Archive for June 5, 2023

Monday, June 5, 2023

Apple Vision Pro

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News, ArsTechnica, Slashdot):

Apple today unveiled Apple Vision Pro, a revolutionary spatial computer that seamlessly blends digital content with the physical world, while allowing users to stay present and connected to others. Vision Pro creates an infinite canvas for apps that scales beyond the boundaries of a traditional display and introduces a fully three-dimensional user interface controlled by the most natural and intuitive inputs possible — a user’s eyes, hands, and voice. Featuring visionOS, the world’s first spatial operating system, Vision Pro lets users interact with digital content in a way that feels like it is physically present in their space. The breakthrough design of Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system that packs 23 million pixels across two displays, and custom Apple silicon in a unique dual-chip design to ensure every experience feels like it’s taking place in front of the user’s eyes in real time.

[…]

Apple Vision Pro enables users to be even more productive, with infinite screen real estate, access to their favorite apps, and all-new ways to multitask. And with support for Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad, users can set up the perfect workspace or bring the powerful capabilities of their Mac into Vision Pro wirelessly, creating an enormous, private, and portable 4K display with incredibly crisp text.

[…]

Apple Vision Pro has an all-new App Store where users can discover apps and content from developers, and access hundreds of thousands of familiar iPhone and iPad apps that run great and automatically work with the new input system for Vision Pro.

[…]

When a person approaches someone wearing Vision Pro, the device feels transparent — letting the user see them while also displaying the user’s eyes. When a user is immersed in an environment or using an app, EyeSight gives visual cues to others about what the user is focused on. […] Users with vision correction needs will use ZEISS Optical Inserts to ensure visual fidelity and eye tracking accuracy.

[…]

Apple Vision Pro starts at $3,499 (U.S.), and will be available early next year on apple.com and at Apple Store locations in the U.S., with more countries coming later next year.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): See also:

Update (2023-06-07):

Update (2023-06-09):

Update (2023-06-13):

Update (2023-06-15):

Update (2023-06-16):

Update (2023-06-23):

watchOS 10 Announced

Apple (preview, MacRumors, Hacker News):

Apple today previewed watchOS 10, bringing Apple Watch users a fresh approach to quickly view information with redesigned apps, a new Smart Stack to show relevant widgets right when they’re needed, and delightful new watch faces. New metrics, Workout Views, and Bluetooth connectivity for power meters, speed sensors, and cadence sensors arrive for cyclists, while new Compass Waypoints and Maps capabilities further help hikers. The Mindfulness app offers additional tools to support mental health.

[…]

With watchOS 10, Compass automatically generates two new waypoints: A Last Cellular Connection Waypoint will estimate the last place with cellular reception, which may be useful for checking messages or making a call. In case of emergencies, a Last Emergency Call Waypoint will estimate where on the route their device had the last connection to any available carrier’s network so that an emergency call can be made.

When preparing routes, a new Elevation view uses altimeter data, offering a three-dimensional view of saved waypoints. And starting in the U.S., Apple Maps displays a new topographic map featuring contour lines, hill shading, elevation details, and points of interest.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): Filipe Espósito:

This means that every Apple Watch model that runs watchOS 9 will be able to run watchOS 10. Of course, it also requires a paired iPhone running iOS 17.

Update (2023-06-07): Dan Moren:

watchOS 10 got perhaps the biggest overhaul, not only changing fundamental ways that users interact with the device, but also how information is presented on the wearable.

Some of this information was shown off during the keynote, but the WWDC session Meet watchOS 10 goes into more detail about how the Apple Watch’s design language is changing—and make no mistake, this is a major change.

macOS 14 Sonoma Announced

Apple (preview, MacRumors, Hacker News, ArsTechnica, Slashdot):

Stunning screen savers and powerful widgets unlock an entirely new way to personalize. Users can now place widgets right on the desktop, interact with them with just a click, and through the magic of Continuity, access the extensive ecosystem of iPhone widgets on their Mac. In macOS Sonoma, video conferencing also gets more engaging with great new features to help users present remotely, like Presenter Overlay, which places a presenter on top of the content being shared, and Reactions, which enables fun gesture-triggered video effects in cinematic quality. Significant updates come to Safari, taking the web experience to the next level. Profiles keeps browsing separate between multiple topics or projects, and web apps provide faster access to favorite sites. And gaming gets even better, with the introduction of Game Mode, exciting new titles, and a new game porting toolkit that makes it even easier for developers to bring more games to Mac.

Joe Rossignol (Hacker News):

macOS Sonoma drops support for 2017 models of the iMac and MacBook Pro, as well as the final 12-inch MacBook model.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): Nick Heer:

MacOS Sonoma drops support for the 2017 iMac, which was the latest model when I bought it just over four years ago.

Howard Oakley:

Of the seven versions of Intel Macs that don’t have T2 chips, and are supported by macOS Ventura, only one, iMac 2019 (iMac19,x), has official Sonoma support.

Filipe Espósito:

When you choose one of these wallpapers, it’s shown as a static image on the Desktop. But as soon as your Mac enters the Lock Screen, the wallpaper moves as an aerial screen saver. When you unlock the Mac, it smoothly stops moving and stays frozen in that frame.

Chance Miller:

Here’s a rundown of the new features in macOS Sonoma that are only available to Apple Silicon users, not users with an Intel-powered Mac.

Update (2023-06-09): Mr. Macintosh:

Can someone explain to me like I’m 5, why a 2017 4.5Ghz i7 iMac can’t run macOS Sonoma?

I’ve seen a few people mention the T2 chip.

Remember, the 2019 iMac does not have a T2 chip, so that is not the reason.

[…]

STOP THE WASTE!

Update (2023-06-13): Howard Oakley:

Prior to Sonoma, getting the right display in a VM has been rather hit or miss. Although shown in a resizeable window, virtual display resolutions have relied on HiDPI support and picking the best size for their crispness. Sonoma adds a simple option that should fill the VM window with the crispest possible image, even when its dimensions don’t match what’s shown in the Display settings of the VM. This solution looks ideal.

State restoration is a little more complex. When running in Monterey and Ventura, the only safe way to quit a VM is to shut it down, and whenever you want to open an existing VM, you have to start it up and log in afresh. In Sonoma, the VM state can be saved and restored, allowing you to resume the VM in a previous state of your choice. You can thus set up your VM exactly as you want it, and keep returning to that state whenever you wish.

Christian Tietze:

Hmmm these new NSMenu section headers look nice in principle, but the whitespace feels odd to me.

Sonoma also removes support for Mail plug-ins.

Update (2023-06-23): Tim Hardwick:

In macOS Sonoma, Apple has changed the widgets landscape. No longer do widgets have to be hidden offscreen and largely forgotten in the Notifications Center panel. Now they live right on your desktop – and they're interactive, too.

Danny Lin:

Whimsical chaos when the Desktop is full

John Voorhees:

It’s a small change, but I appreciate that when I AirDrop files to my Mac running Sonoma that it no longer interrupts my work by flipping over to the Downloads folder in Finder.

Update (2023-08-10): Ezekiel Elin:

Apple made Game Mode for Sonoma, but there’s no way to turn it on manually so if it decides your game isn’t worthy then it’s just…unavailable

iPadOS 17 Announced

Apple (preview, MacRumors):

Apple today previewed iPadOS 17, delivering entirely new ways for users to personalize the Lock Screen and interact with widgets. Working with PDFs is easier with AutoFill, which intelligently identifies and fills fields in forms, and Notes brings a new experience for marking up and collaborating on PDFs. Messages gets significant updates, including a new stickers experience, and users can now leave FaceTime video and audio messages. The Health app comes to iPad with interactive charts, and HealthKit enables developers to create innovative experiences designed for the iPad display.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): Ben Lovejoy:

You can install iPadOS 17 on all of the following models[…]

iOS 17 Announced

Apple (preview, MacRumors, Hacker News):

The Phone app is central to the iPhone experience, and it receives a big update with personalized Contact Posters, providing a new way for users to express themselves. […] Live Voicemail gives users the ability to see real-time transcription as someone leaves a voicemail, and the opportunity to pick up while the caller is leaving their message.

[…]

[Messages] Search gets more powerful and precise with search filters, making it possible for users to start a search and add additional filters to narrow down the results and find exactly what they are seeking. […] Messages also introduces Check In, an important feature for when a user wants to notify a family member or friend that they have made it to their destination safely.

[…]

Autocorrect receives a comprehensive update with a transformer language model, a state-of-the-art on-device machine learning language model for word prediction — improving the experience and accuracy for users every time they type.

[…]

iOS 17 introduces StandBy, giving users a full-screen experience with glanceable information designed to be viewed from a distance when iPhone is on its side and charging.

[…]

Journal is a new app that helps iPhone users reflect and practice gratitude through journaling, which has been shown to improve wellbeing.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): Filipe Espósito:

Unfortunately, iOS 17 requires the A12 Bionic chip or later. This means that iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X won’t get the update.

Update (2023-06-13): Juli Clover:

We’ve pulled out five features that we think are the most interesting and that iPhone users will be most excited about when iOS 17 launches this fall.

Adam Engst:

I focus here on 12 features I look forward to trying or find generally compelling, in no particular order.

Update (2023-06-15): Mysk:

Apple didn’t mention app sideloading at #WWDC23, except for when @gruber explicitly asked Craig Federighi about it during The Talk Show.

Apple M2 Ultra

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News, Slashdot):

M2 Ultra is built using a second-generation 5-nanometer process and uses Apple’s groundbreaking UltraFusion technology to connect the die of two M2 Max chips, doubling the performance. M2 Ultra consists of 134 billion transistors — 20 billion more than M1 Ultra. Its unified memory architecture supports up to a breakthrough 192GB of memory capacity, which is 50 percent more than M1 Ultra, and features 800GB/s of memory bandwidth — twice that of M2 Max. M2 Ultra features a more powerful CPU that’s 20 percent faster than M1 Ultra, a larger GPU that’s up to 30 percent faster, and a Neural Engine that’s up to 40 percent faster. It also features a media engine with twice the capabilities of M2 Max for blazing ProRes acceleration.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-13): Hassan Mujtaba (via Hacker News):

The CPU managed to post a single-core score of up to 2809 points in single-core and 21,531 points in the multi-core tests. For comparison, the Intel Core i9-13900KS scores 3083 points while AMD’s Ryzen 9 7950X scores 2875 points. In multi-threaded benchmarks, the same chips score 21665 and 19342 points, respectively. So as you can see, the workstation-grade Apple M2 Ultra SoC isn’t faster than the mainstream CPU offerings from Intel and AMD.

[…]

If you compare the chip to something like an AMD Threadripper and Intel Xeon W chip, then those would absolutely crush the M2 Ultra in the multi-threaded tests but the single-threaded lead will be on Apple’s M2 Ultra[…]

[…]

As such, in OpenCL, the M2 Ultra SoC ends up 50% slower than NVIDIA’s RTX 4080 and that’s not even the flagship GPU.

Joe Rossignol:

As expected, these scores confirm that the M2 Ultra chip offers up to 20% faster CPU performance compared to the M1 Ultra chip, as Apple advertised.

Mac Pro 2023

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News):

Mac Pro, now featuring M2 Ultra, combines the unprecedented performance of Apple’s most powerful chip with the versatility of PCIe expansion. Mac Pro is up to 3x faster than the previous-generation Intel-based model. Featuring up to 192GB of unified memory, Mac Studio with M2 Ultra and Mac Pro have far more memory than the most advanced workstation graphics cards, taking on demanding workloads other systems can’t even process. The new Mac Pro completes the Mac transition to Apple silicon and, together with the rest of Apple’s pro systems, gives users the most powerful and capable lineup of pro products Apple has ever offered.

[…]

The wide array of connectivity in Mac Pro gets even better with eight built-in Thunderbolt 4 ports — six on the back and two on the top — which is twice as many as before. It supports up to six Pro Display XDRs, along with Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3, which come to the new Mac Pro for fast wireless connectivity. Additionally, Mac Pro includes three USB-A ports, two higher-bandwidth HDMI ports that support up to 8K resolution and up to 240Hz frame rates, two 10Gb Ethernet ports, and a headphone jack that enables the use of high-impedance headphones.

[…]

Available in both tower and rack-mounted enclosures, Mac Pro (Tower Enclosure) starts at $6,999 (U.S.) and $6,599 (U.S.) for education. Mac Pro (Rack Enclosure) starts at $7,499 (U.S.) and $6,999 (U.S.) for education.

There’s no quad chip, and the RAM and GPU are no longer upgradeable.

Juli Clover:

Following the introduction of the Apple silicon Mac Pro, Apple today added SSD upgrade kits to its online store. The kits offer 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB of storage space for $1,000, $1,600, and $2,800, respectively.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-06): Stephen Hackett:

However, it also comes with all the downsides of being an SoC. Gone is the 1.5 TB RAM limit of the 2019 Mac Pro, but more importantly, gone is the ability to add RAM after purchase. The same thing goes for upgrading the GPU.

The truth in 2023 is that Mac Pro you buy today will be the same core machine in five years, and that’s just not something we’re used to seeing when it comes to this machine.

[…]

Several of us who cover Apple have heard that there are those inside the company that did not want this machine to see the light of day, believing the Mac Studio to be enough to hold down the high-end of the Mac line. Seeing the machine that Apple announced this week, I think they may eventually get their way.

Update (2023-06-07): Nick Heer:

And, if you do choose to compare this Mac Pro to the Intel model it replaces, there are some changes which are difficult to swallow. It is $1,000 more expensive than the one it replaces. The outgoing model was endlessly upgradeable with dedicated video encoding hardware, graphics processors, and up to 1.5 terabytes of memory. The M2 Mac Pro appears to support none of those things. Apple has tried to preempt criticism by claiming this version effectively has the power of seven Afterburner video encoding cards built in, but there are no known differences between the M2 Ultra in the Pro and the one in the Studio. Even its PCIe slots are being marketed for comparatively less demanding workflows:

Update (2023-06-09): Colin Cornaby:

The new Mac Pro is hilariously disappointing.

Mike Piatek-Jimenez:

I’m a little surprised the Apple silicon Mac Pro didn’t go directly to PCIe 5 support. That’s been standard on desktop and server PC hardware for months now.

Francisco Tolmasky:

The best part about the Mac Pro is that it looks like a “platform” that can be updated yearly. They can just keep putting the new M-whatever chip in it (& hopefully eventually figure out how to quadruple it vs. just having the Ultra). Ideally they can bump it up to PCIe 5 and Thunderbolt 5 “easily” too. In other words, the fact that this is so similar to the Mac Studio means it hopefully won’t suffer the same fate as the previous “one-hit wonder” Mac Pros. Looking forward to M3 Mac Pro…

Hartley Charlton:

The main reason to buy the Mac Pro is to be able to use its seven PCIe expansion slots add the likes of digital signal processing (DSP) cards, serial digital interface (SDI) I/O cards, additional networking, and built-in storage. This also allows a user to change some of their Mac Pro’s hardware over time, and Apple is offering additional do-it-yourself SSD upgrade kits and wheels for the device.

If you require multiple Ethernet ports, more than six Thunderbolt ports, or more than two USB-A ports to connect a large number of peripherals, only the Mac Pro can facilitate this. Otherwise, since the Mac Studio can be configured with the same M2 Ultra chip as the Mac Pro, there is no reason to buy the more expensive desktop machine, and most users will be better off buying the Mac Studio and saving $3,000.

See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Update (2023-06-13): Joe Rossignol (Hacker News):

Apple’s hardware engineering chief John Ternus briefly touched on the matter in an interview with Daring Fireball’s John Gruber last week, explaining that expandable GPU support for Apple silicon is not something that the company has pursued.

Desire Athow:

Apple specifically calls out rendering performance in Octane, Redshift and Blender in the keynote and, according to Kelly Shipman, the company’s resident hardware expert, the lack of GPU support is very limiting for rendering.

Ryan Jones:

Mac Pro as-is is certainly dead. The empty tower is SO obviously just cuz Ternus said so.

Hector Martin:

Yeah okay so they are totally cheating.

They have two big PCIe switches and are hanging everything off of them.

[…]

So basically 5 of the slots including both x16 ones are bottlenecked into a single x16 gen4 channel. Boo.

Via Colin Cornaby:

Is Apple just intentionally trying to kill the Mac Pro?

This should be a $3000 system. PCIe bandwidth is one of the big reasons to buy a workstation at workstation prices. Along with all the other changes Apple made - there is no reason anyone should buy this thing.

Colin Cornaby:

The PC I just build for a fraction of the cost of the Mac Pro has…

  • 20 PCIe Gen5 lanes compared to the 16 PCIe Gen 4 lanes on the Mac Pro (and 20 lanes is already pretty minimal.)
  • A 13900k which beats M2 Ultra in both single threaded and multithreaded workflows.
  • A GeForce 4090k which is solidly faster than M2 Ultra.
  • Expandability

All this for a fraction of the cost of the Mac Pro.

Brendan Shanks:

I guess the new one doesn’t even have ECC RAM?

Honestly it feels more coherent to think of this as the “Mac Studio Pro”, and there just isn’t an actual Mac Pro anymore. A casualty of the ASi transition.

Update (2023-06-15): Colin Cornaby:

When the 2019 Mac Pro was released - Apple implied that the Afterburner card was reprogrammable and could be used for other things. I wonder what happened with that. That seems like something that could have still been useful in the new Mac Pro - even though M2 has ProRes encoding pretty well covered.

Ben Lovejoy:

So what can you plug into them? Apple has listed the main options[…]

Some have questioned the limited power availability if you want to make full use of the card slots. That’s because each slot is limited to 75W of power. However, Apple says there’s a solution to this.

Update (2023-06-16): John Siracusa:

I’ve had over a week to digest the new Mac Pro. I try to put it in perspective on the latest episode of @atpfm.

Update (2023-06-27): Monica Chin:

I wanted to know whether Apple’s purported target demographic — people who spend their days animating, making visual effects, and doing various other tasks generally associated with big, powerful computers — were actually interested in purchasing this machine. So I asked a bunch of them, and the answer, basically across the board, was no. Not because the Mac Pro is bad but because Apple’s other computers, namely its laptops, have just gotten too good.

Update (2023-07-10): See also: Accidental Tech Podcast.

Mac Studio 2023

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News):

Mac Studio empowers pros to build the studio of their dreams with its groundbreaking performance and extensive connectivity in a compact form that lives right on their desks. With M2 Max and M2 Ultra, the new Mac Studio provides a big boost in performance versus the previous generation and a massive leap for users coming from older Macs. Mac Studio with M2 Max is up to 50 percent faster than the previous-generation Mac Studio4 and 4x faster than the most powerful Intel-based 27-inch iMac.

[…]

[Mac Studio with M2 Ultra] features a 24-core CPU, up to a 76-core GPU, and up to 192GB of memory with 800GB/s of unified memory bandwidth for workstation-class performance.

[…]

Mac Studio now has higher-bandwidth HDMI, enabling up to 8K resolution and 240Hz frame rates. With M2 Ultra, Mac Studio supports up to six Pro Display XDRs — driving over 100 million pixels — allowing for a vast amount of screen real estate for pro workflows. Additionally, it now features advanced built-in wireless technologies. Wi-Fi 6E delivers download speeds that are up to twice as fast as the previous generation, while Bluetooth 5.3 allows users to connect to the latest Bluetooth accessories. On the back, Mac Studio includes four Thunderbolt 4 ports, a 10Gb Ethernet port, an enhanced HDMI port, and two USB-A ports. It also conveniently has two USB-C ports and an SD card slot on the front to easily import photos and video.

[…]

Mac Studio starts at $1,999 (U.S.) and $1,799 (U.S.) for education.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-13): Jason Snell:

For this review, I was able to spend a few days running an M2 Ultra Mac Studio with 24 CPU cores, 76 GPU cores, and 128GB of memory. And what can I say? This new Mac Studio has all the benefits of the M1 model but with boosted performance. As someone who has spent the last year using an M1 Max Mac Studio as my primary Mac, I highly recommend the Mac Studio lifestyle to anyone who needs pro performance on (or, in my case, just beneath) the desktop.

[…]

One of the more puzzling aspects of the design of the M1 Mac Studio was the fact that it had a new cooling system that seemed to make noise even when the system was idle.

[…]

I’m happy to report that Apple has rejiggered the cooling system in the Mac Studio. I could only hear the fan blowing when I turned the Mac Studio around so that its vents were pointing right at me, and even then, it was pretty quiet. When I properly oriented the computer on my desk, I couldn’t hear the fan.

Joe Rossignol:

Apple’s updated Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips will launch in stores and begin arriving to customers this Tuesday. Ahead of time, the first reviews of the desktop computer have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels.

MacBook Air 15-inch 2023

Apple (MacRumors, Hacker News):

With an expansive 15.3-inch Liquid Retina display, the incredible performance of M2, up to 18 hours of battery life, and a silent, fanless design, the new MacBook Air brings power and portability — all in the world’s thinnest 15-inch laptop. With an all-new six-speaker sound system, the 15-inch MacBook Air delivers immersive Spatial Audio, along with a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, MagSafe charging, and the power and ease of macOS Ventura for an unrivaled experience.

[…]

The 15-inch MacBook Air with M2, available in midnight, starlight, silver, and space gray, starts at $1,299 (U.S.) and $1,199 (U.S.) for education.

The display is 2,880×1,864, which is up from 2,560×1,664 for the 13-inch MacBook Air, but down from 3,024×1,964 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro. On the one hand, this seems disappointing in that, as with the 14-inch iBook, it seems to be more about making things look larger, rather than showing more. However, now that we have Retina displays, you will in practice be able to choose a larger scaled resolution with the 15-inch MacBook Air than the 14-inch MacBook Pro and still be able to read it, even though it may not look as sharp.

Previously:

Update (2023-06-13): Joe Rossignol:

Ahead of time, the first reviews of the laptop have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels, offering a closer look at new features.

Jason Snell:

Until now, if you wanted to buy a Mac laptop with a screen larger than 14 inches, the starting price was $2499 (for the 16-inch MacBook Pro). Now it’s almost half that price because the 15-inch Air starts at $1299. Of course, if you buy an Air you lose a lot of the high-end features of the MacBook Pro: more ports, a spectacular screen, and a more powerful processor. But if all you care about is the size of the display and perhaps weight—at 3.3 pounds, the Air is 70 percent of the weight of the MacBook Pro—you can save $1200. That’s a spectacular change in the economics of buying a Mac laptop.

[…]

To counteract the extra power draw of the bigger screen, Apple has increased the size of the Air’s battery, but all that does is make the battery life of the two models identical. There’s also a bit extra space in the 15-inch model’s case for a more expansive speaker system. (When I compared it to the 13-inch model, I noticed some differences, but they were extremely subtle.)

Update (2023-06-15): Joe Rossignol:

Apple’s VP of hardware engineering Kate Bergeron and marketing employee Laura Metz recently spoke with Tom’s Guide’s Mark Spoonauer about the design of the new 15-inch MacBook Air, including its larger display and two additional speakers.

Juli Clover:

We picked up Apple’s latest notebook and thought we’d check it out for MacRumors readers who are curious whether it’s worth picking up over the 13-inch version of a MacBook Pro.

Joe Rossignol:

As expected, the 15-inch MacBook Air with 256GB of storage is equipped with a single NAND chip, according to YouTube channel Max Tech. This will result in the 256GB model having slower SSD read and write speeds compared to 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB models that have multiple NAND chips for faster speeds, but real-world results will vary.

Update (2023-07-27): Joe Rossignol:

Initial customer demand for the new 15-inch MacBook Air has been “weaker than expected,” according to a DigiTimes report citing sources within Apple’s supply chain. The report claims that 15-inch MacBook Air shipment volume in July has been 50% less than originally estimated amid a broader downturn in the notebook market.

I expected this model to be a big hit. But there definitely seems to be a general downturn, and these sort of reports don’t always end up being what they seem.

Update (2023-08-15): Quinn Nelson:

I’ve been using the 15” MacBook Air as my every-day laptop for over a month and I think this is the closest Apple has ever gotten to the perfect laptop[…]

He finds that it throttles less than the 13-inch.