Apple’s 2021 Redemption Arc
The M1 Pro and M1 Max chips, and the new MacBooks that come with them, may have just redeemed Apple in my eyes.
So I was like all of you, looking intently at what Apple Inc was going to announce next, at its October 18th event. I was up and ready — ready to trash Apple for its usual terrible business practices. I rolled my eyes at the cute intro, rolled my eyes at the new AirPods and the updated HomePods. I was right in the middle of my cynical and semi-annoyed frenzy, when I saw the announcement that literally made my jaw drop.
Now, we do a lot of Apple bashing here, on this publication. More often than not, we try to push Apple on the defensive, asking it to justify its weird and expensive business choices with its products and services. But with their most recent event, they may have changed the landscape of silicon-based computing forever. Without sounding too much like an Apple advertisement, allow me to break down the jaw-dropping milestones Apple has achieved in 2021.
The M1 Pro and M1 Max chips boast massive improvements in performance, compared to their previous M1 iteration in 2020. Apple seems to have achieved this on their very own silicon, using a 5 nanometer process, a size that the rest of the computer hardware market hasn’t quite caught up to yet. This allows Apple to fit in 57 billion transistors on the M1 Max, something that no processor manufacturer has been able to accomplish at a large scale. Couple that with 10 cores, and a ridiculously good cooling system (more on that below), and you have a processor that is unrivalled by anything else in 2021.
But that isn’t exactly what blew me away. What made my jaw drop was the performance metrics Apple had put up in their presentation.
For some light context, most gaming laptops have GPUs that need to be constantly cooled, to allow for free-flowing gaming and workflows. Heat and thermal dispersion is something that most laptops carefully factor into their design itself, since too much heat means less performance, and less value for the consumer.
Apple has now thrown all of that out of the window.
According to their benchmark (that will be confirmed later when the new devices are released), a MacBook with the M1 Max chip offers similar graphics performance as a Razer Blade 15…which is absolutely bonkers. A Razer Blade 15 has a GTX 3060 which is an excellent mid range graphics card, which is apparently only as powerful as Apple’s new 57 billion transistor chip. Damn.
To add on, the new MacBooks would run 40% cooler, for the same amount of performance, without even being plugged in…Like I said, absolutely bonkers.
The thermal comparison seems to have been done with a Lenovo Legion 5, which is coincidentally the laptop I’m writing this on.
Just think of running all your PC games, at high frame rates, with ultra-cool temperatures, in a thin and sexy aluminium body, WITHOUT EVEN BEING PLUGGED IN. That very thought makes a PC gamer neckbeard like me salivate.
“We’re adding ports to the MacBook Pro”
It’s not everyday that you see corporations pull a complete 180 on their design and product philosophy. Apple had deliberately made ports a thing of the past on MacBooks, much to the chagrin of their most loyal users. Users were forced to rely on clunky (and expensive) adapters to have any sort of additional functionality to their already pricey laptop. However, that seems to have changed, since Apple seems to have come back to its senses, and has graciously provided us with the very basic range of I/O options and ports on their new MacBook Pro.
The feels like a perfect redemption arc for Apple to undertake, to get back into the good graces of PC enthusiasts and MacBook users at the same time.
Now, the elephant in the room is still lurking around. How profitable are these new devices going to be? Who is going to buy these amazing machines? Certainly not students, and certainly not the average mom or pop who are looking for a new laptop for their daily use.
The answer really doesn’t matter, because the new MacBooks aren’t designed for the average user. It’s designed for professionals, who can afford to shell out $1999 for the base model M1 Pro MacBook. Regardless of whether or not the new MacBooks fly off the shelves like most Apple products, one thing is certain — If you have $6100 to spend in 2021, and you want the very best device to use professionally, with no compromises and limitations, your choice is simple.
Playing Catch-Up with a Supercar
It is clear at this point that Apple dropping its partnership with Intel was one of the best decisions it has made in a long time. Although it would be great to have M1 Max-level performance on Windows machines, we can be quite sure that the industry will catch up in some time. What we as consumers need to appreciate, is the fact that Apple of all companies has pushed innovation and progress this far. 15 years from now, when we’re all using devices that have ‘bonkers’ performance by today’s standards, we’re all going to have one company to thank.
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