O'Grady's PowerPage

Category: M1

  • $20 upgrade allows for fast charging on new 14-inch MacBook Pro

    $20 upgrade allows for fast charging on new 14-inch MacBook Pro

    If you’re hankering for fast charging on Apple’s brand new 14-inch MacBook Pro, you’ll need to snag a $20 upgrade when configuring it on the company’s web-based storefront.

    Per the cool cats at iMore:

    Thankfully, the 96W power adapter is available as a $20 upgrade when you are configuring your 14-inch MacBook Pro, but it still seems odd that Apple would bother with the 67W power adapter at all since it doesn’t provide the full experience that its new laptop is capable of. The new 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros feature the new M1 Pro and M1 Max processors, Apple’s latest pro-level chips that take the M1 to new heights. The new laptops feature a mini-LED display, MagSafe charging, a new keyboard with function keys, and the return of many ports.

    If you’re put in a pre-order for the new 14-inch MacBook Pro, please let us know what you make of it in the comments and we’ll have additional details as they become available.

    Via The Mac Observer and iMore

  • Apple unveils new 14.-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro notebooks feature M1 Pro or M1 Max processors, assorted new features

    Apple unveils new 14.-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro notebooks feature M1 Pro or M1 Max processors, assorted new features

    If you’ve been hankering for Apple’s new 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro, you’re going to like this.

    Apple on Tuesday announced its 14.2-inch and 16.2-inch MacBook Pro notebooks, complete with configurations that include the M1 Pro or M1 Max processor, a mini-LED display with ProMotion, an HDMI port and SD card reader, charging with MagSafe 3, a notch housing a 1080p webcam, and more.

    The new machines offer additional ports, the right side incorporating an HDMI port, a Thunderbolt 4 port, and an SD card reader. The left side of the machine offers a ‌MagSafe‌ 3 port, two Thunderbolt 4 ports, and a headphone jack. The keyboard features now a full-height function key row in place of the Touch Bar, and the entire keyboard area is black.

    The updated notebooks offer reduced display borders, with a notch out of the top of the display for the webcam. The webcam itself offers a 1080p resolution with a wider aperture and a larger image sensor. The display itself is a mini-LED Liquid Retina XDR display, which also features ProMotion for refresh rates up to 120Hz.

    Other new features include improved studio-quality mics and speakers that support Spatial Audio, with the 16-inch model containing a six-speaker system.

    Where charging is concerned, the units offer magnetic charging with MagSafe 3, which offers fast charging of up to 50 percent of battery capacity in 30 minutes. When playing back video, the 14.2-inch model offers up to 17 hours of battery life, while the 16.2-inch model can deliver up to 21 hours of video playback.

    Apple’s new M1 Pro chip functions as a scaled-up, more powerful variant of the M1 chip, and features a 10-core CPU, 16-core GPU, a more capable Media Engine, more Thunderbolt controllers, support for up to 32GB of RAM, and more. The ‌M1‌ Max chip features the same 10-core CPU as the ‌M1‌ Pro, but includes a 32-core GPU with support for up to 64GB of RAM.

    The MacBook Pro is available to pre-order today with prices beginning around $1,999 and begins arriving to customers next week.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via MacRumors

  • Parallels Desktop updated to version 17.1, offers Windows 11 support under macOS Monterey

    Parallels Desktop updated to version 17.1, offers Windows 11 support under macOS Monterey

    In spite of your Mac’s hardware, Parallels Desktop has reached version 17.1 and can apparently run Windows 11 with full macOS Monterey support.

    Parallels Desktop previously became an Apple Silicon native app with version 17, but there remained issues over running Windows 11 on it. Microsoft’s OS had certain minimum specifications, and key amongst those was the requirement for a Trusted Platform Module (TPM).

    Specifically, Microsoft has announced that it requires TPM 2.0 hardware to install and run Windows 11. This isn’t something that all Macs have, albeit Parallels has stated that it has created a virtual Trusted Platform Module (vTPM) to address the issue.

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    “Knowing that Parallels Desktop plays a critical role in enabling users to run the latest versions of Windows on their favorite Mac device today,” said Parallels Vice President for Engineering, Elena Koryakina, “we’ve developed a simple solution to help all users upgrade to Windows 11 with the enablement of vTPMs by default on all Mac devices.”

    Parallels has previously used vTPMs, but only on specific, professional versions of its Desktop software. The new version offers vTPM support in the Standard, Pro, and Business versions.

    Parallels Desktop 17 is a subscription app, starting at $80 per year for the Standard Edition. The Pro and Business Editions are available for $99.99 per year. Those who purchased a perpetual license for a previous version of Parallels Desktop can upgrade to Parallels Desktop 17 for $49.99.

    If you’ve tried Parallels Desktop 17.1 and Windows 11 on it, please let us know about your experience in the comments.

    Via AppleInsider and parallels.com

  • EVE Online ported to Mac, now takes advantage of Intel, M1 hardware, macOS shortcuts

    EVE Online ported to Mac, now takes advantage of Intel, M1 hardware, macOS shortcuts

    The spiffy news: The longstanding space MMO Eve Online has been natively ported over to the Mac. Although available to Mac users for years now, the game had been running through an emulated version of the Windows client.

    On Thursday, CCP Games announced a native Mac client for the game. Now, Mac users can enjoy EVE Online as the developers intend, on M1 and Intel computers alike.

    For 18 years, EVE Online has allowed gamers to forge their own path and destiny in the distant star cluster of New Eden. The game features adventure, riches, danger, and glory. Players can take up a variety of in-game professions from mining and trading to exploration and bounty hunting.

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    Over the years, the game has become known for its robust player-driven economy, epic in-game space battles, and political intrigue. The latest updates to the game provide new players with a narrative-driven training program and customizable skill plans. A new daily log-in reward campaign provides players with additional incentives to keep up with their pilots.

    The game has now been converted to a native Mac client that uses the Metal graphic processing framework. This allows the game to have even better graphic fidelity, lower memory use, and CPU optimization. Incorporating Metal support makes gameplay smooth and seamless. Other cool bells and whistles include support for the macOS keyboard and shortcuts, which are a nice time saver.

    EVE Online is free to play and requires macOS 10.9 or later to install and run.

    If you’ve tried the new version, please let us know about your experience in the comments.

    Via The Mac Observer and eveonline.com

  • Rumor: 2021 MacBook Pro notebooks to feature significant redesign, 1080p webcam, standard 16GB of RAM

    Rumor: 2021 MacBook Pro notebooks to feature significant redesign, 1080p webcam, standard 16GB of RAM

    With Apple’s October 18th event having been officially announced, a flurry of last minute rumors as to the 2021 MacBook Pro have surfaced, the general consensus being that this year’s models will represent the first major redesign for Apple’s pro notebooks since the disastrous 2016 butterfly-keyboard generation.

    Various sources indicate that these new machines will feature a boxier chassis design, a HDMI port and SD card slot, and a ‘M1X’ Apple-designed SoC, aimed at replacing the current 16-inch Intel configs with superior performance and power efficiency. The reliable leaker @dylandkt has stated that these notebooks will also feature a higher-quality 1080p webcam.

    In his tweet, Dylan also stated that the M1X MacBook Pro units will boast 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD as standard for both the 16-inch and the new 14-inch units. This is identical to the current 16-inch Intel MacBook Pro offering.

    Apple is also thought to be removing the 16GB maximum RAM configuration that was supported with the M1-based MacBook Pros. The M1X generation notebooks are thought to have resolved this issue, with Apple offering 32GB of RAM as a build-to-order option.

    In terms of design change, Dylan says that the ‘MacBook Pro’ text in the bottom display bezel has been removed in favor of an overall slimmer bezel design. The display is mini-LED, just like the 2021 iPad Pro.

    Stay tuned for additional details as they become available.

    Via 9to5Mac and @dylandkt