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Qualcomm Sets Out Apple Silicon Competitor

Charlotte Henry ·

Qualcomm is preparing for battle with Cupertino and its M-series chips. It laid out its competition to Apple Silicon for Windows device, which will launch in 2023, The Verge reported. Perhaps most interesting of all is the fact that those working on this project used to work for Apple.

Dr. James Thompson, Qualcomm’s chief technology officer, announced the plans for the new chips at the company’s 2021 investor day event, with the goal of getting samples to hardware customers in about nine months ahead of product launches with the new chip in 2023. The new chip will be designed by the Nuvia team, which Qualcomm had bought earlier this year in a massive $1.4 billion acquisition. Nuvia, notably, was founded in 2019 by a trio of former Apple employees who had previously worked on the company’s A-series chips.

Topaz Labs Updates ‘Video Enhance AI’ With Apple M1 Support
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Topaz Labs Updates 'Video Enhance AI' With Apple M1 Support

Andrew Orr ·

Video Enhance AI is now compatible with Apple’s M1 chips in its latest update, version 2.6. Other features: New Chronos Fast AI model – Built for high-resolution video clips with fast motion, delivering 2-3x faster performance than the current Chronos v2 AI model. New Proteus, Artemis, and Dione AI models – Optimized to be about 30% faster on Windows computers while providing improved quality compared to previous models. Refinements to these AI models also increase video quality compared to previous versions. Download for macOS.

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M1 Mac mini vs. Mac Pro: a Surprising Outcome

Jeff Butts ·

Tech video blogger Max Tech decided to test how well the 2020 M1 Mac mini could stand up against a 2019 Mac Pro. The results are astounding, considering the Mac Pro costs $15,000 compared to the $899 Mac mini. While the Mac mini is beat out on most benchmarks, it held its ground in real-world tests. In fact, the Mac mini outperforms the Mac Pro in compiling Xcode projects. It’s also faster at HEVC video stabilization. When viewing and processing Canon R5 10-bit video footage, the M1 Mac mini blows away the Mac Pro. It’s also slightly more responsive in Lightroom Classic despite having to run the app through Rosetta. The Mac Pro does beat the M1 mini in many Final Cut Pro tasks, but it has much higher memory specs. In the end, Max Tech says, “For most video editors, the M1 is just fine in Lightroom.”

Buying a New Mac? Consider Using the M1 Chip Decision Tree
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Buying a New Mac? Consider Using the M1 Chip Decision Tree

Andrew Orr ·

If you’re planning to buy a new MacBook Pro, this decision tree for the M1 Pro | Max models may be able to help. It shows you every possible configuration with the CPU, GPU, RAM, Power Adapter, and SSD. “And when I say 18 configurations, I’m not even counting the choices on SSD size. All 18 configurations come in 512GB, 1TB, 2TB, 4GB and 8TB. And yes, I verified that you can configure the bottom-of-the-line M1 Pro with an 8TB drive and you can configure the top-of-the-line M1 Max with only 512GB. That means there are actually 90 different ways you can configure the new Apple Silicon MacBook Pros. Unless you layer in the option of color with grey vs. another grey, which makes the grand total 180 different configurations.”

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Native Dropbox Support For M1 Macs Doesn't Seem to be Happening

Charlotte Henry ·

[Update November 1, 2021: Dropbox CEO Drew Houston has said that his company is working on a native M1 build. It plans to release it in the first half of 2022. Original post below]

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It looks likes users with M1 Macs shouldn’t expect native support from Dropbox any time soon. MacRumors reported on a long-running support thread discussing the issue of Apple Silicon.

An official Dropbox support thread, shared by Mitchell Hashimoto on Twitter, reveals a fiasco around native support for Apple silicon Macs. Dropbox is seemingly insisting that a significant number of community members will have to vote for native Apple silicon support for it to be implemented. There are also multiple repetitious requests with different phrasing, fragmenting users’ votes for support. In July, responses from Dropbox staff on the thread explained that “this idea is going to need a bit more support before we share your suggestion with our team,” and flagged Apple silicon support as in need of more votes. A month ago, Dropbox staff again replied to the thread requesting native Apple silicon support, saying that Dropbox will continue to be compatible with all devices that run supported versions of macOS using Apple’s Rosetta translation layer. Additional complaints in the thread claim that Dropbox with Rosetta hemorrhages MacBook battery life and uses a disproportionate amount of memory.

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How Well Do the M1 Pro and M1 Pro Max Chips Handle Games?

Andrew Orr ·

Apple said that its latest chips, the M1 Pro | Pro Max are great for content creators like developers and photographers. What about gamers?

All games were run at a full-HD-equivalent resolution (1,920 by 1,200 pixels) because the two new MacBook Pros have differing native display resolutions. (Testing at each laptop’s native resolution would have rendered the scores non-comparable.)

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2021 MacBook Pro Review Says Device is Great for Content Creators

Andrew Orr ·

PCMag has a review of the 14-inch MacBook Pro and the 16-inch model. Both are positive with the 14-inch Pro receiving a slightly higher score.

The new 14-inch MacBook Pro has so many advantages over the 13-inch model that, if you are a professional user bound to macOS, and with the cash to invest in a seriously capable workhorse, your decision really comes down to whether you should buy the 14-inch or the 16-inch model. You can safely leave the 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro model off the list.

AdGuard for Mac Supports M1, macOS Monterey, adds DNS Filtering
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AdGuard for Mac Supports M1, macOS Monterey, adds DNS Filtering

Andrew Orr ·

AdGuard for Mac has a new update, and it brings DNS filtering, support for Apple Silicon, and compatibility with macOS Monterey. “From now you needn’t rely on a DNS server provided by your ISP by default, you have the luxury of making choices — cherry-pick DNS servers from known DNS providers or even add custom DNS servers. You can also add domains to DNS blocklist or allowlist and add complicated rules using DNS rules syntax.”