MACMYND

Any other year and the back-to-school laptop shopping would be long since over. But in 2020, school reopenings are already causing chaos as cities and states reverse course and send students home for full-time remote learning. That means changing circumstances and new school tech needs for many students. 

While many remote-learning school tasks can be accomplished with a simple Chromebook or cheap Windows laptop, those systems, especially budget-priced ones, can be hard to find right now. A bigger investment, but a good long-term one, is a full-featured MacBook. With its well-regarded MacOS and nearly bulletproof build, it’s still the first choice for many students in high school and college — especially with some decent student discounts usually available from Apple, at least for college students and faculty. 

Even better, the holiday shopping season is right around the corner, and you may find additional deals on the rescheduled Amazon Prime Day (Oct. 13), as well as from other retailers holding their own Prime-Day-like events. We’ll report on new deals in real-time as we find them.

Read more: Best laptops under $500 that are in stock now

MacBooks are among the most universally useful laptops you can buy, but it’s not always easy to pick the best MacBook for your needs. MacBook laptops range from $999 to $3,000 or more, even though they look and feel similar. I get a lot of reader questions about how to decide, especially when you’re torn between, for example, a slightly upgraded MacBook Air and a similarly priced 13-inch MacBook Pro. 

Now playing: Watch this: MacBook Air vs. 13-inch MacBook Pro vs. 16-inch MacBook…

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All current MacBooks finally have the improved Magic Keyboard: It started with the 16-inch MacBook Pro last autumn, but Apple has since added the Magic Keyboard to all of its current MacBook Pro model options, including the 2020 Air and new MacBook Pro 13-inch models. The result is a far more comfortable and reliable keyboard than the “butterfly” design that many MacBooks had been burdened with since 2015. Yes, it took Apple half a decade to backtrack on this issue, but the good news is that Mac laptop keyboards are finally good again. 

Apple is still offering a good back-to-school deal on MacBooks: Normally, the Apple Store is (ironically) not the best place to buy an Apple laptop (really, almost any Apple product) because sales are all but nonexistent. The big exception to the rule is Apple’s education sales, which usually include MacBook deals. For 2020, that can mean $100 off a MacBook Air and a free pair of AirPods, plus a 20% discount on the AppleCare Plus extended warranty (which I have mixed feelings about). 

If you need something bigger and don’t mind it being less than portable: Apple now has an updated version of the 27-inch iMac. Yes, it’s a big all-in-one desktop, so not portable, but if you’re locked away at home, that’s less of a concern. The big screen and high-end component options make it a powerhouse, but my favorite new feature is the upgraded 1080p webcam, which is better than any Mac camera, save for the similar one on the iMac Pro. Read more about the new 2020 27-inch iMac here.

All Macs will be transitioning to non-Intel chips over the next two years: It was the big news at Apple’s WWDC show in June. All Macs will be getting new Apple-designed Arm chips, replacing the Intel CPUs they’ve had for years… eventually. At least one Apple silicon product should arrive by the end of 2020, but Intel will be a part of the mix for at least the next couple of years. 

So, should you buy a new MacBook now or wait for an Apple silicon version, coming sometime over the next two years? There are potential pluses and minuses to switching to an Arm-based MacBook. Battery life could improve, Macs apps will align more closely with iPad and iPhone apps, and some specialized software, like photo-editing giant Photoshop, could be rewritten to take maximum advantage of the new platform. But, as we’ve seen with other Arm-powered laptops, compatibility with other apps can be a problem, as can raw performance. 

Read more: Best back-to-school gear under $250

Regardless, if you need a new MacBook now, then you’re stuck with the current Intel choices in the MacBook lineup, which have all been excellent in our recent hands-on experience. The key question for current back-to-school shoppers is how to make sure you’re not buying too little MacBook — or too much. 

For a few years, it got a little confusing. You could choose a 12-inch MacBook, a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro without a Touch Bar, a 13-inch Pro with a Touch Bar or a 15-inch Pro. And years before that, you had both white and black versions of the 13-inch polycarbonate MacBook and even 11- and 13-inch versions of the Air. 

Now it’s back to basics for Apple. There’s the 13-inch MacBook Air and both 13- and 16-inch MacBook Pro models. That’s it. Yes, this cuts out some potential just-right-for-you options, but it also makes it much easier to figure out which camp you fall into, especially since these three models are different enough that you’ll naturally gravitate toward one over the others.

Read more: Best Mac VPN in 2020 

Dan Ackerman/CNET

For many years, this was everyone’s favorite laptop: reasonably inexpensive. Thin and light. Built like a tank. It could last for years and take lots of falls and bumps. For any college student or coffee shop creative type, $999 would get you sorted. 

Then time passed the Air by. Its low-res display and the thick bezel around the screen fell behind even average Windows laptops. The components were rarely updated. Fortunately, the Air got a huge refresh a couple of years ago, and now looks and feels very much like a MacBook Pro. 

Most importantly, it’s back down to that magic $999 starting price, though there’s a catch. That’s for an Intel Core i3 processor, so you’re going to want to spend an extra $100 and get the Core i5 version. That’s really my only real knock against the new Air, that there’s a secret $100 Core i5 tax. Even the $999 version starts with a 256GB SSD, which is welcome. 

There are three main things you’re missing by going with the Air over the Pro. Your CPU options aren’t as robust; you only get two USB-C ports, not four; and there’s no Touch Bar, which to most people isn’t really a big deal. 

If you’re a college student, a would-be entrepreneur, a writer or just looking for an all-around laptop on the high end of casual, it’s tough to go wrong with the MacBook Air. It’ll rightly be the default starting point for a lot of people. Read our Apple MacBook Air 2020 review.

Dan Ackerman/CNET

The most recently updated MacBook is the 13-inch Pro. The 2020 version plays catch-up in a lot of ways, adding 10th-gen Intel CPU options, but only in the more expensive configurations. It also doubles the storage of the 2019 version and adds the new Magic Keyboard, making it the final MacBook to get the new keyboard design. 

All Pros now have the Apple Touch Bar, which isn’t as useful as Apple would have you believe but not as useless as everyone else thinks. I use it all the time for screen brightness, volume control and a few other contextual buttons, like when using the calculator app. 

Since they’re close in price, you might be tempted to get the less expensive Air over the Pro — after all, they look and feel similar and share a lot of the same features. And for many people, that’s the right call. But if you’re working with more power-hungry apps such as Photoshop or Premiere, keep in mind that the Air uses lower-power Y-series Intel chips, while the Pro uses more mainstream U-series chips. 

For web surfing, social media and movie streaming, you’re not going to notice the difference. For CPU-intensive tasks, you will. It’s especially noticeable because the Pro’s larger body is better designed for the heat generated by heavier workloads, so it’s less likely to throttle down. 

My other caveat about the 13-inch Pro is that you need to step up to a more expensive configuration to get the newer 10th-gen CPUs and to get the four USB-C ports instead of two. Read more.

Here’s a closer look at two $1,299 MacBook configurations: 

Sarah Tew/CNET

Laptops are often about cramming as much as possible into the thinnest, lightest, smallest package possible. But sometimes bigger is better. People still lament the late, great 17-inch MacBook Pro, which was discontinued back in 2012. 

Apple finally resurrected it, in a sense, with the new 16-inch MacBook Pro, at the same time killing the longstanding 15-inch version. It’s huge, at least compared with the 13-inch MacBooks, but still more portable than most of the 15-inch Windows laptops I’ve seen.

The main selling point is, of course, all that screen real estate, which is what you need if you’re a designer or even a number cruncher and need to keep a lot of things in front of you.

Like the old 15-inch Pro, the 16-inch MacBook is ridiculously expensive, starting at $2,399 and going up from there. But if that’s your all-day, every-day, work-from-home screen, it could be worth it. 

The other big selling point of the 16-inch Pro is that it includes discrete graphics, with a couple of AMD Radeon options. No, Macs are still not gaming machines, but if you’re editing 4K video or doing 3D modeling, having a GPU is important. The other Macs include Intel Iris graphics, which is at least a step up from standard off-the-shelf laptop graphics. Read our Apple MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) review.

Which MacBook should I buy?

My TL;DR advice is as follows.

• If you need a MacBook for everyday schoolwork, web surfing, movies and light creativity, go with the MacBook Air. Specifically the $1,099 Core i5 version. For most people, this is a good default starting point. 
• Need some more CPU muscle, or extra USB-C ports, or for some reason you really love the Touch Bar? Go with the 13-inch MacBook Pro, but keep in mind that 10th-gen CPUs and the extra USB-C ports are only in the higher-priced versions. 
• The 16-inch MacBook Pro is basically a desktop replacement. If you’re thinking of getting an iMac but want to carry it around sometimes, or if you definitely need a discrete GPU, then splurge on the 16-inch MacBook Pro. It’s painfully expensive, but it’s a real joy to use, and frankly it’s tough to go back to a 13-inch screen after using the 16-inch for a while.

When I deployed the 2020 MacBook Air to the teachers at my school earlier this year, it became immediately apparent that everything was better on this computer versus our previous ones except for one thing: the camera. For whatever reason, the 2020 MacBook Air webcam is considerably worse than the webcam on our old ones from 2017. Because our teachers were doing so much with virtual learning, I got several complaints, and I wanted a cheap option for teachers to upgrade their camera. We settled on the Papalook PA552, and it’s a great low-cost option for a webcam upgrade.

The Papalook camera comes with two mounting options: it can be placed on top of the screen or it can be mounted on the included tripod. The teachers that are using it really like the option to use the tripod as it allows them to have more granular control on the height at which they are recording without having to worry about putting their laptop on a stack of books, etc

Hardware-wise, it includes a 30FPS 1980p camera and dual microphones with DSP noise filtering tech. While the MacBook Air microphone is passable, the microphone in the camera is a nice upgrade. When we first started testing it, I had no idea a microphone was included, which was an excellent addition. It also consists of a ring light, which is activated by pressing your finger on the camera’s ring. There are three different levels of light, and it adds a lot to the camera experience. Especially in low-light situations, the ring light can make all the difference.

While I was initially disappointed that the camera used USB-A, I quickly realized that’s a benefit. The MacBook Air only includes two USB-C ports, and it’s costly to purchase hubs that add additional USB-C ports as well. On the other hand, it’s cheap to add an adaptor that takes a single USB-C port and turns it into HDMI, ethernet, and multiple USB-A ports. By using USB A connectivity, the Papalook camera can be plugged into an adaptor, and then we can use the same adaptor to plug up a TV over HDMI or additional USB accessories. We can then use the other USB-C port for charging.

As you can see from the image above, the quality between the built-in MacBook Air camera between the Papalook camera is noticeable. While the Logitech StreamCam (see our review) is the gold standard of external webcams thanks to its quality and software, the Papalook camera is a great low-cost option. There’s no software to install, and it’s an immediate upgrade over the built-in Macbook Air webcam.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

Apple is moving away from Intel-based Macs towards ARM-based chipsets based on its own design. That unlocks a number of advantages, including more efficient processors, better power consumption, and lower temperatures, all of which are incredibly attractive for mobile devices.

That’s one of the many reasons why ARM is a dominant force on mobile devices. The question now is whether they can make the jump not just to desk-bound computers but to make the jump and deliver the ultimate performance demanded by power users.

Which is why I find the discussions over Apple releasing both a MacBook and a MacBook Pro later this month needing to address one issue. What’s going to put the ‘Pro’ in the MacBook Pro? And what 

Air vents are shown on Apple Inc.’s new MacBook Pro, with retina display, in an arranged photograph … [+] in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Monday, June 11, 2012. Apple is releasing a fresh lineup of computers and software tools to woo consumers and keep developers making applications amid accelerating rivalry from Google Inc., Microsoft Corp. and, now, Facebook Inc. Photographer: David Paul Morris/Bloomberg

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Apple has said very little publicly about the project, other than to confirm a rough timescale at WWDC 2020, and to issue mac Mini styled ARM-powered ‘Developer Transition Kits’ presumably under very strict NDAs to allow apps to be recoded and optimised for macOS on ARM.

The implicit promise is that the new macOS on ARM platform, and therefore the new Mac laptops, are going to run every program that the current Macs from 2020 can run. That is a big ask, especially right out of the box. And those that run may not reach the same performance levels running under emulation as they would on the native platform. This is on the cutting edge, and that’s not always smooth, as Microsoft’s Surface Pro X has demonstrated.

In terms of capabilities, I’m expecting the mono-monikered MacBook to offer a similar experience to the Surface Pro Xl the first-party apps will work smoothly and offer a matching experience; third-party apps specifically designed for ARM will have a similar standard; and emulation for the extensive back catalogue will have a number of issues and not run at ‘full’ speed. This MacBook will also make for an excellent ‘cloud client’ machine, just as the Pro X does.

While we wait on the benchmarks of Microsoft’s custom designed SQ2 chip in the updated Surface Pro X machines, what will Apple deliver with the MacBook Pro on ARM?

The ‘Pro’ suffix carries weight, especially in the macOS world. It’s not a lightweight laptop for day-to-day use, it’s not something that focuses on cloud computing and living in the web browser, and it’s definitely not a cheap take-anywhere laptop. It’s a grunt of a laptop geared for heavy-duty media work with countless images, for throwing around 1080p (and increasingly 4K) video for editing, to act as the primary machine for software development.

So how will a MacBook Pro on ARM fare?

This is perhaps the biggest question that Apple needs to answer. As it stands today, can a macOS on ARM device pick up the heavy workload expected of a Pro machine, and deliver the advantages inherent with ARM?

If Apple can manage this at the upcoming launch (and while there’s nothing to say it can’t, neither is there anything quantifiable to say it will), the Mac platform will have something that the Windows 10 platform has not yet demonstrated. That would give Apple a significant lead in ARM-based computing over the next two years, and leave the ARM-powered Surface machines behind.

Or will the MacBook Pro on ARM simply be the MacBook on ARM where you pay more for a slightly faster processor, increased storage, and a brighter screen? 

Now read more about the Surface Pro X and how it could stack up against Apple’s new laptops…

Taking a look back at another week of news and headlines from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop includes a surprising iPhone 12 Mini decision, a sneaky trick in the iPhone 12 box, a MacBook warning, updates and issues with macOS, a review of the Apple Watch 6, Facebook asking for more, and goodbye to the iPod Nano.

Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).

The Shrinking Storage On The New iPhones

As we wait for Apple to formally announce the iPhone 12 family (including the new ‘iPhone Mini’ branding for the entry level model), details on the storage options have come to light, and while the flagship handsets see a nice jump in specs, those looking at the cheaper models are going to be disappointed at the cost-cutting on show. Forbes’ Gordon Kelly reports:

“Prolific Apple tipster John Prosser has confirmed that Apple will double the entry level storage capacities of the iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max to 128GB, which addresses much criticized 64GB starting point in iPhone 11 Pro models. But it’s not all good news.

“While iPhone 12 Pro models will get this (long awaited) storage bump, Prosser states that the all-new iPhone 12 mini (“Definitely the final marketing name”) and iPhone 12 will be stuck with 64GB of storage. They will also have the same 64/128/256GB upgrade options as the iPhone 11 line-up, missing out on the 512GB top tier available to the iPhone 12 Pro models.”

More here on Forbes.

The iPhone, The Box, And The EarPods

As well as speculation over the launch date of the iPhone 12 family, the question of what’s going to be in the box has also arisen. Will Apple strip out the peripherals to reduce the bill of materials? Tucked away in the code of iOS 14.2 is a curious omission that suggest the traditional EarPods are gone. Juli Clover reports:

“In iOS 14.2, this wording has been tweaked to say just “headphones,” removing the “supplied” part of this statement. The full code reads as follows:

“To reduce exposure to RF energy, use a hands-free option, such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones, or other similar accessories.

“All prior mentions of headphones have included “supplied,” and the deliberate elimination of the word in the new code strongly suggests Apple has no plans to “supply” headphones with the upcoming iPhone 12 models.”

More at MacRumors.

SHANGHAI, CHINA – MARCH 31: (CHINA OUT) Citizens queue up outside an Apple Store as Apple launches … [+] its iPhone SE globally on Thursday on March 31, 2016 in Shanghai, China. Apple’s new 4-inch iPhone SE packs almost all the power and features of the iPhone 6s into a package as small as – and even more affordable than – the iPhone 5s it replaces. (Photo by Visual China Group via Getty Images/Visual China Group via Getty Images)

Visual China Group via Getty Images

Beware The Ides Of The ARM MacBook

With the excitement continuing to build around Apple’s move to ARM for the macOS platform and a new MacBook expected later this month, It’s worth remembering that Microsoft has beaten Apple to the punch. This week saw the Windows 10 on ARM powered Surface Pro X receive a mid-cycle update. That makes Microsoft the known quantity, and Apple the laptop that needs a warning. I took a look at the two new ARM platforms earlier this week:

“Today, the Surface Pro X is not only a known quantity that has been validated by the market, but it is a known quantity that has picked up a mid-cycle refresh on the processor and a roadmap to increased app compatibility and flexibility.

“Apple’s ARM-powered MacBook is a mystery. The emulation that Apple has talked about is just that. Talk. Once it is released the teething troubles that Microsoft faced will also be faced by Apple; let’s not forget the move to ARM also comes on top of a major update to macOS to Big Sur v11.”

More here on Forbes.

Moving Forwards And Backwards With macOS.

Speaking of Big Sur, the upcoming version of macOS due for public release has picked up another beta version as Apple looks to minimize the aforementioned teething troubles both on the ARM- and Intel-powered machines. Juli Clover reports:

“Apple today seeded the Ninth beta of an upcoming macOS Big Sur update to developers for testing purposes, a week after releasing the eighth beta and more than two months after the new update was unveiled at the Worldwide Developers Conference.

“The macOS Big Sur beta can be downloaded through the Apple Developer Center and once the appropriate profile is installed, subsequent betas will be available through the Software Update mechanism in System Preferences.”

Meanwhile the security update for the older macOS Mojave was rolled back while Apple examined issues around both the operating system and the latest version of the Safari browser. A patch (a “supplementary update” in Apple’s words) is now available which should address the OS issues. More on this at MacRumors.

Apple’s new MacBook Air computers on display during the company’s showcase of new products Tuesday … [+] Oct. 30, 2018, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. (AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews)

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Reviewing the Apple Watch 6.

Apple’s September event saw the launch of the Apple Watch 6, with new features such as a blood oxygen sensor, an improved system on chip, a tweaked display, and of course some new colours. But the main issue remains the battery. James Stables takes a closer look:

““While no other smartwatch can touch the Apple Watch as a smartwatch, battery life is the Achilles heel. And it’s becoming an uncomfortable problem. We got way more than the 18 hours stated by Apple, with closer to 36 hours at a time including a 45 minute workout.

“It’s sleep tracking that really upsets things. The routine of nightly charging was acceptable, but now we’re finding time to charge, and having to create new routines. Ensuring we have charge is now something we actively think about – and that’s a bit wrong.

“That said, we feel that the pressure of battery anxiety will be even more acute when the world returns to normal.”

The full review is at Wareable.

Facebook Fights Apple For Messaging Choice

The team at The Information has reported on Facebook’s continued requests to Apple to allow users to change the default messaging application on their iPhones. With iOS 14 allowing the default browser to be switched away from Safari (with Microsoft’s Edge and Google’s Chrome both popular options), the principle has now been set. Will Apple follow through or is the soft lock-in through Messages to strong a pull? Chris Welch looks at the request:

“According to [Stan Chudnovsky, Facebook’s head of Messenger], Facebook has routinely asked Apple over the years to make it possible for third-party apps to take over as the default messaging client. The answer has always been no. “The main guess is that messaging drives hardware sales,” he said, when asked why Apple’s stance remains unchanged.

“And that’s probably right on: Apple’s iMessage platform and the features it enables between iPhone owners — voice messages, read receipts, reply / typing indicators, stickers and message effects, Memoji, and more — are a driving factor in why people buy and stick with iPhones.”

More at The Verge.

And Finally…

Following the iPod Nano’s cancellation in 2017, Apple continued to offer a full warranty and repair service; until this week. The venerable music player has been moved to Apple’s obsolete list, which limits options for repair ahead of move to vintage status in a few years:

“After years of service, and iPod touch taking over a lion’s share of iPod sales, Apple axed the nano line in 2017. Today’s addition to the “vintage” list means seventh-generation iPod nano devices are eligible for repairs and service at Genius Bars and Apple Authorized Service Providers, but only when required parts are available. In two years the last nano is expected to become “obsolete” and will no longer be eligible for repair.”

More at Appleinsider.

Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.

There’s just over a week left to enter to win Apple’s latest MacBook Pro thanks to our friends at Chargesap and its new Omega 200W & 100W GaN USB-C Charger available now with a 55% off limited time preorder deal.

Get a look at the new Omega chargers below and enter the giveaway now:

Omega: The World’s First & Smallest 200W & 100W GaN USB-C Charger

After 8 successful crowdfunding campaigns, Chargeasap is launching its new Omega charger, the world’s first and smallest GaN USB-C chargers available in 200W & 100W models. Weighing in at just 220g and smaller than a credit card, the Omega is capable of charging up to 4 devices simultaneously, including up to two MacBook Pros at full speed with its 100W USB-C ports and 22.5W USB-A ports with QuickCharge 3.0.

The Omega chargers include 2nd Generation GaN technology that improves heat and inaccurate power distribution of some 1st generation GaN chargers. The Omega sports patent-pending 180° foldable prongs to make plugging in the unit as easy as possible. It also includes connectors for US, AU, EU, and UK making for worldwide compatibility in over 200 countries.

You can order the new Omega charger for up to 55% off retail now on Kickstarter.

How to enter:

For your chance to win MacBook Pro (13″, 2020, base), enter your name and email below (one submission per email address) to sign up for Chargeasap’s and 9to5Mac’s newsletters. Be sure to share our giveaway on Facebook or Twitter & follow the company on Facebook & Twitter for the latest updates. Entries are open until Oct 9, 2020. Open to readers in US and Canada only. If you are viewing this on mobile and don’t see the option to enter, click here.

Apple 2020 MacBook Pro Giveaway

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Apple today released a new macOS Mojave 10.14.6 supplemental update to fix several issues that could slow down the Mac. Today’s update also relaunches Safari 14, which was released last month for macOS Mojave users but then pulled out after causing bugs for some users.

As reported by Mr. Macintosh, the Mojave 2020-005 Security Update released in September has caused some serious problems for Mac users. Customers reported that their machines were constantly slowing down for no reason, along with other errors throughout the system.

The Safari 14 update, which has been made available to macOS Mojave users ahead of the macOS Big Sur public release — which comes with the new Safari pre-installed — has also made Apple’s browser stop working for some users.

Today’s supplemental update for macOS Mojave 10.14.6 fixes all issues caused by Mojave 2020-005 Security Update, as well as bugs related to Safari 14. The update can be downloaded and installed through the Software Update menu in the macOS System Preferences app.

Have you been affected by any of these problems? Let us know in the comments below.

Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:

Amazon-owned Woot’s latest flash deal offers substantial savings on Apple’s 2019 15-inch MacBook Pro that’s equipped with a Core i9 processor, 512GB SSD and upgraded graphics.

Flash MacBook Pro deal

Find even more Apple deals

Apple Authorized Reseller B&H Photo has issued two deals on Apple’s 2019 13-inch MacBook Air, with a $550 discount on the upgraded system itself — and an additional $50 off the laptop bundled with AppleCare.

Blowout MacBook Air deals

(*) Activation instructions

Even more Apple deals

macOS Big Sur, Apple’s upcoming release of its Mac operating system, will finally let you watch 4K HDR Netflix content, but it turns out it’ll only work on 2018 or later Macs with Apple’s T2 security chip, according to a new Netflix support document (via Apple Terminal).

That means the full list of Macs that can watch 4K content on Netflix, at least for now, is as follows:

• iMac (2020)
• iMac Pro
• Mac Pro (2019)
• Mac mini (2018)
• MacBook Air (2018 or later)
• MacBook Pro (2018 or later)

There’s an easy way to check whether your Mac has a T2 chip, as Apple points out on its website.

Disappointingly, older iMacs and pre-2018 Mac laptops that could theoretically play Netflix 4K content, whether on their built-in displays or via an 4K or 5K external monitor, won’t be able to. It’s not clear why the T2 security chip is required: Netflix didn’t have an immediate answer for us, and Apple didn’t respond to a request for comment.

But if we had to guess, that T2 chip might be able to better handle 4K content because it acts as a co-processor. The T2 chip has built-in video processing power including support for the popular HEVC codec, according to a marketing slide from Apple’s October 2018 event. On its website for the latest iMac, Apple says that the T2 chip “makes transcoding HEVC video up to twice as fast as the previous generation.”

We’re not sure if Netflix uses HEVC for these high-res streams, but if it does, perhaps the T2 chip is key in helping 4K Netflix play smoothly on Macs.

If you want to watch 4K Netflix and have a compatible Mac once macOS Big Sur comes out this fall, you’ll also need to subscribe to Netflix’s $15.99 per month Premium plan. And you can only watch 4K Netflix content using Safari, not other browsers, according to Netflix’s support doc.

Mac users aren’t the only ones with specific requirements for watching 4K Netflix, though: on Windows, you need to be on Windows 10, using Microsoft Edge or the Netflix app, with a 4K-capable display and a machine with a powerful enough CPU or GPU.