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Pixelmator Pro 2.0 ā A Small Wonder (@pixelmator #applesilicon #m1chip #universalapp)
I’ve said it before, Pixelmator Pro is one of the best app in the Apple ecosystem for three reasons. First, the Pixelmator team is always fast to take advantage of Apple’s latest software and hardware technologies. Second, it’s a real native app, designed and built for the Mac. Third, Pixelmator Pro is close to how Apple’s own apps should be designed. Make no mistake, I love Apple’s iWork. Pixelmator feels familiar and Apple-ish, something that I like. They probably read the HIG documentation dozen of times. Congrats to them.
Oh, and look at this āWhat’s new" welcome page when you first launch the app after upgrading to version 2.0. Look familiar to you? Canāt wait to install this on my upcoming Mac mini.
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Microsoft already feeling the heat (#microsoft #apple #m1chip #applesilicon)
Carefully look at this add by Microsoft bellow. The phrasing of this ad clearly shows the roots of the company making the product. āPen supportedā is one example. Why not write something like āTouch interfaceā or āTouch screenā. The word “supportedā sounds wrong and makes me feel Microsoft is not fully confident about the real nature of this computing environment. The other thing is the removable SSD option. That’s typical geeky-PC-world-thing. Do we really care in a world of cloud-based storage being an extension of our devices? Really bad ad.
Clearly, Microsoft is already feeling the heat and is on the defensive. It’s only getting started. Others will follow.
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If Rev(Y-1) < 1M$ Then Comm=15% otherwise Comm=30% (#iosdev #apple #developers)
Big news today by Apple. It’s a step in a (new | right) direction. Some are already applauding the move, others are vehemently calling it a tactical one. Apple will never satisfy everybody, except when launching their new M1-Based Macs. Apple can change when they feel the pressure, just like any big corporations. They’re not different on that front. We tend to forget this.
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11.1. Beta. Already. (#macosbigsur #apple #beta)
Apple is on a roll with the release to developers of [version 11.1 of macOS Big Sur](11.1. Beta. Already. (#macosbigsur #apple #beta)). My hope for this update is for Apple to tweak the UI a bit and make it faster on Intel MacBook Pro. (Notifications, low contrast, etc.). The other thing, I hope it will be ready by the time I’m getting my Mac mini (mid-December).
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About this crappy FaceTime Camera. (#apple #m1chip #macbook #facetimecamera)
āWe 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.ā - The Verge
āUnfortunately, that similarity extends to the webcam, which is still 720p resolution and still terrible. Apple has tried to borrow some of its real-time image processing from the āiPhoneā to try to spruce up the image ā and I do find that it does a better job evenly lighting my face ā but mostly what I notice is that it looks bad (only now it’s a more processed version of bad).ā - The Verge
Here is a real comparison. It’s less crappy but it is not good.
Take that, Apple. It was a near perfect moment.
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Dear M1 Macs reviewersā¦ (#M1chip #applesilicon #mac #review).
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 while? Was Rosetta kick out and has to relaunch? How is window resizing doing, we know that was never really fast on Intel-based machines. How is scrolling speed in Photos? Can you really feel the difference on an optimized app compared to their Intel counterpart? Does installing 11.0.1 update was faster than on previous macOS release on Intel? Is the Mac mini the fastest among the three? Does GPU intensive tasks are really that much faster? What about SSD speed for reads and writes compared to an Intel Mac? is it much improved? Is macOS Big Sur buggier than on Intel? Is 8 GB of RAM enough or 16 GB is really a must? Have you tried Pixelmator Pro, how fast is it now?
Hoping for a few answers today.
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Podcasting (#podcasting #blogging #writer #blogger)
My podcast adventure was too short (The Numeric Citizen Podcast). I prefer written words over audio. I prefer photography over video. There is something about moving content that I find difficult to grasp, as a creator. I’m may be too old for podcasts creation or YouTube, I don’t know. I loved creating those episodes (in French), though, using Ferrite.
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While waiting for "real" benchmarks... (#m1chip #applesilicon #mac #apple)
These ābehind the scenes" benchmarks of the M1 GPU are again impressive to say the least. Is the Mac bound to become a gaming machine?
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My Growing List of Universal Apps (#m1chip #apple #macos #macosbigsur #macmini)
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 didnāt expect it would go that fast. The prospect of much faster Macs could trigger an even faster adoption by developers. Appleās bet is paying off.
U = Universal. U-C = Universal, Catalyst-based port from iPadOS. U-S = Universal SwiftUI based app, C = Non universal but compatible.
My wish is to install Universal apps only as I donāt want to trigger Rosetta 2.
- [U] Omnigraffle
- [U] Pixelmator Pro
- [U] Affinity Photo
- [U-C] Universe
- [U] Transmit
- [U] Little Snitch
- [U-S] Aviary
- [U] Darkroom
- [U] Appleās iWork
- [U] Appleās iMovie
- [U] NewsExplorer
- [U-C] Twitter
- [U] Screens
- [U] Ulysses
- [U] Things
- [U] Fantastical
- [U] AirBuddy
- [U] CleanShot
- [U] Reeder 5
- [C] iStats Menu
- [C] DayOne
- [C] Carbon Copy Cloner
- [C] Timing
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It will be (much) faster (#apple #macmini #imac #m1chip)
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.
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Here is why Microsoft should start to worry (#microsoft #surfacego #macbookair #apple #m1chip)
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, 12.4ā touch screen using the Intel Core i5 which will get you 13 hours on battery for 550$. If you want a 8 GB of RAM, 256 GB SSD, the price goes up to 899$, but you keep the same lame CPU.
Now, compare this to the new MacBook Air (a much more powerful laptop) for 899$ (education pricing), same amount of RAM and SSD, 5 hours more of battery life, a much better non-touch display.
How is Microsoft supposed to compete against Apple in this market now?
They simply canāt, and they should start to worry.
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What's wrong with Medium's statsā¦? (@medium #writing #bloggerlife) š¤
What’s wrong with Mediumās āreading time" stat? Here, this story āThoughts on āOne More Thingā - The Ultimate Mac Transitionā, got 34 views so far, 12 reads, 2 two responses, 4 fans, 53 claps but the total reading time is 50 seconds? What’s wrong with that? 12 reads x 11 min estimated reading time = 132 minutes. Someone wrote: āvery informative talkā! Did this guy really read my story or he is trying to get some attention? š¤Ø
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Exposure Notification and battery life (#apple #covid19)
Why is exposure notification taking so much battery power? Do you experience the same thing? Iām running on iOS 14.3b1 but it was the same behaviour under previous iOS releases. Iāve been monitoring this for a while. I donāt want to turn that off. Oh, and by the way,amI alone who doesnāt find very intuitive these graphics?
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The list is growing... (#apple #universalapps @elemanssoftware)
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. Iām on the list to test the iOS 14 friendly version, adding support for Widgets and I can’t wait to see their implementation.
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Big. (#apple #bigsur #macos #macosbigsur #update)
Big Sur update is certainly big. Full of goodies and the enabler for the next decade of excitement for the Mac.
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Massive Big Sur Review (#macos #bigsur #macosbigsur #apple #review)
Ars Technica put together a massive review of Appleās macOS Big Sur. It is quite impressive. Itās exactly the kind of review that Iām looking for. Visuals and internal architectural features are exposed, explained but rarely justified, only when it serves a purpose of contextualizing the matter. Kudos for the author: Andrew Cunningham
Now, Iām so anxious to get this thing running on my upcoming Mac mini. Big Sur is not only a refresh of the user interface but also an important sum of things under the hood that is being upgraded and modernized.
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On Big Sur - Maybe I was wrong (#apple #macosbigsur #widgets #design)
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 are see big improvements and look closer to what we get on iOS.
Still, Apple lost the opportunity to make widgets available in their own space, something like what we used to have, the Dashboard. It’s ridiculous to confine widgets in such a small space, considering modern screen sizes. Oh, and I hope the interaction feels much more fluid on M1-based machines because the last time checked on a 2017 MacBook Pro, with Big Sur beta 10, it was super laggy
Picture credits: from MacStoriesā review of Big Sur.
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One Computer, Three form factors (#apple #macbookair #macbookpro #macmini)
āThe 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.ā
Astute observation by @Gruber in his commentary post on āOne More Thing" event. People are trying to figure out why there is so few differences between the three Macs Apple announced this week. Sometimes, the answer is simple.
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PC Gimmicky features rarely used (#windows #windowslaptop #microsoftsurface)
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 features. This is one of the many reasons I’m so upbeat with the M1-based Macs.
Photo credit: Alexander Andrews on Unsplash.
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When the low-end beats the high-end... (#apple #macbookair #M1processor)
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! Itās impressive if not mind-blowing!
Now here is a simple theory: native apps will certainly perform really well but non-native apps will run under the Rosetta layer, which happens to consume CPU cycles. This performance room being consumed by Rosetta, the actual performance of a non native app will probably fall down to a more reasonable level.
Impressive nonetheless.
