“We really considered giving these machines 10 out of 10 review scores, but this camera is bad enough to keep that from happening, especially on a pro laptop that costs more than the Air.” - The Verge “Unfortunately, that similarity extends to the webcam, which is still 720p resolution and still … read more

Here is what I’m hoping to see from reviewers of the M1-based Macs today. How fast is the machine booting? Is wake from sleep that much better? When you start a non-optimized app, how does Rosetta 2 kicks in? How long does it take? What happens when you start the same app a second time after a … read more

These “behind the scenes" benchmarks of the M1 GPU are again impressive to say the least. Is the Mac bound to become a gaming machine? read more

Here is the list of apps that I use and that are ready for my upcoming M1-based Mac mini. The list is growing almost on a daily basis. I didn’t expect it would go that fast. The prospect of much faster Macs could trigger an even faster adoption by developers. Apple’s bet is paying off. U = … read more

Comparing the performance of a 2017 iMac to a M1-based Mac mini, based on Geekbench numbers. Sometimes, a picture, oops, a graph is worth a thousand words. My current experiment of macOS Big Sur on a 2017 MacBook Pro is not very impressive. I can feel the difference compared to Catalina. read more

In light of Apple’s recent products introduction, consider the recently introduced Microsoft Surface Go. A Windows laptop that starts with 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB SSD, 12.4” touch screen using the Intel Core i5 which will get you 13 hours on battery for 550$. If you want a 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD, … read more

Why is exposure notification taking so much battery power? Do you experience the same thing? I’m running on iOS 14.3b1 but it was the same behaviour under previous iOS releases. I’ve been monitoring this for a while. I don’t want to turn that off. Oh, and by the way,amI alone who doesn’t find very … read more

My favorite RSS reader News Explorer (read my review here), is already supporting macOS Big Sur, M1-based Macs. The updated News Explorer UI on Big Sur is much cleaner in general. I’m on the list to test the iOS 14 friendly version, adding support for Widgets and I can’t wait to see their … read more

Big Sur update is certainly big. Full of goodies and the enabler for the next decade of excitement for the Mac. read more

Ars Technica put together a massive review of Apple’s macOS Big Sur. It is quite impressive. It’s exactly the kind of review that I’m looking for. Visuals and internal architectural features are exposed, explained but rarely justified, only when it serves a purpose of contextualizing the matter. … read more

Maybe I’m wrong with my perception of the disaster Apple created with the introduction of widgets in combination with notifications center (read my comment here on micro.blog). After reading the excellent MacStories.net review of Big Sur, I finally saw the combination in action. Notifications … read more

“The new M1-based MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini are best thought of not as three different computers, but rather three different manifestations of the same computer.” Astute observation by @Gruber in his commentary post on “One More Thing" event. People are trying to figure out … read more

PC laptops introduced pencil support, touch screen, screen-based touchpads, et. al. because these are the only things they could do to try to stay on top in a commoditized technology platform. I will take in a heartbeat 3X or 5X performance gain and 6 more hours of battery life over the gimmicky … read more

Twitter is ablaze since yesterday when first benchmarks of the MacBook Air were published. They show the M1-based and fan-less Mac to surpass the top of the line iMac! It’s impressive if not mind-blowing! Now here is a simple theory: native apps will certainly perform really well but non-native apps … read more

Recently published benchmarks of the upcoming M1-based Macs are impressive enough for me to take a deep breath and make a decision. A week ago, I didn’t think of this as a possibility. But here we are. I’m going to make the plunge into the world of Apple Silicon-based Mac, Big Sur and universal … read more

I recently wrote and published a very critical view of Tim Cook’s Apple. It’s not pretty, but it is my honest take. Now, looking at Apple’s strategy execution for 2020 which is close to an end, I must confess that I’m really impressed. Apple delivered. On all fronts. There … read more

The graph put together by Anandtech is a wakeup call for Intel and the Wintel world, for that matter. These trajectories are incredible, impressive for Apple, worrisome for Intel. We are on the verge of a major shift in the portable landscape. Apple seems unstoppable. read more

Why no clock-speed information about the M1 processor? How are iOS-based apps be presented on the Mac App Store? Why so little difference between a MacBook Air configurations, CPU-wise, RAM-rise compared to MacBook Pro? What “virtualization technology support" actually means for normal users … read more

No touch screen. No pencil support. No 5G or 5G wireless option. No high-quality FaceTime camera. No Face ID No redesign, no slim bezels. No 12" MacBook. No clock speed specs. No eGPU support. Fewer ports options. Third-party native software support still to come. Am I missing something? … read more

From rewatching Steve Jobs announcing Apple’s transition to Intel processors, here are a few interesting observations, just in time for tomorrow’s #AppleEvent. Steve Jobs reminds the crowd of transitions in Mac history: 68K to PowerPC, OS 9 to OS 10 then introduces the third transition: going … read more