Architectural enhancements and significantly higher clock speeds enable Apple's A20 Pro application processor (AP), used in the company's latest iPhones, to deliver not only a substantial generation-to-generation performance boost but also to outperform leading desktop CPUs from AMD and Intel by up to a whopping 32% in the single-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, setting the record for the highest single-thread performance. While high-end PC CPUs still have more oomph for multi-threaded workloads, the tiny A20 Pro is still faster than mainstream laptop CPUs even when many threads are involved.

Fastest smartphone SoC

Apple's A20 Pro system-on-chip (SoC) delivers 4,006 points in single-thread and 11,460 points in the multi-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, which represents a 23.3% higher ST performance and 27.1% higher MT performance compared to the immediate predecessor, the Apple A19 Pro, according to an early submission (which may or may not demonstrate performance of actual A20 Pro-based products, so take the results with a grain of salt).

The new SoC delivers the highest generation-over-generation performance improvement for Apple's smartphone processors in years and is currently the highest-performing mobile AP. Furthermore, the A20 Pro beats AMD’s 16-core Ryzen 9 9950X3D by 26% and Intel’s Core i9-14900KS by 32% in single-thread performance.

When it comes to the single-thread Geekbench 7 benchmark, Apple's A20 Pro outperforms its closest rivals — Qualcomm's Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen5 (SM8850) and Xiaomi's XRing O3 — by 31.5% - 33.7%. In fact, both SM8850 and XRing O3 perform on par with Apple's two-years-old A18 Pro. The six-core A20 Pro also beats the eight-core SM8850 by 12.2% in multi-thread workloads in Geekbench 7 and offers roughly similar multi-thread performance to the 10-core XRing O3.

Compared with other flagship smartphone processors, Apple's A20 Pro holds a commanding lead in Geekbench 7. It is 76% faster in single-thread and 48% faster in multi-thread performance than MediaTek's eight-core Dimensity 9400, while it nearly doubles the performance of Google's eight-core Tensor G5, with advantages of 99% and 96%, respectively. But the most striking gap of A20 Pro is with Huawei’s Kirin 9050 Pro: Apple's flagship is 290% faster in single-thread and 139% faster in multi-thread Geekbench 7 workloads.

A great laptop CPU

While Apple's A20 Pro continues to feature 'only' six cores like many generations before it, this time around the processor packs two 'super' desktop-class general-purpose cores running at up to 4.93 GHz, four efficiency cores running at lower clocks, and a memory interface that delivers +50% higher memory bandwidth compared to its predecessor (allegedly using a 96-bit memory I/O).

The architectural enhancements of advanced CPU cores running at nearly 5 GHz, along with a more capable memory subsystem, not only enable a massive generational performance uptick, but also allow the chip to offer unbeatable single-thread performance and massive multi-thread performance that is comparable to that of laptop CPUs, including previous-generation laptop CPUs from Apple.

Indeed, Apple's A20 Pro is 7% faster than M5, 20% faster than M4, and 43% faster than M3 in single-thread performance. Its six-core design cannot match its multi-thread performance, trailing the 10-core M5 by 39% and the 10-core M4 by 27%. Yet, it is only 5% behind the eight-core M3.

When compared to Intel's Panther Lake, the A20 Pro is 48.7% faster in single-thread performance than the flagship Core Ultra X9 388H, yet the 16-core Panther Lake processor is 63% faster in multi-thread workloads. Against lower-end Panther Lake parts, the A20 Pro is 74% – 88% faster in ST workloads and even leads the Core Ultra 5 325 and Ultra 5 332 by 3% and 64%, respectively, in multi-thread benchmarks.

The particularly striking results of Apple's A20 Pro are the 26% – 33% single-thread advantage over flagship AMD and Intel desktop CPUs, though the desktop processors remain dramatically faster in multi-thread workloads.

First 2nm smartphone SoC

When Apple transitioned to TSMC's N3B (3nm-class) process technology from N4 (4nm-class) with its A17 Pro SoC back in 2023, the new processor was barely 9.8% faster in ST and 6.8% faster than its predecessor A16 Bionic. By contrast, with its first 2nm smartphone SoC made on TSMC's N2 node, Apple offers a massive performance boost over the A19 Pro produced on N3P.

Indeed, Apple's A19 Pro packs two 'desktop-class' 'super cores' whose design is 'driven in part by increased front-end bandwidth, a new cache hierarchy, and enhanced branch prediction,' as Apple described its 'super cores' inside the M5 processor earlier this year. Such architectural enhancements obviously massively increase performance in single-thread workloads at the cost of increased die size, transistor count, and power. Apparently, N2 enabled Apple's designers to squeeze two desktop-grade CPU cores into a smartphone SoC.

Speaking of M5, it is noteworthy that A20 Pro delivers 7.1% higher single-thread performance than M5 while running at a clock speed that is 7.1% higher than that of M5, which is probably a good indicator that Apple's A19 Pro uses the same 'super cores' as M5.

While some may consider using PC-grade general-purpose CPU cores in a smartphone chip an overkill, Apple is known for using and supporting PC technologies in its mobile SoCs (NVMe, PCIe, DisplayPort-over-USB-C, hardware virtualization, etc.). Keeping in mind that Apple also uses A-series SoCs inside iPads and inexpensive laptops, it makes a great sense to have these technologies in its smartphone application processors. With desktop-grade cores inside the A20 Pro, the company greatly expands use cases of these CPUs while also solidifying their position in traditional segments that they will address in the coming quarters.

Without any doubts, Apple's transition to TSMC's N2 starts with a massive general-purpose performance increase, driven by 'fat' super cores and a memory subsystem featuring 50% more bandwidth compared to the A19 Pro. Over the next few weeks, we are also going to learn how Apple upgraded the GPU, NPU, and other aspects of the A20 Pro, and we are going to find out whether the upgrades are as impressive or incremental. In any case, so far, the A20 Pro looks very good.

We reported on the new Apple A20 Pro system-on-a-chip (SoC) for smartphones yesterday, an integral attraction within Apple’s first foldable, the iPhone Duo, and in the iPhone 18 Pro devices. Now the first A20 Geekbench 6 benchmark results are starting to pop up online, and they’re very impressive, particularly in single-core performance. If the result spotted by Longhorn is a typical one, the 4,719 single-core and 12,677 multi-core scores mean the new A20 is around 25% faster than its predecessor. Its single-core score can also make some of the best PC CPUs look anemic.

Apple’s official performance claims are interesting, as usual, but we’re always happy to see the third-party performance indicators start to emerge ahead of independent reviews. Heralding its new 2nm silicon yesterday, Apple might have actually understated the boost the A20 can deliver, with the official line about this “desktop-class” processor being the “fastest CPU in a smartphone,” and a claim that it is ‘just’ 20% faster than the previous gen. However, Geekbench isn’t the best indicator of real-world performance, and this is just a sample of one to sprinkle salt upon.

What are numbers without relevant comparisons, though? For more perspective on Apple’s newest silicon, which might also be thrown into a new Neo laptop (or desktop) in the coming months, check out the table below.

Above, we’ve pitted the Apple A19 Pro from last year’s iPhone 17 Pro as the second comparison column entrant. Apple has worked on multiple angles to deliver improvements over last year. It says that it has both new super-cores and efficiency cores in play. Then there’s the refined 2nm process and the faster clocks, too.

For some wider context, we’ve also tabulated one of Apple’s newest M5 computer chips, a modern Qualcomm Snapdragon Elite X2 laptop chip, and the AMD Ryzen 9 9950X3D2, for a fun desktop PC angle. Less fun is the comparison with the Asus Zephyrus G16 2024 laptop I’m using now, with an AMD Ryzen AI HX 370 chip. Its Geekbench 6 scores of roughly 2,800 / 14,500 are easily outclassed by Apple’s new smartphone processor in 1T tests, but retain a little dignity by winning by ~1,800 points in nT tests.

Apple is opening up pre-orders for its new iPhones with A20 silicon shortly, with retail release on Friday, September 18. It usually lifts review embargoes a few days before retail. We should therefore see a broader range of benchmarks and tests from good sources in the coming week.

A “beautifully preserved in working condition” Apple 1 computer motherboard signed by Steve Wozniak, accompanied by a letter signed by Steve Jobs, is up for auction next month at Bonhams in New York. The official estimate for this precious piece of computing history is US$500,000 - US$800,000, but we note that this ‘Hatfield’ Apple 1 previously sold for $686,000 in 2013. Let’s take a closer look at what you could get for your slightly under a million dollars.

This isn’t just an artifact to be encased in a glass cabinet. You could do that, of course, but Bonhams assures auction watchers that this Apple 1 is a working model. It also seems to come with all the essential accessories you'd need to get some computing done.

The motherboard is the centerpiece of the sale, of course. It is labeled “Apple Computer 1 / Palo Alto. Ca. Copyright 1976,” on the component side, with ‘NTI’ stamp underneath (second batch), and the board is complete with a white ceramic MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, keyboard interface and connector, 3 original Sprague ‘Big Blue’ capacitors, 8KB RAM, expansion connector, cassette board connector, original Apple cassette interface board labeled ‘Apple 1 Cassette Interface Copyright 1976,’ explains the auctioneer description of the lot.

A period-appropriate monitor, cassette recorder, and pair of ASCII keyboards make up the 'Hatfield' Apple 1 hardware offering. Then there is also a selection of manuals, which would have come with the hardware bought in the late 1970s. An original Apple-1 Operation Manual; an original Preliminary Apple BASIC Users Manual with a green coversheet bearing Apple's original Newton logo, and an original Apple 1 Cassette Interface manual are included in the sale.

Another attraction of this auction is undoubtedly the Steven Jobs-signed letter. It is a letter from Jobs (dated 1978) to the original owner, Fred Hatfield, authorizing the exchange of the Apple 1 for an Apple II 4k board. The letter came in response to Hatfield complaining about the lack of software for the Apple 1. Jobs signed the letter making the offer, and it includes his title at the time: Vice President, Operations of Apple Computer Inc.

We’ve reported on Apple 1 auctions before, and this Hatfield sample is one of the most desirable Apple hardware artifacts, being from a batch personally designed and hand-built - then signed - by Steve Wozniak. The Apple 1 computer was first demonstrated in early 1976. Fellow Homebrew Computer Club members and Byte Shop visitors would buy up the first batch of (50) Apple 1 devices in the summer of 1976. Fred Hatfield, a computing enthusiast working at Computer Data Systems in Columbus, Ohio, bought his model sometime in 1976 from the second batch made available. In total, less than 200 Apple 1 systems were made.

The Hatfield Apple 1 last changed hands in 2013, achieving $686,000 at auction. Now, 13 years later, the estimated range of US$500,000 - US$800,000 might seem low, but sometimes auctioneers do this to catch broader interest. This Apple 1 will be sold as part of the History of Science, Technology & Computing auctions at Bonhams, New York, between October 4 and 14. You will be able to take part in the auction online.

The AI-apocalypse is upon us, and regular consumers are paying that price in a big way. Apple went on a price-hiking spree in late June, leaving only iPhones and AirPods untouched. The bulk of Apple’s computing devices saw price increases ranging from a few hundred bucks to $1,300. Apple is now ushering in a new wave of price increases with the refreshed Mac mini and Mac Studio.

The new M6 Mac mini is now priced at $899, a $100 increase over the already inflated $799 price for the M5 version on June 25th. To put those increases in perspective, the M4 Mac mini had a base price of $599 when it originally launched in October 2024.

The new $799 base price is an even more bitter pill to swallow, given that the headless computer still comes with only 256GB of base SSD storage. One would think that the $300 price increase over the course of two months would at least lead to a doubling of the base storage, but the ongoing memory/storage shortage makes that wish unthinkable; at least in Apple’s eyes.

If you want to see more eye-watering pricing, take a look at the hardware upgrade costs for the base Mac mini. The system comes standard with 16GB of unified memory, but an extra 8GB (taking the total to 24GB) costs a whopping $200. If you want 32GB (the maximum allotment for the M6 chip), that’ll cost you an extra $400.

Things don’t look much better on the storage side, with an upgrade from 256GB to 512GB costing $200. The 1TB and 2TB storage options cost $500 and $1,000, respectively. Apple’s value-leader Mac mini is now in uncharted territory. A maxed-out Mac mini (M6, 32GB, 2TB) costs $2,229.

Even the M5 Pro version of the Mac mini couldn’t escape the AI tax, as the base configuration now costs $1,699, up from $1,599 for the M4 Pro version (June 25 pricing) and a far cry from the $1,399 price of the previous generation earlier in the year. That price gets you a 15-core GPU and a 16-core GPU, while stepping up to the uprated 18-core CPU/20-core GPU version adds $200. Memory upgrades are deflating to the psyche, as upgrading from 24GB to 48GB adds $600, while the 64GB option is $1,000.

Storage options are absolutely mind-boggling: a 1TB SSD requires an additional $300 outlay, while the max 8TB SSD configuration is listed at $3,800. The range-topping configuration (M5 Pro, 18-core CPU/20-core GPU, 64GB, 8TB) costs $6,699.

If there’s any consolation, the new Mac Studio holds the line on pricing ($2,499) in its base configuration (18-core CPU/32-core GPU, 36GB, 512GB). The price stasis is somewhat surprising given the hardware upgrades, including a new M5 Max SoC and PCIe Gen 6 SSD. However, upgrades are pricey, with the 18-core GPU/40-core GPU variant of the M5 Max adding $300 to your bill. The upgraded SoC is the only way to unlock additional memory options (48GB, 64GB, 128GB).

Stepping up the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra more than doubles the base, entry price of the M5 Max config at $5,499. This gets you a 30-core CPU and 64-core GPU, while the upgraded 36-core CPU/80-core GPU is a $1,300 option. 96GB of RAM comes standard, while 256GB is a $4,000 upcharge. SSD options are equally expensive: 2TB costs $500, and 16TB costs $7,500.

No matter which way you slice it, those firmly entrenched in the Apple hardware ecosystem are paying a heavy price for memory/storage shortages. Apple customers are doubly affected, as the company’s traditionally outrageously priced memory and storage upgrades have become even more expensive, putting Apple’s previously value-driven models like the Mac mini out of reach of bargain shoppers.

Apple has today unveiled its next-generation M6 Apple silicon chip, as well as a powerful M5 Ultra. The new chips will debut in new versions of its Mac Mini and Mac Studio, respectively, available to pre-order from today.

The M6 is Apple's first chip on a 2-nanometer process, utilizing a 12-core CPU with two super cores, four performance cores, and six efficiency cores. The chip also features a 12-core GPU and a 12-core GPU featuring neural accelerators, alongside a "Dual 16-core Neural Engine." The top version of the chip has 170GB/s of memory bandwidth.

That dual 16-core neural engine means that there are indeed two neural engines. There's a connection between the engines, allowing them to run one model quickly across both, or two separate models independently.

The M5 Ultra is Apple's first chip using its UltraFusion technology to form a quad-die architecture (The M5 Max chips it is connecting both used two dies). The chip goes up to 36 cores on the CPU and up to 80 cores on the GPU, with 1.2TB/S of unified memory bandwidth, which Apple says is 50% higher than the M3 Ultra. Apple also claims the 36-core CPU with 12 super cores and 25 performance cores will offer "up to 1.25x higher single-threaded performance and up to 1.3x higher multithreaded performance than M3 Ultra."

The M5 Ultra has a 32-core neural engine, but this is different from the dual 16-core neural engine on the M6. Because the M5 Ultra uses a pair of M5 Max chips over UltraFusion, the 32 cores across the dies to run two models in parallel for increased performance.

Both M6 and M5 Ultra feature GPUs with neural accelerators and their fastest cores, marking a leap forward for Apple's graphics processors when it comes to AI.

Apple users who have been maxxing out previous versions of the Mac Mini will be capped at 32GB of memory on the Mac Mini with M6, like a choice the company made due to the component shortage that has been affecting the entire industry. If you want 64GB like the M4 Pro, you'll need the M5 Pro model. But the M5 Ultra in the Mac Studio won't have that problem, with Apple offering up to 512GB of unified memory on that chip.

M6 also features updates to hardware-accelerated ray tracing, dynamic caching, and the shader core, which the company claims will allow for faster rendering and higher frame rates in games.

Mac Mini and Mac Studio

The new Mac Mini and Mac Studio aren't seeing any design changes, though there are substantial internal changes. Both systems are available for pre-order today, but won't arrive to customers and in retail stores until September 22.

Besides the M6 version of the Mac Mini, there will also be versions with M5 Pro. Both models will be bumped to Wi-FI 7 and Bluetooth 6, as well as 2.5Gb Ethernet (up from 1Gb), with a 10Gb option available as an upgrade. The Mac Mini also supports genlock via USB-C, synchronizing displays and cameras to prevent video drift during broadcasts.

For those working with AI, Thunderbolt 5 on the M5 Pro Mac Mini will allow customers to run clusters for on-device models.

The Mac Mini with M6 will start at $899, while the M5 Pro option will begin at $1,699 (each drops $100 for education pricing). Given that the Mac Mini with M4 started at $599, it's seeing substantial price hikes here.

The Mac Studio will come with M5 Max or the new M5 Ultra chip, and Apple is positioning it for on-device AI. It will now offer up to six Thunderbolt 5 ports with support for as many as eight displays. Like the Mac Mini, it's also getting Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 with Apple's N1 chip, which debuted in the iPhone 17 lineup. Like the Mac Mini, the Mac Studio also supports genlock for perfectly synced video.

The Mac Studio with M5 Max will start at $2,499 ($2,299 with an education discount), and the M4 Ultra model will start at an eye-watering $5,499 ($5,099 with an education discount).

Both systems will be compatible with macOS 27 Golden Gate, including Siri AI and refinements to the Liquid Glass design introduced in macOS 26 Tahoe.

The Dutch National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC-NL) reported on August 12 that attackers are actively exploiting CVE-2026-65400, an authentication bypass in macOS Screen Sharing, to compromise Macs with port 5900 exposed to the Internet. In every case reported to the agency, attackers obtained root access and installed a Monero cryptocurrency miner. Apple patched the flaw on August 6 in an out-of-band update covering macOS Tahoe 26.6.1, Sequoia 15.7.9, and Sonoma 14.8.9, but the bug's official severity has since been rewritten, with CISA raising its CVSS score from 7.1 to 9.8 critical on August 14, now assessing the attack as automatable.

NCSC-NL first flagged the vulnerability in an advisory on August 7, a day after Apple's patch, urging organizations to update immediately. The August 12 revision added that public proof-of-concept code is now available and that active abuse had been observed on multiple internet-exposed systems.

Technical details of the bug were presented at last week's Black Hat conference, according to Ars Technica, alongside a video of the exploit in action. The root-level access attackers gained in the reported incidents matches the level of control researchers demonstrated in May, when they bypassed Memory Integrity Enforcement on Apple's M5 silicon with AI assistance.

NVD's change log for CVE-2026-65400 shows CISA initially scored the bug at 7.1 on August 6, using a vector that assumed an attacker needed low-level privileges and could achieve only partial impact. On August 14, the agency replaced that vector with one requiring no privileges and granting full compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and availability, raising the score to 9.8. A day later, CISA's decision record for the flaw flipped from "not automatable" to automatable, an assessment consistent with unattended Macs being rooted at scale for coin mining.

The flaw still isn't in CISA's Known Exploited Vulnerabilities catalog as of this writing. The same decision record also still lists exploitation as "none," despite the NCSC-NL report. Users who can't update immediately can turn Screen Sharing off under System Settings > General > Sharing.

Apple's advisory says an attacker on the network may be able to "authenticate to Screen Sharing without valid credentials," and describes the fix as improved state management during authentication. Screen Sharing is the VNC-based remote desktop service built into macOS, listening on TCP port 5900, which is disabled by default. The August 6 update comes just 10 days after Apple’s July 27 security round and fixes only this single CVE, representing the second Screen Sharing patch in a month. CVE-2026-43760, which required valid credentials to exploit, was fixed in the late-July releases.

Apple used to be among a few companies willing to buy memory and other components worth billions of dollars under long-term supply contracts at fixed prices. But the artificial intelligence era represents a new reality with new purchasing champions, marking a tectonic shift in the high-tech world. Alphabet, Microsoft, Meta, and Amazon have purchase commitments totaling about $2 trillion, and a significant portion of these commitments are for memory, according to estimates by analyst Claus Aasholm. While the commitments are approximate, span many years, and should be generally taken with a grain of salt, they still reflect the direction the industry is moving.

Combined purchasing commitments from the four major hyperscalers shown in the chart —Amazon, Alphabet, Meta, and Microsoft — reached nearly $2 trillion by Q2 2026, with Alphabet and Microsoft accounting for the overwhelming majority of the total.

The rapid expansion suggests several major findings. Firstly, the AI infrastructure race is accelerating, not stabilizing. Secondly, AI infrastructure investments are driven by a handful of hyperscale cloud service providers (CSPs) whose long-term procurement commitments now vastly exceed those of traditional consumer electronics companies such as Apple.

Thirdly, memory has become a strategic asset — perhaps a competition weapon — rather than a commodity. Fourthly, suppliers of memory — both 3D NAND and DRAM — are gaining pricing power. Finally, demand for memory will likely drive major capacity expansion at Micron, Samsung, and SK hynix, even though so far these companies have been exceptionally disciplined about their capacity investments.

Almost $2 trillion commitments

Google shows by far the most aggressive increase in purchasing commitments, rising from roughly $140 – $150 billion in Q3 2025 to around $811 billion by Q2 2026 (though these are total purchase commitments by Alphabet, not specifically memory purchase commitments), while Microsoft follows a similar trajectory and reaches approximately $678 billion in total obligations, which includes, but is not limited to memory.

Meta is also ramping commitments substantially to around $349.3 billion (again, these are total commitments), whereas Amazon increased its commitments more gradually to roughly $130 billion. By contrast, Apple — which makes the world's most popular smartphone, and which was the largest consumer of memory just a couple of years ago — remains almost flat throughout the period at approximately $57 billion (of which $56.2 billion is payable within 12 months). Apple's commitments fall well short of Nvidia's commitments of $119 billion.

Again, we are talking about total purchase commitments, which include foundry capacity, 3D NAND, and DRAM memory, but are not limited to them. Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft all build custom silicon and custom servers, so a significant portion of these commitments is to various EMS providers.

While $1.968 trillion of purchase commitments for memory and storage alone would be an absurdly large amount of money, a huge portion of these commitments consists of contract manufacturing obligations as well as memory chips. This suggests that the foundry, 3D NAND, and DRAM markets are entering a new phase in which hyperscalers are willing to make vastly larger forward purchasing commitments than traditional consumer-electronics companies, giving suppliers a strong incentive to prioritize customers prepared to secure future capacity on that scale.

Strategic assets

While Claus Aasholm's chart is explicitly dedicated to memory, it does describe total purchase commitments of tech giants, so the chart can reasonably be read as evidence that memory and capacity at TSMC, Samsung Foundry, and GlobalFoundries are becoming a strategic asset rather than merely another component to procure at the best available price.

AI infrastructure requires enormous quantities of AI accelerators, DRAM (including HBM), and 3D NAND. Meanwhile, the supply of high-end memory (HBM) is constrained by fab capacity at major DRAM makers, whereas the supply of AI accelerators is constrained by both wafer capacity and foundries and packaging capacity at foundries and their OSAT partners. As a result, hyperscaler CSPs have an incentive to lock in supply years ahead, even if doing so requires exceptionally large purchasing commitments.

That also changes the relationship between semiconductor suppliers and their customers. In theory, a company willing to guarantee hundreds of billions of dollars of future purchases can effectively help underwrite expansions of foundry, memory, and advanced packaging capacity and, in return, secure priority access to scarce products and future process technologies. In reality, TSMC can well afford capacity expansion using the money it gets from hyperscalers and give priority to its largest customers. In this environment, access to DDR5, HBM, and 3D NAND memory becomes part of the competitive advantage rather than merely a procurement exercise.

This is also what makes Apple's position in the graph interesting: its purchasing commitments barely move while those of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft surge. If the trend continues, Apple may remain one of the world's largest semiconductor buyers in absolute terms, but the question is whether it will be among the key customers that foundries, memory makers, and OSATs plan their future capacity expansions.

An inflection point

Perhaps the most interesting takeaway of the findings revealed by long-term purchase commitments is that the industry's center of gravity appears to have shifted.

During the smartphone era, foundries (well, TSMC has won) and memory suppliers often competed aggressively for Apple's business because of its enormous purchasing power. Today, hyperscalers building AI infrastructure are making purchasing commitments that dwarf those of traditional CE companies like Apple, which may well represent a strategic inflection point akin to the one Andy Grove described in his 'Only the Paranoid Survive' book.

Will this tectonic shift result in prioritization of customers capable of enabling future capacity expansions through massive long-term purchase agreements, or will foundries and memory makers remain more or less disciplined with their capacity expansions so as not to lose a lot when demand declines? This is a question that has yet to be asked.

In any case, the AI megatrend has transformed semiconductors — from foundries to advanced packaging and from DDR5 to HBM4 — into strategic assets that can no longer be treated as ordinary components procured on demand. And this is something that will continue in the long run.

20 years ago today, Steve Jobs took to the Apple WWDC stage to unveil the first-ever Mac Pro desktop computer. As well as marking the beginning of a whole new Mac line, this was the first Apple workstation desktop to transition from PowerPC to Intel x86. Apple had already introduced Intel-powered versions of its iMac, Mac Mini, and MacBook at the start of 2006; now it was replacing the mighty PowerMac G5 tower.

While readers might remember most clearly, and even fondly, Intel-era Mac Pro computers like the ‘trash can’ or the ‘cheese grater,’ the first Mac Pro with an x86 chip looked almost the same as its G5 ancestor.

Of course, the Apple WWDC presentation was all about the new processors, and the new machine was crowned the performance king, claimed to “deliver up to twice the performance of the Power Mac G5 Quad.” The top configuration would come with two new dual-core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months — 210 days to be exact,” boasted Apple CEO Steve Jobs. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

Key specs of the first Mac Pro were:

• Two Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors running up to 3.0 GHz, each with 4MB of shared L2 cache and independent 1.33 GHz front-side buses
• Nvidia GeForce 7300 GT with 256MB GDDR3, configurable up to ATI Radeon X1900 XT and the Nvidia Quadro FX 4500, both with 512MB of video memory
• 1GB of DDR2-667 fully buffered memory, expandable to 16GB
• 250GB HDD, expandable to 2TB using the four bays
• 16x SuperDrive with double-layer support (DVD±R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), with an extra bay for two ODDs
• 2x Gigabit Ethernet, Optional Wi-Fi 4, Optional 56k V.92 USB modem, Optional Bluetooth 2.0+EDR
• 5x USB 2.0 ports, 2x FireWire 800 ports, 2x FireWire 400 ports, various audio I/O
• 4× PCIe 1.0 slots, one double–wide for the best graphics cards of the time
• Compatible with Mac OS X Tiger at launch, supported to 10.6 Snow Leopard

Three processor choices were available at release in early 2007. As well as the top-end model with a pair of dual-core Core Xeon 5160 CPUs running at 3.0 GHz, there was a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz), and a Core Xeon 5130 x2 (2.0 GHz) model. If an off-the-peg model wasn't quite right, Apple proudly claimed the online configurator allowed for "more than 4.9 million possible configurations."

To give you some pricing context, Apple released the Mac Pro with a Core Xeon 5150 x2 (2.66 GHz) and base specs bullet-pointed above for $2,499, including a Mighty Mouse and Apple Keyboard.

Apple’s last Mac Pro was a 2023 model with the M2 Ultra chip. Then, in March this year, Apple confirmed there would be no future revisions of this desktop workstation flagship. The line had been effectively replaced by the Mac Studio, as a key reason for the Mac Pro to exist (upgradeability via PCIe expansion) had been sidelined by Thunderbolt 5.

Apple reportedly has around $1 billion in "processor wafers on the shelves awaiting packaging" amid ongoing memory shortages, putting pressure on the firm as it nears the launch of the iPhone 18. Tim Culpan of Culpium says Apple is "scrambling" for memory supply ahead of release, working with suppliers to get memory ready so it can finish packaging the A20 Pro and C2 chips that are reportedly inside the iPhone 18 lineup.

It's an interesting peek behind the curtain of the current supply chain limitations, which reach beyond simply DRAM chips. With fully-integrated SoCs across both desktop and mobile, Apple is uniquely vulnerable to supply chain limitations, not only in DRAM supply, but also in packaging capacity to bring together DRAM chips with processor wafers.

According to Culpan, Apple primarily sources DRAM from Micron, with smaller engagements from SK Hynix and Samsung. Micron (along with the other major memory players) has reportedly sold capacity for DRAM and HBM through 2027. A flurry of long-term agreements (LTAs) have cropped up over the past several months, guaranteeing supply to certain companies for several years.

The A20 Pro is the first chip to use TSMC's N2 process, and it has been progressing well, with TSMC reportedly sitting on around $1 billion worth of Apple wafers awaiting packaging with DRAM. Packaging happens with TSMC's new Wafer-Level Multi-Chip Module (WMCM) process, according to Culpan, which is similar to the CoWoS packaging but for mobile parts.

Culpan reports that "Apple and its assemblers remain confident that they can meet initial demand," but DRAM shortages could put pressure on shipments past the initial launch. Apple reportedly plans to ship around 200 million iPhone 18 units across the lineup throughout the device's lifespan. The iPhone 17 range saw record shipments last year, surpassing 245 million devices shipped in 2025.

Apple is one of several companies reportedly looking to alternative suppliers for DRAM, namely China's CXMT. The Chinese memory supplier has become a hot topic in the halls of the U.S. government over the past several weeks, with Apple reportedly lobbying for clearance as the government weighs the option to ban CXMT.

Apple and OpenAI are heading to court in a clash of two of the world's largest and most well-funded companies. With teams of lawyers and bottomless pockets to fund them, these two industry titans are squaring off over claims of theft of trade secrets. Apple is asking the courts to block its former employees from revealing information to their new employer and limit OpenAI's development of an AI device based on Apple technology. Unsurprisingly, OpenAI denies any wrongdoing and is asking the judge not to disrupt its business activities.

"Apple's getting this wrong" is the name of the blog post OpenAI posted in response to Apple's lawsuit. Although it begins by calling Apple one of the greatest companies of all time, it goes on to call the legal action "sad," suggests Apple mixed up Asian employee names, and doesn't want its trade secrets anyway.

OpenAI went on to publish text message chains and email correspondence, suggesting it's keen to be tried in the court of public opinion more than any other setting.

Hey, that's mine!

Apple alleges that as many as 13 of its former employees may have passed along sensitive trade secrets to OpenAI, including sharing details of unannounced products and sharing screenshots of confidential Apple documents. This is an expansion of its original claims from July, when it alleged two former employees may have shared confidential information with OpenAI. It has now filed a concurrent motion seeking expedited discovery, demanded that two former employees, Chang Liu and Tang Yew Tan, sit for depositions, as well as key OpenAI employees and representatives of OpenAI's hardware division, io Products.

Apple is also asking for a preliminary injunction, which would bar former employees from accessing, acquiring, or disclosing any confidential information about the company as the case proceeds.

Considering a case of this magnitude, between two companies with effectively infinite money to spend protecting themselves, that could take months or years to resolve, that preliminary injunction is key and could mean the lawsuit does enough damage to be effective for Apple's goals.

Regardless, OpenAI is in full revolt over the process and has posted not only a damning denial of all claims, but some evidence it feels exonerates its position, too.

Getting ahead of the competition

The cynical argument for this lawsuit is that it means the two companies are battling it out in a courtroom instead of in the consumer retail space. Apple is first and foremost a consumer device company, and to date, OpenAI hasn't competed there. But it's planning to, and its various hires from Apple and elsewhere, including buying up Jony Ive's hardware company, suggest it's going to release something with the kind of smart consumer focus that is typically Apple's bread and butter.

Apple might have been a little late to the AI game, but that's played to its advantage. But if OpenAI were to use its strong mindshare, deep pockets, and advanced AI model design and inferencing compute base to offer something targeting mainstream consumers, it's stepping on Apple's toes. This lawsuit could be a way to stop that in its tracks.

That's not to say the lawsuit may not have merit. The entire AI industry has used aggressively expensive hiring practices to try to get ahead. Meta spent $15 billion on getting Alexandr Wang and ScaleAI's data, and AI companies are reportedly hounding promising students years ahead of graduation to lock them into future contracts.

If you're building a smart consumer device, though? Grabbing ex- or even current Apple employees wouldn't be a bad way to do it. Especially if they brought along information on unannounced Apple products that may or may not be related to an AI consumer device.

First to market matters, too. Although Apple hasn't shown any AI-first standalone devices yet, if it were planning to, slowing OpenAI down with these injunctions might be enough to let it catch up or even get ahead.

Clock's ticking

For now, the lawsuit is very much he-said, she-said. Both companies have enough money and resources to make this fight messy, but what they don't necessarily have is time. Especially OpenAI. It's on the hook for hundreds of billions in compute investment, has just cut the price of some of its models, and has yet to post anything close to a profitable quarter.

Apple isn't quite so constrained, but is also seeing its traditional consumer base eaten by rapidly appreciating electronics costs. Apple already sells its products at a premium. But what can it do if prices for components push its products out of the luxury affordable into the truly unaffordable?

That may not happen, but it's a future it has to consider as AI, and the money spent on its promised future continues to have an outsized impact on global economies. The outcome of this lawsuit is likely to leave a mark, too.

Pick up an Apple MacBook Pro 14 with M4 Pro chip and a hefty 48GB of RAM for $2,999, thanks to a nice $900 discount at Best Buy. This top-spec MacBook Pro may feature the older M4 Pro chip, but it still packs hefty memory, storage, and performance specs. If you need a laptop with ample RAM for your productivity applications, this deal could be of interest to you.

● Check out this deal at Best Buy

This 14-inch MacBook Pro uses the Apple M4 Pro chip with 14 cores for CPU tasks and 20 cores for GPU operations. This model comes stacked with 48GB of unified memory and a 2TB SSD. The screen on the MacBook Pro features a Liquid Retina XDR nano-texture display with up to 1600 nits peak brightness, one of the brightest and best-looking screens we had reviewed at the time of testing, helping to earn this M4 Pro laptop an Editor's Choice award in our review.

We tested the 14-inch MacBook Pro M4 in November, 2024. It was the first laptop we tested with Apple's M4 chip. The SKU of the laptop we tested was less powerful than the model we are featuring today, featuring only 16GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage compared to the 48GB and 2TB in this model.

Apple's M4 chip showed strong performance on benchmarks, easily competing with the competition in both single and multicore workloads. On Geekbench, the new Mac achieved a single-core score of 3,807 and a multi-core score of 15,114.

This particular model of the MacBook Pro 14 with M4 Pro does lean on the expensive side, even when discounted to $2,999, but that's because it is stacked with a massive amount of RAM and a larger SSD, which Apple does charge a premium for. As this is unified memory and soldered to the mobo, there is no upgrade path later down the line, so if you want a laptop with a larger amount of memory, then you need to choose the amount you want at the point of purchase.

Apple filed a lawsuit against OpenAI in July, alleging that the latter stole trade secrets through former Apple employees. The startup has finally publicly responded to the lawsuit today, posting a blog post on its website titled, “Apple is getting this wrong.”

“Apple is one of the greatest companies of all time, and built a reputation for obsessing over the smallest details. This careless, aggressive and oddly personal lawsuit sadly doesn’t live up to that reputation,” the company said in its blog post. It also added, “Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction is both based on false information and completely unnecessary because we do not have, nor want, any of their trade secrets.”

The case names OpenAI technical staff Chang Liu, chief hardware officer Tang Tan, OpenAI, and io Products as defendants. Liu worked as a senior electrical engineer at Apple, while Tan was its former vice president of product design for the iPhone, AirPods, and the Apple Watch. Interestingly, io Products, which was acquired by OpenAI last year, was founded by Tan alongside former Apple Chief Design Officer Jony Ive and other former Apple heavyweights.

The tech giant requested a preliminary injunction to stop the accused from accessing, acquiring, using, or disclosing the alleged stolen trade secrets. Cupertino said in its filing, “Apple will be irreparably harmed absent a preliminary injunction.”

OpenAI publicly responded to this legal request through its blog post, pointing out that many of its allegations were actually based on miscommunications and false information, and that this move is completely unnecessary. But whether what the AI tech giant claims is true or not, its research and operations on consumer hardware would likely be impaired if the judge grants Apple’s request.

Although OpenAI’s primary product is ChatGPT and its other LLM-powered services, it’s been rumored that it’s also working on AI-powered hardware. Its first product is expected to be some sort of portable smart speaker with built-in cameras and sensors. Although this isn’t an iPhone replacement, like the botched Humane AI Pin, some experts say this move threatens Apple’s standing as the biggest consumer electronics company on the planet. This is especially true as it still lags behind other tech giants when it comes to artificial intelligence, even though AI enthusiasts love using Apple silicon with its Unified Memory architecture.

Apple’s preliminary injunction is just the opening stages of what might be an epic showdown between two tech giants. It will likely take months (or even years) before this case reaches a judgment or a settlement, meaning a preliminary injunction will definitely have a massive impact on OpenAI’s hardware dreams.

Apple will pay even more for memory in the September quarter than it did in the June quarter, CEO Tim Cook told analysts on the company's earnings call on July 30, after memory costs accounted for more than the entire sequential decline in Apple's adjusted gross margin. Cook, speaking from Cupertino on his final call before John Ternus takes over as CEO, called the market "a hundred-year flood on the memory pricing." Apple's consolidated financial statements for the quarter ended June 27 put inventories at $11.09 billion, up 87% year over year, with $5.46 billion of cash consumed building that position over nine months. CFO Kevan Parekh said the benefit Apple gets from that carry-in inventory shrinks after September.

Apple held $5.93 billion of inventory at the end of June 2025 and $5.72 billion at its September fiscal year end, so the $11.09 billion reported for June 27 is a 94% increase in nine months. The cash flow statement puts the same movement at $5.46 billion consumed by inventories over those nine months, against a $1.22 billion release in the year-ago period. Measured against quarterly cost of sales of $54.65 billion, the June position works out to roughly 18.5 days of inventory, up from about 10.7 days a year earlier. Apple has run one of the leanest working capital positions in consumer electronics for two decades, but that has now been flipped on its head.

Parekh told analysts the carry-in inventory partially offset memory costs in the June quarter and will do so again in September, with a decreasing benefit beyond that. Cook said market pricing for memory keeps rising past September and that the effect on Apple's business could grow. Erik Woodring of Morgan Stanley asked whether Apple intends to pursue multi-year long-term agreements with suppliers at pre-agreed prices. Cook answered the second half of the question, on pricing philosophy, and left the agreements question alone.

Company gross margin was 49.3% in the March quarter and 48.1% in June, once the roughly two percentage points of tariff refunds come out, Parekh said, and more than 100% of that 120 basis point decline is explained by memory costs. Apple guided September gross margin to 47% to 48%, including about one percentage point of tariff refunds, putting the adjusted midpoint near 46.5%, and Parekh attributed that step down to the same dynamic. Foreign exchange was a factor in the June quarter but not the main one.

The cost of sales for products rose 8.1% year over year to $47.15 billion, while product revenue increased 18.1% to $78.68 billion, which lifted product gross margin to 40.1% from 34.5%. The Mac and iPad price increases that came in June, the tariff refunds, and the stockpile together more than covered the memory increase in the reported quarter. On the other side of the trade, SK hynix ran a 76% operating margin over the same three months on revenue of 79.32 trillion won and operating profit of 60.54 trillion won, the company said recently, and guided third-quarter DRAM bit shipments up only about 10% sequentially. TrendForce expects conventional DRAM contract prices to rise a further 13% to 18% in the third quarter.

Cook, asked whether Apple's push for sourcing flexibility is about securing volume or protecting its price points, said the DRAM market has three suppliers and that more of them would help on the supply side and perhaps on pricing, then corrected himself to say the pricing effect is unclear. He said Apple is "evaluating all options." The fourth supplier available to him is CXMT, which the Financial Times reported in July that Apple has begun testing DRAM for devices sold in China while lobbying Washington for clearance to use its parts more broadly. Representatives John Moolenaar and George Whitesides wrote to Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick earlier this month, asking for purchases from CXMT and YMTC to be barred outright, including through allied supply chains. CXMT listed on Shanghai's STAR Market in July.

The unit supply constraints Apple flagged for the September quarter are a separate problem from memory pricing. Cook attributed them to the availability of the advanced process nodes Apple's SoCs are built on, after iPhone and Mac demand ran ahead of the company's plan, and said they'll hit iPhone, Mac, and iPad in September, against Mac primarily in the June quarter. Apple guided September revenue growth of 9% to 11% year over year, down from 16% in the previous quarter.

Following price hikes on the Mac and iPad due to the ongoing memory and storage crisis, Apple has announced a new leasing program, Apple Upgrade. The new offering will be "provided" by Klarna and available in Apple Stores in the U.S., as well as the Apple Store online and the Apple Store app.

There will be 24- and 36-month leasing options for the Mac and iPad, while the iPhone and Watch will have 12- and 24-month options.

Mac leases will start at $24.99 per month, which includes the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, iMac, and Mac Studio. Apple's announcement leaves out its cheapest systems, the MacBook Neo and Mac Mini.

iPad leases start at $11.99 per month and include the iPad Mini, iPad Air, and iPad Pro, but not the base-level vanilla iPad.

It's a similar pattern for the Apple Watch, with leases starting at $11.99 but leaving out the Apple Watch SE 3. But the iPhone lineup (leases start at $17.99) doesn't have any exceptions, including the iPhone 17, 17e, and 17 Pro and Pro Max, and iPhone Air.

These are not purchases or loans. Customers can sign up for Klarna leases in-store or online (including a soft credit inquiry that doesn't affect your credit score). At the end of a lease, you can return your device and start a new lease to upgrade, purchase the device with a "one-time payment," or return the device and exit the lease entirely.

Unlike the iPhone Upgrade Program, Apple Upgrade leases don't include AppleCare, but Apple will let you buy a subscription. AppleCare also. saw some price hikes, likely because the components that are serviced under the extended service program are more expensive.

In fact, Apple Upgrade will replace the iPhone Upgrade Program in the United States, likely upsetting some diehard fans. Apple will allow those customers to lease a device through Klarna, buy the phone outright, or finance with monthly installments on their Apple Card. As always, there's carrier financing for phones.

Following unprecedented price hikes on the Mac and iPad, Apple is now working on a leasing program to alleviate customers during the AI rush. According to a new Bloomberg report, the program is called "Apple Upgrade" and will allow you to lease a midrange or high-end device for up to 36 months, at the end of which you can choose to keep it. Apple is purportedly partnering with Klarna on the service.

Apple Upgrade will reportedly be a subscription service with monthly payments spanning across 24 months for iPhone and Apple Watch, or 36 months for Mac and iPad, including the Pro models. According to the report, Entry-level hardware like the MacBook Neo is not included in this program. Education or business discounts are also excluded; Apple is explicitly targeting regular consumers who've been affected by the ongoing component crisis.

According to Mark Gurman, customers will be subject to a soft credit check and only be approved for the program after passing it. The program will be available both in-person at physical Apple Store locations and online on Apple's website. At first, it will only be available in the United States, but we don't have any info on whether Apple Upgrade will expand beyond the region later.

As mentioned, Klarna is reported to be the official broker between Apple and the customer. The leasing structure would closely follow standard practice, where you can choose to keep the asset at the end after paying a residual fee, or return it, in which case you were just renting the hardware. Customers will also reportedly have the option to upgrade to a newer model if they finish their payments early.

For instance, if you leased an iPhone 17 Pro Max but Apple announced the 18 Pro Max a few months later, you could simply get the new device early if the old one was already paid off. Some of you will know that Apple already has an upgrade program for iPhone, but this one is different since it expands to Mac, iPad, and other accessories, and, more importantly, it doesn't come with AppleCare.

In fact, Bloomberg says Apple will eventually phase out the iPhone Upgrade program in favor of Apple Upgrade as a whole. New enrollments for standard financing through the Apple Card will also reportedly be discontinued. The company will advertise lower monthly payments to attract customers, which will ultimately allow it to keep a stable income during one of the most turbulent consumer tech eras the world has ever seen.

TSMC intends to raise base quotes on advanced chip production services by up to 10%, according to Nikkei, which cites people with knowledge of the matter. The price hike reflects increased demand for sophisticated processors by the AI sector, raising costs of tools and materials, as well as amplified investments in new production capacities.

For advanced process technologies — which TSMC considers 7nm-class and below — TSMC plans to raise baseline prices by 5% to 10%, depending on the particular production node and customer, the report claims. Furthermore, customers that need additional HPC chip capacity beyond their original volume requirements will reportedly have to pay another 10% to 15% premium on top of the standard increase, which means that some services will get a price hike of around 25%, if the report is accurate.

TSMC also intends to increase prices for mature manufacturing technologies, including its 12nm, 16nm, and 28nm-class nodes as well as other legacy fabrication technologies, the report claims. Increases could reach 10%, although certain nodes will reportedly see smaller adjustments, according to Nikkei.

Advanced technologies generated around 77% of the foundry's revenue in Q2 2026, whereas mature nodes accounted for 23%, which essentially means that TSMC is hiking prices on all of its services.

The company reportedly began discussing the new pricing with customers around June and completed negotiations in July. Rather than introducing higher rates immediately, TSMC opted to implement them from the beginning of 2027 to give clients like Apple, AMD, Nvidia, and MediaTek additional time to accommodate the changes and adjust their prices accordingly.

Since TSMC produces the lion's share of advanced processors for AI, HPC, networking, and smartphone applications, its price hikes will inevitably create a ripple effect in the industry and will make almost all electronics more expensive.

TSMC is not alone in raising prices these days. Vanguard International Semiconductor has also raised prices, while UMC began implementing increases in July. Also, memory makers have increased prices significantly, making TSMC management jealous. Intel also recently increased prices of its client and data center CPUs, citing market demand.

"I am really jealous about memory companies' 86% gross margin," said C.C. Wei, chief executive of TSMC, during the company's earnings call with financial analysts and investors. "86% [margin at memory makers] – 68% [margin at TSMC], I will be happy about that."

TSMC rarely comments on its prices to a large degree because they vary based on volumes and relationship with a particular client. Nonetheless, the head of the company stressed that the company has no intentions to increase prices suddenly or dramatically.

"So we do not suddenly increase our price by which I like to have 4x or 5x," Wei said. "You cannot survive for that kind of... for your customer to survive for that kind of price increase. So we earn our value, and we make sure that our profit, our gross margin, is enough for our long-term sustaining expansion, that is to the benefit of my customers and TSMC also, that is our philosophy."

There's no denying how good the build quality and construction of Apple's MacBook Pro lineup are. They are what every other high-end laptop manufacturer tries to emulate, which lets Apple charge a very high price for the privilege of owning one. If you're looking for a high-performance laptop for coding, video production, or even some light LLM/AI tasks, then this deal on the 14-inch Apple MacBook Pro with M5 chip for $2,699 is worth a look. B&H Photo has slashed $400 off the $3,099 list price to bring it down to this price, and give you the chance to pick up a powerful laptop with 48GB of memory.

● Check out this deal at B&H Photo

This 14-inch MacBook Pro uses the latest M5 Pro chip, with a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU with a Neural Accelerator in each core, delivering amazing processing power in a small package. This model sports a hefty 48GB of unified RAM, a 1TB SSD for storage, and a crisp 3024 x 1964-pixel Liquid Retina XDR display (1600 nits peak HDR brightness), with superb battery life (up to 24 hours).

Other features include a 12MP Center Stage camera with Desk View support, an in-house N1 networking chip that combines Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, an SDXC Slot, Thunderbolt 5, and a MagSafe 3 connector.

We had the chance to review the MacBook Pro 14-Inch and found that the M5 chip delivers solid performance gains over its M4 predecessor. The SSD performance has greatly improved, and the rocking speaker system is still a cut above similar laptops from competitors. In our benchmark testing, the MacBook Pro's M5 CPU delivered between a 10 to 20% improvement over the prior generation's M4 chip in CPU performance.

If the price tag of $2,699 and 48GB of RAM are a little too high for your tastes, you can also pick up the same 14-inch MacBook Pro with M5 Pro chip, but with 24GB of RAM for $2,299, with the same hardware and features as our main deal.

If you're looking for more savings, check out our Best PC Hardware deals for a range of products, or dive deeper into our specialized SSD and Storage Deals, Hard Drive Deals, Gaming Monitor Deals, Graphics Card Deals, Gaming Chair, Best Wi-Fi Routers, Best Motherboard, or CPU Deals pages.

You can also join the Tom's Hardware deals Discord for up-to-the-minute hardware deals.

Apple's planned M7 Ultra chip is being designed to support up to 1.5 TB of unified memory and to push AI performance toward the class of Nvidia's Blackwell accelerators, according to a new Bloomberg report published by Mark Gurman. But whether the lofty top memory config can ship at all will depend on the state of the memory market, and the part isn't expected until 2028. The same report says Apple has compressed its Mac silicon timeline, taping out the M7 roughly six months after the M6.

We've already heard that Apple plans to release a base M6 chip this fall for entry-level Macs, then skip the Pro, Max, and Ultra versions of that generation and move straight to the M7 line. However, Gurman now reckons that we'll see a base M7 in the first half of 2027, M7 Pro and M7 Max at the end of 2027, and the M7 Ultra in 2028. Apple reportedly began taping out the M7 about six months after it started the same process for the M6, which is what has enabled the company to pull the schedule forward.

The 1.5 TB target for the M7 Ultra is roughly twice the capacity Apple has planned for the M5 Ultra, per Gurman, who tied the configuration directly to memory availability. Apple already pulled the 128GB Mac Studio this year over supply constraints as DRAM prices climbed, and a 1.5 TB part would call for far more of the same scarce, high-cost memory.

Apple's current M3 Ultra already reaches 819 GB/s of memory bandwidth by fusing two Max dies, and it's the Ultra tier, not the base chips, that carries the heaviest local-AI workloads. Gurman describes the M7 Ultra as a large step up in AI performance rather than stated parity with Nvidia's data-center silicon. "I'm told the processor dramatically upgrades AI performance, bringing it closer to the class of dedicated AI accelerators such as Nvidia Corp.'s Blackwell," Gurman wrote in his report.

Apple is also preparing an AI server built on the M5 Ultra under the code name J246 for deployment soon, with a second server chip based on the M7 Ultra planned for 2029, according to the report. The 2028 generation, which includes an M8 chip code-named Soko and a high-end Mac part called Cardinal, moves to a 1.4nm process. That aligns with TSMC's A14 node, which the foundry has scheduled for mass production in the second half of 2028.

None of the dates or specifications have been confirmed by Apple.

Sotheby’s is preparing a blockbuster History of Science & Technology sale packed with amazing artifacts and collectors’ items. While there are many items that could justify being singled out, the famous auction house has chosen to spotlight a working sample of the Apple-1 computer serial number 01-0033 (1976) on its YouTube channel. Remember this first 50 hand-built-by-Wozniak batch has a place in history as the first commercial Apple computers ever sold.

In the video above you can see Harry Sadler, the original and current owner of the Apple-1 computer up for auction, preparing, booting and demonstrating this ancient ‘pre-built.’ Sadler underlines that his rare example was bought from the Byte Shop in 1976. While he ended up working in IT, Sadler said that it was mainly a hobbyist machine, for experimenting, tinkering with BASIC, and so on.

Interesting, Sadler took his Apple-1 back to the Byte Shop after a couple of weeks to get a minor repair done. There he met Steve Jobs and inquired about vacancies at Apple Computer. Nothing came of that because of admitted inexperience, but in 2010 Steve Jobs visited and bought the Siri Inc. startup, where Sadler was the 10^th employee. So, Sadler did actually end up working for Apple.

The estimate for this machine is $300,000 - $500,000. It comes with original accessories like a cassette deck and keyboard, vintage monitor. There’s also an original Apple-1 Operation Manual, In-house copy of Apple Basic Manual, Apple-1 Cassette Interface Manual, Microchess manual, and various software on cassettes

I think this is rather high, as one of the rare wooden case models known as the ‘Moore Apple-1’ only achieved $475,000 (w/BP) for its client last year.

Other notable computers in the sale

This Sotheby’s sale has quite a few other notable computers among the tech artifacts listed. For example, there’s the Steve Jobs stage-used NeXT Computer from the ‘NeXT Introduction’ in 1988, and a similar model for European demos. Then there’s a Mark-8 minicomputer from 1974, a MITS Altair 8800 computer from 1974, as well as some complete sealed vintage Mac systems from early on in Apple’s history.

On the more scientific side of things, there’s lots of interesting artifacts associated with, owned, or used by iconic individuals like Thomas Alva Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, Richard Feynman, and even Albert Einstein.

The History of Science & Technology takes place on July 15, starting at 14:00 EDT live in Sotheby’s saleroom at 945 Madison Avenue in New York.

Apple filed a federal lawsuit against OpenAI on Friday, accusing the AI company and its chief hardware officer of stealing its trade secrets.

"OpenAI and its cohorts, led at least in part by former Apple employees, have recruited candidates from Apple, extracted their knowledge of Apple’s sensitive and confidential information, and then continued to exploit that knowledge once they arrived," the complaint reads. "As a result, OpenAI has misappropriated Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information in a variety of ways."

The suit, filed in the Northern District of California, names OpenAI technical staff member Chang Liu, chief hardware officer Tang Tan, OpenAI, and io Products as defendants. The last of that group is notable because it was founded by Tan in collaboration with former Apple design head Jony Ive, Evans Hankey (Ive's successor at Apple), and former Apple designer Scott Cannon. Notably, the complaint seems to attempt to avoid naming the founders, though Ive's name is cited in a URL.

Tan previously served as a vice president of product design at Apple, working on the iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch. Liu served at Apple as a senior electrical engineer.

In the complaint, Apple alleges that it reached out to OpenAI in February with concerns, but that OpenAI did not respond. Apple claims that Tan attempted to gain secrets from Apple employees, including asking prospective job candidates to bring components for "show and tell" sessions and used his knowledge of the company to squeeze more information out of candidates. The suit claims that Liu never returned a company laptop, and used an authentication bug to access Apple files.

Apple also claims that OpenAI told incoming employees how to leave their former job, suggesting they stay as long as possible and not disclose their former employer in order to continue to access confidential information.

"At every level, from members of its Technical Staff to its Chief Hardware Officer, and in coordination with business partners, OpenAI has been stealing Apple’s trade secrets and confidential information," the suit reads. "As a natural result, OpenAI’s nascent hardware business now rests on the shakiest of foundations, rotten to its core by its illegal reliance on misappropriated trade secrets."

OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Tom's Hardware. Apple's lawsuit claims that over 400 former Apple employees currently work at OpenAI.

Apple is rumored to be working on a number of AI-powered hardware projects, including AirPods with cameras, a pendant, and home robots. It's less clear what hardware OpenAI may be working on, though The Information suggested the company has a HomePod-style smart speaker in the works.

Apple is requesting a jury trial, damages, attorney fees, and orders that the OpenAI may not use Apple's trade secrets, among other injunctions.

In May, Bloomberg reported that OpenAI was considering legal action against Apple because it expected deeper integration and more users from ChatGPT features built into iOS.

If the trial does go to court, it's sure to be a dramatic one, potentially dragging several former high-level Apple employees into testimony through discovery and testimony.The trial, Apple Inc. v. Liu et al, is case 5:26-cv-07078 in the United States District Court in Southern California.

As the ongoing component crisis worsens, even the biggest companies are no longer shielded. Apple, in a historic first, raised prices on a fleet of its products yesterday, saying it could no longer protect its customers from the soaring memory and storage costs. Now, the Financial Times is reporting that Apple is trying to lobby the U.S. government to secure official clearance to buy (cheaper) memory from China's CXMT.

CXMT is not outright banned by the White House, as it's not on the Defense Department's "Entity List," which prohibits Chinese companies entirely on national security grounds. Instead, it's listed in the 1260H list, which still designates it as a Chinese military company, and doing business with it would cause major reputational damage to an American company.

Apple has apparently been reaching out to its allies in Washington to persuade the government to allow it to purchase RAM from CXMT. Unlike Micron, Samsung, and SK Hynix — the coalition controlling 90% of the world's DRAM — CXMT has no real incentive to chase AI buildouts. It can therefore provide RAM at much more reasonable prices without compromising performance.

Recently, Corsair Vengeance DDR5 sticks from China were found to use CXMT modules underneath, signaling the company's entry into the mainstream. That was a 6,000 MT/s CL30 kit, so it seems CXMT certainly has the ability to produce modern silicon at a scale sufficient for a major PC vendor like Corsair. OEMs such as Dell and HP are also adopting Chinese-made RAM for those region-bound systems.

Before that, CXMT has already demonstrated its capabilities for cutting-edge DRAM manufacturing; late last year, it showed off production-ready DDR5-8000 and LPDDR5X-10667 modules. Volume is another issue entirely, but Beijing has certainly figured out how to make performant RAM. If a buyer like Apple were to enter the picture now, even just for the Chinese market, it would completely shift the paradigm.

Of course, such a precedent is subject to approval, and high-ranking officials seem adamant against it. John Moolenaar, the chairman of the House China committee, has warned that Apple partnering "with a Chinese military company would be a grave mistake." He told Financial Times that it's imperative for America not to rely on foreign supply chains for something as critical as DRAM.

Apple is in a dire situation itself, having lost $265 billion off its market cap the day it announced price hikes on MacBooks and iPads. In an uncharacteristic move, Tim Cook even admitted he'd never seen anything like this in his 40+ year stint. The Cupertino giant has always enjoyed comfortable margins on memory and storage upgrades, but it can no longer dam the "hundred-year flood."

"Trump can show the courage to keep American memory alive for our security and our competitiveness or pour it down the drain so Tim Cook can squeeze out a few more points of margin," remarked an ex-official. Another security expert said it wouldn't make sense for the administration to fiercely protect critical earths and rare minerals, while suddenly conceding in the AI race (which is the reason behind the RAMpocalypse).

Whether Apple's efforts in Washington succeed or not is also predicated on the changing of the guard, since Tim Cook will hand over the baton to John Ternus come September — a logistics wizard leaving at perhaps the most decisive moment he was needed. The AI boom is here to stay, and so is the component crisis for now, so it remains to be seen how the company navigates the oncoming challenges.

Apple will release a base M6 chip for entry-level Macs this year but skip the Pro and Max versions of that generation, jumping instead to an accelerated M7 family built around on-device AI, according to a report from Bloomberg. It’s the first time since the M1 that a generation would arrive without higher-end variants, and it pulls the M7 forward by as much as six months, with Pro and Max parts now due in late 2027 and an Ultra in 2028.

The M6, codenamed Komodo, is set for entry-level machines, including a refreshed 14-inch MacBook Pro, which has seen unprecedented price rises to $1,999. According to the report, which quotes individuals who asked not to be named, it reaches around 200 GB/s of memory bandwidth against 153 GB/s on the M5, with a redesigned GPU carrying up to 12 cores, up from 10. Every family from the M1 through the M5 paired its base silicon with Pro and Max derivatives, and three of them also gained an Ultra.

The base M7, codenamed Delos, targets roughly 240 GB/s and could come in the first half of 2027, with the Pro, Max, and Ultra parts grouped internally under the Andros codename. Apple is fast-tracking the line to meet demand for on-device AI and heavier graphics work. Apple has declined to comment, and none of the specifications or dates have been confirmed by the company.

Memory bandwidth dictates how fast a chip can move the large data blocks, the main bottleneck for AI inference, and the climb from 153 GB/s to 200 GB/s to a planned 240 GB/s is a roughly 56% bandwidth increase from M5 to base M7. Those are figures for the base parts. The current M3 Ultra already delivers up to 819 GB/s by fusing two Max dies, which is why the high-end tiers, not the base chips, carry the heaviest local-AI workloads. The M6 also reportedly pairs an upgraded Neural Engine with faster GPU and CPU cores.

Apple is still planning to release an M5 Ultra this year, codenamed Sotra, with around 36 CPU cores, 80 GPU cores, and tested support for up to 768GB of unified memory. It would refresh a Mac Studio that currently runs the M3 Ultra, after Apple skipped an M4 Ultra altogether.

That 768 GB ceiling sits against a current M3 Ultra Mac Studio capped at 96 GB, after Apple pulled its 512 GB tier and raised the 96 GB-to-256 GB upgrade to $2,000, then dropped the 128GB option as well. Whether the highest M5 Ultra memory tiers reach buyers depends on supply constraints; those haven’t eased and are unlikely to in the near future.

Apple raised prices across its Mac and iPad lines on Thursday, part of a crunch that outgoing CEO Tim Cook called a “hundred-year flood” in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, blaming AI server demand for pulling high-bandwidth memory away from consumer hardware.

Apple has just announced that it has hiked prices for its line-up of MacBooks and iPads. MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models are expected to see prices rise by up to $400 in some cases, while the budget-friendly MacBook Neo is expected to see its MSRP rise by $100, from $599 to $699.

Luckily, we're in Amazon Prime Day sales week, and discounts are live on Amazon for several Apple MacBooks from 2026 and 2025. Now really might be your last chance to secure a decent deal on a new MacBook before Apple's new pricing structure filters down, as we'll be expecting tech retailers (including Amazon) to raise prices to match Apple's own soon enough.

● Check out these Apple deals at Amazon

These deals won't be around for long, either. With price rises now confirmed, those thinking about purchasing one of these Apple laptops will be rushing to hit the purchase button before paying extra. Stock shortages, especially on the cheapest models, could become a real possibility by the end of this sales week.

If you're interested, here are some of the best MacBook deals on sale right now, because you'll want to jump on them while you can.

Prime Day Deals on Apple MacBooks

MacBook Pro, Air, and Neo models from 2025 and 2026 are all on sale right now at Amazon for Prime Day. Amazon hasn't put all models on sale, however, but here are some of the deals we've spotted so far.

One thing to point out, however, is the MacBook Neo. Apple has just raised its MSRP to $699, meaning that Amazon's $589.99 price is $110 cheaper. This will not last long, so make sure to grab it at this price.

Other MacBook models, including the MacBook Air 2026 with a 512GB SSD, are seeing $200 price rises. The MacBook Pro, meanwhile, is getting a price rise of up to $400. This isn't reflected in these Amazon deal prices yet, which have knocked up to $150 off Apple's original prices, so you're guaranteed an even bigger bargain today if you can get your order in quickly enough.

Apple MacBook Prime Day Deals

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Apple has made the unprecedented decision to hike the prices of all its current computers and tablets. iPhone prices remain as they were, for now. Bloomberg indicates that the rather steep price rises have been precipitated by increased costs of memory and storage. One of the most impactful hikes we see is the entry-level MacBook Pro going from $1,699 to $1,999. However, even the recently released but resource-starved MacBook Neo has had another $100 piled onto its price, so now it starts at $699 before tax.

In addition to Gurman’s highlighted price increases, we spotted that the cheapest Mac Studio M4 Max (mini PC desktop) has had its price increased to $2,499 from $1,999. There’s a lot to take in, so check out our at-a-glance before and after table for quick reference.

Bloomberg’s resident Apple expert, Mark Gurman, quoted an apologetic company rep. “We know this is not welcome news, and we are working tirelessly to find solutions,” a spokesperson from Apple told the reporter. Other interesting assertions from that conversation were that Apple had never seen component prices rise so high, so quickly. Moreover, its representative claimed that the firm did all it could to shield customers from any knock-on device price rises, stating the company had "shielded our customers from these increases so far, but we have now reached a point where we need to begin raising prices on a number of products including today’s increases for iPad and Mac."

While newsrooms might be agog at these price rises being implemented today, the writing has been on the wall of the RAMpocalypse for several months. Back in April, Tim Cook publicly forecast that the component shortages and price rises didn’t appear to be going anywhere soon. That statement came in the wake of the withdrawal of the entry-level $599 configuration of the Mac Mini, and Apple softening the blow of higher prices of its latest MacBook Air and MacBook Pro models by upgrading memory and other tech specs.

Until now, it seemed like Apple’s massive buying power and vertical integration had managed to help it hold off computer and tablet price increases. Today, the brakes came off, pretty dramatically.

For years, Apple kept its M1 MacBook Air around as the ultimate budget pick in its laptop lineup. Now, the M3 MacBook Air from 2024 has just hit the same heady discount heights, plunging to $799 at Amazon in the early Prime Day sale in a deal that makes the MacBook Neo look pretty tame by comparison.

• Check out this deal on Amazon

The M3 MacBook Air came out in 2024, so it's a couple of years old now. However, if you want a fantastic portable machine that will give you great battery life, this is not to be sniffed at. For just $200 more, this blows the MacBook Neo out of the water. Its M3 chip has an 8-core GPU and 10-core CPU, and you also get 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. That means you get a better CPU and GPU core count, twice the RAM, twice the storage, and higher memory bandwidth versus the Neo. The M3 also offers drastically better battery life and a host of other extra features.

Both the M4 and M5 MacBook Air are on sale for around $950 at Amazon right now. That makes this deal $150 less than those more expensive options. While the M4 and M5 chips are faster than this M3 model, this older version is no slouch.

Our Geekbench testing does reveal a fairly substantial uplift on the M4 model, which scored around 3,800 in similar Geekbench 6 single-core tests and nearly 15,000 in multi-core.

What you're getting here is really the ultimate budget MacBook right now. Of course, the MacBook Neo is cheaper at $589, but for that price, you get a meager 8GB of RAM and just 256GB of storage, half what you get with the M3. The M3 has more CPU cores (10 vs 6) than the MacBook Neo, and more GPU cores (8 vs 5). Battery life is also rated for longer (18 hours versus the Neo's 16 hours), and the M3 comes with significantly better 102 GB/s maximum memory bandwidth compared to the Neo's 60 GB/s.

Versus the Neo, the M3 MacBook Air also has a higher resolution display that is slightly larger, and has better color with Wide color (P3) and True Tone Technology. The M3 also has more speakers, support for spatial audio, better microphones for calls, and support for high-impedance headphones, which you won't find on the MacBook Neo.

If you can stretch from the Neo to this $799 Macbook Air, this one is a no-brainer as a great laptop for a college student, a gift for a relative, or a high school student.

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Apple CEO Tim Cook has warned in an interview with the Wall Street Journal that price hikes on Apple products are unavoidable because the price of memory has increased to a degree that the company must now pass on increases to customers. The outgoing chief executive of Apple did not disclose the scope of the increases or when to expect them to happen, though the warning itself is noteworthy.

Cook said in the interview that price increases had become necessary due to skyrocketing prices of LPDDR and 3D NAND memory, which the company uses in its PCs, smartphones, tablets, and other products. He noted that Apple had attempted to offset rising component costs and protect customers from higher prices, but indicated in the interview that the company could no longer absorb the increases indefinitely. While Cook declined to discuss timing or the magnitude of the planned price hikes, some Apple products may see higher prices sooner rather than later. The company already raised the base price of its Mac Mini last month and eliminated its highest-end model.

TechInsights estimates that Apple will need to hike the price of a flagship iPhone Pro model by about $270 to maintain its current gross margins, which could push flagship iPhone pricing into a substantially higher price band. To make matters worse, Apple faces rising DRAM requirements as it expands memory-hungry on-device AI capabilities.

Apple is a unique company in the sense that it is both one of the world's largest suppliers of smartphones and one of the industry's biggest PC OEMs. Still, its Mac business is negligible compared to the iPhone business.

Memory makers are more inclined to ship non-volatile NAND memory to smartphone makers as they can ship LPDDR with it, according to Nelson Duann, a senior vice president of Silicon Motion, speaking in an interview with Tom's Hardware. If Duann is correct that NAND makers prefer smartphones because they can bundle NAND and LPDDR sales, then Apple should be among the most favored customers in the industry, not among the disadvantaged ones.

Also, keep in mind that historically Apple has used long-term supply agreements, prepayments, equipment financing, and advance capacity reservations to secure key components, including DRAM, NAND flash, displays, advanced packaging, and even semiconductor foundry capacity. As one of the world’s largest electronics manufacturers and semiconductor buyers, Apple is among the few companies capable of negotiating with memory suppliers from a position of considerable strength.

As a result, Apple is not in a situation where it cannot get enough memory; it can probably get more than other suppliers of smartphones and PCs, but it surely has to buy both DRAM and NAND at a premium. That said, it is not surprising that Apple will have to increase prices; what remains to be seen is the magnitude of the increase.

President Donald Trump said on Thursday that Apple has agreed to work with Intel to “design and build” chips in the United States, posting the claim to Truth Social before either company confirmed any arrangement. Apple and Intel didn’t respond to initial requests for comment from Reuters, and neither has issued a statement acknowledging a finalized deal.

Trump says the deal is part of his administration’s push to reshore semiconductor manufacturing, writing that the U.S. needs to build its chips domestically and that he "decided to help Intel because we need to design and build our Chips right here in America.” He credited earlier government intervention for drawing Nvidia and Elon Musk's TeraFab project to Intel's foundry.

Apple already designs its own silicon and has done so since it dropped Intel processors from its products in 2020. Any arrangement here would purely be a foundry deal, with Intel acting as a contract manufacturer for chips Apple designs in-house. It wouldn’t return Apple to Intel-designed processors, and it certainly wouldn’t displace TSMC from Apple's flagship products.

The logic behind any such deal for Apple would be simple supply diversification; the company remains dependent on TSMC, whose leading-edge capacity is being absorbed by AI customers, including Nvidia and AMD. Placing a lower-volume part on a second source reduces single-foundry exposure without touching the iPhone and high-end M-series lines that rely on TSMC's most advanced nodes.

We’ve known about much of this for a little while now. Reporters caught wind of a preliminary deal last month, following discussions that ran for more than a year. Before that, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo and GF Securities outlined the likely scope: Apple's M7 SoC built on Intel's 18A-P process, powering the MacBook Air and entry-level iPad Pro, with mass production targeted for late 2027.

Those two product tiers accounted for roughly 20 million units in 2025, with annual shipments expected to settle between 15 million and 20 million — significant for a new foundry customer, but small enough to leave TSMC's revenue mix intact. Reporting has also suggested that Apple's A21 iPhone chips will move to Intel's 14A node around 2028, but none of this has been confirmed by Apple or Intel.

Trump's announcement comes just two days after Intel said its 18A-P process had entered risk production, announced at the VLSI Symposium in Honolulu. The node is the first performance-enhanced version of 18A, and Intel claims it delivers 9% higher performance at the same power, or 18% lower power at the same performance, while staying design-rule compatible with 18A so customers can reuse existing IP. CEO Lip-Bu Tan told investors last month that he expects multiple foundry commitments to close in the second half of 2026.

Intel has yet to confirm a single leading-edge customer for 18A, and any commitment from Apple would be a best-case scenario in terms of securing the validation the company both desperately wants and needs. The U.S. government holds a 10% stake in Intel, and its shares rose as much as 9% in premarket trading on the news, extending a run that has lifted the stock 464% over the past 12 months to a market cap of $608.7 billion.

In a turbulent conflict-shaken world rife with geopolitical rivalry, tech export bans seem increasingly prevalent. However, history provides some context, and some fun in this case, as industry watchers rightly highlight that computer technology export bans are nothing new. Here we look back at the Apple Power Macintosh G4 export ban from 1999, and Steve Jobs making marketing gold from the situation.

In the summer of 1999, the U.S. government put export restrictions on Apple’s newly launched Power Mac G4 desktop tower systems. Being capable of a claimed performance of “over 1 billion calculations per second” meant these stylish ‘graphite’ translucent designs were “classed as a weapon” and thus routinely banned from export to 50 nations worldwide.

Though Apple naturally sought to get the restrictions lifted, according to contemporary reports, its new interim chief executive officer, Steve Jobs, didn’t miss a great marketing trick. Check out the resulting 30-second nugget of marketing gold in the video we have embedded.

“For the first time in history a personal computer has been classified as a weapon by the US government,” narrates the voice over, backed by the theme tune from the classic war movie The Great Escape. “With the power of over 1 billion calculations per second the Pentagon wants to ensure that the new Power Macintosh G4 does not fall into the wrong hands.” Jobs didn’t miss a chance to belittle Intel with the closing line “As for Pentium PCs, well they're harmless.”

As a reminder, the first Power Mac G4 machines, codenamed Yikes!, did indeed wield envious compute power at the time. They were marketed as offering up to double the performance of their G3 predecessors and triple that of Pentium III PCs clock-for-clock. Low End Mac recalls “The 400 MHz Yikes! (a.k.a PCI Graphics) offers 0.8-3.2 gigaflops (billion floating point operations per second) performance; by government definition in 1999, it was a supercomputer.”

The 400 MHz model was the entry-level model at launch, so as well as it being banned from export the faster 450 MHz and 500 MHz were also off the menu if you lived in one of the countries on the export control list at the time. Bill Clinton’s administration raised the gigaflop threshold for U.S. export controls in January 2000. Then, with the threshold raised to 6.5 GFLOPS, Apple could again begin unrestricted G4 exports.

History repeating

The latest tech export controversy headlines revolve around the recently launched version of the Anthropic Claude AI model, dubbed Fable. We have also widely reported on hardware bans, with Nvidia GPUs probably the most notable example. However, western governments have also sought to restrict exports of semiconductor tools and software to places like Russia, China, Iran, North Korea etc.

Apple introduced its next major macOS release, macOS 27 Golden Gate, at its WWDC event. The new operating system update, coming this fall, includes a series of new artificial intelligence gestures, as well as iterations to the "liquid glass" design introduced in last year's release, macOS 26 Tahoe.

Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice president of software engineering, said that the 27 releases were focused on more polished and intuitive operating systems, trust and safety (including for children), and updates to Apple Intelligence and Siri. Unlike previous years, Apple spent most of its time highlighting changes that affect the entirety of its platforms, meaning that many of the improvements on Mac are also available in some form on the iPhone or iPad, and vice versa, reflecting the continuing deep integration in Apple's ecosystem of products, including iPhone (iOS 27), iPad (iOS 27), and watchOS (watchOS 27).

macOS will include some specific upgrades, including ultrawide display support with higher resolutions, and an updated video podcast player, while many others, like updates to iCloud shared albums and changes to Maps, are across multiple platforms. In many ways, the focus on fixes is reminiscent of 2009's OS X Snow Leopard, which was famous for fixing problems rather than introducing tons of new features.

Liquid Glass

Apple is making changes to Liquid Glass across its platforms to make content more readable and decrease distractions. Glass will now better diffuse content behind it.

A new slider in settings will let you move from from ultra-clear to fully tinted, letting you customize how much it affects readability.

Specifically on the Mac, Apple is adding a uniform tool bar across the top of apps, which harkens back to more traditional Mac design. Expanded sidebars will move to the edge of windows, and sidebar icons will regain their colors. Additionally, every window will have tighter corner radii, even if they're not updated, for improved consistency across the OS. These were all complaints from Mac diehards over the last year.

In app icons across platforms, there will be additional layers of glass in icons to make them sharper and more defined.

Improvements

Apple said that it is bringing a massive amount of improvements under the hood of macOS and other platforms, with focus on CPU usage, memory usage, display rendering, and more. Apple claims apps can launch 30% faster on the iPhone and iPad, while new photos will show up in the library up to 70% faster. The advanced CPU scheduler on the iPhone is being optimized and brought all the way back to the iPhone 11, which will be the oldest iPhone supporting iOS 27.

Network transitions — especially between cellular and Wi-Fi — were also highlighted, so you don't have to toggle as often.

The company also highlighted a new content index across Spotlight, photos, mail and more, which will index your existing files immediately and continue to do so as new content comes in. Apple demonstrated a new ranking system for mail on Mac, showing more relevant results, even if it's years old.

AI and Siri

Federighi claimed that the mission is to turn AI into helpful and intuitive products, rather than AI for the sake of AI.

"Truly helpful AI must be centered around you and your needs," Federighi said, saying it needs to be designed for devices, apps, and with privacy in mind. Surprisingly, Federighi briefly mentioned that its foundation models are integrated with Gemini and will be used "on-device and in servers" with private cloud compute. Additionally, Apple has a more powerful on-device model.

Apple SVP for Siri engineering Mike Rockwell showed off a revamped Siri. The new Siri grows out of the dynamic island with "Hey Siri" or when you hold the buttons. It retains context between interactions.

A new voice experience includes a more conversational tone. Voice can now be customized for expressivity and pace, with sliders to adjust them in a new Siri app.

Rockwell asked about a Suki Waterhouse concert, and Siri told him when the concert will be. You can even inquire about tickets, which in this case were part of a lottery. Rockwell asked to be added to the lottery and to play her newest single in separate requests, as it remembered context.

He also demonstrated finding photos from a recent trip, asking Siri to pick out photos that include just specific people, and then share them with family members via text – without even having to go into the Photos app.

On iOS, you can swipe down, use the side button, or say "Hey Siri." On the Mac, Siri is integrated into Spotlight, or you can use Siri requests in system menus. One demonstration included using Siri on a Mac to help build a Maker Space at a child's school. When "How should I think about building a maker space in a shed” was typed into Spotlight, macOS realized it was a question specifically for the assistant. Siri was able to search through texts from the demonstrator's son, to address lingering electrical issues and find a fix.

Siri AI is also coming to iPadOS, where you can use the dedicated Siri App. You'll be able to see a conversational history synced with iCloud across devices, including Mac, Apple Watch, and iPhone. On visionOS, you can simply look at Siri and initiate your query.

Visual Intelligence will be integrated into the iPhone camera app. You can tap the shutter button for Siri AI to “see what you see” and provide contextual information, powered by Apple Foundation models. Pointing your iPhone at a plate of food can give you nutritional information, while showing the camera an image of a restaurant bill will let you split it among friends. You can also use visual intelligence to ask about items presented on your screen.

You'll also be able to write with Siri anywhere you type. Siri can generate drafts, including emails, and will provide suggestions and automatic proofreading, available systemwide, even in third-party apps.

Siri AI won't be available in the European Union and China initially, as Apple deals with international regulation and privacy laws. Siri AI will first be available in English.

Apple Intelligence in apps

Apple also demonstrated how Intelligence can be used within and across applications, including Safari, Passwords, Photos, and Home.

In Safari, Apple has introduced tab management features, which can organize tabs into topics. Another option lets you monitor a page and asks you to "Notify me" for changes on a page, like a product coming back in stock or a ticket becoming available. You can then close the tab, but Siri will notify you when the page has changed. Perhaps the most impressive change is one to Shortcuts. You can describe what you want a Shortcut to do in natural language, and it brings together the steps automatically. One example: “When I’m leaving home, message Pedro” brings together a shortcut using Maps and Messages, which should open up Shortcuts to a much wider variety of people who may have been put off by its complicated nature.

Other demos included custom Safari extensions to adapt web pages for you, a Password app that can automatically fix compromised passwords for you on "eligible" accounts. In messages, you can get one-tap suggestions, and the phone app can find flight information when calling an airline.

For Home, Apple Intelligence can understand how a number of unrelated notifications work together to create fewer notifications and provide images from multiple security cameras. It can even track package deliveries across multiple cameras. 4K resolution will work on supported cameras.

In the Image Playground, you can create high-quality images in any style, with the image generation model running on private cloud compute. You can use natural language to adjust existing images and use it across the device, such as on your lock screen. The Photos app may have the most controversial aspects, as you can extend photos to change photo borders without cropping. There's also an option to reframe the entire scene with a spatial camera, as if you were moving the lens in the original shot. This feature works on any image in your library, even if you've taken the photos on other cameras or phones.

These features will support all languages Apple Intelligence works with. Some features will have usage limits that will adjust based on iCloud+ subscriptions.

Developers will have access to improved models, including server models, through a new API that will support natural language and images.

Lastly, Apple highlighted updates to XCode, including agentic coding, choosing the model and agent of your choice (including the newly added Google Gemini). It can connect to Figma and GitHub for design, and a new Device Hub will let developers simulate devices, including touch screens, alongside real-world testing devices.

Trust and Safety

Apple also demonstrated new child safety tools, with new child accounts and parental controls. Child accounts will automatically block adult websites and implement app store age restrictions.

Children will be able to ask parents for permission to buy or download apps in messages, as well as browse new websites in Safari for children under 13. There will be similar permissions for contacting new people outside of your family.

A new safety communication warns about nude images and intervenes, but will also be expanded to gore or violent content. Parents will have Time Allowances across entertainment, games, and social media, with shared allowances across all three, or you can set them individually. A redesigned Screen Time will let parents see how devices are being used. Developer tools are being made more capable for third-party apps to take advantage of the new features.

Golden Gate will be the first version of macOS to exclusively support Apple Silicon Macs. Last year, Apple announced that Tahoe would be the final major release to support Intel-based systems. (Intel-based Macs will still receive three years of security updates.) This is the last macOS release to support Rosetta 2, the tool that lets Apple Silicon computers run Intel applications through an emulation layer (though parts may stick around to keep legacy games running). Without Intel processors to support, Apple is urging developers to make native applications for its own silicon.

Support and Release Dates

Developer betas for the 27-suite of OS releases are available today, with public betas starting in July. Final releases are expected in the fall.

macOS 27 Golden Gate will be supported on devices with Apple Silicon. Apple's website specifies:

• MacBook Neo
• MacBook Air (2020 and later with Apple Silicon)
• MacBook Pro (2020 and later with Apple Silicon)
• iMac (2021 and later with Apple Silicon)
• Mac mini (2020 and later with Apple Silicon)
• Mac Studio (2022 and later with Apple Silicon)
• Mac Pro with Apple Silicon (2023)

However, adjustments to Siri's voice and advanced dictation will require newer chips on the Mac, iPad and iPhone. On the Mac, that means "an M3 and later and at least 12GB of unified memory." Otherwise, you need an iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro Max, iPhone Air, iPad models with M4 and later and at least 12GB of unified memory, or Apple Vision Pro with M5.

Thanks to AI-assisted security research, hackers with hats of various colors are finding exploits everywhere. Linux has had its worst week in years with the CopyFail and Dirty Frag root-gaining vulnerabilities, and things aren't much rosier at Microsoft, thanks to the YellowKey BitLocker bypass, as well as GreenPlasma and RedSun privilege-gaining exploits. Now, it's Apple's turn with a local privilege escalation that gets past the M5 chips' much-vaunted Memory Integrity Enforcement (MIE).

There aren't many technical details, but the vulnerability is simple in practice: run a command as a standard user and gain root (administrator) access to the machine. Macs are rarely servers, so the practical impact is limited. However, the exploit remains concerning, as it's relatively easy to trick a user into running it and, with full system control, also hard to find and remove. The research team in question is named Calif, and as far as they know, the boffins there are the only ones making a public disclosure of this issue. Such assumptions are tricky in this day and age, though.

Mercifully for Captain Cook's ship, instead of being a zero-day reveal out of nowhere that left systems administrators scrambling, the exploit in question was disclosed to the company in advance (in person, no less). Calif published the vulnerability overview as part of a series of blog posts called the Month of AI-Discovered Bugs, since this new Apple vulnerability falls within a set of security findings aided by AI tools — in this case, Anthropic's Mythos Preview.

The researchers tested their code on an Apple M5 machine and macOS 26.4.1. The exploit chain impressively sneaks past MIE, a security feature present on M5 and A19 chips that labels each 16-byte memory slice with a 4-bit tag associated with the pointers that use it. MIE is enforced at the hardware level in a hypervisor-like configuration and effectively protects against most common classes of security exploits, namely, but not only, buffer overflows and use-after-free vulnerabilities.

As an oversimplification, MIE ensures that any memory read or write operation acts on the data that it was originally meant to, even at the kernel level. If that doesn't happen, either your application has a bug, or someone's up to shenanigans. The base feature is part of ARM MTE, and MIE is an Apple-added layer that enforces the said checks at the hardware level, with purportedly little to no performance overhead, and only 3% memory wastage. This blog post goes into more detail on the subject, and it's quite an interesting read.

Sources close to both Apple and Intel have said that the two companies have reached a preliminary agreement for Intel to manufacture processors for Apple. According to The Wall Street Journal, the two parties have been in talks for over a year, and they’ve been finalizing a formal deal over the past few months. Apple is reportedly looking for alternative fabs to TSMC, as it wants to diversify its supply chain in the midst of ongoing chip shortages, and it seems that this latest development is a confirmation of this report.

It’s currently unclear which chips the U.S. semiconductor company will be making for the largest consumer electronics firm in the world, but it previously made the x86 processors used in Macs and MacBooks from 2006 to 2023. Intel also had the chance to build the A-series chips that Apple used for the iPhone and iPad, but it fumbled the opportunity — with Tim Cook complaining to TSMC founder Morris Chang, “Intel just does not know how to be a foundry.”

Intel apparently learned its lesson, though, as Apple was reportedly considering Intel’s 18A process for its entry-level M-series chips as early as November of last year. Even before this, the two companies were already in discussions about a potential investment into the chip maker, something that President Donald Trump alluded to in early 2026. Aside from Apple, Intel has also received a $5-billion investment from Nvidia and that the two are partnering to develop an x86 RTX SoC for PCs. Elon Musk also tapped Intel for his TeraFab project, which will use the company’s 14A process to make AI chips.

These developments are excellent news for Intel CEO Lip-Bu Tan, who has been working hard to put the company back on track after former CEO Pat Gelsinger announced disastrous results in July 2024. It has also caused the company’s stock price to skyrocket, hitting a record high of $126.23 at the time of writing and beating its former peak during the dot-com boom of 2000. But we'll have to wait for confirmation from the two companies — as neither has officially commented on this news yet — to learn the details of this groundbreaking deal.

Apple, arguably the largest phone and computer manufacturer in the world, isn’t immune to the chip shortage, as it once again reduced the highest memory capacity available for the Mac Studio and Mac Mini. Apple's Mac Studio could be configured with up to 512GB of Unified Memory at launch, which is more than enough for professional usage and local AI applications.

Now, if you visit the Apple Store, you can only purchase the Mac Studio with a maximum of 96GB of Unified Memory, while the Mac mini is only available with up to 48GB (down from 64GB).

Apple's Unified Memory architecture has become popular for running local AI models and agentic AI applications like OpenClaw. When the latter exploded in popularity in early 2026, many AI developers and enthusiasts jumped at the opportunity to acquire a small PC with a very high memory pool. This resulted in a shortage that pushed delivery times from six days to six weeks.

This situation, combined with the global memory chip shortage, has forced Apple to discontinue the 512GB SKU and increase the price of the 256GB upgrade to $2,000 in early March. However, the increase in price did not dissuade buyers, as company chief Tim Cook warned during the company’s latest earnings call that supplies for both the Mac Studio and Mac mini could remain constrained for months.

Despite the increased prices and the removal of higher-capacity versions, delivery times for both the Mac Studio and Mac Mini haven’t improved. The M4 Max Mac Studio with 64GB of Unified Memory can take six to seven weeks to deliver, while all other configurations, including the 36GB and 96GB variants, can take between nine and 10 weeks. Prospective buyers of the M4 Mac mini with 16GB of Unified Memory may fare slightly better, with a three-to-four-week delivery window; this worsens to 10 to 12 weeks if you upgrade the memory to 24GB or 48GB.

We’re also starting to see shortages affect high-capacity MacBooks. While 24GB and lower-capacity MacBook Air laptops are still thankfully readily available, you need to wait about two to three weeks if you want the 32GB version. 48GB versions and up of the MacBook Pro also now entail a wait of one to two weeks, while even the budget MacBook Neo, which became insanely popular among students and entry-level buyers, takes around two to three weeks to deliver.

Cook said during the company’s first earnings call of 2026 that the company is chasing memory supply and that it will have a greater impact on its Q2 earnings. We’re now feeling the brunt of the shortage, as we see Macs, high-capacity MacBooks, and the entry-level MacBook Neo experience extended delivery times. Thankfully, mid-range buyers can still easily acquire the standard iMac, entry-level MacBook Airs, and MacBook Pros.

Apple is reportedly talking with Intel and Samsung to produce processors for the company as it’s grappling with a shortage of chips for its latest products. According to Bloomberg, Cupertino has had multiple early-stage discussions with Team Blue, while some key Apple executives have also visited a Samsung plant that’s still in development — likely its Taylor, Texas, fab, which is set to start risk production this year.

None of the talks have resulted in any orders, so far, the report states. There have been concerns about using non-TSMC tech in Apple products, especially as it has been producing chips for the iPhone since the A8 used in the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. However, the AI infrastructure build-out is negatively affecting the company, with Apple CEO Tim Cook conceding that it’s constrained by TSMC’s supply of advanced chips. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said that his company has dethroned the consumer electronics giant as TSMC’s number one customer, and even alluded that Apple might have to pay more for its chips. But even before this, Cupertino has reportedly been considering using Intel’s 18A process to build future M-series chips, especially as global geopolitical events are threatening the stability of the global supply chain.

If we look at Apple’s history, both Samsung and Intel have closely worked with the company for years. The first iPhone, all the way to the iPhone 5S, was powered by Samsung chips, while Macs and MacBooks used x86 Intel processors from 2006 until they were replaced by Apple silicon in 2023. If successful, these talks would resume Apple’s partnership with one (or both) of the companies.

This would be a win for Intel as it’s looking to land a major customer for its foundry business — something that it fumbled in 2011 when Cupertino first approached it for its custom chip needs. A move like this could also help bolster Samsung’s foundry business, as it sits at a distant second place when compared to TSMC. At the same time, it would reduce Apple’s risk of relying on a single supplier for the majority of its advanced chip supply. Even though TSMC’s Arizona plant is ramping up production and it’s estimated that it will deliver 100 million chips for Cupertino this year, it is just a fraction of Apple’s demands, with the majority of its advanced SoCs still expected to come from Taiwan.

Tim Cook has been well aware of the situation with TSMC for years now. He even said in a 2022 all-hands company meeting, “Regardless of what you may feel or think, 60% coming out of anywhere is probably not a strategic position.” This was likely highlighted with the AI-driven chip shortage. “The primary constraint is the availability of the advanced nodes our SoCs are produced on, not memory,” the Apple CEO said during the company’s latest earnings call. “I believe it will take several months to reach supply-demand balance.”

But even if Apple were to strike a deal with both Intel and Samsung today, it will take some time for production to ramp up, and consumers won’t feel its effect for several months, if not a couple of years.

Many think that Apple's history creating computers with graphical interfaces starts with the venerable Macintosh, but the company's first foray into designing GUIs actually started with 1983's Lisa. The machine was the first to bring a popular window application system and mouse control to general availability at an edible (if bitter) price of $9,995 dollars of 1983 vintage, equivalent to nearly $34,000 today.

Thanks to enthusiast and Youtuber Alex Anderson-McLeod, you'll soon be able to roll your own much-improved LisaFPGA clone. Alex designed a roomy one-board system centered around an Artix 7-100T FPGA as the Lisa's brains, coupled to 2MB of SRAM and emulated hard drive, floppy, serial, and naturally, keyboard and mouse connectors.

The clone is far superior to the original, thanks to its reliance on modern hardware and Alex's design smarts. For starters, you don't need a video converter, as the board natively outputs video HDMI with a scanline option; both its main video modes are switchable on-the-fly. Although the board includes original-spec connectors for input devices, it also helpfully has USB ports for keyboard and mouse so you don't have to procure original versions.

In a similar fashion, the serial ports can be redirected to the main USB-C connector thanks to the inclusion of a USB hub, saving you having to find USB-to-serial adapters and chunky DB25 connectors. Floppy images can be loaded from an SD card, direct connection to PC, or an original floppy drive connected to the the corresponding port.

Even for its time, the Lisa was pretty slow, thanks to its software design choices and and use of the 5 MHz variant of the Motorola 68000 CPU. As a nod to these limitations, Alex included two overclocking multipliers that can take the machine to the equivalent of 75 MHz, likewise selectable on the fly with physical switches.

The revision of the LisaFPGA featured in the video is version 2, but Alex says that version 3 is coming soon with a handful of fixes. He says the project will be fully open-sourced on Github as soon as he gets his proverbial ducks in a row. He's also considering selling the clones, and will be speaking about them at Vintage Computer Festival Southwest later in the month.

Although it was generally considered a failure due to its price and software availability, the Lisa paved the way for 1984's Macintosh, the $2,459 machine that popularized graphical interfaces and the Apple brand worldwide. The Lisa computer had an undignified ending, too, with 2,700 of them dumped in Logan, Utah, as part of a tax write-off on unsold inventory. Still, similar to how the first iPhone had major issues in hindsight, the Lisa broke ground for much greater things.

Although Apple popularized graphical home computers for the masses, Apple did not invent the GUI, nor the mouse. The GUI was Xerox's doing at its PARC laboratories, that Steve Jobs visited and, cough, cribbed notes from. The Xerox Star 8010 workstation was the first computer with both technologies, but it was sold as part of a larger package and commanded the steep price of $16,595 in 1981, or around $60,000 today. As for the mouse, it was designed at the Stanford Research institute much earlier in 1963.

Speaking during Apple’s second fiscal quarter 2026 earnings call, CEO Tim Cook warned that supplies of the company’s Mac mini and Mac Studio desktops could remain constrained for months. According to Cook, surging demand driven by artificial intelligence workloads outpaces Apple’s manufacturing capacity.

The surge comes amid growing interest in “local AI,” where models run directly on personal machines rather than on remote cloud servers. Privacy concerns, latency reductions, and rising cloud inference costs have pushed many developers and companies toward on-device AI processing.

Cook’s warning marks one of the clearest signs yet that the AI boom is beginning to reshape the personal computer market in ways that extend beyond traditional GPU manufacturers like Nvidia. The comments also officially confirm our report that some Mac models were facing significant shortages and shipping delays, primarily driven by an "ordering frenzy" for high-memory configurations, spurred by demand to run local AI agents, such as the "OpenClaw" mode.

Apple’s Mac mini and Mac Studio have become particularly attractive for AI development because of the company’s Apple Silicon architecture. Unlike conventional desktop systems that separate CPU and GPU memory, Apple’s unified memory architecture allows AI models to access large pools of shared high-bandwidth memory more efficiently. This makes the systems especially useful for running local large language models, AI agents, and inference workloads.

The higher-end Mac Studio configurations can also be equipped with massive amounts of unified memory, allowing developers to run increasingly large AI models directly on desktop hardware. Combined with relatively low power consumption, the systems have gained popularity among AI developers seeking alternatives to expensive server-grade hardware.

Industry observers have noted rising interest in Apple desktops from AI enthusiasts over the past year. Online developer communities have increasingly discussed using Mac Studio systems for running open-source AI models locally, particularly as demand for high-end AI GPUs continues to strain global supply chains.

Apple’s supply warning also arrives during broader pressure across the semiconductor industry. Advanced chip packaging technologies and high-bandwidth memory production have already been strained by soaring demand for AI infrastructure. Several semiconductor firms have warned of prolonged shortages tied to AI-related manufacturing bottlenecks.

The constraints may also reflect Apple’s growing ambitions in artificial intelligence. The company has been steadily expanding its AI strategy following the introduction of Apple Intelligence across its ecosystem. While Apple has historically emphasized on-device AI processing for privacy and efficiency reasons, the recent surge in demand for its desktop systems could further strengthen its position in the emerging local AI computing market.

The shortages could persist for “several months,” according to Cook, suggesting customers may face extended shipping delays for some Mac mini and Mac Studio configurations.

After failing to reignite interest in the Vision Pro with the release of the M5 model, Macrumors reports that Apple may have just about given up on the product. Initially launched on February 2, 2024, the device failed to garner the popularity typically seen with Apple products, reportedly selling only around 600,000 units. For context, the company sells hundreds of millions of iPhones each year.

At $3,499 and 1.3 pounds, the device's price and weight have been cited as contributing factors to low sales. There were initial reports dating back to 2024 that Apple was winding down production of the Vision Pro. However, the company released an updated version in late October 2025, featuring a faster M5 chip. The chip resulted in a higher 120Hz refresh rate, 10% more rendered pixels, and around.

The model also came with a redesigned headband with an upper strap to better distribute the headset's weight. Despite the additional features, the price remained $3,499. Yet, according to MacRumors, sales did not improve. Apple reportedly received an unusually high percentage of returns, far exceeding those of any other modern Apple product.

According to Bloomberg journalist and Apple news Mark Gurman, Apple had broken up the Vision Products Group in 2025, splitting it between software and hardware engineering. In an X post yesterday (expand the tweet below), April 29, he claimed that Apple had reassigned much of the Vision Pro software team to Siri, and the hardware team to smart glasses, citing CEO John Ternus’ stance against the Vision Pro as a product.

However, this claim is being met with widespread skepticism, as readers were quick to point out what they believed were contradictory job board posts indicating that Apple was actively recruiting for the Vision Production Group. We can confirm that Apple has indeed posted several of these roles on its official job board over the past few months.

On the other hand, the job posts do not explicitly confirm the continued development of the Vision Pro. One of the posts read as follows: “Originally developed to help VisionOS achieve its critical motion-to-photon latency targets—providing users with a seamless, realistic experience through Vision Pro—our technology is now expanding to iOS and macOS.”

The mixed reports surrounding the Vision Pro have left consumers wondering exactly what is going on, especially as there has been no official report. What’s highly plausible is that the company may be developing smart glasses, a lighter, more streamlined AR offering that is still years away from consumer release.

Apple’s Pippin was plucked from the tree 30 years ago today. But it turned out to be a rotten Apple, which failed to catch the interest of the public, despite it being heralded as an open standard for home entertainment. From its launch on April 21, 1996, this expensive device with lethargic performance only sold ~42,000 units worldwide. The Pippin was put out of its misery shortly after Steve Jobs returned to the helm in 1997.

The promise of Pippin

Development of the Pippin began shortly after Japanese entertainment firm Bandai approached Apple, hoping to collaborate on a CD-ROM-based living room entertainment system. According to various sources, the project expanded from a scaled-down (680X0 era) Mac that could play games directly from CD-ROMs to a much broader home entertainment device packing a PowerPC chip.

Initial marketing pitched the Pippin as “an integral part of the consumer audiovisual, stereo, and television environment.” Interestingly, Apple didn’t want to be the sole brand behind Pippins, and the devices were ultimately made by Bandai and Katz Media.

Perhaps Apple thought its transition from Motorola 680X0 to PowerPC chips gave its new hardware an unbeatable console performance profile for the time. But despite its computing performance, the early PowerPC chips would be outmaneuvered and outclassed by the broad swing to 3D gaming in 1995/96, which the Sony PlayStation, Sega Saturn, and Nintendo 64 all successfully capitalized on and grew.

Compared to those rivals, the Pippin looked like a rehashed version of the old guard. Like a CPU-accelerated version of the 3DO or CD32 machines that had already slid by the wayside. Thus, the Pippin definitely failed to catch the coattails of the mid-1990s zeitgeist.

Pippin hardware / software

As we’ve said, the Pippin was based on the PowerPC architecture, which Apple had recently begun transitioning to. These new chips were doing an admirable job making Macs look computationally competitive with Wintel PC clones again, but consoles and home entertainment – and the new era of 3D gaming – would shift public desires. Additionally, the Pippin’s chip, a low-end of the range PowerPC 603 @ 66 MHz, wasn’t one of the best.

Other key specs of the Pippin were its 6MB of shared memory, 128KB SRAM for saves (no HDD), and its 4x CD-ROM. There were no custom chips to offload graphics or audio processing; the single-core PPC would have to do everything.

Another drag on the Pippin was likely the chosen OS. It used a stripped-down version of Apple’s old System 7.5.2 at launch. This OS was long in the tooth at the time, and was well known for its less-than-ideal cooperative multitasking, lack of protected memory, and 68K emulation overhead. It may have been tolerable on a desktop, but it wasn’t ready-made for a slick home entertainment box.

The Pippin also suffered from a weak entertainment software library, say sources like Wikipedia. But perhaps that issue was overshadowed by the pricing of $599 (≈$1,200 today), which was double the price of the stunning-for-the-time PlayStation (PS1) or triple the price of the aggressively priced but remarkable N64.

The Pippin platform was discontinued globally in 1997, but Japanese partners would continue to hold out, unaware that the living room entertainment war was over for Apple, until 2002.

Apple CEO Tim Cook is stepping down from the top job to serve as executive chairman of the company's board of directors. He will be replaced by current senior vice president of hardware engineering, John Ternus, the company announced in a press release.

Cook will serve as CEO until Ternus takes the top job on September 1. The company notes that as executive chairman, Cook will continue to engage with "policymakers around the world," likely leaving him in charge of relationships with the Trump administration, China, India, and other areas where Apple has manufacturing and political interests.

Cook, 65, originally joined Apple in 1998 from Compaq. He was handpicked by Steve Jobs to become CEO in 2011, and became known for turning Apple's supply chain operation into a well-oiled international machine. Apple's press release highlights that during Cook's Tenure, "Apple has grown from a market capitalization of approximately $350 billion to $4 trillion, representing a more than 1,000% increase, and yearly revenue has nearly quadrupled, from $108 billion in fiscal year 2011 to more than $416 billion in fiscal year 2025."

“It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be the CEO of Apple and to have been trusted to lead such an extraordinary company," Cook said in the release. "I love Apple with all of my being, and I am so grateful to have had the opportunity to work with a team of such ingenious, innovative, creative, and deeply caring people who have been unwavering in their dedication to enriching the lives of our customers and creating the best products and services in the world... I could not be more confident in his abilities and his character, and I look forward to working closely with [Ternus] on this transition and in my new role as executive chairman.”

Ternus has worked at Apple for over 25 years and has served as an increasingly visible hardware mind in Cupertino, most recently showcasing the iPhone Air and the MacBook Neo. He also oversaw the Mac's shift to Apple Silicon and away from Intel.

Ternus began at Apple in 2001 on the product design team and rose through the ranks, overseeing hardware engineering across multiple products, including the introduction of the iPad and AirPods. Before working at Apple, he worked as a mechanical engineer at Virtual Research Systems. He holds a bachelor's degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

At 50 years old, Ternus is the same age that Cook was when he became chief executive, affording him stability and a long tenure. He will serve as Apple's eighth CEO.

Cook's legacy is likely to be one that was safe and extremely profitable. While showing off his supply chain mastery, he also introduced Apple to the services business, including Apple TV and Apple News, which has become a sector worth more than $100 billion in its own right. During Cook's leadership, the company debuted the Apple Watch, Apple Vision Pro, and Apple Silicon Macs. Cook also promised to reduce the company's carbon footprint, including a goal to become carbon neutral by 2030.

But under Cook, Apple also faltered with artificial intelligence, and the company hasn't been on the cutting edge of the latest technology. Apple is expected to release an update to its Siri voice assistant later this year, but it will have been several times delayed and will be based on Google's Gemini model.

When he becomes CEO, Ternus will join the company's board of directors. Arthur Levinson, the company's non-executive chairman for the last 15 years, will become lead independent director.

Johny Srouji, senior vice president of hardware technologies, will immediately become chief hardware officer, leading the department that Ternus oversaw and getting a significantly expanded role. Srouji, who previously served at Intel and IBM, joined Apple in 2008 to lead development on A4, Apple's first system-on-a-chip, for the iPhone 4. Last year, Bloomberg reported that Srouji was looking for a bigger role or would consider leaving. Srouji told staff he "didn't plan on leaving anytime soon."

Just several months after leaving Qualcomm, distinguished CPU and system architects Gerard Williams, John Bruno, and Ram Srinivasan, who are celebrated for their high-performance processors developed at Apple, Nuvia, and, more recently, Qualcomm, established a new CPU startup — Nuvacore — that promises no less than to 'rewrite the rules of silicon.' The new general-purpose CPU core set to be developed by Nuvacore is projected to excel in all data center AI workloads, and the motto of the new company is 'Engineered for Altitude.'

"For decades, the semiconductor industry has been dominated by an 'old guard,' titans of tech that design for the ground, iterating on yesterday's architecture," a statement by Nuvacore reads. "But as artificial intelligence and core infrastructure demands skyrocket, iteration is no longer enough."

Based on the description on Nuvacore's website, the company is developing a new general-purpose CPU core designed from scratch for data center and AI infrastructure, and the key focus of the all-new design is maximizing performance and area efficiency. The new high-throughput core will be optimized to efficiently sustain long-running, compute-intensive tasks, including always-on workloads such as advanced AI systems and agentic computing. The startup is funded by Sequoia Capital.

One would notice that all modern server CPUs are explicitly designed for 24/7 operation, high utilization, and long-running workloads. Sustained quality-of-service (i.e., performance and latency), reliability, and efficiency under continuous load are compulsory characteristics in the data center. However, Nuvacore positions its upcoming design as one optimized for AI-heavy, continuously saturated environments, not just general-purpose server CPUs.

Whether that translates into something materially different from existing CPUs is an open question, as the statement itself looks more like marketing than a fundamentally new characteristic of a data center processor. Perhaps, the design will be very clean and feature optimizations for working alongside AI accelerators, and/or special features to handle vast amounts of data common for AI systems.

One thing Nuvacore does not disclose is the instruction set architecture of its upcoming CPUs. Arm is certainly among the options, particularly because many hyperscalers use custom Arm-based processors for their emerging AI workloads.

Gerard Williams III is renowned for his high-performance breakthrough 64-bit Arm-based CPU cores for Apple iPhone and iPad, as well as Mac computers spanning from the Cyclone generation in 2013 (Apple A7, iPhone 5S) all the way to the Firestorm generation (M1-series CPUs, A14 application processors). At Apple, Gerard Williams worked closely with John Bruno, who was responsible for system architecture; Ram Srinivasan, a specialist in system-on-chip architecture; and Manu Gulati, who was the lead SoC architect for multiple iPhone and iPad generations from 2009 to 2017.

Having developed multiple generations of successful client platforms, Williams, Bruno, and Gulati founded Nuvia to develop high-performance Arm-based data center-grade CPU cores. Nuvia was acquired by Qualcomm in 2021 with the aim of using its technologies primarily for client applications, though it is highly likely that eventually architectures developed by the ex-Nuvia team will be used for the company's data center products.

Now, Williams, Bruno, and Srinivasan plan to develop an all-new clean-sheet general-purpose CPU design specifically for 'intense, continuous demands of advanced AI systems and agentic computing.' Perhaps it is about time now that most hyperscalers have their own custom silicon programs aimed at developing compute platforms aimed specifically at diverse AI workloads. All of these companies, already investing tens of billions of dollars in their AI infrastructure, will be tremendously interested in getting their hands on a clean-sheet CPU core design better tailored for AI than general-purpose competitors.

For centuries, artisans have adjusted their tools to suit their preferences and work styles. In a similar spirit, software designer and engineer Kent Walters has used a metalworking file to round over the corners of his MacBook. On his blog, Walters shares that “people like to freak out about this,” but we think the DIYing and modding core of Tom’s Hardware readers will probably overwhelmingly support his right-to-disrepair stance.

If you’ve owned or used a modern Apple device, you may sympathize with Walters. “The bottom edge of the MacBook is very sharp. Indeed, the industrial designers at Apple chose an aluminum unibody partly for the fact that it can handle such a geometry,” explains the San Francisco resident. “But, it is uncomfortable on my wrists, and I believe strongly in customizing one's tools, so I filed it off.”

The idea seems fair, but the images Walters shares show that there’s more than a modicum of filing work done to increase the comfort of the palm rest area to an acceptable level. The eased profile is particularly rounded right below the touchpad area. Indeed, Walters says he was concerned that he might file through the unibody when doing this, but thankfully not.

MacBook bullnosing DIY tips

If you are also barely tolerating the sharp edges of your MacBook, Walters has some advice. Inspired DIYers should tape off the speakers and keyboard before lifting their metalworking file, he suggests. That will obviously minimize the ingress of aluminum filings. Clamping the notebook to a rigid surface is also recommended to help you work with accuracy.

To round the edges off the MacBook palmrest, as pictured, Walters started with “a fairly rough file, as that is what I had on hand, and then sanded with 150 then 400 grit sandpaper.” He notes that this work was done months before the pictures, so the finish has earned a few battle scars since – a few scratches and dings.

Finally, thrifty folks who will keep their devices as pristine as possible to maximize resale potential down the road probably aren’t the best match for this kind of project.

Whether you're a student submitting homework, at work typing away at documents, spreadsheets, or presentations, or you're just someone who wants to access resources online and connect with family and friends, you want a laptop with the components and features you'll need to get the job done. That means a great screen, a comfortable keyboard, and long battery life (and nice design doesn't hurt, either!).

The laptop space is more competitive than ever. Windows machines come from many companies using silicon from three major CPU vendors: Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm. Apple, meanwhile, has a range of powerful and portable systems based on its own Apple Silicon.

In 2026, Intel's most recent chips are its Intel Core Ultra (Series 3) chips, code-named Panther Lake, while AMD launched its "Gorgon Point" Ryzen AI processors at CES. At Computex, Nvidia announced that its RTX Spark chips will launch in laptops from Microsoft, Dell, Lenovo, HP, and more starting in the fall, taking on Qualcomm in the Windows on Arm space. Earlier this year, Qualcomm released its Snapdragon X2 Elite Xtreme, Elite, and Plus chips.

On Macs, Apple's top chips are the M5 series, including the M5 Pro and M5 Max, which can be found in the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air lineup.

Best Laptops You Can Buy Today

The Best Laptop (and Mac) overall

The MacBook Air has been a go-to laptop recommendation for quite some time, thanks to strong performance, a fanless design, excellent built quality, and long-lasting battery life. With the version of the chip with M5, you get the benefits of years of hardware revisions since the Air's last redesign with M2, including a minimum 16GB of RAM and a 12-megapixel webcam.

The M5 chip in the MacBook Air showed off excellent single and multi-core performance. In fact, it;s closest rival was the same chip in the MacBook Pro, which gets a boost because of an active fan.

That being said, the system can throttle under heavy workloads like rendering. But for most people's typical tasks, including writing, editing, making spreadsheets, editing photos, listening to music, programming, and general multitasking, you'll have a very powerful machine.

Apple has boosted the base MacBook Air's price to $1,099, but it now starts with 512GB of memory. Given the price of components these days, the laptop is still a great value. If you want a Mac but don't want to spend that much for it, you could take a step down to the entry-level MacBook Neo, starting at $599, as long as you're willing to sacrifice on power, memory, ports, and a backlit keyboard.

Read: MacBook Air (M5) review

Best Windows laptop

The Dell XPS 14 is back, and while you might expect its performance or design to be the headlining feature, it's the battery life that wows. With its base 1920 x 1200 LCD display, which has a variable refresh rate that goes all the way down to 1 Hz, it lasted 20 hours and 41 minutes on our battery test.

That's not to say the battery life is all there is to like about this laptop. The 3-pound chassis is sleek, and Dell added a function row back to the keyboard, making it way easier to use over the touch bar of yesteryear.

If you're OK with 12 hours of charge, more expensive models with a tandem OLED display have way better colors and more powerful Arc B390 integrated graphics.

That being said, both of them have a low-travel keyboard without space between the keys, which definitely tripped up my fingers, so you'll need time to get your muscle memory going. And the starting price, at $1,600, is a lot to ask but is unfortunately common as the memory crisis rages on.

Read: Dell XPS 14 (2026) review

Best ultralight laptop

Some of the best laptops are barely noticeable in your bag. The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition, at 2.15 pounds is extremely light.

Still, despite the weight, you get plenty of other benefits. The speakers are surprisingly good for a laptop of this size. Perhaps most impressively, the system ran for 16 hours and 38 minutes on our battery test, outlasting many of the laptops we bit against it by multiple hours.

The system also offers a lovely display. The POLED touchscreen measured 476 nits of brightness while falling in similar gamut ranges as other OLED notebooks that weren't as luminous.

There are some downsides. There are limited ports outside of Thunderbolt 4/USB-C, including a lack of a headphone jack. And CPU performance fell behind some competitors, like Apple's M5 MacBook Air and a thicker AMD-based 2-in-1 from HP.Still, the laptop impressed for its airiness and multimedia strengths. And as tested with 32GB at $1,519, it's not a crazy price as the costs of many laptops skyrocket during an ongoing component shortage.

Read: Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i Aura Edition review

Another great Windows clamshell

We can argue about how much the AI PC is really any sort of revolution, but there are still some strong ultraportables coming out. The HP OmniBook Ultra puts the AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 375 in a sleek chassis with strong productivity performance.

HP is offering up decent battery life here, running for 12 hours and 52 minutes on our battery test. That's not the best, but all things considered including the high-resolution display, it's not bad. It's also nice to see Thunderbolt 4 ports on an AMD system, which is exceedingly rare.

The experience is knocked down a bit by a significant amount of bloatware, but if you're looking for a strong AMD laptop, the HP OmniBook Ultra is a strong competitor if you don't mind doing some uninstalling.

Read: HP OmniBook Ultra review

The best budget laptop

If you're looking for an affordable laptop, Apple does it best these days. The MacBook Neo starts at $599 ($499 with an education discount), but you rarely feel like you're not getting enough – unlike most Windows laptops in this price range. The Neo has a premium, all-metal chassis, a bright, vivid screen, and a custom mechanical trackpad that lets you click anywhere. And yes, you get all of macOS running on what was formerly an iPhone chip.

The quality of the 13-inch chassis and screen are key here. You're not getting something plastic. You're not getting something low-resolution, and you're not getting something dim. You also get a great webcam for this price range, and the system stays remarkably cool. There are some niceties you sacrifice, however. Apple has gone without a backlit keyboard. And the two USB ports aren't labeled, so you'll have to remember which is the faster 10 Gbps USB 3 port (the back one) for backup drives and monitors, lest you end up with an error message.

I suspect that most people with light workloads — especially students and people using home computers doing a lot of work in the browser — won't have too much trouble with the 8GB of RAM. That being said, 16GB systems can be found in the Windows world for a bit more money, though you'll need to hunt for sales.

But if a premium laptop experience (including great build quality and a high-res screen) are important to you, Apple delivers that better than any Windows machine priced close to the Neo’s $599 starting price.

Read: MacBook Neo review

The Best Laptop for work

As far as Windows-based business laptops go, the ThinkPad X1 Carbon has been the platonic ideal for a long time. With the Gen 14 Aura Edition, our only real nitpick was how darn expensive it is.

A mix of a sub-1kg (just 2.15 pounds) design, a gorgeous OLED screen, and a responsive keyboard make this excellent to use day to day, including during a commute. Those three factors (fitting it in a bag, looking at it, and typing on it) really seal the deal.

But the ThinkPad also includes a sharp, 1440p webcam in its notch and truly solid audio, making it great for video conferencing at home or wherever you go.

You still get a TrackPoint, and while we reviewed the system with a mechanical touchpad, there's also a haptic option on customized versions.

When we tested the system, it was over $2,200 for the Intel Core Ultra 7 355, 32GB of RAM, and 512 GB of storage. That's pricey, but maybe your workplace can get a better deal.

Read: Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 14 Aura Edition review

The best repairable laptop

If you're looking for a repairable laptop that still feels like a premium device, the Framework Laptop 13 Pro is your best option. It takes Framework's previous designs and puts them in a sturdier, more attractive shell, along with a bright, high-resolution touch screen, a haptic touchpad, and Intel's high-performance Panther Lake processors. This is what the Framework Laptop should have been all along.

Of course, that does assume you can get the system. As of this writing, the X9 388H version we tested is backordered, and the prices for the LPCAMM2 RAM on Intel models have steadily increased.

Framework has a track record of releasing parts and mainboards, so we're confident you'll be able to update your laptop like prior models. The only question is if you'll be able to get one and, if you're able to get one, if you'll be able to afford it.

Read: Framework Laptop 13 Pro review

A more powerful Mac laptop

The MacBook Air is a great starting point, but if you want an air-cooled processor and a few more features, the base MacBook Pro adds a few niceties. The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts with an M5 processor, has three Thunderbolt ports (including one on the right side), and a beautiful micro LED display.

For those willing to spend an extra $150, there's a nano-texture display option that is completely worth it if you ever use your laptop outside. The matte display looks excellent, and was great on desks near windows.

If you need the most power possible, we also reviewed the MacBook Pro with an M5 Max, including a 40-core GPU, a mix of Apple's latest performance and super cores, and a blazing fast SSD.

Both the 14-inch and 16-inch laptops offer great speakers and beautiful displays, but you will have to pay quite a bit for any storage or memory upgrades you want, and you won't be able to make changes later.

Read: MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5) review
Read: MacBook Pro (14-inch, M5 Max) review

The Best Gaming laptop

Razer Blade 18 offers some of the strongest gaming performance we've seen in a laptop, but also features excellent design, comfortable features, and the latest connection standards. At $5,199.99 as tested, it sure should be good. It tops our list of the best gaming laptops.

The major highlight is the dual-mode display, which has two options: 3840 x 2400 at 240 Hz or 1920 x 1200 at 440 Hz. Those two choices (which you can switch between in Razer Synapse) is enough to showcase both intensive, graphics-driven games at high settings and esports where frames are more important than resolution and detail.

The laptop, packed with an Intel Core Ultra 9 275HX and Nvidia GeForce RTX 5090 Laptop GPU in our review configuration, outperformed the field in our gaming tests, especially at the lower resolution.Razer is one of the few laptop makers using Thunderbolt 5 ports (we've also seen them from MSI and Apple), so this system is ready to go if you're using advanced peripherals or the fastest external storage drives.

Perhaps the biggest downside is that the Blade's dual 2TB storage drives use PCIe 4.0 rather than 5.0. You won’t notice this in games or mainstream productivity, but if you want PCIe 5.0 speed for future proofing or 8K video editing, the Titan may still be the way to go. The Blade 18 does support PCIe 5.0 drives, if you want to upgrade to speedier storage in the future.

Read: Razer Blade 18 review

Other Laptops We Tested

💻 Asus Zenbook A16

The Zenbook A16 has Qualcomm's powerful Snapdragon X2 Elite Extreme processor, including 48GB of RAM on the package. While the chip is fast, the laptop, while lightweight, didn't meet our expectations. While light, it flexed and didn't feel premium; battery life was lesser than competitors; and while emulation is better than it used to be, there are still some compatibility issues with Windows on Arm for power users.

Read: Asus Zenbook A16 review

💻 Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra

Samsung's Galaxy Book6 Ultra is a powerful system for creatives, thanks in part to the RTX 5070 GPU in the version we tested. The OLED screen is beautiful and you get an nice design (albeit one that is quite similar to Macs), but this laptop is pricey, and you get a shallow keyboard.

Read: Samsung Galaxy Book6 Ultra review

Quick Laptop Shopping Tips 

Finding Discounts on the Best Laptops

Whether you're shopping for one of the best laptops, or just something that is good enough for your needs, you may find savings by checking out our lists of the latest Dell coupon codes, HP coupon codes, Lenovo coupon codes, Best Buy promo codes or Newegg promo codes.

Apple, founded in 1977 to sell hobbyist computers, is currently celebrating its 50th year and is one of the most valuable companies today. However, this wasn’t the case back then, with venture capital firm Sequoia Capital sharing its founder’s memo regarding a potential $600,000 financing for the then-fledgling firm. According to the firm’s X post, its founder, Don Valentine, wrote the note, saying that Apple’s request will give it 10% of equity in the startup with a market greater than $500 million.

“Leading company in a hot biz… $600k buys 10% — very rich deal, management questionable for evaluation. Proposed financing structure: $60k to A.L-S, $60k to AG — friends of CMS, $480k to one venture investor… invitees: 1) Venrock 2) CMS 3) A. Rock 4) Bank Amer 5) Citicorp — Venrock has inside track, CMS second,” Valentine said in the memo. “Will be tough to do this deal: small amt available, high price, second position. CMS wants guarantee of min $, at least $100k & we will decide in Dec.”

Since Apple was a private entity back in 1977, we do not have a public record of how much each share of the company cost at that time. However, it went public in 1980, selling 4.6 million shares at $22 per share. That meant that Sequioa Capital’s $600,000 investment was already worth $10,120,000 at that time, turning early investors into millionaires. The company has since gone through multiple stock splits, meaning a single share from 1980 is equal to 224 today. That makes the original 460,000 shares under consideration by the venture capital firm in 1977 worth approximately $26.4 billion today, not counting the dividends that Apple released through the years.

This shows how far Apple has come through the years, from a fledgling company focused on selling kits to computer enthusiasts to making one of the most ubiquitous devices on the planet. Valentine initially had doubts about the deal, saying that it was rather expensive and that only a small amount was available for other investors. He also had doubts about the company’s management, which listed M. Markkula as the Chairman/CEO and S. Jobs and S. Melnick as “Eng Founders.” Nevertheless, Sequoia Capital’s investment in the company would turn out to be a good decision, with Apple eventually churning out groundbreaking products like the Macintosh, the iMac G3, the iPod, the iPhone, and Apple Silicon.

Apple is 50 years old. The consumer tech giant, famous for the iPhone, AirPods, and, yes, its Mac laptops and desktops, has a larger footprint than ever. It also now encompasses TV production, music streaming apps, a massive App Store, and even a $599 system for the masses, the MacBook Neo. But all of that is rooted in a tradition of hobbyist computing, starting with the company's first product: the Apple-1.

Apple Computer Inc. was founded in 1976 as a partnership between Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne (of Atari fame, who was at Apple very briefly and worked on documentation). The company was built around the Apple-1, designed by Wozniak, and officially incorporated in Cupertino, California, in January 1977.

In retellings of the Apple legend, Wozniak was the true engineer, who was working at HP at the time. Jobs had an interest in electronics (and was reportedly pretty good at soldering at his job at Atari), but he was more of a marketing guy.

Either way, the pair, along with the early team they built, didn't have a company based on lifestyle – at least not yet. It was based in the hobbyist PC space. The Apple-1 came without a case, a keyboard, or a power supply, but did include a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor and four kilobytes of memory. If you wanted to run Integer BASIC, you needed to do it on a cassette. Only about 200 were ever made, mostly for Byte Shop in nearby Mountain View.

At the time, the Apple-1 delivered a surprising amount of convenience for personal computing. Even though you still had to bring many components, the board was built and tested. Wozniak would show it off at the Homebrew Computer Club in Silicon Valley, to acclaim.But it was the Apple II that brought Apple's computers to the masses, assembling everything together, including the keyboard and case. You would use a television to serve as the screen. Heck, BASIC was even stored in memory. The Apple II was an iconic beige box that would be popularized by two further advancements in computing: a floppy disk drive and VisiCalc, an early spreadsheet program, which boosted its popularity.

There would be many variations on the Apple II, including the ill-fated Apple III, the upgraded Apple IIe, and the Lisa, the first commercially available PC with a GUI and mouse (inspired by work at Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center, such as the Xerox Alto), which was quite expensive at $9,995.

But in 1984, following an internal power struggle, a second computing group within Apple revealed the Macintosh (later the Macintosh 128K), bringing forward the idea of the "all-in-one" PC, which included a monitor. There would be many variations in the Mac line, but they'd become popularized again in 1998, when Jobs, back from his exile from the company from 1985 through 1997, announced the iMac G3, designed by Jony Ive, in Bondi Blue. That would be followed by multiple colorways on the portable iBook laptops.

There would be hits (the iMac G4, with a modern design between a lamp and a flower) and misses. The Power Mac G4 Cube was a gorgeous machine with cosmetic issues in the injection-molded plastic and cooling issues thanks to its fanless design. The press release about Apple suspending production lives on on its website.

In 2001, Apple released the iPod, promising "1,000 songs in your pocket." The third-gen iPod, in 2003, added support for Windows, helping propel it to be one of the most popular consumer devices of all time. In 2007, Apple would launch the iPhone, which would take over the American smartphone market, become the company's largest focus and flagship product, and introduce the App Store, a huge business success for the company, as well as other services like iCloud, Apple Music, and Apple Pay. (The iPhone would ultimately lead to the death of Flash and the headphone jack on phones, but change the way many people use devices forever.)

But the next biggest hit would be the MacBook Air. By this time, Apple was firmly in its Intel era. Sure, it was extremely expensive when it launched in 2008, starting at $1,799 with an 80GB HDD and a 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor (a 64GB SSD was an upgrade option!). But when Jobs pulled that computer out of a manila envelope, the tech world was stunned. It was stunned again when, in 2010, Apple redesigned the Air in two sizes: 11- and 13.3-inches, starting at $999 for the smaller model and $1,299 for the larger one (and it got rid of the spinning hard drive).

The MacBook Air would push leading PC companies to chase Apple in laptops for well more than a decade, as Dell updated the XPS line, HP jumped to the premium Spectre, and even Lenovo's ThinkPads saw the X1 series.

The MacBook Air would stay in the spotlight, 12 years later. Following some hum-dum upgrades in Apple's last Intel years, including the lackluster Touch Bar (in fact, in 2018, with little attention, I wrote for Laptop Mag that Apple needed to either upgrade or kill the laptop), it would be one of the first machines, along with the MacBook Pro and Mac Mini, to ditch Intel and move to Apple's first in-house silicon, the M1 system-on-a-chip. It was widely seen as a success.

Today, Macs don't have the kind of modularity or upgradeability they had when Wozniak showed off the Apple-1 at the Homebrew Computer Club. But with the release of the $599 MacBook Neo, time has caught up with Apple at 50 years old. There's another computer that feels like an all-in-one package for more people. But there are more challenges to come, as Apple faces a new world focused on AI, with new players and competitors. While the company still seems to be trying to deliver on promises around Apple Intelligence, the company has partnered with Google to use Gemini models to make an AI-focused Siri.

The 50-year anniversary has inspired celebrations, with museum collections, like the Mimms Museum of Technology and Art in Georgia showing off over 2,000 artifacts related to the company's history, and the vaunted Computer History Museum in Mountain View offering special programming. Apple has had an array of concerts and other performances at stores globally. But for most, it's just Wednesday, even if you have an iPhone in your pocket.

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has issued a direct strike threat to a slew of U.S. tech companies, including GPU giant Nvidia, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Meta, IBM, Cisco, and Tesla, just days after the regime identified the companies as 'legitimate targets.' As reported by CBS News, the IRGC issued an updated and more direct threat via Telegram on Tuesday.

Per the report, the group claimed that it would begin targeting some 18 U.S. and finance companies, specifically their Middle Eastern presences. As noted, the IRGC has already threatened these companies; however, Tuesday's statement represents a marked escalation in rhetorical threat.

The IRGC reportedly stated that the U.S. has "ignored our repeated warnings about the need to stop terrorist operations, and today, a number of Iranian citizens were martyred in your and your Israeli allies' terrorist attacks; Since the main element in designing and tracking terror targets are American ICT and AI companies, in response to this terrorist operation, from now on the main institutions effective in terrorist operations will be our legitimate targets."

Strikingly, the IRGC warned employees of the named institutions, which also include J.P. Morgan, to "leave their workplaces immediately to save their lives." Residents around these terrorist companies in all countries in the region should also leave their places within a radius of one kilometer and go to a safe place," Iran's armed forces stated. WION further reports the statement, which said: "These companies should expect destruction of their facilities in response to each act of terror in Iran." According to that outlet, strikes could begin as soon as 8 pm Tehran time on April 1.

As noted in our previous coverage, companies like Nvidia and Intel maintain significant Middle Eastern presences. 13% of Nvidia's global workforce resides in Israel, where the company has its second-largest R&D center beyond U.S. shores. Similarly, Intel employs some 9,355 people in Israel.

Beyond these specific threats of military force against U.S. tech institutions, the Iran conflict continues to have widespread ramifications in the tech industry. AWS data centers in Bahrain and the UAE have been struck by drones, and significant stress on the global Helium supply could have devastating consequences for chipmaking.

Mimms Museum of Technology and Art in Roswell, GA, will open the doors to its iNSPIRE: 50 Years of Innovation from Apple exhibition on Wednesday, April 1. The exhibit organizers say this is a first-of-its-kind exhibition and will feature more than 2,000 artifacts across 20,000 square feet. That makes it “the World’s Largest Collection of Apple Products,” according to the Mimms PR department. We’ve got some pre-opening images and details to share.

According to our research, Mimms won’t actually be showing off the world’s largest Apple hardware exhibit, though. That prize goes to the All About Apple Museum (Savona, Italy) with over 9,000 items, and a living museum area where visitors can interact with many old computers and devices. Mimms comes in second place, though!

A ribbon-cutting grand opening event for iNSPIRE is scheduled for 10am on Wednesday, with public access to the extensive artifacts and installations beginning at 12 noon.

Yes, it really has been 50 years since Apple Inc. was founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, and Ronald Wayne. Its 1976 launch product was the Apple I personal computer. A year later, the company would be incorporated by Jobs and Wozniak as Apple Computer Inc.

To mark this significant historical milestone, Apple will start its half-century celebrations in earnest. It even has a new Instagram account lined up for the event. However, Apple fans who’d prefer something more tangible and physical to get into a celebratory mood can visit Mimms in Roswell.

At the iNSPIRE: 50 Years of Innovation from Apple exhibition

Central to the exhibit are the 2,000+ artifacts from what has become one of the world’s most influential brands. There will be oodles of hardware to see. Besides that, visitors can check out “Rare collector’s items, unique documents, and behind-the-scenes stories of Apple’s groundbreaking product.”

As a technology and art museum, Mimms isn’t just shoving a load of old tech in glass boxes, of course. The museum is promising some hands-on displays of Apple’s early computers and devices. Moreover, “immersive, creative installations inspired by Apple’s most memorable campaigns,” will be part of the visitor experience.

Spoiler alert – we have some details and photos of some of the immersive exhibits, like the Motion-based trivia experience, iCloud floor interactivity, and the iPad drawing wall.

Museum admission is $22 for adults, $16 for kids (4 to 17), and a family of four can enter for $66. Mimms also offers concessions to seniors, military, and college students. Taking photos and sharing them online is encouraged.

Coincidentally, the Apple Museum Utrecht (Netherlands) will open its doors for the first time on April 2. There, you will be able to visit the massive wall of 100 iMac G3s, and enjoy walking around a full-scale replica of the Jobs' family garage.

This week, Apple’s Mac OS X hit a quarter-century milestone. It officially launched on March 24, 2001, though a public beta had been available for tinkerers for almost six months. Heralded by Steve Jobs as “the future of the Mac,” the fresh new operating system presented an ‘Aqua’ aesthetic dipped GUI over a Unix-based foundation. In 2026, even after three upheavals to the underlying Mac computer architecture, OS X is more popular than ever, and looks set to win flocks of new converts with the affordable MacBook Neo.

You can’t just launch an OS on an established platform without some mitigations and workarounds. I remember at the time of OS X’s introduction, we had a very polished ‘classic’ Mac OS version 9, though it may have been slightly fragile. As a transition user (I used Macs at work and home at the time), OS X felt rough, a big step backwards in usability, despite all the marketing bombast of Jobs and Co. For several years, Mac users had to juggle with ‘Carbon’ apps running natively and others causing the computer to start up the ‘Classic’ environment – an OS9 instance in a sandbox.

It wasn’t a very smooth experience mixing legacy and newer applications for several years. Nevertheless, in many ways, it was an achievement by Apple to transition its users from one OS to another while gaining popularity. This transition occurred when Macs were enjoying pretty good momentum from the colorful iMac G3 era.

Stepping back a little, it must be remembered that Apple’s development teams already had transitional success moving from the Motorola 680X0 architecture (from 1984 to around 1994-6) to PowerPC (1994 to 2006). They might have had an inkling at the time of OS X’s development and release that there would be another underlying hardware shakeup on the way.

Apple’s developers were very likely better prepared for the PowerPC to Intel architecture transition, not only thanks to prior experience, but also due to the UNIX underpinnings of OS X being built on components that already had portable multi-architecture support. While the 68K to PPC transition saw the necessity is the mother of invention, ‘fat binaries’ of mixed architecture code were introduced, OS X reused this concept with ‘Universal Binaries.’ Moreover, the Rosetta PPC-x86 (2006) translator was simpler than the 68K emulator that the first versions of Mac OS X had to incorporate.

OS X was introduced to modernize Apple’s desktop OS with features like protected memory, preemptive multitasking, a real kernel, and modern graphics stack. However, probably by accident rather than design, it ended up being much easier to transition to Intel.

The latest version of Mac OS X is currently macOS 26 (they changed the nomenclature about a decade ago), Tahoe. Apple’s grown-up OS hasn’t risen without a few of its own ‘Vista’ or ‘Windows 11’ moments over the years, though. For example, the newest release has been criticized for gatekeeper tightening behavior, making running unapproved or unsigned apps tricker than before. It also had a ‘Vista UAC’ type issue with users being annoyed by re-authorization prompts for app permissions.

The MacBook Air has topped our list of the best ultrabooks and premium laptops in recent years because of its mix of premium design, battery life, and performance that make it a go-to recommendation for anyone already on a Mac or looking to make the jump from Windows. The latest incarnation, the MacBook Air with M5 ($1,099 to start, $1,299 as tested), continues the trend, capitalizing on the series of subtle tweaks in its predecessors.

Apple has ditched the $999 starting price for the 13-inch system we're reviewing here, likely a mix of component shortages and pricing strategies related to the new budget-focused MacBook Neo. But $1,099 does get you a larger 512GB SSD over the previous 256GB base spec.

Despite the slight price bump, the mix of power, style, and longevity is still enough to easily recommend the MacBook Air to most people, especially those who don't need to run Windows. And all of the features that the MacBook Air offers still give it a clear space in the lineup that's worth saving up for over the Neo, if you can afford it.

Design of the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The MacBook Air with M5 sports the same design that Apple revealed back in 2022, when the M2 Air was the first Mac hardware built specifically around Apple Silicon. The design has aged well, and this one comes in the same colors as last year. Our review unit is a pale "sky" blue, the color introduced in 2025, which could be mistaken for silver in some lighting conditions.

The same aluminum design remains, with rounded edges and flat surfaces. It's handsome, if a bit familiar at this point. When you open the lid, which features Apple's logo in reflective tone-on-tone metal, you're greeted with the one real sin of this design: a notch into the display that houses the webcam. I've never quite gotten over it (in fact, the cheaper MacBook Neo's thicker bezel helped Apple avoid one completely).

Most of the MacBook Air's ports are on the left side of the notebook. These include MagSafe for charging and a pair of Thunderbolt 4 ports. On the right side, there's a lone 3.5 mm headphone jack.

At 2.7 pounds and 11.97 x 8.46 x 0.44 inches, the 13-inch MacBook Air can easily slide into a backpack relatively unnoticed. The Dell XPS 14, a Windows laptop noticeably inspired by the design, is 3 pounds and 12.19 x 8.26 x 0.6 inches. Apple's MacBook Neo, the new gateway laptop to the Apple ecosystem, weighs the same as the MacBook Air and is 0.6 mm taller, but has a smaller footprint at 11.71 x 8.12 x 0.5 inches.

MacBook Air (13-inch, M5) Specifications

Productivity Performance on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The MacBook Air puts Apple's M5 in a fanless chassis. Even without air cooling, the chip is quite powerful.

Our competitors here are the MacBook Pro with M5, which puts the M5 under air, as well as the Dell XPS 14 with a Core Ultra 7 3355 and an Asus ZenBook Duo with Core Ultra X9 388H. For an alternative ARM system, there's the Acer Swift 14 AI with the aging Snapdragon X Elite X1E-78-100). Lastly, there are some comparisons to the 15-inch MacBook Air with M4 that we reviewed last year.

On Geekbench 6, the Air notched a single-core score of 4,168 and a multi-core score of 17,067. That made the M5's biggest competition itself, but cooler. The M5 MacBook Pro hit a single-core score of 4,288 and a multi-core score of 17,926. Intel's Core Ultra X9 388H had a higher-multi-core score than the Air's M5 at 17,283, but given the Asus that houses it is almost twice the price of the MacBook Air, that's not a huge difference. Apple's M4 didn't do as well as M5, but it's single-core score still beats the Intel chips.

On our file transfer test, the MacBook Air copied 25GB of files at a rate of 1,924.84 MBps, just ahead of the M5 MacBook Pro and faster than both Intel systems tested here.

The M5 MacBook Air took 4 minutes and 41 seconds to transcode a 4K video to 1080p in Handbrake, a slight increase over M4 (4:52). The MacBook Pro did it over a minute faster with air cooling (3:31), while the Zenbook Duo also beat the Air, at 4:22. This was where the Acer Swift 14 with Snapdragon was the most competitive, coming in at 4:46.

On the Xcode Benchmark, the MacBook Air took 165 seconds to compile a large codebase using Apple's developer tools. The MacBook Pro did it in 145 seconds.

It wasn't surprising to see the M5 thermally throttle in this fanless chassis. On our Cinebench 2026 stress test, the chip started with a score of 3,415, slowly decreasing over the first few runs, until it settled in the low 2,300's. Apple doesn't allow monitoring software like TG Pro to access clock speeds, but Cinebench estimates that M5 runs single-core at 4.3 GHz and multi-core at 3.6 GHz in this laptop.

Gaming and Graphics on the MacBook Air

The MacBook Air's integrated 10-core GPU has access to the 16GB of unified memory in our review unit. In this fanless design, the GPU is subject to similar thermal throttling as the CPU.

I tried playing InZoi, the same life simulator game I played on the MacBook Pro with M5 Max, on the Air. In this case, though, I had it set to 1680 x 1050, used MetalFX in performance mode, and very low settings, but still had hardware ray tracing enabled. The game ran between 40 and 55 frames per second, depending on the environment the characters were in.

The Air earned a score of 1,005 on the 3DMark Steel Nomad benchmark, falling behind the cooled M5 in the MacBook Pro at 1,122 and the integrated Intel Arc B390 in the Asus Zenbook Duo's Core Ultra X9 388H (but again, that's a far more expensive laptop). The Air was far more graphically competent than the Dell XPS 14's integrated Intel graphics, which delivered just 532 points. We don't have data for this test for M4, as we've started using it on Macs recently.

Display on the on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The 13-inch screen on the MacBook Air is actually 13.6-inches, making it 0.6 inches larger than the MacBook Neo. The Air's display has a 2560 x 1664 "Liquid Retina" LED display with IPS and Apple's True Tone, which adjusts the screen's color temperature based on ambient lighting.

I used the MacBook Air to watch the debut trailer for Spider-Man: Brand New Day, the hero's new red and blue suit shone brightly against grayer, darker backgrounds as he dove off a building and confronted the Punisher.

At 83.1% DCI-P3 color Volume and 117.3% sRGB, the Air was on par with the MacBook Pro, despite the latter's mini LED screen. The Asus ZenBook Duo's dual OLED screens, however, were slightly more vivid, while the XPS 14 trailed the group here.

At 458.8 nits, the Air's display gets suitably bright, but the MacBook Pro got almost 100 nits brighter. The Dell XPS 14 beat the Air ever so slightly at 466 nits of brightness.

Keyboard and Touchpad on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The keyboard on the MacBook Air may not have the most travel, but it's quite comfortable. I love typing on it. The layout just makes sense, with full-sized function keys and inverted-T arrow keys. The power button features Touch ID to log in easily.

On the Monkeytype typing test, I hit 114 words per minute with 98% accuracy, which is close to my best.

My only quibble with the MacBook Air's keys is one that is also on this year's MacBook Neo and MacBook Pro lines, as well; Apple has removed the words from the delete, enter, shift, caps lock, and tab keys and replaced them with glyphs that are familiar to those who have used the iOS keyboard. As a touch typist, it's not actually that big of a deal, but I don't think it's as clear as it could be. (For what it's worth, these glyphs have been on alternate language keyboards before. We're just seeing it now in U.S. English.) On the bright side, the modifier keys maintain their text.

Apple's haptic touchpads remain among the best in the industry. They support tons of fluid, accurate gestures, feel good against the fingertip, and have convincing feedback that feels like a real click. Very few others come close.

Audio on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

Apple's quad speakers on the MacBook Pro sound quite good and get loud enough to fill a room. In our photography studio, I listened to Metric's "Victim of Luck" and was pleased by clear vocals, synths, and keys, as well as some snappy drums. The bass isn't as good as the thicker MacBook Pro, but at least there is some, which you rarely get on a laptop this thin.

If you prefer to use the 3.5 mm headphone jack, Apple offers support for high-impedance headphones.

Upgradeability on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

While there are four pentalobe screws on the underside of the MacBook Air, removing them won't get you very far, as the RAM and storage are soldered down. As usual, the recommendation with a Mac is to buy the best one you can at the time of purchase, because you won't be able to adjust down the line.Most people who need repairs are likely to make an appointment at a Genius Bar. For those with access to parts, Apple did drop a repair manual for the MacBook Air on launch day (as well as the Pro and Neo).

Battery Life on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The MacBook Air lasts long enough on a charge. On our battery test, which involves web browsing, streaming video, and light OpenGL benchmarks with the screen set to 150 nits of brightness, it lasted for 15 hours and 28 minutes. That's roughly the same as the 15-inch M4 model we tested last year (15:14).

And while that's nothing to sneeze at, and is effectively all-day battery life, you can go higher. The MacBook Pro with M5, with a larger 72.4 WHr battery, ran for 18:14. The Dell XPS 14 ran for 20:41, albeit with a lower-resolution display. Another ARM-based competitor, the Snapdragon X Elite-based Swift 14, also ran longer at 17:32.

Heat on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

Despite the lack of a fan, the MacBook Air doesn't get uncomfortably hot. We took skin temperatures while running our Cinebench stress test, and while the system heated up, it was never uncomfortable to the point where you couldn't use it.

The center of the keyboard measured 105.1 degrees Fahrenheit, which is noticeable, but the touchpad was cooler at 96 F. The hottest point on the bottom of the laptop measured 107.9 F.

TG Pro, which measures system temperatures and can control fan speeds, measured the M5 SOC at 63.24 degrees Celsius.

Webcam on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The MacBook Air has a 12MP webcam in its notch. In everyday usage, I have no complaints. The webcam caught every hair on my head (fortunate!) some wrinkles under my eyes (unfortunate!), and even some detail in our office's industrial ceiling with speckled paint.

The camera, dubbed "Center Stage," is named after a macOS feature that lets the camera focus on you as you move around. I don't use it much, as I tend to sit in one place on calls.

Software and Warranty on the MacBook Air (13-inch, M5)

The MacBook Air comes with the latest version of macOS 26, also known as Tahoe. We went into that more in our review of the Macbook Pro with M5. Tahoe includes the "liquid glass" design overhaul that includes lots of icons and translucent effects, as well as a big update to Spotlight that adds many actions, a built-in clipboard history, and far more automations for shortcuts.

Built-in apps include Safari, Messages, Reminders, Maps, FaceTime, Photos, Apple TV, Music, and more. You still get free versions of Keynote, Pages, and Numbers, though newer versions come as part of Apple's Creator Studio subscription service, along with Compression, Motion, FInal Cut Pro, Logic Pro, Mainstage, and Pixelmator Pro.

Apple sells the 13-inch MacBook Air with a 1-year warranty. AppleCare+, which covers repairs, battery replacement, and priority support, is $6.99 per month or $69.99 per year (it is also available as part of AppleCare One for $19.99 per month, covering up to three products). The 15-inch Air drops up to $7.99 per month or $79.99 annually.

MacBook Air (13-inch, M5) Configurations

We tested a 13-inch MacBook Air with an Apple M5 with a 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16GB of RAM, a 1TB SSD, and a blue "sky" colorway. That configuration costs $1,299.

Apple has eliminated the $999 base price. This year, the 13-inch MacBook Air starts at $1,099, albeit with 512GB of storage rather than the 256GB of storage at the previous starting price. That system also has an 8-core GPU.

If you want more than 16GB, you need the M5 chip with the 10-core GPU, a $100 upgrade on its own. From there, 24GB of RAM is $200 and 32GB is $400. That's pricey, but it's not ridiculous given the price of RAM everywhere else these days.

Apple is now selling the 13-inch Air with a 40W Dynamic Power Adapter with 60W Max. For $20 more, you can get either the 35W Dual USB-C port or a 70W USB-C charger.

The 15-inch MacBook Air now starts at $1,299 with the M5 chip and a 10-core GPU.

Bottom Line

The MacBook Air, despite its place as Apple's new middle child in the Mac laptop lineup, is still the best option for the majority of users, if they can afford it. You get a slim design, strong performance and battery life, a comfortable keyboard, an excellent haptic touchpad, and strong base specs at 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD.

Much of Apple's premium competition is actually more expensive now. For example, the Dell XPS 14 starts at $1,349.99 (as of this writing, the price tends to fluctuate) with an Intel Core Ultra 5 325, 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and a 1920 x 1200 screen. That's more money for a lower resolution display and a less powerful chip. (The version we tested, with a Core Ultra 7 355, is up to $1,449.99). Getting Intel's top processors only goes up from there. But if you need to use Windows, you may need to pony up or find alternatives to get a premium ultrabook in your price range.

Meanwhile, Apple's MacBook Neo may be an alternative for some, but if you're doing serious multitasking, the 16GB of memory in the MacBook Air will be a noticeable difference, and you'll also get better speakers, MagSafe charging, an excellent haptic touchpad, a larger, higher-resolution display, better webcam, keyboard backlighting, and a faster chip, to boot. You get a lot extra with the Air, if you can afford it.

That leaves the MacBook Air as a great value in the premium ultraportable space. While I would love to see Apple start bringing its fancier screens and other Pro features down to the Air, this is a laptop that most people can get by on, presuming they're not doing intensive workloads that need constant cooling and heavy graphics prowess. For just $1,100, you can get a lot of Mac. That's getting harder and harder for other companies to say about their PCs, as the RAM and storage crisis continues to drive up prices.

TechTuber Epictronics has shared a video documenting his attempts to fix a vintage 20-inch Trinitron CRT monitor suffering from cataracts by injecting UV resin. Spoiler alert: the exploration of a syringe, heat, UV, and patience-requiring method of fixing this old Apple-branded Sony monitor ended up being “a mega-successful repair.” Indeed, under normal lighting/magnification, as evidenced by before and after photos, the unsightly air pockets appear to have vanished.

We’d have to agree that spending time fixing a sample of the legendary Apple GDM‑20E01 is time well spent. Introduced in the mid-1990s, this was a premium, expansive, color display from the era, coveted by creatives (and others who saw it). It used a Sony Trinitron tube and supported resolutions up to 1,280 x 1,024 pixels.

This particular sample has maybe had a harder life than some. The TechTuber says it was actually “trash-picked… very smelly” and filled with spiders when he acquired it. Picking it out of a dumpster could put your back out, though. The GDM‑20E01 tips the scales at approximately 66 pounds (30kg).

“A very nasty cataract issue.”

Epictronics notes that cataracts are a much more prevalent issue in monitors from the 70s, but we’ve already mentioned that Epictronics’ sample was rescued from the trash. This monitor, and many like it, have a thin layer of glass bonded to the CRT tube face. Unfortunately, the protective layer can delaminate over time, which isn’t good for the viewer, with lighter patches often creeping in from the edges, progressing after numerous heat and cold cycles, aging, and weathering take their toll on the bonding adhesive.

Pondering over the scale of the problem for this GDM‑20E01, Epictronics says that while a traditional fix might involve using a heat gun to completely remove the front laminated layer, it is a “risky process than can go wrong, horribly wrong.” So, for this Trinitron, with cataracts still only creeping in from the sides, a less dramatic fix was going to be tested. The TechTuber decided to use a syringe plus clear UV-curable resin to determine if the unsightly air gaps could be flooded. Anyways, Epictronics insisted that this smaller-scale fix won’t hinder a fuller solution at a later date.

After finishing injecting the major air-gap/bubble-affected region in the video and replacing the screen bezel, the TechTuber said, “That was a mega-successful repair.” From start to finish, his technique progressed, settling on a periodic syringe needle-heating technique so the resin flowed readily into the gaps. Magnified close-ups show the cured resin still contained very small air bubbles, but they weren’t observable by the naked eye from a normal sitting distance. The image gallery showing before and after pics pretty much confirms the success of the CRT fixing project.

After the monitor section, Epictronics shifted his attention to the restoration of a contemporaneous Macintosh PowerPC 6100 base unit. The computer had several problems, like a faulty optical drive, among its issues. A DOS compatibility card with a 486 DX2-66 processor was also lined up to expand the capabilities of the pioneering PowerPC architecture machine.

Warning: CRT electronics can remain dangerous, even after the device has been powered off for some time.

Apple CEO Tim Cook said the Apple Mac had its best launch week ever for new customers, and if you check out a MacBook Neo at the Apple Store right now, the website says it will ship in about two to three weeks. It seems that the affordable MacBook is on its way to becoming a massive hit for Apple, especially at a time when rising RAM and SSD costs are killing the entry-level PC market.

Cupertino officially announced the MacBook Neo on March 4, 2026, with deliveries beginning on March 11. The laptop had its first full week on sale by March 18, with Cook saying on X, “Mac just had its best launch week ever for first-time Mac customers. We love seeing the enthusiasm!” While Apple hasn’t released official sales figures, it seems that the company is seeing much more demand than anticipated for the affordable device. But unlike the OpenClaw-driven shortage of high-performance Macs and MacBooks, demand for the Neo seems to be coming from new customers switching from Windows to macOS.

Many enthusiasts snubbed the MacBook Neo because it’s lacking in specs — especially its A18 Pro SoC and measly 8GB of Unified Memory. But because this device is designed for students and casual users (and priced accordingly), it does not really need that much performance. Instead, Apple focused on what the average consumer likely wants: a good experience for day-to-day tasks, such as media consumption and basic productivity, and an excellent build that does not feel cheap. And despite its apparent lack of power, the MacBook Neo has been proven to run Cyberpunk 2077 at over 30 FPS.

Asus co-CEO S.Y. Hsu said that it was a shock to the entire PC market, especially as many manufacturers didn’t think Apple would launch such an affordable device. Still, he compared the Neo to a tablet, calling it a content-consumption device.

This would make the MacBook Neo a major threat to Microsoft’s dominance in the sub-$600 laptop market, especially since it fits the budget of many looking for an entry-level device. Furthermore, Apple’s education pricing offers a $100 discount on the laptop, bringing the price to less than $500 and making it attractive to many students and their parents.

Windows still offers a few advantages that Apple cannot match. But as the MacBook becomes more popular and gains market share over Microsoft, that would entice more developers to build for macOS, making it an attractive alternative, especially if you already have an iPhone. PC manufacturers need to step up their game and offer an alternative that could match the MacBook Neo in both price and quality if they want to compete against Apple, but the ongoing memory and storage chip shortage will certainly make that challenge.

Earlier this month, Apple released the MacBook Neo, a $599 laptop that impressed reviewers (myself included) with surprisingly good quality for the price.

"Yes, the MacBook Neo is $599. But it rarely feels like it," I wrote in my review. "Apple invested in a premium aluminium chassis, a bright, good-quality screen, and a decent keyboard and mouse. Putting performance aside, those are the parts of a computer that most people care the most about."

I stand by those words, but there are, of course, people who put performance above all else, even at $599. And to those people, I have good news: You can get a Windows PC!

Some table stakes here: We haven't been able to review a ton of budget Windows PCs. In fact, the companies that make them don't usually like to make them available for loans. But we've done a bit of internet window shopping, and using some comparisons from our own data and online, we can more closely evaluate the performance gains that some Windows laptops offer at this price point.

The competition

I browsed multiple big box stores and shops from laptop manufacturers. One quick theme came up: Many laptop deals in this price range are sold by third-party sellers, some of which don't seem so reputable.

I stuck with laptops that are being sold directly from the vendor's store. The MacBook Neo, sold at many stores, will come with a 1-year warranty and support. So these systems had to, also. That weeded out a surprising number of candidates.

To get good pricing, though, some of this had to rely on sales. For example, HP sells a 14-inch laptop on its website with a $499.99 MSRP with a last-gen Intel N150, a 1366 x 768 display topping at 250 nits, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of eMMC storage, and Windows 11 Home in S Mode. At least it has a Copilot key? Shoppers should be aware that they can do better if they shop around.

I chose three major competitors:

• Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3x, a Snapdragon laptop with the latest standards, but a two-year old CPU. Sound familiar?
• Asus Vivobook Go 15, a $499 notebook, matching the MacBook Neo's education price.
• Dell 14 Plus, on sale exclusively for $649 at Dell.com, shows what an extra $50 can get you on Windows if you catch the right sale.

Here they are in a table to compare the major specs:

Something for everyone

If you want a premium experience, the MacBook Neo will win. Of these systems, the Neo is the only one with a completely aluminum body. Others, like the IdeaPad and the Dell 16 Plus, have aluminum top covers but are otherwise made of plastic. Apple’s is also the lightest machine of the bunch, at 2.7 pounds, while the IdeaPad and Asus are both more than 3.5 pounds.

The big question most people will want to know is about system memory. The Qualcomm-based IdeaPad and the Dell 16 Plus both come with 16GB, while the Asus sticks with 8GB, like the Neo. All of those are soldered (in Dell's case, it's also on-package because it uses Intel's Lunar Lake architecture).

Apple's A18 Pro, a six-core processor with 2 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, debuted in the iPhone 16 Pro in 2024. The Intel Core Ultra 5 226V in the Dell, an 8-core processor, was released the same year. Months later, in January 2025, the 8-core Qualcomm Snapdragon X (X1-26-100), the least-powerful chip in this laptop lineup, dropped. The Vivobook Go boasts the oldest processor; the AMD Ryzen 5 7520U launched in 2022 with 4 cores on a 6nm process (that platform launched in 2023).

I can tell you from experience that the MacBook Neo's display is significantly better than what you typically see in big box stores at the $599 price point. If you get this Dell 16 Plus while on sale, you can get a 2560 x 1600 screen, which is slightly higher in resolution. But Dell is only promising 300 nits of brightness; we measured the Neo at 452.6 nits. Asus promises just 250 nits of brightness. On paper, the Neo sure sounds better – and it looks quite good in person. The other laptops offer bog-standard 1080p displays, which I would've called good enough for the price until now.

Both Apple and Dell have 1080p webcams. Those vary a ton in quality. I know Apple's is great, I can't speak for Dell's. When I showed Apple's to managing editor Matt Safford, he said, "I'm pretty sure that's the best-looking 1080p [laptop] webcam I've ever seen." The other two have 720p webcams, but hey, at least they have privacy shutters.

All of Apple's competition has larger batteries, though that isn't everything in battery life. In our MacBook Neo review, the Surface Laptop with Snapdragon X Plus and a 50 WHr battery outperformed the Neo, so it's possible that the IdeaPad, with a lower-power chip and a 60 Whr battery, and a lower-resolution, likely dimmer, lower screen would go even longer.

Apple's laptop also comes with a 20W USB-C charger. You could use a faster one, but if we're going based on what you get in the box, that's measly. The IdeaPad and Dell come with 65W chargers, while the Vivobook comes with a 45W charger.

One of the biggest issues I had with the MacBook Neo was the lack of backlit keys. Lenovo has backlit keys on the IdeaPad, as does Dell on the 14 Plus. But Asus' Vivobook also has darkened keys.

There’s no doubt that Apple's competitors offer more ports, including mixes of USB-A and USB-C, SD card readers, and even a Thunderbolt 4 port on that Dell. Many of the USB ports are 5GBps, making them slower than the fastest port on the Mac. But if variety trumps speed, then the PC is your friend here.

Single and multi-core performance

The main reason these systems weren't compared in our Neo review was that we didn't have scores in our benchmark database. Just to get a sense of performance, though, we're comparing our Geekbench 6 scores for the MacBook Neo to what we're seeing in the Geekbench database for others. It's not ideal, but it's what we've got to work with.

In this comparison, we see that Apple's Neo with A18 Pro still maintains a strong lead in single-core performance, where most Neo owners are likely to spend most of their time browsing the web, writing documents, working on spreadsheets, watching videos or movies, or doing other basic tasks. That being said, if you do switch into multi-core performance, both the Qualcomm Snapdragon X1-26-100 and Intel Core Ultra 5 226V outdid the Neo. Given the IdeaPad and Dell Plus housing those laptops also have 16GB of RAM as configured, they're more able to run multi-core tasks well in the first place.

Geekbench is great for emulating short, bursty workloads — the kind you're likely to run on a budget laptop. But this may not be illustrative of how these systems perform over a longer duration of time. And of course, a lot depends on what you actually do on your laptop.

What about education pricing?

Apple shaves $100 off the MacBook Neo for education pricing, bringing it down to $499, the same price as the Asus Vivobook. When you compare this head-to-head with the Vivobook on paper, the Neo wins every time, with the Vivobook’s bigger battery. (A larger battery doesn't inherently mean better battery life, though).

That being said, there is one important note to think about: software. While many students will likely be able to get along just fine with macOS, if you're in a specialized high school program or college major that uses software that only runs on Windows, you'll need a PC. If that's the case, leaning towards x86, like that Intel Lunar Lake chip in the Dell, is probably a smart choice; Qualcomm still has some work to do on app compatibility.

But if you're doing most work in the browser, Microsoft Office, or other software available on both platforms, the Mac's price will be extremely enticing here. The best Windows competitors are a bit more expensive.

A new breed of competition?

In general, when I review systems, I review everything about the system, as a full package. And for people doing basic tasks, I maintain that the MacBook Neo is a great value.

That being said, it does have limits. Those who need multi-core performance, more RAM, and more ports (and more properly-labeled ports, at that) do have options in this price range. You just have to give up something else, like build quality and/or a bright screen. That's how cheap laptops tend to work. But on single-core workloads, build quality, and when it comes to the displays, you really do have to hand it to Apple.

In Asus' most recent earnings call, co-CEO S.Y. Hsu said that the MacBook Neo was "certainly a shock to the entire market,” before turning around and saying it was mostly a content consumption device with just 8GB of RAM that you can't upgrade. I would tell him to also look at the Vivobook his company sells.

But that shock will hopefully lay the foundation for better competition from Windows OEMs at lower prices. It will be difficult during this RAM crisis, but raising the bar for budget notebooks across the ecosystem would really be great for everyone, no matter what operating system they prefer. And frankly, Apple's competitors better be ready to answer the MacBook Neo with something that feels as complete as the Neo does, or they'll risk looking out of touch. There are plenty of people who prefer a Windows PC to a Mac, but it's not like Microsoft has been earning fans with its OS lately. There's work to do.