Tag: M2

Asahi Linux gets first conformant driver for M1 and M2 GPU. This driver is currently the only conformant OpenGL ES 3.1 driver for Linux.

Rosenzweig: The first conformant M1 GPU driver

Reference: Linux for Apple Silicon adds first conformant M1 GPU driver

Apple today announced new Mac mini, new MacBook Pro models with M2 Pro and M2 Max chips.

There were no special event, however, Apple still had a keynote video describing new hardware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ij9PiehENA

M2 Pro chip comes with 19 GPU cores and M2 Max doubles than number. M2 Max could be equipped with 96GB of RAM.

New Mac mini comes with M2 and M2 Pro chips. Also Mac mini with M2 Pro provides 4 Thunderbolt ports. Intel-based Mac mini is no longer available.

MacBook Pro now supports WiFi 6E nearly doubling throughput. 16" model offers up to 22 hours of battery life.

Apple Newsroom:

• Apple unveils M2 Pro and M2 Max: next-generation chips for next-level workflows
• Apple introduces new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro — more powerful, capable, and versatile than ever
• Apple unveils MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

References:

• New MacBook Pro now official: M2 Pro and M2 Max chips, 8K HDMI, Wi-Fi 6E
• Apple launches new Mac mini with M2 and M2 Pro chip, lower $599 starting price
• Apple Announces New MacBook Pros With M2 Pro and M2 Max Chips, Up to 96GB RAM, 8K HDMI, Wi-Fi 6E, and More
• Apple Announces New Mac Mini With M2 and M2 Pro Chips at Lower $599 Starting Price
• New 16-Inch MacBook Pro Offers Up to 22 Hours Battery Life – Longest Ever in a Mac
• New MacBook Pro Models Feature HDMI 2.1 Port Instead of HDMI 2.0
• Apple Updates the MacBook Pro and Mac mini with New Chipsets and Other Features
• M2 Pro Mac Mini Specs: Up to 32GB of RAM, Up to Three External Displays, 240Hz Support, and More
• New MacBook Pros come with color-matched MagSafe charging cables
• M2 Mac mini tidbits: External display support, how to save an extra $100, more
• 5 Things to Know About the New MacBook Pros
• M2 Mac mini vs M1 Mac mini - compared
• M2 Pro Mac mini vs Mac Studio - compared

Wow! It's 50th episode here. Let's get something interesting for today's good reads.

• Let's start with good explanation on how Rosetta 2 translates x86 code into ARM – Why is Rosetta 2 fast? by Dougall J;
  
  
• Swift Concurrency – Things They Don’t Tell You by Wojciech Kulik provides great deep dive into proper concurrent code development;
  
  
• And another article on proper concurrency practices – How Does Swift Concurrency Prevents Thread Explosions? by Lee Kah Seng;
  
  
• Brett Ohland goes into details on data formatting – You can stop writing date format strings like “yyyy-MMM-dd”;
  
  
• Apple Maps are getting better now, learn how to add those to your web site – Using MapKit JS to Embed Apple Maps in Websites by Moritz Philip Recke;
  
  
• Leonardo Maia Pugliese shares an article on making SwiftUI code modular with SwiftPM – Introduction to SwiftUI Modularisation with SPM;
  
  
• Core Data property mapping to Swift is suboptimal, learn how to better handle those with article by Natascha Fadeeva – How to handle non-optional Core Data properties in Swift;
  
  
• When .animation animates more (or less) than it’s supposed to by Ole Begemann covers interesting aspects of animation behavior in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Jordan Morgan explains how to make your collection or table view better compatible with keyboard – Basic Keyboard Navigation for Collection & Tableview.;
  
  
• Widgets and other extensions need access to shared files – Share files between your iOS app, Widget and WatchKit extensions by Marco Eidinger covers exactly that;
  
  
• Antoine van der Lee provides good guide on result builders in Swift – Result builders in Swift explained with code examples;
  
  
• Pin a view to the bottom of safe area in SwiftUI by Natalia Panferova solves one of simple things you might need in your app;
  
  
• Craig Hockenberry shares a hint on how to keep your storage free space under control – Managing Xcode Downloads.

Big list for this week. And, as always, more to come next time!

Apple made couple of hardware announcements today.

iPad

New iPad gets new form-factor, USB-C port and new color options. iPad is now powered by A14 Bionic chip. Touch ID is moved to Power button.

Interestingly front facing camera is using landscape placing.

Controversially new iPad supports first generation of Apple Pencil and will require dongle to pair and charge via USB-C.

New iPad supports WiFi 6 and 5G.

9th generation iPad is still on sale. 10th generation sees significant price increase comparing to previous model.

iPad Pro

New iPad Pro is powered by M2 chip. It now supports Apple Pencil hover which provides guidance on pencil position before it touches the screen which should provide better visual clues in various applications.

New iPad Pro supports WiFi 6E.

Pricing is unchanged for both iPad Pro models.

Apple TV 4K

Apple TV 4K refresh is now using A15 Bionic chip. Apple TV 4K now supports HDR10+. Storage is increased for both models, however, smaller storage model does not have Ethernet port anymore and also does not provide Thread support.

Apple TV Siri Remote now has USB-C port.

Apple shared video announcement of iPads.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUKRkPKg5_U

Apple also announced that iOS 16.1, iPadOS 16.1 and macOS 13 Ventura will be released on October 24.

Apple Newsroom:

• Apple unveils completely redesigned iPad in four vibrant colors
• Apple introduces next-generation iPad Pro, supercharged by the M2 chip
• Apple introduces the powerful next-generation Apple TV 4K

References:

• Apple Unveils 10th-Gen iPad With Complete Redesign, 10.9-Inch Display, USB-C, and More
• Apple debuts all-new iPad 10: Larger display, four colors, landscape front camera, more
• New iPad Only Supports First-Gen Apple Pencil, Requires Adapter to Charge
• Apple announces new 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro with M2 chip, Apple Pencil hover feature
• Apple Announces New iPad Pro With M2 Chip, Hovering Apple Pencil Feature, and More
• M2 iPad Pro Supports Wi-Fi 6E for the First Time
• M2 iPad Pro Wi-Fi + Cellular Models Drop GSM/EDGE Support
• M2 iPad Pro Features New Hover Mode for Apple Pencil
• M2 iPad Pro Seemingly Features Exact Same Display and Camera Hardware as 2021 Model
• M2 iPad Pro Tidbits: ProRes Video Support, RAM Configurations, and More
• Apple announces new Apple TV 4K with A15 Bionic chip and HDR10+ support
• $149 Apple TV 4K 128GB Model Includes Ethernet and Thread Support, 64GB Version Does Not
• Apple TV Remote Now Has a USB-C Port
• New Apple TV is Thinner and Weighs 50% Less With Fanless Design
• iPadOS 16 With Stage Manager, Weather App, and More to Be Available on October 24
• macOS Ventura With Stage Manager and More Launching October 24
• Apple Shares 9-Minute Keynote-Styled Video for New iPad and iPad Pro

VirtualBox 7.0 brings support for Apple Silicon Macs. VirtualBox is an open-source virtualization software available for various platforms. Now it could be used on Macs with Apple Silicon.

Download: Download VirtualBox

Release notes: VirtualBox 7.0.0 (released 2022-10-10)

Reference: Oracle VirtualBox brings Apple Silicon Mac support in version 7.0 beta

Apple starts providing genuine parts for M1 Macbooks as a part of Self Service Repair program. Now some MacBook repairs could be performed in-house.

Genuine Apple parts and tools can be purchased by US customers on August 23

Apple

Apple Newsroom: Apple expands Self Service Repair to Mac notebooks

References:

• Apple Expands Self Service Repair Program to MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
• Apple Self Service Repair program now extended to M1 MacBook models
• Self Service Repair for M1 Mac Notebooks
• Apple's Self Service Repair Store Now Taking Orders for MacBook Air and MacBook Pro
• Apple’s Self Service Repair store goes live with M1 MacBook replacement parts

Apple released beta 4 for macOS 12.5 Monterey. No significant changes are reported for this beta, but it adds support for M2 Macs which are now received by first buyers.

Beta download: Operating Systems

Reference: Apple Seeds Fourth Beta of macOS Monterey 12.5 to Developers, Adds Support for M2 Macs

While we're waiting for iOS 16, macOS 13 Ventura and other major platform updates, Apple is still working on new releases for iOS 15 and macOS 12 Monterey. Third beta versions are releases for iOS/iPadOS 15.6, watchOS 8.7, tvOS 15.6 and macOS 12.5.

No corresponding Xcode beta is published though.

Notably, there is also new macOS 12.4 build for M2 Macs. macOS Big Sur gets update that fixes Mail app issues.

Beta download: Operating Systems

Releases notes:

• iOS & iPadOS 15.6 Beta 3 Release Notes
• macOS Monterey 12.5 Beta 3 Release Notes
• watchOS 8.7 Beta 3 Release Notes
• tvOS 15.6 Beta 3 Release Notes

References:

• Apple Releases New Build of macOS Monterey 12.4 for M2 Macs Ahead of 13-Inch MacBook Pro Launch
• Apple Releases macOS Big Sur 11.6.7 With Mail App Fix

WWDC22 is here! Apple's annual conference started with Special Event day, Keynote, State of the Union and Apple Design Awards.

Apple Developer Center

It actually started on Sunday June 5th. Apple presented its new Apple Developer Center to public. Center provides an opportunity to development teams to participate in workshops hosted by Apple and meet Apple teams while working on interesting projects. Overall, Apple Developer Center brings Apple Store aesthetics to developer-focused venue.

Apple did not provide any announcements on how often it would invite developers to visit Developer Center, but general recommendation is to monitor for emails and news in Developer app.

Keynote

Before going into OS updates, let's mention Apple M2 announcement which is iterates over success of M1. New chip is presented in new MacBook Air with design following recent MacBook Pro principles. New MacBook Air is fan-less and provides full day battery life.

M2 MacBook Pro 13" is also announced with no body changes.

iOS 16

iOS 16 brings many new features including:

• Personalizable Lock Screen with widgets based on WidgetKit;
• Live Activities which extends notifications on Lock Screen with realtime updates;
• Focus mode API for developers – Focus Filters;
• Live Text API;
• Shared With You API;
• Collaboration API to allow easy collaboration start via Messages app;
• Improvements in Apple Pay, Apple Pay Later, Apple Pay Order Tracking;
• SharePlay in Messages;
• Developer mode should now be explicitly enabled on devices to allow debugging or UI automation testing;
• Simpler way of integrating Siri support – App Intents.

iPadOS 16

iPadOS gets more desktop-like features:

• M1 iPads will now be able to use Stage Manager – display up to four applications per screen (totaling with 8 apps when connected to external display) at the same time, and resize app windows;
• Finally iPad gets its own Weather app.

watchOS 9

watchOS 9 brings many features focused on fitness and health including:

• AFib constant monitoring will help people to monitor their condition and check how their behavior affects it;
• New monitoring features will help better understand the quality of the workouts and overall fitness progress.

macOS 13 Ventura

macOS also gets attention this year:

• Continuity camera now allows using iPhone in video conferencing;
• Also FaceTime calls could be handed off to Mac easily;
• Stage Manager is here to help with window clutter.

Xcode 14

Xcode 14 focuses on developer performance and adds multiple useful features for developers. Xcode Previews were rebuilt and are expected to run more smoothly.

Frameworks

As always, many existing frameworks get important updates:

• SwiftUI gets new charts library, new approach for navigation and navigation views;
• Metal 3 focuses on performance for resources and shaders;
• Nearby Communications (UWB) improvements;
• MapKit brings Maps features including Look Around to third-party apps;
• WeatherKit for weather apps;
• And many more...

App Store Review Guidelines are updated

2.5.4: Deleted requirement that apps using location background mode include a reminder that doing so may dramatically decrease battery life.
4.2.3: Deleted requirement to include sufficient content in the binary for the app to function at launch.
4.7: Deleted restriction on lotteries or charitable donations in code that is not embedded in the binary.
5.2.5: If your app displays Apple Weather data, it should follow the attribution requirements provided in the WeatherKit documentation.
5.3.3: Deleted restriction on purchasing lottery or raffle tickets or initiating fund transfers in the app.

Apple Developer

New Human Interface Guidelines are published

New Apple Human Interface Guidelines are now unified across platforms, provide links to relevant talks and design resources.

Apple Newsroom:

• Apple unveils new ways to share and communicate in iOS 16
• watchOS 9 delivers new ways to stay connected, active, and healthy
• macOS Ventura brings powerful productivity tools, new Continuity features to Mac
• Apple unveils M2 with breakthrough performance and capabilities
• Apple unveils all-new MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip
• iPadOS 16 takes the versatility of iPad even further
• Apple provides developers with even more powerful technologies
• Apple announces winners of the 2022 Apple Design Awards
• WWDC22 highlights

Apple Developer:

• Beta software download (DO NOT install beta versions on personal devices, beware of potential data loss)
• Watch the Keynote
• Watch the Platforms State of the Union
• Watch the Apple Design Awards
• Apple Design Award winners announced
• Xcode 14 beta now available
• Xcode Cloud now available
• Updated agreements and guidelines now available
• Meet the new Human Interface Guidelines
• What’s new for Apple developers
• Introducing WeatherKit
• Get ready for Developer Mode