This is Technology Bytes, episode 35 for November 5th, 2023.
Technology Bytes is a microcast where I share brief bytes on interesting technology.
My name is Joel.
Enjoy, and here we go.
So last week I talked about the scary fast event that Apple was going to hold on Monday past, and this week, and I think I said it in last week’s episode as well, this week I’m going to talk about the event having watched it, and having listened to pundits, and having read more about it, just to give you my thoughts after the fact on what actually happened, instead of speculating on what may have happened.
So as expected, Apple announced the new M3 version of the Apple Silicon chip.
The difference this time is that they announced three of what might be four versions.
The base M3 model, the M3 Pro, the M3 Max, the one that they didn’t talk about is the M3 Ultra, which as we know from past Ultra versions of the Apple Silicon is two of the Max chips put together.
And so they didn’t talk about it, but I think we all understand what it would look like if it were to exist.
And as usual in the event, very short, only a half hour, but they put up charts to explain why the M3 performance has improved so much, and compared it to the M1, compared it to the highest in Intel chips that Apple still produces, not still produces, but has produced and people are still using.
And as we come to expect from Apple, there is some pretty significant improvements.
And you look at the jump from M1 to M2, pretty small incremental steps, but to go from there to the M3, it’s actually been pretty impressive.
And Apple continues to push the envelope, continues to be the industry leader in performance.
They call it performance per watt, but basically how much performance you get out of your chip based on how much power it can use.
And once again, they’ve done a great job, I think, and obviously I haven’t touched one yet.
I haven’t used anything, but just from the information that is out there, it seems like they’ve done a pretty good job with the step up to the M3 Apple Silicon.
So along with the announcements of the chips, they announced some new computers, the first being a new iMac, the 24-inch variety.
Some people were hoping for the iMac Pro 27-inch like they did with the Intel version of their chips, but it doesn’t seem like Apple really wants to go in that direction.
But as computers go for Apple, the iMac is the oldest computer that has not been updated yet at this point.
I think it’s been almost, I don’t know, a year and a half, close to two years.
But the iMac itself doesn’t look any different, but it’s got quite a bit more power.
Just the real basics of it is that it is two times as fast as the M1 iMac.
Whether you’ll notice or not, they talk about graphic performance using Adobe Photoshop being 50% faster, Safari being 30% faster.
Does that, I don’t know, does that something that you notice when it’s just sitting on your desk?
I think it depends on what you’re using the iMac for.
And then with the highest end now, it goes up to 24 gigabytes of RAM, where before it was only 16 that you could get.
So some pretty significant improvement impacts with the new 24-inch iMac.
And then they have the 14-inch MacBook Pro that only has the M3 chip.
So the base model of the MacBook Pro.
Some limitations there, very similar to the 13-inch MacBook Pro that got that chip beforehand that had the touch bar, but now the touch bar is gone, they’ve bumped the screen to the 14-inch.
And probably a pretty good entry-level MacBook Pro, as it were.
You’d have to compare it to what you get with the MacBook Air to see what best serves your purposes.
But I think it’s a significant replacement from the 13-inch that came before it.
Ditching the touch bar, something I never had, but I always thought I would have liked if I would have had it.
I believe my daughter has it on her computer, but I don’t use that all that much.
But I think she likes it.
But it really didn’t get the love that it probably deserved.
And then they announced the 14-inch and the 16-inch MacBook Pros that come with either the M3 Pro or the M3 Max.
Trying to figure out what’s the biggest announcement.
The fact that it now is available in Space Black, which may have got the most reaction around the industry.
Surprisingly, because it really has nothing to do with performance.
Or maybe it’s the fact that you can go up to 128 gigabytes of RAM now.
So that’s a big jump.
Still not where they are, or where they were with the Intel chip.
But still, RAM in the Apple Silicon environment is way different than it was in the Intel environment.
And even though people still complain that a MacBook Pro should never come with 8 gigabytes of RAM, I’m not convinced that that’s not enough for most of the base M3 MacBook Pro users anyway.
I think that there are significant improvements.
They’ve increased the GPU and done some other things.
And I’ll talk about that in just a minute.
Okay, I have to go backwards for just a second.
I was reading my notes and totally missed something.
So one of the things that I heard about is the AppleCare program for the, not the new MacBook Pros, but the MacBook Pros with the M2 chips.
Apple has released a new computer so quickly that AppleCare has not even run out on the computer that people purchased, well, less than a year ago.
So I think that surprised people that the 14 and 16-inch came out so quickly, seeing that they had been upgraded all, I think it was maybe just 10 months back.
But when Apple’s ready to release and they’ve got a chip that works and they can put it out in the public’s hands, I don’t think they’re going to wait.
So I’m going to talk about a couple things that I don’t know about and then a couple things that I do.
But one of the things that they talked about for improvement is dynamic cache and basically how it uses the cache in the RAM.
And I think that’s called the L2 cache.
I’m kind of talking out of the left side of my head or whatever you want to call it.
But the reality is that they found a way to manage memory so that things happen more efficiently on your computer.
And maybe in a desktop version, it may not seem like that big a deal, but it still is.
It still has to do with the computer’s performance.
But it’s getting the most out of the RAM that you have.
And so if you have 8 gigabytes, maybe this is even more important.
But I think it’s something new, something Apple has determined could be useful in RAM usage, actually the cache on the RAM.
Again, a lot of technical details there, but the fact is it should make the computers perform better.
And then in the gaming world, I think mostly in the gaming world, maybe some art things, ray tracing and mesh shading they talked about.
And I understand that has to do with basically real-time lighting, mostly in a game environment so that the shadows move based on where you’re looking, where the light’s coming through a window, for instance.
And so basically, Apple’s kind of pushing on this gaming environment for their computers, which is relatively new for them.
And I think that these are things that have been relative stable things in other gaming systems that Apple is now getting to with their new GPUs.
So it does show significant progress for them.
But the things that I do know about, the first one is battery life on a MacBook Pro.
And they’ve moved that up to 22 hours.
That’s just crazy when you think about that for a portable computer, to think that it’s almost, if you’re talking about eight hours a day, that’s three days' worth of work almost that you can get off your computer.
Of course, I recognize that that’s best circumstance, only using this, maybe browsing that, screen brightness, this, whatever.
But still, pretty significant in the performance of the battery and the efficiency of the new M3 chip.
And the last thing that I know about is purchasing.
I purchase a lot of Apple products.
In fact, I went through a couple of episodes back, my purchase process for my new phone and my new watch.
And last week, I believe I said that I am not in the market for a new computer.
Sorry about that.
And didn’t think I would plan on buying one.
And then they announced the new iMac.
And that’s what I use.
I have an M2 MacBook Air that I use at work.
And I also have an M1 iMac that I use at work.
And I’ve talked about how I use those in the past.
And I pretty much thought that I would just stay with the iMac that I have.
And then I started looking at the numbers.
And for $88, if I trade in my current iMac, the cash outlay is only $88.
My monthly payment went from $124 to $85.
I know I have to pay for another full year.
But still, that’s a pretty significant drop in a monthly payment.
And the computer is two times faster.
So, yep, I purchased.
I will be picking it up on Wednesday the 8th.
And look forward to letting you know if I notice two times faster, better performance in Safari.
I’m in Safari all day long, all day long.
And it’ll be interesting to see if I see that performance improvement.
So, as often happens with me and Apple gear, I don’t plan on purchasing, and then I do.
Well, that is all I have for today and this episode.
If you have any comments or suggestions, especially with the new M3 that was announced this past week, you can send those to technologybytes at merrickfamily.com.
And I will respond appropriately.
Thank you for listening to the Technology Bytes microcast.
I look forward to the next time we are together taking another bite out of technology.
