There’s not much to say about this, other than it looked interesting for the moment it presented itself on the screen. For the last 2 developer beta updates installed, whenever I login for the first time, all system windows stay dark purple for a brief moment. .. Above: Screenshot taken in macOS 26.2 Beta 2, […]
Category Archives: Low End Mac Tech Journal
I don’t know why. For some reason on my M4 Mac mini in Tahoe 26.2 Beta (25C5048a), the default system icon for .bundle files is a Microsoft Word 2004 icon. I do have Microsoft Office installed, but surely it’s not that old! As it turns out, there’s an explanation for this. . . In my […]
In order for computers and devices alike to be able to communicate wirelessly, a set of technical standards were drafted known as IEEE 802.11. Using radio waves, our devices talk back and forth to Wi-Fi routers, repeaters, extenders, etc; . . IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers) is the group responsible for the IEEE […]
In a previous article “M1 vs M2 vs M3 vs M4 vs M5“; I compared the tech specs of entry level Apple Silicon chips from each generation, sprinkling in some basic benchmarks while also sharing some details learned from other sources. . . There may not be an M5 MacBook Pro in front of me, […]
My journey with Apple Silicon for the Mac is perhaps atypical, but I was always open to the possibility that in the future my daily driver wouldn’t be a Mac Pro. The classic Xeon cheese graters are still useful to this day, however – I still have my 2008 3,1 now for old drives and […]
When we type on our iDevices, we expect every keystroke to be as accurate as possible, or at least as close to our perceived rate of success as can be, and for typing to be at least reasonably comfortable. When the on-screen keyboards don’t type the way we expect, instances happening on and off, it […]
Recently a website called BeeBom posted some benchmarks which reflect what appears to be the new Late 2025 14-Inch M5 MacBook Pro. If there is any indication from this artificial “water pressure test”, the M5 surely has cutting-edge single core performance. See: Mac17,2 – Geekbench 6.5.0 Pro for macOS AArch64 – Results Browser . . […]
Since Mid-2002, Apple computers started using DDR SDRAM (Double Data Rate Synchronous Dynamic Random-Access Memory), the first model being an Xserve G4 1.0, shipping with 266 MHz PC-2100 DDR. . . As of September 2025 the latest iteration is DDR5, with DDR6 planned for 2027, and current Apple silicon devices are using LPDDR5X, a low-power […]
A new industry report shows Apple is to saturate just under half of all 2 nanometer production capacity at TSMC. The report also has some notable insights on the industry now, and for the immediate future. The 2nm process at TSMC went into production as planned. . . When can we expect M5 chips? We […]
Metal is the current generation of low-level graphical API that Apple uses, which powers the hardware accelerated graphics on their OSes, namely macOS. Metal 1.0 was introduced on September 30th, 2015, alongside Mac OS X El Capitan and iOS 8. Before the Apple Silicon transition, the Metal API received regular major updates every 2 years. […]
Precisely as the headline sounds, the Apple Silicon iMac almost ended up having this same design cue as the intel iMacs. First shared by Kosutami on X and first reported by 9to5Mac (as well as MacWorld), are some pictures from before the EVT stage of the M1 iMac. “Fun fact: before the EVT Stage development […]
It’s important to have a backup plan and stick to it. Ideally you will have at least two backup systems in use, so if your backup drive dies, you have a second backup. My preferred backup system is to use SuperDuper to make bootable clones of my hard drive partitions and Time Machine to do […]
A lot has changed since the first Macintosh. Apple no longer uses a phone connector for its keyboard or DE-9 serial ports for its mouse, printer, and modem. As others have recently pointed out, the only connector still in use from 1984 through today is the analog headphone jack. Macs have always had some form […]
Last an article was posted sharing the M3 Ultra benchmarks for the new Early 2025 Mac Studio, showing just how powerful Apple’s new flagship chip really is. Below are benchmarks for the $1999 M4 Max Mac Studio with 14-Core CPU, 32-Core GPU, and 36 GB of RAM, Comparisons are also made against the M3 Ultra […]
With the release of the new M3 Ultra Apple Silicon chip there is a new proverbial “king” of Mac performance/specs, as this chip is aimed at the professional market and features the highest specs in the Mac lineup in Early 2025. While new product performance is often touted and contrasted against old products during launch […]
Fresh to the Low End Mac mailbag from FaceBook User Michael Vega: “Possibly known knowledge, but I wanted to show a proof of concept and I’m glad it works. I have a thunderbolt 3 dock, but it works with Thunderbolt 2/1 Macs. My work laptops are a current generation of Lenovo PCs with Thunderbolt 4, […]
Processors keep getting faster and faster. Hard drives and SSDs are getting faster and faster. System memory gets faster and faster. Graphics processors get faster and faster. Network speeds get faster too. So why does so much feel slow?