MacLife January 2022

I want to have a bit of a moan in my ed’s intro this month, if it’s OK with you. I’m a paid subscriber to Apple TV+ — as I’m sure many of you are — and have been since it launched, initially drawn in by the promise of a year’s free subscription with my at–the–time iPhone. I carried on paying after that ended, and I’m liking what I see — mostly. The content thus far has been excellent, and it continues to grow. Unlike a few other big streaming providers, the content appears to be carefully selected, and produced to a very high, blockbuster–like standard. The “mostly” bit, as I referred to just a few sentences back, is because I’m really, really starting to tire of Apple’s ridiculous OTT…

APPLE IS ON a mission to make the smartphone even more indispensible than it already is. The whole early schtick about smartphones was that they’re the center of our digital lives. Email, photos, music, social networks, entertainment, navigation… all in your pocket. This is why we’re happy to pay iPhone Pro prices just as much as SE prices — it’s perhaps the most important thing we own. But despite feeling like you really can’t be without one, the iPhone remains ultimately a luxury — to be without any of these things is rarely a crucial issue in life. If you lose your iPhone it’s a major inconvenience, no doubt, but you can mostly carry out your most important tasks somewhere else while you decide whether to pony up for an identical…

APPLE HAS INTRODUCED a redesigned MacBook Pro built around a new generation of Apple silicon, with ground-breaking performance, a stunning larger screen, and amazing battery life, plus the return of the MagSafe charger connector, a range of ports, and physical Function keys instead of a Touch Bar. There are two new models. The 14-inch MacBook Pro starts at $1,999 with an Apple M1 Pro chip with 8–core CPU and 14–core GPU (configurable to M1 Pro with 10–core CPU and 14–core GPU, M1 Pro with 10–core CPU and 16–core GPU, M1 Max with 10–core CPU and 24–core GPU, or M1 Max with 10–core CPU and 32–core GPU). The 16–inch MacBook Pro starts at $2,499 with M1 Pro chip with 10–core CPU and 16–core GPU (configurable to both M1 Max options). Both models have…

THE M1 PRO and M1 Max bring Apple’s system–on–a–chip architecture to pro systems. M1 Pro delivers up to 70% faster CPU performance than M1, and up to 2x faster GPU performance. It has up to 200GB/s of memory bandwidth, nearly 3x the bandwidth of M1. M1 Max delivers up to 4x faster GPU performance than M1, has up to 400GB/s of memory bandwidth — nearly 6x that of M1 — and supports up to 64GB of fast unified memory (PC notebooks top out at 16GB video memory), meaning apps have dramatically more memory for the most demanding graphics tasks. Unlike pro PC notebooks, which provide peak performance only when plugged in, MacBook Pro delivers the same level of performance whether it is plugged in or running off the battery, yet is…

1 Hasselblad 907X Anniversary Edition Kit $15,100 From hasselblad.com >>> Hasselblad is known for its incredible cameras and incredible prices to match. If you’re the ultimate fan of the company and have money to burn, the 907X Anniversary Edition Kit will be right up your street. Made to mark Hasselblad’s 80th anniversary, the camera takes its design cues from its much–loved SWC camera. Included in the kit is a 907X body with a large medium format 50MP CMOS sensor, a CFV II 50C digital back, a control grip, an optical viewfinder, and an XCD 3,5/30 lens, all with anniversary edition trimmings. Not only will all that help you take great pictures, it’ll mark you out as someone with far more nostalgia and cash than they know what to do with. We’ll take three. 2…

Which Macs work with Monterey? All M1 Macs (all features) iMac Late 2015 and later iMac Pro MacBook Early 2016 and later MacBook Air Early 2015 and later MacBook Pro Early 2015 and later Mac mini Late 2014 and later Mac Pro Late 2013 and later M1 Exclusive >>>Monterey’s features weren’t expected on all supported Macs. The only models to enjoy them all are M1 Macs. Live Text and AirPlay have worked well when tested on most Intel models, but Object Capture requires an M1 or ample memory and VRAM. THE LAST FEW years of macOS upgrades brought some trauma with their advances. We’ve lost 32-bit apps, gained a new file system ideal for SSDs and Time Machine backups but unsuited to hard disks, and previously simple startup volumes have been split to lock the System away in a snapshot. Monterey is…