2022 Apple Conference "Fried Street": New iPhone SE from $429 / "The Strongest Core" M1 Ultra / Mac Studio

At 2:00 a.m. on March 9th, Beijing time, Apple's 2022 spring new product launch conference "Peek Performance" arrived as scheduled. At this conference, Apple brought a series of blockbuster high-performance new products - the highly anticipated new 5G version of the iPhone SE, the small but powerful Mac Studio display and the upgraded iPad Air, as well as the highly anticipated new 5G version of the iPhone SE Called Apple's "strongest in history" chip M1 Ultra, let's review it together!

5G+A15 bionic chip: the new three-generation iPhone SE starting at $429

The just-released new iPhone SE has a similar body design style to the 2020 iPhone SE, but comes with the same A15 bionic chip as the iPhone 13, 5G and a higher starting price of $429.

The new iPhone SE features a 4.7-inch LCD display (the same one used on the 2020 iPhone SE and iPhone 8) and what Apple calls the "hardest in a smartphone" glass back. The fuselage also has a home button for Touch ID, and it is not equipped with Face ID.

Apple said the new iPhone SE has 1.8 times the CPU speed and 2.2 times the GPU speed of the iPhone 8, ensuring support for the latest version of the iOS upgrade system.

In terms of imaging, the new iPhone SE is equipped with a 12-megapixel rear camera and a 7-megapixel front-facing camera. Thanks to the A15 chip, the machine also brings some major improvements to the camera, including Smart HDR 4, photography Advanced features like style and deep fusion.

Apple said that with the addition of a 5G module, the new iPhone SE still has longer battery life than the 2020 version in terms of battery consumption.

The new iPhone SE comes in three colors: Midnight Black, Starlight White, and Red. The new phone will go on sale on March 18 and pre-orders will start on March 11.

Starting at $599: New iPad Air with M1 Core

As Apple's "cheapest" M1 chip version of the iPad Air, the new iPad Air is the first upgrade to the Air series since 2020, bringing Apple's powerful M1 chip, 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera, 5G module and other highlights .

The new iPad Air does not bring too many surprises in appearance, but it is a bit surprising (surprise) that it is equipped with Apple's self-developed M1 chip. The most accessible M1 core device.

The M1 core version of the new iPad Air will bring up to 60% CPU performance improvement, and GPU performance has also been improved by 2 times. In terms of imaging, it is equipped with a 12-megapixel ultra-wide-angle camera and supports the task centering function, bringing a new experience to selfies and video calls.

The new iPad Air has a built-in 5G module to ensure high transmission speed, and supports more abundant accessories such as keyboard-type smart double-sided clips, magic keyboard and trackpad, and Apple Pencil.

In terms of price, the new iPad Air is priced from $599 and will be available for pre-sale on March 11.

The "strongest core" in history: M1 Ultra Mac Studio

Another surprise at this conference is the M1 Ultra chip, which realizes the "die-to-die connector" module of the M1 Max, forming a 20 processing core, 64 graphics core, Supporting up to 128GB of memory in a single package creates an M1 Ultra chip that essentially doubles the processing speed of all processor and GPU cores.

The new M1 Ultra chip has 114 billion transistors, uses high-bandwidth memory and supports up to 128GB of storage, but combined consumes less power than two separate chips.

Apple says the M1 Ultra chip uses dedicated circuitry on last year's M1 Max, with a high-speed silicon link called UltraFusion that combines the two processors without requiring a complex design, which will give engineers /Programmers bring trouble - This marks the semiconductor industry's increasing use of packaging technology to connect smaller chip components to a larger processor.

It is reported that UltraFusion uses a technology called "silicon interposer", which is essentially a chip packaging layer between two pieces of silicon through 10,000 high-speed links, according to creative strategy analyst Ben Bajarin (Ben Bajarin) : "It's a super clever way to maximize a mature design.", Compared to the first-generation M1, the M1 Ultra has seven times the transistor count of the first-generation M1.

This time, the new M1 Ultra chip was first carried in the newly unveiled new Mac Studio, which Apple has positioned as a device equal to or better than the Mac Pro.

According to Apple, the Mac Studio powered by the M1 Ultra is 1.9 times faster than an Intel-powered Mac Pro with a 16-core Intel Xeon processor and 1.6 times faster than a Mac Pro with a 28-core Xeon processor (without specifying what was used) such a speed test). For most creators who don't really need the scalability of a Mac Pro, don't get too excited!

The new Mac Studio body is packed with ventilation and a large cooling system, and is equipped with 6 Thunderbolt 4 ports that can drive up to 4 Pro XDR displays.

Price-wise, the new Mac Studio starts at $1,999 (or you can install Apple's new M1 Ultra chip for $3,999). The device is available to order today, with shipping starting March 18.

27-inch 5K monitor: Studio Display

Coming with the M1 Ultra Core Mac Studio is this new desktop monitor—a 5K (14.7-megapixel) Studio Display that delivers up to 600 nits of brightness and is billed as the "ultimate studio experience." ” is a productivity device with an aluminum exterior, an ultra-narrow bezel design that’s almost all screen, and can be tilted 30 degrees (and there’s an optional $400 stand that’s height-adjustable).

In terms of configuration, the biggest highlight of the Studio Display also includes an integrated camera and microphone array powered by the A13 Bionic chip built into the body, and Apple claims that the sound quality of its six speakers is very good, and they can also handle spatial audio.

Of course, this Studio Display also features a 12-megapixel wide-angle camera that also works with Center Stage (Apple's video calling technology), which can track you around the room, and a microphone that will allow a connected Mac to Respond to the "Hey, Siri" voice command.

In addition, the Studio Display monitor body is equipped with a Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port with 96W charging capability for connecting to a Mac computer, and there are 3 USB-C ports.

In terms of price, the starting price of the new Studio Display is set at $1,599 (RMB 11,499), which can be ordered now and will be available from March 18.

Write at the end:

As Apple's relatively heavy new product launch in the beginning of the year, although everyone pays more attention to new hardware devices, it must be noted that Apple has indeed shifted its focus to the field of "streaming media" and software services in recent years. It can be seen whether this conference starts with the Apple TV+ streaming media business or the upgrade of the Pad OS. In terms of new iPhone SE and new iPad Air hardware devices, "innovation" is indeed incomparable with previous years, which may be one of the reasons why users complain that Apple devices are "no new ideas" and "innovation is dead" every year. Bar.

In any case, there are still many surprising highlights worth mentioning at this conference, such as the M1 Ultra chip, such as 5G and productivity devices such as the new Mac Studio/Studio Display, in ensuring the mass consumer market "make money" At the same time, we are also in-depth research and development in some technical aspects, and we hope that Apple will continue to bring us more new surprises in addition to hardware devices. Let's look forward to it together!