Jump to content

Apple Spring Loaded Event (April 20th, 2021) - Leaked by Siri, confirmed by Apple

NotTheFirstDaniel

Image

Summary

In the middle of the morning, Siri was updated a bit too early on the backend announcing Apple's next hardware event on 4/20, where we expect to see a new iPad Pro with a miniLED screen, 5G, and an A14X similar to the power of the M1, possibly a new iPad mini, the long rumored Airtags, and maybe even the next Apple Silicon device -- a redesigned colorful iMac. 

 

Quotes

Quote

"Upon being asked "When is the next Apple Event," ‌Siri‌ is currently responding with, "The special event is on Tuesday, April 20, at Apple Park in Cupertino, CA. You can get all the details on Apple.com."

 

"Siri has apparently prematurely revealed that Apple plans to hold an event on Tuesday, April 20, where the company is expected to reveal brand new iPad Pro models and possibly its long-awaited AirTags trackers."

 

My thoughts

It is quite fitting that this leak saga ended with Apple prematurely leaking the event themselves. 

 

Could honestly care less about anything other than the rumored iMacs. iPad Pro with the same rehashed design and an M1? Boring. Call me when they put Final Cut or XCode on it. Expensive Tile clones? No thank you.

 

Apparently these iMacs will come with the M1X, which is rumored to have double the HP cores, making it an actual competitor to high-end Ryzen and, well I would say Intel, but the M1 was already beating intel chips with half the cores. The single core performance on these M1s are already top of the line - even being on par with Zen3. With 8 high performance cores? I seriously cannot wait for LTT to benchmark it. They will also apparently have double the GPU cores. So I think people were saying the M1 had similar performance to a GTX1050? Assuming it scales linearly, wouldn't that make it around the same performance as a 1060 3GB?

 

But my main question about these iMacs is RAM. While this iMac may not be replacing the iMac Pro (only the 23" is rumored for "imminent" release), the 27" definitely is. And it is much more cost effective to have socketed ram than it is to have soldered ram. And then we get to the Mac Pro coming most likely in Mid-2022. If they want to at least meet the Intel Mac Pro, they would have to package 1.5TB of RAM into the SOC. Now its very Apple-like to actually do that and then pass the cost onto the consumer, but sockets would make much more sense, as they learned with the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro (and even the Mac Mini). Is the M1X where we see socketed RAM? 

 

But again as for the release date, this is my own speculation based off of other reports that the M1X iMacs are "ready". It is likely they may hold off until WWDC, which has also been announced, but is usually focused on software.

 

Funny how Apple announced WWDC 69 days before the event date, and is now hosting a 4/20 Apple Event. Seems like there could be a joke in there somewhere.

 

Sources

Siri Reveals Apple Event Planned for Tuesday, April 20 - MacRumors

Edited by NotTheFirstDaniel
Edited to reflect the name of the event.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, leadeater said:

Anything more than iPad (Pro) expected? Personally hoping for an Apple SoC iMac, that would be sweet.

iPad Pro and AirTags are what most analysts are reporting on that have connections inside Apple. An iMac is possible, (there is actual proof that Apple has an Apple Silicon iMac in their labs that is running a beta of macOS 11.3, they could announce an iMac on the 20th and drop 11.3 the same day with full support for it), but isn't confirmed. A lone source is reporting AirPods 3. Didn't put it in my OP because most analysts are saying it got pushed back to Q3. Could be due to the chip shortages. People are still buying AirPods 2 and AirPods Pro, why release new AirPods that would create a surge of sales and create an even larger strain on what are already going to be paper launches?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

46 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Apparently these iMacs will come with the M1X, which is rumored to have double the HP cores, making it an actual competitor to high-end Ryzen and, well I would say Intel, but the M1 was already beating intel chips with half the cores.

What would make Apple Silicon to be completely competitive with Intel and AMD especially for HPC applications is their upcoming support for ARMv9 should they release a Mac Pro with Apple Silicon. The current M1 is still using ARMv8 which doesn't have SVE2 (128-2048 bit blocks), that's why both Intel and AMD still beats the M1 on matrix computations. ARMv9 will change that due to the SVE2 support.

 

This is probably the reason why Apple still sells the Intel Mac minis and the Mac Pro will get its last Intel update this year. I bet the rumored M1X and M2 for the iMac and 14"/16" MBP will still be ARMv8.

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Anything more than iPad (Pro) expected?

What could they possibly update the iPad Pro aside from the chip? Imo, they made the iPad Pro way too good and I think less people will actually it. I think Apple ran into the same issue with the iPhone 6s/6s+, they made that phone well hence not a lot of people upgraded to an iPhone 7/7+/

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

I wonder if the person who pushed the update early did so because his mind was warm & fuzzy?

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

I bet the rumored M1X and M2 for the iMac and 14"/16" MBP will still be ARMv8.

EDIT: Idiot alert. Read on if you wanna see my tangent on a completely different post I thought of in my head instead of actually using my eyes to read...

 

I think that will come with M2, which will probably come after the A15 since Apple has an allergic reaction to releasing new cores before the iPhone.

 

I'm pretty sure Apple's strategy on the desktop is to have one core design, but scaled up to meet demand. The M1 shares the same Firestorm cores as the A14, just with a higher TDP. The M1X will likely share those same cores, just double the M1. I highly doubt they will iterate on the M1 after the M1X, but if they do, they will still have the same cores. If they put firestorm cores in a Mac Pro (for some reason), they'll either have multiple SOCs with special Apple designed interconnects, or jam in a lot of cores.

 

It could also be that Apple introduces a new CPU core on the desktop with every die shrink. If Apple has already fully booked TSMC's 4nm part, which will Apple will get late 2021 let alone use for testing, purely for Macs, we could see an M1Z or M1T or something higher powered in the interim for iMac 27" and the rumored small Mac Pro. But if they did this they would be very uncompetitive in the PC space with Intel releasing Skylake and AMD releasing new CPU cores every year.

 

Speculation aside, IMO the M1X switching to ARMv8 would be the same as AMD releasing a Ryzen 9 5950Z that was Zen4 or Zen3+ and selling it along side the other Zen3 chips.

Edited by NotTheFirstDaniel
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

I wonder if the person who pushed the update early did so because his mind was warm & fuzzy?

They're also probably fired...

 

Sorry to kill the mood...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

IMO the M1X switching to ARMv8

The M1 is already ARMv8 just like the A7 chip (iPhone 5s) in 2013, I don't think Apple will have enough time to design a new AS for the Mac based on ARMv9, unless they already had it way before ARM announced it just a few weeks ago.

 

This is why data scientists who work using Intel Macs should skip the M1 Mac and wait for the ARMv9 refresh

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Just now, captain_to_fire said:

The M1 is already ARMv8 just like the A7 chip (iPhone 5s) in 2013, I don't think Apple will have enough time to design a new AS for the Mac based on ARMv9, unless they already had it way before ARM announced it just a few weeks ago.

I read your post completely wrong. I am sorry!

 

God I need some sleep...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, captain_to_fire said:

The M1 is already ARMv8 just like the A7 chip (iPhone 5s) in 2013, I don't think Apple will have enough time to design a new AS for the Mac based on ARMv9, unless they already had it way before ARM announced it just a few weeks ago.

Also for that chip and target devices ARMv9 just may not be a necessity. Sure ARMv9 is better but it's not something required to make those products competitive, an expanded core count M1 is literally all that is required to compete all the way up to 16 core x86 without additional instruction set support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

41 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

They're also probably fired...

 

Sorry to kill the mood...

Would they even care though?

 

"Its cool man, totally cool" 😄

Main Rig:-

Ryzen 7 3800X | Asus ROG Strix X570-F Gaming | 16GB Team Group Dark Pro 3600Mhz | Corsair MP600 1TB PCIe Gen 4 | Sapphire 5700 XT Pulse | Corsair H115i Platinum | WD Black 1TB | WD Green 4TB | EVGA SuperNOVA G3 650W | Asus TUF GT501 | Samsung C27HG70 1440p 144hz HDR FreeSync 2 | Ubuntu 20.04.2 LTS |

 

Server:-

Intel NUC running Server 2019 + Synology DSM218+ with 2 x 4TB Toshiba NAS Ready HDDs (RAID0)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

31 minutes ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Well I mean, this is not the first time Siri leaked a press event before Apple. We don't know what happened to them.

 

Actually maybe Siri is developing a mind of her own...

"Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action" -Ian Flemming

 

2 hours ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Airtags

Didn't even know these were a thing. Now that I know I'm even more confused. Bluetooth? They must have GPS or something as well no? How else will you find it if you've actually lost it and not just left it under the couch or something. Otherwise it sounds to me all it can do is inform you that you have lost your item, which you may already know at that point.

Crystal: CPU: i7 7700K | Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z270F | RAM: GSkill 16 GB@3200MHz | GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti FE | Case: Corsair Crystal 570X (black) | PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 1000W | Monitor: Asus VG248QE 24"

Laptop: Dell XPS 13 9370 | CPU: i5 10510U | RAM: 16 GB

Server: CPU: i5 4690k | RAM: 16 GB | Case: Corsair Graphite 760T White | Storage: 19 TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, tikker said:

Didn't even know these were a thing. Now that I know I'm even more confused. Bluetooth? They must have GPS or something as well no? How else will you find it if you've actually lost it and not just left it under the couch or something. Otherwise it sounds to me all it can do is inform you that you have lost your item, which you may already know at that point.

UWB + Bluetooth. When you're in range you can get exact location thanks to the U1 chip found in the iPhone 11 and up.

 

If your item is lost, it pings iDevices around it via Bluetooth to get general location, then reports back to you. It's the same way iPhones update location when they're dead and on reserve battery mode, even though last geological location using GPS is sent right before the phone dies. Sort of a mesh network triangulation thingy. It's a whole ecosystem called "Find My" that was actually introduced in 2019 but AirTags kept getting delayed. Apple actually recently opened up Find My to third parties, so they don't get hit with that lawsuit Tile was threatening I think. So even when Apple releases AirTags, you will be able to find something that does exactly the same thing, syncs up with Apple devices and everything, for most likely less money.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

Also for that chip and target devices ARMv9 just may not be a necessity. Sure ARMv9 is better but it's not something required to make those products competitive, an expanded core count M1 is literally all that is required to compete all the way up to 16 core x86 without additional instruction set support.

I feel next year will be the time Apple will release ARMv9 AS chips for HPC applications like in data science, something they can finally compete where Intel and AMD dominated. Not sure how would an iPhone would benefit from SVE but all AS chips will be v9 next year

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

12 minutes ago, Tedny said:

Miniled, are we finally will get rid of Oled?! 

Nope. OLED is still better in contrast ratio and brightness. microLED would be the successor to OLED.

 

I guess you could think of miniLED as LCD+ or "LCD XDR" or whatever marketing name Apple is gonna give it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

51 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

I feel next year will be the time Apple will release ARMv9 AS chips for HPC applications like in data science, something they can finally compete where Intel and AMD dominated. Not sure how would an iPhone would benefit from SVE but all AS chips will be v9 next year

Next year would be my guess as well, seems too soon for this year and it's not like lower end iMacs need more than the current M1 chip as it is. There's a lot of scope for Apple to refresh current product line offerings now with the M1 and expanded core count offerings all on AMRv8/Firestorm+Icestorm with no issues at all. Then next year just expand out to higher end models.

 

I'm pretty sure an M1 iMac can replace all current iMac models, including iMac Pro, while keeping or increasing application performance doing so. So a faster iMac is just icing  really only needed to bridge those more compute bound application workloads that can't/don't get GPU offload to compete (at least performance wise) with 5900X and higher CPUs.

 

Right now the M1 looks so great because we're all focusing on applications that benefit really well from unified memory hybrid compute which to be fair is the majority of Apple applications (and Windows it's just poorly implemented or not at all here). The only time where you see in application performance a lot lower is in pure CPU or pure GPU in highly scalable workloads which is few and far between regardless of Mac OS vs Windows vs Linux (desktop).

 

I honestly can't see Apple make all that many SKUs simply because it's actually not that necessary, even AMD proves that on a per generation basis. It's only Intel that needs 40 millions SKUs for literally no good reason.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

microLED would be the successor to OLED

microLED is actually equal/inferior to OLED, at least day one out of the box. It's an alternative rather than a successor.

 

OLED isn't quite as bright and decays over time but has a superior image fidelity potential and vastly better black and grey scale. microLED is brighter and doesn't suffer decay so stays bright but right now is much harder to manufacture. microLED also claims to have better contrast but this is in practice not true due to the very poor black level performance i.e. grey glow (they say it doesn't have this but I'll only believe it when proven true), microLED skews the measurement scale by being able to be 2 to 2.5 times brighter which is technically correct and true but if you were to actually view two competing screens and were to watch a movie you would say the OLED has better contrast.

 

The extra brightness is also much better for 3D (giant meeeeh) and also for HDR (actually important). However I would take an OLED over a microLED display every time if it weren't for the decay issue so right now I don't know which I would actually prefer (pricing being equal).

 

I would rather wait out OLED technology improving personally than go with yet another LED technology that has bad black levels.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

22 minutes ago, leadeater said:

OLED isn't quite as bright and decays over time but has a superior image fidelity potential and vastly better black and grey scale. microLED is brighter and doesn't suffer decay so stays bright but right now is much harder to manufacture. microLED also claims to have better contrast but this is in practice not true due to the very poor black level performance i.e. grey glow (they say it doesn't have this but I'll only believe it when proven true), microLED skews the measurement scale by being able to be 2 to 2.5 times brighter which is technically correct and true but if you were to actually view two competing screens and were to watch a movie you would say the OLED has better contrast.

 

The extra brightness is also much better for 3D (giant meeeeh) and also for HDR (actually important). However I would take an OLED over a microLED display every time if it weren't for the decay issue so right now I don't know which I would actually prefer (pricing being equal).

 

I would rather wait out OLED technology improving personally than go with yet another LED technology that has bad black levels.

Yeah for me peak brightness, while of course important, is only one aspect of the experience. While perhaps similar in numbers (ignoring the technically infinite contrast of OLEDs), I get so much more visual excitement out of seeing pitch blackness then seeing bright parts 2 or 3 times as bright but the same black level.

Crystal: CPU: i7 7700K | Motherboard: Asus ROG Strix Z270F | RAM: GSkill 16 GB@3200MHz | GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti FE | Case: Corsair Crystal 570X (black) | PSU: EVGA Supernova G2 1000W | Monitor: Asus VG248QE 24"

Laptop: Dell XPS 13 9370 | CPU: i5 10510U | RAM: 16 GB

Server: CPU: i5 4690k | RAM: 16 GB | Case: Corsair Graphite 760T White | Storage: 19 TB

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

What could they possibly update the iPad Pro aside from the chip? Imo, they made the iPad Pro way too good and I think less people will actually it. I think Apple ran into the same issue with the iPhone 6s/6s+, they made that phone well hence not a lot of people upgraded to an iPhone 7/7+/

If iPad Pro can use Rosetta to run x86 and also other MacOS M1 apps then that would be very awesome

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

They'll probably also drop iOS 14.5 around the event. I hope. It would be nice.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

10 minutes ago, WereCat said:

If iPad Pro can use Rosetta to run x86 and also other MacOS M1 apps then that would be very awesome

I think they will probably have an A14X which is the speed of an M1 but without all the extra x86 translation stuff.

 

I'm pretty sure Apple's strategy is less "bring intel apps to the iPad" and more "convert x86 apps to ARM apps, then compile for the iPad and the Mac with Project Catalyst"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

They're also probably fired...

 

Sorry to kill the mood...

I suppose they’re not taking it down. This is not like in 2011 where Siri showed that the best smartphone was a windows phone
 

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

I suppose they’re not taking it down. This is not like in 2011 where Siri showed that the best smartphone was a windows phone
 

FullSizeRender.mov

Probably because if they backtracked on it right now, the media would think there would be no Apple event next week until official invites come out. I think Apple's PR decided it would be best to not do anything and wait to send invites at a normal time (So usually 10AM-12PM EST)

 

But (tinfoil cap moment) what if this was on purpose? Siri gets new voices in iOS 14.5, and iOS 14.5 is supposed to be released at this event. What if Siri makes a headline into the show and this "Siri being smarter than Apple" gag is expanded upon?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now

×