the iPhone, iPad mini, and Apple Watch, but in addition to the rumored AirPods, HomePod has also lined up in the new product lineup year.。
For each product, Apple's own presentation and the breaking news report, including this magazine, are reported, so I would like to look at it from a slightly different direction.
Apple has renewed the Mac lineup in June last year (World Developer Conference) over two years and switches the processor from Intel to Apple Silicon (semiconductor designed by Apple himself).Was announced.
One year after the first Apple Silicon Mac appeared, that is, at this time, which is the middle point, of course, not only the products that appeared, but I am worried about what the Apple silicon installed there.Many readers would have been.
However, from the bird's -eye view of this time, the influence of "Apple Silicon" and product enhancements for audio, as well as Apple silicon for Mac, were felt deeply.A long period of time has passed since the iPhone and iPad became an Apple semiconductor, but Mac has been added to it, and it has been utilized in audio products.
Applying the value of "200 million units a year" to various genres
As I mentioned in my column earlier, Apple's strength is on the iPhone.
The reason I wrote this way was because the new MacBook Pro, which was the leading role of this special event, has a lot of technology developed and accumulated for the iPhone, but in detail it is AirPods.It can be said for the new model of.
Sometimes the iPhone sells a lot and makes a profit, but all of the iPhones shipped nearly 200 million a year are equipped with SOC designed by Apple.
And the circuit of various roles incorporated into this SoC has become a product value linked to the iOS developed by Apple with the iPhone.
A typical example is a camera.About three years ago, the built -in camera of the iPhone was compiled with the "signal processing required for the next generation camera", and the Hardware for Soc.By designing software and semiconductors at the same time, the image quality and functions of the camera can be enhanced.
This value is also applied to Apple silicon Mac, which is used for noise reduction, white balance, and exposure control of FaceTime HD camera, but it is only an example, and the sound quality of the microphone and speakers is also the result of the development of the iPhone for the iPhone.It has been applied (as you may know, but some benefits the T2 chips on the Mac equipped with Intelintel) have been applied.
In addition, it has a positive effect on third -party apps through the API.Various AI -like functions implemented using Core ML will give you better results by Apple's Neural Engine and ML accelerator.
This is because Apple ships overwhelming iPhone.
If you think of the "Apple Silicon" by Apple, it is a foundation for expanding the large mortom of iPhone, it can increase the product added value of other genres as well as the signal processing developed in pairs.
I don't know if all were planned from the beginning, but if you look at products such as Apple Watch, AirPods, and HomePod mini, all of them are semiconductor, software developed by Apple, and signal processing technology performed by them.There is.
With that in mind, the results that have been invested in all products announced this time, even in all products announced this time, have increased their productivity.It is thought to be there.Audio products also cut out the development results for iPhone.
Madness with the concept of M1 as it is
So I would like to enter the Mac of the main subject, but there is no need to write again about the superficial numbers and specifications.At the time of release, we will be able to deliver a report on the actual machine, so I would like to talk about the M1 PRO and M1 MAX installed in the newly announced MacBook Pro.
The M1 of Apple Silicon, which appeared last year, not only gave a surprise with both the power saving performance and the absolute performance, but also had good cost performance.That said, it was highly performed by incorporating all elements into the SoC and enclosing the memory in the same package.
This technique was experience on the iPhone, but it was expected to be difficult to apply on a Mac, which requires expandability, although there is no problem with hardware that does not require expandability like smartphones.If there are too many cores and the variations of memory chips that are enclosed in the package increase, the cost will increase.
I was expecting that I wouldn't scale up as it was, but I scaled it up.It's a really crazy idea, but thanks to this, the performance has been greatly improved while taking over the characteristics of the M1 chip.
Eight high -performance scores are a combination of twice the number of M1 and two high -efficiency core, but it is not clear whether the core design is the same as M1 at this time.The performance values currently announced are all compared from the previous model equipped with Intel.
However, although the name is "M1", Neural Engine is newly designed, and the media engine is newly designed, so the possibility of A15 Bionic generation CPU and GPU cores.I think it seems to be expensive.
And the number of GPU core is 12 or 16 in M1 Pro, and 24 or 32 for M1 MAX.In M1 MAX, the access channel to shared memory doubles, so the memory band is doubled.
33.7 billion transistors M1 PRO is more than twice as M1, 57 billion transistor M1 MAX is M1 PRO 1.7 times, M1 3.It is said that it is accumulated 5 times.
By the way, there are circuits for providing Thunderbolt 4 in addition to the various processing circuits mounted on the CPU, GPU, and the A15 Bionic, but I thought that even the M1 would be large anyway.More than twice that (or 3).Because it is a 5x transistor, it can be said that it is a madness if you look at the numbers alone.
New MacBook Pro's unique features and Apple silicon
After all, it can be said that "the integration degree of integration has been increased and evolved", but it is natural that the directional microphone and speakers of the 3 array microphones are evolving.After all, in the Intel CPU era, the A10 Fusion generation was probably borrowed from the T2 chip, so he has evolved for about five generations and is combined with new software.
I would like to try it with an actual product, but the image quality of the FaceTime HD (1080p) camera should have improved considerably.This is because the same signal processing as the built -in camera can be included in the latest iPhone.
The Liquid Retina XDR display is considered to be realized in a set with a signal processing circuit built into the SoC by Apple and a set of local dating controls with mini LED backlights.Of course, the power saving performance is nothing but a power -saving semiconductor design technology for the iPhone.
First of all, there is a product, all family products can be received in -house to polish the product, and all family products that have the benefits of the technology cultivated with products with the largest Momentum.There is no other mechanism.In terms of price, it is not as good as the M1 model, but it can be said that it is quite cheap considering its performance.
It is extremely difficult to design a semiconductor, product, and even signal processing technology to polish the product in a horizontal division of labor.It can be said that it was possible because it was vertical integration, but it is surprising that you have done so far.It is also wonderful that it is not simply narcissistic by technology, but is dropped into the user value.
How does the PC industry react to raising the M1 concept to this level further?How will you stimulate intel and other PC manufacturers?In that sense, I think it was an interesting announcement.
Apple (Amazon store page)