We’re just weeks away from putting 2023 in our rearview mirror, so it’s time – as the natural order of things dictates – to cast our gaze back over the past 12 months and try to shape events into some semblance of story.
The past year at Apple has certainly been eventful, from big updates to the Mac lineup to completely absent iPads to a whole new product category to challenges from rivals and governments. Even though the company hasn’t posted the most spectacular financial results ever, it would be hard to say that it hasn’t put its nose to the grindstone.
Of course, big changes aren’t always those that are obvious from the outside. Sometimes certain trends only become apparent when we have a chance to examine them in retrospect.
Apple silicon advances
2023 was another great year for the Mac. Just a month shy of the product’s 40th anniversary, it’s hard to overstate what an incredible boom the iconic personal computer has enjoyed, much of which can be attributed to Apple silicon.
Apple has added a larger 15-inch MacBook Air to give consumers more choices.
Dominic Preston / Foundry
Interestingly, Apple’s chip pace seemed to pick up a bit this year: the M2 Pro and M2 Max debuted in January on the MacBook Pro and Mac mini, paving the way for updates up-to-date Mac Studio and Mac Pro, as well as the powerful M2. Ultra and new 15-inch MacBook Air – mid-year. That might have seemed enough for a single year, but a few months later, in October, the company rolled out not only its M3 chip, but the M3 Pro and M3 Max variants simultaneously, leaving only a putative M3 Ultra on the list. shelf. .
The rapid pace of chip development shows how much Apple has invested in this aspect of its business over the past decade: this sort of thing doesn’t happen overnight, no matter how much it may seem to an outside observer. Apple knows that silicon is core to its business (all puns intended) and the company isn’t about to retreat from it now. At the very least, this example is worth keeping in mind when it comes to other technologies that Apple might be interested in. The work is not always easy, even when it happens furiously.
Learning machines
Artificial Intelligence is the hottest buzzword, the one everyone in the tech industry has been talking about for the past year or so (can we finally say a not-so-fond farewell to cryptocurrency and blockchain?) . Given this prevalence, it’s no surprise that AI has even begun to simmer in discussions about Apple: has the company missed the boat? Will it produce generative AI products in the coming year? Or is the conversation missing all the machine learning-related technologies the company already has?
But even though AI features aren’t at the forefront yet, it’s clear that the company has spent a lot of time working behind the scenes in 2023. It actually released a generative accessibility feature of the AI, Personal Voice, as part of iOS 17, and even made a short film about it. Last week, Apple went further and very quietly released an open source framework for creating AI models optimized for Apple silicon, which looks a lot like the company is gearing up for big developments.
And, of course, CEO Tim Cook has received the necessary questions about AI during quarterly financial calls with analysts, who are always looking for information on the company’s future plans. During last month’s call, he responded by saying:
In terms of generative AI, we obviously have work in progress. I’m not going to go into detail about what that is, because as you know, we really don’t do that. But you can be sure that we are investing. We invest quite a bit.
While much of this work still seems largely beneath the surface, the shift from early 2023 to the developments we’re seeing now, at the end of the year, shows that Apple knows that AI is not a passing fad .
Apple’s spatial computing platform made a notable debut at WWDC last June.
Foundry
The Vision Pro thing
No list of Apple’s biggest moves in 2023 would be complete without the Vision Pro, which is somewhat tricky since the device isn’t expected to ship for at least another month. But while the AR headset was ubiquitous as a rumor before the announcement, its dominance over Apple-related conversations only solidified in the second half of the year. Given how much attention the Vision Pro garnered within the Apple community, it’s hard to imagine that it didn’t have an even more profound effect within the company itself.
The Vision Pro is undoubtedly the most important new Apple product since at least the Apple Watch, which itself is currently approaching a decade of life. Even before the release of the headset – or, as Apple would say, the “space computer” – it’s clear that the development of this product has been a major focus of the company’s resources, from materials and engineering up to software.
Whether it succeeds, well, that’s a question for 2024.
Where do we go from here?
That’s not all that happened in 2023, of course: the year also saw Apple finally release some of its pro apps for iPad, continue its progress in security and privacy features, and release new apps. major updates for all of its major software platforms, while facing increased scrutiny from regulators and governments around the world.
With all of this behind us, it’s time to consider what 2024 might hold. Next week, I’ll look at what will likely be the biggest stories in the Apple world for the coming year.
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