macOS Sequoia supports these Intel-based Macs: 2017 iMac Pro 2018 Mac mini 2018–2020 MacBook Pro models 2019 Mac Pro 2019–2020 iMac models 2020 MacBook Air What’s more important than the model year is when these Macs stopped being sold: Model: Removed from Sale: 2017 iMac Pro Mar … | Continue reading
Laura Paddison and Rene Marsh for CNN: Last summer, an abandoned factory in southwest Memphis got a new life courtesy of the world’s richest man. Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI moved in to transform this unprepossessing building into the “world’s largest supercom … | Continue reading
Want to experience twice as fast load times in Safari on your iPhone, iPad and Mac? Then download Magic Lasso Adblock – the ad blocker designed for you. As an efficient, high performance and native Safari ad blocker, Magic Lasso blocks all intrusive ads, trackers and annoyances – … | Continue reading
Kyle Orland, writing at Ars: On Wednesday, the world was a bit perplexed by the Grok LLM’s sudden insistence on turning practically every response toward the topic of alleged “white genocide” in South Africa. xAI now says that odd behavior was the result of “an unauthorized modif … | Continue reading
As I’ve previously written, xAI has a permit to run 15 gas turbines at its first site, but more than 30 have been spotted running. Those additional turbines are operating under an emergency-use exemption that is good for one year, and were initially slated to provide backup power … | Continue reading
Desmond Nugent at ABC24: In response to growing environmental concerns in South Memphis, the Shelby County Commission has proposed a resolution that would require the Shelby County Health Department to provide monthly — rather than quarterly — updates on local air quality in Sout … | Continue reading
If you’ve seen Tom Hanks’ Apollo 13, you surely remember the scene where a group of guys dump a bunch of junk onto a table to figure out how to adapt air-scrubbing canisters meant for the command module to work in the lunar module that was keeping the crew alive. Ed Smylie lead t … | Continue reading
Once again, Samuel Hardiman for The Daily Memphian, writing about xAI’s power needs: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, appears to be exploring how to generate electricity for its second data center in Memphis. And those plans could cross the Tennessee-Mississippi … | Continue reading
Apple: Starting today, CarPlay Ultra, the next generation of CarPlay, is available with new Aston Martin vehicle orders in the U.S. and Canada, and will be available for existing models that feature the brand’s next-generation infotainment system through a software update in the … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast, Myke hosts The Quizzies, Apple announces new accessibility features, Federico explains vibe coding, Google makes announcements ahead of IO, and I take on xAI. | Continue reading
Rich Trouton spotted something in the release notes for macOS Sequoia 15.5, released earlier this week: that AFP is now deprecated and will be removed in a future version of the operating system. He writes: This announcement is providing a end-of-the-road notification for AFP, wh … | Continue reading
Kyle Wiggers, writing at TechCrunch: Elon Musk’s AI company, xAI, has missed a self-imposed deadline to publish a finalized AI safety framework, as noted by watchdog group The Midas Project. xAI isn’t exactly known for its strong commitments to AI safety as it’s commonly understo … | Continue reading
In a timeline where a lot of have …complicated… feelings about Apple, seeing the company to continue improve access to technology for everyone is still great. | Continue reading
MarsEdit 5 is a major upgrade to the preeminent Mac app for editing WordPress, Micro.blog, Tumblr, and many other types of blogs. The new microposting feature makes it as easy to post to your own blog as it is to post to social media. When MarsEdit 5 is running on your Mac, just … | Continue reading
Known as an app launcher and Spotlight replacement, Alfred can supercharge a wide range of tasks across macOS. This week on MPU, we discuss David’s new Field Guide on Alfred and our use of the application. | Continue reading
John Siracusa, writing at Hypercritical: As far as I’m concerned, the only truly mortal sin for Apple’s leadership is losing sight of the proper relationship between product virtue and financial success—and not just momentarily, but constitutionally, intransigently, for years. Sa … | Continue reading
As I wrote about earlier this week, xAI has broken ground on a second data center on Tulane Road here in Memphis that will require an unbelievable amount of electricity. Today, the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce sent an email saying: xAI is demobilizing turbines in Shelby Co … | Continue reading
Dyana Bagby, writing in 2024 for Georgia Public Broadcasting, the PBS/NPR affiliate in Atlanta: The Atlanta City Council voted Tuesday, Sept. 3, to ban data centers along and near the Atlanta BeltLine and within a half-mile of MARTA stations. The new legislation aims to preserve … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast, I answer questions about my new two-phone lifestyle, Myke wonders what Eddy Cue knows that he doesn’t, and then we discuss the Motorola ROCKR and last week’s injunction against Apple over its App Store policies. | Continue reading
Ariel Wittenberg for Politico, writing about xAI’s use of gas turbines to power its supercomputer in Memphis: Just three miles away is Boxtown, a secluded neighborhood that officially became part of the city of Memphis in 1968, the year that the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was as … | Continue reading
After linking to that New Yorker article about xAI using gas turbines to help power its first supercomputer here in Memphis, I opened my RSS client to see this article by Samuel Hardiman, who writes: Memphis Light, Gas and Water said Monday, May 5, that artificial intelligence co … | Continue reading
Nick Heer, writing about rumors that the 2027 iPhone will feature a “truly edge-to-edge display:” I know the Dynamic Island was a clever way of transforming a necessary hardware compromise into a signature feature, albeit an imperfect one. This is a fun visual design problem to h … | Continue reading
I’ve been paying close attention to the on-going saga of xAI’s Memphis-based supercomputer, and how the company seems to be misleading both the public and our local officials on how much pollution it is causing. The story is now gaining national attention. Bill McKibben at The Ne … | Continue reading
On September 1, 2016, a SpaceX Falcon 9 exploded while on the launchpad, leading the loss of an Israeli communications satellite: In the weeks after the failure, it was reported that some at SpaceX (including Elon Musk) thought the accident could have been caused by a sniper firi … | Continue reading
Do you love the Apple Notes document scanner, but would you like more flexibility in sending the scans to email, messages, files, or other apps? Then Simple Scan is for you. Simple Scan is the quick, easy way to scan paper documents to optimized, searchable PDF documents (or imag … | Continue reading
This week on MPU: With rumors — and complaints — swirling about the state of the iPad and iPadOS, David and Stephen take some time to talk about their usage of the platform and share where they think Apple should take its tablet next. On the ad-free, longer version for members, w … | Continue reading
John Gruber: This does not mean apps can now use alternative payment processing in-app. It doesn’t even mean apps are no longer required to offer Apple’s IAP in-app for purchases and subscriptions. All it means is that apps (in the US for now, but Apple really ought to make this … | Continue reading
After yesterday’s injunction, Apple has updated its U.S. App Review Guidelines concerning buttons and links to external payment providers. Here are the key changes: 3.1.1: Apps on the United States storefront are not prohibited from including buttons, external links, or other cal … | Continue reading
NASA’s new moon rocket uses a lot of components from the shuttle program, including the venerable RS-25 engine. Three were mounted to the shuttle itself, and the core stage of the SLS is powered by four of them. The next rocket — slated to astronauts Reid Wiseman, Victor Glover, … | Continue reading
Earlier this evening, an 80-page document was released by the U.S. District Court in California, hitting Apple hard for its anti-competitive strategies concerning the App Store. The Verge’s Jay Peter’s has a great breakdown, but the gist of the ruling is that Apple can no longer … | Continue reading
This week on the show: Myke is learning, Federico saw a rumor, Stephen comes clean, and Apple launched a weird webpage. | Continue reading
Rumors continue to point toward Apple having a thin phone in this fall’s lineup. I am fascinated by this, and think it could be my next iPhone, even if it comes with compromises. Tim Hardwick reports on one such trade-off: Achieving this level of thinness is unlikely to come with … | Continue reading
Do you want to block all YouTube ads in Safari on your iPhone, iPad and Mac? Then download Magic Lasso Adblock – the ad blocker designed for you. As an efficient, high performance and native Safari ad blocker, Magic Lasso blocks all intrusive ads, trackers and annoyances – delive … | Continue reading
YouTuber and podcaster Chris Lawley joined me and Sparks on this episode of MPU to tell us about how the Mac has replaced the iPad as his primary computer. | Continue reading
I just sent the April edition of System Extension, the newsletter for 512 Pixels members. I’m currently writing a series of articles for members outlining the history of internal expansion ports that have shipped in Macs over the years. This month, the Processor Direct Slot was u … | Continue reading
Samuel Hardiman, at The Daily Memphian, writing about the on-going concern here in Memphis over xAI’s use of gas turbines to help power its AI supercomputer: Chunrong Jia, a professor in the U of M’s division of epidemiology, biostatistics and environmental health, modeled the im … | Continue reading
There’s a new EV truck on the scene, and it’s not even a pointy stainless steel triangle! Sean O’Kane has details at TechCrunch: It’s affordable, deeply customizable, and very analog. It has manual windows and it doesn’t come with a main infotainment screen. Heck, it isn’t even p … | Continue reading
Today marks ten years since the original Apple Watch shipped. In that decade, it’s gone from a slow and constrained device that was trying to do far too much to something that I wear every day and night to track my fitness and get a very select number of notifications. Basic Appl … | Continue reading
Chance Miller at 9to5Mac: Apple CEO Tim Cook is being pressed for information on his collaboration with the Trump administration surrounding tariffs. In a letter sent today, Senator Elizabeth Warren said that Cook’s collaboration with Trump “creates the appearance of impropriety. … | Continue reading
This week on the podcast: Myke is back from paternity leave and has some hot takes on the last two months of tech news. He and Federico accidentally have the same surprise, while Stephen wonders what Beats could slap its logo on. | Continue reading
Kailynn Johnson at The Memphis Flyer: The mail said the turbines are designed to protect the air with “air quality levels similar to those from a neighborhood gas station. It cited that the Environmental Protection Agency refers to facilities like the xAI plant as “minor contribu … | Continue reading
Ben McCarthy, writing about what they would like to see in the rumored iOS 19 redesign: For a long while, I’ve felt that the design of iOS is too top heavy. While our phones seem to grow larger every year, our hands do not and so interface elements are pulled ever further out of … | Continue reading
Harry McCracken: In the 1980s and 1990s, PC Connection built its brand on a campaign starring folksy small-town critters. They’ll still charm your socks off. JUST LOOK AT THEM! HOLY MOLY: | Continue reading
That man is Henry Blodget. | Continue reading
Kevin Purdy, writing at Ars Technica: Popular NAS-maker Synology has confirmed and slightly clarified a policy that appeared on its German website earlier this week: Its “Plus” tier of devices, starting with the 2025 series, will require Synology-branded hard drives for full comp … | Continue reading
On Friday’s episode of The Vergecast, there was an exchange that really caught my attention. David Pierce mentioned the photos of all the tech CEOs at Trump’s inauguration in January, to which Nilay Patel replied: The thing that kills me at that is the expectation they had going … | Continue reading
Do you love the Apple Notes document scanner, but would you like more flexibility in sending the scans to email, messages, files, or other apps? Then Simple Scan is for you. Simple Scan is the quick, easy way to scan paper documents to optimized, searchable PDF documents (or imag … | Continue reading
On this feedback episode, David and I revisit iCloud.com access and Advanced Data Protection, both make confessions about recent setup changes, and answer a bunch of listener questions. | Continue reading