Today is the official launch day of Apple's new M1-powered Macs, and as customers who pre-ordered await their devices, Apple has also started in-store sales for the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini.
Customers across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, Australia, and other regions can now place an order on Apple's website or in the Apple Store app and arrange for in-store pickup at a local retail location.
For example, a quick spot check on the U.K. Apple online store suggests that most stores in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland have available stock for customers today or tomorrow. The same goes for other stores in the United States, Canada, and European countries where in-store pickup is available, including Spain, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands.
In many cases, orders placed today for shipping to the home won't arrive until November 25 at the earliest, although there are likely to be exceptions depending on location. In-store pickup at U.S. stores is expected to become available later today.
Initial reports suggest Apple's M1 Macs are significantly faster than the models they replace, and faster than many Intel Macs with the "Pro" moniker. In fact, Apple's M1 Macs are faster in single-core performance than any other Mac that Apple makes, and when it comes to multi-core performance, are faster than the high-end 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
The M1 Macs are even faster in single-core performance when emulating x86 under Rosetta 2, and as for GPU performance, the integrated graphics outperform the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1050 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 560.
This article has been updated to reflect that Apple Store pickup has expanded to more countries, including the United States and Canada.
