Dear readers, As you all know, Low End Mac strives to help you get the most out of your Mac, to maximize the life of your Apple gear, upgrading only as necessary or desired. With many devices left out of the fold, it’s only natural for one to find alternative ways to upgrade past Windows […]
Just a quick idea put together in Adobe Photoshop CS4 on a Power Mac G5. Logic Board pictured is of a 2006 Mac Pro 1,1. You may click the image below for a 2560 x 1920 version, or download the zipped full resolution, 5712 x 4284 image (16.9 MB). .
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, […]
One of my favorite things about the proliferation of the smartphone since 2007, is the Camera (and how much better they’ve become). At any given time you could capture your life, save it, snap a video, or even take many breathtaking pictures of nature and scenery. Here at Low End Mac we encourage our users […]
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 […]
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 […]
With the release of the new M5 MacBook Pro and iPad Pro on October 22nd, we’re 5 generations into the Apple Silicon lineup, marking half a decade since Apple Silicon became available for consumers. . . . Although the new chip was announced quietly, it’s hard to remain silent about something – it gives pro-level […]
A YouTuber by the name of SURGE⚡️ posted a video back on July 6th 2025 upgrading a 2018 Mac mini to an 9-core i9 CPU. . . The Intel chip appears to be an I9-9980HK, the same which is used in the 2019 16″ 2.4 GHz i9 MacBook Pro. . (Above: MAC MINI 2018 i9 […]
Fresh from the Low End Mac tech Mailbag is a CustoMac submission from one of our community members, Dan Schnur. He put together “The newest 2025 model year Macintosh IIci”, and this thing has a completely brand new, purple logic board! Gives it a strong Sonnet upgrade kind of vibe, the way it looks. . […]
Last year on October 29th 2024, Apple unveiled a totally redesigned Mac mini, alongside the M4 iMac, and the new M4/M4 Pro/M4 Max MacBook Pros. It features a new chip with a 3-nanometer fabrication process, a new thermal system to go along with it, upgradeable internal storage, new ports on the front, and more noteworthy […]
Today’s iPhone lineup is more powerful than ever, with the A19 and A19 Pro both holding the line for Single Core performance scores on smartphone CPUs. If you’re on a budget, don’t care as much for tech specs but still want an all-around good device, one could feel indecisive amongst the sea of choices out […]
It’s been a month since the launch of the iPhone Air, and I’ve been using it as my daily driver after replacing the iPhone 14 Pro. Now after a month in, I believe I can give a better reflection of my experiences and perspectives. One thing is for sure, it’s a keeper. . . Smooth […]
On September 10th 2025 I made an iPhone 17 launch-themed wallpaper to go along with our website, using the SF Pro Rounded font. This is a revised version using one of our chosen open-source fonts, Open Runde, for readers to enjoy without worrying about licensing issues – and is available in 4K. Alternatively, you may […]
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, […]
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 . . […]
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 […]
With the new M5 chip quietly added to the entry-level 14-Inch MacBook Pro, it showed up alongside the M5 iPad Pro on Apple’s website, and the M5 Vision Pro. It comes as no surprise the chip has the greatest Single Core performance score of any Mac up until this point, further raising the bar. On […]
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 […]
Back on August 6th 2025, I put together a few ideas in Photoshop CS4 to redo the banner for our website. After making some tweaks and finally getting around to it, I’m proud to present the new one! Be sure to clear the browser cache for our website if you’d like to see the new […]
Hey everybody, Thank you for taking the time out of your day to read this. Low End Mac has always been community-based since its creation in April 1997, helping others maximize the life of their Apple gear for nearly three decades. Since our low points between 2014 – 2018, we’ve reached several milestones along a […]
Picture this: You can see an entire map of earth with all the time zones, where the sun is shining on earth now, clocks for many cities around the world, a moon calendar, sun calendar, and more, all within a self-contained app. The best part is, you can have it right now on your PowerPC […]
Does anyone remember the smooth intro from the iPhone 17 launch on September 9th? You may come across a brand new Apple commercial strikingly much like the intro to the iPhone 17 launch stream, called “Design is how it works“. The video stuck out to me in the creative way they showcased Apple design, using […]
Back in September 2023, a 24-Inch 2006 polycarbonate iMac ended up in my hands, and I’ve had ideas for years on what to do with this specific model – which mostly came to fruition with this project. Fast forward 2 years, this iMac is alive and kicking, working as well as ever. “Lunar Leidenfrost” in […]
On October 5th 2011 around 3 PM pacific time, Steve Jobs passed away at his Palo Alto home at the age of 56. A founding member of Apple, a CEO who turned his company around, a human being whose vision not only defied his critics, but changed the very nature of how we interact with […]
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 […]
Imagine if you could take some features from newer versions of macOS, and give them to Mac OS X Leopard running on a PowerPC Mac? That’s exactly what we’re gonna do today in this article. I’m gonna cover a small compilation of apps and tweaks where the end result is a more modern PowerPC Leopard […]
This light utility gives you the ability to properly format SD cards and Micro SD cards on your PowerPC Mac. Older versions of Mac OS X recognize SD cards as USB flash drives if they mount, although may have trouble formatting in Disk Utility. . . Macs did not have SD card slots or Micro […]
This page details the full hardware profile of the Apple Silicon “A4” Samsung S5L8930 chip. Name: “Apple A4”, 32-Bit MFG: Samsung Released: April 3rd, 2010 Codename: APL0398 Part Number: S5L8930 Fabrication Process: 45 nm Transistor Count: – CPU ISA: Arm v7 . RAM Information: Memory Bus Width: 64-Bit Total channels: 2 Channels Bit per channel: […]
This page details the full hardware profile of the Apple Silicon “A3” Samsung S5L8720 chip. Name: “Apple A3” MFG: Samsung Released: June 8th, 2009 and September 9th, 2009 Codename: APL0298 or APL2298 Part Number: S5L8920 or S5L8922 (APL2298) Fabrication Process: S5L8920 – 65nm S5L8922 – 45nm Transistor Count: – CPU ISA: Arm v7 . RAM […]
Earlier today, Wylsacom uploaded a YouTube video unboxing what appears to be the next generation M5 iPad Pro, before Apple ever even announced it. This is not only an unreleased product, but also has an unreleased Apple Silicon chip in it – the M5. . (Source: Эксклюзив! Распаковка iPad Pro на M5 раньше Apple! – […]
Imagine being able to simply download an app which makes your speakers louder than their normal maximum volume? Some of you may be more familiar with the more modern Iteration of Boom for Mac, but until last week I had no idea this existed for PowerPC Macs, too. . . Not only can you push […]
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 […]
Of course when I get a new phone, I’m gonna put a case on it. I used to even be someone who used screen protectors, reluctantly stopping using them with my last device after a while. But for years now, when getting a new iPhone, I forgo getting a $50 case or any fancy clear […]
On September 15th 2025, Apple released iOS 26 alongside iPadOS 26, and macOS Tahoe. This version brings about a completely new UI called “Liquid Glass”, an updated graphical API to Metal 4, and some other changes. . . This version of iOS leaps up to number 26, up from last year’s iOS 18, to keep […]