On March 9, Apple's spring press conference was unveiled. Although Apple's new product confidentiality was much lower than before, and a lot of information about the new product had already been exposed on the Internet before the conference, but Apple's press conference still attracted a lot of attention. After the press conference, entries such as "iPhone se" and "iPhone 13 Cangling green" appeared on the hot search.
Like the previous spoilers, Apple has launched the new color green iPhone 13 series, the third generation of iPhone se known as the cheap iPhone, and the new iPad air a superficial reform of Apple's new self made chips will not help users to make complaints about Apple's "new wine in old bottles".
In the view of people in the industry, the iPhone and iPad released this time are small upgrades, and there are not many bright spots. This year, we focus more on the chip last October, Apple launched the self-developed chips M1 pro and M1 Max to "blow up". Within six months, Apple released a new chip M1 ultra and used it on desktop computers.
This move can not help but remind the outside world of the major change announced by apple in June 2020 - replacing Intel chips with Apple's self-developed chips on MAC products. The transition period is expected to be two years. At the end of the conference, John Ternus, senior vice president of Apple hardware engineering, said: "the transition plan is almost complete."
third generation iPhone se, no sincerity
As we all know, the highlight of the iPhone digital series is generally in the autumn press conference. At this press conference, Apple CEO cook introduced the new color Cangling green iPhone 13 series briefly, and launched the third generation of iPhone se, which is called the cheap iPhone.
Apple, which once sold its mobile phones at luxury prices, didn't just want to make money in the high-end market. The huge middle and low-end mobile phone market has made many Android manufacturers rise and grow. However, the iPhone se is not very popular in the Chinese market. Since 2016, the iPhone se has only produced three generations, the previous generation was two years ago, and the third generation released this time, Nor did it satisfy Chinese consumers.
In terms of appearance, the third generation iPhone se follows the design of iPhone 8, with a 4.7-inch screen and fingerprint unlocking home key, which may attract some users who like classic design and one handed operation. The biggest difference is that this iPhone se is equipped with the flagship new product A15 of iPhone 13, which improves the performance and can also use 5g.
from the perspective of innovation, the new generation of iPhone se does not have many highlights , after the press conference, millions of microblog fans commented: "now major manufacturers are innovating, and the operation of Apple's new iPhone se is indeed: with the appearance of five years ago, the processor of last year has been slightly modified into a new machine, which is obviously very ordinary, but still very confident."
In terms of price, this cheap iPhone is not "cheap". Before the press conference, spoilers said that the minimum price of the iPhone se was $399, equivalent to about 2500 yuan, but the actual price given on Apple's official website was 3499 yuan, 200 yuan more expensive than the previous generation. In addition, with the increasing memory of the mobile phone, fewer and fewer users choose the 64GB version. If you want to buy a 256gbb iPhone se, you need 4699 yuan. For this, mobile phone users make complaints about "4700 buy a small cell phone, even if I love this little model, I can't understand it."
Lin Zhi, chief analyst of wit display, told reporters that the selling point of the new generation iPhone se is 5g, which is the current mainstream trend. This mobile phone can make up for Apple's shortcomings in 5g product line. Since then, all Apple phones are 5g.
China Galaxy Securities Co.Ltd(601881) Securities Research Report previously released that apple is expected to launch 5g iPhone Se series in 2022h1 to supplement the blank of low-cost 5g mobile phones. The research report also pointed out that the new iPhone se is expected to further stimulate the replacement demand of 5g iPhone, and the iPhone shipment is expected to reach 245 million in 2022.
But in terms of sales, many people in the industry said they were not optimistic about the iPhone se Previously, some observers in the mobile phone industry told reporters that the iPhone se was a failed product in the Chinese market. According to the Securities Daily, the data show that 90% of the sales of iPhone Se series mobile phones are overseas, accounting for a low share in China.
Lin Zhi also believes that the new generation of iPhone se may not cause too much waves in the Chinese market. In contrast, Android 5g phones are more cost-effective. The 5g iPhone se with three or four thousand yuan is not necessarily much better than Android phones using Qualcomm chips, and it is not very attractive to Chinese users.
computer chip transition is the last step
The reporter noticed that in the whole 50 minute press conference, it took only more than 20 minutes to introduce Apple TV +, the new color iPhone 13 series, iPhone Se and iPad air in the first half of the conference, and then half an hour to focus on the chip.
In fact, with the increasing difficulty of hardware innovation of scientific and technological products, Apple's press conference in recent years has focused on the chip and all aspects of performance improvement brought by chip upgrading.
In October last year, at the second autumn press conference in 2021, while launching the new generation of MacBook Pro, apple officially launched the first professional chips M1 pro and M1 Max tailored for MAC computers. Less than half a year later, Apple released a new chip M1 ultra, which is also the last M1 chip.
According to the official introduction, M1 ultra is a SoC chip built through the internal interconnection of two M1 Max grains. A total of 114 billion transistors are integrated inside, reaching the largest number in the history of MAC chips. Meanwhile, Apple also launched a new Mac studio desktop computer and studio display equipped with M1 ultra chip.
This action reminds the outside world of Apple's computer chip transition plan set two years ago. At Apple's WWDC global Developers Conference in June 2020, at the end of the keynote speech, Apple announced a major change - Mac products will use Apple's self-developed chips.
Before that, apple mainly used Intel chips in computer products, and as a company building an ecological closed loop, Apple has always wanted to truly realize the "integration of software and hardware". Cook once: "at Apple, the integration of hardware and software is the basis of all our work, and the chip is the core of the hardware." Over the past decade, Apple has gradually applied its self-developed chips to mobile phones, tablets, watches and headphones, and the computer is its last puzzle.
According to Apple's plan at that time, the transition period will take two years. Now, there are more than three months before the expiration of two years. Over the past year, Apple has released M1, M1 pro and M1 Max successively. With each chip upgrade, MacBook Air, macbook pro, IMAC and mac mini in the MAC product line have also been updated. With the launch of the new chip M1 ultra, MAC studio has been added to the MAC product line, which also means that whether it is a convenient notebook or desktop computer Whether at the ordinary consumer level or professional workstation level, almost all MAC products use self-developed chips,
At the end of the press conference, John Ternus said that MAC studio and studio display joined the MAC series using apple chips, making Apple's transition plan almost complete. At the same time, it also left a suspense: "now, there is only one product left, that is, Mac Pro, but let's talk about it another day."
