Microsoft is working to make your and your family’s online experience safer. Today the company is launching its new Defender security dashboard for 365 subscribers. Users on iPhone, Mac, Windows, and Android devices have access to the Microsoft Defender security app that utilizes existing antivirus software or other protections.
Microsoft Defender is simplified online security that meets you and your family where you are by bringing multiple protections together into a single dashboard. It provides online protection across the devices you and your family use. It offers tips and recommendations to strengthen your protection further. And, as you grow your digital footprint by adding family members and devices, Defender grows with you and keeps your defenses up-to-date using trusted technology.
According to The Verge, Microsoft Defender’s features will vary by which platform. For instance, on iPhone and iPad, Microsoft Defender users won’t have antivirus protection. However, they’ll have some phishing protections alongside their dashboard that features alerts for their other devices.
Additionally, the new app includes security alerts for your devices to ensure maximum protection. While not on iPhone, you can also view Microsoft Defender’s cybersecurity tips on your Mac or Windows computer.
This is just the start. As we look forward, we will continue to bring more protections together under a single dashboard, including features like identity theft protection and secure online connection. Microsoft Defender is simplified online security that grows with you and your family to help keep you safe.
Is there an old out-of-date Mac that you desperately miss using? Well, you’re in luck because it’s incredibly easy to install a modern version of Chrome OS on old Intel Macs for free. CloudReady isn’t a new product by any stretch, but I had always been itching to try it out. Just last year, Google acquired Neverware, the company behind CloudReady. This means that Google offers an officially sanctioned way of reviving old computers with Chrome OS. Here’s how to get CloudReady up and running on an old Mac.
I was able to get CloudReady running on a 2014 Mac mini and a 2012 13″ MacBook Pro. Both of these machines have run-of-the-mill specs for their time. Each of these Macs had 4GB of RAM and much older Intel processors. Neither run recent versions of macOS particularly well, and they certainly aren’t good for power-hungry tasks. The MacBook Pro model that I used for this experiment only runs macOS up to Catalina, so it’s already out-of-date. The Mac mini that I used can run Big Sur, but it’s severely underpowered, being seven years old and not physically upgradeable.
You can install CloudReady on virtually any Intel Mac from 2007 on. CloudReady will not work on PowerPC Macs, so sadly, you can’t revive your sunflower iMac G4 or your blueberry iBook. Compatibility with CloudReady technically begins with Macs from 2006, but it’s not recommended. CloudReady has officially only certified 11 Mac models, but it’s likely you’ll be able to get the OS up and running on non-certified Intel machines as well. CloudReady requires at least 2GB of RAM, at least 16GB of storage, and graphics components made during or after 2007. There are a few specific Intel graphics cards that don’t play nicely with CloudReady, including the GMA 500, 600, 3600 and 3650.
MacBook Air 6,1 (13″ Core i5 or Core i7 Mid 2013-Early 2014)
MacBook Pro 5,5 (13″ Core 2 Duo Mid 2009)
MacBook Pro 9,2 (13″ Core i5 or Core i7 Mid 2012)
Macs that should work with CloudReady but aren’t officially certified include:
Any aluminum iMac from mid 2007 with more than 2GB of RAM
Any white or silver Mac mini from mid 2007 with more than 2GB of RAM
Any white or black MacBook from mid 2007 with more than 2GB of RAM
Any non-unibody or unibody MacBook Pro from mid 2007 with more than 2GB of RAM
Any MacBook Air model (all models have at least 2GB of RAM)
Any tower or trash can Mac Pro from mid 2007 with more than 2GB of RAM
What you’ll need
You may need to upgrade the RAM on a particularly old model before installing CloudReady. Luckily that’s quite easy on old Mac models. I upgraded my 2012 MacBook Pro with 8GB of RAM and a new 240GB SSD for around $70. But getting at least 2GB of RAM is quite cheap these days.
Once you’ve got the Mac you want to install CloudReady on, good to go, you’ll need a flash drive with at least 8GB of storage on it. Make sure not to use a Sandisk flash drive; Neverware says that they don’t work properly with the installer.
The application is only around 48MB and will help you turn your flash drive into a CloudReady installer. You can create the physical installer with any computer; it doesn’t have to be the one you plan to put CloudReady on. I built my CloudReady flash drive with a Windows 11 PC, for example.
2. Connect your flash drive to your selected Mac, then press and hold option as you turn it on
Your Mac will ask you which drive you want to boot from. Choose the CloudReady flash drive that you created. It’s likely going to be represented by an orange drive. The name can vary.
3. Boot into CloudReady
Once you select CloudReady, it will boot into the Chrome OS set up system.
4. Install Chrome OS on your Mac
Click on the clock in the lower right corner and select “Install OS” from the menu that pops up. This will launch the installer and allow you to replace your existing system with CloudReady. Keep in mind that if you choose to install CloudReady on your Mac, it will erase macOS and anything else on the drive. If you don’t want to do that, you can run CloudReady off of the flash drive. Just continue through the setup process without installing the operating system.
Once CloudReady is installed on your Mac, you are good to go. You can connect to wifi or ethernet, sign in to your Google account, and you are up and running. Chrome OS runs incredibly well on old Macs and frankly breathes new life into them.
Limitations of Neverware’s version of Chrome OS
Neverware’s variant of Chrome OS has a few limitations that you should keep in mind. It is based on Chromium rather than Chrome. That’s why you’ll see blue icons rather than Googley multi-colored ones. You cannot install Android apps on CloudReady like you can on an official Chrome OS computer. It can only run Chrome apps, progressive web apps, and websites. CloudReady does come with a few other native apps like a simple files app and wallpaper picker, but that’s about it. Another thing to keep in mind is how often you’ll get updates. CloudReady doesn’t get updated in tandem with the shipping version of Chrome OS. However, it does get regular updates and runs a secure version of Chrome OS that supports the modern web.
Using CloudReady
Once you have CloudReady installed, you can use it as you would a Chromebook. You can set a custom wallpaper or choose one from Google’s excellent collection of pre-installed ones. The shelf at the bottom of the screen can be customized with only the apps and sites you use frequently. You can also click on the circle button in the far left corner to see everything installed on your device or search its contents.
You can head over to the Chrome web store to find Chrome apps for your device, although many apps aren’t up-to-date and likely won’t be supported much longer. To get services you want to use installed on your computer, head over to their websites. Let’s say you want to install Slack as an app. Just go to the Slack website, sign in to your workspace, click the three dots in the top right corner of the window, select tools, and then select install or add shortcut. You’ll then get an icon in the launcher that you can add to your shelf. If you right-click the icon, you can change the website to open in a dedicated window rather than a new tab.
Conclusion
There are lots of beloved old Mac models that we’d love to bring back from the dead. CloudReady makes it possible to use old Macs today with modern websites and web apps. It also performs great even on low-powered machines with mediocre specs.
Following the announcement of the new M1 iPad Pro and M1 iMac on Tuesday, Apple executives John Ternus and Greg Joswiak have sat down with the Independent for an in-depth interview. The two Apple executives spoke in the interview about Apple’s plans for the iPad and Mac, the new features of the 2021 iPad Pro, and more.
On merging the iPad and Mac
The most notable comments during the interview came from Joswiak, who serves as Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing. When asked about the future of the iPad and Mac, as the lines start to blur in terms of power, Joswiak explained that Apple has no plans to merge the two platforms.
“There’s two conflicting stories people like to tell about the iPad and Mac,” says Joz, as he starts on a clarification that will lead him at one point to apologise for his passion. “On the one hand, people say that they are in conflict with each other. That somebody has to decide whether they want a Mac, or they want an iPad.
“Or people say that we’re merging them into one: that there’s really this grand conspiracy we have, to eliminate the two categories and make them one.
“And the reality is neither is true. We’re quite proud of the fact that we work really, really hard to create the best products in their respective category.”
(Joz, however, is reluctant to name the category he’s talking about: he jokes that he “can’t even stand using” the word, because the “iPad is better than tablets”. “I hate to diminish it by calling it the category name,” he says.)
Ternus, who is Apple’s senior vice president of hardware engineering, echoed Joswiak’s sentiment. He explained that Apple does not look at things with the lens limiting what one device can do in order to note “step on the toes” of another device.
“But we’re just going to keep making them better. And we’re not going to get all caught up in, you know, theories around merging or anything like that.”
“We don’t think about well, we’re going to limit what this device can do because we don’t want to step on the toes of this [other] one or anything like that,” he says. “We’re pushing to make the best Mac we can make; we’re pushing to make the best iPad we can make. And people choose.
“A lot of people have run both. And they have workflows that span both – some people, for a particular task, prefer one versus the other.
On the new iPad Pro’s M1 chip
When asked about the M1 processor in the new iPad Pro and the software part of that story, Joswiak explained that Apple has “provided that performance even before the need was there.”
“It needs to exist first, right? You can’t have an app that requires more performance than the system’s capable of – then it doesn’t work. So you need to have the system be ahead of the apps.
Joswiak went on to list examples of powerful third-party apps from companies like Adobe and Affinity, but he wouldn’t say whether Apple was working on its own ways to tap into the new power of the M1:
(When asked again, the morning after the reveal, whether Apple is one of those developers that is planning to take advantage of the extra headroom with its professional app, Joz jokes that he’s not going to let something like that slip out.)
Joswiak also explained that this gives users more headroom and ensures their new iPad Pro purchase “isn’t going to be immediately obsolete.”
On mini-LED in the new iPad Pro
Terns also provided some interesting detail on the mini-LED display in the new 12.9-inch iPad Pro. He explained that one of the biggest undertakings in this process was shrinking the display technology — which is also used in the Pro Display XDR — into the 12.9-inch form factor.
“Shrinking it was a huge undertaking,” says Ternus. “If you just look at the two products, obviously the iPad is a lot thinner than a Pro Display XDR, and the way the architecture works – you have the LED backlight behind the display.
As you shrink it down, you necessarily need to add more LEDs; you need to kind of increase the density, because you don’t have as much room for mixing the light and creating zones.
From the very beginning it was: how do we create a backlight with sufficient density? So we had to design a new LED. We had to to design the process for putting down 10,000 LEDs on this backlight in this incredibly precise manner.”
Ternus and Joswiak also noted that one of the reasons Apple is able to make technological leaps like this is because it develops so much of the technology in-house.
On the new Center Stage front-facing camera technology in the iPad
One of the most interesting new features of the 2021 iPad Pro is something called Center Stage. The new iPad Pros pack a 12MP Ultra Wide camera sensor on the front, and Apple is using this to follow users during video chats to ensure that they are always in the frame.
Ternus explained:
“One of the things that I found really cool about it is – spending all this time in these meetings, you sit a lot,” says Ternus. “And it’s so liberating to be able to just stand up and stay framed in the image, and stretch and move around and sit down,” he says, noting that it is a neat way to still be able to close rings on the Apple Watch.
“And one of the things I found sometimes is in group scenarios – you may be FaceTiming with your family and be able to get the family in the frame, or those kind of things, I think are going to be really, really big and powerful. It’s certainly an amazing technology for the times we’re in.”
We rely on Bluetooth for more and more devices, and while the wireless standard is very convenient, it can be really frustrating when our peripherals don’t work consistently. Read along for five tips and tricks to fix Mac Bluetooth issues, including resetting your Bluetooth module and ways to remove interference.
Bluetooth issues aren’t anything new, but there has been a recent wave of more Bluetooth problems with the first Apple Silicon M1 Macs and macOS Big Sur. Notably, Bluetooth reliability should have been improved for Mac users with macOS 11.2.
But whether you’ve got a new M1 Mac or are having trouble with Bluetooth on an Intel one, we’ll cover multiple approaches to fix Mac Bluetooth issues.
How to fix Mac Bluetooth issues
Software update, power cycle, unpair
You’ve probably tried these steps, but if not, start here:
Check if macOS is up to date ( > About This Mac > Software Update…)
Make sure your Bluetooth device is charged
Turn off your Bluetooth device and back on again, you can do the same with Bluetooth on your Mac (click the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar – top right of your Mac’s screen)
You can also unpair a Bluetooth device and re-pair to see if there’s an improvement (Bluetooth in the menu bar > Bluetooth preferences > hover over a device > click the “x” icon > choose “Remove”)
Reboot your Mac
Remove interference
Apple notes in a support document that if you’re seeing intermittent Bluetooth issues, it’s good to check for interference. Tips include:
Bring your Mac and Bluetooth devices closer together
Remove other devices like phones, cameras, power cables, etc. that might be on your desk or nearby
Move some WiFi devices to 5GHz since Bluetooth and WiFi both use 2.4GHz
Move USB/Thunderbolt hubs further away from your Mac and Bluetooth devices (and don’t place them on top of your Mac)
Turn off USB devices that aren’t in use
Finally, don’t have materials between your Mac and Bluetooth devices like metal, concrete
Reset your Mac’s Bluetooth module
If you’re still having trouble with Bluetooth issues, you can reset your Mac’s Bluetooth Module:
While holding option + shift on your keyboard, click the Bluetooth icon in the menu bar
Click “Reset the Bluetooth module”
On the confirmation prompt, choose “OK”
Your Bluetooth devices will disconnect for a moment as the module resets and should automatically reconnect
Here’s how this looks:
Remove all devices + reset Bluetooth module
If that didn’t work, you can remove all of your Bluetooth devices and then reset the module (keep in mind you’ll need to re-pair all of your Bluetooth devices after this):
Hold option + shift on your keyboard and click the Bluetooth icon again
This time, choose “Remove all devices” > click OK
Do option + shift on Bluetooth in the menu bar again > click “Reset the Bluetooth module”
Re-pair your Bluetooth device(s)
Have a dongle?
This isn’t always an ideal solution depending on your setup, but if your Bluetooth device came with a USB dongle for a direct connection, that often eliminates any Bluetooth issues you’re seeing.
The most common devices to come with USB dongles are third-party mouse and keyboards.
Apple has published its 2021 update to its Platform Security guide today along with refreshing the Apple Platform Security landing page. The latest guide goes in-depth on the new and updated security features that have arrived with iOS 14, macOS 11 Big Sur, Apple Silicon Macs, watchOS 7, and more. Apple has also launched an all-new Security Certifications and Compliance Center website and guide.
Apple has long held that secure software necessitates the foundation of security built into hardware. With the shift to using its own custom Apple Silicon in its first three M1 Macs starting last fall, the company has been able to realize that goal across its entire lineup of devices.
2021 Apple Platform Security guide
Device security is a never-ending mission and the latest Apple Platform Security guide details all the effort and changes Apple has implemented over the last year – highlighted by the guide growing 39 pages with this edition to a total of 196.
This documentation provides details about how security technology and features are implemented within Apple platforms. It also helps organizations combine Apple platform security technology and features with their own policies and procedures to meet their specific security needs.
While there a number of security updates that apply to existing/older devices, Apple Silicon has been notable with the M1 Macs allowing Apple to step up security to new levels when it comes to Data Protection via a rebuilt FileVault, System integrity, password protection, and more.
Another notable change in the last year has been the advanced BlastDoor security for iMessage (not specifically mentioned in the new security guide). While it was just recently discovered as present in iOS 14, we’ve learned Apple has built it into macOS Big Sur as well. It’s a totally under the hood change that users won’t notice, but it’s the biggest security improvement to iMessage since the service got end-to-end encryption.
Check out all the new topics added to the Apple Platform Security guide this year:
Memory safe iBoot implementation
Boot process for a Mac with Apple silicon
Boot modes for a Mac with Apple silicon
Startup Disk security policy control for a Mac with Apple silicon
LocalPolicy signing-key creation and management
Contents of a LocalPolicy file for a Mac with Apple silicon
Signed system volume security in macOS
Apple Security Research Device
Password Monitoring
IPv6 security
Car keys security in iOS
And here are all the security topics that have been updated:
Secure Enclave
Hardware microphone disconnect
recoveryOS and diagnostics environments for an Intel-based Mac
Direct memory access protections for Mac computers
macOS Big Sur comes with some major changes and Safari 14 includes a number of enhancements. One of the simple but nice aesthetic changes is the option to set your own image for Apple’s browser. Read on for how to set custom Safari backgrounds.
Safari 14 comes with macOS Big Sur (released for Catalina too) and brings a lot of great features like 4K support for YouTube, Apple’s new translation integration, performance improvements, and a new start page. The start page is where you can set a custom Safari background.
Let’s look at two ways to do this…
How to set custom Safari backgrounds with macOS Big Sur
The fastest option if you already have the image you want to use is to drag and drop it on the Safari start page
Alternatively, you can right-click on the start page in a blank area and click “Choose Background…”
Now you can search Finder to select an image
If you want to clear you custom Safari background, right-click on the start page background and choose “Clear Background”
Here’s how the process looks:
Drag and drop an image to set a custom Safari background
And here’s the right-click option to set custom Safari backgrounds:
The new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini are now powered by M1, Apple’s revolutionary chip.
A new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini powered by M1, Apple’s breakthrough chip for the Mac
Cupertino, California — On a momentous day for the Mac, Apple introduced a new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini powered by the revolutionary M1, the first in a family of chips designed by Apple specifically for the Mac. By far the most powerful chip Apple has ever made, M1 transforms the Mac experience. With its industry-leading performance per watt, together with macOS Big Sur, M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning (ML) capabilities, and battery life up to 2x longer than before. And with M1 and Big Sur, users get access to the biggest collection of apps ever for Mac. With amazing performance and remarkable new features, the new lineup of M1-powered Macs are an incredible value, and all are available to order today.
“The introduction of three new Macs featuring Apple’s breakthrough M1 chip represents a bold change that was years in the making, and marks a truly historic day for the Mac and for Apple,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “M1 is by far the most powerful chip we’ve ever created, and combined with Big Sur, delivers mind-blowing performance, extraordinary battery life, and access to more software and apps than ever before. We can’t wait for our customers to experience this new generation of Mac, and we have no doubt it will help them continue to change the world.”
With M1, the Mac delivers unprecedented levels of performance, extraordinary battery life, and access to more software than ever.
MacBook Air: A Thin and Light Powerhouse
MacBook Air is Apple’s most popular Mac and the world’s best-selling 13-inch notebook. With the M1 chip, MacBook Air speeds through everything from editing family photos to exporting videos for the web. The powerful 8-core CPU performs up to 3.5x faster than the previous generation. With up to an 8-core GPU, graphics are up to 5x faster, the biggest leap ever for MacBook Air, so immersive, graphics-intensive games run at significantly higher frame rates. ML workloads are up to 9x faster, so apps that use ML-based features like face recognition or object detection can do so in a fraction of the time. The M1 chip’s storage controller and latest flash technology deliver up to 2x faster SSD performance, so previewing massive images or importing large files is faster than ever. And in MacBook Air, M1 is faster than the chips in 98 percent of PC laptops sold in the past year.
With the industry-leading power efficiency of M1, MacBook Air also delivers this performance in a fanless design, which means no matter what users are doing, it remains completely silent. And the new MacBook Air features extraordinary battery life, with up to 15 hours of wireless web browsing and up to 18 hours of video playback — the longest battery life ever on a MacBook Air.
MacBook Air with M1 is an absolute powerhouse of performance and thin-and-light portability.
When compared to the previous generation, the M1-powered MacBook Air can:
Export a project for the web with iMovie up to 3x faster.
Integrate 3D effects into video in Final Cut Pro up to 5x faster.
For the first time, play back and edit multiple streams of full-quality, 4K ProRes video in Final Cut Pro without dropping a frame.
Export photos from Lightroom up to twice as fast.
Use ML-based features like Smart Conform in Final Cut Pro to intelligently frame a clip up to 4.3x faster.
Watch more movies and TV shows with up to 18 hours of battery life, the longest ever on MacBook Air.
Extend FaceTime and other video calls for up to twice as long on a single charge.
With M1, MacBook Air users can fly through projects in iMovie, exporting projects up to 3x faster.
With up to 18 hours of battery life, MacBook Air users can watch even more of their favorite movies and TV shows on a single charge.
On the new MacBook Air, FaceTime and video calls can go up to twice as long.
Other new features in MacBook Air include Apple’s latest image signal processor (ISP) in the M1 chip, which improves camera image quality with better noise reduction, greater dynamic range, and improved auto white balance and ML-enhanced face detection so users look their best during video calls. Support for P3 wide color results in an even more vibrant, true-to-life Retina display. The Secure Enclave in M1, combined with Big Sur, delivers best-in-class security with features like Touch ID, which makes it easy to unlock MacBook Air and make secure online purchases using Apple Pay with the touch of a finger. And Wi-Fi 6 delivers faster wireless performance, while two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support allow for connectivity to a wide range of peripherals.
With its sleek wedge-shaped design, stunning Retina display, Magic Keyboard, and astonishing level of performance thanks to M1, the new MacBook Air once again redefines what a thin and light notebook can do. And it is still just $999, and $899 for education.
Support for P3 wide color makes the Retina display on MacBook Air even more vibrant and true to life.
13-inch MacBook Pro: Even More Powerful and Even More Pro
The 13-inch MacBook Pro is Apple’s most popular pro notebook. Students use it to power through college, and pros use it to channel their creativity. With the M1 chip and Big Sur, the 13-inch MacBook Pro becomes even more powerful and even more pro. The 8-core CPU, when paired with the MacBook Pro’s active cooling system, is up to 2.8x faster than the previous generation, delivering game-changing performance when compiling code, transcoding video, editing high-resolution photos, and more. The 8-core GPU is up to 5x faster, allowing users to enjoy super smooth graphics performance whether they are designing a graphics-intensive game or a new product. And with M1, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is up to 3x faster than the best-selling Windows laptop in its class. ML is up to 11x faster, and for on-device ML tasks that use the Neural Engine, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is now the world’s fastest compact pro notebook. With up to 17 hours of wireless web browsing and up to a staggering 20 hours of video playback, MacBook Pro delivers up to twice the battery life of the previous generation and the longest battery life ever on a Mac.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro with M1 delivers game-changing performance and the longest battery life ever on a Mac.
When compared to the previous generation, the M1-powered 13-inch MacBook Pro can:
Build code in Xcode up to 2.8x faster.
Render a complex 3D title in Final Cut Pro up to 5.9x faster.
Fluidly design intricate game scenes in Unity Editor up to 3.5x faster.
Perform ML tasks in Create ML up to 11x faster.
Separate out beats, instrumentals, and vocal tracks from a recording in real time in djay Pro AI, thanks to the amazing performance of the Neural Engine.
Play back full-quality, 8K ProRes video in DaVinci Resolve without dropping a single frame.
Compile four times as much code on a single charge, thanks to the game-changing performance per watt of the M1 chip.
With M1, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is up to 2.8x faster so users can compile code with incredible ease.
With the amazing performance of the M1 chip’s Neural Engine, users can perform machine learning tasks up to 11x faster than before.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro can play back full-quality, 8K ProRes video without dropping a single frame.
Other new features in the new 13-inch MacBook Pro include studio-quality mics for super clear recordings and calls, and Apple’s latest camera ISP in the M1 chip enables sharper images and more detail in shadows and highlights on video calls. The new MacBook Pro also delivers best-in-class security with the Secure Enclave in M1 and Touch ID. And it features two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support to connect to more peripherals than ever, including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution.
With its amazing performance and unbelievable battery life, combined with its gorgeous Retina display, Magic Keyboard, and 3-pound compact design, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is the ultimate expression of what the M1 chip can do. And it is available for the same starting price of just $1,299, and $1,199 for education.
The new 13-inch MacBook Pro is the ultimate expression of what the M1 chip can do.
Mac mini: Staggering Performance and an Ultracompact Design
Mac mini is Apple’s most versatile computer, and now with M1, it packs a staggering amount of performance and incredible new features in such a compact design. M1 brings an 8-core CPU with up to 3x faster performance than the previous generation, dramatically accelerating demanding workloads, from compiling a million lines of code to building enormous multitrack music projects. An 8-core GPU delivers up to a massive 6x increase in graphics performance, allowing Mac mini to tackle performance-intensive tasks like complex 3D rendering with ease. ML workloads also take a quantum leap forward with up to 15x faster performance over the previous generation. And when compared to the best-selling Windows desktop in its price range, the Mac mini is just one-tenth the size, yet delivers up to 5x faster performance.
The new Mac mini packs a staggering amount of performance into its ultracompact design.
When compared to the previous generation, the M1-powered Mac mini can:
Compile code in Xcode up to 3x faster.
Play a graphics-intensive game like “Shadow of the Tomb Raider” with up to 4x higher frame rates.
Render a complex timeline in Final Cut Pro up to 6x faster.
Take music production to new levels by using up to 3x as many real-time plug-ins in Logic Pro.
Magically increase the resolution of a photo in Pixelmator Pro up to 15x faster.
Utilize ML frameworks like TensorFlow or Create ML, now accelerated by the M1 chip.
With 3x faster performance, Mac mini dramatically accelerates demanding workflows like compiling code in Xcode.
With M1, graphics-intensive gaming on Mac mini is better than ever with up to 4x higher frame rates.
The new Mac mini takes music production to new levels, enabling up to 3x as many real-time plug-ins in Logic Pro.
Mac mini also features an advanced thermal design to sustain its breakthrough performance while staying cool and quiet, support for up to two displays including Apple’s Pro Display XDR in full 6K resolution, and Wi-Fi 6 for faster wireless performance and the Secure Enclave in M1 for best-in-class security.
With M1 and Big Sur, Mac mini represents a massive shift in what an ultrasmall desktop can do. Far more versatile and far more capable than ever, Mac mini is now available for just $699, $100 less than the previous-generation quad-core model.
macOS Big Sur
All new Macs come with Big Sur, the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. Big Sur introduces a beautiful redesign that is entirely new yet instantly familiar, and powerful updates to apps including Safari, Messages, and Maps. Big Sur is engineered, down to its core, to take full advantage of all the capability and power of M1, delivering a massive boost in performance, astonishing battery life, and even stronger security protections. With M1, things users do every day feel noticeably faster and smoother. Just like iPhone and iPad, the Mac now instantly wakes from sleep. Browsing with Safari — which is already the world’s fastest browser — is now up to 1.5x speedier at running JavaScript and nearly 2x more responsive.6
With Big Sur and M1, Mac users can run a greater range of apps than ever before. All of Apple’s Mac software is now Universal and runs natively for M1 systems. Existing Mac apps that have not been updated to Universal will run seamlessly with Apple’s Rosetta 2 technology. And iPhone and iPad apps can now run directly on the Mac. Additionally, the foundations of Big Sur are optimized to unlock the power of M1, including developer technologies from Metal for graphics to Core ML for machine learning.
macOS Big Sur is engineered to take full advantage of the M1 chip in the new Mac lineup.
Pricing and Availability
The new MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Mac mini with M1 are available to order today on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. They will begin arriving to customers and will be in select Apple Store locations and Apple Authorized Resellers starting next week. The new MacBook Air starts at $999 (US), and $899 (US)for education; the new 13-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,299 (US), and $1,199 (US) for education; and the new Mac mini starts at $699 (US),and $679 (US)for education.
Customers are able to find the same great shopping and support services at apple.com/shop, in the Apple Store app, and at Apple Store locations. Customers can get shopping help from Apple Specialists, choose monthly financing options, trade in eligible devices, and get Support services and no-contact delivery or Apple Store pickup options. Customers are encouraged to check apple.com/retail for more information on the health and safety measures in place, and the services available, at their local store.
Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options, and accessories are available online at apple.com/mac.
Introducing the 13-inch MacBook Pro updated with the new Magic Keyboard, double the storage, and faster graphics performance.
Cupertino, California — Apple today updated the 13-inch MacBook Pro with the new Magic Keyboard for the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook and doubled the storage across all standard configurations, delivering even more value to the most popular MacBook Pro. The new lineup also offers 10th-generation processors for up to 80 percent faster graphics performance1 and makes 16GB of faster 3733MHz memory standard on select configurations. With powerful quad-core processors, the brilliant 13-inch Retina display, Touch Bar and Touch ID, immersive stereo speakers, all-day battery life, and the power of macOS, all in an incredibly portable design, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is available to order today, starting at $1,299, and $1,199 for education.
With a sleek aluminum unibody design in space gray or silver and weighing just 3 pounds, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is highly portable and packed with performance and advanced technologies.
“Whether you’re a college student, a developer, or a creative pro, the 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers powerful performance, a stunning Retina display, and all-day battery life in our most portable pro notebook. Today we’re adding the new Magic Keyboard, doubling the standard storage, and boosting performance, making the 13-inch MacBook Pro an even better value for our customers,” said Tom Boger, Apple’s senior director of Mac and iPad Product Marketing. “With these updates, our entire notebook lineup features the Magic Keyboard for the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook, offers twice the standard storage than before, and delivers even more performance.”
The new Magic Keyboard comes to the 13-inch MacBook Pro, delivering the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook.
New Magic Keyboard
The updated 13-inch MacBook Pro now features the new Magic Keyboard, first introduced on the 16-inch MacBook Pro and added to MacBook Air in March. Magic Keyboard features a redesigned scissor mechanism with 1mm of key travel for a comfortable and stable key feel, while the new inverted-“T” arrangement for the arrow keys makes them easier to find, whether users are navigating through spreadsheets or playing games. Magic Keyboard also features a physical Escape key, along with Touch Bar and Touch ID, for a keyboard that delivers the best typing experience ever on a Mac notebook.
Magic Keyboard on the 13-inch MacBook Pro features a physical Escape key, Touch ID for easy login and secure online purchases, and Touch Bar with dynamic and contextual controls.
Double the Storage
Customers love the superfast SSDs on MacBook Pro, with sequential read speeds of up to 3.0GB/s. The 13-inch MacBook Pro now comes with double the storage of the previous generation, with standard storage starting at 256GB all the way up to 1TB, so customers can store even more photos, videos, and files. And for pro users who need even more storage capacity for large photo libraries and video projects, the 13-inch MacBook Pro now offers up to a 4TB SSD.
With standard storage starting at 256GB all the way up to 1TB, 13-inch MacBook Pro users can store even more photos, videos, and files.
Better Performance
The 13-inch MacBook Pro lineup now offers up to 10th-generation quad-core Intel Core processors with Turbo Boost speeds of up to 4.1GHz. Customers who are upgrading from a 13-inch MacBook Pro with a dual-core processor will see up to 2.8 times faster performance. The integrated Intel Iris Plus Graphics deliver up to 80 percent faster performance over the previous generation 13-inch MacBook Pro for 4K video editing, faster rendering, and smoother gameplay. The new graphics also enable users to connect to Pro Display XDR at full 6K resolution.
With the latest 10th-generation processors, the 13-inch MacBook Pro delivers up to 80 percent faster graphics performance for 4K video editing, faster rendering, and smoother gameplay.
Faster Memory and More Memory
16GB of faster 3733MHz memory is now offered as a standard configuration on select models, and for the first time on a 13-inch Mac notebook, customers can choose a 32GB memory option. With 32GB of memory, users will experience better performance while running multiple virtual machines and up to 50 percent faster performance when editing gigapixel images in Photoshop.
Portable Design with a Stunning Retina Display
With a sleek aluminum unibody design in space gray or silver and weighing just 3 pounds, the 13-inch MacBook Pro is both highly portable and packed with performance and advanced technologies. Its stunning and brilliant 13-inch Retina display delivers more than 4 million pixels and millions of colors, along with 500 nits of brightness and support for the P3 wide color gamut. And with True Tone technology, the display offers a more natural viewing experience for design and editing workflows, as well as for everyday tasks such as browsing the web and writing email. The 13-inch MacBook Pro also comes with speakers that provide incredibly immersive wide-stereo sound, Touch ID for easy login and secure online purchases, Touch Bar with dynamic and contextual controls, and the industry-best Force Touch trackpad for precise cursor control and Multi-Touch navigation.
The 13-inch MacBook Pro features a brilliant Retina display with more than 4 million pixels and millions of colors, 500 nits of brightness, and support for the P3 wide color gamut.
Built-in Security and Privacy
The 13-inch MacBook Pro comes with the Apple T2 Security Chip, Apple’s own custom-designed second-generation silicon, which checks that software loaded during the boot process has not been tampered with and provides on-the-fly data encryption for everything stored on the SSD. This allows MacBook Pro and any Mac with the T2 chip to deliver the most secure boot process and storage of any computer. The T2 also protects Touch ID information, so whether customers are unlocking their Mac, entering an online password, or making online purchases, their information stays safe.
Touch ID on the 13-inch MacBook Pro keeps information safe whether customers are unlocking their Mac, entering an online password, or making online purchases.
macOS Catalina
Every new MacBook Pro comes with macOS Catalina, the latest version of the world’s most advanced desktop operating system. macOS has always been at the core of the Mac experience, and with apps such as Safari, Mail, Photos, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote, customers have powerful tools to do amazing things. macOS also makes MacBook Pro the perfect companion device to iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch with built-in Continuity features that allow users to make and receive phone calls without picking up their iPhone; automatically unlock their Mac with Apple Watch; copy and paste images, video, and text straight from iPhone or iPad to a nearby Mac; and in macOS Catalina, extend the workspace of their Mac using an iPad and Sidecar. Security features keep users better protected, and Voice Control lets users control their Mac entirely with their voice.
In macOS Catalina, users can extend their workspace and use iPad and Sidecar alongside their new 13-inch MacBook Pro.
Apple Services
Customers can also enjoy Apple services right on their MacBook Pro, including Mac versions of the Apple Music, Apple Podcasts, and Apple TV apps, as well as Apple News. Apple Arcade is available through the Mac App Store, bringing more than 100 new and exclusive games to Mac customers. And for a limited time, customers who purchase a new MacBook Pro can enjoy one year of Apple TV+ on the Apple TV app for free.3
Pricing and Availability
Starting at $1,299 (US), and $1,199 (US) for education, the new 13-inch MacBook Pro is available to order today on apple.com and in the Apple Store app. It will begin arriving to customers and will be in select Apple Stores and Apple Authorized Resellers later this week. Additional technical specifications, configure-to-order options, and accessories are available online at apple.com/mac.
In the past, we’ve told Apple World Today readers about PDFelement, a powerful tool for creating, editing and annotating PDF documents. The app is developed and supported by Wondershare, which has recently released PDFelement 7, the latest generation of this popular software. Download a copy today to see why PDFelement is the most popular PDF editor on the Mac App Store.
The free trial evaluation copy of PDFelement adds a watermark, but otherwise functions identically to the paid version.
Why PDFelement?
The fact that PDFelement is the best-selling PDF editor in the world is one reason why you should consider this app for your PDF needs, but there are more reasons than that. It’s also less expensive than its competitors, with volume licensing and educational discounts available. The app is easy to install and set up — using the power of the Mac App Store — in minutes.
Activation of the Pro features of PDFelement 7 is done through registration and a simple in-app purchase. Flexible licensing with either perpetual license ownership or yearly plan leasing is available.
What’s New In PDFelement 7
PDFelement 7 builds on the power and success of PDFelement 6, and now is even easier to use with an all-new user interface. Securing, modifying and sharing documents is now much more simple to accomplish.
Launch PDFelement 7 for Mac and you’ll see a clean interface with a list of your most recent documents. All those documents are one click away from editing, annotating, and sharing.
During testing of PDFelement 7 for this article, we found the page menu display (see image above) to greatly speed up the process of reordering pages in a PDF file. The pages of a document are presented in a grid format, and the user can then drag and drop images to reorder them or rotate them to change orientation.
Behind the clean, intuitive user interface of PDFelement 7 is a set of features that is ready for any size business, whether a one-person operation or large enterprise. Adding or changing headings and footers, editing text, and other document modifications are done much faster than in the previous version. Customized annotations and Bates numbering are now part of the new PDFelement.
Now that we’ve looked at the new features of PDFelement 7, let’s take a look at what it can do for you.
PDF Creation
For many people, it all starts with creating new PDF files for distribution to customers, readers or friends. You can actually create new PDFs from a scanner. Take an existing paper form, scan it, and then perform optical character recognition (OCR – a feature of PDFelement Pro) to either generate editable text or make a searchable text image.
Want to archive old documents by scanning them into PDF files? PDFelement can save PDF files in the PDF/A format that is designed especially for archiving and long-term preservation of electronic documents. It does this by embedding all of the information required to display the document in its original form into the PDF file.
Whether you’re using PDFelement on Mac or Windows, you get the same functionalities and experience, making it easy to support users in cross-platform environments. It also supports ten separate languages — English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Portuguese, Italian, Japanese, Dutch and Chinese. This feature alone makes PDFelement indispensable in global enterprises.
PDF Editing
PDFelement 7 for Mac makes editing PDF documents simple. Whether the text inside a PDF requires editing, or it’s the images, pages, links, backgrounds, watermarks, headers or footers that need a fix, PDFelement has the tools you need to make a PDF perfect.
For text, PDFelement has both paragraph and single-line editing modes, with font type, size and style being easily adjustable. Images are just as easy to edit. Need to add, copy and paste an image? Consider it done! How about extracting an image from an existing PDF to be used in another document? It’s easy with PDFelement. Cropping and rotating images takes no time and effort at all.
PDF Annotation And Sharing
When you’re working on a group project, PDF annotation tools are a must. PDFelement’s toolset gives editors the ability to add fills, highlight text, draw on images and text, create and use stamps, and leave comments for future reference or rework.
Sharing sensitive PDF content can expose data to others and create privacy issues. That’s why PDFelement has the ability to lock down PDF content with passwords and permissions. Your documents can be shared immediately to Dropbox or Google Drive, or sent to others through email and messaging.
Should you need to pull data from PDF forms into a spreadsheet for analysis, PDFelement is there to turn a slow manual process into a speedy and automated batch process.
Try PDFelement 7 For Mac Today
Remember, PDFelement 7 for Mac is free to try. Just download a copy from the Mac App Store, and within minutes you’ll be trying out the world’s most popular PDF editor.
Wondershare also makes PDFelement versions for iPhone and iPad, the perfect mobile companion to the Mac version. You’ll be able to create, edit, annotate and share PDFs from anywhere.
The Image Capture app comes pre-installed with every Mac, allowing users to easily import photos and videos from other devices.
How Apple is filling your hard drive with empty data.
Apples Image Capture.app is a very nice and simple tool to transfer photos from attached cameras to your Mac without the need to use heavy and slow launching apps like Apples “Fotos.app”.
Most unfortunately, in every single release since Mac OS X 10.10, Apple has added a lot of very embarrassing bugs to Image Capture.
Some of them got quickly fixed after we told Apple about them, but at the same time, Apple was very busy adding new bugs.
By pure chance, we have discovered a very disturbing bug recently that is able to quickly fill your macOS volumes with empty data.
Here is what happens.
If you connect an iPhone or iPad to your Mac, and use Image Capture to transfer the photos you took with the device to the Mac, you have the option to convert the HEIC photos taken by iOS to more standard JPG files. This requires you to uncheck the “Keep Originals” option in the settings for that iOS device, as shown here.
More specifically, the issue only affects users who import photos from an iPhone or iPad using Image Capture. Let’s say you want to manually transfer photos from your iPhone to a Mac via USB, and your photos are saved with the High Efficiency option (which is basically the HEIF format).
By unchecking the “Keep originals” option, macOS converts all HEIF image files to JPG automatically as you might expect.
The problem discovered by the NeoFinder team is that the Mac adds 1.5MB of empty data to each converted photo, making the imported files larger for no reason. By looking inside these photos through a Hex-Editor, you can find a section full of zeroes, which results in unnecessarily larger files.
With that said, if you import 1,000 images from your iPhone or iPad to your Mac using the Image Capture app, the bug will take up an additional 1.5GB of storage — which can be a lot for someone who owns a MacBook with 128GB of storage.
Apples Image Capture will then happily convert the HEIF files to JPG format for you, when they are copied to your Mac.
But what is also does is to add 1.5 MB of totally empty data to every single photo file it creates!
We found that massive bug by pure chance when working on further improving the metadata editing capabilities in NeoFinder, using a so-called Hex-Editor “Hex Fiend“.
Here is how the end of every single JPG file created by Apples buggy Image Capture.app looks like:
Apple has already been notified about the problem, but we don’t know when the company plans to release a macOS update to fix that bug. Until then, users can try the latest beta version of the Graphic Converter app, which removes the unwanted empty data from the JPG files. Of course, this is a colossal waste of space, especially considering that Apple is seriously still selling new Macs with a ridiculously tiny 128 GB internal SSD. Such a small disk is quickly filled with totally wasted empty data.
With just 1000 photos, for example, this bug eats 1.5 GB off your precious and very expensive SSD disk space.
We have notified Apple of this new bug that was already present in macOS 10.14.6, and maybe they will fix it this time without adding yet additional new bugs in the process.
