Apple held their opening event for WWDC 2023 this morning. The announced quite a few things both hardware and software in a little over two hours. Let’s take a look at everything they announced today. Also if you have not watched the keynote and are interested, you can watch it below:
Computers
MacBook Air 15″ – Apple started off the event by introducing a new bigger MacBook air, the 15 inch version of the “best selling” laptop. The MacBook Air 13″ and 15″ share the same M2 Chip and Apple claims 18 hours of battery life for the systems. They are available in Midnight, Starlight, Space Gray and Silver. The screen is a liquid retina display with a max of 500 nit of brightness. The laptop only weighs 3.3 pounds, has two Thunderbolt 4 ports, a headphone jack and MagSafe charging. Pricing will start at $1,299 for 8gb of ram and a 256gb SSD and $1,499 for 8gb of ram and 512gb SSD and is available for pre-order today. You can upgrade the ram in your system from 8gb to 16gb for an additional $200 which is quite ridiculous with ram prices where they are right now. On the base model, the SSD can also be upgraded and is an additional $200 to go from 256gb to 512gb, $400 from 256gb to 1tb and $800 from 256gb to 2tb.
Mac Studio – Apple unveiled the second-gen Mac Studio today. The small but powerful computers gets the M2 Max or M2 Ultra chip variants. The M2 Max is a 12 core CPU with up to a 38 core GPU baked in and up to 96gb of unified memory (ram) and a 400GB/s memory bandwidth while the M2 Ultra is a 24 core CPU with up to a 76 core GPU and up to 192gb of unified memory with a 800GB/s memory bandwidth. Apple claims that the Max version is up to 50% faster than the first-gen Mac Studio and 4x faster than the most powerful Intel 27″ iMac. I found that to be a weird comparison as they have effectively discontinued Intel macs and this would be to move those holding on to the new Apple silicon Macs. The new Mac Studio can also support up to 8K resolution and 240Hz frame rates. These will be available for pre-orders next week and start at $1,999.
Mac Pro – Apple rolled out the Mac Pro with Apple Silicon today. The case is still the updated “cheese grater” from the latest Mac Pro. Apple says the Mac Pro is a game-changing combination of Apple silicon and PCIe expansion for specialized workflows. The system comes with the M2 Ultra chip. The system starts at $6,9999 for the M2 Ultra with 24 core CPU, 60 core GPU and 32 core Neural Engine. Add $1,000 for the fully decked out M2 Ultra. For Ram, it comes with 64gb or can be upgraded to 128gb for an additional $800 or 192gb for $1,600. For storage, the system comes with 1tb and can be upgraded to 2tb for $400, 4tb for $1,000 and 8tb for $2,200. The wheels will still cost you a cool $400 and a rack mount kit is also available. The PCI expansion has seven slots total, six are PCIe gen 4. The slots are One PCIe x4 gen 3 for the Apple I/O card, four PCIe x8 gen 4 slots, two single height and two double height and two PCIe x16 gen four slots both double height. The system is available for order today.
Software
MacOS Sonoma – Apple unveiled the newest version of MacOS today during WWDC 2023. MacOS 14 is named Sonoma. Sonoma brings new slow-motion screen savers to your Mac display. Sonoma also brings widgets to the desktop. You are able to place widgets all around your desktop and as one is in use the others fade in color. You will be able to access iPhone widgets on your Mac with Continuity. Video conferencing will get a Presenter Overlay mode that puts you on top of the content you are sharing. You can also use your hands to add effects such as two thumbs up will cause fireworks behind you. This will work with popular conference apps such as Zoom and Teams. Safari now adds profiles which you are able to quickly switch between and can house unique cookies, favorites and more. Apple has also added the ability to have any website function like an app by adding web apps to the dock. MacOS Sonoma adds Game Mode as well. Game Mode will automatically give games top priority of your CPU and GPU, lowering the usage for background tasks.
WatchOS 10 – Just like Sonoma, the Apple Watch is getting widgets. These widgets will not take up the screen unless you chose to and will be in a Smart Stack that can be scrollable using the Digital Crown. By using machine learning, the most used or relevant widgets will come up first when scrolling. Apps are being redesigned to accomodate larger screens on the Apple Watch and provide more information to the user on the screen. Snoopy and Woodstock are coming to watch faces with the new update. Fitness updates are coming as well with cycling getting Power Zones showing the highest level of intensity you can maintain for an hour as well as information on the Power Zones for you to track your performance. Hiking will have new views in the Compass app where you can see a three-dimensional view of where you have been using Elevation views. Estimates of where you last had cell reception via Waypoints is also new. You can search for and get important details of nearby trails including the name, length, time, elevation gain, difficulty, photos and more. Once thing I was excited to see is Apple focusing on Mental Health. You are able to scroll through visuals and select how you are feeling to log your emotions and mood. WatchOS 10 is also getting offline maps and video message playback and audio calls on the watch face itself.
iPadOS 17 – iPadOS also gets more widgets. Widgets are now interactive and do not need to open the app to interact with them. The lock screen is getting a redesign, you can choose new live photo wallpaper or Kaleidoscope which animates as you rotate your iPad. You can get Live Activities such as scores or food orders right from the lock screen as well as widgets on the lock screen. You can record a video or audio message when someone misses your FaceTime call. You will be able to use FaceTime from your Apple TV as well using the camera from your device and the TV as a screen. iPad is also getting the Health app now just like the iPhone and Watch. The majority of the updates will be the same as iOS17
iOS 17 – iOS 17 allows you to personalize your phone calls and customize what people see when you are calling them. Standby mode is coming, when you turn your iPhone on its side while charging more information is showing on the screen. Interactive widgets are coming. NameDrop is comign as well, you can hold your iPhone next to someone else’s iPhone or Watch and you can share phone numbers and email address with them as well as your contact poster. Journal is also coming which is an app to journal your moments and preserve memories.
One More Thing
Apple rolled out the One More Thing tagline for their new Apple Vision Pro during WWDC 2023. Apple is calling this spatial computing. Apple said during WWDC 2023 that this device will seamlessly blend digital content with your physical space. You will navigate by using your voice, eyes and hands. The headset is a stand alone device that has an external battery connect via cable to the headset. The battery will provide up to 2 hours of use. The headset has a feature called EyeSight which allows people to see the users eyes when talking or interacting with them. The user has control and can have the headset be dark or show something else when you are fully immersed in an app or experience. The device is a singular piece of three-dimensionally formed laminated glass in an aluminum alloy frame. It uses a light seal to conform to your face and block out stray light. The headband provides cushioning, breathability and stretch. It has a fit dial that lets you adjust to your head precisely. There are speakers positioned near your ears which will provide spatial audio while keeping you aware of your surroundings. Apple notes that it uses a custom micro-OLED display system that provides more pixels than a 4K TV for each eye.
The unit will have a high performance eye tracking system of LEDs and infrared cameras project invisible light patterns onto each eye allowing for ultra precise input without needing to hold any controllers. It will feature a new R1 chip paired with an M2 chip. The R1 is dedicated to process input from the camera array, sensors and microphones for a virtually lag-free real-time view of the world. This will start at $3,499 for the unit and will be available early next year.
Thoughts
My overall thoughts are that I was disappointed a bit with WWDC 2023. On the computer side of things, there still is no announcement of a 27 inch Apple Silicon iMac. I feel that a 27 inch iMac is a necessity in the market place. With the amount of content people are ingesting, I don’t think a 24 inch is the only option that should be available for people. On the software side of things, I have felt for a long time that at times Apple lags behind in certain aspects. Chrome has the ability for profiles for quite a bit now and Apple is just getting there in Safari. Typically when Apple adds a feature it is done well for the most part and I was really excited to see the inclusion of Mental Health care into the Apps for iPhone/Watch/iPad. Mental health is something that is not taken seriously enough in the world and I am glad Apple is taking a lead on this in the tech space. Now for the big ticket item, the Apple Vision Pro. I am torn with this one for a variety or reasons. The cinema thing is quite cool, and they showed someone using it on a plane which would make a ton of sense. The battery seems lackluster especially considering that it is an external pack. While I am sure we will get more details for this as we ramp up to it being available, I would like to see more use for it other than just computing. I think this would be an amazing gaming headset if Apple was not anti-game. I mean using this in Fortnite or Call of Duty or something like that would be absolutely amazing but you would need to be able to use them on the unit. One thing not mentioned as if it is a standalone, what is the storage capacity and all that. I am interested in learning more about this product.
What are your thoughts about WWDC 2023? Let us know in the comments below or hit us up on our Twitter account. As always stay tuned to Culture Splat for more content coming your way! Also don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel as we have some new content coming your way this week!
