On Tuesday Apple updated the MacBook Air, its most popular Mac laptop, by adding the M5 chip it introduced last fall.
Beyond the new chip, the M5 MacBook Air is very much the same as last year’s M4 MacBook Air. It does get Apple’s new N1 chip, with Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6, and improved memory bandwidth of 153GB/s. But the primary changes are in two areas: price and storage.
The base-model M5 Air starts at 512GB of storage, twice what the base-model M4 Air offered. But in true Apple fashion, that generous spec bump comes at a price. Literally. The M5 Air’s starting price is $1099 ($999 for education), $100 more than the M4 Air’s $999 base price.
It’s a little disappointing, since Apple had finally gotten back to that magic sub-$1000 non-education price for the MacBook Air. Perhaps, as rumors suggest, Apple has another low-cost laptop on the way that provides it some cover to increase the base price of the MacBook Air. We’ll see.
Pairing with the newly announced MacBook is a new pair of external displays that Apple has also unveiled: the Studio Display and the Studio Display XDR.
The 27-inch Studio Display is largely unchanged from its predecessor, introduced in 2022: it’s a 5K Retina display with a 5120-by-2880 resolution at 218 pixels per inch, 600 nits of brightness, a 60Hz refresh rate, and an optional nano-texture glass coating.
The XDR model, which seems to replace the old Pro Display XDR, is a souped up version of the Studio Display, but it’s also a 27-inch 5K Retina display with the same resolution. However, it offers a Mini-LED backlight with 2304 dimming zones, up to 1000 nits of brightness in SDR and 2000 nits of peak brightness with HDR. It also has a 120Hz refresh rate and Adaptive Sync technology that adjusts frame rates on the fly to suit the content being shown, such as video or games.
Both models offer a 12MP Center Stage camera, which Apple says offers “improved image quality”, a sore spot for some on the previous Studio Display—how true that is remains to be seen. Like the 2022 Studio Display, there are six speakers with Spatial Audio, a three-microphone array. About the only major difference in the base level Studio Display is the addition of Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, with one upstream port and one downstream port. There remain two USB-C ports.
By default, the Studio Display still comes with a tilt-adjustable stand, though there are options for both a height-adjustable stand or a VESA mount. The Studio Display XDR gets the height-adjustable stand by default, and can also be configured with a VESA mount.
The pricing is, as always, a big question: the Studio Display starts at the same $1599 price point as its predecessor, with the nano-texture option jacking that up to $1899, and the height-adjustable stand adding an additional $400. (The VESA mount version starts at the same base $1599.)
The XDR is a pricey one: it starts at $3299, with the same $300 premium for nano-texture though, hey, at least you get that height-adjustable stand by default. That’s cheaper, at least, than its predecessor, the Pro Display XDR, which started at $4999, with an additional $999 for the stand.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
These models join the base level M5 MacBook Pro, released last fall, but offer more power, starting with a 15-core CPU and 16-core GPU on the M5 Pro model, 24GB of RAM, and a 1TB of SSD storage. The M5 Max-equipped MacBook, meanwhile, starts at 18-core CPU, 32-core GPU, and 36GB of RAM, with 2TB of storage. That’s double the storage for both models over their counterparts for last year, and Apple says the SSDs are twice as fast as well.
But the M5 Pro and Max are undoubtedly the stars of the show. Like the M5 chips we’ve seen so far, they feature a next-generation GPU with a Neural Accelerator. But Apple says they also use an all new Fusion Architecture, which connects two three-nanometer dies on a single system on a chip that bundles CPU, GPU, Neural Engine, and more.
In their base configurations, they both feature what Apple is now branding super cores, alongside all-new performance cores. This is perhaps a bit of nominative legerdemain—Apple says the super core is the rebranded name for the performance core that already existed on the base M5 chip. The new performance cores aren’t the same as the M5’s efficiency cores—they’re a new design that is intended to balance multithreaded performance and power efficiency. But it’s probably true that they’re really an evolution of Apple’s previous efficiency core design, with an upgraded name.
Wirelessly, the new models are powered by Apple’s N1 chip, bringing support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 across the line, like the new M4 iPad Air and iPhone 17e introduced earlier this week.
There are a handful of other improvements: the microphones add Voice Isolation and Wide Spectrum modes, and the M5 Pro MacBook Pro is now configurable with up to 64GB of memory. The 16-inch M5 Max gets slightly better battery life—up to 16 hours of wireless web browsing, compared to 14 hours on its M4 predecessor, and 22 hours of video streaming, compared to 21 hours. The 14-inch M5 Max ekes out two additional hours of video streaming, up to 20 hours.
The 14-inch M5 Pro starts at $2199, while the 16-inch starts at $2699; the 14-inch M5 Max model starts at $3599, with its 16-inch counterpart at $3899. All models will be available for pre-order on March 4, and will start shipping on March 11.
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
Jason and Myke try to predict what Apple will be announcing this week, except for the stuff that was announced Monday. But they discuss the new iPad Air and iPhone 17e too! Also: Apple’s F1 plans and some Report Card follow-up.
A reader of my book Take Control of iOS 26 and iPadOS 26 had a perplexing problem. I had written of the menus available in iPadOS 26’s Windowed Apps and Stage Manager modes in Settings: Multitasking & Gestures:
With a mouse or trackpad, pushing the pointer to the top edge above the status bar reveals the menu bar.
Yet, for this reader, they were unable to use a pointing device to get the menu to appear in that fashion. The cursor sometimes disappeared, and clicking didn’t help. They had to swipe, like some kind of animal, to have the menus appear. This is less than ideal when you’re using an input device and a keyboard on an iPad, as you typically position it differently than when you’re using it with touch input.
Universal Control settings let you push a pointer through between an iPad and a Mac or two Macs.
We went through some troubleshooting steps, but then it occurred to me that the culprit might be their Mac. That’s right—Universal Control could be the issue! Universal Control is Apple’s name for using a keyboard and mouse or other input devices on a Mac with one or two nearby Macs or iPads. (Follow that link to see the minimum system and hardware requirements.)1
You configure Universal Control on your Mac in System Settings: Displays. Click Advanced, and three Link to Mac or iPad options appear if the feature is available:
Allow your pointer and keyboard to move between any nearby Mac or iPad
Push through the edge of a display to connect a nearby Mac or iPad
Automatically reconnect to any nearby Mac or iPad
With the first setting enabled, the second is the key issue: Push through. I asked my email correspondent if they had this feature enabled and, more crucially, when they clicked the Arrange button at the bottom of the Displays setting, did they see their iPad below their Mac (see figure).
In this configuration, you can push through from an iPad to a Mac without displaying iPad menus. As shown by the arrow, re-arrange your iPad’s display relative to your Mac’s.
The answer was yes. Which is why they couldn’t move their pointer to the top of the iPad and have menus appear: when they did this, they slid through to the bottom of their Mac. I was able to reproduce this, and with some fine motor control, could sometimes get the menu to appear before I slid onto my Mac display.
They moved the iPad to one side of their Mac in Arrange, and the problem went away.
[Got a question for the column? You can email glenn@sixcolors.com or use/glennin our subscriber-only Discord community.]
Universal Control is distinct from Sidecar, which lets you use an iPad as an additional Mac monitor, rather than displaying iPadOS. ↩
Continuing its cavalcade of product announcements, Apple also rolled out an updated iPad Air on Monday, upping the tablet’s processor to the M4 and increasing its RAM and memory bandwidth.
Don’t expect the iPad Air to look much different to its predecessor: not only does it feature the same dimensions1, but it comes in the same Space Gray, Blue, Purple, and Starlight colors as the M3 model and the M2 before it. Battery life is unchanged as well, with up to 10 hours. The new models remain compatible with all the accessories of the previous versions, including the Apple Pencil Pro and Apple Pencil (USB-C), and the 11-inch and 13-inch Magic Keyboards.
All the major improvements are under the hood. In addition to the M4 processor’s 30-percent performance improvement, there’s now 12GB of unified RAM—up from 8GB of memory in the M3 Air—and memory bandwidth of 120GB/s, compared to the 100GB/s offered by the earlier model. The M4 also unlocks hardware acceleration for 8K in more formats, including H.264, ProRes, and ProRes RAW.
There are some improvements on the connectivity side as well. The M4 Air also gets Apple’s own N1 wireless chip, adding support for Wi-Fi 7 and Bluetooth 6 and better performance for 5GHz Wi-Fi networks. And cellular models will use Apple’s C1X, the same chip inside the new 17e, which Apple says offers more energy efficient performance.
As with the iPhone 17e, Apple is continuing to tout its environmental friendly construction. The new iPad Air is made with 30-percent recycled content, including 100 percent recycled aluminum for the exterior, and 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery.
The new iPad Air will be available for pre-order on Wednesday, March 4, and will arrive on Wednesday, March 11. The 11-inch model starts at the same $599 price point, with the 13-inch beginning at $799.
Except for weight, in which the 11-inch M4 model has an extra 4 grams—or 5 grams in the cellular version. The 13-inch is the same across the board. Scandal! ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
Apple on Monday kicked off its week of announcements by rolling out the new iPhone 17e, the successor to last year’s lower cost 16e.
The 17e boasts the same A19 chip that powers the iPhone 17, a step up over the A18 in the 16e, including a 4-core GPU enhanced with Neural Accelerators. The 17e also has the same C1X Apple cellular chip as last year’s iPhone Air, the successor to the C1 that debuted in the 16e; Apple says the C1X provides up to 2x better performance and uses 30 percent less energy.
Apple’s also bumped the storage this year, with the 17e now starting at 256GB, twice the 16e’s base level, at the same $599 price point. Upgrading to 512GB will raise the price to $799.
Perhaps the biggest addition to the 17e is the inclusion of MagSafe, a feature that was strangely missing from the 16e. That includes charging up to 15W with a compatible charger, and full compatibility with MagSafe accessories as well as support for Qi2 wireless charging.
In addition, the 17e’s front display has been updated with Ceramic Shield 2 technology to help protect against cracks and breaking as well as reduce glare.
Otherwise, the specs remain largely unchanged, including the same 6.1-inch Super Retina XDR display, up to 26 hours of battery life, and support for both Emergency SOS features and Apple Intelligence.1
Apple also says that the 17e has a 48MP Fusion camera system, which on the face of it seems identical to last year’s “2-in-1 camera system” although Apple touts the 17e’s “next-generation” portrait mode that adds the ability to recognize people, dogs, and cats as well as to add portrait mode effects after the fact. The 12MP TrueDepth camera in front likewise has the same specs as last year, with the same addition of “next-generation portraits.” Apple attributes this ability to improvements in its image pipeline.
And in case you thought Apple’s environmental promises were out the window in this day and age, the company does say that the 17e is made with 30 percent recycled content. That includes 85 percent of its enclosure, made with recycled aluminum, and 100 percent recycled cobalt in its battery.
The iPhone 17e is available in three colors: black, white, and what Apple is calling “soft pink.” It goes up for pre-order this Wednesday, March 4, and will be available for sale next Wednesday, March 11. There are also six colors of Silicone Case with MagSafe—black, anchor blue, light moss, vanilla, bright guava, and soft pink—as well as a clear case, each retailing for $49.
Though they measure in at the exact same dimensions, the 17e is 2 grams heavier. Maybe the A19 is 2 grams heavier! ↩
[Dan Moren is the East Coast Bureau Chief of Six Colors, as well as an author, podcaster, and two-time Jeopardy! champion. You can find him on Mastodon at @dmoren@zeppelin.flights or reach him by email at dan@sixcolors.com. His next novel, the sci-fi adventure Eternity's Tomb, will be released in November 2026.]
Jason Snell returns to John Gruber’s talk show to discuss the 2025 Six Colors Apple Report Card, MacOS 26 Tahoe, Apple Creator Studio, along with what we expect/hope for in next week’s Apple product announcements.
I’m a Six Colors Subscriber who likes to draw pictures of data. As in previous years, Jason Snell kindly asked me if I wanted to try drawing some additional graphs based on the 2025 Report Card. In prior years, I’ve looked at the questionnaire data in ways that a social scientist might, mostly focusing on how the answers cluster together across respondents.
This year, Jason’s discussion of the results here at Six Colors and on Upgrade highlighted not just this or that question but a more general feature of the data: the bad vibes. The vibes around Apple seem worse this year. Naturally, we want to know: what can … (here you should imagine me turning my head dramatically while the camera suddenly zooms in) … science … tell us about these vibes?
Well, if we were just relying on the survey, not that much. But when your panel of fifty or more also write tens of thousands of additional words of commentary, your polite attempts to dissuade them from doing so notwithstanding … Well, maybe that can be grist for our mill. Of science. It’s a science mill, OK? One that can be made to do a little sentiment analysis of the 2025 commentary to see how it compares to the vibes from 2024.
Actress Hannah Waddingham let it slip that the new season comes in August, so clear your calendar, lock the doors and, I dunno, bake those cookies he made in season one or something, what am I, your event coordinator?
Don’t like that show? OK. OK. Instead of sports fiction, what about science fiction? Apple’s hit show “For All Mankind” returns next month to convince you all over again that space is nothing but silence and death and you should never, ever, ever go there.
While most of Cupertino’s most secretive divisions are concealed deep within Apple Park, hidden from prying eyes, the company’s most devious—most nefarious—group does its work right out in the open, kept separate from the rank and file by only thin sheets of engineered glass.
Within this fishbowl-like structure, personnel driven half-mad (on their way to fully mad) toil, unendingly, over their work, in their attempts to create something that transcends the limitation of matter and physics, something that helps shift consciousness into an entirely different plane. Passersby, if they listen carefully, may hear the keening, almost cackling noises that filter from within, but to a one they hurry by before they too are subsumed into this unholy work.
What strange geometry exists in this liminal space? Those here labor deep into the occult realms of anti-productivity, endlessly tweaking and adjusting their work so as to overwhelm their subjects, their victims, with what at first blush seem to be the most picayune of details, but are in fact traps from which their minds will never be able to emerge.…
After lengthy rumors, last October Apple announced it had bought the U.S. rights to the Formula One racing circuit. Next week, the races begin, and Apple has now detailed the viewing experience for the season.
First, the basics: Every Apple TV subscriber has access to all the video feeds from live races, practices, and qualifying. There’s no separate package to buy, and all the video will be available within the TV app on all of Apple’s platforms as well as many other smart TVs and connected devices.
According to Apple SVP of Services Eddy Cue, race video will be in 4K HDR with 5.1 audio. Cue said that like Apple’s other sports broadcasts, the video will be less compressed than content from other services, one reason Apple’s stuff tends to look better than the competition.
The TV app supports Multiview, which allows for the display of up to four video feeds at one time. To make it easier on users who might be uncomfortable building a custom Multiview layout, the app will be able to build different combinations of multiview with just one click—for example, if you click the Red Bull multiview option, you’ll get a large view of the race feed with smaller onboard views from the two Red Bull cars. (You can also set up custom Multiviews and even edit the ones created by the presets.)
Every session will be presented in both English and Spanish audio, and Apple is using the F1 TV feed as its primary feed—but also offering the very popular Sky Sports video feed as an option, and either feed can be used with Multiview. There are 30 extra feeds, including a race tracker; driver data; “podium channels” that show the video of whichever cars are in first, second, and third place; and all 22 driver cameras.
Users of Apple’s Vision Pro won’t get a 3D race map (yet—though that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?), but they can add a fifth camera view to the multiview for an even more immersive experience.
According to Cue, Apple was inspired to become a Formula One broadcaster after working with the circuit on “F1: The Movie.” “What it really did is it let our teams work together for years, and what I discovered is we shared the same vision, in the sense of being innovative and focused on providing the best fan experience,” he said.
Perhaps the most surprising announcement on Thursday was that Apple and Netflix, which have had a rather stand-offish relationship when it comes to video programming, have struck a deal to swap some Formula One-related content. Formula One’s growing popularity in the United States is due, perhaps in large part, to the high-profile success of the Netflix docuseries “Drive to Survive.” The latest season of that series, debuting Friday, will premiere simultaneously on both Netflix and Apple TV. Presumably, in exchange for that non-exclusive, Apple will also non-exclusively allow Netflix to broadcast the Canadian Grand Prix in May. (Insert obligatory wish that Apple and Netflix would bury the hatchet and enable Watch Now support in the TV app for Netflix content.)
Netflix isn’t Apple’s only F1 content partner. The company said it would be providing free streamer Tubi with “exclusive alt-casts for multiple races.” An alt-cast is an alternative version of the main broadcast, like the Manning Brothers doing a sort of live podcast during a Monday Night Football game or Nickelodeon’s animated take on live NFL broadcasts. It’s unclear what the Tubi alt-cast will actually be, but I love the idea of Apple embracing the alt-cast concept—and using it to find a different audience with a partner.
Since Apple’s rights are limited to the U.S., I assume most of these partnerships will involve races that take place during waking hours, since many races do tend to start in the middle of the night over here. On that note, Apple did emphasize that it’s working hard not to spoil the results of races in the TV app, since many American fans will watch on a time-delayed basis.
Other partners Apple announced Thursday were IMAX (select World Championship races will be shown on IMAX screens in the U.S., again presumably ones taking place during waking hours), Comcast, Everpass, Prime Video, and DirecTV. Some of those may just offer resold versions of Apple TV, and others (like Everpass and DirecTV) will make races available to commercial establishments like bars and restaurants.
On Thursday, both parties pitched their relationship as not being between Apple TV and Formula One, but between Apple and Formula One. Following last year’s Monaco maps tied to the Grand Prix, Apple added fancy Melbourne maps in advance of next week’s race, and I’d expect more fancy racing-focused maps in the future. Apple Music, Fitness, Podcasts, Sports, and even its retail stores will be part of a larger Formula One push. It’s clear that the playbook Apple used to push “F1: The Movie” will continue with this wider relationship, at least in the U.S.
Last November, I got to experience watching a Formula One race with my pal Myke Hurley, who is an avid F1 fan. It was a pretty good time, and I’m looking forward to seeing how Apple’s implementation of all these features works out during next week’s race. It won’t be so fun to watch without Myke, though. Maybe I’ll FaceTime him during the race.
The automation features added in macOS Tahoe are remarkably useful.
Over the past several months, I’ve been on a bit of a quest to refine and enhance the essential automations on my Mac. While I’ve relied on a hodgepodge of tools over the years, the primary impetus for this bout of self-improvement was the introduction of automations for Shortcuts in macOS Tahoe—a long-awaited feature that has been around for many years on iOS and whose lack I’ve repeatedly decried during that time.
Many of the tools I previously used were totally fine—good, even—but I am a big believer in using first-party options where possible, both to figure out the extent of their capabilities, as well as to reduce dependence on other tools that might not offer full cross-platform support or might use non-sanctioned methods that could go away. It’s hard enough to get most people to start trying automations, without having to refer them to third-party apps.
One place that I’ve relied on automation over the past several years is in managing my podcasts. Jason and I have, of course, collaborated on a podcast notes workflow, but most of my needs are more mundane. To wit, recording podcasts requires managing a lot of files, and dealing with all of that manually was something I didn’t really want to have to spend time thinking about.
My previous solution relied on Hazel, an excellent Mac automation tool that can watch folders and carry out actions based on what happens in them. Apple itself has long offered a similar capability called Folder Actions, though it’s somewhat hidden these days and requires using AppleScript to at least bridge over to Shortcuts, something that I didn’t want to have to deal with.
So I set out trying to get two of my major podcast file management workflows into automations.
The Mac mini is gonna be made in Amurica, we talk about our levels of comfort letting AI Jesus take the wheel and some people have snow while others do not.
Designing for outer space presents a fundamentally different problem. There is no weather window to wait out, no fog delay, no permit to secure—but there is also limited to no ground truth. The moon environment was built from limited imagery captured during the 1972 landing. And for the Jupiter environment, the team had to construct a plausible world from almost nothing.
I appreciate the idea that these are less photorealistic recreations of the environments than idealized versions. The kind of sheen that your memory puts on something, editing out the things that you weren’t paying attention to. Immersive environments remain one of the best parts of the Vision Pro experience, the only downside being that there aren’t more of them. But from what you can glean from this interview, it’s clear the reason there are so few of them is the amount of attention and detail that they put into making them.
We discuss the results of the Six Colors Apple Report Card for 2025 in depth, with our added opinions on every category. Jason chooses to be a rascal, and Myke tries to give ten out of five.
It’s time for our annual look back on Apple’s performance during the past year, as seen through the eyes of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people who spend an awful lot of time thinking about Apple. The whole idea here is to get a broad sense of sentiment—the “vibe in the room”—regarding the past year. (And by looking at previous survey results, we can even see how that sentiment has drifted over the course of an entire decade.)
This is the eleventh year that I’ve presented this survey to my hand-selected group. They were prompted with 14 different Apple-related subjects, and asked to rate them on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best) and optionally provide text commentary per category.
I received 56 replies, with the average results as shown below:
Since most of the survey categories are the same as in previous years, I was able to track the change in my panel’s consensus opinion. The net changes between 2024 and 2025 are displayed below—you’ll note that scores were down in 11 of the 14 categories:
Read on for category-by-category grades, trends, and select commentary from the panelists. (You can also read the entirety of panelist commentary—all 32,000 words—if you are so inclined. I discuss the results and give some of my own opinions on today’s episode of Upgrade.)
Every year, we ask a collection of writers, editors, developers, podcasters, and other people for their opinions about how Apple fared in the year just gone by. You can read our 2025 report card for the average scores and some juicy quotes. But if you want to read the whole thing—all 32,000 words of it—who are we to stand in your way? They wrote it, you read it. That’s how this works.
