Items tagged with m1
Apple first announced its intention to shift from Intel processors to its homegrown Apple Silicon in Spring 2020, and the first models launched last fall (Mac mini, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air). Since then, Apple Silicon (M1) has found its way to the entry-level iMac and even the iPad Pro. Now, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is claiming that Apple will launch a new “high-end, M1X Mac mini” within “the next several months.” While last year’s M1 refresh of the Mac mini took care of the entry-level and mid-range SKUs, it still offered higher-end models powered by up to an 8th generation Core i7 processor with up to 64GB of RAM. Unfortunately, the current M1 Mac minis...
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When Apple first introduced its custom Arm-based M1 processor late last year, the MacBook Air was one of the first devices to take the plunge. Emboldened with excellent performance and stellar battery life in a lightweight/fanless chassis, the refreshed MacBook Air remains a hot seller for Apple. With a starting price of $999, the MacBook Air isn't exactly cheap, but it's Apple's most affordable laptop. However, a new deal from Best Buy is slashing that price by a whopping $250. First, you'll want to make sure that you sign up for a free My Best Buy account. Then, today's offer is available by signing in to the Best Buy Student Hub, which is also free for anyone to join. The MacBook Air is currently...
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Apple's family of M1 Macs is pretty impressive. Cupertino's attempt to replace Intel's Core family of CPUs with its own home-grown processors has been pretty solid. We were blown away by the power efficiency and performance of the most entry-level Mac there is, the 2020 Mac mini with the company's M1 SoC. The thing is, there have been some bumpy software issues along the way. The most troubling appeared to be that the systems could potentially put a lot of strain on the built-in (and non-replaceable) solid state drives. As has always been the case when M1 software issues crop up (such as the M1 EL0 state bug dubbed M1RACLES), developer Hector Martin was among the first to discover and report...
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Now that Apple has broken up with Intel as part of a two-year transition plan to move away from x86 Core processor in favor of ts own Arm-based silicon, its former partner is free to speak its mind, and boy does Intel have some things to say. Intel did not hold back at Computex 2021, saying systems based on its CPUs deliver a "better gaming experience than 100 percent of Mac laptops," among other things. Several pages of an all-encompassing Computex slide deck are devoted to touting the benefits of Intel's processors for gaming, while Apple systems, including ones based on its fancy new M1 silicon, are ill suited for the task. It even enlisted actor Justin Long, who played the "Mac" in those...
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Apple's newfangled iPad Pro models powered by its home brewed M1 system-on-chip (SoC) can cost as much as $2,399, if opting for the flagship 12.9-inch variant with Wi-Fi and cellular connectivity, 2TB of built-in storage, and 16GB of RAM. Now imagine spending all that money and then learning that developers are limited to accessing just 5GB of RAM from their apps. The newest iPad Pro models are split into two memory tiers. Both the 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models with 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB of built-in storage comes with 8GB of RAM installed, while the SKUs with 1TB and 2TB of storage wield 16GB of RAM. That is a decent amount of memory—on par with the sweet spot for a desktop PC....
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The latest 12.9-inch iPad Pro was supposed to be an engineering triumph for Apple. The iPad Pro is Apple's most powerful tablet yet, with a PC-class M1 SoC inside that's paired with up to 16GB of RAM and up to 2TB of internal storage. Perhaps its most ballyhooed feature, however, is its Liquid Retina XDR display. Apple has mightily boasted about the Liquid Retina XDR display, which features over 10,000 Mini LEDs grouped into 2,596 local dimming zones. This gives the display a 1,000:000:1 aspect ratio, with sustained brightness of 1,000 nits and a maximum brightness of 1,600 nits. However, that same Liquid Retina XDR display is causing some significant viewing issues for some users regarding "blooming."...
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Apple has garnered a lot of praise for its M1 SoC, which is quickly spreading throughout its entry-level Mac family, and even the iPad Pro. While the performance and efficiency aspects of the chip are unquestionable, there have been questions raised about some particular aspects of the Apple Silicon architecture. There were earlier concerns about excessive wear on the permanently attached SSDs, and a new one popped up this week regarding memory usage. In this case, it’s with Acorn, a popular image editor developed by Gus Mueller for Macs. A user submitted that this one animated GIF that contained around 730 frames was causing weird memory readings on their M1 Mac. Given that...
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Yesterday, Apple announced a refresh of its 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro tablets. Last year's 2020 refresh was relatively minor with a slightly more powerful GPU in the A12Z Bionic processor and upgraded cameras, but Apple put more effort into the 2021 update. The new iPad Pros now feature the same M1 Apple Silicon that graces the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and the all-new iMac. The M1 SoC also means that the iPad Pro is available in 8GB and 16GB RAM configurations with up to 2TB of internal storage space. Both tablets now support Thunderbolt 4 connectivity and optional 5G wireless connectivity via a Qualcomm Snapdragon X55 5G modem. Finally, the 12.9-inch iPad Pro gets a stunning...
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Today, Apple brought the power of its new M1 SoC to the completely redesigned iMac, and now the chip is leaping the iPad Pro. With the M1 onboard, this is now the most powerful iPad Pro ever, with a 50 percent uplift in CPU performance combined with a 40 percent boost in GPU performance. While the move from A-Series SoCs to M1 is big news, perhaps the most significant addition is a new Liquid Retina XDR Display on the 12.9-inch model. The display uses 10,000 mini-LEDs for precise local dimming, offering a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and 1,600 nits peak brightness. Unfortunately, the new 11-inch iPad Pro is stuck with the same display technology as the previous generation model. Other features...
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Apple today announced its all-new iMac, which is the “next big step” in the design evolution for the company’s all-in-one desktop. This time around, the iMac is much thinner than before, measuring just 11.5mm thick, and is entirely flat (rather than having a curved back). But what will most likely stand out most of all is the right colors that are now available across the iMac lineup. The back features bold colors like blue, red, and green. The color is mirrored on the front of the device, albeit in a lighter shade to not be too distracting. The display bezels are also thinner, although there is still a sizable “chin” at the bottom of the device. Speaking of the...
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No platform is 100 percent secure, and lest anyone need reminding of that, a Mac malware campaign with Xcode developers in its sights has been modified to infect systems outfitted with Apple's fancy new M1 silicon. The end goal of this particular malware is to rob Mac uses of their cryptocurrencies, by stealing login information related to cryptocurrency apps. The malware is called XCSSET, and it gained prominence in August 2020, when Trend Micro warned of its existence. "This scenario is quite unusual; in this case, malicious code is injected into local Xcode projects so that when the project is built, the malicious code is run. This poses a risk for Xcode developers in particular. The threat...
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After a lengthy technical preview, Parallels has officially released Parallels Desktop version 16.5 which includes official support for Apple's latest Macs. That includes support for the 2020 Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro which all bear the Apple Silicon M1 processor. Supported guests include Windows 10's Insider Preview for Arm 64 and multiple Linux distributions. During the preview period, we discovered that the Arm version of Windows ran pretty well, even when the guest OS is limited to just 4 GB of RAM and four CPU of the M1's eight CPU cores. Not only did the four-core VM outrun a Snapdragon 8cx in single- and multi-threaded Geekbench, it also more than doubled up performance...
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Apple last year confirmed a seismic shift that we all knew was coming for a long time. The company announced its decision to abandon Intel processors over the next 2 to 3 years and switch to its own Apple Silicon. Making this move would put Apple in the driver's seat concerning its product roadmap, though the move was bold and risky to be sure. The first products to move to Apple's homegrown SoC -- the M1 -- were the 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini. Intel is probably none-too pleased at Apple's decision, which has been compounded by the fact that Apple has touted its superiority over Intel chips ever since. In return, Intel has launched a new ad campaign...
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In this episode of the HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks livestream, Dave, Marco and Chris will be running down our review of NVIDIA's newest GeForce RTX 3060 graphics card, we'll dig deeper into the odd behavior of Apple M1 Macs seemingly eating their soldered SSDs alive, and we'll hit some of the recent big headlines in too... Show Notes: 07:14 - Legendary 3dfx Voodoo 5 6000 Gets Modern Revamp In Amazing Reverse Engineering Effort 09:32 - Surge In Carjackings Has A Chicago Politician Calling For A Grand Theft Auto Game Ban 13:31 - AMD Investigates USB Flakiness With PCIe 4 And 500 Series Chipsets, Here Are Possible Fixes 15:00 - AMD Ryzen 7000 Zen 4 Phoenix Rumors Run Wild...
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If there is one thing I learned from cartoons in the 1980s, it is that knowing is the half the battle. Thank you G.I. Joe for that tidbit. Fast forward several decades later and that lesson is playing out right before our very eyes, in relation to another malware strain that is able to run natively on Apple's fancy new custom M1 processor. Apple knows about it and has taken steps to stop it from spreading (more on that in a bit). Apple is embarking on a two-year transition phase, in which it is moving completely away from using Intel's CPUs in its Mac systems, in favor of in-house designs based on Arm. The first of those is the M1 chip. We have already spent some hands-on time with the M1 as...
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Apple made quite the splash with its first homegrown processor for Macs: the M1. This Apple Silicon SoC is based on the 5nm process node and includes an 8-core CPU, 7-core or 8-Core GPU, and up to 16GB of on-package LPDDR4x memory. While the M1 is perfectly fine for the three Macs that it launched in -- MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini -- it's not nearly enough to handle the needs of power users currently rocking the 16-inch MacBook Pro, iMac, iMac Pro, or Mac Pro. To that end, the engineers in Cupertino are working on even more powerful Apple Silicon, with the next chip in the pipeline reportedly being called the M1X. According to specifications being reported by CPU Monkey,...
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Apple is embarking on a two-year plan to transition away from using Intel processors across its laptop and desktop families, in favor of its own Arm-based silicon. The venture begins with the M1, an impressive piece of hardware that is generally garnering favorable reviews (including our own Mac mini 2020 review with an M1 chip inside). However, it's not all peaches and cream—a security researcher has discovered the first bit of malware in the wild that is native to the M1 chip. Patrick Wardle, a former researcher for the US National Security Agency (NSA) and currently an independent macOS security researcher, came upon a malicious Safari browser extension called GoSearch22. It was originally...
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If you're the proud owner of a new Apple M1-based Mac and have taken a shine to Microsoft's Edge browser, we've got some good news for you today. An official public channel release of the native M1 version of the browser will soon be upon us, as it just arrived via the beta channel. Microsoft first launched an M1-specific version of Edge via its Insider Canary Channel back in mid-December. Then, on January 7th, support was added via the Dev Channel. With support now being extended to the Beta Channel, an official Stable Channel release can't be too far down the road. For those that are not familiar with Microsoft's software channels, Canary builds are the most unstable, and are released...
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Devices running Apple's new M1 Arm processors were just released last month, but software developers are already quickly embracing them. In fact, it could be said that developers have been more eager to create native Arm64 compatible versions of their apps for M1 MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs and Mac minis than they have for Windows 10 on Arm devices running the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8cx SoC. With that being said, Microsoft is rolling out the first public release of Office apps that are native to the M1. This means that all of your favorites like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote should gain all performance benefits inherent with the M1. Microsoft is delivering the updated Office...
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When Apple announced its new Mac lineup -- consisting of a MacBook Air, MacBook Pro 13, and Mac mini -- with its new M1 processor, the company was met with a mixture of enthusiasm and skepticism. Apple's performance claims were incredible. For instance, the company said that its new Apple Silicon offers upwards of 3.4 times the performance as the last-generation Mac mini with a quad-core Intel Core i3 processor. That's the sort of thing that could make a Mac lover's eyes pop. However, proclaiming things like "more than three times the performance," without substantiating those claims, will also spur its share of detractors. So, we did what any curious spectator would do; we bought...
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Apple's M1-based (Apple Silicon) Mac mini, MacBook Pro, and MacBook Air spelled the end of Boot Camp, the company's solution for booting into Windows natively on its Intel-based hardware. At the same time, the big names in commercial virtualization options, VMWare and Parallels, are still scrambling to get an Arm64-native version of their apps out the door. However, one very innovative developer worked up a new feature to use QEMU to boot the Hyper-V image of Windows 10's Insider Preview build straight from Microsoft. Now that those changes have made their way into the wild, we can see just how Apple's new hardware handles while running Windows 10. We got our mitts on an M1-based Mac mini, and...
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The latest generation MacBook Pro and MacBook Air represent a major departure from past models—they are the first ones to incorporate Apple's own custom M1 silicon, in place of the Intel x86 CPUs the company had been sourcing for the past 15 years. It is the beginning of a new era. You would not know it at first glance, though, because these new systems look the same, even if you tear into them. Of course, we all know that looks can be deceiving. Despite how these new laptops might appear from a passing glance, these are very different machines than their predecessors. Apple is embarking on a two-year transition to completely move away from Intel CPUs, and design custom processors based...
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