Apple has launched its new Back to School deals, and if you've been considering a new iPad or Mac for the classroom - either remote or in-person - you could get a treat for your ears, too. The Cupertino company is adding to its usual education discount with an AirPods promo, and a discount for Apple Care+.
This week the newest in a line of Mac Mini devices appeared with a more high-powered processor and more ports. This new device was leaked with a potential 4x USB4 / Thunderbolt 3 ports, Ethernet, HDMI out, and 2x USB-A. The same leak source suggested that this new device will feature a magnetic power connector for the first time in the history of the Mac Mini.
A ransomware gang suggests this week that they've broken past security of the Apple contractor Quanta. They've suggested that they're holding secret and/or private information hostage, including data and drawings on a pair of Apple products that have not yet been released to the public. One of these items appears to be a new MacBook Pro, likely set for release in the year 2021. Specifications indicated in one drawing say MacBook Pro 2021 could have more ports than it's had in a number of years - which is good.
Apple giveth and Apple taketh away. While there's really no contesting Apple's right to take back the Developer Transition Kits or DTKs it sold to developers last year, developers were a bit taken aback by what Apple was giving them in return. Apple did finally reconsider but it seems that its higher offer for returning the historic DTK wasn't going to be applied equally in all countries where the kits were distributed.
There's a rumor this week that Apple's diving back in to the desktop business head first. Not that the company ever really left, but given the amount of users that are now either working from home or plan on staying home after months and months of global pandemic and quarantine due to COVID-19, Apple seems to be seeing the opportunity to ramp up their desktop efforts once more.
When Apple formally announced it would truly be jumping into the ARM-based ecosystem, developers were naturally worried about how they'd be able to develop and test their apps on those upcoming computers. Of course, one can always use an emulator but, as the name itself implies, it doesn't really give developers the full hardware story. Some device manufacturers often provide development hardware kits for that exact purpose and Apple did so with its Developer Transition Kit or DTK based on the Mac mini. Now Apple is telling developers to return those prototypes which, while unsurprising, feels almost cold-hearted.
Of all the reasons to be excited by Apple Silicon, its potential to put high-end performance in more affordable computers like the Mac mini M1 could be the biggest. Apple's diminutive desktop is the cheapest way to get your hands on a new Mac and, while there may be some compromises to accommodate, it's arguably the most impressive way to experience the new M1 chipset so far.
Amazon is adding the Mac mini to its AWS cloud, adding a new option for those wanting an army of instantly-available EC2 Mac instances for coding and other applications. As with Amazon's existing Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) offering, users will be able to summon the capabilities of anything from one to hundreds of the computers, though initially that won't mean the very latest Mac mini model.
With all the news floating around the M1 Mac minis and MacBooks, you'd think that these products are perfect. Of course, nothing comes out perfect the first time, even for Apple, and there are some problems that may have been buried under the ton of good news. There is, for example, the serious macOS restore issue that practically bricked some of these new Macs or missing compatibility with some iOS and x86 software. While the latter will probably be fixed over time, one problem that deserves immediate attention is the case of randomly disconnecting Bluetooth peripherals that are giving owners of these new Macs a lot of headaches.
Apple's new generation of M1-powered Macs has definitely been the hot thing in computing these past weeks. They have been proving Apple's claims of performance, giving Intel a lot to worry about. The one drawback to these new Mac minis and MacBooks is that they support one less external monitor than their Intel predecessors, at least on paper. It turns out that they can actually support twice as many but you will have to get some accessories and install some software to make it happen.
You might be confused if you visit the Apple Store online in the near future looking for a MacBook. Several products were revealed here in late 2020 with Apple's first chipset made for MacOS. It's important that we know which new Mac products have said M1 chip, and which are otherwise running previous-generation silicon.
Apple's MacBook Air isn't the only Mac getting the new Apple M1 chipset, with the new Mac mini also getting a taste of Apple Silicon for 2020. Described as a "seismic shift" for a compact desktop PCs, the new Mac mini uses the same 8-core processor and 8-core GPU as the new, fanless MacBook Air.