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 […]
Category Archives: Miscellaneous Ramblings
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 […]
As an enthusiast who’s reveled over tech since I was young, I treated my phones throughout the years as extensions to my computer collection/hobby – naming my devices, maintaining them, accessorizing, jailbreaking, etc; while also reveling over tech specs, performance, and watching closely the year-over-year changes. . . This year I exchanged my outgoing device […]
Good Morning Everyone, As Low End Mac continues to grow, we strive for it to still be useful and relevant even when contemporary computers look nothing like what they do in our website banner anymore. We’ve had a remarkable breadth of changes over the last year such as gaining multiple contributors, adding hundreds of articles, […]
According to a recent post by Ask Perplexity on X: “The internet as we knew it is dying. AI content went from ~5% in 2020 to 48% by May 2025. Projections say 90%+ by next year. Why? AI articles cost <$0.01. Human writers cost $10-100.” (Source for original image: AskPerplexity on X – URL to […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects the most recent updates […]
I think I finally figured out the trick to the thermal paste, making sure it doesn’t get pushed off the CPU die. Experimenting some more after the last article, I made a square O-ring shaped buffer out of layered clear tape, sitting on the CPU. This way the heatsink doesn’t press all the way down […]
Sometimes I find it hard to send away that old phone even if I know I have to. Indeed, it’s more or less a tool to get things done, but it came along for the ride for 3 years of my life anyway. I held it in my hand, reveled over the tech specs when […]
It’s interesting to compare the tech specs of the A19 Pro and M1 chip, as they are so close yet far apart. One is a desktop from the beginning of the Apple Silicon transition, and one is a device you can hold in your hands, stuff in your pocket. . . While one runs iOS […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects the most recent updates […]
Have I thought about getting a new iPhone? Absolutely, and every year I at least entertain it depending on how pertinent and appealing the upgrade is. This year, I somehow wound up thinking I’d be okay with any one of them: If I wanted another purple iPhone: Get the Lavender iPhone 17, it’s good enough. […]
Time for some new paste. It seems to be working well this time around, as none seemed to get pushed off either CPU die, and it can hold 48.5c steady idle on CPU A when on “highest”. The Power Mac G5 feels snappy again! And these heatsinks are pretty decent. . Why I repasted the […]
Even though this PowerBook is about to turn 20 this fall, what amazes me is how it’s able to handle some tasks to this day, in Mac OS X Leopard. The Radeon Mobility 9700 really pulls its own weight, making 360p YouTube streaming a bit more possible whilst simultaneously browsing the web. I’ve been enjoying […]
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 […]
A while ago, I assembled a pile of 20-Inch 2006 iMac parts into a fully functioning Mac, albeit fixated to an L-shaped shelf contrivance. It worked for the time being, it’s been working pretty steadily for a while now, so I’ve been thinking about putting it into more of a case. I thought for weeks […]
Have you ever wanted to benchmark a Power Mac G4 MDD versus a 2018 Mac mini, directly? Well, now you actually can*! This is actually a Universal app, which works all the way up to macOS Mojave since it’s a 32-Bit app. See: Download – Power Fractal v1.4.1 (160 kB – External Link) . . […]
This app (in the form that I have it) can test the read and write speeds of volumes over the Local Area Network. Whether it’s selected as a folder in Finder or manually entered as an IP address, it’ll send data packets to and from the devices of your choice. Download: LAN_SpeedTest.app.zip (159 KB, LEM […]
There’s iStat Menus, iStat Pro, and then there’s Temperature Monitor 4.96. It’s nice and simple overall, yet it gives you just enough customization to show the temperature stats you need on your PowerPC Mac. The best part is, there is a mini app which comes along with it. TemperatureMonitor4.96.dmg_.zip (LEM Software Repository, 3 MB) . […]
A little while ago, a community member of Low End Mac pointed out the jagged letters on the banner of the website, and I’ve thought about fixing it. The letters were rasterized and the original text layer was deleted, which probably resulted in this. I figured it wouldn’t be so visible being such a small […]
It’s a combination of factors that keep me going on this platform: muscle memory, learned skill, perceived ease of use, having an excuse to keep a decades-old platform going.. the list goes on. Everything that went into this 2003 Dual 2.0 Power Mac G5 I use on a near-daily basis, ends up helping me make […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects the most recent updates. […]
On July 22nd 2025, Apple released the 4th Developer Beta of macOS 26 Tahoe, which is shaping up to be the potential Public Beta build anytime soon. It looks like the UI received further refinement, and the glimmer of glass-transparency effects has returned a little. Beta 3 before updating After update, before switching dark mode […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects the most recent updates. […]
Yesterday I wrote an article detailing working with 16K resolution images in CS4 on an ’03 G5, and wanted to do a quick follow-up. As it turns out, the Mac can also handle 32K images! This is a whopping resolution of 30720 x 17280. To put it into appropriate perspective: “According to scientist and photographer […]
The imagination is a powerful thing, isn’t it? What would it look like if for some inexplicable reason, there was PowerPC OCLP? Today, through the combined forces of Apple Silicon, Photoshop, a Wallstreet Book and a G5, the imagination lives. . . Generations apart . The Screenshots In Conclusion This was a fun side project, […]
After what appeared to be a distribution error which delayed the update for Apple Silicon Macs, Developer Beta 3 is out. A workaround quickly sprung up before this error was fixed, but now the conventional method works as it should. . . It’s been posted by users on social media that it has something to […]
In continuation of the site updates posted before, we will continue covering changes in the form of periodic posts whether they’re big or small. We want our readers to see the changes done to the site, many small ones can be time consuming and hard to notice. . This article reflects the most recent updates. […]
Hello everybody I’m Greg Hrutkay of LEM and also Hrutkay Mods. I’m generally a LEM Facebook admin and moderator when I’m not being a Tech YouTuber. Rarely do I ever get the itch to write, but I have noticed just recently with the announcement of the last macOS for Intel systems another topic is starting […]
We’ve hit another milestone with our Facebook group, reaching 13,000 members as of June 25th, 2025. There was a point in time where we previously were at 13K members, however, many fake/bot accounts were purged. Low End Mac has had a presence on Facebook since December 2008 – growing over time with an organic community […]
Many readers of this website are familiar with OCLP, and the art of installing an unsupported version of macOS on an old Mac. Why not have the icons to match, and more? Let’s imagine what some different PowerPC and early-Intel era Macs would look like, with macOS Tahoe on the desktop. . Download: Unsupported Macs […]
The first Developer Beta of macOS Tahoe dropped on the first day of WWDC, after much internal testing for macOS 26. As with any developer beta before the GM (Golden Master) build, things are subject to change.. including the Finder icon (again). . . macOS Tahoe development timeline Up until June 9th WWDC: Internal Testing […]
Does anyone else remember those chunky polycarbonate white iMacs from the mid-2000s? For a short while in Late 2006, Apple also made a 24-Inch model as well. Imagine what it would look like if we took an M4 chip and one of those and just… fused them together? . Click on the images when scrolling […]
The latest and greatest device to bear the same name as the revolutionary “1000 songs in your pocket” was a spec-bumped version of the 6th Generation iPod touch. Featuring double the ram, and base storage of its predecessor as well as other iterations. This device can officially run all the way up to iOS 15.8.4, […]
A little while back I covered an up-close comparison between the Sky Blue tone of the new M4 MacBook Air and Silver, as some early adopters are saying it is challenging to distinguish at times from Silver. It was noted that Sky Blue can give the impression of Silver but when you put it right […]
This was an incredibly busy week despite lesser articles being written, as much of the time was spent restoring the Tech Spec index to its prior form. We announced this issue at the beginning of the week, and went into detail in a later article. This article reflects the updates to the site within the […]