Items tagged with MacBook Pro
Apple is widely expected to launch its next-generation MacBook Pros later this year, and recent rumors have suggested that the laptops will feature mini LED displays. Earlier this year, Apple first brought mini LED technology to the forefront with the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and has struggled to keep up with demand due to component shortages. Now, a new report from DigiTimes alleges that Apple is already making plans to ensure that it has enough mini LED display panels on hand to keep up with demand for its all-new MacBook Pros. According to the publication, Apple currently uses Taiwan Surface Mounting Technology (TSMT) for 12.9-inch iPad Pro panels and allegedly contracted with the company to produce...
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Apple has already embraced mini LED backlighting technology with its latest 12.9-inch iPad Pro, which features what the company calls a "Liquid Retina XDR" display (hey, it's better than calling it a "Magical" display, right?). Having been sufficiently pleased with the result, Apple is said to also be using mini LED backlighting on a pair of upcoming MacBook systems. It is expected that Apple will announce redesigned 16-inch and 14-inch MacBook Pro models this fall. We can anticipate they will both arrive with a new and faster Apple Silicon system-on-chip (SoC), and that in and of itself is interesting. However, that is far from the only upgrade headed to the next crop of Apple's MacBooks. Apple...
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It's the first weekend of June, and that means once again it's almost time for Apple's World Wide Developer's Conference. The annual WWDC is always good for learning about what new software features the company has cooked up for its many platforms, including the Mac, iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, and more. Like last year, this year's WWDC is a little different than most, since it's going to be hosted online virtually rather than in person as in 2019 and prior. Still, we expect a whole lot of new and interesting things to pop up. Software to Complement New Hardware Apple's yearly cadence of operating system releases means we'll probably get a first look at all of Apple's operating systems. Of course,...
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Apple Silicon kicked off in a big way late last year with the arrival of the M1 SoC. The M1 is a fast and efficient processor that initially graced the 13-inch MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, and Mac mini. More recently, its footprint expanded to include the 24-inch iMac and iPad Pro. Today, we've got some deals for you on the entire M1 family of products (minus the new iPad Pro) if you're in the market for a macOS-based device. The Mac mini has been a staple in Apple's lineup for many years, and it's a stalwart workhorse that allows you to bring your own monitor to the table. The M1 processor upgrade gave the Mac mini a considerable performance boost over its elderly Intel-based predecessors, and...
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It seems as though Apple’s all-new, next-generation MacBook Pro laptops are always “right around the corner.” Ever since Apple launched the first wave of M1-powered Macs, all eyes have been trained on when the higher-end versions of the MacBook Pro would receive a complete makeover. A new report is plotting a more definite timeline for the release of the machines, and they could arrive as soon as this summer. According to Mark Gurman, the 14-inch MacBook Pro carries the internal designation J314, while its 16-inch counterpart is referred to as the J316. Powering these machines will be the company’s second-generation, Arm-based Apple Silicon. Whereas the currently shipping...
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Apple's M1 "Apple Silicon" hit the market with a big splash in late 2020 when it launched inside the refreshed MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and the Mac mini. The SoC is currently available in an 8-core CPU configuration with either a 7- or 8-core GPU onboard paired with 8GB or 16GB of RAM. The M1 has since found its way to the all-new Mac mini and even the new 11- and 12.9-inch iPad Pro. However, a new report coming out of Japan alleges that second-generation Apple Silicon is already in production. The next-generation SoC is reportedly called the M2 and will be based on TSMC's 5-nanometer plus (N5P) process node. The M1 is currently in use in everything from the iPad Pro to the new iMac....
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The ongoing global chip shortage has had wide-range effects across the tech sphere. Everything from AMD Radeon RX/NVIDIA GeForce RTX graphics cards, to Ryzen 5000 processors, to PlayStation 5/Xbox Series X/S consoles have been significantly impacted and in incredibly short supply. Even auto manufacturers have been forced to cut back production due to the inability to source critical microchips necessary for their cars and trucks. Up until this point, we haven't heard much about how the chip shortage has affected Apple. The company has soldiered on, seemingly unaffected with its iPhone sales. However, a new report from Nikkei claims that that the global chip shortage is starting to catch up with...
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If you're a jilted current (or former) owner of a MacBook, MacBook Air, or MacBook Pro with the oft-maligned butterfly keyboard mechanism, there's some breaking news today. A class-action lawsuit against Apple over the defective keyboards has been certified by Judge Edward Davila on March 8th in the state of California, but it was sealed until last week. The Verge reports that the class action lawsuit covers customers residing in California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Washington. Devices covered by the suit include 2015-2017 MacBooks, 2018-2019 MacBook Airs, and 2016-2019 MacBook Pros. Apple sought to have the class action lawsuit dismissed but was rebuffed...
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Just over a month ago, we started hearing rumblings about Apple's next-generation MacBook Pro models. According to the reports, Apple will unveil an all-new 14-inch MacBook Pro and a larger 16-inch MacBook Pro using its homegrown Apple Silicon. At the time, Mark Gurman added some rather vague information regarding ports. He stated that the MacBook Pros would feature additional ports; current high-end MacBook Pros only come with a maximum of four Thunderbolt 3. We're now getting some added clarity from reputable Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who claims that the new MacBook Pros will see not only the return of an HDMI port but also an SD card reader. Apple removed both of those ports when it last...
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Apple prides itself on providing a superior user experience for its customers given its exacting control over hardware and software, but its devices can fail just like any other. Such is the case with 2016 and 2017 MacBook Pros, which in some cases have been found to have an effect with their battery and/or charging system. According to a new Apple support document, it has created a battery replacement program for a "very small number of customers" affected by this problem. That is the same language that Apple uses for just about every one of its service programs to address a defect, so we'll never know the true number of customers that are affected. However, the fact that the company is going...
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Is Microsoft tired of hearing about the Apple's MacBook Pro and its performant M1 SoC? That could perhaps be the case with Microsoft's latest Surface Pro 7 ad which is a succinct 30-second attempted takedown of the MacBook Pro. Whether the commercial is successful is up to the view to decide, however. The commercial starts off with a kid talking about the Surface Pro 7's impressive 12.3-inch touch screen, which supports an optional Surface Pen for writing and drawing on the display. He then turns his attention to the MacBook Pro, which of course doesn't include a touch screen. Apple has long shunned including a touch screen on its laptops, as it feels that the ergonomics don't support adding...
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We've already seen that Apple means business with its custom Arm-based M1 processors, which launched last month with new Mac mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro models. The M1 is a highly integrated SoC that includes an 8-core CPU (4 efficiency cores, 4 performance cores), either a 7- or 8-core GPU, and 8GB or 16GB of RAM integrated onto the die. However, Apple has much more powerful SoCs in the pipeline to fuel its higher-end Macs. A new report from Bloomberg, which is typically quite reliable when it comes to Apple leaks, alleges that the next generation of Apple Silicon will be destined for 16-inch MacBook Pro and iMac models. According to the publication, these could feature...
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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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