Apple Should Have Been Clear About macOS Monterey and M1 Macs

As we have now learned, users will require an M1 Mac to get all of the features coming in macOS Monterey. Oliver Haslam at iMoreĀ thinks that by allowing users and journalists to work this out, instead of properly announcing itself, Apple missed a big opportunity to talk up its own silicon. I rather agree.

What if Apple had made a point out of the M1 Macs getting the full feature set? What if Apple had someone stand on its virtual stage and say “because M1 is so powerful, and thanks to its Neural Engine, we were able to take macOS Monterey a step further on new Macs.” What if someone had rolled out the red carpet, shown the new features off on a bright orange M1 iMac, and pointed out just why the M1 is so great?Ā The whole message would be different. Then, the M1 would be the hero of the piece, flexing its muscle to go above and beyond. Now, it’s the villain as it rips features from Intel’s cold, dead hands.

Ambient Noise App ā€˜Dark Noise’ Updated for M1 Macs

Ambient noise app Dark Noise updated to version 2.4, and this brings support for M1 Macs with other improvements: 2.4 is a minor update with optimizations for running on the new M1 Macs;Ā On a Mac unsupported features should no longer show up in settings;Ā The volume slider on the player page will now work by only changing the audio of Dark Noise while running on a Mac.

Getting Dolphin Emulator Running on an M1 Mac

Dolphin is an emulator for two recent Nintendo video game consoles: the GameCube and the Wii. In a blog post the team talked about getting it to run on an M1 Mac.

Using the Rosetta 2 translation layer with Dolphin’s x86-64 JIT, the M1 easily ran most games at full speed and handily outran like-class Intel Macs. The experience wasn’t entirely smooth due to jitter from Jitting a JIT, yet the processor proved itself more than capable of handling Dolphin.

Using an M1 iPad Pro for Photography

Photographer Austin Mann recently published a review of the M1 iPad Pro, specifically in how it can be used in photography.

As any photographer knows, one of the most time-consuming parts of the photo creation process is culling through thousands of images, making selects, and editing the images.Ā Thanks to the M1 chip, faster internal storage, and a few other improvements, the new iPad Pro with M1 is the fastest image sorting tool I’ve ever used.

Examining the Boot Process for M1 Macs

Howard Oakley recently dove into the boot process for M1 Macs and how it affects booting from an external hard drive.

Unless the user has already changed its default security settings to allow it to start up from an external disk, you’ll have no joy whatsoever. Although this is secure, it’s also more than inconvenient, as the times that you most need your Mac to start up from an external disk are when it’s in trouble with its internal disk, and that’s likely to prevent you from changing its security settings, leaving your Mac dead.