APPLE SILICON
Intel can waste time creating straw men, but it needs to deliver on its processor roadmap.
Intel’s ‘Get Real Go PC’ campaign focuses on some of the ways that PCs provide more capabilities than the initial Apple silicon Macs:
APPLE
Or at least, what we think we know.
If you’ve ever thought that Apple analysts like Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman are making it up as they go along, last week’s news that Apple has filed a lawsuit against a former employee for leaking trade secrets shows that at least some members of the Apple rumor industry have direct pipelines into the company. With that said, let’s review the latest rumors.
Event Date
Back in October, Jon Prosser reported that there would be an Apple event held on March 16th, however, that was contradicted in a tweet by Mark Gurman. With Gurman not altogether ruling out a March event…
APPLE SILICON
When in doubt, trust the process.
When Apple announced the Mac’s transition to its custom silicon during the 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference it promised “industry-leading performance” with plans to “ship the first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years.” But instead of one new Mac, Apple shipped three: a new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, all with the same Apple silicon M1 SoC. The reviews for these new Macs readily affirmed Apple’s performance claims:
- Tom’s Guide: “A computing revolution”
- ArsTechnica: “Not so crazy after all”
- PetalPixel: “This Changes Everything”
- MacRumors: “M1 Chip…
APPLE SILICON
Less But Better
In what should come as a surprise to no one, Apple is discontinuing the iMac Pro, a computer predicated upon Intel’s fall from grace when it comes to CPU efficiency. A quick trip to Apple’s website confirms that the all-in-one, workstation-class, desktop Mac is only available in a single configuration, with a 3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, 32GB of memory, 1TB SSD, and the caveat “While supplies last”. Apple Insider’s reporting provides further information:
Previously, there were configuration options for 14-core and 18-core processors, Vega 64 graphics, up to 4TB of storage, and up to 256GB of memory.
The…
Apple Silicon
The new Mac will provide a natural upgrade path from the current Mac mini.
Back in early November, before the first M1 Macs were released, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman issued a report that included information about a half-sized Mac Pro:
Apple engineers are currently developing a new Mac Pro that looks like the current design at about half the size. It’s unclear if that Mac will replace the current Mac Pro or if it’s an additional model. Apple’s chip designs could help the company reduce the size of its computers due to increased power efficiency, but the current Mac Pro is large, in part, to fit components like additional storage drives and graphics chips.
This…
APPLE
Why Apple’s next ultra-portable MacBook will be more popular than its predecessor.
In Are MacBooks About to Get Thinner and Lighter? I predicted (based on rumors from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman) that the 2021 14-inch MacBook Pro will weigh 2.75 pounds-ish, and the thinner and lighter version of the redesigned MacBook Air will be Apple’s first sub-2-pound laptop. So far, the responses to the story have expressed a preference for preserving the status quo height and weight of both the Pro and the Air.
It probably shouldn’t be too surprising. Every time Apple makes one of its devices thinner and lighter, whether it be an iPhone, iPad, or…
APPLE SILICON
With M-series silicon, Apple will reclaim its position as the leader in ultra-portable laptops.
When Apple silicon leaped to the Mac it made sense to start with the low-end of the lineup and grow towards processor designs that handily exceed the capabilities of the current high-end, Intel-based Macs. But that strategy has only heightened interest in what’s coming next. Into this void has stepped Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman with numerous leaks about rumored 2021 MacBook Pros. Here are the highlights as reported by MacRumors:
• New 14-inch model in place of current 13.3-inch model, facilitated by reduced bezels.
• New, flatter design, said to be “similar to the iPhone 12.”
APPLE SILICON
It’s finally time for Apple to fill the gap in its desktop Mac lineup
Apple Shocks the World
When Michigan made the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Final Four in 1992, Juwan Howard, one of the team’s five freshman starters, walked up to the television cameras and proclaimed “I told you! We’re gonna shock the world!” While it would be out of character for Tim Cook to reprise that statement, Apple has every right to make it after releasing the new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini in November.
It wasn’t the release of non-Intel Macs that was shocking, that’s been speculated on for over a decade. At least as early as Steve Jobs’ introduction of the…
APPLE
With so many rumors swirling, who can you trust?
Several readers chastised me for the “click-bait” title of my story Get Ready for the Mac mini Pro, which was a response to the recent rumors that Apple is working on a smaller Mac Pro. I find it almost incomprehensible that anyone could confuse one of my stories with hard news or even well-sourced leaks about upcoming Apple products. But for anyone who mistakenly took me for an Apple analyst, here are a few of the better-known names in that industry with the results of their Mac rumors over the last two years.
DigiTimes
- April 9, 2019, Apple will adopt mini…
PRODUCTIVITY
When the Systems Preferences resolution options just won’t do.
What’s Past is Prologue
When it comes to technology, there’s only one direction. Forward. And that’s never more true than for PC displays. I purchased my first computer monitor in 1987, a 14-inch monochrome Amdek 410A. A year later I graduated to an NEC Multisync II color monitor that displayed 16 colors, weighed-in at thirty-one pounds, and cost $589 ($1,289 today). That was the first in a long line of upgrades over the next two decades that saw display resolutions increase from CGA(320x200) to VGA(640x480), SVGA(800x600), XGA(1024x768), XGA+(1152x864), SXGA+(1400x1050), UXGA(1600x1200), and finally culminating in the glory that was the Apple Thunderbolt Display’s WQHD(2560x1440).
With…
