The history of ‘Apple Silicon’, a semiconductor developed by Apple, is less than 15 years. A4, Apple’s first chip designed in-house, appeared with the iPhone 4 in 2010. Apple, which had previously imported Samsung’s Exynos and used it as the brain of the iPhone, gained confidence with the success of the iPhone 4 and began its independent path in earnest. Following smartphones, he began building his own wall by developing the M series, a processor for PCs, laptops, and tablets.
The M1 processor, created for MacBook Air, iMac, Mac Mini, and iPad Pro, has entered the market with performance and power efficiency that exceeds industry expectations. Just as Intel dominated the PC era where performance was important, Apple wanted to become a leader in the mobile era where performance-to-performance ratio (power-to-performance ratio) was important.
The third M processor was released. Armed with a powerful ecosystem encompassing hardware (Apple Silicon) and software (iOS), Apple’s walls have grown even higher. Last October, Apple unveiled new chips such as the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max, and introduced MacBook Pro and iMac PCs equipped with them. It was released in Korea in the middle of this month. I’ve been using the new MacBook Pro for two weeks.
The slogan that Apple officially used when unveiling the MacBook Pro lineup is ‘Scary fast.’ It is literally at the top of Apple’s entire hardware lineup. As the name ‘Pro’ suggests, it is a product line specialized for professional work that requires high specifications and high performance. The M3 is available in 14 inches, and the M3 Pro and Max are available in both 14 inches and 16 inches. Even though it was 14 inches, it was quite thick and heavy. The price starts from 2.39 million won.
The M3 MacBook Pro is the first laptop product to use a 3 nanometer (㎚·1㎚=1 billionth of a meter) process. As integration has increased, the basic M3-equipped MacBook Pro is 60% faster than the M1 version released in 2021, and the M3 Max MacBook Pro is 2.5 times faster than the M1 Max. In actual use, it was difficult to notice any lag in almost all tasks.
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AI battleground ‘GPU’ performance improved again
What has especially changed is the performance of the graphics processing unit (GPU). Apple applied ‘Dynamic Caching’ to the M3, a new technology that allocates GPU memory usage in real time to maximize efficiency. Despite the application of new technology, complaints about the basic RAM, which is still limited to 8 gigabytes (GB), are expected to continue even in the Pro lineup. As a result, the new GPU is 65% faster than the M1 and 20% faster than the M2. According to external performance tests, the M3 succeeded in increasing the performance gap by more than 30% compared to competing products.
The reason Apple is so obsessed with GPU performance is because of artificial intelligence (AI), to the point where it self-assesses that it has “achieved the most remarkable leap forward in the history of graphics architecture.” GPU has recently emerged as a key component for implementing AI. Apple announced that it will apply AI functions in earnest in the iPhone 16 series to be released in the second half of next year.
This product also has the performance to fully support ray tracing technology that brings computer graphics closer to real objects by implementing realistic lighting effects. Considering that a significant number of MacBook Pro users work in graphics, video, and animation, this is a change that can be fully felt.
It is also noticeable that the emphasis is on extending battery life to the extent of giving up some of the significant performance improvements compared to the M2 Pro. Battery use time is up to 22 hours. As it is a high-performance product, it was disappointing that the battery consumption was faster than expected when the intensity of work was increased.
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In the AI era, user scalability is a challenge
In many ways, it was a model that gave a glimpse into Apple’s concerns and homework. The MacBook’s unique strength and weakness is that the related ecosystem is still limited. Limitations were felt in that the MacBook Pro’s competitor was the previous generation MacBook Pro and not other laptops. Above all, it is not easy to surpass the cost-effectiveness of the M1, which is already well-received in the market.
It has become increasingly unlikely that professional workers in the fields of graphics, video, animation, and architectural design will choose a product other than the MacBook Pro. However, it seems that Apple now needs to think about strategies to help more customers easily overcome the wall and enter the MacBook ecosystem. In the era of popularization of AI, competitors Intel and Qualcomm are targeting Apple’s market share by refining new chips.
Heekwon Lee (lee.heekwon@joongang.co.kr)
