Last week, Apple announced the new Apple Music Voice Plan, designed exclusively for Siri, priced at $4.99 a month.

From the press release:

Apple Music is also adding hundreds of new mood and activity playlists created by Apple Music’s editorial experts that are fully optimized just for voice. Subscribers can ask Siri to “Play the dinner party playlist,” “Play something chill,” or even “Play more like this” for a truly personalized music experience. These new playlists are available to every subscriber of any Apple Music plan — and make using Apple Music, together with Siri, even better.

This raised the question, where are these playlists?

John Voorhees, in the headline linked MacStories post:

The playlists have begun showing up on Apple Music, so last night, Federico and I began searching the streaming service to see what’s new. What we found was over 250 playlists each designed to fit a mood or activity that use animated cover art with simple line drawings to set them apart from Apple’s other playlist. Although they were announced as Siri playlists during the event on Monday, anyone with an Apple Music subscription can view and play the new playlists in the Music app like any other playlist in the service’s collection.

Follow the link, scroll down, tap on any of the playlist links to start them playing in Apple Music.

Alternatively, you can launch any of the playlists via Siri (especially useful if you are a Voice Plan subscriber), like so:

“Hey Siri, play the Feeling Good playlist”

Nice work by the MacStories team.

Filipe Espósito, 9to5Mac:

Apple has finally released macOS Monterey to the public. The update comes with several new features, including Focus mode for notifications, SharePlay, Live Text, and more. Another new feature is the ability to AirPlay from an iPhone or iPad to a Mac without having to install any third-party apps, so read on as we detail how to use this feature.

If you’ve ever used AirPlay, you can probably figure this out by yourself, but nice to know this exists, and nice to have the walkthrough handy.

I gave AirPlay from iPhone to M1 MacBook Air a try and it was flawless and easy.

The Verge:

A decade before Steve Jobs introduced the iPhone, a tiny team of renegades imagined and tried to build the modern smartphone. Nearly forgotten by history, a little startup called Handspring tried to make the future before it was ready. In Springboard: the secret history of the first real smartphone, The Verge’s Dieter Bohn talks to the visionaries at Handspring and dives into their early successes and eventual failures.

This documentary grabbed me. I remember the heady days of the Apple Newton, followed by Palm and PalmPilot. Handspring was founded by the Palm founders, with the goal of building a better mousetrap. That road ultimately yielded what is billed as the “first real smartphone”. See the trailer below.

The documentary is about 30 minutes long and (to me) worth the watch. To watch it on Apple TV, go the the Apple TV App Store and search for “Verge”. Download the app, launch it, and watch the documentary.

Scroll down that linked first page to the Table of Contents to get a sense of where to focus on this massive Monterey review. So much to process, but it’s all linked on separate pages, so it’s easy to navigate.

Also, here’s a link to Apple’s official macOS Monterey landing page, which is also worth your time, an easy, beautifully drawn quick trip through Monterey’s new shiny.

Brian Sozzi, Yahoo Finance:

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger says the ball is in the chip giant’s court to win back lost business from the Mac making Apple.

“My job is to win them [Apple] back and to deliver products that are better than they can do themselves. We also want to win them over to more of our foundry offerings over time. And that just makes sense, right? Everybody wants to have multiple suppliers. And if we have the best process technology in the industry, of course, they’ll come our way,” Gelsinger said at Yahoo Finance’s All Markets Summit.

Not sure how to react to this statement. Is Gelsinger unaware of the brutally dumb anti-Apple campaign in high gear? Here’s a link to this high profile page on your web site, Pat.

Don’t miss that Apple-bashing video right towards the top. Way to win friends, there. Yeesh.

Unite 4 for macOS allows you to turn any website into an app on your Mac. Using a lightweight, WebKit powered browser as a backend, you can easily create isolated, customizable apps from any site.

Unite 4 includes dozens of new features, including support for native notifications, new customization options, M1 support, and much more. Unite apps also serve as a great alternative for resource hogging Electron apps or half-baked Catalyst apps.

Some examples of apps you could create in mere minutes with Unite:

• A Gmail web client that behaves like a native mail client.
• A status bar app for Apple Music or Overcast
• An isolated workspace for apps that may track you like Facebook
• A lightweight and power efficient version of Slack, Discord, or Whatsapp with full notification support
• A fully featured Instagram app that has a resizable window, unlike the M1 version.
• A Robinhood, Figma, or Roam Research app for your desktop.

The Loop readers get 20% off this week when you purchase Unite 4 or when you use the promo code ‘LOOPINSIGHT’ at checkout.

You can also try Unite for 14 days absolutely free or use it as part of your subscription if you’re a Setapp subscriber!

Rogue Amoeba blog:

Back in mid-2018, there wasn’t a single Macintosh computer that was free of major drawbacks or otherwise ridiculously out of date. After yet another disappointing WWDC, I took to my keyboard to air some grievances, with a lengthy complaint entitled “On The Sad State of Macintosh Hardware“. That post was written out of a deeper frustration with Apple’s failure to keep the Mac product line current.

Here’s a link to that original disappoint WWDC post.

Oh, how times have changed:

Apple in 2018 was at the height of their quest to remove every port, selling a MacBook that offered a pitiful single USB-C port (which was also needed for charging). Other laptops were besmirched by TouchBars and faulty butterfly keyboards. Apple is not a company to change its mind lightly, but nevertheless they’ve corrected every single one of these missteps.

Well said. There’s the return of the SD port, the return of the MagSafe connector, that gorgeous new Liquid Retina XDR display, and the scary fast M1 Pro and M1 Max with the unified memory and embedded GPU. The new Mac line is a whole new ball game.

Panic blog:

The iPod was one of the first times Apple showed up and did what we now think of as their standard move — they made The Apple Version®.

Great point. There were lots of other MP3 players out there. Apple took the concept, modernized and improved on the traditional components, then ran it through the Jony Ive design process. They Apple-ized it.

Now, there are a lot of mysteries in the Panic Archives (it’s a closet) but by far one of the most mysterious is what you’re seeing for the first time today: an original early iPod prototype.

We don’t know much about where it came from. But we’ve been waiting 20 years to share it with you.

Fantastic set of images. In that first pic, the tiny screen in the upper right corner of the giant box is the screen of the iPod prototype.

The prototype itself is shown in the third image. It has a date of September 3rd, 2001. That’s about 6 weeks before Steve’s iPod town hall keynote, and 8 days before 9/11.

Saturday was the 20th anniversary of the original iPod. Tony Fadell was a consultant hired by Apple to come up with some music player prototypes, presenting them to Steve Jobs. In the linked interview, Fadell talks about the experience with CNET’s Roger Cheng.

A few highlights:

When presenting the models, Fadell did as Ng coached, showing off the worst model first, then the second and, finally, his favorite as the last option.

Jobs seized on it immediately.

“Steve picked it up and he’s like, ‘we’re building this and you’re now going to join us to build it,’ and I was like ‘whoa whoa,'” Fadell said.

And:

After a few weeks of negotiations with Jobs, Fadell joined Apple in April 2001 and assembled a team made up of Fuse and General Magic employees to put together what would become the iPod. The project immediately faced an uphill challenge. The team needed to work with a lot of new components, including a brand new hard drive from Toshiba that Rubinstein, who oversaw the whole project, identified as the key ingredient for the iPod.

Other breakthroughs included new software for the user interface and a then-new kind of lithium ion pack, giving the device 10 hours of battery life that far exceeded anything else in the market.

Amazing that Fadell joined Apple in April and had a shipping product 5 months later. Mind boggling.

Fadell’s team worked with the industrial design group, led by famed Apple designer Jony Ive, to finalize the look of the iPod. Because the next wave of Macs would embrace white and clear plastic, Apple took the same design language and applied it to the iPod.

Along the way, Fadell saw two other projects at Apple scrapped, which fueled him to move even faster to finish (he wouldn’t comment on what those projects were). Then came the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, freezing the nation even as he had to rally the team in that final stretch. “It was absolutely nuts.”

And:

When Jobs unveiled the iPod at an Oct. 23 Apple event at its Town Hall amphitheater in Cupertino, California, the device wasn’t technically done, according to Fadell. The software wasn’t finished, and the company hadn’t signed off on the manufacturing plan. But Jobs gave that pre-1.0 version out to the media in attendance, along with the 20 CDs containing the music that was preloaded on the device.

Imagine releasing a new product in the aftermath of 9/11. Amazing that the announcement didn’t get lost in the shuffle. The chaos of 9/11 was front and center in everyone’s mind at that time. But the iPod was revolutionary, and that was not lost on the Apple faithful. An invention that changed Apple’s fortunes.

iFixit:

Inside we found some surprising display technology that was probably a huge pain to manufacture at scale, likely causing a cascade of delays. When Apple finally unveiled it last month, the watch had no firm release date, a red flag that usually signals production trouble. (If you’re wondering how a bunch of ex-Apple engineers occupy their time nowadays, read on—this is exactly the kind of expensive manufacturing snafu they’ve banded together to solve.)

Follow the headline link for an interesting read, or just watch the teardown below. Both are full of closeup images and insights. My kind of fun.

Apple:

“Dr. Brain” stars LEE Sun-kyun, best known to global audiences for his supporting role in the Academy Award-winning film “Parasite.” The series also stars LEE You-young, PARK Hee-soon, SEO Ji-hye and LEE Jae-won.

Have you seen Parasite, the Korean language thriller that won the 2020 best picture Oscar? It’s excellent, available to watch free on Hulu, a few other streaming services.

As you can see by the trailer, Dr. Brain continues Apple’s SciFi push. The series premiers a week from Thursday, on November 4th. Looks right up my alley.

Follow the headline link to read the Anandtech take on CPU performance and power efficiency. I’ve never doubted that in those categories, the M1 chips would win, hands down.

What really interests me is the GPU performance. The original M1 stands toe-to-toe with traditional laptop GPUs, but falls well behind a PC desktop with a discrete GPU. Not a slam on the M1. That’s just to be expected with an integrated GPU.

But this from Anandtech:

> Apple’s GPU performance is claimed to vastly outclass any previous generation competitor integrated graphics performance, so the company opted to make direct comparisons to medium-end discrete laptop graphics. In this case, pitting the M1 Pro against a GeForce RTX 3050 Ti 4GB, with the Apple chip achieving similar performance at 70% less power.

And:

> While the M1 Pro catches up and outpaces the laptop competition in terms of performance, the M1 Max is aiming at delivering something never-before seen: supercharging the GPU to a total of 32 cores. Essentially it’s no longer an SoC with an integrated GPU, rather it’s a GPU with an SoC around it.

And:

> In terms of performance, Apple is battling it out with the very best available in the market, comparing the performance of the M1 Max to that of a mobile GeForce RTX 3080, at 100W less power (60W vs 160W). Apple also includes a 100W TDP variant of the RTX 3080 for comparison, here, outperforming the NVIDIA discrete GPU, while still using 40% less power.

Navigating the evolving tech landscape, I’ve been intrigued by the giant strides Apple has taken, especially in their GPU performance realm. For instance, their advancements could herald a new era where Macs can confidently rival PCs with discrete GPUs, a domain traditionally reserved for high-performance gaming and intensive graphics work. This is more than a technological leap; it’s a paradigm shift.

Such a feat could fundamentally alter the home computing landscape, including our reasons for maintaining a desktop PC. It’s about more than sheer power; it’s about the user experience. For instance, while exploring a 슬롯 사이트, I realized the importance of seamless performance and immersive graphics that were once exclusive to high-end PCs. These innovations present an exciting, necessary step, not just for Apple, but for users craving versatility without compromise. It isn’t just about playing games or running demanding software; it’s about a future where the boundaries between platforms blur, ushering in a new age of accessibility and performance.

And we’ll soon know how true those performance claims are as the graphics benchmarks start rolling in. From this first such report:

> The M1 Max looked pretty good beside the GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile or Radeon RX 6800M. Apple’s chip outperformed Nvidia and AMD’s GPUs in some workloads and stayed within a small margin in others. The M1 Max’s power efficiency was the most impressive feat, considering that the GeForce RTX 3080 Mobile and Radeon RX 6800M conform to TDP ratings of 160W and 145W, respectively.

Looking forward to more benchmark results, and hearing from experts on any caveats. But so far, so good.

On Monday, Apple showed it heard user complaints about the MacBook Pro, returning the SD card slot (UHS-II at 300 MB/s+), dropping the Touch Bar, and bringing back the long requested MagSafe connector with a new woven cable and its reassuring green power indicator.

In another sign of Apple hearing the madding crowd, the macOS 15.1 developer beta has restored the old Safari tab design, eschewing the poorly received bubble tab design that came with the latest macOS and iPadOS releases.

Great to see these changes. Feels like Apple has turned a corner, dialing back from the “we know best” position to allow a whisper of “what does the customer want?” in its design process.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. will begin to force unvaccinated corporate employees to test for Covid-19 each time they want to enter an office, a move that tightens its virus protocols while still stopping short of a vaccine mandate.

The new requirement will also apply to employees who decline to report their vaccination status to Apple, the company told employees this week. Vaccinated staff will be required to take rapid tests once per week.

And:

Apple retail store employees, meanwhile, will have slightly different rules. Unvaccinated staff will be asked to test twice per week instead of each day they come to work. Vaccinated workers will also need to take a rapid test each week.

Slowly but surely, Apple is tightening its vaccine stance, from booting antivax apps from the App Store, to requiring employees to report vaccination status, to these new testing requirements.

Andrew Cunningham, Ars Technica:

Between ongoing supply chain issues, chip shortages, and pent-up demand, Apple’s new MacBook Pros were always going to be hard to get. They’ve been up for preorder for less than 24 hours, and if you order one now, you probably won’t get it before November or December.

But the new laptops aren’t Apple’s only in-demand product: The shipping times for Apple’s $19 microfiber Polishing Cloth have also already slipped back into mid to late November. Unfortunately, this means that your compatible iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple Watches, and iPods will need to remain unpolished for at least a month.

This reads like an April Fool’s column or the sharp sardonic wit of The Macalope.

But no, this is a real thing, the high end polishing cloth that shipped with the original Pro Display XDR. And the bad news is, it’s now slipped even further, to mid-December.

Here’s a link if you just gotta have one.

Follow the headline link for Michael Potuck’s head to head to head to head comparison of the four current MacBook Pro models (the still-selling Intel model, the 13″ M1, and the brand new 14″ and 16″ M1 Pro/Max models).

At the very least, scroll through the various tables to get a sense of what has changed, including things like external display support, built-in display brightness, and battery life. Lot’s of great detail here.

The new MacBook Pros will begin arriving next week, but thankfully, we don’t have to wait that long to get an answer. Linda Dong, an Apple designer, has confirmed on Twitter that the macOS pointer travels behind the notch, allowing users to essentially hide the mouse pointer from view.

That’s an interesting way to do it. It was either that or the mouse would go around the notch. I’m sure there will be complaints either way.

Apple began its “Unleashed” event with a music video featuring A.G. Cook, and a host of famous sounds from Apple’s history. Here’s what was used – and which shot in the video was reversed.

I thought this was a fun way to start the event.

Apple:

Apple today unveiled the completely reimagined MacBook Pro powered by the all-new M1 Pro and M1 Max — the first pro chips designed for the Mac.

And:

The new MacBook Pro also features a stunning Liquid Retina XDR display, a wide range of ports for advanced connectivity, a 1080p FaceTime HD camera, and the best audio system in a notebook.

And:

Its all-new aluminum enclosure optimizes internal space for more performance and features. The enclosure is precisely machined around an advanced thermal system that can move 50 percent more air than the previous generation, even at lower fan speeds. The thermal design enables MacBook Pro to deliver phenomenal sustained performance while staying cool and quiet. And because of the efficiency of Apple silicon, the fans never even have to turn on for most tasks users perform every day.

And:

The new MacBook Pro also comes with a Magic Keyboard that is set in a double-anodized black well, which elegantly highlights the backlit glyphs on the keys, and features a full-height function row. Physical function keys — including a wider escape key — replace the Touch Bar, bringing back the familiar, tactile feel of mechanical keys that pro users love.

And:

For the first time, MacBook Pro offers a stunning Liquid Retina XDR display. Featuring the mini-LED technology used in iPad Pro, the Liquid Retina XDR display delivers up to 1,000 nits of sustained, full-screen brightness, an incredible 1,600 nits of peak brightness, and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

And, perhaps most importantly:

Both models feature three Thunderbolt 4 ports to connect high-speed peripherals, an SDXC card slot for fast access to media, an HDMI port for conveniently connecting to displays and TVs, and an improved headphone jack that supports high-impedance headphones. MagSafe returns to MacBook Pro with MagSafe 3, featuring an updated design and supporting more power into the system than ever before. MagSafe 3 makes connecting a charge cable quick and easy while protecting MacBook Pro. Additionally, fast charge comes to the Mac for the first time, charging up to 50 percent in just 30 minutes. With M1 Pro, users can now connect up to two Pro Display XDRs, and with M1 Max, users can connect up to three Pro Display XDRs and a 4K TV, all at the same time. For wireless connectivity, MacBook Pro also features Wi-Fi 6 and Bluetooth 5.0.

To be clear, all the Thunderbolt ports support charging (so you can use your existing chargers in a pinch), but the new 140W MagSafe power brick is what brings the fast charging.

Also worth a look: Apple official new MacBook Pro marketing page, which is full of well presented details.

Interested in buying a fully loaded 16″ MacBook Pro? A model with M1 Max, 64GB unified memory, and 8TB SSD storage will set you back $6,099 and won’t get to you before mid-December (as of this writing).

The 14” MacBook Pro starts at $1999. The 16” MacBook Pro starts at $2499.

The low end 14″ and the mid-priced 16″ are still available for delivery next week. All other models are pushed out to November at the earliest.

Apple:

The CPU in M1 Pro and M1 Max delivers up to 70 percent faster CPU performance than M1, so tasks like compiling projects in Xcode are faster than ever. The GPU in M1 Pro is up to 2x faster than M1, while M1 Max is up to an astonishing 4x faster than M1, allowing pro users to fly through the most demanding graphics workflows.

And:

M1 Pro and M1 Max include an Apple-designed media engine that accelerates video processing while maximizing battery life. M1 Pro also includes dedicated acceleration for the ProRes professional video codec, allowing playback of multiple streams of high-quality 4K and 8K ProRes video while using very little power. M1 Max goes even further, delivering up to 2x faster video encoding than M1 Pro, and features two ProRes accelerators. With M1 Max, the new MacBook Pro can transcode ProRes video in Compressor up to a remarkable 10x faster compared with the previous-generation 16-inch MacBook Pro.

And:

M1 Max features the same powerful 10-core CPU as M1 Pro and adds a massive 32-core GPU for up to 4x faster graphics performance than M1. With 57 billion transistors — 70 percent more than M1 Pro and 3.5x more than M1 — M1 Max is the largest chip Apple has ever built. In addition, the GPU delivers performance comparable to a high-end GPU in a compact pro PC laptop while consuming up to 40 percent less power, and performance similar to that of the highest-end GPU in the largest PC laptops while using up to 100 watts less power.

And:

Both M1 Pro and M1 Max are loaded with advanced custom technologies that help push pro workflows to the next level:

• A 16-core Neural Engine for on-device machine learning acceleration and improved camera performance.
• A new display engine drives multiple external displays.
• Additional integrated Thunderbolt 4 controllers provide even more I/O bandwidth.
• Apple’s custom image signal processor, along with the Neural Engine, uses computational video to enhance image quality for sharper video and more natural-looking skin tones on the built-in camera.
• Best-in-class security, including Apple’s latest Secure Enclave, hardware-verified secure boot, and runtime anti-exploitation technologies.

There’s a lot to process here. The claims are bold. Looking forward to seeing the real-world results, benchmarks, video reviews. Most interesting to me will be the GPU tests. Can a new MacBook Pro with M1 Max compete with a desktop PC with a high-end discrete GPU? Or does that remain an unfair comparison?

Apple:

Apple today announced the third generation of AirPods featuring spatial audio, delivering advanced features and a magical experience in a new contoured design. By combining the power of the H1 chip with an Apple-designed acoustic system, the new AirPods use computational audio to deliver breakthrough sound with Adaptive EQ. Users can enjoy spatial audio featuring Dolby Atmos in Apple Music, movies, and tv shows, along with dynamic head tracking, across Apple devices.

And:

The new AirPods are resistant to sweat and water, and feature a force sensor for easy and intuitive control of music and phone calls. The extended battery life enables up to six hours of listening time and up to 30 hours of total listening time with the convenient charging case.

The new AirPods list for $179. Order them today, in your hands a week from tomorrow (Oct 26).

Apple:

Apple today introduced HomePod mini in three bold new colors — yellow, orange, and blue — giving users more ways to express their personality and style in any space.

And:

HomePod mini will be available in these new colors, along with white and space gray, with color-matched details throughout, including the tinted touch surface, mesh fabric, volume icons, and woven power cable, starting in November for just $99.

Follow the headline link to get a sense of the colors.