• 3 hours ago
Transcript
00:00Hey, how's it going? Dave2D here. So WWDC for 2017 just happened, and that's Apple's
00:07Developers Conference that they have every year. It's normally more software focused,
00:12and this year, I mean, there was a bunch of software that was announced, but the one thing
00:15that kind of stuck out for me was the adaption of a file system for iPads. So iOS 11 will
00:22have a new app called Files, and I think for a lot of laptop users that have tried to switch
00:27over to iPads to replace their laptop, they hit that obstacle where they just can't manipulate
00:33files the way they want to, but this new Files app looks pretty cool. But I want to focus
00:37on the hardware that was announced, and this year, there were quite a few. So first, the
00:41entire MacBook and iMac lineup has been updated to Kaby Lake chips. These Kaby Lake CPUs are
00:47basically chip drops into the 2016 MacBook Pro, so they were just, you know, put in a
00:52new CPU into the existing architecture. That was pretty simple. The advantages of Kaby
00:57Lake, well, there's three big ones. The first that you'll notice is the faster clock speed.
01:01So these base clocks are about 15% faster than the previous generation. It's not a huge
01:06difference in terms of actual user experience. It'll benchmark faster, but the 2016 models
01:10will feel pretty similar. Another thing that you'll have with the Kaby Lake chips are the
01:14speed shift technology. So it's running a new version of speed shift, and when you launch
01:18an app or do anything that needs a short burst of speed, these CPUs use something called
01:23speed shift to fire up the turbo. The Kaby Lake processors turbo up quite a bit faster.
01:28The last thing is video encoding and decoding. So the Kaby Lake chips have hardware on the
01:33chip to decode and encode H.264 and VP9 codecs, and the end result is that you'll have just
01:39better battery life when you're streaming 4K content on your laptop. The integrated
01:43graphics on the MacBook Pros are also the new version, so instead of the Iris 540 and
01:48550, the new ones have Iris Plus 640 and 650. In regards to a performance increase for 3D
01:54gaming or 3D applications, it's pretty insignificant. But in general, the Kaby Lake chips are nice,
01:59it's just more focused on energy efficiency more than anything else. So if you're running,
02:04I guess, the 2016 models, there's really no real reason to upgrade, but if you have one
02:08of the older ones, like the 2015 or 2014 models, there's just a bit more incentive
02:12to upgrade now. The iMacs also received a Kaby Lake upgrade, and they have more options
02:17for RAM, and the screens and video cards have also been updated. The base model has an integrated
02:21GPU, the higher-res models have some new Radeon Pro GPUs. They're going to have similar TDP
02:27to the previous generation, so it's not going to be like a massive increase in performance,
02:31but it's nice to have new iMacs. I will be doing a full review of those new iMacs when
02:35I get them in. I want to see what those video cards are capable of. Now, the thing I was
02:38most interested in was the new iMac Pro. It launches in December, and it's pretty expensive.
02:43It's going to start at $5,000, loaded out with nice hardware, and it's packaged in a
02:48very compact iMac-shaped case. But what makes it special is the processor. Like, this is
02:53the first iMac that's had more than four cores for the processor, and, I mean, that's special
02:57because it's difficult to cool something with six, eight, or ten cores. And in this case,
03:02their top-end model has 18 cores, which is insane. I find it difficult to believe that
03:06they can cool a properly utilized 18-core Xeon processor in that chassis. I'll be impressed
03:13if they do. But the other thing that kind of sucks about it is the price tag. They haven't
03:16revealed, like, the full top-end price, but you know that it's Apple, and the price jumps
03:21up exponentially when you go up in core count. So, 18 cores, I think it's going to top out
03:26at, like, $10,000. It's crazy. The iPad Pro also had a hardware revamp, 10.5-inch screen
03:31with smaller bezels, a bunch of nice new features. The standout thing for me, though,
03:36is the 120Hz refresh rate. So, 120Hz panels are really nice for gaming, animations look
03:40really smooth, stuff just looks very fluid on it. Movies and videos will still look the
03:45same, but any kind of high frame rate stuff will look really fluid, provided that the
03:49developer or the creator of that content has allowed for higher frame rates. So, things
03:53like UI animations and possibly some games, those are just going to look really smooth.
03:58Now, the faster refresh rate is going to allow for a faster response time with the Apple
04:02Pencil. The old version had a response time, I think, of 38 milliseconds, so noticeable
04:07lag when you were using the Pencil. This has an advertised rate of 20 milliseconds, so
04:13quite a reduction in response time. As for whether or not 120Hz panel is useful otherwise,
04:17like, aside from the artist application, I would say no. It's really difficult to justify
04:23the extra frames, it's just an aesthetic thing, but it is nice to look at.
04:28The Apple HomePod, I don't know how I feel about this thing. At $350, it's not crazy
04:33expensive, but the integration feels, I don't know, I'm not that impressed by it. I mean,
04:37there's cool tech in it, there's 7 tweeters, there's technology inside this thing to kind
04:41of measure and map the room that you're in for adjustment of the sound waves and stuff
04:46like that. It's cool, it's just that I feel like any kind of high-end Bluetooth speaker
04:50could have done something very similar to this with your phone. Now, the one thing I
04:54can say is that this is the first generation of it. If they add stuff to it, so if they
04:59add, like, an Apple TV built into this HomePod thing, so let's say HomePod 2, there's a built-in
05:04Apple TV or there's built-in, like, mesh Wi-Fi into these units and you can place them all
05:09over your house, that's kind of cool, that's cooler, but in its current iteration, I'm
05:14not that impressed by it. Anyways, that's the end of this video. I mean, there's a lot
05:17of hardware from this WWDC. I've covered, like, a very small amount of it, just the
05:22superficial stuff. I will be doing individual reviews for anything that I personally find
05:26super interesting, so be subscribed for those. Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Thumbs if
05:30you liked it, subs if you loved it. I'll see you guys next time.