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Latest Andru Edwards Videos
Spatial Audio in CarPlay Reaches the Volvo EX90, With a 25-Speaker Catch
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Portable Audio / Video, Transportation,
The car is where a lot of people still listen to music on purpose. Alone, on a highway, with nobody interrupting and nothing else competing for the speakers, you hear the bass line in a way you never do at your desk. It's the closest thing most of us have to a listening room, and audio companies have been circling it for years.
Volvo is pushing Spatial Audio in CarPlay, powered by Dolby Atmos, out to the EX90 through a software update, and confirmed it in a press release this week. Back in July it named the EX60, EX90 and ES90 as the three models getting it. There's a catch, and it's an expensive one. The feature needs the optional Bowers & Wilkins sound system.
Click to continue reading Spatial Audio in CarPlay Reaches the Volvo EX90, With a 25-Speaker Catch
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The New Mac mini Starts at $899, and That Price Is the Real Story
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
The Mac mini used to be the easy recommendation. Somebody asks what desktop to buy, you say Mac mini, they say how much, you say $599. Apple dropped a new one on Tuesday with no keynote and no fanfare, and the cheapest one now costs $899.
That's a $300 jump from where the M4 model launched in October 2024, in under two years. You get the same 16GB of memory and the same 256GB of storage you got at $599. What the extra money buys is speed.
Click to continue reading The New Mac mini Starts at $899, and That Price Is the Real Story
Apple’s Fall Event Is Set for September 9, and It’s John Ternus’s First One
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Announcements, Apple,
Apple finally put a date on the biggest phone announcement of the year, and the most interesting thing about it might not be a phone at all. Invites went out Wednesday morning with the tagline "Surprise and shine." The event happens Wednesday, September 9 at 10 a.m. Pacific (1 p.m. Eastern) at the Steve Jobs Theater on the Apple Park campus.
You can watch it the usual ways: Apple's website, YouTube, and the Apple TV app. What actually separates this one from the last decade of Septembers is who will be standing at the front of it. John Ternus takes over as Apple's CEO on September 1, with Tim Cook shifting to executive chairman. That makes September 9 Ternus's first keynote in the job.
Tim Cook Has One Week Left, and Ternus Inherits an Apple Mid-Pivot
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Corporate News,
Apple threw Tim Cook a party. Roughly 200 people at Caffè Macs, OneRepublic playing in the courtyard, tributes from Laurene Powell Jobs, services chief Eddy Cue, former COO Jeff Williams, and the man taking his job. It happened on August 23, one day before the fifteenth anniversary of the day Cook replaced Steve Jobs.
On September 1, John Ternus becomes Apple's eighth CEO. Cook doesn't leave the building, though, as he becomes executive chairman. He'll be focused on engaging with policymakers around the world, which is a polite way of saying he keeps handling the regulators and trade fights he has spent a decade getting good at.
Click to continue reading Tim Cook Has One Week Left, and Ternus Inherits an Apple Mid-Pivot
Apple’s Magic Keyboards Finally Match the MacBook’s Keycaps
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, Peripherals,
Look at the modifier keys on a MacBook and then at the ones on a desktop Magic Keyboard. The laptop shows symbols. The desktop keyboard spells out the words. Apple has been shipping that mismatch for years, and today it quietly fixed it.
All four Magic Keyboards now use MacBook-style keycaps with symbols instead of words. They went on sale immediately, alongside the new Mac mini and Mac Studio, and the prices did not move.
Click to continue reading Apple’s Magic Keyboards Finally Match the MacBook’s Keycaps
Apple Cut the Price of the Polishing Cloth in Half
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Accessories, Apple,
Apple spent this morning raising the price of its cheapest desktop by 50 percent. It also released a new Polishing Cloth for $9, down from $19. The cloth is the only thing in the lineup that got cheaper today.
It's available now. Apple's product description is word for word what it was before: soft, nonabrasive material that safely cleans any Apple display, including nano-texture glass.
Click to continue reading Apple Cut the Price of the Polishing Cloth in Half
The M5 Ultra Fuses Four Chips Into One, a First for Apple Silicon
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
Every Ultra chip Apple has shipped so far has been two Max chips bolted together with an interconnect called UltraFusion. The M5 Ultra is four. That's the whole story, and it's a bigger deal than the core counts make it sound.
Apple announced M5 Ultra today inside the new Mac Studio, where it scales to a 36-core CPU, an 80-core GPU, and 512GB of unified memory. Apple calls it the most powerful chip it has ever made. It's also the most structurally unusual.
Click to continue reading The M5 Ultra Fuses Four Chips Into One, a First for Apple Silicon
The New M5 Ultra Mac Studio is an AI Beast That Holds Up to 512GB of Memory
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Artificial Intelligence,
Apple announced the machine this morning alongside the new M6 and M5 Pro Mac mini. Pre-orders are open now, shipping starts September 22, and the 512GB configuration doesn't arrive until late October. The M5 Max model starts at $2,499.
Apple’s M6 Is Its First 2nm Chip. Here’s What That Actually Changes
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop,
Apple's new M6 chip is here, and you may be wondering what's different this time around. It's a 2 nanometer chip, but process nodes are some of the most over-hyped numbers in tech. "2 nanometer" doesn't describe the size of anything you could measure on the die. Instead, it's a label for a manufacturing generation, and it has been marketing shorthand for years. So when Apple says M6 is its first 2nm chip, the useful question is "What did Apple do with that new headroom?"
Based on what Apple published today: two more CPU cores, two more GPU cores, a second Neural Engine, and more memory bandwidth, all packed into a smaller die. M6 debuts in the new Mac mini, which starts at $899 and ships September 22.
Click to continue reading Apple’s M6 Is Its First 2nm Chip. Here’s What That Actually Changes
Apple’s New M6 Mac mini Wants to Be the AI Box That Lives on Your Desk
Posted by Andru Edwards Categories: Apple, PC / Laptop, Artificial Intelligence,
The headline is the chip. M6 is Apple's first 2nm processor, and it landed in the cheapest desktop Apple sells. Pre-orders opened today, machines arrive September 22, and the M6 model starts at $899 with 16GB of unified memory. There's also an M5 Pro version at $1,699 for people who need real render horsepower in a box the size of a sandwich.
Click to continue reading Apple’s New M6 Mac mini Wants to Be the AI Box That Lives on Your Desk