Upon the launch of the latest Mac Pro, Apple's transition to Apple silicon across its entire Mac lineup is complete. The new ‌Mac Pro‌ features the M2 Ultra chip – the same chip offered in the refreshed Mac Studio – so why should some prospective customers buy the ‌Mac Pro‌, despite its $6,999 starting price, and which performance-focused desktop Mac is best for you? The ‌Mac Studio‌ starts at $1,999, substantially less than the $6,999 starting price of the ‌Mac Pro‌. When configured with the same ‌M2‌ Ultra chip as the ‌Mac Pro‌, the ‌Mac Studio‌ starts at $3,999. There are several crucial differences between the ‌Mac Studio‌ and ‌Mac Pro‌ that justify their different price points and designs: ‌Mac Studio‌…

Macworld I get it. You’re excited and/or angry about the $3,500 headset Apple might sell you next year if you’re in the right country. It’s worth getting excited about. But in terms of real-world, right-now impact, the surprise winner of the WWDC 2023 keynote is… wait for it… the Mac! I would never have imagined it beforehand, but it’s true: Apple’s Mac announcements on Monday were huge news, despite being overshadowed by shiny future products and platforms that won’t let anyone do anything until 2024. MacBook Air +2 While I’m acting all contrarian-like, let me double down. The most important Mac announcement on Monday wasn’t the upgraded Mac Studio or the Mac Pro, the final piece of the Apple silicon…

Apple in iOS 17 has revised several elements of its stock apps, including the Podcasts app. There are a few noteworthy changes to the functionality and design of the app with the update, as detailed below. The biggest change is a slick new design for the Now Playing screen, which allows the dominant color of the podcast art – or any episode chapter images – to take over the entire screen, sometimes with additional patterning. The playback controls on the bottom half of the screen have also been rejigged. The play speed button has been moved from the bottom left corner of the screen and now sits next to the rewind button. Podcasts app in iOS 16 (left) versus iOS…

Image: OpenAI OpenAI is improving ChatGPT on iPad today with a new update designed to take advantage of the entire iPad screen. The updated ChatGPT app for iOS and iPadOS also includes drag and drop, Siri support, and Shortcuts integration. iPad support means ChatGPT will now run full-screen on Apple’s tablets, instead of as an iPhone sized app running on a bigger display. Little else has changed for the iPad version though, as you’re still presented with a chat interface and options to switch between GPT-3.5 or GPT-4. OpenAI has also added drag and drop support here, so any messages can now be dragged out of the chat interface and into other apps. The update also lets you summon ChatGPT…

Apple has been improving password management over the last several years to encourage people to use separate, hard-to-guess passwords for each site, and the latest improvement adds password sharing. In iOS 17, Family Passwords is designed to let you share your passwords and passkeys with friends and family members. Using the Passwords section of the Settings app, you can create a group of people to share passwords with. Using a setup process, you can select trusted contacts to share information with. Each person who is in the group can select passwords and passkeys to share with others. You can, for example, share passwords to streaming services and online bill paying sites without having to share the password for your bank.…

Stratechery‘s Ben Thompson has used an Apple Vision Pro in a controlled demo and found the experience extraordinary, tweeting “It’s far better than I expected, and I had high expectations.” Apple Vision Pro features an ultra-high-resolution display system that packs 23 million pixels across two displays — more than a 4K TV for each eye — and the brand-new R1 chip, for a virtually lag-free, real-time view of the world. Ben Thompson for Stratechery: The high expectations came from the fact that not only was this product being built by Apple, the undisputed best hardware maker in the world, but also because I am, unlike many, relatively optimistic about VR. What surprised me is that Apple exceeded my expectations on…