MacBidouille is the source of an interesting new rumor [translation] that Apple is currently experimenting with new ARM-powered Mac variants that include a Magic trackpad built into the system’s keyboard. The company is also reportedly working on a new version of OS X that will be compatible with these ARM machines.
According to MacBidouille’s sources, Apple is developing three new machines with this configuration: the aforementioned iMac and Mac mini as well as a 13″ MacBook, presumably a MacBook Air. The iMac and notebook are both said to have “4 or 8” quad-core arm64 processors, while the Mac mini has only four.
Apple is preparing to launch a refreshed line of MacBook Air laptops as soon as tomorrow, according to multiple sources. These sources say that shipments of new MacBook Airs have begun arriving in large quantities to Apple Stores across the country. Another source adds that Apple Stores are scheduled to re-arrange the placement of Macs in stores to focus on the MacBook Air tomorrow morning…
Apple and Intel both declined an invitation to invest in a new round of funding for patent assertion entity Intellectual Ventures, reports Reuters. Both companies had invested in the enterprise in the past. Intellectual Ventures did, however, receive further investments from both Microsoft and Sony.
Apple and Intel’s decision is significant because the biggest tech companies have supported IV in the past. “This would be a dramatic departure,” said Kevin Jakel, chief executive of Unified Patents.
Intellectual Ventures declined to discuss investments. Microsoft, Sony, Intel and Apple also would not comment. It is unclear whether Intel and Apple could still opt to invest in IV’s vehicle at a later time.
As a frequent target of patent trolls, it seemed an odd investment for Apple in the first place, and was most likely a simple protective measure: we’ll help fund you if you leave us alone.
An FTC filing revealed that Apple had been the target of a record 92 patent lawsuits in a three year period. Earlier this month Apple joined Microsoft, Ford, General Electric, IBM and other companies in forming a ‘Partnership for American Innovation’ to lobby against patent trolls.
Intel’s next generation of its Haswell CPUs could be out as soon as next month, according to sources cited by TechPowerUp (via TonyMacx86).
According to sources in the IT retail, Intel could launch these new chips, led by the Core i7-4790K, on May 10th in most markets […]
Intel Core “Haswell” Refresh processors offer marginally better performance over current Core “Haswell” chips, at existing price points (i.e., they will displace existing chips from their current price-points).The 9-series chipset offers features such as M.2 SSD support, making you ready for a tidal wave of 1000 MB/s SSDs that will launch around Computex.
DigiTimesis claiming that Apple will cease production of the non-Retina version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro this year as it prepares to launch refreshed Retina models toward the end of the year.
Apple is expected to stop production of the 13-inch MacBook Pro in the second half of 2014 and will replace the product line with thinner models equipped with a Retina display. Meanwhile, Intel will offer second-generation ultrabooks in the fourth quarter of 2014, pushing the notebook industry further into the ultra-thin era, according to Taiwan-based supply chain makers … Expand Expanding Close
If you’ve decided you’ve waited long enough for Apple to update the Mac mini with a Haswell processor, you can always create a Hac mini.
A user posting on the Hacintosh site tonymacx86.com has documented his successful squeezing of an Intel DH61AG motherboard with i3-3225 CPU (55w TDP), 4GB Ram, 128GB mSATA SSD, half mini PCIe Wifi and an external Dell laptop power supply into a 2010 Mac mini case … Expand Expanding Close
Last year came and went without as much as a mention from Apple about the fate of its Mac mini line of desktop computers. The Mac mini lineup currently on sale through Apple, Amazon, and other retailers last saw its hardware updated in late 2012 at the original iPad mini event.
So it’s not too unreasonable to believe that a placeholder entry found online at computerstore.be, a Belgium retailer, found in MacRumors forums could be a genuine preview of what to expect in the updated hardware. The specs reference everything we would expect for a hardware updated Mac mini: Intel Iris graphics, 802.11ac wireless networking, Gigabit LAN, and more. Expand Expanding Close
No, Apple isn’t redesigning its charging & data cable again – but a proposed change to the USB standard will allow future USB cables to be plugged in either way up.
Existing USB cables have a top and a bottom at both the computer/power and device ends. The new USB 3.1 standard calls for the same plug – known as type-C – to be used at both ends of the cable, and for it to work either way up. iDevice cables will have the new type-C connector at the Mac/power end, and the existing Lightning plug at the other.
Computers – including Macs – will need to switch to the new type-C socket, but adapters will allow existing sockets to be used with existing computers.
The most impressive improvements in the new laptops came courtesy of the new Iris graphics. Compared to the HD 4000 graphics in the early 2013 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, the Iris graphics posted between 45 and 50 percent higher frame rates in Cinebench r15’s OpenGL tests and the Unigine Valley Benchmark. Unigen’s Heaven benchmark showed the new systems with about 65 percent improvement in frame rates over the earlier model.
CPU performance improvement is slight but the Intel Haswell architecture adds a few hours of (Apple’s estimated) battery life while the machine actually got thinner and lighter. Meanwhile, Apple loaded up faster 802.11ac Wifi and speedy Samsung PCIe SSDs up to 1TB and Thunderbolt 2.0.
I’m a huge fan of Thunderbolt. A single wire carrying both DisplayPort and high-speed PCIe data is an incredibly elegant approach to minimising cable clutter even if you don’t need the blistering speed, especially when you can use an Apple Thunderbolt Display as a hub for your USB devices.
I also admire clever tech. The reason you can daisy-chain up to six separate devices is because Thunderbolt automatically multiplexes and de-multiplexes the signals as needed. Thunderbolt 2 takes this approach one step further, combining two 10Gbit/s channels into a single 20Gbit/s connection, with the the Thunderbolt controller again doing all the work. It’s impressive stuff.
A fast, clever technology developed by Intel and enthusiastically marketed by Apple ought to stand a fighting chance at mass-market adoption. Sadly, there’s so far not much sign of this happening. It’s all looking rather reminiscent of Firewire … Expand Expanding Close
There was much disappointment back in June when the new Mac Pro‘s CPU – the 12-core Xeon E5-2697 – delivered a surprisingly low Geekbench score of 23,901. It had been widely expected to break 30,000.
Some cautioned then that the score, based on a 32-bit build of Geekbench running on an early pre-release version of the CPU with a beta version of Mavericks, might not tell the whole story, and new tests by Tom’s Hardwareon V2 of the chip appear to confirm this … Expand Expanding Close
As we expected based on our intel leading up to the event, Apple just introduced refreshed MacBook Airs live on stage at it’s WWDC 2013 keynote address today. Apple announced that the new MacBook Airs will be arriving with the new Intel Haswell chips, as expected, and spent most of the time talking about increased battery life for the devices which now includes up to 12hrs battery. The 13-inch model now boasts battery life up to 12 hours (up from 7 on the previous generation), while the 11-inch model is expected to get 9-hour battery life (up from 5 on the previous generation).
Apple also announced that the new MacBook Airs would include the faster 802.11ac with “a maximum data rate of 1.3Gbps, almost three times faster than 802.11n.” Other specs that Apple mentioned: dual microphones, a FaceTime® HD camera, a high-speed Thunderbolt port and two USB 3.0 ports.
All models will be available with a 1.3 GHz processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 2.6 GHz and 4GB of RAM, but Apple will also make a BTO option available with a 1.7 GHz Intel Core i7 processor with Turbo Boost speeds up to 3.3 GHz, 8GB of RAM, and a 512GB SSD.
Apple said the new MacBook Airs include up to 40% faster graphics, 2x GPU execution units, and more energy efficient CPUs, while the machine itself now meets ENERGY STAR 5.2 and EPEAT gold environmental standards.
Apple will be shipping the new MacBook Airs starting today starting at $999 for a 128GB 11-inch model and $1099 for the 128GB 13-inch model. An extra $200 will bump you up to the 256GB models, but Apple didn’t provide any other details on any other upgraded internals.
We’ve heard nothing of new Haswell iMacs in the pipeline but prominent Apple Analyst Mingchi Kuo from KGI securities thinks they are on the way:
What’s new
We forecast iMac shipments to be 650k units in 2Q13, down 63% from 1.75mn units in 1Q13. We expect shipments to pick up in 3Q13 as Apple (US) launches Haswell iMac and peak season arrives. Full-year shipments are set to reach 4.7mn units. Analysis
We attribute the shipments decline to the fact that new product shipments have peaked and due to the arrival of the consumer slow season. But we believe iMac shipments troughed in 2Q13. Apple is expected to upgrade iMac processor to Intel’s (US) latest Haswell processor in June or July. Meanwhile, the consumer peak season has arrived. Thus we expect shipments to reach 1.1mn units in 3Q13, up 69% QoQ. Full-year shipments are forecast to be 4.7mn units, up 31% YoY.
The chicken and egg adoption/price reductions of Thunderbolt haven’t yet made the devices accessible to most storage shoppers. That didn’t stop Thunderbolt’s inventor, Intel from Frankenstein-ing an otherworldly thumb drive with a Thunderbolt interface and 128GB of fast storage.
Internally, the drive has SanDisk SSD (why not Intel’s own?) storage and probably has a bottleneck giving the device somewhere between SATA 3 and 10GB/s Thunderbolt speeds. Intel is making a few for demo purposes and but doesn’t expect a consumer version until wider Thunderbolt adoption takes place and prices for the tech go way down. Expand Expanding Close
Apple appears set to release new versions of its MacBook Air notebook computer at next week’s Worldwide Developers Conference, according to information provided by a source. Earlier this week, we reported that Apple is planning to release four new Mac models at WWDC, and we narrowed this down to either new MacBook Pro with Retina display models or MacBook Air models.
Today, we have received specific pricing for the aforementioned SKUs, and the price-points correspond to Apple’s current pricing for the 11-inch and 13-inch MacBook Air models. We have yet to receive pricing information that points to the imminent availability of new MacBook Pros (as some had hoped), but perhaps the next refresh to Apple’s Pro portables will arrive in the coming months. Supply constraints to the Retina MacBook Pro line seems to imply that…
We’ve told you several times in recent months about Intel’s next-generation Haswell processors that are largely expected to replace Apple’s current Ivy Bridge offerings in the next round of Macs. Now, ahead of Apple’s expected WWDC announcements, Intel has just officially launched its next-gen processors. The company confirmed that quad-core versions of the chips are available now with availability of ultrabooks, all-in-ones, laptops and desktops planned for this summer.
Intel says the processors provide up to a 50 percent improvement in battery life (the biggest gain in the history of Intel’s processors), and double the graphics performance of previous generation chips thanks to its ‘Iris’ technology.
Delivering Intel’s largest generation-over-generation gain in battery life enablement in company history, 4th generation Intel Core processors can bring an 50 percent improvement in battery life over the previous generation in active workloads when watching movies or surfing the Internet, and two to three times improvement in standby battery life. For some systems coming to market this year, over 9 hours of active use battery life or 10 to 13 days of standby with fresh data on a single charge is expected.
Interesting exit interview with Intel CEO Paul Otellini wherein he says (duh) he regrets not trying harder not to get his chips inside the iPhone (and subsequently iPod touch and iPads).
But, oh, what could have been! Even Otellini betrayed a profound sense of disappointment over a decision he made about a then-unreleased product that became the iPhone. Shortly after winning Apple’s Mac business, he decided against doing what it took to be the chip in Apple’s paradigm-shifting product.
“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we’d done it,” Otellini told me in a two-hour conversation during his last month at Intel. “The thing you have to remember is that this was before the iPhone was introduced and no one knew what the iPhone would do… At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost. I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”
While there seems to be some sentiment that if Otellini had tried, Intel would have won Apple’s iOS device business. But, it clearly isn’t that simple. ARM chips use an order of magnitude less power than Intel chips, even to this day.
Also, if Intel is so great at powering mobile device chips, why wouldn’t Android devices (And Windows 8 devices!) have used them as an advantage?
Steve Jobs and Apple prioritized efficiency over raw power which may have proved to be one of the winning advantages of the feature-rich iPhone and iPad over a decade plus of Windows machines.
Retina iMac mockup via <a href="http://macspoilers.com/665/a-slimmed-down-retina-imac-rumored-to-launch-with-the-ipad-min/"><em>MacSpoilers</em></a>
Today, Intel announced a new version of its Thunderbolt technology that will ship with devices in 2014. The new Thunderbolt technology supports up to 20Gbps throughput, which is up from the 10 Gbps supported by the current version of Thunderbolt.
Notably, the new technology supports 4K resolutions, which could open the door for even higher-resolution Mac displays. Perhaps, this is the technology that Apple needs to work with in order to begin a Retina display rollout for its all-in-one desktop computer, the iMac, or even Mac Pro compatible Thunderbolt displays.
A detailed performance test of a prototype Core i7 Haswell chip by tom’s Hardware suggests that it will offer a 7 percent to 13 percent performance gain over equivalent Ivy Bridge CPUs—a similar gain to that experienced with the move from Sandy Bridge to Ivy Bridge.
The integrated HD 4600 GPU experiences an impressive speed boost of almost 30 percent, but the website noted that this still won’t allow for comfortable gaming on HD monitors, so gamers will need discrete graphics chips.
While performance gains reached up to 75 percent in the case of some specific tasks, the gains for typical desktop applications are relatively modest.
As noted by MacRumors, Apple has recently introduced a new model of the low-end 21.5-inch iMac to educational institutions that brings slightly downgraded specs and shaves $200 off the price of the entry-level iMac available to consumers.
Replacing the old $999 iMac for education option, the new $1,099 21.5-inch iMac (ME699LL/A) offers 4GB of RAM, Intel HD Graphics 4000, and a 500GB hard drive. That’s compared to the 8GB of RAM and 1TB hard drive Apple includes in the regular entry-level model. Apple is also including a 3.3GHz dual-core Intel Core i3 CPU in the machine instead of the usual 2.7GHz quad-core Intel Core i5.
The new education model offers most of the usual built-to-order options, including the ability to upgrade to a 1TB Fusion Drive and up to 16GB of RAM.
Apple just recently dropped shipping times from 1 to 3 days down to “within 24 hours” for the new iMacs in its North American online stores, but the new iMac for education is shipping in 5 to 7 business days.
According to a translated report from Taiwanese publication Economic Daily (via Macotakara), Apple is apparently in the process of preparing suppliers for the launch of a Retina MacBook Air in Q3 2013. The report appears to claim that both 11- and 13-inch variants of the MacBook Air will launch with Retina displays in addition to an upgrade from Intel’s new Haswell platform. Apple supplier Quanta is expected to begin receiving shipments of the new components in the second quarter, according to Economic Daily.
Today’s report of course goes against recent claims from analysts predicting the next-gen MacBook Air would land in Q2 or Q3 without a Retina display. We heard last year that Apple was working on MacBook Airs with Retina displays, but sources indicated the power drawn from the Retina Displays combined with the thin and light form factor of the MacBook Air may pose challenges for Apple and its product manufacturers. Expand Expanding Close
This is what happens when designers have to look down at the same box they had almost a decade ago.
We showed you a detailed modular Mac Pro design concept in September posted by designer Peter Zigich. Today, Zigich is back with another future Mac Pro concept that imagined Apple ditching Intel for a custom Apple-designed ARM CPU, “A10”. We’re not sure Apple is ready to take the jump to ARM in the first major refresh of its Mac Pro line since 2010, but the prospect of a smaller, possibly Mac mini-like design for a new Mac Pro is definitely intriguing. The PCI slotsare probably not necessary thanks to Thunderbolt, and Zigich doesn’t rule Intel out entirely. While these specs are maybe not completely realistic for an upcoming Mac Pro refresh, it certainly gets us thinking about what Apple might have planned for its aging Mac Pro design. More images available on Zigich’s website here.
