The Apple family is back with another round of well-paced unveilings.
Fresh off last month’s iPhone 13-focused California Streaming event, Apple launched its “Unleashed” livestream on Monday. Ahead of the livestream’s kickoff, the rumor mill was bubbling with expectations of redesigned MacBook Pros and much more, the bulk of which proved relievingly prescient.
Revisit “Unleashed” above via the archived livestream. And below, see a rundown of highlights from Apple’s latest special event.
Music
Monday’s event, awesomely, opened with a garage-set sequence featuring producer and songwriter A.G. Cook crafting a song using some familiar Apple sounds. From there, Apple boss Tim Cook showed up to explain that the day’s proceedings would be focused on two key areas for the company: music and the Mac.
We then heard from Zane Lowe, who introduced new Apple Music features, all with a focus on Siri.
“Today, Apple Music and Siri deliver an effortless music experience that lets you play pretty much anything you want using just your voice,” Lowe said before introducing the new subscription for Apple Music known as the Voice Plan. “With this plan, use only your voice and the power of Siri,” he added.
The new Voice Plan runs $4.99 per month and launches later this fall. Next up was the unveiling of the HomePod mini in a variety of new colors including yellow, blue, and orange. This was followed by a look at the third generation of Apple’s most popular AirPods model, featuring an all-new design “inside and out.”
A new low-distortion driver provides a powerful bass and crisp high frequencies. The next generation is also sweat- and water-resistant, as well as newly contoured with the addition of Adaptive EQ. The third generation of AirPods start at $179 and orders begin today.
Mac
Moving to the Mac side of “Unleashed,” Cook introduced a number of key company players who helped unveil a wholly reimagined MacBook Pro. The new Pro boasts the first pro chip designed for the Mac, the M1 Pro. Billed as a “game-changer,” the new chip delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than the standard M1.
The M1 Max, meanwhile, builds on M1 Pro with up to 400 GB per second of memory bandwidth and 57 billion transistors. This, per Apple, is the largest chip the company has ever built.
These new chips, expectedly, also mean an array of improvements across macOS. And with Apple silicon, users get “way more” apps, not to mention better ones. Taking advantage of this new chapter, of course, is the all-new MacBook Pro.
The new Pro notebook comes in a 16-inch and compact 14-inch option, the latter of which has the same capabilities as the larger model. Highlights of the new MacBook pro include a wide range of ports (including an HDMI port, multiple Thunderbolt 4 ports, MagSafe, and more), a larger Liquid Retina XDR display with higher pixel density and ProMotion-boosted experiences, higher quality camera capabilities, mics with up to 60 percent lower noise floor, a vastly improved speaker system, and more.
The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999, while the 16-inch model starts at $2,499. Both models come in silver and space gray color options. Orders begin today, with availability starting next week. Hit the Apple site for more info.
On the same day Apple unveiled the products, it also released a $19.00 polishing cloth that can be used to wipe down devices. “Made with soft, nonabrasive material, the Polishing Cloth cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture glass, safely and effectively,” a description for the cloth reads on Apple’s website. You can head here to cop.
