Apple

The AMD Ryzen 7 6800U has finally turned up on the PassMark CPU testing site, and it has made a very promising first showing. The Zen 3+ “Rembrandt” APU with the handy RDNA2-based Radeon 680M iGPU managed to outscore fellow low-power rivals such as the Intel Core i7-1260P and Apple M2 in the site’s average CPU Mark results.

According to new reports, Apple has elected to postpone its next-generation external monitor until early 2023. Initially rumoured to arrive this year, the so-called Studio Display Pro may not directly replace the Pro Display XDR, despite featuring a ProMotion panel with Mini LED backlights like the MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16.

The first samples of the Apple M2 have made their way onto the PassMark website, where the new Apple silicon has been lumped into the desktop CPU class. The M2 raced to an incredible score in the single-thread performance chart, smashing its way through a whole block of Alder Lake chips. But it was left a little wanting in the multiple test suite.

According to reports, the rumoured Apple Watch Extreme could arrive as the Apple Watch Pro instead. As the latter's name suggests, it will contain a few features that regular Apple Watch Series models lack. Unsurprisingly, the Apple Watch Pro will also command a 'Pro' launch price.

The display OEM BOE's status as a maker of iPhone 14 displays is said to have been in jeopardy following a disagreement with Apple over the manufacture of the flagship smartphones' predecessors. However, it seems BOE has secured its repeat business from the Cupertino giant after all, albeit for a relatively small proportion of 14-series OLED screens.

A new iPhone 14 price prediction has been shared by an experienced tech analyst based on Apple potentially passing on supply chain costs to its customers. A price hike would leave the standard Apple iPhone 14 costing much more than the widely expected US$799 price tag while a fully specced iPhone 14 Pro Max could cost over US$2,000.

Numerous Geekbench records for the new MacBook Air with M2 chip have started appearing on the popular synthetic benchmark site. The 2022 MacBook Air seems to offer similar performance to the already fully released M2 MacBook Pro while offering decent performance gains over the M1 MacBook Air. The Apple M2 chip comes with a much-improved 8-core or 10-core GPU part.

Coming later this year to iOS 16, iPadOS 16, and macOS Ventura, Lockdown Mode is a feature for users who may be at risk of being targeted by high-level digital threats, including those from the NSO Group. Learn how to activate the new mode and what some of the disadvantages users may face after enabling it.

Eye-catching Apple iPhone 14 fan-made concept renderings have surfaced, giving another idea of what future iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro owners could be shelling out record amounts for. In addition, a noted analyst has forecast that Apple could have up to 100 million iPhone 14 units manufactured and ready for sale before 2023 arrives.

Apple is further strengthening the security of its devices against state-sponsored spyware programs with the introduction of the new “Lockdown Mode”. The company is marketing the feature as an “extreme, optional protection” for people that fear targeted cyberattacks. The feature seems like a direct response to the fiasco caused by the infamous Pegasus spyware.

Even though the M2 is not specifically designed for gaming and despite the lack of optimization on the latest macOS, the iGPU in Apple’s new mobile processor is still a tad faster than AMD's 25 W Ryzen 7 6800U. The M2 with 18 W TDP was able to squeeze an additional 2-3 fps in 1920 x 1200 set to medium / high / highest details.

According to new reports, Apple plans to release an alternative to the standard Watch Series refresh this year. Reputedly, the company is working on an 'Extreme Sports' model with plenty of changes from the rumoured Watch Series 8.

The demand for refurbished smartphones, defined here as those repaired and then re-sold by the OEM in question, is now projected to rise by an extent that brings multi-billions in US dollars to their market over the next 4 years. It may be driven by business in the APAC region, which might contribute nearly 50% of its sales until 2026.

Apple has confirmed pre-order and shipping dates for the new MacBook Air, one of two Apple M2-powered products announced so far. With a redesigned chassis and features from last year's MacBook Pro 14 and MacBook Pro 16, the new MacBook Air could be a better choice for most people than the refreshed MacBook Pro 13.

The emergence of the 2022 Apple MacBook Air with M2 chip will contribute to a considerable downturn in Wintel (Windows/Intel) laptop sales according to a new report from DigiTimes. The acceptable, and even downright attractive, M2 MacBook Air price points will leave competing Wintel notebooks looking like a tough sell.

The Apple MacBook Air with M2 chip release date has seemingly been confirmed in an unexpected manner, potentially leaked (or deliberately teased) by popular YouTuber Marques Brownlee. In addition, the rumored date for the 2022 MacBook Air pre-orders has also been backed up in the same video review.

The latest set of alleged AirPods Pro 2 renders arrived with claims that these upcoming flagship TWS earbuds would become increasingly powerful health-trackers as well. However, a well-known tech correspondent purports to debunk these claims. Then again, 2022's Apple Watch is apparently in a better position to launch with the new features in question.

According to a renowned analyst, Apple has decided to upgrade the size of the Watch Series display again this year. While the Watch Series 7 is available with up to a 1.9-inch display, Ross Young claims that Apple will push the Watch Series 8 to within touching distance of 2-inches.

Another Apple iPhone 14 price leak has recently surfaced, with the purported amounts starting at a reasonable US$799 for the standard iPhone 14. However, things start getting expensive with the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 14 Pro Max, with a 1 TB variant of the latter potentially requiring a record-breaking amount for an official mainstream iPhone.

Caviar has opened pre-orders for its customized Apple iPhone 14 Pro and Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max smartphones. For those who feel the expected iPhone 14 Pro colors such as midnight and starlight simply aren’t glamorous enough, there are diamond-encrusted, leather-bound, and even meteorite-embedded custom iPhone 14 options to choose from.

The Google Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro already undercut the competition in terms of pricing, with the US$599 Pixel 6, in particular, being an excellent value option. Buyers of the Pixel 6 series have more to gain in a potential repair situation, too, as the displays of the phones cost significantly less than rival models from Samsung and Apple.

Apple has added the Mac Studio to its Certified Refurbished program. With 10% savings on new models, the Certified Refurbished program could be a good option for those who do not qualify for Apple's student pricing.

Apple didn't specify available information during the new M2-powered MacBook Air's launch, but we are now getting to know that pre-orders will go live on July 8 with wide availability from July 15. The M2 MacBook Air offers a 1080p webcam, quad-speaker system, and a MagSafe 3 connector — all for US$100 less than the M2 MacBook Pro.

With the growing inflation and the uncertainties brought by the Ukrainian war, Smartphones and PC components are not selling that well anymore, so Apple, AMD and Nvidia are now forced to scale back their chip orders from TSMC, which, in turn, might not see soaring revenues as previously projected in early 2022.

The latest MacBook Pro 13 with Apple M2 offers barely any advantages over its Apple M1-based predecessor. In fact, this year's model is saddled with a few drawbacks, which iFixit has detailed in its latest teardown video.

The Apple M3 processor has been mentioned in connection with at least four devices in a recent report by Mark Gurman. With the M2 chip now out and about, Apple will already be preparing future laptops and all-in-ones to sport the M3 silicon. One of those future computers is believed to be a 15-inch MacBook Air.

Vendor sources seem to suggest that Apple may resurrect the Plus moniker, five years after the iPhone 8 Plus, with this year's upcoming 6.7-inch iPhone 14 Plus. However, other sources feel that may not be the case. The iPhone 14 Plus (or Max) will continue to use the A15 Bionic SoC and is expected to feature the largest battery capacity in the series.

At WWDC22 Apple introduced a breakthrough new way to leverage the sophisticated cameras on modern iPhones to deliver a unique set of webcam features that will work seamlessly between smartphones running iOS 16 and Macs running macOS Ventura. Take a deep dive into this flagship feature coming to compatible Macs and select iPhone models later this year.

The first MacBook with Apple's new M2 SoC is the familiar MacBook Pro 13. It uses a cooling solution with a fan, but it still cannot handle the full performance of the Apple M2 for more than a couple of seconds. This worries us a bit when we think about the upcoming MacBook Air M2 redesign, which once again features a passive cooling solution.

Between bright OLED displays and powerful processor platforms, Apple's refreshed M2 MacBook Pro 13 doesn't bring all that much to the table in terms of upgrades. Is the stale design worth living with for the convenience of macOS? If not, which Windows laptops should you spring for instead?

The experimental and rather futile processor upgrade to the Apple M2 chip illustrates that the almost identical logic board of the new 2022 MacBook Pro 13 cannot simply be used in the chassis of the M1-equipped predecessor from 2020.

According to a renowned Apple analyst, there could be multiple iPad releases this year, including Apple M2-based iPad Pro models. A new basic iPad is also due this year, but the rumoured 14.1-inch iPad may not arrive until 2024 at the latest.

Mark Gurman claims that Apple will bring M2 series chipsets to the Mac mini, currently available with Apple M1. However, Gurman also believes that the Apple M2 will power Apple's inaugural mixed-reality headset, likely providing it with more horsepower than the Meta Quest 2 has.

The new 2022 Apple MacBook Pro 13 with M2 SoC has been found to feature a slower SSD than its much older M1 counterpart, depending on the amount of storage in the configuration. In the worst-case scenario, the M2 MacBook Pro’s SSD was found to offer barely half the read speed of the storage found in the equivalent 2020 MacBook Pro with M1 chip.

Alleged Apple iPhone 14 battery capacity figures have leaked with some surprising details included. It appears that Cupertino is considering giving the iPhone 14 Pro Max a lower battery capacity than the iPhone 13 Pro Max. Some have shared concerns about the ensuing iPhone 14 battery life but design and component updates will likely produce pleasing results.

Apple enjoyed the biggest share of the premium smartphone market worldwide in the first quarter of 2021 (1Q2021), and was not even slightly shaken from this lead in 1Q2022, with even more of a share at 62%. It was a surprisingly good quarter for the sector overall, with major wins such as the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, even though it shrank by 8% year-on-year (YoY).

Sales data from China's just-concluded 6.18 sales are in, providing some insights into what models are currently the most popular in the world's biggest smartphone market. The iPhone 13 is undisputed king, it appears, with Xiaomi dominating by taking the other nine spots in the top ten.

The alleged price tags for upcoming Apple M2 iPad Pro tablets have been leaked along with some minor but interesting information about both a future iPad mini slate and the next-generation iPad (10th gen). There are also some conflicting details shared about the rumored 14.1-inch iPad Pro or “iPad Studio”.

The design of next-generation AirPods Pro earbuds and their associated charging case has emerged online. With minor visual changes between the AirPods Pro and AirPods Pro 2, Apple is expected to bring plenty of internal improvements, plus USB Type-C charging.

Apple could soon bring a higher resolution Bluetooth codec to the AirPods 3, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max. Code within a beta firmware suggests as much, which would bring the AirPods 3, AirPods Pro and AirPods Max closer to the feature sets of their competitors. Adopting a higher resolution codec could also improve battery life on these devices.

Another leaker has claimed that the Apple iPhone 14 series will be released on September 13, 2022. In addition, the same source has also stated that the iPhone 14 Pro Max will be something of a performance powerhouse and will manage higher scores on a synthetic benchmark than the 3rd-gen and 4th-gen iPad Pro tablets.

Apple is re-evaluating iPhone 14 displays produced by BOE if a report from The Elec is to be believed. Following a controversy where Apple caught BOE changing the panel circuitry of the iPhone 13 without its approval, Cupertino had suspended BOE as a display provider. The display row also put BOE's contract to manufacture iPhone 14 panels in jeopardy.

The ARM-based Lenovo ThinkPad X13s is finally available for purchase, but the Windows laptop with a Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 processor has not managed to catch up with Apple in terms of Geekbench performance. The results for the Snapdragon 8cx Gen 3 are not only well behind those of the Apple M2, but they also lag behind the M1 SoC from 2020.

Third-party camera app Camera+ 2 has made it possible to produce 48 MP images on iOS even without the upcoming iPhone 14 Pro or iPhone 14 Pro Max. LateNiteSoft has increased the cost of the app going forwards, as well as introducing a subscription-based model.

Apple has found itself at the other end of a £750 million lawsuit over the company throttling older iPhones in 2017. The lawsuit filed by Justin Gutmann, a consumer rights activist, alleges that Cupertino intended to hide the subpar performance of older iPhone batteries by not warning users about the throttling beforehand.

The new Apple M2 SoC has made its first appearance on both GFXBench and Cinebench, and its GPU part seemingly performed way above expectations on the former benchmark. The Apple M2 managed a +45.47% performance leap over the M1 in GFXBench’s Aztec Ruins Normal Tier Offscreen test, soundly overtaking Apple’s own +35% GPU performance claim.

Apple now offers its own M1 Max processors both in laptops as well as desktops, so some users might be interested in the differences. After we reviewed the new Mac Studio, we can say there are not that many and the MacBook Pro 16 is probably the better choice for most users.

Even though the single-core gains are modest, the M2 still beats the M1 Pro and the i7-12800H. On the multi-core side, the M2 is 16% faster than the M1, but what really impresses is the 67% improvement in the graphics department.

Confusion about Stage Manager continues to grow as people dig into the first iPadOS 16 beta. While Apple claims it was unhappy with Stage Manager performance on anything other than Apple M1 hardware, it has left a toggle to enable the feature on older iPads. It turns out that the entry-level iPad Air 5 does not meet the requirements to run Stage Manager though, despite officially supporting the multitasking feature.