News

Apple Scary Fast Event: New M3 MacBook Pros And iMac

The latest chip upgrades promise huge power and efficiency increases.

Published

3 years ago

October 31, 2023

Nour Nasir

Apple

Apple unveiled its latest Mac refresh at its “Scary Fast” live-streamed event on Monday, which, incidentally, was the first of its kind to be shot entirely on an iPhone (specifically, the new iPhone 15 Pro Max).

“We’ve got something special for you tonight. No tricks, just treats,” teased Apple chief executive Tim Cook on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, before the event.

The “Scary Fast” moniker turned out (rather unsurprisingly) to be a reference to the company’s M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max chips, which promise huge increases in power and efficiency while reducing the system’s reliance on memory.

“M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max are the most advanced chips ever built for a personal computer,” said Johny Srouji, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware technology.

“Apple silicon has completely redefined the Mac experience. Every aspect of its architecture is designed for performance and power efficiency”, he added.

The New 24-Inch iMac

24 inch apple imac

Since its 2021 launch, the iMac hasn’t benefited from a single spec bump. That situation has now been rectified, with Apple boosting the tired M1 processors inside the colorful all-in-one PC for its latest M3 chip, doubling the already speedy device’s performance in the process.

Although the rest of the iMac 24 is largely unchanged, Apple claims to have tweaked the display quality, which now offers 11.3 million pixels and more than a billion colors, as well as adding faster wireless connectivity.

apple m3 chips

“We are excited to give iMac a big boost in performance with the M3 chip,” said John Ternus, Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering.

“The new iMac with M3 is incredible for anyone, especially those who have not yet upgraded from Intel, providing a giant leap in performance and capabilities,” he added.

Online pre-orders for the new iMac are already being taken, with prices starting at $1,299 and deliveries expected to start from November 7.

The Latest MacBook Pros

Apple also announced a new MacBook Pro line-up with an M3 chip upgrade to both the 14 and 16-inch versions of the laptop, offering “phenomenal sustained performance” for machine learning programmers, 3D artists, and video editors.

Also Read: MENA Online Electronics Sales Grew By 7% In 2023

Starting at $1,599, the new MacBook Pros are now available for pre-order. Customers will begin to take delivery from November 7 to coincide with the laptops’ arrival in Apple stores.

News

At I/O 2026, Sundar Pichai Concedes AI Must Deliver Real Value

Gemini 3.5, a personal agent called Spark, agentic shopping, and Android XR eyewear are all aimed at making AI feel useful, not just impressive.

Published

6 days ago

May 20, 2026

Nour Nasir

at io 2026 sundar pichai concedes ai must deliver real value

Google

Google’s annual I/O developer conference (I/O 2026) has recently become a status update on the same question: can the company turn its AI spending into products people use every day? This year, chief executive Sundar Pichai described Google as being in a phase of hyper progress, while conceding this is the part of the cycle where people want to see real value in the products they use on a day-to-day basis.

The strategy on display was to push agents — AI systems that act on a user’s behalf — into nearly every Google product at once. Search now has an “intelligent search box” that returns generated explainer videos alongside links. Gmail, Docs, YouTube and Maps are gaining their own agent layers, including a Docs Live feature that turns spoken instructions into drafted text with citations.

Two new models, Gemini 3.5 and a cheaper Gemini 3.5 Flash, arrived the same day. Google says 900 million people now use Gemini, and that more than 50 billion images have been generated with it. The pricing tier names are likely to confuse buyers: a new AI Ultra plan launches at $100 a month, while the older Gemini AI Ultra drops from $250 to $200.

The flashier announcements were Gemini Omni, a video generator pitched as a more realistic answer to OpenAI’s discontinued Sora 2, and Gemini Spark, a personal agent that handles recurring tasks across a user’s Google account. A new universal shopping cart lets agents complete purchases across multiple retailers from inside Google itself, placing the company between the merchant and the buyer, and also owning the checkout.

Also Read: DJI Teases Dual-Camera Osmo Pocket 4P For 2026 Launch

Google also confirmed its Android XR eyewear, built with Samsung and frames from Warby Parker and Gentle Monster. Audio-only glasses ship this autumn; a display-equipped version, which would superimpose live translations into the wearer’s field of view, is still in development. Both sets translate, however only the display version shows you the result.

What Pichai did not resolve is the bargain underneath all this. An agent is only useful to the degree it knows your calendar, your inbox, your shopping history and your physical surroundings. Google has now confirmed that, in time, the same context may carry advertising.