Intel Launches Haswell Processors Ahead of WWDC Mac Updates
Intel today officially announced the launch of its latest family of Core processors, formerly known as "Haswell". The new processors are making their way into a number of new computers, and are expected to be included in Apple's next-generation Macs, some of which are likely to make their debuts at next week's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC).
The new chips offer significant improvements in integrated graphics performance, as well as modest CPU performance improvements and a major effort toward increasing battery life in notebooks.
Delivering Intel's largest generation-over-generation gain in battery life enablement in company history, 4th generation Intel Core processors can bring an 50 percent improvement in battery life over the previous generation in active workloads when watching movies or surfing the Internet, and two to three times improvement in standby battery life. For some systems coming to market this year, over 9 hours of active use battery life or 10 to 13 days of standby with fresh data on a single charge is expected.
Ars Technica has been providing overviews of the new chips, beginning with the quad-core desktop and notebook chips that were unveiled over the weekend. That group included six Core i7 and six Core i5 chips for desktop machines, as well as ten varieties of Core i7 notebook chips.
All of the mobile parts being announced today belong to the i7 family and, like their desktop counterparts, they're all quad-core chips with Hyperthreading enabled. The differences here come in the suffixes: the MX and MQ parts (reversed from Ivy Bridge's QM and QX suffixes) come with the Intel HD 4600 GPU, while most of the HQ parts come with the faster Iris Pro 5200 GPU.
With today's announcement of dual-core Haswell chips highlighted by AnandTech, the picture for Apple's notebook lineup comes into more focus. Intel has emphasized mobile chips for this round of dual-core launches, a move that will likely see the chips showing in updated MacBook Airs and 13-inch MacBook Pros as soon as next week.
A notebook refresh is expected to be the hardware highlight of WWDC alongside previews of OS X 10.9 and iOS 7. The latest rumors suggest that Apple may even be able to slim down the 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro, which is currently slightly thicker than its 15-inch sibling. Less substantial tweaks are expected for the MacBook Air, although the move to Haswell should offer significant performance improvements in certain areas.
Popular Stories
Barclays analyst Tom O'Malley and his colleagues recently traveled to Asia to meet with various electronics manufacturers and suppliers. In a research note this week, outlining key takeaways from the trip, the analysts said they have "confirmed" that a fourth-generation iPhone SE with an Apple-designed 5G modem is slated to launch towards the end of the first quarter next year. In line with previo...
Apple released the AirTag in April 2021, so it is now three over and a half years old. While the AirTag has not received any hardware updates since then, a new version of the item tracking accessory is rumored to be in development.
Below, we recap rumors about a second-generation AirTag.
Timing
Apple is aiming to release a new AirTag in mid-2025, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman....
While the Logitech MX Master 3 is a terrific mouse for the Mac, reports claiming that Apple CEO Tim Cook prefers that mouse over the Magic Mouse are false.
The Wall Street Journal last month published an interview with Cook, in which he said he uses every Apple product every day. Soon after, The Verge's Wes Davis attempted to replicate using every Apple product in a single day. During that...
Apple today released iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1, minor updates to the iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 operating systems that debuted earlier in September. iOS 18.1.1 and iPadOS 18.1.1 come three weeks after the launch of iOS 18.1.
The new software can be downloaded on eligible iPhones and iPads over-the-air by going to Settings > General > Software Update. Apple has also released iOS 17.7.2 for...
AT&T has begun displaying "Turbo" in the iPhone carrier label for customers subscribed to its premium network prioritization service, according to reports on Reddit. The new indicator seems to have started appearing after users updated to iOS 18.1.1, but that could be just coincidence.
Image credit: Reddit user No_Highlight7476
The Turbo feature provides enhanced network performance through ...
In a research note with Hong Kong-based investment bank Haitong today, obtained by MacRumors, Apple analyst Jeff Pu said he agrees with a recent rumor claiming that the so-called "iPhone 17 Air" will be around 6mm thick.
"We agreed with the recent chatter of an 6mm thickness ultra-slim design of the iPhone 17 Slim model," he wrote.
If that measurement proves to be accurate, there would be ...
The iOS 18.1.1, iPadOS 18.1.1, and macOS Sequoia 15.1.1 updates that Apple released today address JavaScriptCore and WebKit vulnerabilities that Apple says have been actively exploited on some devices.
With the JavaScriptCore vulnerability, processing maliciously crafted web content could lead to arbitrary code execution. The WebKit vulnerability had the same issue with maliciously crafted...
