Month: June 2023

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—As has long been a tradition, Apple publicly announced the key features and other details of the next update to the iPhone's operating system. Apple's Craig Federighi said the new operating system would focus on "communication, sharing, intelligent input, and new experiences."

Beginning with communication: as a follow-up to iOS 16's customizable lock screens, iPhone users can now customize their own "contact poster" that appears on other phones when a call comes in. Posters will appear not just for calls placed via cellular or FaceTime, but with third-party VOIP services like Zoom or Skype as well.

Apple is also adding features for people who like to leave voicemails—live transcription can render text on your phone as the other person is speaking, so you can decide whether to pick up even if you can't hear or aren't listening to what the person on the other end is saying. And FaceTime callers will be able to leave video messages, too.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—As has long been a tradition, Apple publicly announced the key features and other details of the next update to the iPhone's operating system. Apple's Craig Federighi said the new operating system would focus on "communication, sharing, intelligent input, and new experiences."

Beginning with communication: as a follow-up to iOS 16's customizable lock screens, iPhone users can now customize their own "contact poster" that appears on other phones when a call comes in. Posters will appear not just for calls placed via cellular or FaceTime, but with third-party VOIP services like Zoom or Skype as well.

Apple is also adding features for people who like to leave voicemails—live transcription can render text on your phone as the other person is speaking, so you can decide whether to pick up even if you can't hear or aren't listening to what the person on the other end is saying. And FaceTime callers will be able to leave video messages, too.

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  The Apple Mac Pro. It's still the cheese grater design. [credit: Apple ]

CUPERTINO, Calif.—It has been three years since Apple began transitioning its Mac lineup away from Intel chips to its own silicon, and that project completes today with the last product to make the transition: the Mac Pro desktop tower.

The Mac Pro might not look different from its predecessor on the outside, but on the inside, Intel's Xeon CPU and AMD's Radeon Pro graphics are gone, and in their place we have a new chip, called the M2 Ultra. This is the same chip as the new Mac Studio, with a 24-core CPU, an up to 76-core GPU, and it starts with twice the memory and SSD storage of the old Mac Pro. Apple promises it will be "3x faster" than the Intel Mac Pro. Memory tops out at 192GB. These stats all match the new Mac Studio—the only thing you get from the bigger chassis is expansion capabilities and more ports.

(credit: Apple)

The whole point of a Mac tower is support for traditional expansion cards, and normally that means discrete GPUs. Apple demoed some expansion cards, but none of them were graphics cards. It sounds like you'll be using the M2 Ultra's on-board GPU. Making real graphics cards work with an ARM chip would have been a massive undertaking—for starters, no ARM drivers exist. Even for the non-GPU options, compatibility is going to be an interesting problem. Apple calls out digital signal processing (DSP) cards, serial digital interface (SDI) I/O cards, and additional networking and storage as PCI express card possibilities.

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  The Apple Mac Pro. It's still the cheese grater design. [credit: Apple ]

CUPERTINO, Calif.—It has been three years since Apple began transitioning its Mac lineup away from Intel chips to its own silicon, and that project completes today with the last product to make the transition: the Mac Pro desktop tower.

The Mac Pro might not look different from its predecessor on the outside, but on the inside, Intel's Xeon CPU and AMD's Radeon Pro graphics are gone, and in their place we have a new chip, called the M2 Ultra. This is the same chip as the new Mac Studio, with a 24-core CPU, an up to 76-core GPU, and it starts with twice the memory and SSD storage of the old Mac Pro. Apple promises it will be "3x faster" than the Intel Mac Pro. Memory tops out at 192GB. These stats all match the new Mac Studio—the only thing you get from the bigger chassis is expansion capabilities and more ports.

(credit: Apple)

The whole point of a Mac tower is support for traditional expansion cards, and normally that means discrete GPUs. Apple demoed some expansion cards, but none of them were graphics cards. It sounds like you'll be using the M2 Ultra's on-board GPU. Making real graphics cards work with an ARM chip would have been a massive undertaking—for starters, no ARM drivers exist. Even for the non-GPU options, compatibility is going to be an interesting problem. Apple calls out digital signal processing (DSP) cards, serial digital interface (SDI) I/O cards, and additional networking and storage as PCI express card possibilities.

Enlarge / Apple's new Mac Studio offers the M2 Ultra chip, which, like its M1 counterpart, provides vastly greater computing power. (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—The Mac Studio will be refreshed this summer with chips based on the M2, including the M2 Max and new M2 Ultra, the "most powerful chip" ever released "for a personal computer."

The M2 Pro and M2 Max have previously been seen in MacBook Pro models released late last year, but the M2 Ultra will be a first. In the M1 line, the Ultra was the top-of-the-line chip with substantially better performance than the Pro or Max—particularly in graphically intensive tasks. M2 Ultra will support 192 GB of unified memory, 800 GB/s memory bandwith, and a 24-core CPU and up to 76 cores of GPU. Apple claims the M2 Ultra will work 30% faster than the M1 Ultra, and that a single system with the Ultra can work machine learning datasets that would choke systems with discrete GPUs.

The M2 Max is "up to 50 percent faster" than the prior Max-based Studio, according to Apple, and features a 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, and up to 96 GB unified memory, with 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.

Enlarge / Apple's new Mac Studio offers the M2 Ultra chip, which, like its M1 counterpart, provides vastly greater computing power. (credit: Apple)

CUPERTINO, Calif.—The Mac Studio will be refreshed this summer with chips based on the M2, including the M2 Max and new M2 Ultra, the "most powerful chip" ever released "for a personal computer."

The M2 Pro and M2 Max have previously been seen in MacBook Pro models released late last year, but the M2 Ultra will be a first. In the M1 line, the Ultra was the top-of-the-line chip with substantially better performance than the Pro or Max—particularly in graphically intensive tasks. M2 Ultra will support 192 GB of unified memory, 800 GB/s memory bandwith, and a 24-core CPU and up to 76 cores of GPU. Apple claims the M2 Ultra will work 30% faster than the M1 Ultra, and that a single system with the Ultra can work machine learning datasets that would choke systems with discrete GPUs.

The M2 Max is "up to 50 percent faster" than the prior Max-based Studio, according to Apple, and features a 12-core CPU, 38-core GPU, and up to 96 GB unified memory, with 400 GB/s memory bandwidth.

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  The color options (left to right): midnight, starlight, space gray, and silver. [credit: Apple ]

CUPERTINO, Calif.—It's common for Apple to refresh its various MacBook models more or less annually, but it's not so common that an entirely new screen size is introduced. That's what happened today during the company's WWDC keynote: Apple announced a 15-inch variant of the traditionally 13-inch MacBook Air.

It's something that has been rumored for years on end, and now after many false starts, the rumor has proven true.

The 15-inch MacBook Air is in most respects identical to its 13-inch counterpart and has Apple's M2 chip. The star is the 15.3-inch screen, with 5 mm borders and a 500-nit brightness claim. Apple hasn't provided the exact resolution for the screen yet, but it was rumored that the 15-inch MacBook Air would have the same resolution as the 14-inch MacBook Pro, 3024×1964. The 15-inch MacBook Air will be available with up to 24GB of RAM and 2TB of storage, Apple said today.