But rather than the opening to a spooky-season film, this stew of elements was the opening to a late night Apple keynote featuring something “scary fast:” The new line of MacBook Pros, and the new 24-inch iMac powered by a “scary” first, the M3 family of Apple silicon chips. Altogether, Apple is hoping this announcement will make the upgrade from Intel-based machines eerie-sistible.
The new laptops promise all treats and no tricks. Sprinkled throughout the announcement were scary claims about the new speeds and features: “Monstrous improvements” in speed, rendering capabilities, and performance courtesy of Dynamic Caching in the M3 chip. “Multiple streams of 8K video in Premiere Pro” with the M3 Max chip-powered MacBook Pro. “Multiple streams of 4K video” in the 24-inch iMac with the M3 chip. “You’ll never hear the fans” with the new MacBook Pro. A new chemistry in the new color that reduces finger prints. The new iMac will be “2.5 faster” than the 27-inch models.
And of course, Apple promises that the new laptops won’t be goblin up your battery (get it?) and they also introduced a new boo-tiful color: Space Black.
Each new laptop came prepared with an ideal user base from Apple, like a Harry Potter-esque sorting hat, to help users choose the right new laptop. The new MacBook Pro with the M3 chip is designed for “students,” “business owners,” and “musicians,” all shared while a bassist perfected their song on a new laptop. The 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch MacBrook Pro with the M3 Pro is geared for “software developers” and “biomedical researchers,” shared while in a lab. And the MacBook Pro with the M3 Max, complete with a 128GB unified memory option introduced with the Mac Studio and ready to power four high resolution external displays, is for “AI developers, video professionals and 3D animators,” shared while a video editor tackled a scene from The Changeling. Hufflepuff Pro with the M3 chip is for…. just kidding.
The new MacBook Pros can be pre-ordered now, with laptops featuring the M3 and M3 Pro chips delivering by November 7th, and laptops with the M3 Max chip delivering in later November. The new 24-inch iMac will also boast the new M3 chip and will be available November 7th. MacBook Pro now starts at $1599 and goes up from there. Space Black is only available on the M3 Pro and M3 Max powered models (starting at $1999).
You can check out the new laptops and new iMac at Apple’s website, which was updated tonight after the keynote ended (8:33pm, Monday October 30th).
At the end of the keynote, Apple closed with perhaps the scariest claim of all: This entire event was shot on iPhone!
[Insert spooky “ooooooohhh” here!]
Was it a graveyard smash? Are the Intel-based Macs dead? Will we be bobbing for these new Apples? We’ll be sure to dive in and test them out! In the meantime, be sure to check out our comparison of the currently available Apple silicon.