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Apple's worst ad in years? (#apple #applead #advertising #christmas)
Apple this year is back with a long and… weird (?) Christmas ad. I must say that’s a quite different and ordinary one compared to previous years. It’s no longer about touching hearts but just having fun and selling you something. This doesn’t reasonate as much with me as it used to. Contrary to previous years, Apple is focusing on one product, the HomePod mini. Again, I prefer when they don’t try to sell us something this way. There is plenty of other companies who do just that. Please, Apple, no.
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Mac nano (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs #macmini)
Following my read of this article published by Macworld, the propect of a Mac nano looks more than possible. It is inevitable. Apple’s focus this year was on the internals but I expect them to switch to the outside on the next iterative evolution of the Mac mini. Besides physical compatibility reasons, a much smaller Mac mini, close to the size of an Apple TV for example could be in store. One possible constrain is the number of ports Apple will have to squeeze on the back. If they keep the same number of ports, the newly redesigned Mac mini could be something in-between the current one and the Apple TV. We’ll see. Meanwhile, I’ll patiently wait for my own M1-based Mac mini to arrive in 28 days. Its external size won’t matter much to me.
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Better recovery options (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)
According to an article published by SixColors, M1-based Macs offer a much different and improved boot and recovery options. Looking at the picture below, and I noticed the same while testing Big Sur, the icon for the boot disk is one showing an old mechanical HDD, not an electronic SSD. Was Apple feeling nostalgic when they designed this icon?
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How ironic (#apple #ios14 #widgets #android @notionhq)
Read on Twitter today: “Notion widgets are only for iOS 14 for now. We’ll get there, Android 😓 Our mobile team is heads down on offline mode right now, but we learned a lot during development that we can use for an Android widget down the road. Thanks for your patience in the meantime 🙏” - Notion.
Widgets came to Android in 2008-2009. What am I missing here? How ironic is this? A lot if you ask me. I’m not calling out Notion, far from it. My observation is all about the fact that, despite Android having widgets for so many years, they were probably not as good, well designed and useful as there are now on iOS 14.
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Saving at least 2 Billions a year (#apple #applesilicon #intel #m1chip)
A lot has been written on Apple switch to their own processors already. But one side of the story is still lacking some insight. Apple is probably saving a lot of money by putting their own Apple silicon in each Mac they sell. According to this Medium article, Apple could save at least $2 billion a year with just three entry level MacBook sporting the M1 chip. We can only try to approximate the amount of money Apple is no longer paying to Intel. We can also start wondering the amount of money Apple has directly invested in developing the M1 chip and how fast they wil recoup their investments. My gut feeling says that it will be fast.
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My prediction for next year's MacBook (#apple #macbook #applesilicon #m1chip)
Here is a simple theory. This year’s MacBook didn’t bring an upgrade to the FaceTime HD camera, and unanimously, people is complaining. But what if this lack of attention to the very specific feature from Apple is part of a bigger plan for next year’s MacBook? Here is my guess.
Apple is targeting next year for the real deal: the full redesign of the MacBook line to be announced around WWDC 2021. Part of this plan would include much better FaceTime HD camera assembly that would include Face ID, a highly expected feature for M1-based machines. Offered in sizes of 12", 14" and 16" with an impossibly thin screen bezel, Apple wanting to keep the size of these machines the smallest possible as the power sipping CPU can handle smaller batteries yet providing long battery life. I would expect the M1x chip as the more powerful M2 one would go to the iMac, iMac Pro. The new MacBook, to be named MacBook X, will will mark the first year of the Apple silicon transition.
Until then, keep enjoying your Apple Silicon Mac, version 1.
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A fascinating possibility coming to the Mac, next year (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)
On Substack, I recently stumble on an interesting article from https://apple.substack.com: when Apple introduces a new round of Macs next year, what if they keep previous generation around but at a lower price point?
It’s a highly possible scenario considering how Apple under Tim Cook operates. The iPhone models multiplication, same is happening with the watch…. next, the Mac? Probably. Is this a good thing? For their bottom line probably, yes, but for the customers? Yes and no.. yes, it makes the brand more accessible but it makes the buying experience a little bit more complicated than it should be with fewer models available. It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
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Which is faster, then? (#apple #applesilicon #m1macs)
Following of new round of benchmarks from MacRumors, my take outs are: 16 GB is (much) better than 8 GB from a speed point of view (well, duh!), the Mac mini is the best most of the time with a few exception (slower than MBP on SSD write speed is one such exemple, hard to explain). Adobe Lightroom Classic doesn’t take advantage of the RAM difference, which is not surprising to me (thanks to multiplatforms Adobe’s software) You can get all the details from MacRumors website: here and here. Graph from MacRumors.
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Apple is not what it used to be (#apple #analysis)
Someone on Twitter shared this YouTube video in which the guy tries to explain why and how Apple is not what it used to be. In a few words: now, they actively compete with others. It’s a massive difference where before they seemed to act alone without caring about the surrounding competitive landscape. Highly recommended.
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He should go work for Apple (@michaelsteeber #apple #applestore #appleretail)
Have you seen this short YouTube video on the Apple Store holiday shopping experience? Take a moment because it is a masterpiece of execution in visual quality, content and execution in general. 9To5Mac published an article about it and I thought they were referring to Apple’s material. It took me quite a while to get it: the author of this clip is Michael Steeber, a well known Apple enthusiast and writer for 9To5Mac. His focus is directed to Apple retail in general but from a design point of view most of the time. I like what this guy is doing, I’m a bit jaleaous of his talent, and he should work for Apple already. Congrats!
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Publishing on Apple News, soon? (#apple #applenews #publishing #writing)
After months of silence, I’m finally getting some response from Apple regarding my submission to publish on Apple News. I can’t remember when I first submitted my Numeric Citizen Blog for publication on the Apple News platform. In a unexpected twist, they got in touch with me and asked to fill a questionnaire, which I promptly did. They are putting a new review process in place. I also updated my selection of articles submitted for review to use more recent ones. We’ll see how fast they respond and if they open the gate!
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The list is growing (#apple #macosbigsur #iOS14 #iPadOS14 #M1Chip)
Surprisingly, the list of iOS 14 and iPad OS 14 apps that are made available or updated to work better on the M1-Based Mac is growing. Here is my current list: Newsify, Ferrite, Luma Fusion, Castro, Buffer, Opener, Apollo Reddit Client, Darkroom, Darknoise. The thing that I should do now and glance my current iPad apps and mark those that I want on the Mac too.
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Is It Apple Silicon Ready? (#apple #applesilicon #m1chip #macOSBigSur)
It took a while but here is the first and most comprehensive list of application compatibility with Apple’s M1 Macs. You can search and sort the list easily and use the category filter too to locate application in the list. Well done. Design or photography applications compatibility level is high but productivity isn’t, which is not surprising. Most of my apps are already universal binaries. https://isapplesiliconready.com
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The era of customization comes to the iPhone (#apple #ios14 #widgets)
Seeing this level of high interest in iPhone homescreen customization holding on since the launch of iOS 14 tells me that people really want to make their device more personal. Is it too far fetched to imagine Apple bringing system level customization a basic feature of iOS? I don’t think so. Maybe in iOS 15. Image from idownloadblog.
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For Icons lovers (#macos #ios #apple #design #ui #ux #visualarts)
I’m a user of Timing for Mac, and recently the app got updated in order to support macOS Big Sur. The update brings a fresh and entirely new app icon to better fit the visual style of Big Sur, and I love it 😍. The icon has been designed by Matthew Skiles. Looking on his Twitter profile, I discovered two interesting web sites: https://www.macosicongallery.com/ and https://www.iosicongallery.com/. These are catalogs of the best icons for macOS and iOS of well known apps. Check them out. These sites made me realize how much we lost in design quality over the years, great icons are hard to come by these days.
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It’s overwhelming and unanimous (#apple #applem1 #applesiliconmacs #m1chip)
Following Apple’s “One More Thing” event, I wanted to gather positives reactions to Apple’s M1-Based machines. It’s simply overwhelming. I just can’t keep up. It’s all over the place. I can only imagine Apple’s marketing department current putting a press release doing just that.
“I can’t remember the last time reviews for an Apple product were so universally positive, especially considering these are machines that look the same as the previous-gen. Apple simply excelled themselves with the ARM transition.” — Benjamin Mayo
It’s not only overwhelming but unanimous. What a great time to see history being made.
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Is 8 GB of RAM enough? (#apple #macbookair #applesilicon #M1chip ) 🤔
Many are asking if they should go with a 16 GB RAM configuration for their new M1-based MacBook Air. Some others think Apple should have made a 32 GB of RAM configuration for the 13” MacBook Pro. According to this informal benchmarking video, 8 GB seems enough for most people. During his tests, the user opened many different apps and documents in Excel, tabs in Chrome, Photoshop and the MacBook Air stayed cool and never ever started to fall on its knees. At no time the idle CPU metric went down below 60%. The fan-less computer never got hot. Why? Three letters: SoC.
The M1 chip gathers many different components close together on the same chip so they don’t have to go through the PCI bus to move data around. I think it plays a big role in Apple Silicon Macs efficiency. We can no longer compare the RAM configuration of an Apple Mac with a Wintel machine, just like we cannot compare a 12 GB of RAM Android phone to a 6 GB of RAM iPhone. It’s just two different worlds.
Yet, I ordered a 16 GB Mac mini. 😳
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The Rosetta 2 tax (#apple #m1chip #applesilicon)
One of the best take on Apple’s new M1-based Mac is from TechCrunch. What I learned in this review is, thanks to Apple’s Rosetta 2, the cost of running an un-optimized app on these machines: 26% performance hit. The more interesting thing is the fascinating fact that, even with this hit, apps can still run faster than on Intel-based Mac counterparts.
I can’t remember the last time I didn’t mind paying taxes.
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Pixelmator Pro 2.0 — 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 “What’s new" welcome page when you first launch the app after upgrading to version 2.0. Look familiar to you? Can’t 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. “Pen supported” is one example. Why not write something like “Touch interface” or “Touch screen”. The word “supported” 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.
