Tom Warren, The Verge:

Apple hit Intel hard with its first M1 chips, offering a rare step-change improvement in performance with its 2020 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro. Less than a year later, it’s already starting to compete with the best GPUs from AMD and Nvidia as well. The new MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max offer a first glimpse at how well Apple’s M1 chips can scale to provide raw performance that rivals the discrete graphics cards we typically find inside Windows-powered laptops.

This walkthrough highlights the incredible performance gains made by Apple’s M1 series, especially where the GPU is concerned.

At the core of the review is AnandTech’s Apple’s M1 Pro, M1 Max SoCs Investigated: New Performance and Efficiency Heights. Jumping to the GPU analysis page:

Traditional OEMs have been fine with a small(ish) CPU and then adding a discrete GPU as necessary. It’s cost and performance effective: you only need to add as big of a dGPU as the customer needs performance, and even laptop-grade dGPUs can offer very high performance. But like any other engineering decision, it’s a trade-off: discrete GPUs result in multiple display adapters, require their own VRAM, and come with a power/cooling cost.

And that’s where Apple’s gains are coming from: The new M1 series, by being incredibly space efficient, runs much more coolly than a traditional discrete GPU laptop can, and consumes far less power.

The gains here are obvious, especially when Apple’s pro apps, or third party apps specifically built for the M1, are involved. As to PC gaming, Apple is still not there. Scroll through the AnandTech post for benchmarks to get a sense of this. But my gut (I’m no expert) tells me that if game developers make it their mission to develop with the M1 Max in mind, that could change.

One last bit from the AnandTech post:

Overall, it’s clear that Apple’s ongoing experience with GPUs has paid off with the development of their A-series chips, and now their M1 family of SoCs. Apple has been able to scale up the small and efficient M1 into a far more powerful configuration; Apple built SoCs with 2x/4x the GPU hardware of the original M1, and that’s almost exactly what they’re getting out of the M1 Pro and M1 Max, respectively. Put succinctly, the new M1 SoCs prove that Apple can build the kind of big and powerful GPUs that they need for their high-end machines. AMD and NVIDIA need not apply.

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.