Macworld October 2021

The iPad Pro has frequently been an incubator for technology that Apple ultimately plans on rolling out to the rest of its product line. Last year, the iPad Pro got a lidar scanner months before it appeared in the iPhone 12. This year’s 12.9-inch model introduced the mini-LED screen technology that will probably be showing up very soon in a new line of MacBook Pro laptops. And this fall’s iPhone Pro models are rumored to come with high-refresh-rate displays, pioneered years ago on the iPad as ProMotion. But there’s another core Apple technology of the future that’s currently available only on the newest iPad Pro. And I’m confident that in the next couple of years, you’ll see it spread across most (but not all) of Apple’s products: Center Stage. Center Stage uses…

Five years ago this fall, Apple introduced a new MacBook Pro. But this wasn’t your ordinary spec bump, this MacBook Pro featured a love-it-or-hate-it feature: the Touch Bar, Apple’s answer to the touchscreen interfaces that became popular in Windows laptops. The OLED strip replaced the top row of keys on the MacBook Pro keyboard, and the controls it displays change based on the software you are using. Some thought the Touch Bar was a brilliant innovation, including a few here at Macworld. When the Touch Bar was unveiled, Macworld posted articles proclaiming “The MacBook Pro’s innovative Touch Bar will grab you” and the “Touch Bar is the touchscreen done right”. But those were the opinions of individuals I worked with, and my experience with the Touch Bar was different. I didn’t…

The lithium-ion battery in your Mac laptop will lose its ability to charge to its maximum factory-made capacity over time—but you don’t have to take that change lying down. Depending on the level remaining, you might be able to get a free replacement from Apple. Lithium-ion batteries transformed laptops and mobile devices. They allowed for a greater density of stored energy compared to earlier generations of nickel-metal-hydride batteries. This newer material loses charge much more gradually when not plugged in and not in use. And they shed the “memory effect,” which required careful charging to avoid permanently reducing the capacity of your battery. Modern Li-ion batteries can be shaped to fit into any space, further increasing device run time. But, like all components that carry electricity, they do age. A Li-ion battery…

Apple and AMD have started offering new graphics options for the Mac Pro desktop, and there’s no shortage of power. The Radeon Pro W6800X, W6800X Duo, and W6900X are new workstation-class variants of AMD’s very popular consumer RDNA2 graphics cards, the Radeon 6800 and 6900XT. The X6800X Duo is unusual in that it puts two Radeon Pro 6800 GPUs on a single card. You can now select the cards—alone or in pairs—when configuring your Mac Pro. The Radeon Pro W6800X is similar to the consumer Radeon 6800: It features 60 compute units and a 256-bit memory bus, but it doubles the amount of GDDR6 memory from 16GB to 32GB. Configuring your Mac Pro with one of these cards is a $2,400 upgrade, or you can get two cards for $5,200. The Radeon…

Eventually, USB 4 should render the distinction between Thunderbolt and USB largely moot. That’s the hope at any rate. For now, if you want the scintillating performance of Thunderbolt 3 when it’s available, and the compatibility of USB when it’s not, you need a drive such as OWC’s Envoy Pro FX. DESIGN AND SPECS The all-metal Envoy Pro FX is a handsome, all-metal, slate-gray enclosure that quite nicely matches late-gen Macs stylewise. At approximately 4.5 inches long, 2.75 inches wide, 0.6 inches thick, and 8.6 ounces, it’s a bit on the large and heavy side, with more the appearance of an external 2.5-inch hard drive than of an SSD. I consider the hefty smooth metal surface tactilely pleasing. Nonskid runners on the bottom keep it stable on the table, and the mass of…

Thunderbolt 3 was an amazing improvement in simplicity, despite the confusion that came with it and the transition from USB 3.0 over USB Type A, Thunderbolt 2, Mini DisplayPort and the like. Thunderbolt 3 uses the orientation-reversible USB-C connector, and can deliver up to 40Gbps in each data direction in an ideal world, while also supporting power (up to 100 watts, depending on controller and cable) and super high-res displays. OWC’s Thunderbolt Hub with four Thunderbolt 4/USB 4 ports and one USB 3 Type-A port fills a piece of the puzzle that’s been missing since Apple introduced the new technology in 2016: a multiport external hub. Only certain Mac models have had more than two Thunderbolt 3 ports. (The short-lived 12-inch MacBook had just one, but it only handled USB over…