Tag: Mac

Pandemic PC and Macs are over. IDC report highlights significant drop in computer hardware sales.

While Mac see 40.5% decline in shipments, Apple's marketshare is improved from 7.2% to 8.6%.

IDC: PC Pain Persists in Q1 2023 Due to Excess Inventory and Poor Demand, According to IDC Tracker

Reference: Mac shipments fall 40% YOY as pandemic PC boom ends

Microsoft announces support for running Windows on Apple Silicon Macs with Parallels software.

Some limitations still apply – Microsoft does not support running Windows Subsystem for Android, Windows Subsystem for Linux, Windows Sandbox and Virtualization-based Security when Windows 11 is running in virtualized environment.

Microsoft Support: Options for using Windows 11 with Mac® computers with Apple® M1® and M2™ chips

Alludo: Parallels Desktop Now an Authorized Solution to Use With Windows 11 on Mac With Apple Silicon

Reference: Microsoft announces full support for virtualization of Windows on ARM through Parallels Desktop 18

Apple Watch Series 2 introduced in 2016 now considered as vintage product by Apple. That means that these devices will not receive proper authorized repairs and are considered no longer supported by Apple.

Also, several Mac models are marked as obsolete.

Reference: Apple's 2013 and 2014 iMacs Now Obsolete, Apple Watch Series 2 Marked as Vintage

New OS releases mean that some of older devices are left behind. This is true for iOS 16, watchOS 9, macOS 13 Ventura.

iOS 16 will not be available for iPhone 6s, iPhone 7 and original iPhone SE.

iPadOS 16 will be provided for:

• iPad Pro
• iPad Air (3rd generation and later)
• iPad (5th generation and later)
• iPad mini (5th generation and later)

watchOS 9 leaves Apple Watch Series 3 behind. Which is a bit strange since Series 3 are still sold by Apple as entry-level model.

macOS 13 Ventura also drops support for several older Macs. Currently supported are:

• iMac (2017 and later)
• ‌iMac‌ Pro
• MacBook Air (2018 and later)
• MacBook Pro (2017 and later)
• Mac Pro (2019 and later)
• Mac mini (2018 and later)
• MacBook (2017 and later)

References:

• iOS 16 Drops Support for iPhone 6s, iPhone 7, Original iPhone SE and More
• watchOS 9 Drops Support for Apple Watch Series 3
• macOS Ventura Drops Support for Older Macs, Works With 2017 and Later Machines

Apple hosted Peek performance special event. During the presentation there were couple of important announces.

Apple has finally launched the rumored Mac Studio. The new Mac comes with a wide variety of ports. These include 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports, 10GB Ethernet port, 2 USB-A ports, HDMI port, and pro audio jack. Additionally, ports on the front include two USB-C ports with 10GB/s USB-C 3 data transfer for the M1 Max variant and Thunderbolt 4 for the M1 Ultra one.

Yes new M1 Ultra chip is also here:

The new M1 Ultra uses the company’s UltraFusion architecture, effectively fusing two separate M1 Max chips into a single SoC, offering 128GB of unified memory. The M1 Ultra packs 114 billion transistors and features 800GB/s of memory bandwidth and 2.5TB/s interprocessor bandwidth. The M1 Ultra is a 20-core processor with 16 high-performance cores and 4 high-efficiency cores. It has a 32 core Neural engine and a 64-core GPU to power through even the most demanding tasks.

Canalys report shows that year-over-year growth for Apple is 28.3% while industry average is 14.6%.

Some attention also goes to Apple Silicon Macs. Dropbox finally releases first public beta of Apple Silicon client.

Canalys: Global PC shipments pass 340 million in 2021 and 2022 is set to be even stronger

Dropbox Support: Dropbox native support for Apple silicon (M1)

Reference:

• 2021 Mac shipments grew twice as fast as overall PC shipments
• Apple grew Mac shipments & marketshare in strong fourth quarter for PCs
• Dropbox finally testing native Apple Silicon version
• Dropbox releases long-awaited macOS version with native M1 support in beta
• Dropbox Mac App With Apple Silicon Support Now Available to All Beta Users

Good reads for the weekend. Here are some great articles to read.

• Starting with small snippet Detecting the Mac TestFlight Environment by Lukas Kubanek to better prepare your apps for Mac TestFlight testing;
  
  
• SceneStorage For Custom Types by Keith Harrison covers new concepts of data persistence in SwiftUI;
  
  
• Sarun W. comes with two great reads – How to make custom XCTest assertions show an error at the call site and How to change UIImage color in Swift;
  
  
• And another article is covering image loading in iOS 15 Loading Images on iOS 15 by Nishant Desai;
  
  
• Good refresher on undo/redo management in SwiftUI Block Based Undo/Redo Api in SwiftUI by Matthaus Woolard;
  
  
• John Sundell covers another use of Swift concurrency with Delaying an asynchronous Swift Task;
  
  
• Server-side Swift gets some attention in Developing and Testing Server-Side Swift with Docker and Vapor by Natan Rolnik;
  
  
• UIButton Configuration Tutorial: Getting Started by Jordan Osterberg describes new button configurations in iOS 15.

And that's it, have a nice weekend!

Just after release of macOS 12.1 Monterey Apple publishes first beta of macOS 12.2.

Notable change in new beta is rewrite of Apple Music app. It is now uses native controls instead of web-like experience.

Some reports are attributing this to internal Apple framework called JET which should allow porting of web apps to use native controls on macOS.

Also Apple Silicon Mac users report smoother scrolling in Safari.

Beta download: Beta Software Download

Release notes: macOS Monterey 12.2 Beta Release Notes (release notes do not show any changes for this beta)

Reference:

• Apple Seeds First Beta of macOS Monterey 12.2 to Developers
• Music.app and TV.app Use JET in macOS 12.2 Beta
• Apple is rebuilding Apple Music as a full native app with macOS 12.2 beta
• MacBook Pro Owners Noticing Smoother ProMotion Safari Scrolling After Installing macOS Monterey 12.2

Jamf report shows quick adoption of Apple Silicon Macs in enterprise.

In just one year, Jamf customers have deployed one million Macs powered by a chip in the M1 family. Nearly three quarters (74%) of Jamf customers have at least one Mac with M1 managed, with MacBook Air being the most popular model.

Jamf press release

Jamf press release: Jamf Announces it Has Helped Customers Deploy One Million Macs Powered by the M1 Family of Chips

Reference: Apple Silicon Macs seeing quick uptake among enterprise users, Jamf reveals