The Apple 2021 Fall Mac Event Live Blog 10am PT (17:00 UTC)

12:57PM EDT - Following last month’s announcement event of Apple’s newest iPhone and iPad line-ups, today we’re seeing Apple hold its second fall event, where we expect the company to talk about all new things Mac. Last year’s event was a historic one, with Apple introducing the M1 chip and new powered Mac devices, marking the company’s move away from x86 chips from Intel, taking instead their own future in their hands with their own custom Arm silicon. This year, we’re expecting more chips and more devices, with even more performance to be release. Stay tuned as we cover tonight’s show.

12:58PM EDT - We're about to start so hold on to your seats.

01:00PM EDT - And here we go

01:01PM EDT - Intro video starting, retro reminder about the Mac bootup sound was created.

01:01PM EDT - Apple is starting with the ususal artistic-styled opening video, this time playing with the Mac startup sound

01:02PM EDT - Tim taking the stage.

01:02PM EDT - And here's Tim Cook

01:02PM EDT - Focusing on two areas: Music and Mac

01:03PM EDT - Music production on Mac has always been quite prevalent due to many professional editing tools.

01:03PM EDT - Talking about music consumption in all of Apple's devices as well as Apple Music

01:04PM EDT - "Taking the Apple Music experience forward"

01:05PM EDT - Apple Music integration into Siri for a music assistance experience

01:05PM EDT - New Apple Music plan "Voice plan"

01:06PM EDT - New Apple Music plan that is only accessible over Siri

01:06PM EDT - Moving fast onto the Homepod Mini

01:07PM EDT - New colours for HomePod Mini - infused into the mesh fabric

01:09PM EDT - $99 starting in November

01:09PM EDT - Tim talking about AirPods now - some exciting news coming up

01:10PM EDT - Talking about spatial audio Dolby Atmos mastered audio content.

01:11PM EDT - 3rd Generation AirPods

01:11PM EDT - "New AirPods with Spatial Audio"

01:12PM EDT - Force Sensor on the side for control

01:12PM EDT - Newly redesigned dynamic driver for better audio quality.

01:13PM EDT - Adaptive EQ integration - this is actually a huge deal.

01:13PM EDT - Adaptive EQ is able to adapt the frequency response to your ears for a better accurate audio experience.

01:14PM EDT - $179 - orders starting today and availability next week.

01:14PM EDT - Moving onto Mac - the meat of the show

01:15PM EDT - "Tight integration between hardware and software that is unprecedented"

01:15PM EDT - One year since the introduction of the M1

01:15PM EDT - Mac had its best year ever since the M1 introduction

01:16PM EDT - Hints at a new MacBook Pro

01:16PM EDT - "Reimagining the MacBook Pro"

01:16PM EDT - "M1 Pro" - next chip in M1 family

01:16PM EDT - Johny Srouji taking the stage

01:17PM EDT - "The M1 has shocked the PC world"

01:17PM EDT - "Some users need even more"

01:17PM EDT - M1 Pro is all bout more power

01:17PM EDT - Contrasting CPU and discrete GPUs in traditional architectures

01:19PM EDT - 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU

01:19PM EDT - Two new chips

01:20PM EDT - M1 MAX

01:20PM EDT - Based on M1 Pro, but bigger

01:20PM EDT - 57 billion transistors

01:21PM EDT - 32-core GPU

01:21PM EDT - "Industry leading performance per watt"

01:21PM EDT - "Crushes the competition"

01:22PM EDT - 1.7x the perf/w than the competition

01:23PM EDT - 100W less power than a comparable discrete GPU setup at 160W

01:24PM EDT - 2.5x to 3x faster GPU speed at comparable power levels

01:24PM EDT - "The world's most powerful chip for a notebook"

01:24PM EDT - "These new chips are phenomenal"

01:25PM EDT - "Improvements across the system in the most demanding apps"

01:25PM EDT - Intelligent allocation and scheduling between performance and efficiency cores

01:26PM EDT - ML 3-20x faster than a Core i9

01:27PM EDT - All Pro apps optimised for M1 Pro and M1 Max

01:27PM EDT - 10000 universal apps now available - meaning both x86 and Arm binary compatible

01:28PM EDT - Catching up the fast pace here - the 57bn transistor M1 MAX is quite insane and vastly exceeds anything else on the market - we're not longer talking a SoC with a GPU but a GPU with a SoC alongside it

01:30PM EDT - Apple's GPU wattage comparisons would point out peak performance around that of a Radeon 6700

01:30PM EDT - "it's just awesome for our vision for Apple Silicon come to life"

01:30PM EDT - Moving onto the MacBook Pro itself

01:32PM EDT - 16" and new 14" models

01:32PM EDT - The 14" model would offer amazing performance in in the package

01:32PM EDT - New thermal design and fans that are super quiet

01:33PM EDT - TouchBar has been retired for normal keys

01:33PM EDT - Connectivity next

01:34PM EDT - on one side, HDMI, USB-C, and SDcard reader

01:34PM EDT - Two USB-C, 3.5mm and Magsafe on the other side

01:35PM EDT - 2 ProDisplay XDR for M1 Pro, 3 of them for M1 MAX

01:35PM EDT - "New breathtaking display"

01:35PM EDT - Thinner bezels, but now has a camera notch.

01:36PM EDT - Static pixel density between the 16" and 14" models, with different resolutions.

01:36PM EDT - Static pixel density between the 16" and 14" models, with different resolutions.

01:36PM EDT - 120Hz refresh rate

01:37PM EDT - 10-bit panel for 1bn colours

01:37PM EDT - Mini-LED backlight

01:38PM EDT - "Thousands of mini LEDs"

01:38PM EDT - "Extreme dynamic range"

01:38PM EDT - New camera and audio system next

01:39PM EDT - 2x better low-light performance and 1080p

01:40PM EDT - 4-speaker with tweeters and woofers

01:40PM EDT - 80% more bass, and deeper frequencies

01:42PM EDT - Huge performance claims both on CPU and GPU - 4x a Radeon 5600M

01:43PM EDT - 64GB DRAM on the M1 MAX

01:44PM EDT - 7.4GB/s SSD points at PCIe 4.0 4x or 3.0 8x

01:44PM EDT - 2x better Lightroom Classic, 4x code compile in Xcode battery life

01:45PM EDT - 21 hours video battery life on the 16" model

01:45PM EDT - "The new MacBook Pro is simply extraordinary"

01:48PM EDT - $1999 and $2499

01:48PM EDT - "A huge step in the Mac's transition to Apple Silicon"

01:50PM EDT - That's a wrap for today's show - stay tuned for our articles.