Apple's 'One More Thing' event treated us to number of new products. The new MacBook Air (2020), new MacBook Pro 13-inch (2020) and Mac mini (2020) were all unveiled, and they're all powered by the new Apple M1 chip.
Why should you care what chipset your MacBook runs? Good question. By creating its own 'Apple silicon' chips, Apple will have almost complete control over the hardware, as well as the software, that powers its Macs and MacBooks.
This should hopefully result in better-optimized devices that offer improved performance, quicker boot times and longer battery lives. It could be the most exciting change to Macs and MacBooks for a very long time - Apple certainly thinks so, but you'll have to wait for our full, in-depth reviews to see if the hardware can live up to the bold claims.
For those of you who missed the final Apple event of the year, you can relive the launch below.
- New MacBook Air: Apple's lightest laptop just got better
- New MacBook Pro 13: specs, price and availability
- New Mac mini: everything you need to know
- Apple M1 chip: learn about Apple's new silicon
Apple event: as it happened
All times are in PST
11:01: OK... one more thing for us. We have info on the new MacBook Air (2020), new MacBook Pro 13-inch (2020), Mac mini (2020) and the M1 processor, so check those out!
10:47: Oh and one more thing... it's the guy from those old adverts. And that's the end! We'll be getting these new devices in soon so we can put Apple's claims to the test.
10:46: Tim Cook is now summing up. Promises that in 2021 Apple will bring more experiences. And that's it! Lots of info, lots of comparisons, lots of claims.
10:44: Oh and the chime is back. For people who care about that.
10:43: So, to sum up:
New MacBook Air with M1
- Starts at $999
New Mac mini with M1
- Starts at $699
New MacBook Pro 13 with M1
- Starts at $1299
Order: Starting today, November 10
Available: Next week
10:43: Ooh you can order them today! And will be available next week. Big Sur is dropping on Thursday.
10:41: Starts at $1,299. Improved studio mics and webcam. The 'ultimate expression of what the M1 can do'. Guess that rules out it coming to the 16-inch MacBook Pro for the moment, then.
10:39: "World's fastest compact pro notebook". And has 'simply amazing' battery life of 20 hours for video playback. Longest battery life ever in a Mac. Apple is usually quite good with its battery life promises, so this is exciting.
10:38: Powerful performance, sleek design and 2.8 times faster performance. Three times faster than a Windows laptop in its class, according to Apple. Apple is being very vague about its comparisons, to be honest. Doesn't mean much.
10:37: And now.. it's the MacBook Pro 13-inch! It gets an M1 upgrade as well.
10:35: $699. That's $100 less than the previous model - which we were big fans of. Offers an 'enormous' jump in performance.
10:33: You can play games, like Baulder's Gate III, and it's 1/10th the size, but five times faster than top selling desktops in its price range.
10:32: Mac mini is back! Yey, love the Mac mini. M1 comes to Mac mini with a three times faster CPU, and six times the graphics performance.
10:29: Best in class security with TouchID and Apple Pay thanks to M1 and macOS Big Sur. Starts at $999! Same as the last model.
10:28: SSDs are up to 2x faster thanks to M1 and latest flash tech. And there's no fan. So the new Air is completely silent. That's great news for anyone who hates a whirring laptop! Up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing, and 18 hours of video (6 hrs more than previous model). Longest battery life in a MacBook Air.
10:27: This is the biggest graphical leap for a MacBook Air, Apple claims. So you can game, edit 4K videos, faster than 98% of PC laptops - again a massive claim.
10:25: It's the MacBook Air. 'Will completely redefine what a thin and light MacBook can do.' The world's best selling 13-inch laptop, apparently.
10:24: So, Big Sur looks like it'll run pretty well on the new M1 hardware! And now we're on to the first Mac with M1! What can it be?!
10:21: New Macs do something no mac can do before - run iPhone and iPad apps directly on your Mac - thanks to M1 chip. This was something many of us were looking forward to. Now we're getting a video of some app devs talking about what this means for them and their apps. Took some devs a day, apparently, to transfer their apps to Apple Silicon.
10:20: One app can run on all your Macs - basically there will be two versions of the app, one for Intel Macs, one for M1-based Macs. Thanks to Rosetta 2. Seamlessly runs apps built for Intel chips on M1. And apps actually run better on M1?!?! Witchcraft if true.
10:18: Craig's now talking about graphics performance and power efficiency. Comes with hardware-verified secure boot, plus other advanced secure features. macOS Big Sur is built from its 'core' to take advantage of M1.
10:15: Now Craig Federighi is talking about macOS Big Sur, and how well it performs on the M1 chip. Macs now instantly boot up, just like iPhones and iMacs.
10:14: 'World's fastest integrated graphics' Apple claims. That's a bold one. It's an 8-core GPU, and "Most advanced graphics processor Apple has created, which offers "twice the graphic performance than PC chip at third of the power." Hmmm. Again, big talk from Apple.
10:12: They are throwing a LOT of jargon out at the moment, and very quickly as well. Apple's talking a big game with these CPUs. Can it deliver, though?
10:11: "Delivers performance at lowest possible power - world's best CPU performance per watt"
10:10: This is an 8-core CPU, with it claims, 'World's fastest CPU core'. With four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. It's basically a BIG.little design we've seen before in mobile ARM chips.
10:07: The M1 chip. "The next generation of Mac"
10:09: John Ternus is now here. Explaining how Apple Silicon has been powering Apple devices for years now. And it's coming to Macs.
10:06: First mention of Apple Silicon! This video is obviously not live, but pre-recorded.
10:05: Now getting a nice video of people using Macs in various locations. Apple is clearly still proud of its Mac devices.
10:04: 'We love the Mac, it's in our DNA' says Cook. 'Mac business grew by 30% last quarter.'
10:03: Tim Cook's here and has mentioned that Apple has brought more devices than ever before, including the Apple Watch SE and Series 6 and iPhone 12s. This is the third major launch event this year, which considering the circumstances, is pretty impressive.
10:02: And we're on. Some nice shorts of Apple's campus in Cupertino. Not been. Looks... clean.
09:59: Almost there! Remember to check out our how to watch Apple's One More Thing event guide to watch along at home
09:56: We're not just around 5 minutes from the event kicking off. I've got my dinner (remember, I'm in the UK so it's not that odd to be eating now), and will stuff it into my face while Apple stuffs all our faces with Mac and MacBook goodness. Sort of.
08:57: With Apple moving its Macs and MacBooks to its own processors, many people may be wondering if this means Apple and Intel are parting ways forever. We don't think so. Both companies have been at pains to say that they're continuing to work together on products, and it's likely that Apple's high-end productivity machines, like the 16-inch MacBook Pro and Mac Pro, will continue to have Intel processors – for now, at least.
08:10: Rumors suggest we'll be seeing new MacBooks, but it's also likely that Apple is working on new Macs as well. While we may not see new Macs or iMacs today, we may get hints about when we can expect desktop Mac PCs to arrive with 'Apple silicon' processors.
06:44: Well, the Apple Store is now down. This usually happens when Apple is about to launch new products, but it's annoying if you wanted to buy something else, I guess.
06:28: Apart from new MacBooks and Macs, there are rumors of Apple AirTags being shown off today. These little devices will apparently clip on to your belongings, and if you lose those items, you should be able to use your iPhone, Mac or iPad to find them. It sounds quite handy, but hopefully they aren't the most exciting products Apple will show today, otherwise, I'm gonna just go back to bed.
One more thing. Join us today at 10 a.m. PST on https://t.co/tkb3KTIxTd. #AppleEventNovember 4, 2020
05:00: Apple is up and tweeting – well its social media team is. There's just one tweet, and it's about today's event. Still no clues on what the event could be about (but we have a good idea).
04:00: It's (most likely) new Mac and MacBook day today! Yey! Now, before you get too concerned, I'm not actually awake at 4am to cover the Apple event. I'm excited, but not that excited. While this liveblog will be in PST time, I'm actually based in the UK, where it's actually 12pm. A much more respectable time to write about Apple. And almost time for lunch. Yum.
