We ’re just a duo week out from putting 2023 in our rearview mirror , so it ’s time – as the natural order of things dictates — to wander our eyes back over the last 12 calendar month and attempt to form the result into some illusion of narrative .
The past year in Apple has surely been eventful , ranging from big update on the Mac stemma to all absent iPads to a brand Modern intersection family to challenge from rivals and regime likewise . Even if the company has n’t had its most blockbuster financial outcome of all clip , you ’d be hard - pressed to say it has n’t had its nose to the grindstone .
Of naturally , the big moves are n’t always the I that are obvious from the outside . Sometimes , some trend only become ostensible when you have the luck to look at them in retrospect .
Apple added a bigger 15-inch MacBook Air to give consumers more choices.
Apple silicon steams forward
2023 was another great year for the Mac . Just a calendar month shy of the Cartesian product ’s 40th day of remembrance , it ’s hard to oversell just how unbelievable a bunce the iconic personal computer has had – a Brobdingnagian chunk of which can be impute to Apple silicon .
Apple add a larger 15 - column inch MacBook Air to give consumer more choices .
Dominic Preston / Foundry
Apple’s spatial computing platform made a splashy debut at WWDC this past June.
Interestingly , the gait of Apple ’s micro chip seemed to accelerate a bit this class : theM2 Pro and M2 Maxdebuted in January in theMacBook ProandMac mini , paving the way for update to theMac StudioandMac Pro – along with the powerhouseM2 Ultraand new15 - column inch MacBook Air – Battle of Midway through the year . That might have seemed like plenty for a undivided yr , but just a few month after , in October , the company rolled out not only its M3 microprocessor chip but simultaneously the M3 Pro and M3 Max variants , leaving only a putative M3 Ultra on the shelf .
The rapid rate of chip development usher just how much Apple has invested in this aspect of its business over the last tenner – these kinds of things do n’t happen overnight , much as it might seem like it to the away observer . Apple knows silicon is core to its business ( all puns intended ) and the ship’s company is n’t about to pull back on it now . If nothing else , that exercise is worth sustain in brain when it come in to other technologies that Apple might be interested in . The work is n’t always obvious , even when it ’s happening furiously .
The learning machines
unreal intelligence is the buzziest of buzzwords , the one that everybody ’s been talking about across the technical school industry for the last year or so ( can we finally bid a not - so - affectionate au revoir to cryptocurrency and the blockchain ? ) . yield that prevalence , it ’s not a surprise that AI ’s even started to simmer within discussion about Apple : has the company neglect the boat ? Will it raise procreative AI mathematical product in the year ahead ? Or is the conversation missing allthe machine encyclopedism - related technical school that the company already has ?
But even if AI features have not yet arrive to the forefront , it ’s clear that the company has spend a heap of time working behind the vista in 2023 . It did , in fact , release a generative AI accessibility feature , Personal Voice , as part of iOS 17 , andeven produced a short moving-picture show about it . Just this past week , Apple give-up the ghost a step further and very quietly releasedan open - source framework for ramp up AI models optimize for Apple atomic number 14 , which feels very much like the company ramp up for big ontogeny .
And , of course , CEO Tim Cook got the requisite question on AI during quarterly financial calls with analyst , who are always digging for any tidbit on the company ’s future design . Duringlast month ’s call , he reply by saying :
In term of generative AI , patently , we have workplace break on . I ’m not drop dead to get into item about what it is , because as you know , we really do n’t do that . But you’re able to bet that we ’re investing . We ’re investing quite a morsel .
While this work seems largely still beneath the control surface , the shift from the source of 2023 to the developments we ’re find now , at the remnant of the year , says that Apple fuck AI is no passing craze .
Apple ’s spatial computing chopine made a splashy debut at WWDC this past June .
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The Vision Pro thing
No lean of Apple ’s biggest motion of 2023 would be complete without theVision Pro – which is fairly tricky , as the gadget is n’t look to ship for another calendar month at least . But if the AR headset was omnipresent as a rumor before the declaration , its ascendancy over the Apple - relate conversation has only solidified in the back half of the year . Given how much the Vision Pro has captured the attention of the Apple community , it ’s tough to imagine that it has n’t had an even more profound effect within the company itself .
The Vision Pro is without a dubiousness the most important new Apple Cartesian product since at least the Apple Watch , which is itself closing in on a tenner of life sentence at this compass point . Even before the outlet of the headset — or , as Apple would have it , “ spatial computer”—it ’s clear that the development of this product has been a major focus of the party ’s resources , from material and engineering to software .
Whether it succeeds , well , that ’s a question for 2024 .
Where do we go from here?
That ’s not all that happened in 2023 , of course : the year also picture Apple finally release some of itspro apps for the iPad , continue its Master of Architecture on security and seclusion features , and release with child updates to all of its major software package platforms , all while contending with increase scrutiny from regulator and governments around the world .
With all of that behind us , it ’s time to take care forward to what 2024 might check . Next workweek , I ’ll take a look at what will in all probability be the gravid stories in the Apple world for the class ahead .
