Technology

What's Up With Apple: Speedier Chips, Courtroom Drama and More

Paul Ausick

Published: May 19, 2021 7:57 am

Now that Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) has launched its first products using its own M1 chip, inquiring minds want to know when the second version of Apple’s new silicon will hit the street and how much faster it will be.

Bloomberg served up the first rumors on Tuesday. Citing “people familiar with the matter,” Apple is said to be “preparing to release several new Mac laptops and desktops with faster processors, new designs and improved connectivity to external devices, accelerating the company’s effort to replace Intel Corp. chips and leapfrog rival PC makers.” And that’s just the first paragraph.

The story goes on to cite “people who requested anonymity to discuss an internal matter,” who claimed that upgraded MacBook Pros, an all-new Mac Pro workstation, a new low-end MacBook Pro and a “revamped” MacBook Air are on the list of new products. New MacBook Pros “are expected” to appear as early as this summer and the other devices will follow, and all “will feature processors designed in-house that will greatly outpace the performance and capabilities of the current M1 chips,” according to Bloomberg’s sources.

Now’s the time to begin thinking about and writing about Apple’s next products because the new products launched last month will finally be in stores on Friday. In a press release on Tuesday, that people can “get their hands on” the new products in Apple Stores or authorized resellers and that people who have preordered will begin receiving deliveries on May 21.

Apple also released its Lossless Audio product earlier this week after news of the product leaked on Sunday. Beginning next month, Apple Music subscribers will be able to listen to their tunes in Spatial Audio and Dolby Atmos, “a revolutionary, immersive audio experience that enables artists to mix music so the sound comes from all around and from above.” At launch time, “thousands of songs” will be available in Spatial Audio and Apple Music subscribers will get Spatial Audio on all AirPods and certain Beats headphones.

The bigger deal, perhaps, is Apple’s addition of Lossless Audio for all subscribers of Apple Music at no additional cost. That’s more than 75 million songs.

Meanwhile, back in the Oakland, California, courtroom, Apple Fellow Phil Schiller was grilled by attorneys for Epic Games who were trying to establish that Apple was trying in several ways to lock in buyers of the company’s hardware products by making it difficult for those buyers to switch to different products.

Epic Games’ attorney wants to show that Apple doesn’t just lock in app developers, but its own customers as well. Isn’t that what every company tries to do? Epic’s point always has been that if a company like Apple is successful at locking in customers then that’s anti-competitive.

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