Today, Apple gave an official statement to John Gruber at Daring Fireball about a delay of Apple's more personalized Siri. The quote is:

Siri helps our users find what they need and get things done quickly, and in just the past six months, we’ve made Siri more conversational, introduced new features like type to Siri and product knowledge, and added an integration with ChatGPT. We’ve also been working on a more personalized Siri, giving it more awareness of your personal context, as well as the ability to take action for you within and across your apps. It’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year.

My Thoughts

Software is not easy. Many developers make it look easy, but it is far from ever actually being easy. Apple's current crop of Apple Intelligence features are, in my opinion, quite lackluster. Out of Apple's list of currently available Apple Intelligence features, only Writing Tools and Genmoji are ones that are any good.

I use Writing Tools mostly as a glorified proofreader, even though it can do more, I never use those features.

Sometimes the official set of emojis are not enough, and Genmoji can help create new emojis for those situations where there is not one that works for you. Genmoji is good in that it is based on Apple's own emoji graphics, so they have full rights to use the emojis to build new ones.

One axiom that I think bears repeating, never buy a product for what it could potentially do. Instead, purchase a product for what it is capable of doing at the time of purchase. Often, purchasing a product for what it could potentially do is a losing proposition. This is because software features can, and often, are pulled before release, as is exemplified with the "More Personalized Siri" with Apple Intelligence.

Source: Daring Fireball

Today Apple unveiled two new Mac Studio models, one with the M4 Max and another with the M3 Ultra. This comes with some big changes. Before we dive into those, let us look at the similarities between the previous models. This is the first time there have been two different-generation chips in the Mac Studio.

Common Features

The two variants have many things in common. The port configurations are the same as the previous model. There is an HDMI port, 10Gbps Ethernet, and four Thunderbolt ports on the back. The M4 Max comes with two USB-C ports on the front, while the M3 Ultra comes with two Thunderbolt ports on the front. This is the same configuration as the M2 Max/M2 Ultra configurations. There is still the SDXC card slot on the front, a 10Gbps connection, and a headphone jack.

The Thunderbolt on the M4 Max and M3 Ultra has gone from Thunderbolt 4 to Thunderbolt 5. Thunderbolt 5 can deliver speeds at 120Gbps, which is 3x faster than Thunderbolt 4.

M4 Max

The M4 Max comes in two variants: a 14-core CPU and 32-core GPU model, and a 16-core CPU with a 40-core GPU. The difference between these two is that the lower-end model is only capable of 36GB of unified memory, while the 16-core CPU model can be configured with 48GB, 64GB, or 128GB of memory.

According to Apple, the M4 Max is 1.6x faster with Adobe Photoshop, up to 2.1x faster building with Xcode, 1.2x faster ProRes transcode in Compressor, and 1.6x faster in Topaz Video AI, when compared to the M1 Max.

The M3 Ultra can support up to six Pro Display XDRs at 6K resolution, eight 4K displays, and three 8K displays.

The M4 Max continues to start at $1999 for the 14-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 36GB of memory, and 512GB of storage. It can be configured up to $5899 for the 16-core CPU, 40-core GPU, 128GB of unified memory, and 8TB of storage.

M3 Ultra

The M3 Ultra is a brand-new chip. The M3 Ultra is similar to the previous "Ultra" chips, in that it is two M3 Max chips with an interconnect. According to Apple, there are over 10,000 interconnects between the two M3 Max chips. Since there are two M3 Max chips interconnected, the memory configurations are different. You have the option of 96GB, 256GB, or 512GB of memory. The 512GB of memory is only available with the 80-core GPU version.

Similarly, there are slightly different storage options. You have the same, 1TB, 2TB, 4TB, and 8TB options as are on the M4 Max. However, there is a new 16TB option. This is available on both M3 Ultra variants. However, it will cost you an additional $4600 to be exact.

According to Apple, the M3 Ultra is 16.9x faster generating tokens using an LLM in LM Studio, 2.6x faster scene rendering in Maxon Redshift, 1.1x faster base calling for DNSA sequencing in Oxford Nanopore MinKNOW, and 1.4x faster 8K video rendering with Final Cut Pro, when compared to the M1 Max. Of course, there is an even larger performance improvement when compared to an Intel-based Mac Pro with Radeon Pro W5700X.

The M3 Ultra can support up to 8 Pro Display XDRs at 6K resolution, eight 4K displays, and four 8K displays. This is great for those who need it.

The M3 Ultra starts at $3999 for the 28-core CPU, 60-core GPU with 96GB and 1TB storage. It can be configured up to $14,099 for the M3 Ultra with 32-core CPU, 80-core GPU with 512GB of unified memory, and 16TB of storage.

Different Generations

As mentioned above, this is the first time that Apple has offered two different Apple Silicon generations for the Mac Studio. The reason for the difference is that the "Ultra" series of chips does take additional time to produce. In order to be able to get a work chip, all connections between the interposer need to be functional in order to meet the specifications. It takes time to get that done.

It is not known whether or not Apple will introduce an M4 Ultra chip or not. According to ArsTechnica:

When asked why the high-end Mac Studio was getting an M3 Ultra chip instead of an M4 Ultra, Apple told us that not every chip generation will get an “Ultra” tier.

Closing Thoughts

The addition of an M4 Max and M3 Ultra in the Mac Studio is a significant upgrade over the M2 Max/M2 Ultra versions. If you are in the market, then it might be a good time to upgrade. You can pre-order the Mac Studio today and it will begin arriving March 12th, although some model are already later in March.

Source: Apple Newsroom

Today, Apple released a new MacBook Air. The new MacBook Air makes some improvements over the previous model.

Screen and External Displays

The MacBook Air continues to be available in 13-inch and 15-inch models. The 13-inch still has a 13.6-inch screen, and the 15-inch has a 15.3-inch screen. There is a new 12 MP Center Stage camera. According to Apple:

A new 12MP Center Stage camera with improved video quality keeps MacBook Air users looking their best, whether at home, school, or work. Center Stage automatically keeps users centered in the frame as they move around — great for connecting with friends and family over FaceTime or joining an important meeting. It also supports Desk View, which simultaneously displays the user and a top-down view of their desk, making video calls even more engaging for those who want to show off their latest DIY project or present a prototype at work.

One of the shortcomings of the M3 MacBook Air has been rectified. The M3 MacBook Air could only support two external displays while the MacBook Air’s lid was closed. Now, the M4 MacBook Air can support up to two 6K external displays, in addition to the built-in display, meaning that you can have up to 3 displays simultaneously. This can be a productivity improvement for some users.

Processor, Memory, and Storage

There are two different possible GPU configurations. The 13-inch MacBook Air has a 10-Core CPU, and either an 8-Core or 10-core GPU. The 15-inch MacBook Air has a 10-Core CPU, with 4 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores. There is also a 10-Core GPU.

One of the big improvements over the M4 includes a 20% increase in memory bandwidth, going from 100GB per second to 120GB per second. The amount of memory that is standard is 16GB, and can be configured for either 24GB or 32GB.

The base model MacBook Air comes with 256GB of storage, and can be configured with 512GB, 1TB, and 2TB.

Colors

The most noticeable change with the MacBook Air is a new color option. The previous "Space Gray" model has been replaced with a new Sky Blue. The other colors, Midnight, Silver, and Starlight, are also available.

Pricing and Availability

The MacBook Air starts at $999, which is $100 less than the previous model. The 13-inch model ranges in price from $999 for the base model to $2199 for the 10-Core GPU M4 with 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage. The 15-inch ranges from $1199 for its base model to $2399 for 32GB of memory and 2TB of storage. You can pre-order it today, and it will begin arriving on March 12th.

Closing Thoughts

The updated MacBook Air is a minor update, but it is a welcome one. The lower base price may be welcome to some users, while the ability to support two external displays in addition to the built-in display will bring other users. One thing that might entice another set of users is the new Sky Blue color.

Source: Apple Newsroom

Today, Apple announced a new set of iPad Airs and an updated base model iPad. These are both small updates to the devices.

Base iPad

The 11th-generation iPad is a minor update. There are two big changes: one regarding the chip and the second is storage. The base model iPad is now an A16. This replaces the previous model, which had an A15 Bionic. Because the new iPad has an A16, it does not support Apple Intelligence. The second change is that there is now twice as much storage, going from 64GB base model to 128GB storage.

The iPad comes in the same color options: Silver, Blue, Pink, and Yellow. It is available in 128GB, 256GB, and 512GB models. The Wi-Fi-only models are $349, $449, and $649. The Wi-Fi + Cellular models are $499, $599, and $799, respectively.

You can pre-order it today, and it will begin arriving on March 12th.

iPad Air

Much like the new iPad, the new iPad Air is a spec bump. There are two notable changes. The first is the processor, which is now an M3 processor. This replaces the M2, which was present in the previous iPad Air. The iPad Air continues to come in four different storage sizes: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, and 1TB. The iPad Air is available in four colors: Space Gray, Blue, Purple, and Starlight. As was the case with the previous models, there are two screen sizes: an 11-inch and a 13-inch.

The 11-inch iPad Air is $599 for 128GB, $699 for 256GB, $899 for 512GB, and $1099 for the 1TB model. The Wi-Fi + Cellular model is $150 more, meaning $749, $849, $1049, and $1249 for each storage size.

The 13-inch model starts at $799 for the 128GB, $899 for the 256GB, $1099 for 512GB, and $1299 for 1TB. The Wi-Fi + Cellular models are also $150 more. Therefore, the 128GB model is $949, the 256GB is $1049, 512GB is $1249, and the 1TB model is $1449.

The M3 iPad Air supports the Apple Pencil Pro or the Apple Pencil with USB-C.

You can pre-order it today, and it will begin arriving on March 12th.

Closing Thoughts

The M3 iPad Air and 11th-generation iPad are both speed bump updates, and announcing them via press release is the best way to do it. It is good to see the iPad and iPad Air get regular updates, even if the iPad Air was last updated only 10 months ago. If you have an iPad with a Home button and are in the market for an upgrade, you could look at both the iPad and iPad Air.

Source: Posted: March 4, 2025 at 6:40 PM

Today Apple announced a new iPhone for the iPhone 16 lineup, the iPhone 16e. At first glance, you might think it might be the replacement for the iPhone SE, but I think it is really the replacement for the iPhone 14. The iPhone 16e continues to be the entry-level device. The iPhone 16e shares many features of the iPhone 14, but not all of them.

Screen Size

The iPhone 16e has a 6.1-inch screen. This is a big jump over the previous iPhone SE’s screen size of 4.7 inches, but it is the same as the iPhone 14. The increased screen size also means that there is no longer a Home Button. In its place is more screen, and it now utilizes the same approach as all iPhones introduced after the iPhone X: it uses swipe gestures to navigate.

The screen itself is an OLED Super Retina XDR display. This means that it supports the P3 color space, has 800 nits of brightness, supports HDR, and True Tone.

Processor

Whether you look at the iPhone 14 or the iPhone SE, both of them have the same processor, the A15 Bionic. This is a bit older and would otherwise be able to perform everything that Apple might expect. But now the iPhone 16e has an A18 in it, just like the iPhone 16 and iPhone 16 Plus. There is one slight difference, the iPhone 16e only has a 4-core GPU, whereas the iPhone 16 has a 5-core GPU. For most users and in most use cases, this will not be noticeable, but it is a difference.

Colors

The iPhone 16e comes in two colors: Black and White. Both of these are matte finishes. These two colors replace the previous Midnight, Starlight, and (PRODUCT) Red. It is possible that additional colors may be added in the future, but for now, these are the only two options. This does mean that Apple does currently sell any (PRODUCT)RED devices.

Apple Intelligence

As has been rumored and expected, the iPhone 16 does support Apple Intelligence. This is due to the A18 chip and the 8GB of memory in the device. The iPhone 16e supports all of the Apple Intelligence features, like Writing Tools, ChatGPT integration, and Visual Intelligence.

Missing Features

Even though the iPhone 16e has the latest features, like the Action Button, it does not have everything that was present on the iPhone 14. For some users, they are willing to make that trade-off, yet for others, these missing items may be deal breakers. The items that are not present on the iPhone 16e are MagSafe, Dynamic Island, and a second camera. Beyond this, there is no Camera Control button, even though it is present on all other iPhone 16 models.

Storage and Price

The iPhone 16e takes the place of the iPhone 14, which means it starts at $599 for 128GB, $699 for 256GB, and $899 for the 512GB version. You can pre-order it this Friday, February 21st, and pre-orders will start arriving on Friday, February 28th, 2025.

Cases

As they have done in the past, Apple has also released some silicone cases, this time in five colors. These colors are Black, White, Fuchsia, Lake Green, and Winter Blue. These are $39 each, and again, do not support MagSafe.

Closing Thoughts

For an entry level phone the iPhone 16e does have some compromises, but it still has a number of features that the current phones have. This includes Emergency SOS, Crash Detection, USB-C, and 5G, just to name a few. For those who need an upgrade, the iPhone 16e could be a great update at a reasonable price. It is indeed more expensive than the previous iPhone SE, but it is the same price as the iPhone 14.

If you are price conscious, and are willing to make a couple of trade offs in terms of features, then the iPhone 16e might be a good choice.

Source: Apple Newsroom

I have said it before, and I will continue to say it: I know building software is not easy; there will be bugs and issues that may crop up from time to time. Even though I am well aware of bugs, that does not mean that I do not get irritated by them from time to time. The latest issue is one that I noticed with the "Heavy Rotation Mix" within my Apple Music library.

In case you are not aware, the Heavy Rotation Mix is a playlist that, as the name indicates, has the songs that you have played a lot of within the last few days. This playlist is a slightly different one, in that it is updated every day.

The issue that I have is that there is a song that I have not listened to on the list. The specific title is "Fighting For" by Evan Honer. Why would this one be in my playlist if I never listened to it? Well, I have listened to a slightly different version of the song; that one is a duet with Hailey Whitters.

You can see in the image below the fact that the title "Fighting For" is not in my library. This is indicated by the "Add to Library" menu item in the popup.

What is even better is that it even says "Remove Download", when that particular title is not actually already downloaded.

The image below is for "girl you’re taking home" by Ella Langley, and it is in my library. This can be identified by the "Remove" menu item, which will ask to remove to either remove the download or delete from the library.

Why?

What I do not understand is how Apple can add a song that I have not listened to. Yes, the title for the two items is the same, but the song is not in my library. It would be one thing if it was a different album, or even if the album artwork was different, but this is not the issue. It is an entirely different song. The two items have different song id numbers. It is beyond me how Apple cannot be bothered to easily check to see if a song is even in a user’s library. My thought is that if the song is not in a user's library, then it should not be included in the playlist at all.

One thing that is not known, almost a year after being introduced, is whether the playlist is updated on a device and then uploaded to Apple's servers, or whether Apple generates the playlist on their servers and then updates the playlist. Regardless of how it is generated, Apple has access to the data, meaning that there is no reason it should not be able to detect items that are in a user's library.

Closing Thoughts

It is not that the version done by Evan Honer on his own is bad; it is a perfectly good song. However, I personally prefer the duet with Hailey Whitters because it puts a different spin on the song. Another example where this is also true is with the song "The Joker and the Queen" by Ed Sheeran. His version is good, but the duet with Taylor Swift makes the song even better.

Apple's music "matching" needs to actually look at the title and the artist, and whether or not it is a live version. In this case, it is not live, but a duet. Which, in my mind, means that due to the fact that there are two artists, it should never match a song with a single artist.

In the grand scheme of things, this is just a minor annoyance. Yet, this is just one of the numerous software quality issues that seem to be creeping into Apple’s software as of late.

If you have ever built any sort of software, you are well aware that no software is every bug free, but it is common to try and eliminate as many bugs as possible. Apple has a large number of operating systems, including, audioOS (HomePod), iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, watchOS, and even tvOS.

Over the last 15 years Apple has made tremendous strides in eliminating the larger bugs, like crashing devices, kernel panics, and even app crashes. That is not to say that they cannot happen, of course they can, but their frequency is significantly less than in previous years. However, it seems like there are still some operating systems that do not get nearly as much attention.

One of the areas where I see a number of a bugs is with tvOS. My "favorite" bug occurs within the Library section. There are actually two issues.

Not Always Showing Group

The first issue that I have is that sometimes when switching to eithe the "Movies" or "TV Show" tab, the actual data might not change to show the proper data. The selected group changes, but the actual data does not.

This is easily fixable by just choosing another item and then going back. This is not an issue, since there is a fix, but it is still irritating when you want to watch something.

Incorrect Movie Posters

The more annoying bug that I have is with movie posters that are shown. As an example, I have a movie called "Tomorrow When the War Began". The actual poster that is shown is in Spanish, even though I do not own the Spanish version. What is more irritating is that this has happened on several titles previously, but this is the current one.

The more egregious example though, is for the movie "Whiteout". The movie poster for this is COMPLETELY wrong. It shows the movie poster for "Dracula III: Legacy". There is no reason why this should be the case. I am sure this is a caching issue, but the strange part is that it does not happen on all devices.

On my iPhone, it is the right movie poster, the same on my iPad. However, on my MacBook Pro, Apple TV 4K, MacBook Pro, and Mac Studio, it is in the correct movie poster. Even on Apple's "Marketing Tools" site, it shows the incorrect movie poster.

Unfortunately, there is no way for me to fix the caching issues. I have reported it to Apple using their Feedback mechanism (FB16415600), but I will likely never hear back.

Closing Thoughts

While Apple has significantly improved the underlying software, they still have a long way to go with their operating systems that are not that important, like Apple TV. I get that there is only so much time that Apple is willing to spend on a platform that is ancillary, but it would be nice to see it actually get some attention.