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In Part I you read about the biggest Apple releases — new iPads and iPhones. In our second recap you can find other new products Apple released in 2022.
What Was New?
Apple Watch
Apple Watch Ultra
Apple wanted to make the best sports watches. And probably they did. Titanium gives balance between weight, ruggedness, and corrosion resistance. The new design of the case puts upper the flat sapphire crystal which protects it from any edge impacts. The Digital Crown is now larger and the side button is shown farther from the case. It makes it easier to use Apple watch when you’re wearing gloves.
The display is Always‑On Retina and it is 2000 nits at its maximum brightness. It is twice as bright as any other Apple Watch, which is very convenient during sport activities. With bigger display you get more room for workout metrics.
The new Apple Watch Ultra has a new Action button. It’s customisable and allows you perfect control during workouts.
This watch is designed for every type of sport. It even has a siren. It plays an 86-decibel sound to attract help when you need it. It's so loud that you can hear it up to 600 feet or 180 metres away. Perfect for hikers.
When other Apple watch models are water resistant till 50 metres deep, this one can work on the 100 metres deepness.
Apple Watch Series 8
This watch is made of aluminium and stainless steel. Like AppleWatch Ultra it has fall detection, emergency SOS, blood oxygen sensors and gyroscope. At the same time Apple Watch Series 8 upgraded tracking function that assists you with wellness and safety. Apple also announced that this Apple Watch will have two new temperature sensors. One of them is located close to the skin to feel the temperature better, and the other is within the display.
What about the safety category? Apple Watch now has a car crash detection feature on the Series 8. This sensor alerts all necessary emergency responders and your emergency contacts if you're unresponsive after 10 seconds.
However, battery life, display, and the overall design haven’t changed much since Series 7.
Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)
Apple Watch SE is like the iPhone SE. You can save money buying a new product in an old-designed body. It has all of the features you want in a modern smartwatch — a big screen, next generation sensors, swappable bands, good battery life — at a price that probably won’t break your budget. The Apple Watch SE looks exacyly like the Apple Watch Series 6 and can be worn with any of the new Solo bands. The only difference in their appearance is that Apple Watch SE doesn't have exclusive red and blue colours of Series 8.
AirPods Pro (2nd generation)
This year the external design of AirPods Pro hasn't changed, the main upgrades were made on the inside. Got an Apple Watch puck? Now you can charge up your 2022 AirPods Pro with it.
The case also now includes a small speaker. This might be useful when you need it to play a location sound for Find My, and to indicate audibly when the battery is low or when charging has started.
Speaking of charging, Apple claims that battery life in these AirPods is far higher than in the previous ones.
Another thing — now you can choose from 4 instead of 3 ear tips with a new extra-small tip added.
And one more important feature — Apple worked hard to improve noise cancellation. They claim that this model is twice as effective than the previous one.
But what about sound quality? It was also improved. Now the sound AirPods produce can be tailored to the shape of your ears using a new feature called Personalised Spatial Audio, which uses the TrueDepth camera on your iPhone to create a pretty accurate model of your own head. Sounds amazing and a bit futuristic, huh?
Mac Studio
When Mac Studio was released, everyone’s thought was that it would be great for content creators. Computers with M1 chips are powerful enough, but the Mac Studio performance is a serious boost. The speed improvement is phenomenal. So with a lot of great additional features very soon Mac Studio became desirable not only for content creators but for everyone who wants a serious boost.
Mac Studio looks like a big brother of Mac mini. It is 7.7 inches square, just like the Mac mini, but Mac Studio is 3.7 inches tall, which is nearly three times higher than the Mac mini.
Since Apple limited it’s port offerings in Macs, Mac Studio has a big variety of them:
In the back:
- Four Thunderbolt 4 ports
- 10Gb ethernet
- Two USB-A ports
- HDMI 2.0
- 3.5 mm headphone jack
In the front:
- M1 Max model: Two USB-C ports
- M1 Ultra model: Two Thunderbolt 4 ports
- SDXC Card slot
Please check the refurbished Mac Studio and check all the options.
Apple Studio Display
Three years after Pro Display XDR release Apple brought to market a new cheaper option — Studio Display, which now is the most affordable in Apple’s range.
Its size is 27-inch diagonal, native resolution is 5120-by-2880 pixels (218 pixels per inch), colours — 1 billion, P3 colour gamut, True Tone. The brightness is 600 nits, and viewing angle is 178 degrees.
You can choose from three different stand options. You get the tilt-adjustable stand by default with the £1,499 model. Or you can choose a model with a VESA mount for also £1,499. The tilt- and height-adjustable stand is a £400 option.
The Studio Display has four useful ports: a Thunderbolt 3 port usually is used to connect the display to your Mac, and other three USB-C ports for attaching different peripheral devices.
M2 MacBook Air
The new MacBook Air looks like a completely different laptop. After 14 years of history Apple changed Air’s wedge design. Now it’s equally thin (just a bit above 11mm) from the front to back. It’s thinner and lighter than the predecessor. Besides this almost every aspect is updated, it’s a completely different notebook now.
THe new MacBook Air has not only design and hardware changes, but also the latest Apple processor, the M2. The base model has an eight-core CPU and eight-core GPU in it, 8GB of RAM, and the storage is 256GB. You can boost it up to 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, of course if you like the idea of spending $2500 on a MacBook Air.
What is interesting that the new Air’s deck doesn't have the speaker grills that are can be found on every other MacBook model. Now the speakers are located between the keyboard and the display.
Along with the new design comes a brand new display with a notch. The screen is a bit bigger than before — 13.6 inches vs. 13.3. Apple managed to do this because the new Air is a little taller than the previous model. The bezels around the screen are thinner, and the display has rounded corners.
The new display is brighter. Apple claims that is has 500 nits vs. 400 of the old MacBook Air. Also, the camera inside the notch is the same 1080p unit that’s in the larger Pro models, and it’s much improved over the 720p camera that was in the older Air.
M2 13-inch MacBook Pro
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is an astonishing laptop. It is the first Mac with the M2 System on a Chip, the second generation of Apple silicon for the Mac. The new MacBook Pro has great performance and battery life. However, there are no upgrades in the design field, and new MacBook Air looks a lot more modern and chic now.
Pros
- M2 chip — brilliant performer
- Excellent battery life
- Almost silent in use
- Can even play games
Cons
- No design updates
- Still only two Thunderbolt ports
- 720p webcam
- New MacBook Air offers better value
The the best thing is that it comes with Apple’s brand-new M2 chip, Apple promises a 40% performance increase over the M1. But the price is the same.
The M2 chip puts some good work in here, providing excellent performance, especially in video editing, and day-to-day use is, again, excellent, with multiple apps running simultaneously without causing this new MacBook Pro 13-inch any issues.
Perhaps the best aspect of the 2022 MacBook Pro 13-inch is the battery life. It keeps the laptop working for 15 and a half hours, this is pretty impressive. Usually, for workstation laptops used for intensive workloads, you’d be looking at a battery life of around half this – or even less.
You can check the latest refurbished MacBooks versions on Tech Trade.
Conclusions
Apple did a great job this year. They came up with an update on almost every device in their range. Not all of them were groundbreaking, but they definitely deserve attention.
What’s new for us in 2023? We’ll find out soon.
