Apple ‘Scary Fast’ event as it happened: new M3 chips, MacBook Pros and iMac launched

Welcome to TechRadar’s ‘Scary Fast’ Apple live blog! I’ll be watching along as Apple showcases… something. The company has been tight lipped, of course, but there’s been some convincing leaks that suggest we’ll see some new iMacs and MacBooks tonight.

If you haven’t checked out our guide on how to watch Apple’s October event, then make sure you pop over there, as we have embedded the live stream there.

It’s 11:30pm here in the UK, so this is pretty late for an Apple event – they’re usually held earlier in the day. Why is this one kicking off so late (in about 30 mins)? Good question – some people think it might be because it’s going to be gaming-focussed and so Apple wants it to be in Japanese business hours.

Others think that as the event is called ‘Scary Fast’, and it’s nearly Halloween, that having it late at night suits the overall theme.

Or, it could just be that Apple hates me. That might be it.

But! What am I hoping to see tonight? Well, apart from my nice, warm, bed, I’d like to see some new iMacs. It’s been a while since Apple updated its all-in-one PC, so I think it’s about time!

The old M1 iMac was a good looking bit of kit, so I’d love to see a new model with some upgraded components.

It makes sense to fit a new iMac with the M2 chip found in the recent MacBook Airs – though some rumors have said we could see an entirely new range of chips, perhaps called the M3, at tonight’s event.

I’m still not sure about that, to be honest. It doesn’t feel that long ago that the M2 came out… well, OK it was last year, but Apple only just launched the M2 MacBook Air 15-inch a few months ago.

Surely it’s too soon for the M3… isn’t it?

My colleague Lance will be watching along, of course! And I also have my trusted computing editors John Loeffler and Christian Guyton by my side to help cover this event.

There have also been rumors of a new MacBook coming tonight – so what could that be?

If Apple is indeed launching the M3 chip, I’d have thought it would also launch a MacBook Air as well – after all, it’s Apple’s most popular laptop.

But… then there’s the fact Apple just launched an M2-toting 15-inch MacBook Air. Would the company release an M3 model so soon?

If not a MacBook Air, then maybe new MacBook Pros? That certainly seems to be the current rumor… but that also raises certain questions…

According to regular leaker Mark Gurman, Apple will be revealing three new M3 processors and revamped MacBook Pros along with a refreshed iMac at its ‘Scary Fast’ event (as shared in his newsletter for Bloomberg).

Gurman provides specs for those new M3 SoCs, which are the M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max (as expected).

But, will we really see new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros tonight, when Apple already launched new models in January of this very year?

This is Apple, so all bets are off, but I do worry if that does happen what people who bought a new M2 MacBook Pro will think if they get superseded today…

Either way, we’re only eight minutes away from finding out! Despite being REALLY REALLY TIRED, I am very excited to see what Apple has in store.

Got a message from Christian: “shazam the song they’re playing in the livestream holding feed right now and see if the lyrics are relevant”

I shall try to do that. In the name of science!

I can’t hear any music… this is a good start…

Right, so much for that. I’ll just pretend it’s playing something that hints at what we might be getting. Maybe something from Hot Chip…

Three minutes! Now I can’t get The Final Countdown out of my head…

There were rumors of Apple also showing off a new iPad tonight. Again, this is all possible, but it would go against tradition, as Apple usually keeps its Mac and iPad launches separate.

But then lots of things about tonight’s event are unusual…

The Apple Store is down! Always a sign we are getting new products…

And we’re off!

‘Hello’

OK so first up seems to be a video about how versatile MacBooks are. Def feels like we’ll get a new one…

Little cameo from a Mac Studio. Don’t think we’ll get one of those, though.

‘You’re on a Mac, how hard can it be?’ – Oh you don’t know how easily I can break ANY laptop…

Oooh spooky flyover of Apple’s HQ in California. I was there a few years ago!

Something wicked this way comes… it’s Tim Cook!!

Cook is talking about how Apple silicon has helped transform Macs, especially MacBook Pro and MacBook Air.

Apple’s Johny Srouji is in his lab (Apple is leaning into the Halloween theme, and I’m here for it), and he’s giving us a recap of previous MacBooks using Apple silicon.

Introducing M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max!

M3 is the world’s first 3nm consumer-grade processor to hit the market, compared to the 5nm Apple M2. This has allowed Apple to squeeze in 25% more transistors onto the SoC (25 billion compared to 20 billion).

The M3’s GPU will be Apple’s first silicon to feature hardware-accelerated ray tracing, mesh shading, as well as something it calls Dynamic Caching, which better allows the GPU to allocate memory more efficiently.

Here’s the logos:

Next generation GPU brings mesh shading, and ray tracing – the first time Macs get realistic lighting and shadows.

Will bring a whole new graphics performance to Macs with M3 chips. Could our dreams of gaming MacBooks come true?

M3 can do the same CPU performance as the M1, but using just half the power. Similar with graphics performance as well.

One of the best things about the M1 (and M2) was how it was a great performer, but didn’t drain the battery life of your MacBook. Glad to see this continuing.

M3 chip ‘delivers unbelievable performance for our most popular devices’.

65% faster the M1.

Let’s take a look at the M3 lineup of chips. Like the M1 and M2 before it, the base M3 has an 8-core CPU and 10-core GPU. The M3 Pro starts with 12 CPU cores and an 18-core GPU, and the M3 Max has a 16-core CPU and up to a 40-core GPU (the M2 Max topped out at 38 cores).

There’s greater efficiency thanks to the 3-nanometer process and across-the-board improvements over the original M1 chip.

The M3 Max supports up to 128GB of unified memory, while the M3 maxes out at 24GB, the same as the M2.

80% faster than M1 Max.

The most powerful chips made for a personal computer, according to Apple. Quite a claim!

We are now talking about MacBook Pros – readying for a reveal?

New MacBook Pro announced! ‘Raises the bar for what a pro laptop can do’

So we have a new MacBook Pro 14-inch with M3 – 60% faster than the 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 (which isn’t a terribly fair comparison)…

Thermals are kept low – so the MacBook Pro won’t overheat if you’re pushing it hard.

Basically – the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M3 Max is INCREDIBLY powerful, especially for creative pros.

How owners of the 14-inch MacBook Pro with M2 Max will feel about that, is another story.

11 times faster than the last MacBook Pro with Intel hardware. These are the people Apple is pitching this at.

If you did buy an M2 MacBook Pro this year, I don’t think you need to worry about it falling behind too much, to be honest. That might not be too comforting for people who splashed out on it thinking they will get the most powerful MacBook ever…

Ohhh we get a new color!

Space Black! Dark aluminium. And has a special coating to protect against finger prints. Sounds nice!

macOS Sonoma, the latest operating system for Macs, is getting a shoutout.

Oh and some Apple TV+ show about Godzilla is getting a trailer. Uh, thanks, Apple.

We got a mention of the Game Mode in macOS Sonoma, which will help direct the MacBook’s resources to get the best performance out of games. We get a shoutout for Baldur’s Gate 3 as well! I’ve just started playing that!

Here’s Baldur’s Gate playing on a MacBook Pro:

MacBook Pro starts at $1599, order from today, available next week!

The MacBook Pro 14-inch with M3 will start at $1,599. Configurations with extra RAM or the M3 Pro/M3 Max chips will be more expensive.

That’s a fair lick cheaper than any currently available 14-inch Pro laptop from Apple, but there’s an important caveat here: those laptops start with the M2 Pro chip.

With this new 14-inch MacBook Pro, the base model comes with the standard M3 Pro. Does this mean we won’t get to see a 13-inch MacBook Pro in the future? Perhaps not.

New iMac announced!

It’s official, Apple has just announced the new iMac 24-inch (M3). The iconic all-in-one PC has skipped the M2 generation entirely, and is now coming with the M3 chip.

It looks very similar to the previous M1 model, but that’s no bad thing – I loved the redesign in 2021, and it’s still a great-looking all-in-one PC.

As with the previous model, the iMac 24-inch (M3) comes in a choice of seven colors: green, yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, and silver, with braided cables and accessories to match.

The 24-inch screen has a 4.5K Retina resolution, supports the P3 wide color gamut and over a billion colors, and 500 nits of brightness. It also features a 1080p FaceTime camera and ‘studio-quality’ microphones, plus a six-speaker setup for spatial audio.

Inside the new iMac, things have been shaken up a bit more, with the M3 chip bringing more cores and support for up to 24GB of unified memory (the M1 chip topped out at 16GB).

Connectivity has also been improved, with the iMac 24-inch (M3) supporting Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3. On certain models, you can also get support for Gigabit Ethernet (though not on the base model).

I do love the look of the iMac, so glad they kept it.

And we’re back to Tim Cook for a roundup of what we’ve seen.

And that’s a wrap! Quite a tight 30 mins of product announcements, which is nice as it’s so late for many of us, but it’s just nice to have an event that just gets straight to the point. Kudos Apple!

So, what did we get? Here’s a rundown:

Not a bad collection! For all the news, read our breaking report on how Apple does the unthinkable with three new M3 chips, new MacBook Pros, and, yes, a new iMac 24.