In a rare January launch, Apple made its first product launch announcement on January 17
Apple introduced faster versions of its high-end MacBook Pro laptops and the Mac mini desktop
The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros look the same as their predecessors but add more powerful M2 Pro and M2 Max chips
The new notebooks mark Apple’s first expansion of the M2 chip, which debuted in the MacBook Air and a low-end MacBook Pro last year
Apple in a blog said, "M2 Pro scales up the architecture of M2 to deliver an up to 12-core CPU and up to 19-core GPU, together with up to 32GB of fast unified memory."
M2 Max builds on the capabilities of M2 Pro, including an up to 38-core GPU, double the unified memory bandwidth, and up to 96GB of unified memory, Apple explained
CEO Tim Cook tweeted, "The best just got better! Meet MacBook Pro and Mac mini with the newest Apple silicon and more game-changing performance."
Apple believes that Adobe Photoshop in the new M2 Pro-powered MacBook Pro will run up to 2.5x faster than on the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro
In the Mac Mini, M2 Pro offers a powerful media engine, which speeds through the most popular video codecs and can simultaneously play up to five streams of 8K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps, or up to 23 streams of 4K ProRes 422 video at 30 fps
The Mac Mini comes at a starting price of $599 and will be available in stores from January 24