As usual, Rene dives deep and opens the floodgates with lots of interesting/helpful detail.
At the very least, jump to 2:18 and process that chart comparing rendering and battery performance between the two latest Intel-based MacBooks, the 13″ M1 MacBook Pro from last year, and a New M1 Max MacBook Pro. Those numbers tell a simply incredible story.
Scroll down that linked first page to the Table of Contents to get a sense of where to focus on this massive Monterey review. So much to process, but it’s all linked on separate pages, so it’s easy to navigate.
Also, here’s a link to Apple’s official macOS Monterey landing page, which is also worth your time, an easy, beautifully drawn quick trip through Monterey’s new shiny.
The first half of this video is unboxing of the 14″ and 16″ MacBook Pros. Note the different wallpaper colors for each, red for 14″, blue for 16″. Also, right about 3:49, check out the relative size of the two machines. Coming from the M1 MacBook Air, Justine makes me consider a 14″ MacBook Pro as the sweet spot.
About 6:39, Justine brings on a friend with some crispy 8K footage to play with. Jump to 9:50 and just start watching. This machine can do a lot more than the Intel MacBook Pro it replaced. And what’s amazing is that all this high-end 8K editing is being done on the cheapest model you can buy. The low end 14″ MacBook Pro. Keep that in mind. Wow.
Rogue Amoeba blog:
Back in mid-2018, there wasn’t a single Macintosh computer that was free of major drawbacks or otherwise ridiculously out of date. After yet another disappointing WWDC, I took to my keyboard to air some grievances, with a lengthy complaint entitled “On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware“. That post was written out of a deeper frustration with Apple’s failure to keep the Mac product line current.
Here’s a link to that original disappoint WWDC post.
Oh, how times have changed:
Apple in 2018 was at the height of their quest to remove every port, selling a MacBook that offered a pitiful single USB-C port (which was also needed for charging). Other laptops were besmirched by TouchBars and faulty butterfly keyboards. Apple is not a company to change its mind lightly, but nevertheless they’ve corrected every single one of these missteps.
Well said. There’s the return of the SD port, the return of the MagSafe connector, that gorgeous new Liquid Retina XDR display, and the scary fast M1 Pro and M1 Max with the unified memory and embedded GPU. The new Mac line is a whole new ball game.
Follow the headline link for Michael Potuck’s head to head to head to head comparison of the four current MacBook Pro models (the still-selling Intel model, the 13″ M1, and the brand new 14″ and 16″ M1 Pro/Max models).
At the very least, scroll through the various tables to get a sense of what has changed, including things like external display support, built-in display brightness, and battery life. Lot’s of great detail here.
Apple:
The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1, so tasks like compiling projects in Xcode are faster than ever. The GPU in M1 Pro is up to 2x faster than M1, while M1 Max is up to an astonishing 4x faster than M1, allowing pro users to fly through the most demanding graphics workflows.
And:
M1 Pro and M1 Max include an Apple-designed media engine that accelerates video processing while maximizing battery life. M1 Pro also includes dedicated acceleration for the ProRes professional video codec, allowing playback of multiple streams of high-quality 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power. M1 Max goes even further, delivering up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro, and features two ProRes accelerators. With M1 Max, the new MacBook Pro can transcode ProRes video in Compressor up to a remarkable 10x faster compared with the previous-generation 16-inch MacBook Pro.
And:
M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors — 70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1 — M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.
And:
Both M1 Pro and M1 Max are loaded with advanced custom technologies that help push pro workflows to the next level:
- A 16-core Neural Engine for on-device machine learning acceleration and improved camera performance.
- A new display engine drives multiple external displays.
- Additional integrated Thunderbolt 4 controllers provide even more I/O bandwidth.
- Apple’s custom image signal processor, along with the Neural Engine, uses computational video to enhance image quality for sharper video and more natural-looking skin tones on the built-in camera.
- Best-in-class security, including Apple’s latest Secure Enclave, hardware-verified secure boot, and runtime anti-exploitation technologies.
There’s a lot to process here. The claims are bold. Looking forward to seeing the real-world results, benchmarks, video reviews. Most interesting to me will be the GPU tests. Can a new MacBook Pro with M1 Max compete with a desktop PC with a high-end discrete GPU? Or does that remain an unfair comparison?
Apple:
Apple today updated Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro with powerful new features for creative professionals, and optimizations that take full advantage of the power and performance of the M1 Pro and M1 Max chips in the all-new MacBook Pro. Professional video editors using Final Cut Pro on the new MacBook Pro can perform tasks never before possible on a Mac, like the ability to play seven streams of 8K ProRes or color grade 8K HDR video with the new Liquid Retina XDR display — a first for any notebook. Final Cut Pro also introduces a new Object Tracker that uses machine learning to automatically detect faces and objects, and match their movement to create beautiful, cinema-quality titles and effects on any Mac.
And Logic Pro?
Logic Pro, Apple’s pro music creation software, now comes with a complete set of tools for authoring spatial audio music — allowing anyone to mix and export their songs in Dolby Atmos for Apple Music. And musicians can use up to 3x as many plug-ins for recording on the all-new MacBook Pro with M1 Max. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are Universal apps that build upon the breakthrough performance and pro capabilities of macOS Monterey, and both are available today on the Mac App Store.
And:
Spatial audio represents the next generation of sound with its revolutionary audio experience and true multi-dimensional sound and clarity. Now with a complete set of mixing and rendering tools, Logic Pro allows anyone to author their songs as Dolby Atmos music files compatible with Apple Music. Musicians, producers, and mix engineers can expand their stereo projects to the surround channels supported by Dolby Atmos, using new mixer and panner controls. In addition, 13 plug-ins within Logic Pro — including Space Designer, Limiter, Loudness Meter, and Tremolo — have also been updated to take advantage of this new creative capability. Once the songs are published to Apple Music, listeners will be able to enjoy the immersive audio experience on their devices with spatial audio support. With the new MacBook Pro, musicians get workstation-class performance for creating massive spatial audio mixes, can quickly load large sample libraries, and can use up to 3x more plug-ins for recording.
I imagine all the studios are jumping to order these. As I write, I’m watching delivery dates of the loaded machine slip and slip. As I hit Publish, we’re already pushed back into late December.
Here’s the tweet:
https://twitter.com/markgurman/status/1447700808821260292
You can buy a 16″ MacBook Pro (Intel inside) from Apple, have it in your hands in a week or two. But every Apple Store I’ve checked shows the 16″ Intel MacBook Pro unavailable for pickup.
It’s no secret that there’s rumored to be a new M1X MacBook Pro on the immediate horizon. Again, it’s a rumor, but a strongly held rumor. If that’s the case, this in-store unavailability might be the strongest sign yet.
And the shipping delay (a week or two to get it) is another clue. If I order an M1 MacBook Pro, I can have it in my hands in 2 hours, if I’m willing to pony up $9 for courier delivery.
John Gruber:
Our long national iOS 15 Safari nightmare ended last month, praise be, but the lesser of the two bad Safari designs unveiled at WWDC persists and actually shipped: the new tabs in Safari 15 for Mac. Safari 15 on iPad suffers similarly, but it’s the Mac version I’ll concentrate on here.
This is an excellent showcase of Safari’s broken tab metaphor. Don’t miss the short little video in the middle highlighting the jarring look of shifting from one tab to another and back again.
John focuses on the Mac in his post, but his comments might just as well apply to Safari for iPadOS 15. Though there are differences between the two implementations of Safari tabs, both joyously break the tab metaphor. If you think about the origins of the tab model, it’s a drawer full of vertical files, where the tab juts up, attached to a specific folder. As you paw through the folders, it’s clear which folder the tab is attached to. The tab and folder are clearly part of the same object, visually connected.
In this new model, the tabs are floating on their own, no longer physically connected to the pages they represent. This new model breaks the physical tab metaphor in a number of ways, chief of which is the lack of a unifying block of color attaching the tab and the page. For most pages, the current tab is one shade of grey, and the other tabs a slightly different shade of grey. Occasionally, the background color will bleed through the tab, offering another tab color to confuse your brain even more.
I see the iPad tab model and Mac tab model as being equally broken. The iPhone model, with the address bar at the bottom, really works well for me. I especially love the hint to the right and left of the address bar, letting you know you can slide side-to-side to get at adjacent pages. This “hidden tabs” model feels like an improvement over previous models.
The iPad and Mac Safari tabs have lost touch with the functionality of the tab metaphor. Color me disappointed. Props to Gruber for taking the time to dig into such detail on each individual point.
The danger in a simple question as headline is Betteridge’s law.
In this case, the headline is a fair question and the video embedded below an interesting exploration of the topic.
In a nutshell, while the M1 chip brought incredible performance to Apple’s laptops, the built-in GPU does not compete with desktop machines with high end external GPUs. Here’s a still frame from the video I posted this morning that gives you a sense of how big that performance difference is.
The Intel Mac Pro (as discussed in the video) is incredibly modular, let’s you plug in various high-end GPU cards for high-end performance. The M1 chip has a built-in GPU which inherently caps the graphics performance. So the headline question is a fair one.
If any of the above tweaks your interest, watch the video below.
Sami Fathi, MacRumors:
While the feature was previewed at WWDC in June, it’s yet to make an official appearance in any developer beta of macOS Monterey or iPadOS 15, leading to speculation that the feature may be delayed to a future update to the operating systems. However, in the latest macOS Monterey beta released on August 11, Universal Control can be enabled and used between two Macs.
And this, in bold:
Universal Control is not yet officially enabled in the latest macOS beta, and the steps needed to enable it are complex. We don’t advise users to attempt to enable it because it may damage crucial system files and their machines.
If that doesn’t put you off, here’s the magic. Looks like it’s macOS only, for the moment. Backup your Mac before you dig in.
Howard Oakley:
Over the last nine months, a great deal of work has gone into discovering just what is in Apple’s M1 chip, and what it all does. As Apple prepares to announce its successor in the next few weeks, I thought it might be worth surveying the work which has been accomplished so far, to establish the baseline for future Apple Silicon chips.
An interesting, link/detail filled walk through what we know and have inferred about the M1. Especially useful, sitting on the cusp of a rumored release of the next generation of M1.
Jason Snell:
AgileBits chose to build the new version of its Mac app using Electron, a system based on web technologies that’s used by numerous cross-platform apps, including Slack, Skype, and Discord.
And:
Electron apps have a reputation for being slow, eating up a lot of system memory, and—perhaps most offensively—failing to behave like proper, “native” apps on whatever platform they operate.
And:
The root problem is this: 1Password, originally a Mac-forward software developer, has simply decided that the Mac isn’t important enough.
And:
Fey’s post clearly spells out AgileBits’s priorities. Android and iOS apps are built with native platform frameworks in order to create the best app experience possible on mobile. For iOS, AgileBits decided to use Apple’s new SwiftUI framework rather than the venerable UIKit, in order to skate “to where the puck was going.” Their plan was to use SwiftUI on the Mac, too. In doing so, AgileBits was buying into the vision Apple has for SwiftUI as a tool to build interfaces across all of Apple’s platforms. Unfortunately, it seems that SwiftUI didn’t measure up on the Mac:
And:
AgileBits was willing to put in the extra work for iOS, because it’s an important platform and SwiftUI is clearly the future there. But implementing it on the Mac required a lot of duplicate work—and what’s worse, SwiftUI apps aren’t compatible with older versions of macOS. AgileBits was planning on covering the older versions with an Electron version, but once it decided the SwiftUI implementation for the Mac was too much work, it pulled the plug—and now plans to ship an Electron version to all Mac users.
In a nutshell, Jason is pointing out both a weakness in SwiftUI as the one, true mechanism for building an app that serves iOS and the Mac, and the inherent problem of Electron as a cross-platform solution.
We have seen the holy grail of cross platform frameworks come and go over time. They never deliver the same experience as a platform optimized app. Never.
I think the optimization argument is really well expressed in this thread from BBEdit creator Rich Siegel. Building a cross-platform app requires a tradeoff: Either you build an optimized, efficient experience tuned for each platform, or you sacrifice the great for the good-enough.
Matt Birchler:
While I’m quite a bit older than I was when After Dark’s bizarre flying toasters were popular, I still enjoy it when the internet is weird. I think that many people confuse “owning my enemies” with “weird”, but despite that crowd, there is so much out there that’s just people trying funky things to see what happens.
Yup. Flying toasters. Most everyone with a Macintosh back in the late ’80s, early ’90s, had this screensaver on their Macs, or at least had seen it in action.
And now you can experience this glory for yourself. Here’s a link to the Berkeley Systems “After Dark” screensavers, ported to CSS. Enjoy.
The new white paper, titled Mac Pro Technology Overview, is chock full of detail, well worth going through if you own, or are considering a Mac Pro.
The paper is pretty long (45 pages), so if you are interested in the new AMD modules, open the PDF and do a find for AMD, which should take you to the description of the Radeon Pro 580X MPX Module.
Also worth checking out is AMD’s Mac Pro-centric web page covering their new graphics cards.
On Tuesday, Apple updated the MagSafe power adapter (not to be confused with the iPhone MagSafe interface) support page.
At the very least, this is a walk down memory lane, but note the references to Macs with USB-C power adapters. Is there a purpose to this change? After all, what does MagSafe have to do with USB-C? Probably a simple edit and this is a tiny ado about nothing. But note the date on the bottom of the page. The change happened Tuesday.
File under mildly interesting.
Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac:
Apple today released a new advertisement specifically for Canadians. The “Made in Canada” video, which is part of the “Behind the Mac” campaign, highlights multiple artists from Canada, including Justin Bieber, Daniel Caesar, and Shawn Mendes.
The new ad is embedded below.
Interestingly, Apple has a new, Canadian, Behind the Mac page as well.
Follow the headline link to read the well-deserved lavish praise, but here’s the quote:
“When we saw that first system and then you sat there and played with it for a few hours and the battery didn’t move, we thought ‘Oh man, that’s a bug, the battery indicator is broken,’” said Bob Borchers, VP of worldwide product marketing for Apple. “And then Tim’s laughing in the background, ‘Nope, that’s the way it’s supposed to be’ and it was pretty phenomenal.”
Yup. That battery life continues to amaze me.
Monica Chin, The Verge:
Have you ever been using a recently updated Mac computer and thought, “Man, I would love to use this operating system with a really tiny keyboard and a really tiny screen?” Okay, me neither, but I certainly would love the opportunity to carry a MacBook around in my pocket and whip it out on command.
Apparently, YouTuber Ike T. Sanglay Jr., or “Iketsj,” has had this thought as well. In this eight-minute vlog, the YouTuber builds a tiny handheld PC that can run macOS Big Sur, and it’s very fun.
Yeah it is. Fun, I mean.
Here’s the video.
Chance Miller, 9to5Mac:
The 12-inch Retina MacBook was first introduced during Apple’s March Event in 2015, with Apple touting it as the thinnest MacBook to date. It ushered in a new era for the MacBook lineup with a USB-C port and butterfly keyboard design.
And from this 2019 farewell when Apple discontinued production:
From trivial changes like space gray/gold finishes and display lids too thin for backlit Apple logos to futurist new features like automatically booting up when the lid is opened and a giant Force Touch trackpad without the diving board click button, the MacBook introduced changes that now outlive the machine.
A groundbreaking machine, in terms of design. It’d be interesting to compare the benchmarks of the 2015 MacBook with the similarly priced M1 MacBook Air. One additional USB-C port, way better battery life, and about a million times more processing power.
In the list of additions (courtesy of José Adorno for 9to5Mac):
Here are links to installers for macOS Monterey, and for macOS Big Sur.
I’ve been playing with the Safari Technology Preview on top of my macOS Big Sur install. So far, so good. I’m editing these words in that preview. Note that the Preview is a separate app with its own icon, so you won’t be replacing your existing Safari install.
Malcolm Owen, AppleInsider, on optimizing your Mac storage space:
Is it worth keeping a collection of 500 photos from that trip to Paris a decade ago when you only look at one or two? Do you need gigabytes of videos of your cat?
While there are many ways to cut down the collection, you may want to take a few minutes to look at Apple’s built-in options for managing data stored on your Mac, under what Apple refers to as the Optimized Storage menu.
If you’ve not spent time with macOS Optimize Storage (Apple menu, About this Mac…, Storage tab, Manage… button, then click Optimize), take a few minutes to go through Malcolm’s walkthrough. There are a lot of options here, worth understanding the tree of possibilities.
Juli Clover, MacRumors:
With macOS Monterey, Apple has introduced expanded AirPlay 2 support, so you can AirPlay content from an iPhone, iPad, or even another Mac to your main Mac. We thought we’d do a quick demo of this handy new feature in our latest YouTube video.
The video is embedded below. Still thinking about use cases here. Throw some video from my iPhone onto my Mac? Whole house audio (mentioned toward the end of the video)? Note the mention of AirPlay’ed video being compressed to a lower quality.
Kirk McElhearn:
I’ve written about high-resolution music plenty over the years, and it’s clear that, for the vast majority of listeners, it’s just marketing and won’t make a difference.
But Apple has added music formats that can’t even be played back on Macs, without changing a hidden setting. Here’s why.
If you are interested in Lossless on your Mac, this is a must read, especially if you are new to the Audio Midi Setup application (you’ll find it in Applications/Utilities).
Joe Rossignol, MacRumors:
One of the key new features of macOS Monterey is the ability to AirPlay content to a Mac from other Apple devices, such as an iPhone, iPad, or another Mac. According to the macOS Monterey features page, AirPlay to Mac works works both wirelessly or wired using a USB cable, with Apple noting that a wired connection is useful when you want to ensure that there’s no latency or don’t have access to a Wi-Fi connection.
And:
AirPlay to Mac also allows users to extend or mirror an Apple device’s display to a Mac, and we’ve confirmed this works on a Mac-to-Mac basis.
More detail in the original post but, as Joe points out, looks like the return of Target Display Mode.
From Mac Address, this video is titled, “I love the new iMac”, and it’ll make you want one. If you are even thinking about buying one, especially yellow, dig in.
Jump right to the iMac Xray (direct link). So much to see here.
Those rectangles appear to be acoustic chambers for the speakers. Interesting that they are different in shape, though the sound, no doubt, is perfectly symmetrical. Apple has some genius acoustic engineers.
Lots more detail in the post itself. Love teardowns.
Chance Miller:
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who is presiding over the Epic vs. Apple case, asked Federighi about why the Mac can have multiple app stores, but not the iPhone. “It is regularly exploited on the Mac,” Federighi explained. “iOS has established a dramatically higher bar for customer protection. The Mac is not meeting that bar today.”
“Today, we have a level of malware on the Mac that we don’t find acceptable,” Federighi added.
More quotes from Federighi:
The Mac is a car. You can take it off road if you want and you can drive wherever you want. That’s what you wanted to buy. There’s a certain level of responsibility required. With iOS, you wanted to buy something where children can operate an iOS device and feel safe doing so. It’s really a different product.
And:
If operated correctly, much like that car, if you know how to operate a car and obey the rules of the road and are very cautious, yes. If not, I’ve had a couple of family members who have gotten malware on their Macs, but ultimately, I believe a Mac can be operated safely.
Interesting analogy. I get that he’s talking about the ability to side load apps on your Mac but not on your iPhone or iPad. But it makes me think about repairing a car, and the fact that it is getting harder and harder to maintain your own car, and almost impossible to repair your own Mac.
Amazing how many reviews there are, nicely divided into articles and videos. Enjoy.