Items tagged with MacBook Pro
Apple's MacBook refreshes typically haven't been all that exciting. Year after year, the company tweaked its trouble prone butterfly keyboard design before throwing in the towel and reverting back to the beloved scissor switch mechanism. And with regards to performance, each year brought minimal performance updates from Intel's latest Core processors. However, things are starting to heat up thanks to the arrival of the new Apple M1 SoC. As we saw last month, Apple released three new Macs -- the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini -- all using the M1 SoC. They all deliver significant improvements in performance over their Intel predecessors while nearly doubling battery life (for...
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Apple announced its first M1-equipped Macs earlier this month, and we must admit that we were quite skeptical of the company's frustratingly vague performance claims during the virtual keynote. However, with devices in hand, the early reviews proved that Apple has a winner on its hands with the 8-core M1 (4 efficiency cores, 4 performance cores) in the 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and Mac mini. With this in mind, Apple isn’t just stopping with the M1; it needs even more performant processors in its lineup to fuel machines like the iMac, iMac Pro, and 16-inch MacBook Pro. And it's that latter device that is the topic of discussion today. According to reporting from @LeaksApplePro,...
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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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When Apple announced its M1 processor for its future Macs earlier this month, the company made some pretty bold claims. Apple threw out numbers left and right, in one breath saying that the Apple M1 was up to 3.5x faster than the processor found in the best-selling laptop in one instance, while in another saying that the integrate GPU was 5x faster in another. Yet the company never once gave us any concrete performance metrics or any details on what benchmark it was using. Fortunately, some people are starting to receive their Apple M1 powered Macs a bit earlier than expected, which means that we're starting to see the first round of official benchmarks for the M1. And we must say, the results...
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Apple is hitting the ground running today with the announcement of its very first custom Apple Silicon designed specifically for its MacBook line of laptops and Mac Mini desktops. Meet Apple M1, which is a new Arm-based SoC that Apple says delivers a significant boost in performance over the Intel processors that it uses to power its current line of Macs, while offering claimed unrivaled power efficiency. To achieve this, M1 is built on a 5-nanometer process node and is comprised of some 16 billion transistors. At its heart is an 8-core CPU with 4 high-performance cores coupled with 4 efficiency cores. The high-performance cores feature 192KB instruction cache, 128KB data cache and shared 12MB...
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Earlier this past Spring, Apple launched a revamped version of its 13-inch MacBook Pro family complete with a new Magic Keyboard (replacing the trouble-prone butterfly keyboard) and available 10th generation 10nm Intel Ice Lake processors. We say “available” because Apple still outfits entry-level versions with older 8th generation Core processors. With that being said, Amazon is discounting the higher-end 13-inch MacBook Pro SKUs by $200, which is a pretty nice discount for Apple hardware. That means that you can grab a notebook with 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a quad-core 2GHz Core i5 Ice Lake CPU for just $1,599 instead of the usual $1,799 asking price. Likewise,...
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Ever since Apple announced last month that it would be leaving Intel by the wayside to produce its own Arm-based "Apple Silicon", the rumor mill has kicked into overtime about the company's plans. So far, the only "confirmed" aspect of Apple's near-term product plans is that the first Arm-powered Mac will arrive before the end of 2020. However, DigiTimes alleges that there will in fact be two Arm Macs launching this year. According to the report, the 13-inch MacBook Pro (which has previously been rumored) will now be joined by a 13-inch MacBook Air in late 2020. The report goes on to add that Apple's total shipments of Macs is expected to increase to 16-17 million units for the year...
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Apple is well on its way to transitioning to its own custom Arm chips that will power its next generation of Macs. Apple Silicon was first announced at WWDC 2020 last month, but the building blocks for the transition were put in place behind the scenes for years. Apple has been honing its performance and integration prowess with its A-Series processor for iOS devices, and the macOS software stack has been massaged to accommodate the new hardware. Now, we're learning from Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that Apple has a number of new products in the pipeline for late 2020 and early 2020 that will use these new Arm processors. The first of which will be a new 13-inch MacBook Pro, which will...
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Apple yesterday confirmed the rumors that we’ve been hearing in tech circles for years; that it would be pushing Intel aside as its chip supplier for Macs. Instead, Apple has decided to pursue its own processor designs based around Arm architecture rather than x86. There should be some pretty sizable costs savings for Apple by bringing processor design in-house, and it allows for broader compatibility across all of its hardware families, including the ability to run iPhone and iPad apps in macOS 11 Big Sur. The folks in Cupertino are also banking on significant performance-per-watt gains over its currently-deployed Intel-based systems, and future Intel processors in the pipeline....
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Apple has finally done it; after years of speculation and hints that this move was coming, CEO Tim Cook announced today that the company is taking the steps to distance itself from Intel processors. Apple’s partnership with Intel dates back to 2006, when the company announced that it would shift from PowerPC to x86-based Core processors. However, Apple will now plot its own course using custom Arm chips that will power a new family of Mac computers. Cook called this a “Huge leap forward for the Mac”, while adding that “Integrating hardware and software is at the heart of what we do.” Interestingly enough, Apple still has new Intel-based hardware in...
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Later today, Apple is widely reported to announce that it will be shifting its future Macs from Intel x86 architecture to Arm. This wouldn't be the first time that the folks in Cupertino have made a seismic shift in processors used for its computers, but the stakes are even higher this time around as these machines will be using Apple-designed hardware. Famed Apple leaker, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, is reporting that the first Macs to be powered by its own Arm-based processors will be a new 13-inch MacBook Pro and an all-new 24-inch iMac. Apple wouldn't be leaving Intel behind if there wasn't some big upside in store for it (and its customers). In this case, Apple will have even more control...
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Apple's flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro is getting a new upgrade option today, and it doesn't come cheap. Both Apple and AMD today announced the availably of the new Radeon Pro 5600M mobile GPU, which will be the new high-end option for mobile professionals, slotting in above the current Radeon Pro 5500M. The Radeon Pro 5600M is still based on AMD's 7nm RDNA (Navi) architecture, but features a total of 40 compute units and 2560 stream processors with FP32 compute performance coming in at 5.3 TFLOPs. There are also changes to memory configuration; while the base Radeon Pro 5300 and Radeon Pro 5500 are only available with either 4GB or 8GB of GDDR6 memory, the Radeon Pro 5600M features 8GB...
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Apple has never been a company that has been praised for building "value laden" computers, but the company is drawing considerable flak for its more recent change with respect to its newly-launched 13-inch MacBook Pro (2020 model). Apple released the new 13-inch MacBook Pro earlier this month with a new scissor-style Magic Keyboard and 10th generation Intel Ice Lake processors in high-end configurations. However, base configurations of the new MacBook Pro soldiered on with 8th generation Coffee Lake processors, which was a bit of an annoyance to Apple fans (and likely a cost saving move for Apple). Now, Apple has doubled the price of the 16GB RAM upgrade for these base systems....
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As expected, Apple has announced the latest update to its entry-level 13-inch MacBook Pro, and it's pretty much a mixed bag if you been hanging on to every leaked spec that has been churned out by the rumormill. However, it's still a pretty solid upgrade for those that are firmly within the Apple camp. The biggest change, however, is the move to Apple's Magic Keyboard, which uses butterfly-style switches instead of the hated and failure-prone scissor switches that the company first introduced back in 2015. This update means that all of Apple’s MacBooks -- starting with last year’s 16-inch MacBook Pro, and then proceeding to the refreshed MacBook Air -- now have...
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If you're of the Apple persuasion, Best Buy is currently running an excellent deal on last year's 15-inch MacBook Pro laptop. Earlier this month, the retailer was running a promotion on three different 2019 MacBook Pros, but the cheapest of those models still rung in at a hefty $2,400. Today's deal is a lot easier on your wallet, and still gets you a pretty potent machine at a steep discount. Best Buy is selling the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar (MV922LL/A) for $1,799 with free shipping, which represents a $600 discount from its MSRP. This is the base configuration with a 9th generation hex-core 2.6GHz Core i7 processor and 16GB of RAM. For storage duties, you’ll find a 256GB...
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Here we are again, folks; the latest chapter in the ongoing "will they or won't they saga" of Apple's inevitable transition to Arm processors for its Mac computers. Today, we're receiving additional information that Apple's Arm conversion will start in 2021, and it comes from a very reliable source. That source is Mark Gurman, who says that the first Mac Arm chip will be based on Apple's upcoming A14 Bionic SoC destined for the iPhone 12 family of processors. Like the A14 Bionic, the Mac-centric processor will be built on TSMC's 5nm process node and will have a total of 12 cores. 8 of them will be high-performance cores (codename Firestorm), while 4 will be efficiency cores (Icestorm). For...
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Rumor has it Apple was originally planning to unveil a new set of AirPods during an event last month, but the Coronavirus pandemic prompted a later launch. When exactly will that be? We can't say for sure since the supposed AirPods Pro Lite is not an official product, but you can tentatively expect it to arrive next month. That is coming from Jon Prosser, a tech analyst and who runs the YouTube channel Front Page Tech. Prosser has his pulse on Apple's activities, and has accurately revealed launch plans in the past before they were officially made public. "New AirPods (which were supposed to be at the March Event) are now ready to go. Probably alongside the MacBook Pro next month," Prosser stated...
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Apple was forced to add user-facing battery health functionality in iOS 11.3 for its iPhones after it was found throttling performance on devices with "well worn" batteries. This battery management feature now allows you to see what percentage of your max capacity is available, and if your performance is currently being crippled due to an old battery (usually at 80 percent or less capacity). Apple is bringing similar functionality to Macs with a feature that will be called Battery Health Management according to The Verge, and will be found in Energy Saver Preferences within Settings. The purpose of the feature is to prevent premature aging of the batteries inside MacBooks, which...
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More than a few Apple MacBook users are reporting serious issues after trying to install the macOS Catalina 10.15.4 supplemental update. One Apple user reports that when attempting to install the update, about halfway through the computer shuts down. What's worse, this user noted that they were left with a bricked 2018 13-inch MacBook. The MacBook owner says that the computer won’t power on and that there is no power, no fans, or another activity when pressing and holding the power button. This same user also says that the MacBook was plugged in and fully charged while updating. An SMC reset did not help the issue. Several other users have posted in Apple's support forum that they also...
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When it comes to Apple's flagship 16-inch MacBook Pro, there's no question that it's an expensive proposition. The professional-focused laptop starts at $2,499 with a hexa-core Intel processor, 16GB of RAM, 512GB SSD and an AMD Radeon Pro 5300M discrete GPU. But if you're willing to put up with a slightly smaller display and Apple's butterfly keyboard, there are some excellent deals to be had on the previous generation 15.4-inch MacBook Pro family (Mid-2019). These deals come to us courtesy of Best Buy, which is discounting those notebooks by as much as $1,500 in the higher-spec'd configurations. At the lower end of the spectrum, we have model MV912LL/A, which comes with 16GB of...
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Technology companies sometimes talk about wanting to move on from passwords in favor of other authentication methods, with biometric security leading the way. But are biometric methods really secure? Researchers from Cisco's Talos division put fingerprint scanning under the microscope, and found some interesting shortcomings. Fingerprint scanners are in lots of places these days. Your smartphone probably has one, assuming it is relatively modern. So do encrypted USB devices, padlocks, and laptops, including Apple's MacBook Pro and a bunch of Windows system equipped with support for Windows Hello (which can include other security methods as well). Now here is what's frightening—in its testing,...
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Slowly but surely, Apple is moving on from using keyboards with a flawed butterfly mechanism, and outfitting new products with scissor switches like the ones it used on MacBook Pro models prior to the 2015 redesign. As such, it's expected that a couple of upcoming products—a new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air—will implement a so-called "Magic Keyboard" as well. Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo outlined his predictions in a research note to investors. According to his note, Apple will release new MacBook Pro and MacBook Air models in the second quarter of 2020, both with Magic Keyboards, which is how Apple dubs the return to scissor switches (it has a better ring to it, we suppose). His prediction...
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