As speculated, Apple conducted its ‘Unleashed’ event, the second fall event in 2021, on October 18. The event included introductions of the MacBook Pro lineup and the new AirPods. During his address, Apple CEO Tim Cook stated that the theme of the event was “Music and the Mac” promoting creativity. Here are some highlights from Apple’s ‘Unleashed’ event that took place at Apple Park in Cupertino, California at 10 am PDT (10:30 pm IST).
HomePod Mini
The new HomePod Mini that comes in three new bold colors-blue, yellow and orange- is a new addition to its already available white and space grey colours. It comes with the tinted touch surface, the volume buttons, the mesh fabric and even the woven power cables. The HomePod Mini also has enhancements such as multi-user voice recognition to offer a personalised experience to each user, automatic Siri volume based on the ambient noise, controls for Apple TV. The tech giant has priced the HomePod Mini at Rs 9,900.
New Playlists for Apple Music
Apple announced hundreds of new playlists curated by experts. According to them, the playlists would fit every mood, activity and occasion like dinner parties or hiking. If someone wants to listen to a particular song, he can even give the command ‘Play more like this’. These curated playlists will be added to Apple Music. The company has introduced a new subscription plan for Apple Music, which is called the Voice Plan. This plan has been exclusively designed for Siri and would allow users access the entire catalogue of songs, playlists and stations on Apple Music using their voice and Siri. The Voice plan will be available later this fall in 17 countries, including India, at Rs 49 per month.
Third Generation AirPods
With a new look and spatial audio support, the new AirPods are getting an upgrade. It gets the Pro line’s “force sensor” for controlling music/calls, and improved sweat/water resistance. According to Apple, the battery life has been improved and now has six hours of playback time. The mic in the new AirPods has also been covered by an acoustic mesh so the speaker’s sound goes clear through without ambient noise. The sweat and water-resistant AirPods feature a force sensor for intuitive control of music and phone calls. The new AirPods will be available at Rs 18,500 from October 18 online and from October 26 at offline stores.
M1 Pro and M1 Max Silicon
Instead of introducing a whole new chipset, the California-based tech giant has upgraded its previous M1 chipset to M1 Pro and M1 Max. Wherein M1 Pro aims to deliver better efficiency with improved GPU and CPU performance, M1 Max offers the same, but on steroids. The 5-nanometer process technology sees the M1 Pro packing in 33.7 billion transistors and a new 10-core CPU, including eight high-performance cores and two high-efficiency cores. This chip is 70 percent faster than M1. The M1 Pro also delivers up to 1.7 times more CPU performance at the same power level.
M1 Max, on the other hand, has a 10-core CPU. Its GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40% less power. With these, M1 Max is Apple’s largest silicon so far with 57 billion transistors. According to Apple, while M1 Pro offers up to 200 gigabytes per second of memory bandwidth with support for up to 32 gigabytes of unified memory, M1 Max delivers up to 400 gigabytes per second of memory bandwidth.
These chips have been placed in 14- and 16-inch models of MacBook Pro that also comes with macOS Monterey-ready. The new MacBook Pro lineup also features a Liquid Retina XDR display, a wide range of ports for advanced connectivity, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, and a surround-sound audio system. The new 14-inch MacBook Pro model starts at ₹1,94,900 and the 16-inch MacBook Pro model starts at ₹2,39,900.
