Apple certainly likes to make a big song and dance about its iPhone launches, but its new MacBooks and iPads are often announced almost apologetically, via website updates and press releases.
And so it is with the latest 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Pro, both of which contain the also-new M5 chip.
It’s a sign of the times that, first and foremost, Apple is talking up the AI capabilities of the M5. It offers a 10-core GPU architecture with a Neural Accelerator in each core - the end result, we’re assured, being that GPU-based AI workloads run “dramatically faster”, with four times the peak GPU compute performance of the M4.
The CPU, meanwhile, also has up to 10 cores (six efficiency cores and four performance cores), resulting in up to 15% faster multithreaded performance in comparison to the M4.
How much musicans will actually notice all of this is open to question. While heavyweight graphics users and AI aficionados may be drooling at these speed bumps, it remains to be seen how much of an impact they’ll have when you’re simply trying to make a tune in Logic Pro.
Apple certainly isn’t hanging about in fitting the M5 to its computing hardware, though - you’ll find it in both the 11- and 13-inch iPad Pros, with prices starting at $/£999 and $/£1,299 respectively.
In terms of cost, this makes it very much a laptop replacement device, but if you’d rather have the real deal, the entry-level M5 MacBook Pro 14-inch costs from $/£1,599. It’s worth noting that, despite having a lower processor number, the M4 Pro and M4 Max versions remain the flagships, offering more CPU and GPU cores.
The M5 chip has also been added to the upgraded Apple Vision Pro headset which, thanks to the new Dual Knit Band, promises to be more comfortable to wear. With prices starting at $3,499/£3,199, though, it’s still far from comfortable on your bank balance.
All the new products are available for pre-order now, with shipping starting on the 22 October. Find out more on the Apple website.
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