Apple – The launch of the M1 and then some, are they abusing our love for the products?

Are Apple constantly staying ahead of the curve? We delve into some of the more recent updates and launches that Apple have been releasing over the last few years to see if they have had any significant impact on the tech world or if it’s just changing the skin of an already existing product to increase revenue year on year.

The tech world is ever evolving as we should all know well by now but does the perception of always changing make it easier for the “innovators” to sell us a not-so-new, new product? Fortunately for their sake, Apple had one of the most innovative tech launches of the decade in November 2020 – The launch of the M1. Now we know, you hear the letter m followed by a number and your brain automatically thinks powerful, fast and potentially even vroom vroom? (For all the non-motorheads this is a BMW reference.) Now that we are all caught up and on the same page, it’s important to know that Apple’s M1 is no different minus the vroom vroom.

The revolutionary M1 chip broke down the need for shared memory. Let’s take a dive into this, in conventional computer setups you have a CPU and a GPU – both of these components require memory input in the form of data and whilst CPUs like their data served little and often, GPUs want the complete opposite. 2 elements that need to work perfectly with one another yet require such different input can cause some problems. Don’t believe us? You should check out a little thing called marriage.. 

Problem 2 with our good friend the GPU is that they are big and produce a lot of heat – CPUs hate heat. This is why even the most discrete GPUs are big beasts with massive cooling fans. They also have dedicated memory designed to serve the greedy component. These components have high performance but as with all things they have a weak point – whenever they require data from the memory of the CPU and this data transfer happens over copper traces on the motherboard called a PCIe bus. Confused? Here’s a fun-tastic analogy: Try chugging water through a super thin straw. It may get to your mouth fast, but the throughput is totally inadequate.

Now that we understand the revolutionary M1 chip a bit better (Speed = good) let’s look at what’s happened since:

Timeline: M1 launch November 2020 | iPhone 13 launch September 2021. | iPhone 14 launch September 2022

Let’s look at what the iPhone 13 brought to the table as compared to its predecessors 

As you can see from the above Apple have made some changes, not all groundbreaking depending on who you are but still impressive regardless. The most impressive fact from the table above is that Apple have not skyrocketed their device prices in recent years even with all the small and large improvements in their tech (Take that haters). Yet we still wonder why they release a new model every year surely waiting an extra year and combining the upgrades from both those years into 1 new device would make more sense for innovator and consumer? 

Well, that’s where we the consumer come in – Where there is a demand there is a billion-dollar market just waiting to be tapped into year by year. We the consumer are the reason big dawgs like Apple can release new models every year. Let’s look at a simple explanation: each of the 3 phones mentioned above were all launched a year on from the last – Apple would be crazy to think anyone would buy a new phone a year after just having bought one. Well in the first 24 hours of its consumer-facing life the iphone12 sold 2 million units compared to the 11’s 800,000. And then the 13 managed to secure the same amount of units as the 12 but on pre-order. The consumer is the reason Apple can keep launching what most call the same phone re-skinned over and over. 

That brings us to September 2022 Apple have just had their “far out” launch event where the company unveiled the iPhone 14 lineup, new Apple Watch models, and updated AirPods Pro. Give it a watch here

Form your own opinions on what you see in their latest launch but we will leave you with these few thoughts: 

• The iPhone 14 has a launch price of $899 (Important to keep in mind that phones aren’t the only things getting more expensive. And well the 14 is a beast even compared to the 13 so a $100 increase seems fair)
• Apple don’t “slap” a new fat price tag on their hardware every year. The prices move up with inflation and new tech being used.
• Their pricing has always been above market but so have their products.
• The M1 was groundbreaking and anyone who gets hard and software (stop it, you’re better than that) should be able to admit that – It’s allowed apple to revolutionise their A chips for their mobile devices and all other tech that they release. Apple fan or not, that is really impressive.

With this we give you the split:

Big capitalist company? YES.

Innovator constantly improving to meet the consumer’s standards? BIGGER YES

It is one big ever-turning game, yes they release often and yes the products are seen as expensive but while their prices have been the same in terms of market relatability over the last decade – their competitors have got more and more expensive. And that is where Apple were smart they are able to innovate and provide us with new tech for relatively the same price. And if you still aren’t convinced, the tech is better a million times better you don’t realise it because you use it every day but we promise you if you went back to the first iPhone your fast-paced life would be oddly humbled.