Apple Announcements From WWDC 2022
In this article, we have been reporting live as Apple makes their announcements in the keynote address for this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. Apple has announced a new M2 chip and 2 laptops, a new 13.6-inch MacBook Air and a new M2 powered 13-inch MacBook Pro. In addition, Apple has announced macOS 13, which they have called macOS Ventura. We have all the details…
M2 Processor Announced
The M2 System on a Chip (SoC) has the same number of cores as the original M1 chip (8) with 4 high-performance cores and 4 high-efficiency cores as does the M1 but runs faster and comes with more graphics cores, with 9 or 10 GPU cores, up from the 7 or 8 that came with the M. The M2 SoC has 24GB of unified LPDDR5 memory, up 8GB from the M1.
Built using second-generation 5-nanometer technology, Apple’s M2 takes their performance per watt of M1 even further with an 18% faster CPU, a 35% more powerful GPU, and a 40% faster Neural Engine.
It also delivers 50% more memory bandwidth compared to M1, and up to 24GB of fast unified memory. M2 brings all of this, plus new custom technologies and greater efficiency, to the completely redesigned MacBook Air and updated 13-inch MacBook Pro. Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of Hardware Technologies told us…
“M2 starts the second generation of M-series chips and goes beyond the remarkable features of M1. With our relentless focus on power-efficient performance, M2 delivers a faster CPU, GPU, and Neural Engine. And along with higher memory bandwidth and new capabilities like ProRes acceleration, M2 continues the tremendous pace of innovation in Apple silicon for the Mac.”
The system-on-a-chip (SoC) design of M2 is built using enhanced, second-generation 5-nanometer technology, and consists of 20 billion transistors, which is 25% more than M1. The additional transistors improve features across the entire chip, including the memory controller that delivers 100GB/s of unified memory bandwidth, 50% more than M1. And with up to 24GB of fast unified memory, M2 has been designed to handle even larger and more complex workloads.
The new M2 features faster performance cores paired with a larger cache, while the efficiency cores have been significantly enhanced for even greater performance gains. Together, they deliver 18% greater multithreaded performance than M1, so M2 can handle CPU-intensive tasks using very little power, like creating music with layers of effects or applying complex filters to photos.
Compared with the latest 10-core PC laptop chip, the CPU in M2 provides nearly twice the performance at the same power level. And, M2 delivers the peak performance of the PC chip while using just a quarter of the power. When compared to the latest 12-core PC laptop chip, Apple claims the M2 provides nearly 90% of the peak performance of the 12-core chip while using just one-quarter of the power.
M2 also features Apple’s next-generation GPU with up to 10 cores, which is 2 more two more than the M1. Combined with a larger cache and higher memory bandwidth, the 10-core GPU is designed to deliver a boost in graphics performance, bringing up to 25% more graphics performance than M1 at the same power level, and up to 35% better performance at its max power.
Compared with the integrated graphics of the latest PC laptop chip, Apple claims that the GPU in M2 delivers 2.3x faster performance at the same power level, and matches its peak performance using a fifth of the power. The higher performance per watt from M2 enables systems to have exceptional battery life, and run cool and quietly, even when playing graphics-intensive games or editing massive RAW images.
M2 brings Apple’s latest custom technologies to the Mac, enabling new capabilities, better security, and more…
The Neural Engine can process up to 15.8 trillion operations per second — over 40 percent more than M1.
The media engine includes a higher-bandwidth video decoder, supporting 8K H.264 and HEVC video.
Apple’s powerful ProRes video engine enables playback of multiple streams of both 4K and 8K video.
Apple’s latest Secure Enclave provides best-in-class security.
A new image signal processor (ISP) delivers better image noise reduction.
M2 MacBook Air Announced
Apple has announced a new MacBook Air with the next generation Apple Silicon - M2.
The new MacBook Air brings a new design to the range, not dissimilar to the latest MacBook Pros Apple has dropped the traditional wedge-shaped chassis and is thinner and comes in four colours, two USB-C ports, Magsafe charging, Touch ID with a 13.6-inch LCD display. The MacBook Air offers up to 20 hours of battery life, so you can work on the go for even longer.
The MacBook Air comes with two USB-C ports, Magsafe charging, Touch ID and Face Match, just like the recently released MacBook Pro cousins. The new chassis measures just 11.3mm and weighs in at just 2.7 pounds. When it comes to colours, in addition to silver and space gray, MacBook Air is now available in two new finishes — midnight and starlight.
It now has a new fast charge option that charges to 50% in just 30 minutes with a 67-watt adapter and what’s more it’s a fanless laptop making it great for recording with the computer in the room.
For us pro-audio users the MacBook Air’s headphone jack supports high-impedance headphones.
Additionally, the Magic Keyboard features a full-height function row with Touch ID, and a spacious, industry-leading Force Touch trackpad.
The new 2022 MacBook Air includes a new 1080p FaceTime HD camera with a larger image sensor and more efficient pixels, designed to deliver twice the resolution and low-light performance of the previous generation. Combined with the processing power of the advanced image signal processor on M2, users should look great on video calls.
The new MacBook Air also features a four-speaker sound system. To fit inside such a thin design, the speakers and mics are completely integrated between the keyboard and display, all while delivering an even better audio experience. A three-mic array captures clean audio using advanced beamforming algorithms, while the speakers produce improved stereo separation and vocal clarity. MacBook Air also supports immersive Spatial Audio for music and movies with Dolby Atmos.
The new Air offers a number of charging options, including an all-new 35W compact power adapter with two USB-C ports, so users can charge two devices at once. And for the first time, MacBook Air supports fast charge for charging up to 50% in just 30 minutes with an optional 67W USB-C power adapter.
MacBook Air M2 performance:
For intensive workloads like editing complex timelines in Final Cut Pro, performance is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation, and up to 15x faster for customers that haven’t upgraded to Apple silicon.
Apple claims that applying filters and effects in apps like Adobe Photoshop is up to 20% faster than before, and up to 5x faster for customers that haven’t yet upgraded to Apple silicon.
And even with a larger display and increased performance, MacBook Air has been designed to deliver the same great, all-day battery life as before, with up to 18 hours of video playback.
Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing told us…
“We’re so excited to bring our new M2 chip to the world’s two most popular laptops — the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Completely redesigned around M2, MacBook Air is thinner, lighter, and faster with a bigger display, better camera, and all-day battery life, in four beautiful finishes. Only with Apple silicon can you build such a thin and light notebook with a fanless design, and this combination of performance and capabilities. M2 also comes to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, featuring incredible performance, ProRes acceleration, up to 24GB of memory, and up to 20 hours of battery life — making our most portable pro notebook even better.”
M2 13” MacBook Pro Announced
The new MacBook Pro 13” also now comes with an M2 chip which comes with active cooling to sustain maximum performance. Like the MacBook Air, it also comes with 24GB of unified memory and still comes with the Touch Bar which wasn’t expected.
Apple is promising a 40% improvement over the last generation of MacBook Pro.
With a faster 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU, working with RAW images in apps like Affinity Photo is nearly 40% faster than the previous generation, and up to 3.4x faster for users who are upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
Playing graphics-intensive games like Baldur’s Gate 3 is also nearly 40% faster than the previous 13-inch MacBook Pro, and up to 3.3x faster for customers upgrading from a model without Apple silicon.
With an active cooling system, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is designed to sustain its pro performance.
Thanks to M2, the 13-inch MacBook Pro also supports up to 24GB of unified memory — along with 50% more memory bandwidth, making multitasking and working with large assets superfluid.
With support for ProRes encode and decode in the media engine of M2, users can play back up to 11 streams of 4K and up to two streams of 8K ProRes video and they can convert their video projects to ProRes nearly 3x faster than before.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers phenomenal battery life with up to 20 hours of video playback.
Single External Display Support
The tech specs on Apple's website confirm that both 2022 laptops officially support only a single external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz just like the previous MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro models with the M1 chip supported just a single external display, but it was discovered that multiple displays can be connected to these notebooks with the use of DisplayLink adapters, and it is expected that this will still work for the new M2 Macs.
The higher-end 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models support up to two external displays with the M1 Pro chip, and up to four with the M1 Max chip.
2022 MacBook Air And MacBook Pro Pricing
The MacBook Air starts at $1199 or $1099 for education. The MacBook Pro 13" starts at $1299 and $1199 for education and will be available next month. The original MacBook Air M1 stays in the lineup at $999 or $899 for education, but this is the model with 7 GPU cores. Apple has discontinued the M1 model that had 8 GPU cores.
In the Apple Store, you can still only view pricing for the 2 new M2-powered Apple laptops
M2 13-Inch MacBook Pro UPDATE 16th June 2022
Apple has announced that it will be possible to start pre-ordering the M2-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro from 5 am PDT on Friday 17th June 2022 with delivery to customers starting on Friday 24th June 2022. It will also be available from Apple Authorized Resellers around the world from the same dates.
Steps To Make Pre-Ordering Easier
If you are planning to pre-order a new MacBook pro then there are several things it is worth doing as soon as possible to make it as easy as possible to complete your pre-order as we expect there to be a rush.
How to check your Apple Store account…
Click on this link to find the summary of your Apple account activities.
Log in with your password or touch or Face ID.
Check whether your delivery address is still correct.
Check whether a current credit card is listed as the payment method.
Save the model you want in the Apple Store app
Set your alarm for Friday - Especially if you are on the west coast of the US, you might want to set an alarm. as the new MacBook Pro will go on sale at 5 a.m. PT. (6am MDT, 7am CDT and 8am EDT). In the U.K., that is 1 pm and 10 pm in Sydney Australia. The sooner you get your order in, the sooner you will get your shiny new M2 MacBook Pro.
M2 13.6-Inch MacBook Air
There is still no announcement on when it will be possible to pre-order the new M2-powered MacBook Air. Apple did say in the WWDC 2022 keynote that both machines would be available in July, but it’s not clear whether that means available to pre-order or to actually buy.
macOS 13 Announced
Apple today previewed macOS Ventura, the latest macOS desktop operating system, designed to take the Mac experience to a whole new level.
Stage Manager has been designed to give Mac users an all-new way to stay focused on the task in front of them while seamlessly switching between apps and windows.
Continuity Camera uses iPhone as the webcam on Mac to do things that were never possible before, and with Handoff coming to FaceTime, users can start a FaceTime call on their iPhone or iPad and fluidly pass it over to their Mac.
Mail and Messages come with great new features that make the apps better than ever, including in Mail, being able to call back an email you have just sent as well as improved Search options in Mail.
Next Safari which Apple claims is the fastest browser, as well as being power efficient and a “trailblazer in privacy”. Apple is now on a mission to replace passwords for good, by introducing Passkeys. You can use Touch ID or Face ID to authenticate. A digital key is created, and can't be phished. It works in Apps and on the web and Apple have worked with Fido Alliance to work across platforms.
And with the power and popularity of Apple silicon, and new developer tools in Metal 3, gaming on Mac has never been better.
Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of Software Engineering told us…
“macOS Ventura includes powerful features and new innovations that help make the Mac experience even better. New tools like Stage Manager make focusing on tasks and moving between apps and windows easier and faster than ever, and Continuity Camera brings new videoconferencing features to any Mac, including Desk View, Studio Light, and more.
With helpful new features in Messages, state-of-the-art search technologies in Mail, and an updated design for Spotlight, Ventura has so much to offer and enriches many of the ways customers use their Macs.”
More features coming with macOS Ventura…
Live Text uses on-device intelligence to recognize text in images across the system, and now adds support for paused video frames, as well as Japanese and Korean text. Users can also now lift the subject away from an image and drop it into another app. And Visual Look Up expands its recognition capabilities to now include animals, birds, insects, statues, and even more landmarks.
The Weather and Clock apps, with all the features users know and love from iPhone, have been optimized for Mac.
New accessibility tools include Live Captions for all audio content, Type to Speak on calls, Text Checker to support proofreading for VoiceOver users, and more.7
System Settings is the new name for System Preferences, and comes with a refreshed and streamlined design that is easier to navigate and instantly familiar to iPhone and iPad users.
macOS security gets even stronger with new tools that make the Mac more resistant to attack, including Rapid Security Response that works in between normal updates to easily keep security up to date without a reboot.
With macOS 13 Ventura, Apple has dropped support for Macs from 2014 to 2016. This is the full compatibility list published by Apple…
iMac (2017 and later)
iMac Pro
MacBook Air (2018 and later)
MacBook Pro (2017 and later)
Mac Pro (2019 and later)
Mac mini (2018 and later)
MacBook (2017 and later)
macOS Ventura will be available on a Mac near you sometime this Autumn.
Nearly all the iOS announcements were not directly relevant to the pro audio industry but one is worth highlighting because when it comes to rendering immersive audio to binaural for use with headphones, there’s a limit to how accurate the sense of ‘position’ or ‘3D’ the audio can be without taking into account the unique shape of the user’s head and ears.
During the WWDC 2022 keynote address, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering Craig Federighi briefly mentioned that in iOS 16, users will be able to use the iPhone's TrueDepth camera to scan your ears and then create a personalised spatial audio profile.
Although not specifically spelt out in the keynote, this is likely to be implemented as a Head-related Transfer Function, known as an HRTF.
Apple isn’t the first to use a camera to create a personalised HRTF (PHTRF). Genelec with Aural ID were early adopters and more recently Dolby got in the game with Dolby Atmos Personalised Rendering
Apple says that the tuned spatial audio feature brings an even more precise listening experience.