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Credit: Apple
Apple just announced five new products, and today’s announcements appear to be aimed squarely at the creative market. While yesterday’s iPad Air was a bit exciting for some creatives (digital artists will love the speed of the M4), today it’s much more profound.
While there aren’t any groundbreaking new exterior designs, we do get some brilliant leaps forward in performance. In a nutshell, we have: The new MacBook Pro M5 Pro and Pro Max, MacBook Air M5 and two long-awaited monitors – Studio Display (2nd generation) and Studio Display XDR. Surprisingly, the last two releases were among the most exciting of the week, finally putting Apple on par with its competitors. Visit our Apple March event live blog for more expert commentary.
MacBook Air M5
Credit: Apple
Our team’s favorite laptop gets a huge internal boost from the M5 chip and neural accelerators inserted into each core. Given that the M4 Air is already powerful enough for most creatives, this update ensures that only the most battery-hungry people need to upgrade to the Pro series. Of course, the goal with all of these features is to be AI-ready — meaning this laptop is designed to future-proof Apple Intelligence for years to come.
All this comes at a price, though, with the MacBook Air’s starting price rising to $1,099 (previously $999).
Brief specifications:
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chip: The M5 comes with a 10-core CPU and next-generation GPU.
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exhibit: 13-inch and 15-inch Liquid Retina options.
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camera: 12MP Center Stage for high-quality video calls.
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Battery: Battery life is up to 18 hours.
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Sound: Immersive sound system with spatial audio.
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port: Two Thunderbolt 4 ports (supports up to two external monitors).
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color: Sky Blue, Midnight, Starlight and Silver.
MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max
Credit: Apple
This all sounds really impressive in the world of the new MacBook Pro M5 Pro and M5 Max, which were added to the MacBook Pro M5 (released last year) and come in 14-inch and 16-inch versions.
The 1TB starting storage on all MacBook Pros grabs the headlines, while the creative flagship laptop also gets a huge performance boost – it will apparently deliver four times the AI ​​performance of the previous generation and will make multi-threaded professional workflows 30% faster. To get technical, this was achieved by introducing an 18-core architecture – including the invention of “Super Cores” – which Apple claims is the fastest in the world.
On top of that, the 40-core GPU means ray tracing is 35% faster. So those working in 3D, VFX or game development should be happy.
Two major pain points are solved: more underlying storage and better connectivity.
Prices rise again to $2,199 and $2,699.
See summary below:
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exhibit: Liquid Retina XDR features new nanotexturing options.
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Battery: Incredible 24 hour life.
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camera: 12MP Center Stage for professional-grade video calls.
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color: Available in space black and silver.
Studio Display (2nd generation) and Studio Display XDR
Credit: Apple
Apple has finally updated its monitor lineup. Our graphic artist’s guide to monitors currently doesn’t include Apple monitors, as the basic Studio Display doesn’t compare to its professional counterparts, and the previous Pro XDR is outdated and expensive.
But these two new models keep Apple ahead of the competition.
Studio Display (2nd generation) has been updated and improved. It comes with Thunderbolt 5 and supports up to four 5K displays on a single MacBook Pro. It also features an improved 12MP Center Stage camera with desktop view support and enhanced audio processing. Crucially for designers and artists, it’s 100 nits brighter, has a true 10-bit panel and covers 100% of the P3 wide color gamut. This applies to most creatives working in graphic design or similar work.
Its price remains unchanged at $1,599.
The Studio Display XDR is a dizzying choice here, and I should point out that this high-end technology starts at a significantly lower price than its previous counterparts. It brings MacBook Pro’s elite Extreme Dynamic Range technology to the desktop, making it ideal for high-level creative professionals working in film or 3D.
By pricing the XDR model at $3,299, Apple is finally giving independent studios reference-level HDR monitoring. This is a huge win for the creative industries.
See specifications below:
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Mini-LED technology: It features more than 2,000 local dimming zones, delivering an astonishing 2,000 nits peak HDR brightness and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.
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ProMotion logs into the desktop version: For the first time, the 27-inch Apple display supports a 120Hz refresh rate, making it the ultimate tool for video editors and gamers.
All new models will be available for pre-order on Wednesday, March 4th, with shipping starting on Friday, March 6th.
We’ll be here with more news and views as the story unfolds. Are you excited about the new lineup? Let us know in the polls and comments below!