The big news of the week is Apple’s release of the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips to power a new crop of 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models and a speed-bumped 24-inch iMac. Adam Engst has all the details, along with the discontinuation of the 13-inch MacBook Pro. These new Macs were too late to help Apple’s Q4 financial results, but the company still reported record profits of $23 billion even as revenues fell by about 1%. Finally, in news worthy of a sad Mac, Apple has definitely said there will be no Apple silicon version of the 27-inch iMac. Notable Mac app releases this week include Audio Hijack 4.3, Mimestream 1.1.5, Fantastical 3.8.7, and Lightroom Classic 13.
Apple’s Scary Fast product announcement brought the M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips out of the shadows, revealed updated 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models, and showed off a speed-bumped 24-inch iMac. And the whole thing was shot on an iPhone 15 Pro Max, albeit with an award-winning director, traditional video gear, and a large production team.
Foreign exchange headwinds and a relative scarcity of new products during the quarter flattened Apple’s revenue figures compared to its results from a year ago, although its profits were up 13%.
Watchlist
Introduces a new beta transcription feature for converting speech to text from any audio source. ($64 new, free update, 37.2 MB, macOS 10.15+)
Adds support for multi-day events and invitations received on Gmail aliases to the Calendar banner. ($49.99 annual subscription, free update, 12.2 MB, macOS 12+)
Fixes a number of bugs and brings back the double-month calendar widget. ($56.99 annual subscription, free update, 70.5 MB, macOS 11+)
Adds new Lens Blur feature and enables full image editing in HDR. ($9.99/$19.99/$59.99 monthly Creative Cloud subscription, free update for subscribers, macOS 12+)
