MacRumors

Apple is seeking additional office spaces in Pittsburgh and New York City, according to a pair of reports this week.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that Apple is in talks about taking up to 90,000 square feet of space in the 111-year-old Pittsburgh Athletic Association building in the city's Oakland neighborhood, across the street from the University of Pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning.

Bloomberg meanwhile reported that Apple has also recently looked at Essex Crossing, a mixed-use development in Manhattan's Lower East Side that will have 350,000 square feet of office space upon completion.

In a December 2018 press release, Apple revealed plans to grow its employee base in regions across the United States over the following three years, expanding to over 1,000 employees in Seattle, San Diego and Culver City each, and adding hundreds of new jobs in Pittsburgh, New York, Boulder, Boston, and Portland.

Last month, Apple also broke ground on a new $1 billion campus in Austin, Texas slated to open in 2022. Apple says the campus will initially house 5,000 employees, with the capacity to grow to 15,000.

Apple, Amazon, Google, and the Zigbee Alliance today announced a new working group that plans to develop and promote the adoption of a new IP-based connectivity standard for smart home products, with a focus on increased compatibility, security, and simplified development for manufacturers.

Zigbee Alliance board member companies such as IKEA, Legrand, NXP Semiconductors, Resideo, SmartThings, Schneider Electric, Signify, Silicon Labs, Somfy, and Wulian will also contribute to the project.

The so-called "Project Connected Home over IP" aims to make it easier for device manufacturers to build devices that are compatible with smart home and voice services such as Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant, and others by defining a specific set of IP-based networking technologies for device certification.

The new standard will incorporate existing smart home technologies, such as Apple's HomeKit and Google's Weave and Thread:

We're contributing two of our market-tested and open-source smart home technologies, Weave and Thread. Both are built on IP and have been integrated into millions of homes around the world. Weave, an application protocol, works over many networks like Thread, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy, and even cellular. Even when devices are on different networks, Weave allows them all to securely work with each other.

The new connectivity standard will be open source and royalty free, with code to be maintained on GitHub. The working group has a goal to release a draft specification and a preliminary reference implementation in late 2020.

For consumers, this should ultimately lead to more smart home accessories that support multiple platforms like HomeKit and Alexa.

Update: Resideo, maker of Honeywell-branded smart home products, has announced that it has joined the Zigbee Alliance. Alongside other members, Resideo will play a role in the Connected Home over IP project.

Apple last week finally launched its long awaited 2019 Mac Pro, providing its professional user base with the high-end high-throughput modular machine they've always hoped for.

We picked up a base model ‌Mac Pro‌ and in our latest YouTube video, we unbox it and share some initial first impressions.

The ‌Mac Pro‌ arrives in an absolutely massive box weighing over 85 pounds, so getting it out of the packaging is no simple task. There are tabs, lids, velcro straps, and more to contend with, ensuring the machine is secure in its packaging.

Even out of the packaging, the ‌Mac Pro‌ is a heavy duty machine made from quality components, and that "cheese grater" design looks great in person. In reality, the lattice look is functional and meant to maximize airflow for quiet performance.

We have the base model ‌Mac Pro‌, priced at $5,999, with an 8-core 3.5GHz Xeon W processor from Intel, 32GB RAM, a Radeon Pro 580X GPU, and 256GB of SSD storage. We didn't opt for upgrades, but you can add everything from a 28-core processor to 1.5TB of RAM to 4TB of storage (soon to be 8TB), with a maxed out machine costing upwards of $52,000.

Luckily, this is a machine designed to be highly upgradeable, so most of the components can be swapped out later. iFixit gave the ‌Mac Pro‌ a repairability score of 9/10, and said it was a "masterclass in repairability," which is definitely a first for an Apple product.

We can swap out the GPU, add RAM, and take advantage of the eight PCIe slots, though upgrading the SSD will require Apple's assistance because they're tied to the machine's T2 security chip. We're going to be upgrading the RAM in our machine quite soon, so make sure to keep an eye out for that video.

Taking the casing off of the ‌Mac Pro‌ is a bit difficult because it's a tight fit and again, it's heavy, but once the casing has been removed, all of the internal components are easily accessible.

There are both single wide and double wide PCIe slots, with the half-length slot preconfigured with Apple's I/O card. The I/O card features a 3.5mm headphone jack, two Thunderbolt 3 ports, and two USB-A ports. There are also two HDMI ports, a spot for the power supply, and two 10GB Ethernet ports. You'll find two additional Thunderbolt 3 ports at the top of the tower near the power button.

Going back to that lattice design, the ‌Mac Pro‌ is indeed as quiet as Apple promised. There are three fans on one side to optimize airflow, and the housing has been designed to act as a tight seal with internal ducts to maximize the thermal capacity.

The ‌Mac Pro‌ comes with a nice braided power cable, a Lightning to USB cable with the same braided design, nifty black Apple stickers, and a high-quality instruction manual. It also ships with a silver and space gray aluminum Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard, which is a design unique to the new ‌Mac Pro‌.

The ‌Mac Pro‌ is an impressively built machine, and we're excited to put it through its paces and see what it can do. Stay tuned to MacRumors for more ‌Mac Pro‌ coverage, and let us know what you think of Apple's new machine.

Geekbench 5 benchmarks of some of the new Mac Pro processor options are now available, giving us an idea of how the Mac Pro performs relative to other Apple machines.

Based on the available scores, the 8-core, 12-core, and 16-core Mac Pro processors offer performance similar to the processors in the 2017 iMac Pro models.

The base Mac Pro with an 8-core Xeon W chip has a single-core score of 1008 and a multi-core score of 7606, which is beaten out by the 8-core 2017 iMac Pro's single core score of 1076 and multi-core score of 8120.

Similar scores can also be seen in the higher-core Mac Pro models as well. The 12-core Mac Pro earned a single-core score of 1090 and a multi-core score of 11599, while the 16-core machine earned a single-core score of 1104 and a multi-core score of 14285.

The 16-core processor in the Mac Pro does win out over the 18-core processor in the 2017 iMac Pro when it comes to both multi-core and single-core performance, but there's not a huge difference in score.

In single-core performance, the new Mac Pro models are outshined by many of Apple's 2019 Macs, especially when it comes to the lowest-end 8-core machine. The higher-end 2019 MacBook Pro models (13, 15, and 16-inch), the high-end Mac mini, and 2019 iMac models all beat out even the 16-core machine when it comes to single-core scores.

In multi-core performance, it's only the iMac Pro models and the high-end iMac that outshine the 8-core Mac Pro, while 12-core and 16-core models are close to the top of the chart.

Though the base and middle tier models offer performance that's fairly similar to the performance you get from many of the 2017 iMac Pro models, the upgradeability and expandability of the Mac Pro should not be overlooked.

Every component is modular and can be improved and upgraded after purchase, with RAM upgrades, SSD upgrades, and GPU upgrades all possible, unlike the iMac Pro.

When it comes to the higher-tier 24 and 28-core processor options in the Mac Pro, we can expect to see performance that far exceeds what's possible with an iMac Pro as the 2017 iMac Pro tops out at the 18-core Xeon processor option.

Apple today seeded the first betas of upcoming iOS and iPadOS 13.3.1 updates to developers, one week after the release of iOS 13.3 with Communication Limits for Screen Time.

iOS and iPadOS 13.3.1 can be downloaded from the Apple Developer center or over the air once the proper developer profile has been installed.

There's no word yet on what's included in the iOS 13.3.1 update, but it likely includes bug fixes for issues unable to be addressed in the iOS 13.3 update. Specifically, it could address some issues with Communication Limits, fixing a workaround with the Contacts app that allowed children text someone who contacted them from an unknown number.

Once we download the update and take a look at what's new, we'll update this article.

Apple plans to open a revamped 10,287-square-foot store at Fairview Mall in Toronto, Canada, nearly twice as large as its existing store in the mall, according to a recently updated floor plan for the property.

Apple has yet to announce a grand opening date for the new store, which will be located directly beside the existing store on level two of the mall. The floor plan indicates the new store is "coming soon." The existing store, originally opened in September 2008, should close after its replacement opens.

In addition to being larger, the new store should sport Apple's modern retail design, such as a Forum and Video Wall for Today at Apple sessions, large glass doors, and wooden shelves along the walls for accessories.

The new Fairview Mall store would follow in the footsteps of Apple's new Eaton Centre store in Toronto, which opened last weekend.

Apple has been modernizing its chain of over 500 retail stores since 2015.

Update: Apple has announced that the new store opens Saturday, February 29 at 9:30 a.m. local time.

iFixit has shared its full teardown of the new Mac Pro, calling it "beautiful, amazingly well put together, and a masterclass in repairability."

Given its modular design, the new Mac Pro unsurprisingly earned a nearly perfect repairability score of 9/10, with iFixit noting that basic repairs and upgrades can be performed with standard tools or even no tools at all. Major components also use industry-standard sockets and interfaces.

From a repair standpoint, the only downside is that while the SSDs are modular, they are not user replaceable since they are tied to the Apple T2 security chip. If you need to remove and replace the SSD modules, a support document says to contact Apple or an Apple Authorized Service Provider instead.

iFixit also has a service manual for the new Mac Pro.