【Times-Taipei Electric】Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) officially debuted on the 5th. In addition to the official debut of the AR/MR head-mounted device that the outside world has been eagerly awaiting, Apple announced that the Mac Pro will be equipped with its own M2 Ultra chip, saying goodbye completely Intel, the news dragged down Intel’s stock price.
Affected by this, Intel’s stock price closed down 4.6% on the 5th, at $29.86. The stock price rebounded in early trading on the 6th, up 0.3%, to $29.96. Intel shares are up 13% so far this year.
After 4 years, the updated version of the Mac Pro finally debuted. Apple replaced the chips with the self-developed M2 Ultra, which means that Apple has completed the “last piece of the puzzle” and introduced its own chips into all computer products. Apple’s first computer chip, the M1, will be released in 2020.
M2 Ultra performs up to three times faster than the fastest Intel chips. Jennifer Munn, Apple’s director of engineering program management, called the M2 Ultra a “chip monster.” The Mac Pro with the M2 Ultra processor and 192GB of memory starts at $6,999.
Apple announced three new versions of Mac products at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference. In addition to the Mac Pro, there are also 15-inch MacBook Air and Mac Studio.
The 15-inch MacBook Air adopts the M2 chip, and the computing speed is 12 times faster than the MacBook Air using Intel processors. The 15-inch MacBook Air is only 11.5 millimeters thick, weighs 3.3 pounds, and costs $1,299.
Mac Studio can choose to use the M2 Max chip, or the latest M2 Ultra chip, but the Mac Pro only has the M2 Ultra option.
Intel has encountered headwinds in its operations recently. In addition to losing orders from Apple, it also faces increasingly fierce competition from AMD and NVIDIA. Super Micro has gradually increased its market share in computers and data center chips, and Huida processors are hot in the field of artificial intelligence.
According to data from market research firm Gartner, Apple accounted for about 9% of global computer shipments in the first quarter. However, the computer industry is facing the pressure of shrinking market demand in the post-epidemic era, and the total shipments have decreased by 30% annually. Apple’s Mac revenue fell 31 percent year-on-year to $7.17 billion last quarter. (News source: Yan Jianan, Business Times / comprehensive foreign reports)
