Apple Executive Hints at Apple Silicon Mac Pro and Ongoing Focus on Apple Watch Battery Life

[surfzen21]

We all lived perfectly fine before smartwatches. I'm fine without one today. And I'll continue being fine for the foreseeable future without a smartwatch.

You're life wouldn't change much if at all without all those features. But... you're free to buy whatever it is you want no matter how much disregard you have for needs.

What's the point of a generalized statement like, "We all lived perfectly fine before smartwatches"?

You can basically substitute anything in for smartwatch and it has the same generalized application on a macro level.

Also, its your and not you're.

Please tell me about my life and how it has or hasn't changed after I started using the watch? You seem to think you know enough about my life to justify that comment. So justify it.

 

[Tagbert]

The problem here is that the Apple Watch really doesn't do "real-time" health tracking, as its heart rate monitoring is only once every 5-10 minutes (other metrics, such as heart rate variability and respiration rate are tied to the heart rate data). I do not understand how other vendors can do 24/7 heart rate monitoring and still get 5+ days of battery life out of their devices while Apple's abbreviated monitoring nets a device that needs daily charging. That's the thing I really miss since moving to an Apple Watch: real time stats and real battery life.

Do other vendors do actual continuous real-time or do they do ongoing sampling like the AW? The AW does do more fine-grained tracking during a workout but not 24x7.

 

[ThisBougieLife]

So your phone can natively continuously read your heart rate, blood oxygen, temp and track sleep.

Honestly, as a hypochondriac, I don't want a device that can do all that. It's just going to give me needless anxiety. I think it's cool that the Apple Watch can do those things, but that's actually one of the reasons it's not for me.

Re. the article: I really doubt that Apple would've mentioned Mac Pro as the last to be transitioned at a previous event if they were going to discontinue it or leave it on Intel. I think those who are predicting that are going to be proven wrong.

 

[surfzen21]

Honestly, as a hypochondriac, I don't want a device that can do all that. It's just going to give me needless anxiety. I think it's cool that the Apple Watch can do those things, but that's actually one of the reasons it's not for me.

And that makes perfect sense.

 

[Tagbert]

I'd like to see Apple utilize the gyroscope in the watch to produce energy that can be used to power certain functions. This would help supplement the battery. It may not increase it 10x, but just having the option would be a step in the right direction. Its also a nice marketing opportunity for Apple to incentivize movement even more than they already do.

The gyroscope is microscopic and could not generate a mean full amount of power, sorry.

The biggest improvement they could do would be to move from the current 7nm chip process to 3nm. That would be noticable.

 

[theorist9]

For those who insisted that Apple would never produce a Pro Mini because 'it has too much price overlap with the Max Studio', I think this quote is instructive:

"Borchers says that instead of looking at the specific chipsets, the company tends to look at the product, the whole package. As an example, he talks of Mac mini and Mac Studio, both of which come in at similar price points at the high-end. Yet, because the two offer different functionality, Apple believes that they serve different customers. One offers consumers a great form factor, whereas the other one brings in the flexibility of more I/O and connectivity options."

 

[theorist9]

Amid discussion about how Apple motivated the wider computing industry to refocus on efficiency over performance, Borchers seemed to concede that the Apple Watch is a device that would benefit greatly from better battery life. He added that the issue of the Apple Watch's battery life is an area of ongoing attention at Apple. One of several answers to address the problem, Borchers believes, is fast charging. Apple apparently continues to explore how it can balance features, such as real-time health and fitness tracking, and battery life on the device.

I'd like to see Apple utilize the gyroscope in the watch to produce energy that can be used to power certain functions. This would help supplement the battery. It may not increase it 10x, but just having the option would be a step in the right direction. Its also a nice marketing opportunity for Apple to incentivize movement even more than they already do.

The gyroscope is microscopic and could not generate a mean full amount of power, sorry.

The biggest improvement they could do would be to move from the current 7nm chip process to 3nm. That would be noticable.

An alternative would be to add a self-winding spring assembly that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy as it unwinds. Apple filed a patent for this, but of course Apple files lots of patents for inventions it doesn't pursue:

Apple patents smartwatch you can charge by WINDING it

Apple could pull inspiration from the past for future Apple Watches. The firm has received a patent for a charging mechanism capable of generating electricity by manually winding the Watch.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Interestingly Seiko has, for many years, used a different approach (automatic self-winding) to power its Kinetic Perpetual quartz watches. But that may not be sufficient for an Apple Watch, which likely requires much more power:

Kinetic Perpetual | Seiko Watch Corporation

Seiko is one of the few fully integrated watch manufactures. We design and develop our own movements using leading-edge technology.

www.seikowatches.com

 

[Cameront9]

The watch charges so fast, I really don't get why it's such a big deal to people. I have a first gen SE, and I usually pop it on the charger about 10 or 11pm (when it dies) and put it back on right before bed around 2am. It charges to full in like an hour and a half. I developed this charging habit with my series 1 Apple Watch, and it's so easy I don't even give it another thought.

 

[lazyrighteye]

In 2023, Can we please get new colors for Apple Watch Ultra? It's the colors and aesthetic for me.

I’m not sure about colors, plural, but I do suspect they’ll add a darker option to the Ultra line this fall. I’d be ok with that as well as a $100 price drop. Yeah yeah… It was hard to write that last part with a straight face. 😂

 

[Eldaerenth Faexidor]

I’m very pleased with the AW Ultra’s battery life. I don’t have to worry for 2 whole days. Which is so great! Can’t wait for the micro-led successor in 2024.

 

[watakoola]

To be clear, he didn't mention Mac Pro, just the Mac Studio... they can cancel the Mac Pro line anytime, whenever they want.

I tend to agree. It was a cagey comment which omitted mention of the Mac Pro and implied the Mac Studio is the top-tier product. Or not.

 

[UK-MacAddict]

Yeah, I was a bit bemused by MR's take on this interview. Borchers never says the words "Mac Pro" and never even alludes to it.

Alludes to the Mac Pro in the last two sentences stating their intention is to transition the entire product line which currently includes the Mac Pro.

 

[deconstruct60]

Apple can cancel the whole Mac product line whenever they want. It may not be probable , but it is possible.

Correct. They also killed of the bigger iMacs and iMac Pros without any warning. So...

So.... what? 'Probable' matters more than 'possible'. it is possible that all the oxygen atoms in the room you are in all align to send them into the upper left ceiling corner and you would suffocate if did not immediately leave the room. Is that likely (probably going to happen) ? No. So is it really a useful possible outcome to spend all day thinking about ? No.

The probability that Apple is going to shut down the Mac product line up in the next year is dismally small. Really not worth spending tons of time worrying about that.

The Intel iMac 27" and Intel iMac Pro did get some warning. Apple did say they were going to transition the whole line up to Apple Silicon. That is a warning that the Intel version is going to go away.

The iMac 27" 2020 covered most of what the iMac Pro performance range. 10 cores a RNDA2 GPU. (Yeah it didn't cover a 18 CPU core with 64X Vega, but 8-10 GPU and Vega 56. ). Pragmatically, the iMac Pro was updated with that. [ Huge problem with iMac Pro was that Xeon W-2200 was largely the exact same die as W-2100 with a different price tag slapped on top. If bothered to look at how badly Intel was screwing up in that space the comatose and then disappearing iMac Pro had warning signs. ]

The iMac 27" dropped for a discrete Monitor was not all that surprising given the very long gap between the iMac 24" and the Mac Studio introduction date. Likewise, the fact that the Mini , iMac 24" , and MBA/MBP 13" all shared the M1. The iMac was not in some special protected ( extra low fratricide ) status anymore. Once the Mini Pro came (even if the Studio had not come), would only have enhanced that. The cherry on top was that the Mini came with a Ethernet Jack by default. For entry iMac 24" models it was an 'extra' since mypoically focused on turning the 24" model into an 'iPad on a stick' form factor. The decade old playbook of 'herd as many desktop users as possible into the iMac' really wasn't at play anymore after 2021. By end of 2021, need a "desktop like performance" with a 3rd party monitor ... buy a MPB 14/16". Want that with crazy high Apple monitor... XDR+ MBP 14/16.




Apple probably will do a Mac Pro. It won't be a mimic HP/Lenovo/Dell box with slots workstation, but it will be a Mac Pro in some substantive areas. Probably more than one internal drive possible with a end user choice ( Apple not doing it in BTO but users can do their own). Probably going to support A/V capture and other I/O cards. ( even if don't do 3rd party GPUs). The software support for all of that is already in macOS. It would be a pretty big bozo move not to build a machine that could leverage that software foundation that is already enabled. Adding something like two x16 PCI-e v4 bundles won't be a major disruption to the CPU/GPU/NPU/memory controller building blocks they already have. It is not a huge technical and/or very expensive break from what they are already doing.

 

[257Loner]

I now realize that even if Apple was able to shrink their chips further and install a ×4 "Extreme" into the Mac Studio instead of the ×2 Ultra, it would still be paired with integrated GPUs, which to this day is still fine for power-efficient mobile devices, but not up to snuff for those who want a workstation with dedicated GPU power. If this is true for the Mac Studio, it applies even more so to the Mac Pro Pro Pro Mac Pro Pro Pro Mac Pro Pro Pro...

 

[Le0M]

I'd like to see Apple adopt e-ink technology in one of its watches. That's how you get very long battery life.

 

[eifelbube]

To be clear, he didn't mention Mac Pro, just the Mac Studio... they can cancel the Mac Pro line anytime, whenever they want.

He said: “… our goal is to take our entire product line to Apple Silicon. And that's something we intend to do.” Mmh, if they really did cancel the Mac Pro, then “intend to do” would be moot.

 

[J InTech82]

I’d say if we don’t see the Mac Pro by WWDC this year, we can consider it dead. But here’s to hoping!

 

[theorist9]

I'd like to see Apple adopt e-ink technology in one of its watches. That's how you get very long battery life.

Surely this tech must have downsides, otherwise Apple would already be using it in the Watch, given its low power usage. Since you proposed it, have you looked into what its downsides might be?

I don't know much about electronic paper myself (E Ink is just a specific brand), but I believe two of the issues are mediocre color saturation and low refresh rate. For the latter, E-ink's recently-released Gallery 3 Color Paper has refresh rates of 0.75 s – 1.0 s in standard color mode, and 1.5 s in best color mode. That's too slow for an interactive device, even if you're not watching videos or playing games.

I'm also wondering how efficient electronic paper would be if it actually had OLED-like refresh rates, since the reason electronic paper is so efficient is that it only draws power when it changes. So if it was refreshing much more quickly, that would increase its power draw.

I would expect Apple is looking into this tech, because its low power draw is very appealing, but it may have a ways to go before it can be used in a watch. Accoding to Ross Young, the next upgrade to the Apple Watch's OLED display will probably be micro-LED. While micro-LED may not equal electronic paper in power draw, it will give a significant boost in efficiency over OLED.

E Ink Gallery 3 color ePaper offers faster refresh rate, higher resolution - CNX Software

This is confusing. E Ink just announced the Kaleido 3 color e-paper at the beginning of the month, and now comes up with E Ink Gallery 3 color e-paper.

www.cnx-software.com

Apple Watch with display upgrade reportedly set for 2025

Apple is set to make an upgrade to the Apple Watch display technology as soon as 2025, according to a...

9to5mac.com

 

[majus]

Would it be possible that the MR editors could split posts about two different products into their respective posts? That's a simple journalistic function called editing if I am not mistaken. Other sites can do it so maybe MR could give it a try.

Just sayin'....

 

[dysamoria]

Uhhhhh… That’s not the reading I take from that quote…

It looks like they’ve canceled the Mac Pro, from that reading.

 

[newyorksole]

Based on the quote, it sounds more like the executive skirted the question about the Mac Pro and didn't say anything about it. Apple could just as easily realize their "full transition" goal by simply discontinuing the Mac Pro and declaring the Mac Studio as the new "high-end pro workstation."

THANK YOU.

that man didn’t say a damn thing about the Mac Pro nor did he hint about it lmaoo.

 

[257Loner]

That all but confirms it. The Mac Pro is staying with Intel, expandable RAM, PCI Express lanes, and dedicated graphics cards!

 

[257Loner]

Based on the quote, it sounds more like the executive skirted the question about the Mac Pro and didn't say anything about it. Apple could just as easily realize their "full transition" goal by simply discontinuing the Mac Pro and declaring the Mac Studio as the new "high-end pro workstation."

The M3 Extreme (×4 fused M3 Max chips) Mac Studio will be painted black and called the Mac Pro.

 

[Justin Cymbal]

Currently a maxed out 2019 Intel Mac Pro costs $52,199:

A Maxed Out Mac Pro Will Cost Over $52,000

With Mac Pro orders now live, pricing for all of the build to order options for the machine are available, giving us an idea of what it's going...

www.macrumors.com

I wouldn’t be surprised if a maxed out Apple Silicon Mac Pro costs significantly less than that. Possibly under $10-15,000

I’m glad that Apple is putting more focus on battery life of both the iPhone and the Apple Watch. I read this article last year about how the A17 chip in the iPhone 15 Pro could be significantly more energy efficient:

iPhone 15 Pro's A17 Bionic Chip Could Be 35% More Energy Efficient, Enabling Longer Battery Life

The A17 Bionic chip for next year's high-end models of the iPhone 15 lineup could be 35% more efficient compared to current iPhone processors...

www.macrumors.com

If Apple is able to do that with the chips that Apple uses for the future Apple Watches, that would be an excellent improvement. Especially considering the 60 hours of battery life on the Apple Watch Ultra and how more of us are using our Apple Watches for longer periods of time without being able to charge it back up

 

[NT1440]

If they intend to update the Mac Pro, why would they exclude it from the statement "We believe strongly that Apple silicon can power and transform experiences from the MacBook Air to all the way up to the Mac Studio"?

As for "taking their entire product line to Apple Silicon" - that's what they said in 2019, since when they have dropped both the 5k iMac and iMac Pro...

Ultimately, its an empty response that could mean anything, neither unambiguously promising a new modular Mac Pro or confirming that it will be dropped. Which is a problem since it leaves the Mac Pro in limbo.

Apple executives do not speak about unreleased products in interviews, only events (if they offer a sneak peak)

Surely this tech must have downsides, otherwise Apple would already be using it in the Watch, given its low power usage. Since you proposed it, have you looked into what its downsides might be?

I don't know much about electronic paper myself (E Ink is just a specific brand), but I believe two of the issues are mediocre color saturation and low refresh rate. For the latter, E-ink's recently-released Gallery 3 Color Paper has refresh rates of 0.75 s – 1.0 s in standard color mode, and 1.5 s in best color mode. That's too slow for an interactive device, even if you're not watching videos or playing games.

I'm also wondering how efficient electronic paper would be if it actually had OLED-like refresh rates, since the reason electronic paper is so efficient is that it only draws power when it changes. So if it was refreshing much more quickly, that would increase its power draw.

I would expect Apple is looking into this tech, because its low power draw is very appealing, but it may have a ways to go before it can be used in a watch. Accoding to Ross Young, the next upgrade to the Apple Watch's OLED display will probably be micro-LED. While micro-LED may not equal electronic paper in power draw, it will give a significant boost in efficiency over OLED.

E Ink Gallery 3 color ePaper offers faster refresh rate, higher resolution - CNX Software

This is confusing. E Ink just announced the Kaleido 3 color e-paper at the beginning of the month, and now comes up with E Ink Gallery 3 color e-paper.

www.cnx-software.com

Apple Watch with display upgrade reportedly set for 2025

Apple is set to make an upgrade to the Apple Watch display technology as soon as 2025, according to a...

9to5mac.com

Electronic ink has been studied and developed by big players for well over a decade, it’s simply not suited for the refresh rates of the digital era. I’ve seen some prototypes over the years that finally got to suitable rates for low frame rate cartoon animation but it just seems like the tech will be developed enough for general use. I’d love it, but I don’t see it happening as most R&D projects from the likes of Sony (one of the flagship supporters of e ink) hit a wall years ago and investment in going further has been deprioritized across the industry.