Tag Archives: iMac

Computers, News

The Apple M1 Extermination Quietly Continues with the 21.5-inch Intel iMac

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Apple’s Silicon M1 chip has proven to be a popular choice for Apple fans. When it was introduced the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro line-up in 2020, the M1 counterpart managed to be cheaper than Apple’s Intel powered MacBook Pro. That could be a good explanation to its popularity. It was a lot more than that though.

The Apple M1 chip has proven itself to be a highly capable processor in both the MacBook and MacBook Pro. This year, Apple launched two more variants of the M1 chip, the M1 Pro and M1 Max. While Apple made the two M1 chips from 2021 sound like completely different processors, they are based on the same architecture and base design. They are still the same M1 chip, just a little oversized, hence more powerful.

2021 sees Apple starting to consider a complete M1 line-up though. They started with the MacBook Pro line-up of course. You will not be able to buy an Intel based MacBook Pro anymore officially starting from now. But the M1 transformation does not stop there. Earlier this year, Apple also introduced the new M1 powered Apple iMac. You still can buy an Intel powered version though, although at a smaller 21.5-inch size.

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As of November 2021 though, you can only buy an iMac powered by Apple’s own M1 chip starting at 24-inch. To be fair though, the 21.5-inch Apple iMac is a little outdated for 2021 and beyond. For a little under MYR 5,000, you are getting an older generation Intel processor. Not just one or two generations older though, if you consider the 11th Generation Intel, the 21.5-inch iMac sports a four-generation old Intel processor.

That does no mean that you cannot get an Intel powered Apple iMac though, you still can. Your only choice is the 27-inch iMac that starts at MYR 7,999. You get a 10th generation Intel Core i5 with up to 8GB of memory and 256GB in storage. For graphics you get an AMD Radeon Pro 5300 GPU. You get a brilliant 5K display with that though. Considering that the M1 powered iMac starts at MYR 5,599 though, the 27-inch Intel powered alternative looks expensive.

With the launch of the M1 Max and M1 Pro chips, we are guessing that Apple will also start shifting directions with their high-end computing solutions like the 27-inch iMac. In that case, we might see Apple axing the Intel powered 27-inch Apple iMacs in the coming year. Would you still want an Intel powered iMac though?

Computers, Lifestyle, News

Spotify Beta App Released with M1 Native Support

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Apple’s M1 chip for their Mac platform has been around for nearly eight months now. At the same time, while there is a growth for apps that natively supports the M1 chip, it has been a little slow in adoption from major app developers. At least there is some good news today though.

There are a few reasons why app developers want to develop apps that natively supports the M1 chip. Due to the unique architecture of Apple’s silicon, apps need to behave a little differently to take advantage of the chip’s power. In some sense, apps for the Mac have to be developed to work very much like mobile apps, but more feature rich than one.

This means that regular apps you usually see for your PC and regular Intel or AMD powered Mac, while runs on an M1 variant Mac, will run a little slower with more noticeable lags. This is also something you will see on regular PC apps running on other ARM based chips like the Qualcomm Compute platform. To ensure that the apps behave as they are designed to, they have to reengineer their apps a little bit to optimise its running processes for the ARM architecture-based chips.

Today is one of those days that another major app developer jumps on board of the M1 train. Spotify has just released a new Beta app with native support for Apple’s M1 silicon. For Spotify users currently on M1 Macs, that should mean a major improvement in the apps experience on their Macs.

To be fair, the Beta release should not come as a huge surprise. Users have been asking Spotify to release an M1 supported Spotify app since the M1 chips launched into the MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac. The native support should mean that the app runs a lot smoother and faster, on top of being a little bit more stable on M1 chips.

It is still in Beta though, which also means that you can expect some hiccups from time to time. In that case, you might want to report all sorts of bugs you will encounter in your experience so that Spotify can rectify as much as possible before the app goes full prime time. According to their own Spotify community post, they would also like to hear from users if their app works nicely.

You can download the Spotify Beta version for M1 based Mac devices on their website. Their community page post also features some instructions on how to get the Beta app up and running. You can easily go back to the regular version too, if you are not too keen with the Beta app by simply downloading the app from their website regularly.

Computers, Lifestyle, News

Apple’s New 2021 iMac is the Thinnest, Most Colourful, and Most Advanced Ever

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Apple’s Spring Loaded event for 2021 has just ended this morning (Malaysia time), and it is packed. We expected a new iMac all-in-one Mac for your desk. We did not expect the iMac to look quite so good though.

To start with, Apple opens the new iMac launch with seven different colours. Technically, there are six new different colours and one good ol’ silver colour. What really stuck us though was how thin the iMac looks.

They say that the iMac is now only 11.5mm thick. This is achievable thanks to the redesigned motherboard and cooling hardware for the Apple iMac. The redesign is also mostly thanks to the integrated chip that is the Apple M1 silicon. That is the same M1 chip you will find on the MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac, and now the new iPad Pro too.

Source: Apple

The new powerful integrated chip allows the motherboard to be one-third its previous design. It also allows much smaller cooling fans. Both of those combined, not only allows the iMac to be thinner than ever. It also allows the iMac to be more efficient and even quieter than before in terms of actual noise and space.

Of course, you can opt to make it loud with its colour seven colour options. But it can also be loud by playing music or watching movies and other types of video contents. The iMac now has six speakers instead of four for an even more powerful audio experience. Apple says that the six speakers should really enhance the Dolby Atmos experience from the 24-incher all-in-one desktop.

The six speakers is placed below the 24-inch display that blasts 4.5K Retina resolution with P3 wide colour gamut at up to 500 nits in brightness. That also means that you can really enjoy movies on the display at 4K HDR even, so this can really be your all-in-one entertainment machine too. Of course, 4.5K can also benefit your workflow, especially when you work with a lot of video and photographs. But it also helps you look at your friends or colleagues clearly when you make video calls.

Source: Apple

In terms of video calls, Apple has also included the best-in-class Full HD video camera. To be fair, you hardly get a Full HD webcam on any modern PC still, so having a higher resolution with better image quality does really help especially in the majority of work-from-home situations currently. That is not all though. Apple has tuned its mic to focus on the voices that are directly in front of it instead of picking up sounds from other parts of the room so that your video conference can go on nicely without the interference of the other things happening at your environment.

Of course, minimalist designs have to come with minimalist accessories. That is also why the Apple iMac comes with an innovative single power connector that is attached magnetically to the back of the device. That also means you do not have to feel around of the pins and hope to be lucky when you slot in your cable. To ensure that it lasts and looks as good as the iMac, it is a woven cable that runs down the back of the iMac to a square power adapter you can put on the floor or hide behind your desk. The power adapter also has an ethernet port for you to connect the iMac to the internet via LAN cable instead of via WiFi for a more stable networking.

Other updated accessories include two new Magic Keyboard that comes in colour matching aluminium shells, colour matching Magic Mouse, and colour matching Magic Trackpad. While the Magic Trackpad and Magic Mouse has not changed much, the new keyboards are a little different though; at least for one of the variants you can get.

You can now opt for a Magic Keyboard with Touch ID. This is the first time we see a fingerprint sensor implemented on a desktop PC, and wirelessly for that matter. You can choose between a Touch ID Magic Keyboard with or without the numeric keypad.

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The new 2021 24-inch iMac will be available 30th April onward in selected markets. It comes in two GPU options with multiple storage options starting from a 7-core GPU + 256GB combination at a starting price of US$ 1,299 (MYR 5,599*). The other one is an 8-core GPU + 256GB combination at US$ 1,499 (MYR 6,499*). For Malaysia, the spec tops out at 8-core GPU + 512GB combination at MYR 7,249*. For more information, you can head over to Apple’s website.

*Official Malaysia pricing as per Apple Malaysia

Computers, News

The Apple iMac Pro is No More

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When we say no more in this case, it is not exactly true yet. There are still Apple iMac Pro devices still going around the market. But as per Apple, the only ones they are selling at this point is their base model with Intel’s 10-core Xeon CPU.

Apple’s iMac Pro is Apple’s iteration of what an all-in-one workstation should be. The iMac Pro is designed for heavy workloads and churn an impressive amount of compute power to do anything its users could think off. It was designed as well, to be as portable as possible so users can take it from one corner of the world to the other to get their work done on a reliable machine.

The latest iMac Pro comes with a 27-inch display that boasts 5K resolution with True Tone and option for nano-texture glass. While the base model is an Intel Xeon variant, you could opt for a 10-generation Intel Core i9 with up to 256GB* of RAM and up to 8TB of storage. If you really want to kit it out, you can even get a powerful AMD Radeon Pro 5700 XT GPU for all your heavy rendering, 10-Gigabit ethernet for fast networking in the office, an excellent 1080p webcam for better web conferencing experience (important today), even better speakers and microphones, and a lot more.

The base model of the iMac Pro will set you back US$ 4,999 (MYR 20,855**) and comes with said 10-core Intel Xeon W processor. You get 32GB of RAM and 1TB of storage for that money. On top of that you get a Radeon Pro Vega 56 GPU.

Apple has announced that the current remaining batch of iMac Pro devices in the market are the last ones on sale. They have not confirmed if there are any replacement models for the iMac Pro or not. Sources say that you may not want to count on Apple replacing the iMac Pro at this time though. In that case, if you are looking for an Apple machine that could handle all your 3D modelling projects or CAD modelling, you might want to start looking at the Mac Pro.

*As per Apple Malaysia Website

**Official Apple Malaysia Pricing on Apple Website

Source: Engadget, Mac Rumors