Apple Silicon has made waves when it comes to SoCs (Systems on a Chip). It has created a standard for power efficiency and performance that the industry lacked. Now, with its fourth generation, the Apple M4 is looking to create an even larger gap with improved GPU architecture and the fastest Neural Engine in the company’s repertoire.
The Apple M4 chip is built using the company’s second generation 3nm architecture. It comes with a 10-core CPU, a 10-core GPU and the fastest Neural engine that Apple has created yet. The M4 consists of 28 billion transistors built with 3nm technology that allows for better power efficiency.
The 10-core CPU consists of four performance cores and six efficiency cores that help forge a delicate balance between performance and power efficiency. These cores are able to process higher workloads and better predict branches and have a wider decode and execution engines. Also featured on both cores are next-generation Machine Learning (ML) accelerators. Thanks to this, the M4 is able to deliver 1.5x the performance of the M2.
The M4’s 10-core GPU is built on the next-generation graphics architecture that was first featured in the M3. This architecture gives a significant boost to performance through Dynamic Caching. This process allocates memory dynamically in hardware and in real time resulting in an substantial increase in GPU utilisation. The new GPU also enables hardware-accelerated ray tracing, a first on the iPad line up. This enables more realistic shadows and reflections in games like Diablo Immortal as well as other graphically rich experiences. The GPU is also able to better process and reproduce graphically intense scene and workloads thank to hardware-accelerated mesh shading. The performance of the GPU is increased by up to four times on apps like Octane.
The Neural Engine on the Apple M4 is able to process 38 trillion operations a second. That’s 60 times faster than the A11 Bionic which featured the first generation Neural Engine. This combined with the ML accelerators, the CPU and the GPU make this processor Apple’s best processor for AI workloads. This is utilised in iPadOS with features like Live Captions which can generate captions in real time or visual look up that help identify items in videos or pictures.
The M4 also brings hardware acceleration for Apple’s AV1 code to the iPad for the first time. The media engine of the M4 also supports codecs like H.264, HEVC and ProRes.
Apple’s “Scary Fast” event brought us a family of new processors that up the ante when it comes to performance. The new M3 series of processors, consisting of the M3, M3 Pro and the M3 Max, bring along a bevvy of features and optimisations that empower a significant leap over the M1 and even M2’s performance.
The new M3 family of Apple silicone is the first system on a chip (SoC) to utilise the 3nm process in fabrication. This allows Apple to fit more transistors into a smaller space while increasing the processing speed and efficiency. The increased number of transistors has also resulted in the GPU and NPU of the M3 family getting a supercharge.
Apple is touting that the new M3 family of SoCs bring a whole new level of GPU performance with rendering speeds of up to 2.5x faster than the M1 family. This is made possible by a new feature called Dynamic Caching that allocates the use of local memory for processing in real-time. Dynamic Caching ensures that the exact amount of memory needed for the task is used. This feature is made readily available for developers to leverage. It’s also the cornerstone of Apple silicone’s new generation of GPUs.
Source: Apple
Together with this, hardware-accelerated ray tracing is also coming to Apple silicon. Ray tracing will allow programs to render light more realistically and accurately. With ray tracing, designers and developers are able to create more true-to-life renderings and images. If you’re wondering why this sounds so familiar, it’s currently the big thing in gaming. Speaking of, Apple does say that the M3 SoCs are built to handle gaming as well. It will be the first family of Apple silicone SoCs to have gaming specifically on its radar. That said, Baldur’s Gate does run on the Mac running Apple’s M1 and M2 family already.
Source: Apple
In addition, the M3 family is also enabling mesh shading in Macs. This will help deliver more visually complex scenes and more complex geometric workloads when rendering. The M3 family is also far more power efficient handling the same workloads as the M1 with half the power consumption and up to 65% more performance at its peak.
Apple touts that the new M3 chips perform up to 30% faster than the M1 chips and 15% faster than the M2 chips. This is thanks to the new architecture being used in the M3 chips. This performance increase is also seen in efficiency cores of the M3 family resulting in better multithreading performance with up to 35% more performance at its peak.
Source: Apple
Apple is also pushing its boundaries by upping the ante with its Unified Memory Architecture. The M3 family now supports up to 128GB of memory. This will be able to deliver even faster workloads without the need for copying instructions and datasets multiple times. What’s even more significant is the workloads that are enabled with the larger memory available. AI developers will be able to execute larger transformer models with larger amounts of parameters with increased memory support.
Together with the improvements for the CPU and GPU, the NPUs on the M3 family are also getting a bump in performance. The M3 family’s NPU is up to 60% faster than the M1 family and 15% faster than the M2 family. All three chips also come with an advanced media engine which provides hardware acceleration for the most popular video codecs including H.264, HEVC, ProRes and ProRes RAW.
Apple’s WWDC 2023 seems to be a big one. They announced a new iOS. They also announced their ultra-powerful (no pun intended) Apple M2 Ultra integrated chip that powers their newly announced Mac Studio desktop beast. The most shocking and interesting announcement they did though is not their new large format desktop with their most powerful integrated chip ever. They announced a sort of wearable headset that comes packing two processors. They call it the Vision Pro.
They referred to the Apple Vision Pro not really as a Virtual Reality (VR) or Augmented Reality (AR) machine though, funnily enough. They referred to the headset as a Spatial Computing tool, a sort of headset that “seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world”. So, an AR goggle it is, except it is a little different compared to the VR/AR goggles that we are used to these days.
Instead of dedicated controllers or physical navigation interfaces, the main interface with Vision Pro is gestures. You can technically connect other form of controller interfaces with the Apple Vision Pro, especially if you want to play traditional games on it. But it is designed to be controlled via your body and hand gestures almost entirely.
We mentioned two processors powering this new Vision Pro. It comes with an Apple standard M2 silicon integrated chip. Alongside that chip is Apple’s R1 chip. The R1 chip works alongside the M2 as an image controller and processor. Instead of crunching mathematical issues like the M2, the R1 controls feeds from 12 different cameras, five sensors, and six microphones that translates to navigation across the interface on the Vision Pro.
Source: Apple
For the Vision Pro, they introduced an entirely new interface they call the VisionOS. They say that the the VisionOS will have access to the App Store and most of the apps made for the iPhone and the iPad. It even has access to FaceTime and allows you to take FaceTime calls with Spatial Audio if you like. Rather than your participants watching you wear a comically large headset, they see you as an avatar that you commonly see in iMessage. Your participants even get to see the entire body being represented in the video call with all the delicate finger movements and everything thanks to the highly advanced cameras and sensors. Apple even says that you can technically watch movies at what feels like 100-inch displays via the Vision Pro.
How they achieved this feat is by fitting two micro-OLED displays that offer up to 23 million pixels combined. Apple says that the micro-OLED displays are only at the size of a stamp and offers HDR and wide colour gamut coverage for the most accurate and immersive experience on an AR goggle you can get. They can even fit a Zeiss optical correction inserts into the Vision Pro if it is required by users. For Spatial Audio, there are speakers that are fitted right into the head band near your ears and works with the sensors within the Vision Pro to create a surround sound feel to your space. It can even be used wirelessly at up to two hours at a time. If not, just keep yourself tethered to a charge point for an all-day use. The proprietary battery pack has to be attached externally though, and you will still have a running cable from the battery pack to the headset.
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
So how much for all this innovation? A cool US$ 3,499 (MYR 16,114*), according to Apple. It will be available in the United States only for now and is only coming next year in 2024. Apple says that they will be bring the device to more regions in 2024 but did not specify which regions. We are not expecting the Vision Pro to make it into Malaysia at the same time as any other region though. There are no confirmations that the Apple Vision Pro will make it anywhere near the region too, so we are not entirely hopeful as well about its local availability. For more information on the Apple Vision Pro, you can head out to their website.
*approximately based on exchange rate of US$ 1 = MYR 4.61 as of 07/06/2023 on xe.com
We know that the Apple iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro starts at MYR 4,199 and MYR 5,299 respectively. While Apple maintained the same US$ pricing for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models, prices in Malaysia has gone up a little thanks to some shifts in currency exchange rates. The price tag, for Malaysia at least, is still a little hefty if you want to get the device directly from Apple.
Source: U Mobile
Pre-orders for Malaysia have started during the weekends (16th of September 2022 to be exact). Thankfully, you do not have to place your pre-orders specifically with Apple directly. You can do it with all the major carriers in Malaysia at this point, including U Mobile. With these network providers too, you can get your iPhone with their existing postpaid plan, so rather than paying for your iPhone in a single hefty payment, you can space out your payment together with your phone plan over a year to two years.
Source: Maxis
Maxis, Celcom, Digi, and even U Mobile has revealed their most anticipated phone plans, their postpaid plans for the upcoming Apple iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro models. The most affordable way to own an Apple iPhone 14 at this point, at least at the time of writing, is via engaging on Maxis’ Postpaid Share 48 plan. There is a small caveat here though, the Share 48 plan is technically dependent on another full Postpaid plan like the Postpaid 128. While it only gives you 30GB in monthly data quota, sharing the line with another principal line owner also allows you to share data with the principal line. On the device end, you are getting your basic Apple iPhone 14 with 128GB of storage for only MYR 116 every month. That totals to MYR 167 on a monthly basis. Once you go for the Maxis Postpaid 128 plan though, you are paying MYR 221 every month.
Source: Digi
While the Maxis Postpaid 128 plan with the iPhone 14 seems a little pricey compared to the Postpaid Share 48 plan, it is still more affordable than anything else you can find in the market at this time. The next best thing for the most basic iPhone 14 is from Digi and it totals up to MYR 240 a month. The only other network providers that allows you to own an Apple iPhone 14 for below MYR 300 is U Mobile and Celcom with their MYR 98/month plan with iPhone that will set you back a total of MYR 247 a month. These prices are exclusive of SST though, so you want to keep that in mind.
Source: Celcom
Maxis’ Postpaid Share 48 and Postpaid 128 plans still gives you access to the highest end Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max with 1TB storage. Of course, the price of the iPhone itself will shoot up to MYR 230 every month, that is on top of the MYR 48/month you pay for your data plan. That will only total up to MYR 278 every month though, still more affordable than most of the iPhone plans you can find anywhere. Of course, the price goes up to MYR 324 the moment you go for the Maxis Postpaid 128 plan. For Celcom and Digi, you are required to have their more premium Celcom MEGA 158 (worth MYR 158/month) and Digi Postpaid 120 (worth MYR 120/month) to get your hands on Apple’s iPhone 14 Pro models.
You can refer to all the installment and phone plans from Maxis, Celcom, Digi, and U Mobile on their respective websites.
Let us talk about Apple’s first foray into the silicon market – the Apple M1 chip. It was a somewhat successful endeavor. The M1 powered MacBooks proved to be rather popular among fans and even to new users. It is also the first successful implementation of a System on a Chip (SoC) solution for a major computing device with a desktop interface that is the MacOS in this case.
Of course, the success of the M1 chip also has something to do with the fact that Apple has somehow engineered the MacOS around the integrated silicon. But it also has something to do with the Apple M1’s specific build to optimise and be optimized with apps designed for MacOS.
Of course, while we expected Apple to come up with more powerful versions of their silicon last year, we were a little wrong to expect the second-generation of Apple’s silicon to be announced then. Instead, Apple launched variants of the M1 chip. You get larger footprints of the M1 that also comes with a lot more grunt from the SoC. Everything changes for 2022 though with Apple’s M2.
Welcome to the Apple M2 silicon, supposedly an evolution of the M1 chip. Obviously, it will be more powerful than the regular M1 chip. As with the M1 chip as well, the M2 will start out its life in the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Why Should You Care?
Source: Apple
PC users might snicker at the thought of an SoC running their Windows system. It is not too far-fetched of an idea though. Windows 11 seems to be more SoC friendly, and Qualcomm is working on a solution for that as we write this piece.
But the M1 is prove that an SoC can power a desktop class computing solution. The M2 just solidifies that position for Apple as the only manufacturer that dare to go beyond conventions. While Apple did point out that the M2 can game better with Metal accelerator, it still will not game like Windows PC can.
Instead, the M2 is tailor built to ensure that the MacOS is fully optimized and runs as fast as it can. The M2 chip is designed specifically to ensure that the MacOS and its apps are getting enough processing power in all the right places to ensure smooth, snappy experience. It just does everything that the M1 does, but better.
Bigger, Badder, Better
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Footprint wise, the M2 is slightly larger than the M1 chip. It is built with he second-generation 5nm technology, technically the current most advanced transistor technology. The new construction allows Apple to push the envelope a little bit with the M2.
It is supposed to be about 18% faster than the M1 in terms of CPU performance. In terms of GPU performance, it is supposed to 35% better than the older chip. The M2 is also supposed to pack a dedicated Neural Engine that is about 40% faster than before. While the M1 tops out at 16GB of memory bandwidth, the basic M2 can support up to 24GB in unified memory. You can find all 24GB powering the updated 13-inch MacBook Pro.
The larger footprint can be contributed to the fact that Apple has squeezed 25% more transistors than the M1. More transistors also means that the chip can deliver up to 100GB/s in memory bandwidth with the speedy unified memory. At the same time, with a larger cache, the M2 does not require any more power than the M1 demanded. At the same maximum power consumption. The M2 still beats out the M1 in all processor aspects.
Faster Workflow = Better Productivity
Source: Apple
The result of all that can be seen in all the Apple silicon optimized apps. Thanks to the wider bandwidth, the M2 supports up to 8K H.264 and HEVC video encoding. It is supposed to also be able to stream more 4K and 8K videos on more displays, if you can find enough dongles or displays to plug the MacBook Air or the 13-inch MacBook Pro.
At the same time, while not spoken at length, the M2 features better security all around. Apple’s Secure Enclave ensures that your data is locally stored and protected instead of it being uploaded to iCloud. Of course, to fully take advantage of the chip’s power, you need Apple’s latest MacOS Ventura.
The MacBook Air – Now a Proper Baby MacBook?
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
For the first time ever, the MacBook Air got a redesign. Instead of the wedge-shaped aluminium slate, it now looks like a thinner version of the regular MacBook. It is not a bad thing.
It now features a more updated “MacBook” look in a 13.6-inch Liquid Retina display with the weird notch in the top middle section of the display. That notch houses an 1080p Full HD FaceTime camera and other sensors.
The US 1,199 (starting from) device now looks a little more up to par to a regular MacBook too, at least on paper. It now features dour speakers and MagSafe charging has made its way back into the thinnest and lightest version of the MacBook family. There are still no fans in the notebook for any significant cooling performance, but the M2 is an SoC that does not really need a dedicate cooling fan. The MacBook Air also comes in four different colour finishes now instead of the usual two that was offered before.
In the day and age where laptops are becoming a staple in the world of content creation and professional work requirements, there are two camps. On one camp is the one that supports the PC, on the other, the side that glorifies the MacBook Pro. There are a lot of obvious bonuses with the PC market before this. Get that, before this.
Apple introduced their Apple Silicon product, the M1 chip last year in 2020 and it broke the internet. Well, not really, but it did become a headline. It is Apple’s first step in stepping away from chip manufacturers like Intel, and obviously, AMD as well. The M1 chip in the MacBook line-up, especially the MacBook Pro was a popular choice though. Content creators that rely on their MacBook Pro with M1 chips swore by the performance of the chip on their tools. They managed to make the M1 chip equipped MacBook Pro even cheaper than what they could offer with and Intel badge.
The no brainer decision buys you into a platform that is still being tested though. It was an experimental platform at best with many developers still trying to adapt their apps to run natively on the M1 chip. You sometimes forget that the M1 chip architecture is so completely different compared to other processor’s construction that apps have to work with different command lines and codes to run natively on the M1 Chip.
A year on, and there are enough apps that runs on the M1 architecture. There are more apps being added in. There are also the new kids on the block, perfect timing.
Apple M1 Max/Pro
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Before we move on, this is a deeper coverage on the MacBook Pro devices. We will be separately talk about the new M1 chips in detail in the coming days.
The new chiplets are supposed to be bigger than the original M1 chip from last year though. That also means that the new chips pack more CPU and GPU cores. The M1 Max packs 10 CPU cores and 32 GPU cores. The M1 Pro packs the same 10 cores on its CPU end but only makes do with 16 cores in its GPU module.
The integrated architecture allows the M1 Max’s GPU and CPU to have direct access and enjoy 64GB of integrated RAM. The M1 Pro will only come with up to 32GB of integrated memory. All of these leads to a huge performance leap from the original M1 from 2020.
The Apple MacBook Pro
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
Source: Apple
The Apple MacBook Pro is now available in two sizes, the 16-inch and 14-inch models. Both comes with either the M1 Pro or the M1 Max options of course. Both laptops feature a Full HD 1080p FaceTime HD camera. You also see the MagSafe 3 charging port making a comeback for magnetically attached chargers on a MacBook Pro. To be fair, it was one of the best features on a MacBook.
The MacBook Pro also packs an advanced six-speaker system with dual subwoofers for an audio experience on a laptop like no other. When people say Apple does not listen to its customers, the Apple MacBook Pro for the 2021 market proves them wrong. The annoying Touch Bar is now gone and replaced with tactile keys from a full-height magic keyboard that we are more used to.
Of course, there needs to be a lot of ports on what Apple calls a “pro notebook”. You have three Thunderbolt 4 pots on the Apple MacBook Pro. Two of them are USB Type-C ports. You also have one HDMI port on the MacBook Pro. That allows you to connect to up to four displays at a time for a five-monitor set up, as long as you have the space. You still have an SDXC card reader on the MacBook Pro too. If you have the money and space, the MacBook Pro is your best workflow powerhouse in this case.
Source: Apple
You get Retina XDR Mini LED panels on both the 16-inch and 14-inch MacBook Pro. Of course, the MacBook Pro in 16-inch clad will feature more pixels than the 14-inch, Apple style. Both displays can project up to 10-billion colours (10-bit) on the panels though.
The added power of the new variants of the M1 chip allows the MacOS on the MacBook Pro to easily work with 4K ProRes videos or even 8K ProRes videos in Final Cut Pro with no hiccups. They say it is more powerful than the Mac Pro even with Afterburner. For the first time ever as well, users can colour grade in HDR on 8K ProRes 444 video formats, even on battery.
The Apple MacBook Pro is supposed to feature improved battery too. At 21 hours of video playback, the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inch trumps any pro-level notebook PC that you can find the market, on paper at least. The 14-inch is quoted to have up to 17 hours of video playback time too. If that is not enough, you can charge the MacBook Pro via MagSafe 3 and fast charge it up to 50% in just 30 minutes.
Price and Availability
If you asked us a year ago about the MacBook Pro vs the PC laptops, we would have asked you to get the PC laptop. Right now, we are not so sure, we are tempted to get our hands on the M1 Max or M1 Pro versions of the MacBook Pro. If you are excited about it, you will be happy to know that the Apple MacBook Pro 16-inc and 14-inch will hit the shelves on the 26th of October 2021 onward. That is only the United States and selected countries though, so that is some bad news for some of us. The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at US$ 1,999 (MYR 8,799*) while the 16-inch variant starts at US$ 2,499 (MYR 19,799*). There are no word on when the MacBook Pro will officially make its way to Malaysia, but we are guessing that it is pretty soon. More information on the MacBook Pro can be found on their website.
