Alex has been writing for MacStories since 2013. As a MacStories contributor he covers Apple and related technology on the site and for Club MacStories. Alex also keeps the site running smoothly and works on new technology as MacStories’ senior software engineer.
The M1-powered Mac mini features significantly faster compute and graphics performance, two Thunderbolt/USB-4 ports, Wi-Fi 6 support, SSD storage, and significantly improved machine learning capabilities. To top it all off, the starting price has been dropped by $100.
During this morning’s Apple special event stream, SVP of Hardware Technologies Johny Srouji unveiled the first Apple silicon chip for Mac. The company teased this chip at WWDC in June, but we’ve had to wait until today for the full details. Chip transitions are never undertaken lightly, so expectations were high for how significant the advantages of Apple silicon would be. Thankfully, the M1 chip does not disappoint.
The M1 ushers in one of the largest single-generation leaps in performance and power efficiency for Apple hardware in recent history. It is a system on a chip (SoC), meaning it has pulled multiple different chip types from prior Macs together into one package. Assembled using a 5-nanometer process, the M1 is packed with 16 billion transistors. The result is a highly power-efficient chip which can deliver impressive performance while maintaining the longest battery life ever for Mac laptops.
PetaPixel had the opportunity to interview iPhone Product Line Manager Francesca Sweet and VP of Camera Software Engineering Jon McCormack regarding the new cameras in the iPhone 12 line. They cover the design philosophy behind iPhone camera systems, the new Apple ProRAW file type, and the enlarged sensors in this year’s iPhone cameras. PetaPixel’s Jaron Scheider writes:
Apple says that it’s [sic] main goal for smartphone photography is based around the idea of letting folks live their lives, and capture photos of that life without being distracted by the technology.
“As photographers, we tend to have to think a lot about things like ISO, subject motion, et cetera,” McCormack said “And Apple wants to take that away to allow people to stay in the moment, take a great photo, and get back to what they’re doing.”
He explained that while more serious photographers want to take a photo and then go through a process in editing to make it their own, Apple is doing what it can to compress that process down into the single action of capturing a frame, all with the goal of removing the distractions that could possibly take a person out of the moment.
The full article is well worth a read, and includes a variety of interesting quotes from the interview.
Austin Mann is back again, and this time the professional travel photographer has reviewed the camera in the iPhone 12 Pro Max. We linked to Mann’s iPhone 12 Pro review last month, but that story was focused heavily on this year’s software improvements. For the iPhone 12 Pro Max Mann has taken a detailed look at the hardware upgrades in Apple’s latest top-of-the-line camera system.
This time around Mann has journeyed through Zion National Park. The photos he gathered are gorgeous, and he had this to say of the experience:
All in all, this was one of the most unique and beautiful hikes I’ve ever been on. You really should go experience the splendor for yourself — but for now, the iPhone 12 Pro Max served as an excellent camera to capture and share this adventure with you.
Don’t miss the photos and accompanying videos, as well as Mann’s full review over on his site.
BestPhotos is a streamlined photo management app for iOS and iPadOS, which we last covered a couple years ago. The app seeks to help users clean up their photo libraries using smart searches, photo comparisons, and metadata edits. Today marks the release of BestPhotos 3.0, a major update in which developer Eric Welander has added a variety of useful new features and improvements.
Today Apple released the second major revision to iOS and iPadOS 14 since their introduction in September. The previous major update, 14.1, was largely just for iPhone 12 support and bug fixes. iOS and iPadOS 14.2 are packed with quite a few nice new additions to the operating system, and are available to the public as of this morning.
New Emoji and Wallpapers
iOS 14.2 packs over 100 new emoji, including a smiling face with a tear1, a ninja, a toothbrush, and a pickup truck. Emojipedia covered the new emoji earlier in the beta cycle, and of course Federico attempted to guess all of their official names on an episode of Connected. My personal favorite is the new mousetrap emoji, which reminds me of the leprechaun traps that my sister and I used to set up the night before St. Patrick’s Day when we were growing up.
Eight new still wallpapers have also been released in today’s update. Some are photos of mountainous regions while others are scenic illustrations. Each new wallpaper includes a variation for light and dark mode.
At this morning’s virtual event Apple announced the return of one of its long-lost technologies: MagSafe. Instead of the old magnetic laptop charging method, the new MagSafe is a magnetic ring built into Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup. This ring magnetically attaches a variety of brand new accessories from both Apple and third-parties.
While a tumultuous software release would have been fitting in a year like 2020, watchOS 7 will find no such infamy. Stoically iterative, this year’s update to the Apple Watch operating system is lacking in surprises. But is that such a bad thing?
We spent years on the wild frontier of watchOS design and experience. As fun as it was to deconstruct each year’s crazy changes, the results were a product that didn’t yet know its purpose. These days that’s no longer the case. The Apple Watch exists primarily as a health and fitness device, and secondarily as a lightweight interface for many of the tasks you do on your iPhone each day. Also, it’s a watch.
watchOS 7 is all about health and fitness, plus some love for the Apple Watch’s watch-ness with a big supply of new faces and face-related features. A few more reasons to use your Watch instead of pulling out your iPhone are also sprinkled in, such as the new Shortcuts app and cycling directions in Maps.
While it may not be the most exciting annual update, there’s not much to complain about with the overall direction of watchOS 7. As always though, we can still dive deep into the implementation of the new features. Let’s break them each down and see how Apple did with watchOS 7.
Last year Apple introduced Activity Trends, a new feature for tracking your fitness over time. Trends complemented the Apple Watch’s classic Activity rings feature, and found its home alongside the rings in the iOS Activity app.
Activity rings are binary metrics: did you or did you not meet your goal for moving, exercising, or standing today? Trends, on the other hand, track your past year of activity through rolling 90-day windows, and inform you as to whether you’re improving or declining. If necessary, Trends then suggest improvements such as walking a little more than usual each day or standing for a bit longer each hour. Together, Activity Trends and the classic Activity rings seek to help you develop and maintain an overall healthy lifestyle across a handful of monitored metrics.
Last year, Trends got their own tab in the Activity app alongside the four tabs that had existed previously: History, Workouts, Awards, and Sharing. These tabs always felt a bit sparsely populated for my tastes, and it seems that Apple agreed. In iOS 14, Apple has redesigned the Activity app, consolidating its tab structure, and renamed the app ‘Fitness.’
