The newly refreshed 13" Retina MacBook Pro announced on Monday is seeing comparable performance to the mid-2014 model, according to the latest Geekbench benchmark. The early 2015 model with an Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 2.7GHz achieved a single-core score of 3043 and a multi-core score of 6448, a minor variance from last year's low-end 13" Retina MacBook Pro single-core score of 3056 and multi-core score of 6554.
The latest 11" MacBook Air, with an Intel Core i5 processor clocked at 1.6GHz, also performed comparably to its predecessor in Geekbench benchmarks, with its single-core score of 2753 and multi-core score of 5486 marginally higher than the mid-2014 model's scores of 2430 and 5291 respectively. Meanwhile, the new 13" MacBook Air had modestly lower scores, although more benchmarks will need to be averaged before results are conclusive.
John Poole of Primate Labs, the makers of Geekbench, claims that the latest MacBook Pro and Air may see slight performance improvements after OS X Yosemite gets through first-boot housekeeping, so further benchmarks results will be needed for those models as well to determine accurate performance. Nevertheless, it is clear that this year's refreshed MacBooks deliver only negligible improvements over the year-ago models.
The results are largely unsurprising given Intel's focus on improving battery life versus performance with its latest Broadwell processors. The new MacBook Air and Pro lineups also have faster graphics and flash storage, two areas where improvements should be more noticeable over last year's models. The refreshed 13" Retina MacBook Pro in particular is up to 40% faster than the previous model with Intel Iris graphics.
Apple refreshed the MacBook Air lineup yesterday with Intel Broadwell processors, Thunderbolt 2 and Intel HD Graphics 6000. It also refreshed the 13" MacBook Pro with similar improvements, including Intel Broadwell processors, Intel HD Graphics 6100 and all-day battery life. The latest MacBook Pros also gained a trackpad with built-in Force Touch technology that detects a small tap versus a deep press and performs a different action accordingly.
Saturday March 1, 2025 11:00 am PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 19 is still around three months away from being unveiled, but there are plenty of rumors about the upcoming update.
Below, we recap iOS 19 rumors so far.
Redesigned Camera App
A leak earlier this year allegedly revealed a redesigned Camera app coming with iOS 19.
On his YouTube channel Front Page Tech in January, Jon Prosser shared a video showing what the new Camera app will...
Friday February 28, 2025 3:17 pm PST by Juli Clover
iOS 18.4 was supposed to bring new Apple Intelligence Siri features, but Apple ended up needing to pull those capabilities from the update to continue testing. There are fewer new Apple Intelligence additions now, but there are still some new features that will make the update worth installing when it comes out in April.
Priority Notifications
Apple introduced Priority Notifications back at ...
Wednesday February 26, 2025 7:15 am PST by Joe Rossignol
In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 18.4 will be released in April.
From the Apple News+ Food announcement:Coming with iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4 in April, Apple News+ subscribers will have access to Apple News+ Food, a new section that will feature tens of thousands of recipes — as well as stories about restaurants, healthy eating, kitchen essentials, and more — from the...
Friday February 28, 2025 2:51 am PST by Tim Hardwick
Apple is expected to embrace a new camera system design for some models in its upcoming iPhone 17 series, and the latest purported CAD images don't deviate from what we have been hearing lately about Apple's new lineup. If you do not like the sound of an iPhone with a Google Pixel-style camera bar, look away now.
Seasoned leaker Sonny Dickson shared the following images in a post on X...
With the iPhone 16e now in the hands of customers, Apple reportedly plans to move on to its next product announcement in the coming days.
Apple plans to announce new MacBook Air models with the M4 chip "as early as this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
"I expect the M4 MacBook Air to be introduced as early as this week," said Gurman, in a post shared on X today. "Inventory has ...
Saturday March 1, 2025 10:00 am PST by Joe Rossignol
Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, Apple offered a line of Wi-Fi routers that it referred to as AirPort base stations. There was a standard AirPort Express, a higher-end AirPort Extreme with more advanced networking features, and an AirPort Time Capsule that doubled as an external storage drive for backing up a Mac with Time Machine.
Apple discontinued the AirPort line in 2018, but the company...
Apple is expected to announce new MacBook Air models with the M4 chip as soon as this week, and new iPads should follow shortly after.
iPad Air and iPad 10 inventory is running low at Apple Stores, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman believes this is a sign that new iPads will be introduced soon.
However, unlike the new MacBook Air, he said the new iPad models "probably won't come in the next few ...
Apple CEO Tim Cook today teased a new product announcement coming "this week."
"There's something in the air," the teaser says.
This teaser likely refers to a new MacBook Air with the M4 chip, which is already expected to be announced as early as this week.
Apple used the same "there's something in the air" slogan before it announced the original MacBook Air in 2008.
Cook shared a si...
The thin and light design of Apple's rumored "iPhone 17 Air" will require some compromises. The device is rumored to lack three features found on many iPhone models, including a bottom speaker, an Ultra Wide camera, and a SIM card slot internationally.
The Information last year reported that the ultra-thin iPhone 17 model will have only a single speaker, built into the earpiece at the top of ...
So this is apparently what it's like to be in the Mac ecosystem now. Hoping that performance on this year's models will not be worse than last year's models, and that Apple doesn't take away more in terms of features than it adds.
...which were the same as the 2013 models. Good job Intel! (not really Apple's fault)
To be fair, the goal for that refresh was power consumption, and they really delivered on increased battery life. Also Broadwell is just a die shrinkage so none of this is unexpected.
