One of the most intriguing stories in laptops in recent years is the emergence of Microsoft as a legitimate rival to Apple. Microsoft, the software giant, has begun making some very nice hardware for those who appreciate a high-performance, portable and well-designed laptop–with one recent example being the Surface Laptop 3. The notebook is clearly meant to serve as a challenger to Apple’s MacBook lineup, and in many ways it stacks up favorably, including with Apple’s refreshed MacBook Pro for 2020.
Both Microsoft and Apple, of course, have the advantage of being the operating system creators for their respective laptops–in this case the Surface Laptop 3 and the MacBook Pro.
But which of the two laptops is a better match for you? In the following slides, CRN compares the latest Apple MacBook Pro vs Microsoft’s Surface Laptop 3 on price and specs.
Amazon-owned Woot has just slashed $410 to $500 off Apple’s 2019 13-inch MacBook Pro, bringing refurbished units down to as low as $889.99 for the rest of today.
Flash MacBook Pro deals end today
The flash sale hosted by Woot is valid today only, and features a $410 to $500 instant discount on Apple’s Mid 2019 13-inch MacBook Pro. Considering the standard model originally retailed for $1,299, the $889 discounted price offers significant savings in addition to free standard shipping for Amazon Prime members.
According to Woot, these models are refurbished by Apple, but do not come with an Apple warranty. Instead, the 2019 configs are backed by a 1-year Woot limited warranty and packaged in a generic white box. This allows for aggressive savings of up to $500 off original MSRP.
2019 13″ MacBook Pro discounts
2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 128GB, refurb): $889.99($410 off)
2019 13″ MacBook Pro (1.4GHz, 8GB, 256GB, refurb): $999.99($500 off)
Exclusive deal on 2019 MacBook Pro in new condition
Additional Apple deals
AppleInsider and Apple Authorized Resellers are also running additional exclusive deals on hardware that will not only deliver the best prices on many of the items, but also throw in bonus discounts on AppleCare, Office 365 and more. These offers are as follows:
Last year at WWDC MacStadium announced the beta of its new Orka platform, and just in time for this year’s event they are announcing the release of Orka clouds built on the latest Mac mini hardware. MacStadium is also offering 9to5Mac readers a special 50% off the first six months of an individual Gen3 Mac mini subscription with code WWDC2020.
Head below for more info on the Mac mini subscriptions and a live demo of MacStadium’s new Orka platform.
With work-from-home trends creating an increase in remote server demand, MacStadium’s cloud-hosted Mac mini subscriptions have become necessary for many looking for a solution to offer access to apps and servers for students and staff stuck at home.
Dedicated entirely to Macs in the cloud, MacStadium offers a number of different Mac private cloud options that can be used for iOS/Mac development, remote servers, and other workloads that require macOS. MacStadium’s private clouds are always built on genuine Apple Mac hardware and are trusted by iOS developers and mobile testing teams around the globe, including the hosts of the popular developer-focused Stacktrace podcast here on 9to5Mac.
ORKA
Orka is MacStadium’s new virtualization platform based on standard cloud orchestration tools like Docker and Kubernetes but built specifically for Apple hardware. That means a reliable, software-driven, and high-performance experience for devs testing iOS and Mac apps that require a large pool of Macs to run CI-driven development.
“Everyone who has to deal with macOS automation would love a Google Cloud or AWS for macOS,” said Mike McQuaid of Homebrew. “I feel like Orka is the closest thing that you can get to that. You’re able to, spin up, spin down VMs using an easy-to-use CLI or API.”
Orka clouds can be built on Mac Pros or on the latest T2 Mac minis and come with plugins for CI tools including Jenkins, GitHub, GitLab, Buildkite, and TeamCity.
You can try an Orka demo now, including a two-hour Orka playground environment for free at tryorka.com.
HP ENVY 13 Intel 10th Gen Core i7-1065G7 Quad-core 13.3″ 4K Touch Laptop with 512GB SSD for $699.99 at Best Buy (list price $999.99)
Dell New XPS 13 9300 Intel 10th Gen Core i5-1035G1 Quad-core 13.3″ 1920×1200 Laptop for $944.99 at Dell (use code: SAVE10 – list price $1099.99)
Dell New Vostro 15 7500 Intel 10th Gen Core i5-10300H Quad-core 15.6″ 1080p Laptop for $764.09 at Dell (use code: STAND4SMALL – list price $1498.57)
Dell Inspiron 15 5000 Intel 10th Gen Core i7-1065G7 Quad-core 15.6″ 1080p Laptop with 512GB SSD for $674.99 at Dell (use code: STAND4SMALL – list price $799.99)
Dell Vostro 13 5000 Intel 10th Gen Core i7-10510U Quad-core 13.3″ 1080p Laptop for $899.09 at Dell (use code: STAND4SMALL – list price $1427.14)
Dell Latitude 15 3500 Intel Core i3-8145U 15.6″ 1080p Win10 Pro Laptop for $498.84 at Dell (use code: STAND4SMALL – list price $1034.85)
Alienware m15 R2 Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core 15.6″ 1080p Gaming Laptop with RTX 2070, 512GB SSD for $1619.99 at Dell (use code: SAVE10 – list price $2113.98)
Alienware m17 R1 Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core 17.3″ 1080p Gaming Laptop with RTX 2070 Max-Q, 16GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HDD for $1607.39 at Dell (use code: SAVE10 – list price $2044.99)
Dell G7 15 Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core 15.6″ 4K OLED Gaming Laptop with RTX 2080 Max-Q, 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD for $1799.99 at Dell (list price $2784.98)
Lenovo ThinkPad X390 Intel Core i5-10210U Quad-core 13.3″ 1080p IPS Laptop for $749 at Lenovo (use code: SECRETDEAL – list price $1369)
Lenovo ThinkPad X280 Intel Core i5-8350U Quad-core 12.5″ 1080p Touch Laptop for $769 at Lenovo (use code: CLEARMORE – list price $2079)
Lenovo ThinkPad T490 Intel Core i5-10210U Quad-core 14″ 1080p IPS Laptop for $999.99 at Lenovo (use code: WEBSPECIAL – list price $1469)
Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon Gen 7 Intel Core i5-10210U Quad-core 14″ 1080p Laptop for $999.99 at Lenovo (use code: CLEARMORE – list price $2629)
HP Pavilion 15z Touch AMD Ryzen 5 3500U Quad-core 15.6″ Laptop for $559.99 (+$60 for 1080p Display) at HP (list price $679.99)
HP 15t Intel Core i7-10510U Quad-core 15.6″ Laptop for $599.99 (+$50 for 1080p Display) at HP (list price $799.99)
HP Pavilion 15t Intel 10th Gen Core i7-1065G7 Quad-core 15.6″ Laptop with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD for $779.99 (+$130 for 1080p Touch Display) at HP (list price $1129.99)
HP ENVY x360 Intel Core i5-1035G1 Quad-core 15.6″ 1080p Touch Laptop for $799.99 at HP (list price $849.99)
HP Pavilion x360 15t Touch Intel Core i7-10510U Quad-core 15.6″ 1080p Touch Laptop with 16GB RAM, 512GB SSD for $929.99 at HP (list price $1249.99)
HP OMEN 15 Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core 15.6″ 1080p 144Hz Gaming Laptop with RTX 2070, 16GB RAM for $1286.99 at HP (Select “Core i7 9750H + NVIDIA RTX 2070” (+$160) and “15.6” 144Hz IPS 1080p Display” (+$70) and use code: 10GAMERSPRING – list price $1669.99)
ASUS VivoBook 15 AMD Ryzen 3 3200U Quad-Core 15.6″ 1080p Laptop for $299 at Walmart (list price $349)
ASUS VivoBook 17 AMD Ryzen 7 3700U 17.3″ 1080p Laptop with Radeon RX Vega 10, 12GB RAM, 512GB SSD for $549.99 at Best Buy (list price $599.99)
ASUS TUF A15 AMD Ryzen 7 4800H 8-Core 15.6″ 1080p Gaming Laptop with RTX 2060, 512GB SSD for $899.99 at Best Buy (list price $999.99)
ASUS ROG Zephyrus G14 AMD Ryzen 9 4900HS 14″ 1080p Laptop with RTX 2060 Max-Q, 16GB RAM, 1TB SSD for $1349.99 at Best Buy (list price $1449.99)
Razer Blade 15 Intel Core i7-9750H 6-core 15.6″ 1080p 144Hz Gaming Laptop with GTX 1660 Ti, 16GB RAM for $1099.99 at Amazon (list price $1599.99)
Ultimate Ears MEGABOOM Bluetooth Wireless Speaker for $74.99 at Dell (list price $249.99)
Sony WF-SP700N Wireless Noise Cancelling Sport Earbuds for $90.99 at Amazon (list price $179.99)
Klipsch T5 True Wireless Earphones for $89.99 at Amazon (list price $199.95)
TaoTronics TT-BH090 Hybrid Active Noise Cancelling Over-Ear Wireless Headphones for $39.99 at Amazon (Clip $10 Coupon and use code: AEDZL2QY – list price $69.99)
If you’ve never heard of neumorphism, you’re not alone.
One of the visual changes in macOS Big Sur to have attracted a lot of comment is what some have suggested is a partial return to skeuomorphism: icons designed to look like real-world objects. It is, some have argued, Apple coming full circle: from 3D to flat and now back to 3D.
But Jack Koloskus, lead designer for Input and The Outline, says that Apple is moving forwards, not backward…
In an interesting piece, Koloskus says that what Apple is doing in the upcoming version of macOS is not skeuomorphism, but rather ‘the next wave’ in UI design: neumorphism.
macOS 11 (known as Big Sur) boasts loads of new features that bring it closer to parity with its iOS counterparts on iPhones and iPads, but one area where there seems to be a divergent path is… its icon and user interface design. You can blame that on a little something called Neumorphism, and like or hate it, it’s the next wave in UI design […]
When you boil it down, neumorphism is a focus on how light moves in three-dimensional space. Its predecessor, skeumorphism, created realism in digital interfaces by simulating textures on surfaces like felt on a poker table or the brushed metal of a tape recorder. An ancillary — though under-developed — aspect of this design style was lighting that interacted realistically with the materials that were being represented; this is why shadows and darkness were so prevalent in those early interfaces.
But the lighting and texture simulations being done for those designs were still relatively simple: which objects are shiny and which are rough? Which objects are transparent and which opaque? These were ultimately utilitarian and somewhat arbitrary choices. What sets neumorphism apart from its progenitor is that the focus is on the light itself and how it interacts with a variety of objects in a purely digital space. The light simulations in neumorphism are more complex, and are focused on how light from one object could affect another, or the function of the object itself.
There are, he suggests, two key differences between skeuomorphism and neumorphism.
First, neumorphic elements don’t have to represent real-world objects. They are simply three-dimensional shapes which can have arbitrary designs.
Second, while a skeuomorphic icon exists in isolation – the shadow patterns might vary from its neighbouring icons – neumorphism is all about a consistent light pattern across the entire screen. If the light is coming from top left for one icon, it must be coming from top left for all the other icons on the screen.
Some criticize change for change’s sake, but Koloskus disagrees.
There is one undeniable feature to neumorphism that makes it so appealing. It looks new. Flat design’s core “digitally native” look, and its implementation of ideas like stacks, pages, and layers have become familiar to the point of ubiquity over the last 8+ years. Neumorphism is far enough away from what users have become accustomed to that it genuinely does feel like a new language. That differentiation is valuable, especially to a company like Apple trying to move its operating system to a new numbered version for the first time in 19 years.
Personally, I’m with him on this. I do generally like change to have a purpose, and I am a minimalist who was a great enthusiast of flat design back in 2017, but I’m bored with it now. It’s time for a change.
Not all designers have been impressed by what we see in the macOS Big Sur beta, however. Koloskus says that’s partly just the shock of the new. It’s human nature to dislike change until we have a chance to get used to it. And it’s partly that Apple has to deal with usability as well as aesthetic appeal.
So why does Apple’s take on it look… kinda bad? As mentioned earlier, the conceptual framework of neumorphism is relatively new, and there has been a resistance to it in much of the design world. UI design has been plagued for the longest time by designers who love to create hypothetical designs untethered to actual usability or user experience needs as a purely formal exercise, and this has led to infighting […]
Experimentation with form will always be difficult to balance with usability in the field of interface design, but it doesn’t mean it should be dismissed outright.
Apple is still feeling its way with this new design language.
B&H is currently taking up to $300 off Apple’s 2018 Mac mini with some configurations being matched at Amazon. One standout is the entry-level i3/8GB/128GB model at $648 shipped. Good for a $151 discount from its original going rate, today’s offer is $1 under our previous mention and a new Amazon all-time low. Apple’s compact Mac delivers desktop performance with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, as well as two USB 3.1 Type A slots, HDMI, Gigabit Ethernet, and more. It’s a more than capable workstation machine for creative tasks and the like, or versatile enough to leverage as a Plex server. For a more in-depth look, swing by our hands-on review.
Elevate your Mac mini’s functionality by using some of your savings towards the Satechi USB-C Stand and Hub at $80. Adding this accessory into your setup supplements the machine’s already impressive list of I/O with even more connectivity. There’s four extra USB 3.0 slots alongside memory card readers and a front-facing USB-C port. Plus, a matching space gray finish completes the package.
Apple has re-engineered the Mac mini (Late 2018) to drive tasks ranging from home automation to giant render farms, Xcode servers, industrial-grade operations, live concert sound engines, digital art and signage, testing iOS apps, and more. Upgraded with an 8th Generation Intel Core processor, the Mac mini features a more efficient thermal architecture, all-flash storage, a bigger fan, expanded vents, a redesigned power supply, and Apple’s T2 security chip.
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Apple on Tuesday began the approval process for its Developer Transition Kit, a Mac mini with specialized software that stands ready to usher in a new era of Macs powered by the tech giant’s own custom-designed silicon.
Select developers who submitted applications to take part in the Universal App Quick Start Program were on Tuesday notified of acceptance via email. Those chosen by Apple were also charged the $500 fee for access to the company’s Developer Transition Kit, which consists of a Mac mini outfitted with an A12Z Bionic SoC similar to ARM-based chips expected to launch with future Macs.
The Mac mini testbed also includes 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and modernized input/output hardware in two USB-C ports, two USB 3 ports, HDMI 2.0 and Gigabit Ethernet. That compares to current generation Intel-powered Mac mini models, which feature four Thunderbolt 3 ports instead of the USB-C pair on the development kit.
Along with an ARM heart, the Mac mini comes complete with Apple’s new macOS Big Sur development beta and Xcode 12.
As usual, developers must submit to a confidentiality agreement that states program participants cannot “publicly write about or review” the Developer Transition Kit, or share or display the unit without Apple’s prior written approval.
Developers are required to return the Developer Transition Kit one year after accepting the Universal App Quick Start Program’s terms and conditions. Apple can elect to end the test period at any time.
The Universal App Quick Start Program is the beginnings of Apple’s push to migrate away from Intel processors in Mac. Revealed by CEO Tim Cook on Monday, the effort is heralded as the fourth major transition for Mac after a move to PowerPC, the introduction of OS X and, most recently, a switch to Intel processors. The upcoming shift will see Mac move to “Apple silicon” in about two years.
Apple’s virtual Worldwide Developers Conference for 2020 started Monday, and while it was a given the online-only WWDC would bring updates to the company’s operating systems such as iOS 14, new hardware announcements are rare. This year, though, we got news about Apple’s home-grown processor, an Arm-based variant of chips like its A13 Bionic that’s intended to run MacOS instead of iOS or iPadOS like its iPhones and iPads. A new Mac Mini desktop for developers will be available this week running Apple’s A12Z processor so devs can start changing over their apps to run on the new processors.
Apple’s new chips promise to use less power while delivering the highest performance for the Mac, just as its in-house mobile processors have done for the iPhone and iPad. The Developer Transition Kit will include a Mac Mini powered by the A12Z processor, a 64-bit ARM-based system-on-a-chip designed by Apple and found in the current iPad Pro. The kit will also have 16GB of memory and 512GB SSD for storage with a developer beta version of the company’s upcoming MacOS Big Sur, plus Xcode.
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Apple did, in fact, announce the quite well underway migration of MacOS to what Apple calls “Apple Silicon,” and which most of us call the Arm platform. The company spent the last 30 minutes of its slightly surreal, socially-isolated WWDC presentation time discussing exactly how MacOS will migrate to Arm.
Much of that migration is as expected. Like the migration from PowerPC to Intel a decade and a half ago, there will be a Rosetta translation/migration engine that will allow Intel-based apps to run in emulation on Apple’s chips.
Apple’s Craig Federighi shared that all the apps and demos shown on the Mac during the WWDC keynote were, in fact, Arm apps. And he and Tim Cook announced that Final Cut Pro X was running already on Arm, with work actively being done by Microsoft on Office and Adobe on Creative Cloud.
Of particular note is the fact that Big Sur, the new upcoming MacOS version, will contain support for Apple Silicon when it’s shipped this fall. More to the point, there’s a developer beta of Big Sur available now, and it also has support for Mac Silicon. Apple is readying a set of developer migration resources, including documentation, sample code, and more.
Apple
But here’s where it gets interesting. How do you develop for a new processor architecture when you don’t have it in hand? In years past, we emulated it or built using virtual machines. But Apple is apparently far enough along in this migration to be able to offer Developer Transition Kits, which include a Mac mini “enclosure” with an Apple Silicon-based motherboard inside.
At $500, the price for the DTK Arm Mac mini is surprisingly reasonable. One downside, though. Apple says, “The DTK … must be returned to Apple at the end of the program.” The company says the machine will include 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD, and run on the A12Z SoC (system on a chip).
Apple has a long track record of seeding developer units to key developers. I was a recipient way back in the day. They weren’t particularly aggressive about return schedules, but they liked to require seed units to be returned as an incentive to get developers actually coding before the return deadline. That might be part of Apple’s reasoning here.
The key point here is this statement from Federighi: “Developers will be able to apply to the program at developer.apple.com today. We will be shipping units starting out this week, so you can get to work.”
So, yeah. Federighi didn’t specify what he meant by “apply” and what criteria would be used to determine who got units, but since this was announced publicly, we can be pretty sure Apple is expecting to send out Mac mini DTK units in quantity.
Are you planning to code for the new Mac architecture? Will you stick with the Mac after it transitions to new silicon? Let us know in the comments below.
A slow Mac is a frustrating Mac. We’ll show you how to make it run faster.
Óscar Gutiérrez/CNET
Has your once shiny and speedy Mac lost a bit of speed? If you are seeing the spinning beach ball more frequently as your Mac struggles to keep up, then it’s time to perform a bit of maintenance to put a little pep back in its step.
In a previous version of this article, I recommended that you replace your MacBook ($1,700 at HSN)‘s traditional spinning hard drive with a solid-state drive (SSD) and add more RAM, but those two maneuvers have become outdated. For starters, MacBooks for the better part of the past decade have featured SSDs so you likely already have one unless your MacBook is ancient. Secondly, MacBooks in recent years feature RAM and SSDs that are soldered to the motherboard, making user upgrades all but impossible. Therefore, the following five tips will help speed up your Mac without replacing any of its hardware.
Before we begin, allow me a word of caution: back up your data before diving in. For Macs, it’s easy. Grab an external drive and run Time Machine. With your Mac’s drive freshly backed up, you may proceed.
Free up storage space
Sometimes, all your MacBook needs is a data cleanup. The more crowded its SSD becomes, the slower it will run. You can check out how much free space remains on your MacBook’s drive by clicking the Apple logo in the top left, select About This Mac and then click the Storage tab. If you are approaching maximum capacity, click the Manage button to free up some space. Here, you’ll see four recommendations for reclaiming free drive space.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
The first lets you use iCloud to offload files, photos and text messages. You can move all the files stored on your desktop and Documents folder from your Mac’s drive to iCloud. And you can store full-resolution photos in iCloud and keep what Apple calls “optimized” versions on your Mac that take up much less space.
If you snap lots of photos with your iPhone ($699 at Apple), using the iCloud Photo Library is probably this single biggest space saver for your Mac. Keep in mind that you will likely run up against the free 5GB allotment on iCloud and begin to pay for space on Apple’s cloud. Upgrading to 50GB will cost you $0.99 a month, and the two bigger plans offer 200GB for $2.99 a month or 2TB for $9.99 a month. It’s cheaper than buying a new Mac.
The second option lets you optimize storage for the TV app by removing downloaded movies and shows after you watch them. The third option automatically cleans out the trash, removing items that have been sitting in the Trash for more than 30 days. The last option, Reduce Clutter, lets you review large files, downloads and unsupported apps and manually delete those you no longer need.
Perform some First Aid
Next, let’s clean up the applications you are keeping. When you install an app on your Mac, the piece of software arrives as part of a package of files, including permissions that tell MacOS which users can do what things with specific files.
Over time, these permissions can get changed, resulting in your Mac lagging, freezing or crashing. Repairing these disk permissions, in the most basic terms, amounts to shuffling and re-dealing these permissions so that they return to their rightful place.
If your Mac acts like it needs a nap every afternoon, when you are at the height of multitasking, there is an easy way to see which of your open applications is using the most system resources. Open the Activity Monitor by searching for it with Spotlight (keyboard shortcut: hold down the Command button while pressing the spacebar).
The numbers you’ll see are constantly fluctuating, but they show you the amount of CPU and memory resources each app is using. Take a look at both the CPU and Memory tabs to see which apps are using the most resources. Maybe you’ll start using Safari instead of Chrome, for example, if you see Chrome eating more than its fair share of system resources.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
Reduce login items
If your Mac is slow to boot up, the problem may be that there are too many applications to open at startup. It’s likely you never set them to launch at startup — they launch by default.
Go to System Preferences > Users & Groups and then click on the Login Items tab to see a list of the apps that open when you boot your Mac. Highlight the apps you don’t want to open at startup and click the minus sign below the list of apps.
Screenshot by Matt Elliott/CNET
Keep current with MacOS
Apple releases new versions of MacOS as free upgrades, so there is no reason not to stay current. New versions of MacOS contain performance enhancements and security improvements to keep your Mac running smoothly and safely. To install updates automatically, go to System Preferences > Software Update and check the box for Automatically keep my Mac up to date.
Using the Advanced button, you can choose whether to download updates automatically or also install them, too. There’s also an option to update the apps from the App Store automatically.
