John is MacStories' Managing Editor, has been writing about Apple and apps since joining the team in 2015, and today, runs the site alongside Federico.
John also co-hosts four MacStories podcasts: AppStories, which covers the world of apps, MacStories Unwind, which explores the fun differences between American and Italian culture and recommends media to listeners, Ruminate, a show about the weird web and unusual snacks, and NPC: Next Portable Console, a show about the games we take with us.
For the first time last year, we honored our favorite apps of the year with physical MacStories Selects awards, featuring custom, hand-made awards that were shipped around the globe to each of 2019’s winners. The MacStories Selects Awards, which began in 2018, will be back again this year with awards in the following eight categories:
App of the Year
Best New App
Best App Update
Best New Feature
Best Design
Best Watch App
Best Mac App
Readers’ Choice Award
The response to the 2019 awards from readers and developers was tremendous. Last year we also introduced the Readers’ Choice Award, which is picked by Club MacStories members. If you’re a Club member, be sure to check out this Friday’s MacStories Weekly newsletter to enter your favorite app of 2020. We’ll only be accepting entries until the middle of next week, so don’t delay submitting your entries.
Every year, we look at hundreds of terrific apps. MacStories Selects is our way to call out a handful of our absolute favorites that are shining examples of the best apps on Apple’s platforms. We look forward to sharing our selections and our Club members’ pick very soon.
This week on AppStories, we This week, we consider the rumor that TestFlight is coming for the Mac and share the iOS apps we hope will find their way to the Mac.
AppStories Episode 193 - iOS Apps We Want on the Mac
Before today’s event, little was known about the Apple silicon Macs that the company promised to release by the end of the year. Today, during an online presentation hosted by CEO Tim Cook from Apple Park, Apple took the wraps off its new M1 chip, which powers the new MacBook Air, 13” MacBook Pro, and Mac mini.
Apple sprinkled facts, figures, and statistics throughout its presentation today about the new Macs it announced. Here are highlights of some of those stats from the event, which was held online from the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino, California.
Apple’s M1 Chip
Built using an industry-leading 5 nanometer process
Houses 16 billion transistors
8 CPU cores total: 4 high-performance and 4 high-efficiency cores
The high-efficiency cores have a 128KB instruction cache, 64KB data cache, and shared 4MB L2 cache
Uses 1/4 the power compared to the latest PC laptops running at full performance
Performance per watt has increased 3x since 2012
8 GPU cores total
128 execution units, up to 24,576 concurrent threads, 2.6 teraflops, 82 gigatexels/second, and 41 gigapixels/second
Uses 1/3 the power compared to the latest PC laptop GPUs running at full performance
Features Gen 4 PCI Express and a USB-4 controller
16 Neural Engine cores that can do 11 trillion operations per second
MacBook Air
3x faster than the best selling Windows laptop in its class
Faster than 98% of PC laptops
Up to 3.5x faster CPU than previous model
Up to 5x faster graphics than previous model
Up to 9x faster machine learning than previous model
13.3” 2560 x 1600 resolution Retina display with P3 color that has 25% more colors than sRGB displays
Can drive a 6K display
Supports Wi-Fi 6
18 hours of battery life, a 6 hour increase, plus 15 hours of web browsing
2x battery life on video calls
2x faster SSD that can be configured up to 2TB
Up to 16GB of unified memory
0 fans
Starts at $999
Mac mini
7.7” square design
Up to 3x faster CPU than previous model
Up to 6x faster graphics than previous model
Up to 15x faster machine learning than previous model
Up to 2TB SSD that support 3.3GB/s sequential read speeds
Up to 16 GB unified memory
Can drive a 6K display
Supports Wi-Fi 6
Up to 60% more energy efficient
2 Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports
Starts at $699
13” MacBook Pro
2.8x faster CPU than previous model
5x faster graphics than previous model
11x faster machine learning than previous model
20 hours of battery life
17 hours of web browsing
4x faster code compiles
Up to 16GB unified memory
13.3” 2560 x 1600 resolution Retina display with 500 nits of display brightness and P3 color that has 25% more colors than sRGB displays
Can drive a 6K display
Supports Wi-Fi 6
Up to 2TB SSD that support 3.3GB/s sequential read speeds
If you didn’t follow the live stream or announcements as they unfolded at the Steve Jobs Theater in Cupertino today, you can replay it on Apple’s Events site and catch the product videos on Apple’s YouTube channel.
The keynote video can be streamed here and on the Apple TV using the Apple Events app. A high-quality version should also be available soon via Apple Podcasts as video and audio podcast episodes. First debuted in September, there is also an American Sign Language version of the event, which is available here.
Apple also posted other product videos on its YouTube channel, which are embedded after the break.
Today Apple announced pre-order and delivery dates for the new MacBook Air, 13” MacBook Pro, and Mac mini, all of which feature the new Apple-designed M1 chip. All three Macs are available for pre-order today with deliveries starting November 17th and 18th.
Apple has also released a second Release Candidate for macOS Big Sur. The company said during its presentation that Big Sur will be available this Thursday, November 12th, which is also when we’ll publish our comprehensive review of Big Sur on MacStories as well as an eBook version for Club MacStories members.
Embargoes have lifted for the first wave of iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 12 Pro Max reviews. Preorders for the new iPhones, which opened on November 6th and won’t begin to arrive on customers’ doorsteps until this Friday, November 13th, but in the meantime, you can read about both new iPhones and watch some excellent video reviews.
As you would expect, the reviews of the Pro Max concentrate on the new camera system while the reviews of the mini focus on the new device’s diminutive size and the implications of that.
Federico