Ok, Apple did a great job this week. A lot has already been said about Apple’s announcements. The MacBook Neo is a killer, even as an entry device. My wife is getting one. It’s the original Mac mini in a laptop shape. Apple did a great balancing act with the Neo. The only two quibbles: only 8 GB of RAM (I wanted 12 GB) and the lack of a MagSafe port.
Now, I hope Apple can do as good a job on the software as it did on the hardware. There is so much to fix.
One vendor doesn’t mind high RAM prices: VMware — The Register
The high price of memory and solid-state storage has almost everyone worried – but not VMware, because the most innovative new feature in the Cloud Foundation 9 (VCF 9) private cloud suite it launched last year is memory tiering tech that allows offload of data from RAM to NVMe drives.
VMware has always promoted VCF 9 memory tiering as offering the chance to reduce infrastructure costs by reducing the amount of RAM needed in new servers, and by creating the opportunity to upgrade the NVMe drives in old boxes and effectively increase their memory capacity.
Well, yeah, memory tiering certainly helps reduce the cost of servers, but even NVMe drives, which are built on electronic chips too, are impacted by price increases. And, servers must be compatible with this feature. No magic bullet here.
People’s reactions to Apple hardware announcements so far have been quite positive, if not enthusiastic, much more so than any software announcements in recent years. The difference is stark.
To understand what Apple launched today, we have to go back just over five years, when Apple launched the M1 in November 2020. I wrote then:
“This approach to integration into a single chip, maximum throughput, rapid access to memory, optimal computing performance based on the task, and adaptation to machine learning algorithms is the future — not only for mobile chips, but also for desktop and laptop computers.”
That turned out to be right.
What Apple achieved with their new M5 Pro and M5 Max is quite impressive. Even more impressive is that the architectural decisions made back in 2020 (or earlier) are still paying off today. If only Apple had the wisdom to make similar smart decisions with Siri architecture. Apple seems stuck on redoing its homework forever with software.
iBook > MacBook Neo ? 🧐
Apple Does Value (Week) — On my Om
Apple has decided that $599 is the new floor for a “real” Apple device—not a hand-me-down, not last year’s leftovers, but a current-generation product with current-generation silicon.
If Om Malik is right, this would put the new entry-level MacBook price at 599 US$. The question now becomes: what do you get for that amount of money beyond the A18 Pro chip?
★ HazeOver — Mac Utility for Highlighting the Frontmost Window:
What HazeOver does is highlight the active window by dimming all background windows. That’s it. But it does this simple task with aplomb, and it makes a significant difference in the day-to-day usability of MacOS. Not just MacOS 26 Tahoe — all recent versions of MacOS suffer from a design that makes it difficult to distinguish, instantly, the frontmost (a.k.a. key) window from background windows.1 Making all background windows a little dimmer makes a notable difference.
For some reason, I forgot about this Mac utility. It was installed on my Mac mini, but disabled. It’s now installed and enabled on my MacBook Air with a 40% dimming value. Makes a big difference.
Apple is still proud of Liquid Glass. Found on the iPhone 17e mini website. 😵💫
Prices of the new iPad Air and iPhone 17e seems in line with previous generation products they replace and not affected by the current tech environment where prices are going up drastically… it looks rather well too for the upcoming entry-level MacBook pricing.
During any tech transition, the people who retain old-school knowledge while the new-school is developing are particularly valuable. Nobody needs to know punch cards anymore, but I’m sure that while punch cards were being phased out, extensive knowledge about them was incredibly useful.
The same is true about cloud migration. Those who did traditional data centers and started to get interested and involved in cloud migration were (and still are) very in demand.
