18 Jan 2023
Yesterday, Apple announced the M2 Pro and M2 Max, and updates putting these new chips into the Mac mini and MacBook Pro. The bits of this that I find most interesting:
An announcement video presented like a segment of a keynote. I can’t recall an instance where Apple’s done this before, but I like it. It makes for less than a standalone event, but more than just a press release, which feels about right for an announcement of this scope. I hope they do more releases like this throughout the year. It seems like it would free up Apple to announce new updates as soon as they’re ready, without having to hold them for a marquee event like WWDC. And it would also free up space in those marquee events, which are increasingly crammed to the gills.
The Mac mini still only comes in silver. This will come as a disappointment to the many people who speculated that Apple would offer a higher-end Mac mini in space grey. Their rationale was that in the last of the Intel Mac mini line, the regular Mac mini came in silver but the souped up Mac mini came in space grey. And that the darker space grey says “pro”. But I called it when Apple released the M1 Mac mini two years ago: Apple seems to be moving all the desktop Macs entirely to silver. While this wasn’t entirely obvious when Apple first released the M1 Mac mini in silver, it seemed pretty clear once they later released the (more pro) Mac Studio in silver as well. If a forthcoming high-end Mac mini were going to come in space grey, wouldn’t the even more high-end Mac Studio have come in space grey too? I’m personally fine with this. The allure of space grey wore off for me a while back. At some point it stopped seeming intensely cool and just kind of… drab. And I like having my Studio Display, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro all in matching silver on my desk.
Apple’s leading with comparing the performance of the M2 Pro/Max MacBook Pros against the old Intel-based Macbook Pros. This seems silly. Why don’t we also compare against a processor from 10 years ago while we’re at it? Benchmarking against the Intel-based Macs of course yields more impressive numbers than comparing against the regular M2 (or even against the M1) does. But that’s a credit to Apple, not a mark against them. And we’re well enough past the Intel transition (Mac Pro aside…) that comparing to an Intel processor feels kind of irrelevant. That said, maybe Apple is targeting a subset of the customer base that has yet to switch to Apple silicon, and this messaging is specifically aimed at convincing them to do so. Our new MacBook Pros are 6x faster than your old Intel one… Now will you switch?
It feels a little asymmetric and funny that the Mac mini (you know, the desktop) doesn’t get the most powerful chip, and the MacBook Pro (you know, the laptop) does. But Apple positions the Mac mini as their affordable desktop, and there is the Mac Studio, so I suppose it makes sense.
As for me, I still have so much performance headroom in my M1 Mac mini and M1 Pro MacBook Pro that I won’t be upgrading, but it’s nonetheless heartening to see a more regular cadence of updates coming to these machines now that Apple controls the silicon. He who controls the spice controls the universe…