Apple Events
Apple’s Literal “Scary Fast” Event
Short and sweet like candy corn, I guess…
Well, I think we all overthought it. As it turns out, there wasn’t too much to read into Apple’s “Scary Fast” event beyond the very surface: “scary” was a reference to the event taking place the night before Halloween and “fast” was a reference to the M3 chips. That’s it. That was the show.
Part of the overthinking was the assumption that Apple would do at least an hour-long event. This has typically been roughly the norm with these video-only presentations in the past. And many events are much longer, of course. But Apple stuck to a tight script here. This event was just 30 minutes long. 30 minutes and 32 seconds, to be precise. Like a sitcom in prime time. But without commercial breaks. Yet.
Actually, wait, it was one big commercial break.
That length may have been the most surprising aspect of the entire thing. In part because there was so much build-up to the event. And this wasn’t just Apple diehards and the tech press — Apple was advertising this thing anywhere and everywhere. It almost felt like it was being touted more than the new iPhone unveil last month. So yeah, it seemed like there would be more. Hence all the guessing.
And actually, if Apple really wanted to, they probably could have trimmed the show in half. A lot of it was spent walking through and talking through use cases for MacBooks. As if we all didn’t know that by now. Look, I’m a fan of doing these videos as opposed to just issuing a press release, but I’m just not sure we needed all the build-up to what this ended up being: a live-streamed prime time event!
Apple, of course, was just having some fun. There were enough Halloween quips to make Dracula turn over in his coffin. Mercifully, we didn’t have anyone dressing up.¹ Mother Earth, perhaps? (Too soon?) The dark/night motifs made the event look and feel a bit different. It looked good, of course. And that led to the other most surprising element of the night. As revealed by the credits slide: the entire event was shot on an iPhone (and edited on a Mac, of course). Impressive!
Other than that, the M3 chips sound great. I’m not sure we needed all the technical details from Johny Srouji, again in just a 30 minute highly-advertised consumer event, but kudos to Apple for having these chips ready to ship next month.² There also were a surprising number of shots at (now clearly former partner) Intel. Multiple times, Apple seemed to be making the case for anyone still on an Intel Mac to upgrade. Perhaps that’s just because the leaps sound so much more impressive than the leaps from the (already impressive) M2 to the M3. And more than a few times, they touted the leaps from the M1 to the M3. I guess the generous read here is because it’s the specific upgrade the iMac is getting.
The non-‘Pro’ or ‘Max’ M3 option for the MacBook Pro was a slight surprise. The $1,599 starting price for these M3 machines sounds good but that’s for only 8GB of RAM in the base model. And really, it just means the end of the strange 13-inch MacBook Pro $1,299 hold-over machine. And yes, the official end of the TouchBar. Good riddance, sweet wayward prince.
Also one more thematic element that should have been guessed: a “Space Black” option for the ‘Pro’ and ‘Max’ machines.³ Cue Batman: “Does it come in black?” 128GB of RAM option! Though it will cost you, naturally…
Personally, I see no need to upgrade any of my machines here just yet. I’m typing this on an M2 MacBook Air, a device which clearly won’t be getting the M3 upgrade until next year, which is fine.⁴ This machine is more than capable as-is. My work machine is an M1 Pro MacBook Pro, and while that jump seems more significant, that machine also is never really taxed by anything I do. But I’m sure it will be great for actual professionals in creative fields. Not just some guy always doing email. The iMac was a much larger and overdue upgrade.
Anyway, it was a nice, quick event with some impressive upgrades. I’m not sure it should have been touted/played-up as much as it was,⁵ but Apple has the power to make events out of such things, so why not? It’s all just marketing anyway. In the end, the show itself was, yes, scary fast.
¹ Though the pirate flag as seen in the opening exterior transition shot was a nice touch/call-back to an earlier era of Apple and the Mac.
² Interestingly, it seems like only the M3 ‘Max’ chips are delayed until “Late November”.
³ But if we’re really going to stick with the theme of the night, how about “Bat Black” or more likely, less cute: “Pitch Black”? Come on, Apple.
⁴ And hopefully we finally get some color options, just like the iMac, then.
⁵ I’m fairly surprised we didn’t hear anything about Apple TV+ simply due to the just-released (in theaters) Apple-produced, Martin Scorsese-directed Killers of the Flower Moon. Again the night timing would have seemed to point to some call-out to this type of content. Napoleon coming right up too? (Not to mention perhaps some horror-related gaming?) But no…
