Apple Primes Partners for Surge in Mac Upgrades with macOS Ventura
Apple reveals a road map at its annual WWDC, highlighting more continuity among its devices.
June 7, 2022
![Craig Federighi, Apple, WWDC 2022 Craig Federighi, Apple, WWDC 2022](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltbba2adaad3119bd1/6524284d0354454eb7a3138e/Apple-WWDC22-Craig-Federighi-Apple-Park-220606.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Apple
Apple claims its new M2 processors will offer a significant boost in performance over the first generation M1 chips. M2 is built with Apple’s new 5-nanometer process with a CPU that’s 18% faster, according to the company. Its GPU is 35% faster while it has a 40% more powerful Neural Engine, Apple said.
It also offers 50% more memory bandwidth than M1 with up to 24GB of fast unified memory. The new M2 chips will make their debut in Apple’s new MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, described on the next two slides.
The first M2-powered MacBook Air sports a new design that provides a larger 13.6-inch, 500 nits Liquid Retina display, a 1080p HD camera, an array of 3 mics and a sound system with four speakers. Apple claims the new MacBook Air will offer up to 18 hours of battery life.
Apple is also adding support for the MagSafe charging interface, introduced last year for iPhones, to the new MacBook Air. It will weigh 2.7 pounds and is 0.44-inches thin. Apple claims the MacBook Air’s new M2 8-core CPU is 20% faster than the M1 model when running Adobe Photoshop and five times faster than its MacBook Air units with dual-core Intel i5 processors. The new Apple MacBook Air has a starting price of $1,199.
The MacBook Pro, also equipped with the new M2 chip, has an 8-core CPU and 10-core CPU, which Apple claims is 1.4 times faster than the current M1-powered model. Support for ProRes encode and decode in M2’s media engine will let users run 11 streams of 4K video and two streams of 8K ProRes Video.
Apple claims the new MacBook Pro can convert video projects to ProRes roughly 3x faster. The starting price is $1,299, and it is designed to provide up to 20 hours of battery use.
The new macOS Ventura, set for release this fall, comes with new Continuity capabilities including Universal Control to simplify moving between Macs and iPads. The most obvious change is the introduction of Stage Manager, a new way of organizing apps on the desktop (see image), also slated for iPadOS 16.
Also new in macOS Monterey is AirPlay, which allows users to play anything form their iPhones or iPads on the display of their Macs. Continuity Camera and Handoff is designed to let those on FaceTime calls switch from or to the Mac from iPhones and iPads. It will also work with other meeting platforms including Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex. The new OS also includes SharePlay, designed to let Mac users collaborate on FaceTime and new search capabilities called Live Text and Visual Look Up.
An update to Apple’s Safari web browser, which is bundled with macOS and iOS, will include Tab Groups and Shortcuts as well as Shared Tabs.
The latest version of Apple’s developer toolkit has improved parallelism that the company claims will result in 25% faster project builds. The Xcode 14 download is now 30% smaller and it includes new simulator runtimes for watchOS and tvOS.
Xcode 14 also has a new multiplatform target with a common SwiftUI interface for iOS, iPadOS, macOS and tvOS. Apple said this will make it easier to maintain developer code, while customizing for the specific characteristics of Apple’s different OSes. Apple also added language and editing improvements to Xcode with enhanced autocompletion and more dynamic snippets.
The new Xcode Cloud, built into Apple’s Xcode developer toolset, provides a continuous integration and delivery (CI/CD) cloud service. Apple said it is designed to let development teams build, test and deploy apps more efficiently by building apps in the cloud rather than use the resources of their Macs. It offers cloud-based parallel testing, which runs simulations on all current versions of Apple devices.
Apple is improving the navigation API for user interface framework, which the company said will give developers more control over how their apps move between different views. The updated SwiftUI will also include Custom Layouts and Swift Charts to add improved data visualization.
Among the various new features planned for iOS 16 include support for widgets on the iPhone Lock Screen with the new WidgetKit Framework and widget API. It will also support a new feature called Live Activities, which will provide real-time updates.
Looking to eliminate passwords to access data online, Apple’s new Passkeys will create keys that reside only on devices, using Touch ID or Face ID biometric verification and iCloud Keychain to sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Users with iPhones will be able to use them to authenticate to websites and non-Apple devices.
Looking to eliminate passwords to access data online, Apple’s new Passkeys will create keys that reside only on devices, using Touch ID or Face ID biometric verification and iCloud Keychain to sync across Mac, iPhone, iPad and Apple TV. Users with iPhones will be able to use them to authenticate to websites and non-Apple devices.
The wide spectrum of new software and hardware unveiled by Apple on Monday is poised to accelerate Mac upgrades. Many customers will upgrade for the latest capabilities coming next month to the first MacBooks powered by Apple’s new M2 processor. More tacitly though, it appears Apple wants business customers to upgrade older Macs.
Apple’s new macOS Ventura, which it showcased at the company’s Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC), is for Macs shipped after 2017. Moreover, Apple will only push out a regular cadence of patches and security updates for its latest operating systems, noted Jason Dettbarn, founder and CEO of Addigy, which provides iOS and macOS device management software.
Previously, Apple supported Macs much longer than five years, Dettbarn told Channel Futures.
Addigy’s Jason Dettbarn
“They used to tout the life cycle of Macs and you don’t see them doing that anymore,” Dettbarn said. “They realized that they make a lot more money on iPhones because people refresh them every year or two. And it seems they want to do the same with Macs by reducing the life span.”
The shorter life cycles will prompt most businesses to upgrade to make sure their Macs are secure, Dettbarn added.
“If they’re going to maintain a security posture, businesses have no choice other than to get the newest hardware to maintain the latest operating system,” he said.
Mac and iOS Continuity
While Apple started enabling portability of apps across iOS and macOS in 2018, the newest wave of core iPhone and iPad features will appear in macOS Ventura and a new version of its Safari web browser. The company is designing new and existing features for iOS and macOS to work more consistently. Continuity Universal Handoff will allow users to hand off tasks, such as sharing tabs, Apple Mail and messages from one device to another. Airplay to Mac and SharePlay will let users run audio, video and Facetime from their iPhone or iPad on the Mac.
“This year, we focused on making the core things you do with macOS even better, delivering new ways to be productive and take advantage of the capability of your other devices with Continuity,” said Craig Federighi (pictured above on stage at WWDC), Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering.
Addigy’s Dettbarn anticipates the macOS will boost growth of Macs this fall, which already have been strong during the past year. Mac upgrades grew 25% among all Addigy customers, and even higher (48%) among those managed by MSPs, Dettbarn said. He believes that pace will continue.
“They’re definitely pulling a few levers to drive some serious Mac sales a little more aggressively than I’ve seen in the past,” he said.
Check out the slideshow above for some key announcements at WWDC relevant to channel partners.
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