Apple March 8 Event Highlights

The Apple March 8 Peek Performance Event was held yesterday and, with it, a lot of new Apple products were launched, including the new iPhone SE 3, the new iPad Air 5 with an M1 chip, and the M1-powered Mac Studio desktop computer. Here is a quick rundown of the highlights of the event.

The Apple March 8 Peek Performance Event was held yesterday and, with it, a lot of new Apple products were launched, including the new iPhone SE 3, the new iPad Air 5 with an M1 chip, and the M1-powered Mac Studio desktop computer. Here is a quick rundown of the highlights of the event.

  • First and foremost, the anticipated iPhone SE 3 was announced in yesterday’s event – the new device is powered by Apple’s A 15 Bionic, works with 5G, has received several camera updates, and has its front and back outfitted with Ceramic Shield. However, a surprising drawback of this new model is its total lack of Night mode for its camera. The device’s cost is $429.
  • Another device announced in the event is the iPad Air 5 – this new model will be powered by an M1 chip, giving it a lot more computational power compared to its predecessors. The iPad will also use 5G and will have magic keyboard support. The device’s price starts at $599.
  • Mac Studio, a third new device announced yesterday by Apple, is similar to Mac mini computers, only a lot more powerful due to being equipped with an M1 Max chip. According to Apple, the new chip will provide Mac Studio computers with 2.5 times faster CPU performance compared to the 27-inch iMac model. The starting price of Mac Studio is $1.999. Also, the machine is said to have a 3.4 faster GPU, which makes us wonder if this machine would actually be viable for gaming.
  • To complement the new Mac Studio desktop, Apple also released a new Apple Studio Display – it’s 27 inches in size, supports 5K resolution, and offers 600 nits of brightness. The monitor is also equipped with a 12MP camera and has powerful built-in speakers. The starting price of the Apple Studio Display is $1599.
  • The final highlight of the event was the Apple M1 Ultra chip – a new iteration of the M1 chip that’s significantly more powerful. The Apple M1 Ultra packs 20 cores, has a 64-core GPU, and a Neural Engine with 32 cores. The chip has a total of 128 GB of unified memory and will be built into the $3.999 configuration of the Mac Studio desktop. We will have a more in-depth look at the new M1 Ultra chip – if you are interested in learning more about it, stay tuned.

Something that was done quietly by Apple alongside the release of the MacStudio desktop was the retirement of the 27-inch iMac, which can no longer be found on the Apple Store. It is assumed that the main reason for the retirement of the older iMac is in accordance with the overall tendency that Apple has of retiring its Intel-based computers in favor of its new M1 machines, so the removal of the 27-inch iMac from the Apple Store shouldn’t come as a surprise.