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Apple Event Announced for March 8: 'Peek Performance'

NightOne said:
Apple chooses their words carefully so it when I see Peek Performance

Peek = a quick and/or brief look

Performance = effectiveness / speed of a system

So a quick look at speed stuffy to come in the future? Sounds like announcements for future stuff we won't even be able to pre-order yet.

Thoughts?
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Well, they often do officially announce the new groundbreaking products before they are actually ready to order, but they usually come not long after that.

Obviously it will either be the official announcement of: not only the M1 Duo/Quadro, but at least one machine that they will come in; or the AR/VR glasses; or both. TBH, I am expecting the new Mac Pro w Duo/Quadro. My burning curiosity is how they go about providing RAM up to at least 1.5TB. My best guess is plug in non-SoC RAM on top of the up to 256GB of SoC RAM. And if so, will there also be plug in SSDs and video cards. If so, will we be seeing plug in, external AS video cards?
 
Realityck said:
A user made a thread today that the 27" Mac disappeared, but two of us a few mins after posted see the Mac store hierarchy as it normally is? Could it be?
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Another issue of not scrolling down...?

sideshowuniqueuser said:
Well, they often do officially announce the new groundbreaking products before they are actually ready to order, but they usually come not long after that.

Obviously it will either be the official announcement of: not only the M1 Duo/Quadro, but at least one machine that they will come in; or the AR/VR glasses; or both. TBH, I am expecting the new Mac Pro w Duo/Quadro. My burning curiosity is how they go about providing RAM up to at least 1.5TB. My best guess is plug in non-SoC RAM on top of the up to 256GB of SoC RAM. And if so, will there also be plug in SSDs and video cards. If so, will we be seeing plug in, external AS video cards?
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Switching to LPDDR5X RAM would provide up to 1TB RAM capacity in a quad SoC configuration...!

LPDDR5X RAM would also use 20% less power and provide 33% more speed; and it is pin-compatible with LPDDR5 RAM...!
 
Boil said:
Another issue of not scrolling down...?



Switching to LPDDR5X RAM would provide up to 1TB RAM capacity in a quad SoC configuration...!

LPDDR5X RAM would also use 20% less power and provide 33% more speed; and it is pin-compatible with LPDDR5 RAM...!
Click to expand...
Well, sure, but if the Quad is actually 4x M1 Max chips, as rumoured, then the Quadro will have 4x the RAM of the Max, thus up to 256GB. Sure, the could expand that on SoC, but then how many SoC RAM options will they offer? Just two, like the Max? Which would then be 500GB/1TB? That's quite an expensive base model, especially with the Apple tax applied.

The other thing is, the current Intel Mac Pro offers up to 1.5TB, so if the new M1 Quadro is limited to only 1TB, then that is quite an embarrassing solution.

On top of that, for customers that need that level of RAM, they also need it to be expandable, as their RAM needs can constantly change, and if Apple forces them to pre-upgrade to their future predicted needs, then the ROI could start to get questionable. I just can't see it happening, there has to be expandable RAM for the Mac Pro, the customer base simply wouldn't accept it otherwise.
 
Peek as in see into, peek inside
To see performance
Mac mini translucent color (top)
And peek inside.
 
MajorFubar said:
I had heard rumours that people exist who actually do like that goddamn awful 12" MacBook, but I have not met anyone in person. I'm going to bookmark this post so in future I can point to it when people disbelieve me, just to prove you exist :)
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Haha… the only things that sucked were it was slow and it introduced the butterfly keyboard. Both have been solved. The screen was fine (and they can put a 13” NP). Never got the single usb issue (and I used it for XCode and Android Studio development)… hub sorted me out (but sure 2 ports would be way better). Anyway in a real mobile productivity battle between iPad Pro and magic Kb vs a 12” MB and it’s the MB12 FTW… no contest.
 
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Peek-Performance-Feature.jpeg
Apple_new-m1-chip-graphic_11102020_big.jpg.large.jpg


Colors seem to match up
 
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My Uncle Sal is down at local Apple Store to check things out. Said vibe is good and workers excited about tomorrow.
 
MajorFubar said:
I had heard rumours that people exist who actually do like that goddamn awful 12" MacBook, but I have not met anyone in person. I'm going to bookmark this post so in future I can point to it when people disbelieve me, just to prove you exist :)
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I actually don't mind the design of them. I think that there could very easily be a market for it, but it was priced wrong for what it was. The Intel "Core M" couldn't handle anything demanding with the passive cooling. And having one port made no sense. To price it at $1200 for a machine that was less powerful than a MacBook Air kinda killed most of its intended market.

If they made a new one at $699 or $799 and put more ports on it and a more powerful processor (even if it were just an A15 or a stripped down M1), it would be insanely popular among students and folks who just want a portable computer to take around with decent battery life. A lot of people would buy a mac at that price point, but I don't see Apple ever really targeting that market in the Mac. It would be a costly move for them in terms of profit margins, and would eat into the MacBook Air's existing market.
 
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Velli said:
I'm puzzled by this event. I think there will be at least one unexpected surprise. I just hope the surprise is something that's coming, and not something that's NOT coming...

Timing makes sense for an M2, however the rumoured products don't make sense for such a high profile CPU launch. In my mind the M1 (and thus M2) is first and foremost a Macbook Air CPU, that is also used in various other products (the weird 13" MBP, Mac Mini, iMac, iPad Pro). I can't see them launching M2 in those other products, without launching it for Macbook Air. But rumours say the new Macbook Air is not ready yet, and they won't put M2 in the old Macbook Air and then have a new one later this year. My hope is they will launch new Macbook Air with M2 at this event, but with slightly delayed (and probably limited) shipping. Hence the "peek"?

Another option is that M2 is not at this event, and we will see new models with M1 Pro/Max, such as Mac Mini. Plus iPad Air of course. But that makes for a very weak event, unless there is something unexpected.

One thing that sprung into my mind: What if Apple has the Mx chips on a two-year core cycle? What if they are skipping a core version? Forcing themselves to update every Mac variant every year might be too aggressive, especially for the Pro/Max versions. Think about it: M1 launched just a month after the equivalent A14 in iPhone 12. A year later we got not a new core version equivalent to A15, we got more cores on the M1. The new Mac Pro will likely launch later this year with even more M1 cores. It's normal for (actual) pro products to be bulkier rather than newer technology, so lots of last years cores still outperforms a few of this years cores. Similar to Intel Xeon. In other words, a core generation takes a couple of years to fully roll out. Still, it feels wrong to launch a very expensive Mac Pro with an M1 generation chip, after you launched the M2. So, launching (even if not shipping) Mac Pro at WWDC, and then M2 in October/November after the iPhone has presented a new core generation, makes sense to me. This means, no M2 and no Macbook Air at this event.

This imaginary(!) scenario leaves us with an event that includes iPhone SE3, iPad Air, "Mac Mini Pro" with M1 Pro/Max, and a 13" MBP with M1 Pro/Max (which would differ from the rumours saying M2).

Imaginary Timeline:

October 2020: A14
November 2020: M1 (A14 based)
October 2021: A15
November(?) 2021: M1 Pro/Max
July 2022: M1 Ultra (Mac Pro)
October 2022: A16
November 2022: M2 (A16 based)
October 2023: A17
July-November 2023: M2 Pro/Max
July 2024: M2 Ultra
October 2023: A18
etc.

On the other hand, while I'm imagining things, they might be readying a scenario where the "base" M-version gets updated every year in March, based on the A-version launched in October (with the M1 being the outlier launched early). And then the Pro/Max/Ultra versions only get updated every other year. This makes the timing now right for M2, and for a Macbook Air that SHOULD have been at this event, but wasn't ready (or is it?)

All this to say, launching the M2 without a Macbook Air doesn't seem right.
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I was wrong in a few details here, but in broad terms I would argue that the sentiment behind my post here is accurate.
 
So what was behind the wordplay for "peek"? Were they referring to their stupid shows? If so, apple's marketing team has really gotten lame and desperate as of late
 
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hoodafoo said:
So what was behind the wordplay for "peek"? Were they referring to their stupid shows? If so, apple's marketing team has really gotten lame and desperate as of late
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I‘m struggling to understand the significance of “peek.” They didn’t give a preview of a future product, and none of the enclosures is transparent. I guess we got to see inside the Mac Studio and the processors, but they usually show that stuff.
 
verdi1987 said:
I‘m struggling to understand the significance of “peek.” They didn’t give a preview of a future product, and none of the enclosures is transparent. I guess we got to see inside the Mac Studio and the processors, but they usually show that stuff.
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Their slogans seldom mean much of anything. It’s just Kremlinology.
 
cmaier said:
Their slogans seldom mean much of anything. It’s just Kremlinology.
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They usually remotely make sense. “Peek” doesn’t. Maybe they intended “peak.” There’s no wordplay, but it would have been logical.
 
I think it was wordplay of *Peak* Performance (eg. M1 Ultra), and the "Peek" might be referring to a glimpse at future desktop-high-performance / Mac Pro chips (it's a stretch...)
 
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