samples – Latest Apple News

New mysterious macOS malware infiltrates crypto exchange

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:56:31 +0000

A new and strange macOS malware called “JokerSpy” has been identified, with its first known backdoor creation hitting a crypto exchange.

While Mac threats are relatively rare compared to Windows, the number of instances where macOS is the target has continued to grow. In a new discovery, it seems there’s one more backdoor-creating malware to add to the list of potential threats.Initially reported by researchers by Bitdefender with independent research also carried out by Elastic Security Labs, the malware known as JokerSpy is still relatively unknown, in part due to a lack of samples. So far, BitDefender is working on four samples in total, while Eastic focused on the breach of a “prominent Japanese cryptocurrency exchange.”

New mysterious macOS malware infiltrates crypto exchange

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 16:56:31 +0000

A new and strange macOS malware called “JokerSpy” has been identified, with its first known backdoor creation hitting a crypto exchange.

The Mac Pro’s biggest problem is the MacBook

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Apple’s latest Mac Pro targets professionals with highly demanding computing workloads. But we talked to those professionals, and they don’t want it — because Apple’s other computers are just too good.

Apple’s latest Mac Pro was finally revealed at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference as a machine for the most power user of power users. The video discussed audio engineering, color grading, and video transcoding. Apple’s product page mentions code compiling, animation, compositing 8K scenes, 3D rendering, and “analyzing enormous datasets.” This isn’t just for pros, Apple seems to claim; it’s for capital-P Pros.

Exactly who these pros are and why the Mac Pro is the perfect device for them remains somewhat unclear to me, even after testing the new machine for a few days and speaking to various professionals that Apple is ostensibly targeting. That’s in part because Apple, on the same day it announced the Mac Pro, also announced a smaller, M2 Ultra Mac Studio with the exact same RAM, storage, and processor options. The former, nevertheless, costs at least $3,000 more and carries a towering starting price of $6,999.

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.

Zach Passero, who does editing, animation, and visual effects for films, has been a diehard Mac Pro user for over a decade. “I’m still a big champion of the old trash can,” he says, referring to the oft-maligned 2013 design. He was skeptical when the M1 Max chip was announced — he’d never envisioned that a laptop could handle his heavy workload. But he gave the 16-inch MacBook Pro a shot and was surprised — and a little bit sad — to find that it felt just as fast as his older desktop. “Video editing, even doing effects, compositing, animating — it has been a smooth and fluid process,” he says. “I’m like, ‘This might actually suffice for a while.’”

Passero still loves the Mac Pro, but he can’t justify buying the latest one when his laptop is so good. “There’s something about my experience using the M1 chip where I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I need the full Mac Pro,’” he says, with some disappointment in his voice.

Vikram Bodicherla, a staff privacy engineer at WhatsApp, previously owned two Intel-based Mac Pro models — one for home and one for work. The minute the M1 Max came out, he jettisoned both of them. Like Passero, Bodicherla now spends his day — he works on mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as “server-side stuff” — on a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max. He can build much faster. He hasn’t even considered buying Apple’s new desktop. “I don’t really need any other computer,” he says.

Kevin Ford, who shoots and edits documentaries, has been using the Mac Pro for years. He’s owned both the tower models and the trash can. But he switched to the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Max a few weeks ago, and he’s not looking back — it can do everything he needs. He can cut 4K and 6K footage. He can color correct. He can even create graphics and titles. As a bonus, he can now do it all on the road; the last project he cut, which is now on Netflix, was done entirely in hotel rooms and airplanes.

“I’m very practical when I’m looking at a piece of equipment — what will allow me to do what I need to do for the best cost?” Ford says. “If the cheese grater was priced at a certain point, would that have been more attractive to me? Possibly.” But, he adds, his new MacBook is “working very well.”

We tested our machine with a Pro Display XDR.

But it’s not just that the MacBook has gotten better with the release of Apple’s M-series chips. The Mac Pro, with the release of the Mac Studio, has also gotten significantly more confusing.

The Pro I received to test vastly outperforms Intel models from 2019 — even those with Apple’s fancy Afterburner card that cost thousands of dollars more. But it’s a step backward from those other models in another way: modularity.

The 2019 Mac Pro was endlessly configurable, and ports could be swapped out and upgraded as users needed. Much has changed. Spec choice is now more limited (there are only two processor options, for example, and memory is now capped at 192GB where previously up to 1.5TB was available). The 2023 Mac Pro’s memory is not upgradeable after purchase for the first time in the model’s history.

And now, of course, the Mac Studio is here. And while the Pro delivers impressive performance, you can now get that same performance in a less expensive and much more compact chassis.

I had similarly specced models of the Pro and the Studio on hand to test. Both included Apple’s 24-core M2 Ultra processor with 76 GPU cores, as well as 128GB of unified memory. While the two look quite different, and the Mac Pro has a couple extra ports, I can confirm that their performance is close to the same.

It’s much bigger than the Studio, but the numbers are not far apart.

The primary advantage that the Mac Pro can claim over the Studio is the fact that the former has PCIe expansion slots — six full-length PCIe Gen 4 slots, specifically, as well as a half-length Gen 3. These, in theory, allow for some degree of modularity, where a user could slot in additional storage, IO, or other peripherals.

Except: that doesn’t include external GPUs, which mitigates the utility of these slots for graphic use cases significantly. The Mac hasn’t supported Nvidia cards for quite some time, and Apple’s own silicon doesn’t support AMD’s GPUs, either. Further muddling this matter is the fact that most PCI-E cards can now be used with Thunderbolt via an external enclosure — you specifically need to require the PCI-E 4 x16 speeds in order to gain a tangible benefit from those extra thousands of dollars.

The slots, with those caveats, didn’t blow anyone I spoke to out of the water. “Would it be nice to have? Yeah, totally… if it wasn’t a machine that started at $7,000,” said Evan Stone, a senior iOS engineer at the software development agency MartianCraft. (Stone also works on the MacBook Pro with M1 Max, and he’s a fan; he has one for work and another at home.)

Passero used to be a huge fan of the Mac Pro’s expandability, but his new MacBook performs so well that he doesn’t feel the need to add anything extra. “The new silicon chips and these built-in GPUs that they have, and the neural networks, I’m finding that most of my needs are met,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Do I just settle in and see how this goes?’”

Sadly, no SD slot..

The lack of support for external GPUs makes the feature particularly confounding for graphic professionals. “GPU support, that’s what we mostly use PCIe for,” said Tom Lindén, who runs a 3D animation agency. Other than a capture card, he says, “there are not that many expansion cards that would be useful.”

The only aspect of the Pro that Lindén finds particularly compelling for his studio is its double ethernet port. “We’re simulating huge simulations, so fast networking is really important,” Lindén says. “I don’t know how much we’d be able to utilize two slots — like if that would help the speed.” He thinks for a moment. “I guess it could, probably.”

Emilio Guarino, a music producer and engineer, thinks that feature is mostly useful for “edge case kind of scenarios” in his field. “If you’re doing game development, I’ve seen session files where the track count is like two or three thousand. You might need the added expansion for that,” he says. “But if I’m just doing commissions or just building virtual instruments and samples… I would probably just get the Mac Studio and be done.”

What about additional storage? People mostly shrugged. “I’ve never really hit that limit, and I have a very large chunk of the company’s code base on my computer,” WhatsApp’s Bodicherla says — companies as large as his, he explains, generally have processes in place that mean their engineers don’t need to hold unreasonable amounts of data on their personal machines. “If you’re doing a huge ML model, it might make sense to download everything. But even then, I feel like for running that one odd job, you could always go to, like, a server cluster,” he muses.

“I can’t justify paying double for a machine that has a couple of slots,” said Danny Nathan, founder and CEO of the product design and venture studio Apollo 21.

In general, the attitude among the professionals I spoke to was not skepticism so much as confusion.

“I don’t know why they made two different products,” said Vyacheslav Drofa, a UX director at Alty, which engineers mobile applications for banks, as he looked bemusedly at the Studio’s and Pro’s identical spec sheets.

“The offering across the board from Apple has gotten so powerful that, frankly, the Mac Pro feels a little unnecessary,” echoes Nathan, who has owned a number of Mac Pros throughout his career but is now very happy with his 14-inch MacBook. “I think we all appreciate it for what it is and what it demonstrates, but at no point has anyone said to me, ‘So when are we getting an office load of these?’”

Here’s where the ports live.

Many people across industries, who were confident that the Mac Pro wasn’t a good investment for them, spitballed about who it might be ideal for but weren’t exactly sure. Maybe architects need it, Stone suggested. “Really, really tough machine learning tasks,” posited Serhii Popov, a software engineer at Setapp. 3D rendering, Guarino proposed, but only if you’re doing a lot of it. DevOps, others said. But there was one use case that pretty much everyone suspected might tangibly benefit from the Mac Pro and its plethora of slots: VFX.

David Lebensfeld, founder and VFX supervisor at Ingenuity Studios, was dubious. “That doesn’t seem like something a VFX studio would use,” he said after I described the product. Nobody on Lebensfeld’s team has expressed interest in the Mac Pro — there has been “zero chatter” about the product, he says.

Lebensfeld’s company is all in on Windows and Linux, and that’s common for studios of Ingenuity’s size. Switching over to the Mac Pro, given its price point, would just be impractical. Lebensfeld gets better value out of Windows PCs, which support the latest GPUs from Nvidia and can be equipped with the exact parts and specs that each team needs. When a part breaks, they can grab another one off the shelf.

In fact, some of the VFX and animation professionals I contacted for this story declined to be interviewed because they simply don’t know much about Macs — they just aren’t widely used in that industry at this point. The reality is that these types of studios need to keep their hardware functional and up to date. Replacing a full Mac Pro system — let alone a fleet of them — regularly would be an absurd cost.

Lebensfeld speculated that the Mac Pro might be better for small businesses and independent artists who work with heavy graphics. But Lindén’s smaller studio is also fully a Windows shop, decked out with high-end Nvidia cards (which decisively outperform the M2 Ultra in programs like Blender), largely for the same reason. “We like to keep updating our machines with new hardware when we need to,” he says.

Deborah Wright, a digital sculptor, has the same hang-ups; she also uses a Windows PC. “I really, really love Mac… but it’s become prohibitively expensive,” she says. “Part of the attractiveness of a PC is my ability to customize the heck out of it,” she adds. “You buy a Mac, and you hold onto it for a few years. Buying a PC, you’re switching out your hardware pretty regularly.”

Wright suspects her next purchase might be a MacBook Pro, which, while not modular, is at least more affordable. “Their displays are just exquisite,” she says. “Velvet on the eyes.”

But the larger issue among the professionals I spoke to, and one that will likely take many more product cycles for Apple to truly fix, is one of trust. Apple, the business behemoth that it is, still has a reputation to build in the enterprise space. In order to become a go-to purchase for studios, Apple doesn’t just need to make the Mac Pro more competitive on price — it needs to reestablish itself as a brand that industries can rely on for years to come. And it needs to make some amends.

“Apple doesn’t really have a great history of servicing this market,” Lebensfeld said. “Do you want to hang millions of dollars of equipment purchases on a company where you know this isn’t their main focus?” He added, “It really feels like an afterthought. It feels like they’re gonna put this chip in every laptop and iPad that they can, and then later, they’re gonna fuse 20 of them together, and that’s the Pro.”

The middle handle is what you use to open the case and jam some PCI cards in.

And while Apple’s decision to overhaul Final Cut Pro was over a decade ago, studios still haven’t forgotten. Almost all of the video professionals I spoke to brought it up. “Every filmmaker in the world was using this,” Lebensfeld complained. “And they lost that whole market. They just don’t take it seriously.”

“They really did screw us over on that,” Ford, the documentarian, agreed. “I was really upset.”

I searched high and low and ended up connecting with over 20 professionals for this story in order to locate someone who enthusiastically wanted to buy the Mac Pro. I found exactly one: Drofa. He loves the cheese-grater design.

“The killer feature is when somebody comes and says, ‘Okay, you have a Mac Pro,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I can make a cheesesteak,’” he explained. Asked about the Mac Studio, he replied, “I don’t trust that small thing.”

Affinity Photo Review – Affordable Photoshop alternative

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 09:44:18 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Wide range of functions
Familiar operation
Cheaper than Photoshop

Cons

Not quite as comprehensive as Photoshop
No AI-supported functions

Our Verdict

For beginners, hobby graphic artists and photographers Affinity Photo is an incredibly attractive alternative to Adobe Photoshop, which hardly differs from the class leader in terms of essential functions.

Affinity Photo is now so similar to Adobe‘s software that a move to the former should be smooth, although beginners will need to spend some time getting to know the interface before they can fully exploit all the possibilities of Affinity Photo.

With all that Affinity Photo offers, the software is a real bargain at $69.99/£67.99.

Adobe Photoshop is for image editing like Microsoft Office for the office: absolutely dominant and in a professional environment you can’t get around it. However, if you aren’t using Photoshop and the Creative Suite, or Creative Cloud as it is now called, for professional reasons (and even if you are) the package has become very unattractive since the introduction of the subscription model more than a decade ago.

If you only want to edit a few photos every now and then you probably won’t think that a monthly subscription for around $9.99/£9.98 is worth it – because most of the time it is not.

A cheap and affordable alternative to Photoshop is Affinity Photo, which was released in its second major version in late 2022. Here you get an unlimited license for an extensive image editing toolbox for $69.99/£67.99 (the iPad version costs only $18.49/£17.99 up front).

If you also need software for vector graphics and print media, you can also get the complete Affinity V2 Universal License as a one-off payment of $164.99/£159.99. This consists of Affinity Photo 2, Affinity Designer 2 (an alternative to Adobe Illustrator) and Affinity Publisher 2 (an alternative to Adobe InDesign). This way you can even save a little – the complete package costs only 200 euros, including the versions for the iPad.

We’ve been testing Affinity Photo 2 for a while now and are generally very satisfied, especially considering what the software does for a relatively low price.

The interface of Affinity Photo 2 looks very familiar if you are already familiar with Photoshop.

Foundry

Familiar interface

If you are already familiar with Photoshop, you will quickly find your way around Affinity’s interface: The (default) layout overall is virtually identical, and the icons in the toolbar on the left differ but are similar or easy to follow with a few exceptions. Most of the basic keyboard shortcuts are also the same, which makes getting used to them much easier.

Affinity Photo does some things better than Photoshop, although this is of course a matter of taste. Personally, for example, I like the fact that the options for supported alignment (pixel alignment, magnetic alignment) are located in the top toolbar and not hidden in menus.

However, if you are familiar with image editing, Affinity Photo can be as confusing as stepping into an airplane cockpit and seeing tons of buttons and not knowing what they do. Luckily, to make it easier to get started and get around, Serif, the company behind Affinity Photo, has uploaded several dozen video tutorials to Affinity Photo’s YouTube channel.

The symbols for the various Personas are somewhat cryptic but clearly visible.

Foundry

In addition to the standard interface, there are several other pre-configured interfaces for special purposes – Serif calls them “Personas”: The standard interface is called “Photo Persona”, but there is also the “Liquify Persona”, which is specially designed for deforming, distorting and retouching images, the “Develop Persona” for developing raw images, and a handful of others. You can easily switch between the individual personas in the upper bar.

Just as in Photoshop, you can drag individual elements, windows and tools from the main window to another monitor. This allows you to effectively enlarge the workspace by swapping out tools and other settings.

It’s different on the iPad, where the interface is significantly simplified and optimised for the smaller screen and pen input with the Apple Pencil and fingers. Here, too, it is clearly reminiscent of the touch-optimised version of Photoshop.

The toolbar is strongly reminiscent of Photoshop, even though some of the icons are different.

Foundry

Remarkable range of functions

The number of tools that Affinity Photo offers is also quite impressive. If you are interested in image editing and composing, the software offers almost the same functions as Photoshop: various layer types, (live) filters, adjustments (tonal value correction, contrast, etc.), effects (shadows, glows, etc.), masks, color gradients, brushes and much more – Affinity Photo will not fail to provide the basic functions. Affinity Photo even has a counterpart to the content-based filling of Photoshop, but here it is called “Inpainting”.

Differences to Photoshop only become apparent with AI-related functions. For example, some time ago Adobe added an AI-supported function that can completely replace the sky in landscape photos, which Affinity Photo does not have. Similarly, Photoshop can now recognise objects in images and select them quite accurately – also with the help of AI.

Affinity Photo can’t do that either, here you still have to select everything manually, even though the magic wand and the selection brush do a solid job even without AI.

One function that surprised me due to how intuitively it works in Affinity Photo is crop masks. To create a blurred background in the cover image for my article “The best games for the iPhone“, I drew three shapes, dragged the respective images into Affinity Photo and dropped them onto the respective shape in the layer list – done.

In Photoshop, this is only slightly more complicated, but still less intuitive: there, you drag the respective image in the list over the respective shape and then, while holding down the Option key, click on the line between the two layers to create a cut mask from the one above for the one below.

Surely this is a matter of habit, but for me personally, the drag-and-drop principle using only the mouse wins here against the combination of mouse and keyboard input.

Seven sample files are available for download, where you can pick up a few tricks.

Foundry

The sample files that Serif makes available for download are very helpful. You can find them in a tab in the “Open” dialogue and can then look over the shoulder of professionals and see what they have used which tools for and in what way. In addition, there are also many YouTube tutorials for Affinity Photo, partly from Serif itself, and partly from a large community.

Creative Cloud – the biggest difference

Like many large software companies, Adobe has switched to a software-as-a-service model, which means that the focus is no longer on the software alone, but on a large package of software and various additional services. A big advantage of Adobe’s Creative Cloud, of which Photoshop is now a part, is precisely these additional services: You get access to Adobe Stock, a database of stock photos by professional photographers, over 20,000 different fonts and many other services that you would otherwise have to take obtain yourself.

Most of this is missing from Affinity Photo, where there is only the software with which you can edit images. You have to take care of fonts, cloud storage and collaboration tools yourself, but this can save you a lot of money, especially as a hobbyist, and use free platforms like Unsplash.

Stock photos are at least connected via Pixabay, an external platform for free or license-free photos and vector graphics. Affinity Photo does not explicitly refer to this–I only found the tab after a reader had pointed it out to me. It is commendable that Pixabay is completely integrated into the interface and does not refer to external browsers. The selection of graphics is perfectly fine, but cannot quite keep up with commercial platforms.

On average prices are around $20/£20 in the Affinity Store.

Foundry

Online store for additional content

If you need additional or pre-configured tools, some add-ons can be downloaded for a fee from the Affinity Photo online store – textures, overlays, brush presets and a few more. In terms of price, the offer seems quite fair: for $25/£25, you get 53 textures, brushes and templates with the “Vibrant Paint Strokes Bundle“, for example.

The “Handwritten Font Bundle” with six different handwritings and several styles each is currently the most expensive add-on at $44/£44, and the “Nature Brush Pack” with 68 “bio brushes” for $9.99/£9.99 is the cheapest. All in all, the selection is manageable, but the shop will probably be more of a nice add-on for Serif than a source of income to be taken seriously.

Verdict

If you are a beginner, hobby graphic artist, or photographer, Affinity Photo is an incredibly attractive alternative to Adobe Photoshop, which hardly differs from the class leader in its essential functions. You lose out on the really smart features here and there, but there is nothing wrong with learning how to retouch and select objects properly by hand.

In terms of appearance and handling, Affinity Photo is now so similar to Adobe’s software that if you know Photoshop it will take no time to get familiar with Affinity Photo. The main selling point, of course, is that Affinity Photo, for all that it offers, is available for $69.99/£67.99 with an unlimited license, unlike Adobe Photoshop, and does not require a monthly subscription. Buy once, use always – that’s how we like software. For the indecisive, there’s a free 30-day trial for each platform – Mac, Windows, iPad.

Translated from Macwelt by Karen Haslam.

MacOS, Personal Software

Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad hands-on: High-end tools for a low-end price

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 23 May 2023 17:01:00 +0000

Macworld

For years, iPad Pro owners have complained that the “Pro” is certainly evident in the hardware, but the software is consumer-grade, making the high-end tablet just a very expensive way to run iPad apps that already run as fast as you could want on far more affordable iPad models. That has improved in small steps over the past few years, but the iPad Pro still doesn’t feel like a Pro device, and it’s a software problem.

The most obvious example has been the lack of Apple’s own professional content creation software on the platform. Now, with the release of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad, it’s a little easier to justify the “Pro” in iPad Pro.

Real professional software

I am in no way a professional video editor or sound engineer, so I can’t tell you whether the iPad version of these apps will fulfill the needs of those types of content creators. But I know enough about both of those things to plainly see that, after several days of using them both, these are a far cry from iMovie and GarageBand.

Final Cut Pro requires an iPad with an M1 processor, and it’s easy to see why. It has no problem chewing through multiple layers of 4K HDR footage and includes nifty features such as real-time multicam editing controls and the ability to shoot new footage with the iPad camera right in the app (with new controls for resolution, frame rate, white balance, and exposure).

Real multicam editing is fast and easy on Final Cut Pro for iPad–and a nightmare in iMovie.

Apple

Slick features that rely on Machine Learning include Scene Removal Mask, which can pull the subject from the background so you can easily layer it on top of titles and such without a ton of masking work, Voice Isolation to clean up audio with a lot of background noise, and Auto Crop to produce video in different aspect ratios (like vertical video for social media) while keeping subjects in the frame.

Logic Pro is a lot more forgiving, only requiring an A12, meaning it will run on even a basic 8th-generation iPad. Still, it’s got a lot more to offer than GarageBand. Ten minutes in I found myself starting to get out of my depth and marveling at all the little options and tools buried behind simple icons and toolbars.

Start digging into effects, titles, and backgrounds, and you’ll quickly see why this is in a completely different class from iMovie.

Apple

These are definitely not just the Mac versions running on iPad. As familiar as they may be, there are some serious differences, especially when it comes to plugin support. But there’s plenty of room between “real professional app” and “does literally everything the Mac version does” and the initial releases of Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro fall somewhere in between.

Touch-first requires an adjustment

Those who are used to editing audio or video on a Mac will probably find the touch-first interface a little odd at first. If you have a keyboard attached, you’ll find many of the most common keyboard shortcuts work just as they do on the Mac.

But for newcomers, directly touching content to manipulate it will seem natural. This seems especially true of Logic Pro, where directly editing waveforms and samples is faster and more obvious, and you can tap out a quick melody or beat with a few taps using an on-screen keyboard, guitar strings, or pads.

Adjusting multiple sliders at once with the mixer is a great example of how multi-touch works for Logic Pro.

Apple

We’ve all seen videos of engineers sitting at a huge mixing board, pushing several sliders at once–multitouch makes it possible to do that right on your iPad screen. I get the impression that, with a bit of practice, some old-school Logic Pro fans will start to prefer using touch for a lot of their workflow.

Of the two apps, Logic Pro is probably going to be the most fun as a “toy” for non-professionals to use. It is less reliant on creating your own starting content, with a big library of hundreds of instruments, effects, beats, and so on, and a really fast and easy way to preview them. You could easily make dozens of unique tracks without ever importing or recording your own samples.

The sound browser makes it easy to find, preview, and import from a vast array of sounds and instruments.

Apple

The best feature is the price

I’m as tired as the next consumer of subscription push for all digital content, especially mobile apps. But I have to admit, despite only being available via subscription, the pricing for these apps is maybe their best feature.

Each of these apps is $4.99 a month or $49.99 per year, with a one-month free trial. You would need to subscribe for four years to equal the $200 price of Logic Pro for Mac or six years to match Final Cut Pro’s price.

If you’re a student working on a project, or just building a special video for the company retreat, the idea that you can pay just $5 to use a serious professional tool for a month and then cancel is a huge boon. There’s a case to be made for hefty one-time-purchase pricing on professional software, but an equally good argument for affordable subscription pricing that democratizes access to these tools.

Some companies (looking at you Adobe) have subscription prices for professional creative apps that do more to keep the plebeians out than welcome them in. If you don’t commit for a full year, Premiere is $31.49 a month! Apple’s pricing presents a low barrier to entry for newcomers and makes for a reasonable “upcharge” for those who already have the Mac apps and just need to get a little work done on the go from time to time.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I kind of wish the Mac versions had the same $5-a-month subscription pricing.

iPad, Mobile Apps

Logic Pro for the iPad is very fun with very few compromises

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 23 May 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

A great digital audio workstation for the iPad with some experimental ways to make music

Over the past few days, I’ve been having a lot of fun composing riffs, beats, and rhythms using the new iPad version of Apple’s music production software Logic Pro. The subtly redesigned app translates the company’s pro-level audio app to a touchscreen interface really well, and thankfully, it does not dumb it down for a mobile screen.

Those who have used GarageBand on an iPad will be familiar with a touch interface for virtual instruments and recording, but with Logic Pro, you have a whole lot more things to adjust — more knobs, faders, automations, plug-ins, and samples. I’ve been using Logic Pro on a 12.9-inch iPad Pro, so I’m using the biggest touchscreen available for this app (and basically the size of a laptop). That being said, nothing really felt cramped or hard to navigate in this interface. Using it on my iPad mini might not be as fun, though.

The biggest change with adapting Logic Pro for the iPad is the way you interact with plug-ins, the play surfaces, and the redesigned browser. To accommodate the screen size, the plug-in window has simplified versions of each plug-in that Apple is calling “tiles.” There, you can tweak basic settings on compressors, EQ, reverb, etc., and then tap the tile to open up the full version of the plug-ins to refine settings. Quickly adjusting something like the threshold on a compressor, viewing the parametric EQ, or adjusting the wet / dry mix of a pitch shifter while still having the full view of the editor is really helpful and more efficient for this sort of setup.

Using multi-touch to play the neck of a bass, keys on the piano, or a drum pad is an obvious plus to using the iPad for producing music virtually, and that’s where a lot of the fun comes in. I made a funky beat sitting in the airport waiting for a flight, tooled around with mixing on the plane in the air, and landed a few hours later with something that I would seriously consider using for a professional project.

In Logic Pro for the iPad, finding instruments, samples, and audio loops is slightly different than how it’s laid out on the Mac, with instruments, loops, samples, presets, and patterns all in one place. At first, this was a little confusing figuring out which kind of sound will support which kind of track, but overall, it’s a lot easier to navigate when you want a certain type of instrument, genre, or sample. The browser allowed me to search for the right type of kick drum I want to add to my drum pad or preview a synth that would work best for my project, so overall, not many complaints there. If you want to add your own samples or audio files, you can drag those into a project from the Files app.

Apple has also added more samples and tools to this new version, including Sample Alchemy and Beat Breaker, which are some very fun experiment tools for manipulating sounds. I could probably spend a few hours just playing with Beat Breaker on a track and making wild new sounds chopping up a drum beat or sample.

Surprisingly, I did not feel the need for a keyboard with Logic Pro and used the Magic Keyboard to mostly prop up the iPad. There are still some things I prefer to use a keyboard for, of course, like pressing the spacebar to play, switching between the mixer, editor, and plug-in windows, or searching in the browser window, but like a lot of DAWs, Logic Pro’s interface is modeled after analog mixers, so adjusting a knob or a fader with your finger just makes more sense. (I’ve never met an engineer who likes to use a mouse to adjust a potentiometer knob.)

If you want to take advantage of both the touchscreen and a keyboard and mouse, Logic Pro for the iPad still recognizes some of the keyboard shortcuts from the Mac version, but not everything. This app really benefits from you using multi-touch. My reflex shortcut that I’ve ingrained in my head is Command-S for saving, but this does not seem to do anything on the iPad. (The projects do auto-save, but to rename or save as, I had to do in the file browser.)

Eventually, I started to prefer the precision of the Apple Pencil over my finger to fine-tune MIDI note placements or trimming clips. But like other Pencil-centric apps, it was a bit awkward going back to using multi-touch to zoom in and out of my timeline with the Pencil in my hand. The most useful Pencil feature is for drawing automation curves right on the screen rather than the slightly frustrating desktop way of clicking and dragging little dots over clips with a mouse.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

Drawing automation curves with the Apple Pencil

I also found plugging the iPad in to a monitor was a pretty neat experience — sort of like using a Wacom tablet — drawing automatic curves or playing a virtual instrument while viewing the DAW on a bigger screen.

As for compatibility with the Mac version, the biggest thing you cannot do with the iPad version is load a lot of third-party plug-ins used in many desktop DAWs. The iPad version supports a bunch of Audio Unit plug-ins available in the App Store, but if you use any VST plug-ins or ones that are not in the App Store (such as the popular Waves options), they won’t carry in your project on the iPad. Those plug-ins will be missing. Your best bet is bouncing those effects down to a new audio track and saving before your transfer to the iPad. There are some other power user features that are missing in the iPad app, like viewing more MIDI data, adding project notes, and more customizable export settings. This did not really impact my workflow, especially if I am going to carry over the project to my desktop, but it might be an issue for some.

Another stumbling block is when I transferred an iPad project to the Mac, an audio sample from the library was not available on my desktop. So if you’re going back and forth between devices on one project, you’re going to have to think about what is compatible with what version. Apple says Logic Pro for Mac will have a compatibility update today to make it work with the iPad, including the ability to open tracks with non-editable versions of Beat Breaker or Sample Alchemy, but no word on when the full version of those plug-ins will come to the Mac version. However, if you do not have the sounds downloaded on your Mac that you have downloaded in the iPad version, Logic Pro will automatically download those sounds for you when opening the project on the Mac, and vice versa. And, of course, this is all great if you actually have a Mac to go and use some pro-level plug-ins — Logic Pro is only on Apple products. Exporting lets you AirDrop the file to another device, as well as the other apps in your share sheet.

What excites me the most about using Logic Pro for the iPad is just having a professional and reliable multitrack digital audio workstation on an iPad that I can easily transfer projects to my Mac. I was able to plug in a number of external audio interfaces into an iPad Pro, and Logic Pro recognized them quickly in the audio input / output settings. That’s where it really started to feel like a professional audio workstation.

And really, the ideal way to mix with Logic Pro for the iPad is with an external audio interface. There are not many iPads with a headphone jack anymore (Logic Pro is supported on iPads with an A12 chip and above, which includes the ninth-gen iPad, the lone remaining option with a 3.5mm jack), so you’re likely going to need some sort of adapter anyway to listen with headphones. Of course, you can try to use Bluetooth headphones, but that’s not ideal for music-making due to Bluetooth lag and syncing issues. Apple even warns you in the app when you pair wireless headphones that “You may notice a delay when playing Touch Instruments or playing back your song.” When I paired my Bose QC35 to my iPad to try to mix, it was unmanageable.

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

I played the bass on the iPad.

Apple offers Logic Pro for the iPad for $4.99 a month or $49 for a yearly subscription (with a month free), as opposed to the $199 perpetual license on the Mac. Though I am hesitant about subscription-based production software, five dollars a month is really a great price for a powerful tool like this, and you can unsubscribe when you’re not using it. I will most likely be paying for Logic Pro on and off on my iPad Mini when I want to do some multitrack recording or make some fun tracks when I’m traveling.

Five bucks a month is a very low bar to entry for anyone wanting to get into making music, so I’ll be looking out for the first album made entirely in this app. Logic Pro for the Mac has been used by artists and producers for years and has been the DAW of choice for artists like Lil Nas X, Billie Eilish, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and many more. Bringing this software to the iPad (along with Final Cut Pro) really shows off the strength and flexibility of the iPad more than any software I’ve seen so far.

Logic Pro for the iPad is very fun with very few compromises

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 23 May 2023 17:00:00 +0000

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

A great digital audio workstation for the iPad with some experimental ways to make music

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

Drawing automation curves with the Apple Pencil

Photo by Andrew Marino / The Verge

I played the bass on the iPad.

Apple releases Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 23 May 2023 16:03:36 +0000

Apple on Tuesday released Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for select iPad models in its App Store. Video and music creators can now unleash their creativity in new ways that are only possible on iPad. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad bring all-new touch interfaces that allow users to enhance their workflows with the immediacy and intuitiveness of Multi-Touch.

With powerful and intuitive tools designed for the portability, performance, and touch-first interface of iPad, Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro are the ultimate mobile studio for video and music creation.

Final Cut Pro for iPad introduces a powerful set of tools for video creators to record, edit, finish, and share, all from one portable device. Logic Pro for iPad puts the power of professional music creation in the hands of the creator — no matter where they are — with a complete collection of sophisticated tools for songwriting, beat making, recording, editing, and mixing. Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad will be available on the App Store as subscriptions for $4.99 per month or $49 per year with a one-month free trial.

Final Cut Pro for iPad

Final Cut Pro for iPad introduces an all-new touch interface and intuitive tools — unlocking new workflows for video creators. A new jog wheel makes the editing process easier than ever and enables users to interact with content in completely new ways. They can navigate the Magnetic Timeline, move clips, and make fast frame-accurate edits with just the tap of a finger, and with the immediacy and intuitiveness of Multi-Touch gestures, push their creativity to new heights.

With Live Drawing, users can draw and write directly on top of video content using Apple Pencil. On iPad Pro with M2, Apple Pencil hover unlocks the ability for users to quickly skim and preview footage without ever touching the screen. They can also speed up their workflows by adding a Magic Keyboard or Smart Keyboard Folio to utilize key commands. Creators can view and edit stunning HDR video — taking advantage of the Liquid Retina XDR display on the 12.9-inch iPad Pro — and apply color grades with accuracy using Reference Mode.

Final Cut Pro for iPad gives users the ultimate mobile studio for all their video and editing needs — no matter where they are.

Pro Camera Mode and Multicam Video Editing

Pro camera mode brings even greater control to the creation process on iPad. Video creators can shoot high-quality video in portrait or landscape orientation, monitor audio and available recording time, and manually control settings like focus, exposure, and white balance. Creators can capture, edit, and publish from a single device while in the field, and on iPad Pro with M2, users can even record in ProRes. With multicam video editing, clips can automatically be synchronized and edited together, and users can even switch angles in a multicam clip with just the touch of a finger.

Fast Cut Features with Machine Learning

Final Cut Pro for iPad harnesses the power of Apple silicon and machine learning to speed up time-consuming editing tasks. With Scene Removal Mask, creators can quickly remove or replace the background behind a subject in a clip without using a green screen. Auto Crop adjusts footage for vertical, square, and other aspect ratios, and with Voice Isolation, background noise can easily be removed from audio captured in the field.

Pro Graphics, Effects, and Audio

Video creators can choose from a vast library of professional graphics, effects, and audio to enhance their storytelling. These include stunning HDR backgrounds, customizable animated patterns, and professional soundtracks that automatically adjust to the length of a video.

Import and Export

Editors can import supported media from Files or Photos, and save it directly inside a Final Cut Pro project. Final Cut Pro for iPad also supports the ability to import projects created in iMovie for iOS,4 and iPad users can export their Final Cut Pro projects to Mac.

Logic Pro for iPad

Logic Pro for iPad combines the power of Logic Pro with the portability of iPad to unlock an all-in-one professional music creation app. With Multi-Touch gestures, music creators can play software instruments and interact naturally with controls, as well as navigate complex projects with pinch-to-zoom and swipe-to-scroll. Plug-in Tiles put the most useful controls at the creator’s fingertips, making it easy to quickly shape sounds. With the built-in mics on iPad, users can capture voice or instrument recordings, and with five studio-quality mics on iPad Pro, users can turn virtually any space into a recording studio. Creators can also make precision edits and draw detailed track automation with Apple Pencil, and connect a Smart Keyboard Folio or Magic Keyboard to utilize key commands that speed up production.

Reimagined for the modern generation of creators, Logic Pro for iPad puts the power of professional music creation at a person’s fingertips.

All-New Sound Browser

An all-new sound browser uses dynamic filtering to help music creators discover the perfect sound whenever inspiration strikes. The sound browser displays all available instrument patches, audio patches, plug‑in presets, samples, and loops in a single location, and users can tap to audition any sound before loading it into a project to save time and stay in their creative flow.

The all-new sound browser makes it easier than ever for music creators to discover the perfect sound whenever inspiration strikes.

Professional Instruments and Effects Plug-Ins

Creators can shape the sonic qualities of their music with over 100 powerful instruments and effects plug-ins in Logic Pro. Effects like vintage EQs, compressors, and reverbs let users tweak and fine-tune their tracks. With Multi-Touch, creators can play instruments using a variety of play surfaces. Logic Pro on iPad comes with a massive collection of realistic-sounding instruments and powerful synths including Sample Alchemy — a new sample manipulation instrument that can transform any audio sample with the tap of a finger.

Logic Pro on iPad comes with a massive collection of realistic-sounding instruments.

Beat Making and Production Tools

Producers can chop and flip samples, program beats and bass lines, and craft custom drum kits with a set of beat making and production tools. Beat Breaker, a new time and pitch-morphing plug-in, lets music creators swipe and pinch to radically reshape and shuffle sounds. Quick Sampler can chop and transform audio samples into entirely new playable instruments, and Step Sequencer lets users program drum patterns, bass lines, and melodies, and even automate plug‑ins with just a few taps. Drum Machine Designer enables the creation of custom drum kits by applying samples and unique plug‑ins to any drum pad. With Live Loops, users can capture inspiration and quickly build arrangements by mixing and matching musical loops.

Users can access a powerful set of beat making and production tools — including the new Beat Breaker, Quick Sampler, Step Sequencer, and more.

Pro Mixer

A full-featured mixer — complete with channel strips, volume faders, pan controls, plug‑ins, sends, and precise automation — gives users everything they need to create a professional mix entirely on iPad. Multi-Touch enables creators to mix intuitively and move multiple faders at once, and the mixer meter bridge lets them quickly navigate an overview of track levels, all from iPad.

A full-featured mixer gives users everything they need to create a professional mix entirely on iPad.

Import and Export

Logic Pro for iPad supports roundtrip capabilities, making it easy to move projects between Logic Pro for Mac and iPad. iPad users can export their finished songs in a variety of compressed and lossless audio formats, as well as individual audio track stems. Music creators can make a soundtrack in Logic Pro for iPad and export it into Final Cut Pro for iPad — providing incredible flexibility for working across music and video. Logic Pro for iPad also supports the ability to open projects created in GarageBand for iOS, so users can take their music to the next level with pro features and workflows.

MacDailyNews Take: Final Cut Pro is compatible with M1 chip iPad models or later, and Logic Pro will be available on A12 Bionic chip iPad models or later. Final Cut Pro for iPad and Logic Pro for iPad require iPadOS 16.4. For more information, visit apple.com/final-cut-pro-for-ipad and apple.com/logic-pro-for-ipad.

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The post Apple releases Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro for iPad appeared first on MacDailyNews.

Apple to Mass Produce Its Own MicroLED Displays for iPhones

tigaman webdesign — Thu, 18 May 2023 08:43:18 +0000

Apple will mass produce its own microLED displays in order to lessen its reliance on Samsung and increase its own control over supply, laying the groundwork to realize its ultimate goal of bringing the technology to iPhones, reports Nikkei Asia.

According to the outlet’s sources, Apple has spent at least $1 billion on microLED research and development over past decade, and once production starts, Apple will itself perform the critical “mass transfer” step of the manufacturing process, which involves placing at least tens of thousands of tiny microLED chips onto substrates.

Apple plans to fabricate the tiny microLED chips directly on wafers, and will partner with ams-Osram for the microLED components, LG Display for the substrates, and TSMC for 12-inch wafers. This process will reportedly be carried out at Apple’s secretive R&D facilities in the Longtan District in the northern Taiwanese city of Taoyuan.

Apple has R&D teams working on the displays in the U.S., Taiwan and Japan, and is said to have designed not only the driver integrated circuits for the microLED screens, but also some of the production equipment itself to better control the mass transfer process, allowing it to eventually adopt the display technology in products that traditionally use OLED panels supplied by Samsung and other suppliers.

Despite Apple’s groundwork, microLED display production remains challenging and manufacturing costs are higher, which is why Apple will start rolling out the technology with the Apple Watch Ultra before ultimately mass producing microLED displays for iPhones.

“Apple’s ultimate plan is to introduce the technologies on its iPhone, which is its key revenue source and has much bigger volume, to justify the investments over the years,” said one of the sources who has seen samples of the company’s microLED screen.

The display technology would allow for higher brightness, decreased power consumption, improved contrast ratio, and other benefits compared to current iPhones with OLED displays.

With the Apple Watch Ultra not expected to use microLED until 2025, the first iPhone to adopt the technology is likely still several years away from launching. All four iPhone 15 models coming later this year are expected to feature OLED displays.

Tags: Micro-LED, microLED Apple Watch

This article, "Apple to Mass Produce Its Own MicroLED Displays for iPhones" first appeared on MacRumors.com

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Mac processor comparison: M1 & M2 vs Intel

tigaman webdesign — Wed, 17 May 2023 10:18:27 +0000

Macworld

If you’re choosing between two different types of Mac, or two generations of the same Mac, you may be wondering just how much of a difference the processor will make.

Since November 2020 all new Mac have featured one of Apple’s own system-on-chip based on the ARM architecture and sometimes referred to as Apple Silicon. A number of Apple chips have joined the line up including the M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra, M2, M2 Pro and M2 Max so far. The only Mac yet to move from Intel to Apple Silicon is the Mac Pro.

Mac Pro aside, it has been a while since Apple sold any new Macs powered by an Intel chip, but since some stockists are still selling Intel-powered Macs and it is possible to buy refurbished Macs with Intel chips, the comparison of Intel vs M1 or M2 is still valid. Those wishing to upgrade from an Intel powered Mac to an M1 or M2-series Mac may also be curious about how much of a difference to expect.

With such variety on offer, there is also a question of which Apple processor is best – or at least sufficient for your needs. The M2 represents the second generation of Apple Silicon, but the M2 is still less powerful than the M1 Pro, for example (see: M2 vs M1 Pro, Max, and Ultra).

Here we will compare all the Mac and MacBook CPUs, GPUs, and other specs, such as RAM, to demonstrate how the M1 and M2-series chips compare to each other and to their Intel predecessors.

For more help choosing which Mac to buy read our buying guides where we assess the Best Mac and Best MacBook.

At a glance: M1 vs M2 vs Intel

M1 to M2 Max timeline

November 2020: Apple introduced its first Mac system-on-chip – the M1. It featured in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini.

April 2021: Apple launched an iMac with a M1 chip.

October 2021: The M1 formed the bases for powerful variants, the M1 Pro and M1 Max that arrived in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro in October 2021.

March 2022: The final M1-series chip, the M1 Ultra, arrived with the Mac Studio in March 2022.

June 2022: The next generation of Apple Silicon arrived in June 2022 with the introduction of the M2 chip.

January 2023: The M2 Pro and M2 Max arrived in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro. The Mac mini gained an M2 and M2 Pro chip.

We are currently awaiting the arrival of the M2 Ultra, which is tipped to have a place in the Mac Pro, which could launch in June 2023.

The M3 series isn’t likely to make an appearance until early 2024, although a late 2023 arrival is possible.

Which processor should you choose for your Mac and does it really matter? Read on to find out.

Mac and MacBook processors compared

The M1 arrived with the MacBook Air, 13in MacBook Pro and Mac mini at the end of 2020.

The processor inside a Mac makes a big difference to how powerful the Mac is. However, it can actually be quite confusing if you aren’t familiar with the terminology. The processor is sometimes referred to as the CPU (central processing unit), which is different to the GPU (graphics processing unit). Sometimes people will refer to the processor when they actually mean the SOC (system on chip) that contains both the CPU and GPU. You may even hear it referred to as a SiP (system in package).

We often refer to Apple Silicon as chips because they are system on chips that combine the CPU and GPU (and for that matter RAM, which Apple refers to as Unified Memory). The various M-series chips offer a variety of CPU and GPU cores.

Similarly there are a number of different Intel chips which combine a number of CPU cores with integrated or discrete graphics options, all of which we will discuss below.

Mac processors from Apple

M1

In June 2020 Apple announced that it would transition Mac from Intel to its “world-class custom silicon.” This process began with Apple’s M1 processor, which was introduced in November 2020.

The M1 features inside these Macs:

MacBook Air (2020) (buy from Apple here)
13-inch MacBook Pro (2020)
Mac mini (2020)
24-inch iMac (2021) (buy from Apple here)

The M1 specs are as follows:

8-core CPU
- 4 performance cores
- 4 efficiency cores
7- or 8-core graphics processor (GPU)
16-core Neural Engine
8GB or 16GB of RAM
68.25GBps memory bandwidth

The M1 was Apple’s first chip designed by Apple specifically for the Mac and it made shockwaves in the industry with giant leaps in performance. However, some people criticised the RAM limitations, with the new Macs only able to support up to 16GB Unified Memory.

M1 Pro

Apple introduced the M1 Pro in October 2021.

The M1 Pro features in these Macs:

14-inch MacBook Pro (2021)
16-inch MacBook Pro (2021)

The M1 Pro specs are as follows:

8- or 10-core CPU
- 6 or 8 performance cores
- 2 efficiency cores
14- or 16-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
16GB or 32GB of RAM
200GBps memory bandwidth

The M1 Pro offers a 14-core GPU or a 16-core GPU. At launch Apple claimed the GPU in the M1 Pro to be 2x faster than the M1. Apple also claimed that the GPU was up to 7x faster than the integrated graphics on the latest 8-core PC laptop chip.

The M1 Pro also added a ProRes accelerator in the media engine to speed up video processing. Apple claimed that the M1 Pro could deliver up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, which is nearly 3x the bandwidth of M1.

The M1 Pro supports up to 32GB RAM (compared to a maximum of 16GB for the M1).

M1 Max

The M1 Max was also introduced in October 2021 as a standard option for the 16in MacBook Pro, and a build-to-order option for the 14in MacBook Pro. Then in March 2022 the M1 Max became one of the options for the Mac Studio.

The M1 Max features in these Macs:

14-inch MacBook Pro (2021)
16-inch MacBook Pro (2021)
Mac Studio (2022) (buy from Apple here)

The M1 Max specs are as follows:

10-core CPU
- 8 performance cores
- 2 efficiency cores
24- or 32-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
32GB or 64GB of RAM
400GBps memory bandwidth

The M1 Max has the same 10-core CPU as the M1 Pro, but everything else is significantly enhanced. The GPU is probably the most important difference between the M1 Pro and M1 Max. The M1 Max GPU goes all the way up to 32-cores (there is also a build-to-order 24-core option.)

At launch Apple claimed the graphics performance of the 32GB GPU to be up to 4x faster than the M1.

M1 Max also has two ProRes accelerators that help it deliver up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro. Apple claimed the M1 Max powered MacBook Pros can edit up to 30 streams of 4K ProRes video or up to seven streams of 8K ProRes video in Final Cut Pro. That’s more streams than on a 28-core Mac Pro with Afterburner.

At launch Apple stated that the performance of the M1 Max is “similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.”

M1 Max also offers up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth. That is 2x that of M1 Pro and nearly 6x that of M1. As a result a maximum of 64GB RAM is possible with the Max.

M1 Ultra

The M1 Ultra was also introduced in March 2022 as an option for the Mac Studio.

The M1 Ultra features in these Macs:

Mac Studio (2022) (buy from Apple here)

The M1 Ultra specs are as follows:

20-core CPU
- 16 performance cores
- 4 efficiency cores
48- or 64-core GPU
32-core Neural Engine
64GB or 128GB of RAM
800GBps memory bandwidth

The M1 Ultra is essentially two M1 Mac chips, so it can offer a 20-core CPU and up to 64-core GPU. Apple achieves this using UltraFusion architecture to connect the two M1 Max chips to avoid trade-offs such as increased latency, reduced bandwidth, and increased power consumption. Apple also explained that the M1 Ultra behaves like, and is recognised by software, as one chip.

At launch Apple claimed to offer “4x the bandwidth of the leading multi-chip interconnect technology” and that the m1 Ultra “delivers 90 percent higher multi-threaded performance than the fastest available 16-core PC desktop chip in the same power envelope.”

Apple also claimed that the 64-core GPU delivers faster performance than the highest-end PC GPU available – all while using 200 fewer watts of power.

The M1 Ultra can be configured with up to 128GB unified memory – according to Apple the most powerful PC graphics cards max out at 48GB. The ‌M1‌ Ultra also offers twice the media engine capabilities of the ‌M1 Max‌, for accelerated video encoding and decoding.

M2

The M2 was introduced in June 2022 with the MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Apple later added the M2 as an option for the Mac mini.

The M2 features in these Macs:

MacBook Air (2023) (buy from Apple here)
13-inch MacBook Pro (2023) (buy from Apple here)
Mac mini (2023) (buy from Apple here)

The M2 specs are as follows:

8-core CPU
- 4 performance cores
- 4 efficiency cores
8- or 10-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
8GB, 16GB or 24GB of RAM
100GBps memory bandwidth

At launch Apple claimed: “Compared with the latest 10-core PC laptop chip, the CPU in M2 provides nearly twice the performance at the same power level.” Apple also stated that the “M2 provides nearly 90 percent of the peak performance of the 12-core chip while using just one-fourth the power.”

Apple also claimed the 10-core GPU delivers “up to 25 percent higher graphics performance than M1 at the same power level”, thanks to the larger cache and higher memory bandwidth. At maximum power this is 35 percent better, claimed Apple.

Thanks to the additional GPU cores, 10-cores rather than the 8-core limit of the M1, the M2 performs better than the M1, but it’s still below the M1 Pro with 14-cores.

M2 Pro

The M2 Pro was introduced in January 2023 with the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro and the M2 Pro Mac mini.

The M2 Pro features in these Macs:

14-inch MacBook Pro (2023) (buy from Apple here)
16-inch MacBook Pro (2023) (buy from Apple here)
Mac mini (2023) (buy from Apple here)

The M2 Pro specs are as follows:

10-core or 12-core CPU
- 6 or 8 performance cores
- 2 efficiency core
14- or 16-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
16GB or 32GB of RAM
200GBps memory bandwidth

Like the M1 Pro, the M2 Pro has a built-in media engine that accelerates H.264, HEVC, and ProRes video encoding and decoding. Better power efficiency during playback of multiple streams of 4K and 8K ProRes video can also be expected.

At launch Apple claimed that the M2 Pro is 40 percent faster in Adobe Photoshop image processing, and 25 percent faster in Xcode code compiling when compared to the M1 Pro.

Apple claimed that, when compared to the Core i9 16-inch MacBook Pro, the M2 Pro is 2.5 times faster in Photoshop and 80 percent faster in Xcode.

M2 Max

The M2 Max was also introduced in January 2023 with the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro.

The M2 Max features in these Macs:

14-inch MacBook Pro (2023) (buy from Apple here)
16-inch MacBook Pro (2023) (buy from Apple here)

The M2 Max specs are as follows:

12-core CPU
- 8 performance cores
- 4 efficiency core
30- or 38-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
32GB, 64GB or 96GB of RAM
400GBps memory bandwidth

Like the M1 Max, the M2 Max offers two video-encode engines and ProRes engines. At launch Apple claimed the M2 Max would see a 30 percent improvement over the M1 Max when using color grading in DaVinci Resolve, while it would be 2 times faster than the Intel Core i9 MacBook Pro in the same test.

For effects rendering in Cinema 4D, Apple claimed that the M2 Max is 30 percent faster than the M1 Max, and 6 times faster than the Core i9 MacBook Pro.

M2 Ultra

Yet to launch.

Expected release: June 2023.

Expected spec:

24-core CPU
- 16 performance cores
- 8 efficiency core
60- or 76-core GPU
32-core Neural Engine
64GB, 96GB, 128GB or 192GB of RAM
800GBps memory bandwidth

M3

Yet to launch.

Expected release: 2024.

Expected spec:

12-core CPU
- 6 performance cores
- 6 efficiency cores
10- or 12-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
8GB, 16GB or 24GB of RAM
100GBps memory bandwidth

M3 Pro

Yet to launch.

Expected release: 2024.

Expected spec:

12-core CPU
- 6 performance cores
- 6 efficiency cores
16- or 18-core GPU
16-core Neural Engine
16-core Neural Engine
16GB or 36GB of RAM
200GBps memory bandwidth

Mac processors made by Intel

If you bought your Mac before the end of 2020 it will have Intel inside.

Apple has used various generations of Intel processor over the years. Here are details of some of the Intel chips you may find inside any Macs that predate Apple’s move to the M1 and beyond.

The only Macs Apple currently sells with Intel processors include:

Mac Pro, 3.5GHz 8-core Xeon W, 4GHz Turbo Boost (and various build-to-order options)
Various Macs in Apple’s refurbished store

If you are considering buying a Intel-powered Mac second hand we would recommend that you don’t! Read Should I buy a second hand Mac?

Back when Macs were powered by Intel, Apple specified an Intel processor generation for each Mac in its marketing materials. So you would have seen a description such as 2.0GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 processor associated with a particular Mac.

However, without those marketing materials is isn’t so easy to find out which processor is inside an Intel-powered Mac because the About This Mac information shows the year that Mac went on sale and the processor specifics such as GHz and number of cores, but not the processor generation. Identifying the processor generation can be useful in comparing different Macs – and PCs.

If you want to find out the specs of your Intel Mac we suggest you read our guide to how to check the specs of your Mac.

Here’s how the Intel processor line up has looked since around 2011:

1st Generation – Nehalem (2011)
2nd Generation – Sandy Bridge (2011)
3rd Generation – Ivy Bridge (2012)
4th Generation – Haswell (2013)
5th Generation – Broadwell (2015)
6th Generation – Skylake (2015)
7th Generation – Kaby Lake (2017)
8th Generation – Coffee Lake (2018)
9th Generation – Coffee Lake Refresh (2018)
10th Generation – Ice Lake (2019)

M1 vs Intel

The M1-series Macs are beating the Intel models.

The Intel processors that Apple used in its Macs since 2006 were x86 chips. The Apple Silicon is based on ARM, but include a number of Apple technologies (so they aren’t ARM chips, strictly speaking). ARM and x86 are completely different architectures-which means that they need different code, and hence the operating systems and software needs to be tailored to them.

Therefore one of the main concerns with the move to M1 (or any variant) could be whether required software is compatible with ARM. Apple addressed this with Rosetta 2, which translates the code from x86 to ARM and, with a few exceptions, there was no issue with software written for x86 running on the M1 Macs. Many software developers were quick to update their software to run on M-series Macs, though.

One advantage of ARM over Intel’s X86 is power consumption, this is evident in the long battery life of the M-series Macs. The 16-inch MacBook Pro has the longest even battery life for a Mac at 22 hours. The 2019 Intel-powered 16-inch MacBook Pro could only manage 11 hours.

There are other ways in which the M-series chips are more efficient than Intel processors. Macs with Apple chips have two kinds of processor cores: high-performance and efficiency. Having two types of cores ensures that background processes don’t slow down the computer because there is always enough power available for programs to run. For example, even the fastest Intel-powered Mac might have experienced slowdowns and performance drops if a system process like iCloud, or the indexing of Photos or Spotlight, was running in the background.

This is all great in theory, but in practice benchmarks prove that there is a leap in performance from Intel to M1, and beyond. Our benchmarks below include the best Intel MacBook Pro for comparison.

Mac Processor Benchmarks

When we tested we found that even Apple’s M1 chips delivered performance that was equal to, or even better, than the most powerful Intel laptop chips found in Macs at the time – and the M1 Macs weren’t even targeted at the kind of people who need the most powerful laptops. The M1 really was better than a comparable Intel chip – just as Apple claimed.

The M1 Ultra in the Mac Studio is still the most powerful Apple-made chip, but that will be overkill for the majority, and it does have a high price, but benchmarks have shown that it beats the Mac Pro with the best graphics card option, suggesting that Apple knows exactly what it is doing with its CPUs and GPUs. We await the new Mac Pro, which will probably feature the M2 Ultra with anticipation.

There is no reason to avoid buying an M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max or M1 Ultra over an Intel-powered Mac, especially now that Apple Silicon is so well established.

How to choose a Mac processor

Whether you are comparing two Macs with Apple chips, or one Apple chip and one Intel chip, or even two Intel chips, this is what to consider:

How many CPU cores?

You will notice that Apple’s M1 has eight CPU cores, the M1 Pro and M1 Max have ten CPU cores, and the M1 Ultra has 20 CPU cores.

The M2 series extends that, with the M2 CPU having 10 or 12 CPU cores and the M2 Pro and M2 Max having a 12 core CPU.

Among the Intel Macs you would generally find dual-core, quad-core, 6-core, 8-core and 10-core CPUs, while the Mac Pro offers a Xeon processor with 8, 12, 16, 24, or 28-cores.

Having more cores available means that your Mac will be able to run multiple processes at once. Apple’s M-series Macs have two kinds of cores: high performance and high efficiency cores. The difference between high performance and efficiency cores is that the efficiency cores are power saving while the performance cores can be used for more demanding tasks. So while the performance cores focus on demanding tasks there won’t be a hit on power efficient processing, both can happen in tandem.

How much CPU Cache?

The more processor cache you have the better. Cache is on-board memory and it helps the processor deal with repetitive tasks faster, because information can be held in the memory. Greater amounts of cache will also help with multitasking, because several tasks can be run simultaneously.

How many GPU cores?

This is more apparent on the M-series Macs because Apple highlights the number of GPU cores and this extends as you move up the range.

Apple’s M1 has 7 or 8 GPU cores, the M1 Pro had a 14-core or 16-core GPU, the M1 Max had a 24-core or 32-core GPU, and the M1 Ultra has a 48-core or 64-core GPU.

The M2 series extends that, with the M2 GPU having 8 or 10 GPU cores and the M2 Pro having 14 or 16 GPU cores, and M2 Max having a 30-core or 38-core GPU.

Intel Macs either had integrated graphics or a discrete graphics card. The discrete option was more for professionals who were using graphics intensive programmes on their Macs. A discrete graphics card has its own memory, while integrated graphics shared memory with the processor.

There were concerns when Apple introduced the M-series chips because the graphics are integrated on the system on chip, but there are benefits to this. Because the M-series Macs integrate the GPU, the CPU the RAM onto the same system on chip (SoC) the GPU and CPU can exchange information quickly and the RAM can be shared efficiently – Apple refers to its Unified Memory Architecture which makes this possible.

As you can see from the chart above, even the Pro, Max and Ultra variants of the M1 topped the best graphics options in the Intel-powered Macs.

How many GHz?

GHz reflects the number of clock cycles per second. So a 2.3GHz processor’s internal clock beats 2.3 billion times per second. Hence people referring to the number of GHz as the clock speed.

You’ll notice that it’s not that easy to compare the M1 with an Intel processor because while Intel lists GHz Apple doesn’t. However you can find out the maximum clock speed of the M1-series Macs. The M1 is known to be clocked at 3.2GHz, for example.

Each range of Intel-equipped Macs usually has more than one option in terms of GHz. Sometimes it will look like a more powerful Mac has a slower clock speed. This is invariably due to the Mac in question having more cores available. For example, the 3.1GHz 6-Core iMac costs considerably more than the 3.6GHz Quad-Core model. At first glance that might look like a bad deal, but that’s six 3.1GHz cores, rather than four 3.6GHz cores. And the more cores the better.

With Intel Macs it’s not only GHz you need to consider, but how many cores and the generation of processor.

What is Turbo Boost?

There is no Turbo Boost figure to consider with Apple’s M1-series, but is a significant part of Intel’s marketing so we will discuss it here.

The simplest way to think of Turbo Boost is as a way of safely over-clocking the cores on a processor. This figure can sometimes give a clue as to how one generation’s processor compares to the next.

The Turbo Boost controller samples the power consumption and temperature of the cores hundreds of times a second while monitoring the demands made of them by software. If any of the cores are being driven to their theoretical maximum, Turbo Boost can, if enough power is available and the temperature is at a safe level ‘over-clock’ the core and enable it to work faster.

So the eight cores in a MacBook Pro’s 2.3GHz 8-Core i9 processor can, if needed, be pushed to 4.8GHz subject to power consumption and heat dissipation.

Not all processors can Turbo Boost. The i3 processors, found in the 3.6GHz Quad-Core iMac do not include Turbo Boost, so the 3.6GHz speed is never going to be over-clocked.

Why would you need Turbo Boost? Turbo Boost kicks in when you aren’t using all the cores, so the clock speed can be increased on the cores that are in use. So, Turbo Boost is a feature that will benefit you most if you aren’t using applications that use multiple cores.

Why you might not want Turbo Boost? When Turbo Boost is in use your computer will be using more power, so if you have a laptop it might not be in your interest to have Turbo Boost.

Apple would quote Turbo Boost figure for older Macs, like the iMac above.

Intel processor types

It’s not only processor generation you need to consider with Intel. There was a lot of variety in terms of processor speed, number of cores, Turbo Boost figures and whether it is an i3 or an i9. Wondering if i5 is better than i7, or if i3 is going to be inadequate? We look through the different processors right up to i9 below.

Core M – The M is a mobile versions of Intel’s chips – it appeared in the first Retina MacBook when it launched in 2014. There were three M processors with increasing performance: m3, m5 and m7.

Core i3 – i3 processors featured in some Macs. They don’t feature Turbo Boost.

Core i5 – The majority of Macs used to use Intel’s i5 processors. The i5 tended to be quad-core or 6-core. If you find a dual-core it’s an older generation.

Core i7 – The i7 is worth looking out for if you are thinking of purchasing an older Mac because, in older generations of Macs, when it came to quad-core the i5 and i7 versions were not equal. The quad-core i7, which was once used in the 15in MacBook Pro offered some features that the quad-core i5 didn’t, one of which was Hyper threading. Another difference was the size of the cache. Thanks to these features, i7 processors were better for multitasking, multimedia, high-end gaming, and scientific work.

Core i9 – Intel’s i9 processors arrived with the 9th generation Coffee Lake refresh, and have up to 8-cores.

Xeon – Intel’s Xeon processors are workstation or server processors. Xeon processors support more memory than the i5/i7/i9 processors.

Hyper threading

Hyper threading allows the processor to handle twice as many ‘streams’ as it has cores, by fooling software into thinking it has twice as many cores. So a quad-core processor with hyper threading should be able to execute four times as many sets of instructions in a given time period as a dual-core processor with the same clock speed but without hyper threading.

This means that a quad-core i7, for example, can act like it has eight cores, but a quad-core i5 will only be able to use the four cores available to it.

Which Mac Processor to choose?

Now that Apple has almost completed its transition from Intel to Apple Silicon, with only the Mac Pro yet to transition, the question of which processor is no longer a choice between Intel and Apple. We have in the past recommended waiting for a second generation product, but now that the M2 series is established there is no reason to wait. If you need a powerful Mac go ahead and buy one. The only reason to delay would be if you want to wait for the M3, which could arrive in early 2024.

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Mac processor comparison: M1 & M2 vs Intel

At a glance: M1 vs M2 vs Intel

M1 to M2 Max timeline

Mac and MacBook processors compared

Mac processors from Apple

M1

Apple MacBook Air (2020) M1

Apple 24-inch iMac (M1, 2021)

M1 Pro

M1 Max

M1 Ultra

Apple Mac Studio (M1 Ultra, 2022)

M2

Apple MacBook Air M2 (2022)

Apple 13-inch MacBook Pro (M2, 2022)

Apple Mac mini (M2, 2023)

M2 Pro

Apple Mac mini (M2 Pro, 2023)

Apple 14-inch MacBook Pro (M2 Pro, 2023)

M2 Max

Apple 16-inch MacBook Pro (2023, M2 Max, 12-core/38-core, 1TB)

M2 Ultra

M3

M3 Pro

Mac processors made by Intel

M1 vs Intel

Mac Processor Benchmarks

How to choose a Mac processor

How many CPU cores?

How much CPU Cache?

How many GPU cores?

How many GHz?

What is Turbo Boost?

Intel processor types

Hyper threading

Which Mac Processor to choose?