November 12, 2020 2:26pm

Numeric Citizen

“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 why there is so few differences between the three Macs Apple announced this week. Sometimes, the answer is simple.

November 12, 2020 10:14am

Numeric Citizen

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.

November 12, 2020 8:12am

Numeric Citizen

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 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.

November 12, 2020 8:00am

Numeric Citizen

My go to app for blogging, Ulysses, is now ready for macOS Big Sur. Yeah! I’m doing my part, as I’m going to order this M1-based Mac mini today so I can run Big Sur on its own machine and experience the future now. And that icon is lovely, not too iOS-ified, enough Big Sur-ified to feel at home! Ulysses 21, Pt. 2 - Ulysses Blog

November 11, 2020 10:59pm

Numeric Citizen

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 apps. It’s the beginning of a new era, and I want to be part of it, experience it. I’m not waiting for the reviews next week.

November 11, 2020 5:01pm

Numeric Citizen

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 are a lot of unknowns, for sure. Yet, I have the felling that Apple set the stage for its next phase of growth for the next decade.

November 11, 2020 11:52am

Numeric Citizen

Here is the thing: the new M1-based Macs use the new “unified memory architecture” that is at the center of our iPhones and iPads. If you plan to buy one of these shinny new Mac, my recommendation would be to go with 16 GB of RAM, not 8 GB. Why? Consider this: Rosetta 2 is a new emulation software layer that will consume memory, something that is not present on Intel-based machines. On top of that, memory will be consume for video processing. My guess is: the biggest monitoring, the higher the resolution, the more memory will be consumed. What’s left for the applications? Even if SSD is fast on reads and writes, application launches are fast, nothing equals the speed of RAM. I’m afraid 8 GB of RAM is the new meager 5 GB iCloud storage tier for M1-based Mac. We’ll see with the upcoming reviews and benchmarks.

November 11, 2020 8:37am

Numeric Citizen

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.

November 10, 2020 9:53pm

Numeric Citizen

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 and tech enthusiasts? Why not bring back the 12" form-factor, an ideal candidate for power-efficient M1 processor? Will there be updates to Intel-based iMac Pro and Mac Pro? Why no 32 GB RAM configuration option for the MacBook Pro? What kind of performance levels should we expect to reach for non-Metal optimized graphic apps? Why does Apple can’t understand the need for an updated FaceTime camera in 2020?

November 10, 2020 9:19pm

Numeric Citizen

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?

That’s the new Apple MacBook using Apple’s M1 silicon ship.

Still excited?

November 9, 2020 9:05pm

Numeric Citizen

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 to Intel. Each time, he uses the expression “to set Apple for the next 10 years". It’s all about the CPU roadmap’s ability to enable the Apple’s vision. Also, even at that time, power consumption was an issue. He also repeatedly mention great updates still coming to the PowerPC-based Macs.

November 9, 2020 4:10pm

Numeric Citizen

I love those balanced review, even partial, of the iPhone 12 Pro. They feel credible, and I tend give them high credence. We should get more of these these days of highly nuanced upgrades offered by Apple, year after year. Photo by the article author.

November 9, 2020 12:32pm

Numeric Citizen

This quote from the Wall Street Journal’s review of the iPhone 12 Pro Max is priceless as ti summarize one of the biggest issue, in my opinion, about Apple’s current state of its software in general:

“It is crazy to me, however, that Apple hasn’t enabled us to do more on a phone that is practically iPad-size. Why can’t I view my inbox on the top half of the screen and my calendar on the bottom, like Samsung allows with its Multi-Window mode? Why does the tiny iPhone Mini allow the same number of rows of home-page app icons and widgets as the iPhone Giant? Why can’t I use an Apple Pencil to take notes on the notebook-size device?”

November 9, 2020 9:13am

Numeric Citizen

I have a feeling that we are in for some deception tomorrow at the “One More Thing” keynote. Is this a natural mental process, some sort of auto-regulation of my own expectations, currently happening so I can be pleasantly surprised, tomorrow?

Yet, reading my Twitter feed today and people are expecting 15 hours of battery life while beating current Mac equivalent performance. And then what? The Apple Silicon story is more about the unification of software platforms at Apple than enabling endless hardware innovations on the Mac.

November 8, 2020 9:17am

Numeric Citizen

After spending sometime with the virtual experience from Apple, I found out another one by the well known @MichaelSteeber that is built with Adobe’s XD. The experience is quite similar, and I’m still not able to find a fully satisfactory combinaison of the iPhone, the MagSafe case and the wallet. Really, the iPhone 12 is not for me.

November 8, 2020 9:05am

Numeric Citizen

Apple launched a webpage to experience the selection and visualization of different MagSafe cases and wallets for the iPhone 12. I played with it for fun from my iPad Pro. It’s an interesting way to try different combinaisons of iPhone, cases and wallet in a world where going to a real store to do the same is challenging.

This year’s iPhone and cases prove to be hardly satisfactory, though. The colours options are not really in line to my tastes. After spending a while, I found two probable configurations that I would buy if I was on the market for such things. Because of bad reviews of the wallet, I would skip this one as I would fear losing my three most important cards. I hope Apple will fix the issues with next year’s round of the products.

November 7, 2020 1:54pm

Numeric Citizen

Well, I can breath a little bit better now that this clown is on the way out. Good riddance. As a Canadian, I’m so happy to see this clown go. If there was a way to start fixing 2020, it would be it. Yeah, I know, he won’t concede victory, he probably won’t do a concession speech. Who cares.. we knew all that, already. Now, let’s hope Americans start to unite a little bit and fix their shit, because, it’s pretty ugly out there.

November 7, 2020 9:20am

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Numeric Citizen

A recent tweet from @LeaksApplePro made me think about the significance of the iPhone 12 in the grand scheme of things.

Apple is about to remove the last port on the iPhone, so they are training us with the MagSafe. Next year’s version will fix many of the issue we’re facing today. 5G may not be ready, but next year it will be much better. LiDAR is fascinating, but next year we will depend on it. We tend to forget about the notch, next year it will be Apple who will forget it by putting it to rest.

November 7, 2020 8:43am

Numeric Citizen

On Twitter, a battle of the leakers is taking place is taking place nearly every day. It’s fun to read the claims and counter-claims of who had it right, who had it wrong, who stole from who, who lied, who’s fake, who’s real. There is even a website who tracks their “performance”.

You know what? We shouldn’t care. They all have something in common: they more or less depend on highly questionable ethic and look more and more like a bunch of losers. There, I said it.

November 6, 2020 6:52pm

Numeric Citizen

I want this to be the next iMac, running an ARM-based CPU. That’s what a computer should look like: a screen. On a stand. Nothing more. We’re close to this. Consider the iPad. We are already there. I don’t expect such a computer to be revealed next week, though. We will have to wait a bit more.

Mockup credit and more available here: https://svetapple.sk/english/imac-2021-exclusive-renders-from-svetapple-sk/