Time to Switch to Powerbeats Pro →

They are the most sincerely and comprehensively new Beats product since the Apple takeover, and they are a triumph. The Doctor’s headphone elves have been quietly busy, and the first true wireless Beats earphones happen to also be the best Beats headphones of any size or kind. At $250, they don’t come cheap. However, the Powerbeats Pro deliver numerous advantages over Apple’s cheaper and simpler AirPods, and those upgrades totally validate the Beats price premium.

I love my AirPods, which by the way has been updated with a newer faster chip and wireless charging, but I love the idea that these won’t fall off when I sprint on the treadmill. There goes $250 I wasn’t budgeting for :)

MacBook Pro 15” Now with Vega dGPU

Vega GPU options are now available today via selecting the most expensive 15-inch MacBook Pro configuration which starts at $2,799 with a Radeon Pro 560X! If you want to upgrade to the Vega 16, it’ll cost you another $250, while the Vega 20 is $350 more expensive than the base model.

If you opt out of either option, there is the new Blackmagic Pro eGPU for $1,199 which comes with the Vega 56 which can be found on the iMac Pro. I’m interested to see what the benchmarks of all these are although I wish there was an Nvidia compatible eGPU.

Also, I don’t remember the MacBook Pros coming with the 8th generation Intel processors but now they do. Cheers!

iPad Pro 2018 Benchmarks

We all know now that the benchmarks are more than impressive in respects to Apple’s A12X but we also know that the new 2018 iPad Pro in the 1TB configuration has an extra 2GB of RAM. For multitasking purposes, this is going to be the jam but the price sets it around the realm of MacBook Pro pricing. So, if you’re comfortable with iOS as the sole computer, this maybe just be the thing.

If you’re asking me, I’ve been contemplating it for over two years but still find myself on the MacBook Air from time to time. I’m also waiting to see what the pricing structure will be for the new MacBook Pro’s with the Radeon Vega GPU Chipset set to debut sometime this week. 60% faster than the Radeon 560 which is currently in the latest highest spec’d MacBook Pro is a tremendous update.

Geekbench scores for iPad Pro (top), MacBook Pro (bottom)

The biggest takeaways are:

That means the highest-spec iPad Pro's single-core performance is 92.8 percent that of the top end MacBook Pro.

Geekbench's scores for multi-core operations are not quite as close, though. For multi-core performance, the benchmark rates the iPad Pro as 17995 and the MacBook Pro as 21251. That puts the iOS device at 85.68 percent of the laptop.

Of course, John Gruber also summarizes it quickly in reference to the 13” MacBook Pro:

It’s not clear at all who the MacBook Pro without Touch Bar is for today, though. In principle, it’s for people who want higher performance than the MacBook Air provides. In practice, it’s not much faster — about the same in single-core, and about 15 percent faster in multi-core. It weighs more, costs more, and yet doesn’t have Touch ID.

Ideally, maybe a the new 2018 MacBook Air with the BlackMagic eGPU Vega 56 would be the key especially if the performance of that box for $1,199 is much better than the built in Vega in the upcoming MacBook Pro. I just want to start editing the videos of my kids faster and while on the road and carry the least possible.

Vega 16 or Vega 20 built in 

Apple’s New MacBook Pro i9 is Cleared to Go FAST! →

After the initial hoopla concerning thermal related throttling in Apple’s new MacBook Pro, after working with popular laptop YouTube review Dave Lee, Apple has issued a statement and software update that addresses this issue. Looks like I’m getting a new computer and finally putting down this 2010 MacBook Air Core2Duo!

Following extensive performance testing under numerous workloads, we've identified that there is a missing digital key in the firmware that impacts the thermal management system and could drive clock speeds down under heavy thermal loads on the new MacBook Pro. A bug fix is included in today's macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 Supplemental Update and is recommended. We apologize to any customer who has experienced less than optimal performance on their new systems. Customers can expect the new 15-inch MacBook Pro to be up to 70% faster, and the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar to be up to 2X faster, as shown in the performance results on our website.

2018 MacBook Pro Real Life Tests

Wait, what? The new MacBook Pro is outperforming its predecessor by over 4x and the fully-spec’d 2013 by 85x? I ran this test a bunch of times and got pretty much the exact same results. In fact, the 2013 model clocked 38 minutes on one test.

I wonder what the speed differenc would be compared to my 2010 MacBook Air Core 2 Duo!

You know that feeling when you put your hands on a keyboard and you feel like you can just fly on it? This is one of those. It’s quiet, yet still maintains a solid tactile response and the size feels right.

One of the first positives that I’ve heard about this 3rd generation butterfly keyboard.

Tim Cook on Privacy →

“The ability of anyone to know what you’ve been browsing about for years, who your contacts are, who their contacts are, things you like and dislike and every intimate detail of your life -- from my own point of view it shouldn’t exist.”

Agree.

“We’ve worried for a number of years that people in many countries were giving up data probably without knowing fully what they were doing and that these detailed profiles that were being built of them, that one day something would occur and people would be incredibly offended by what had been done without them being aware of it,” he said. “Unfortunately that prediction has come true more than once.”

It’s truly a sham and shameful.

“What’s a computer?” →

Brilliant. Simple. Simply brilliant.

South Park PvP on iOS

Download South Park: Phone Destroyer™ by Ubisoft now on the App Store available on iOS.

From South Park Digital Studios comes a real-time battle game like nothing you’ve ever experienced before! Take on Cartman, Kenny, Stan and Kyle in all out mobile mayhem!

South Park: Phone Destroyer brings you iconic South Park characters, action packed real-time strategy, exploding PvP battles, trademark South Park humor and collectible cards in a perfect mix that’s spicier than Cartman’s chili con carne …

Apple iPhone X Display -- Second to None →

The result: Apple has produced an impressive Smartphone display with excellent performance and accuracy, which we cover in extensive detail below. What makes the iPhone X the Best Smartphone Display is the impressive Precision Display Calibration Apple developed, which transforms the OLED hardware into a superbly accurate, high performance, and gorgeous display, with close to Text Book Perfect Calibration and Performance!!

Without Apple's expertise in developing and calibrating their display techologies, this screen could have easily been "just another OLED mobile display."

I Should Have Fell In Line →

Joanna Stern From the Wall Street Journal:

The first 48 hours with the iPhone X elicits a feeling similar to the one you get assembling mail-order furniture using a poorly drawn 45-step instruction manual. After a lot of fumbling and missteps, you wonder: Am I an idiot, or is thing’s maker out to crush my soul?

But then comes the moment when the much-hyped new iPhone feels so natural to use that when you go back to even the brand new iPhone 8, it’s like picking up an old BlackBerry.

Yup, Apple has a clear winner.

Austin Mann and Apple’s new iPhone 8 Plus

After shooting 100 portraits or so, I can easily say Studio Light is my favorite of the effects. It emulates a gold bounce card as if it is just outside of the frame, bouncing nice warm light into the face and eyes of the subject. It does a nice job of making the face subtly pop from the rest of the background without doing anything too dramatic.

If there is one feature that I am excited about on the new iPhones, it’s Portrait Lighting’s new Studio Lighting. Every year Apple really does come up with features that do make you want to upgrade.

If you’re a photographer of any kind, they say the best camera is the one in your pocket. There is no excuse for anything less than the iPhone 8 Plus (at least until the new iPhone X comes out in a month and a half.)

iPhone 8 Plus Camera Review

The Apple iPhone 8 Plus is the best-performing mobile device camera we have ever tested. Its overall DxOMark Mobile score of 94 sets a new record, beating out the 90 points for both the Google Pixel and the HTC U11, as well as the 92 that its sibling iPhone 8 just scored. Its Photo score of 96 is also a new record, blowing past the Pixel’s 90. For Video, its score of 89 is among our highest, but tied with the HTC U11 and slightly below the Pixel’s 91. Of course, the Pixel is nearly a year old now, so it makes sense that Apple’s new flagship is breaking new ground.

The king returns as the best of the best.

Intel's Kaby Lake Disappoints

For the average consumer building or buying a new performance-focused PC, a desktop chip based on 14nm Kaby Lake remains the chip of choice—a total lack of competition at this level makes sure of that.

But for the enthusiast—where the latest and greatest should perform better than what came before—Kaby Lake desktop chips are a disappointment, a stopgap solution that does little more than give OEMs something new to stick on a label in a 2017 product stack.

No wonder Apple wasn't in a rush to put out their new Touch Bar MacBook Pro with "Kaby Lake Inside."

And yes, I'm still waiting for that must have upgrade before pulling the trigger on a $3,500 laptop. Maybe I can settle for even the Lenovo or Dell, but still, Windows.....