Posts Tagged → mac

The Rumored $599 MacBook

There’s a lot of chatter lately about Apple working on a new entry-level MacBook. The latest report from DigiTimes claims it could feature a 12.9-inch display and, more importantly, a $599 price tag. That’s right, six hundred bucks for a MacBook.

If true, this could mark the return of the plain old “MacBook” branding. Apple retired that line back in 2019, but it has always carried a certain charm. The old 12-inch MacBook was ahead of its time and had the right ideas: ultra-portable, fanless, and light. It was, however, during the Intel era and it was also underpowered, got too hot, and was overpriced. A modern spin with Apple Silicon under the hood could be the redemption story for the name.

The real story here is the price. At $599, this would dramatically undercut the current MacBook Air, which starts at $999. It would also make Apple competitive with Chromebooks, low-end PCs, and even iPads with keyboards. This isn’t just another MacBook, it’s the gateway Mac for first-time buyers, students, and maybe even Windows switchers who’ve hesitated at the $1,000+ threshold.

Think of it as a Mac mini with a screen.

Of course, to get down to $599, something has to give. The screen would be a little smaller than the Air’s, and the processor could be a repurposed A18 mobile chip rather than an M-series. RAM will almost certainly be at the bare minimum. Storage could start at 128 GB. And don’t expect a rainbow of color options; Apple will likely keep this simple to keep costs down.

A $599 MacBook will eat some into Air sales, but Apple may not care if the net effect is pulling in more users. It could also make some would-be iPad + keyboard buyers think twice. For years, the Air has been the entry-level Mac. If this rumor pans out, the Air suddenly has company on the lower shelf.

I’ve long wished Apple would bring back the ultralight 12-inch MacBook. I don’t think this is that machine. This one feels like it’s going to be all about minimal specs at a low price point. But Apple Silicon is that good. Even a “budget” version will likely feel fast and capable for most people. If Apple really does launch a $599 MacBook, I expect they’ll sell a lot of them and their owners will be happy.

Cotypist: AI Autocompletion Everywhere on Your Mac (Sponsor)

There are a lot of angles to AI and productivity emerging right now. One I’ve come to appreciate is AI-based smarter autocomplete. My tool of choice for this is Cotypist. It’s made by a trusted Mac developer, it’s fast, and it takes privacy seriously.

Unlike many AI writing tools that require you to work within their specific interface, Cotypist works in virtually any text field across your Mac. Whether you’re drafting an email, writing in your favorite text editor, or filling out a form, Cotypist is there to help speed up your writing.

The app’s latest version (.9) brings notable improvements to both performance and completion qualityand new AI models that give even better completions. It even respects your Mac’s Smart Quotes preferences – a small but meaningful touch that shows attention to detail.

With Cotypist turned on, it offers inline completions that appear in real time. Then you’ve got a few options:

  • You could just ignore the suggestion and keep typing like you’ve always done.
  • If you want to accept the full multi-word suggestion, you press a user-defined key. (I use the backtick – just above the Tab key on a US keyboard.)
  • If you just want to accept the next suggest word, you hit another user-defined key (I use Tab)
  • If you want to dismiss the suggestion entirely, press escape. (This is handy when doing online forms, for instance.)

At first, the constant suggestions may feel distracting, but once I adapted to it, I can’t imagine going back.

Cotypist generates all completions locally on your Mac. No cloud services, no data sharing – just your Mac’s processing power working to speed up your writing.

Like I said, Cotypist represents an interesting take on AI and is worth checking out.

Cotypist: AI Autocompletion Everywhere on Your Mac

There are a lot of angles to AI and productivity emerging right now. One I’ve come to appreciate is AI-based smarter autocomplete. My tool of choice for this is Cotypist. It’s made by a trusted Mac developer, it’s fast, and it takes privacy seriously.

Unlike many AI writing tools that require you to work within their specific interface, Cotypist works in virtually any text field across your Mac. Whether you’re drafting an email, writing in your favorite text editor, or filling out a form, Cotypist is there to help speed up your writing.

The app’s latest version (0.7.2) brings notable improvements to both performance and completion quality. It even respects your Mac’s Smart Quotes preferences – a small but meaningful touch that shows attention to detail.

With Cotypist turned on, it offers inline completions that appear in real time. Then you’ve got a few options:

  • You could just ignore the suggestion and keep typing like you’ve always done.
  • If you want to accept the full multi-word suggestion, you press a user-defined key. (I use the backtick – just above the Tab key on a US keyboard.)
  • If you just want to accept the next suggest word, you hit another user-defined key (I use Tab)
  • If you want to dismiss the suggestion entirely, press escape. (This is handy when doing online forms, for instance.)

At first, the constant suggestions may feel distracting, but once I adapted to it, I can’t imagine going back.

Cotypist generates all completions locally on your Mac. No cloud services, no data sharing – just your Mac’s processing power working to speed up your writing.

Like I said, Cotypist represents an interesting take on AI and is worth checking out.

The Case For Having “Recall” on the Mac

A few weeks ago, Filipe Espósito, at 9to5Mac, argued that Apple should build their own version of the Microsoft Recall feature.

I agree.

If you’re unfamiliar with it, Recall traces your history on your computer, allowing you to find just about anything: Recover deleted files, replay a meeting or even find a now-unpublished web page. With Recall, if it’s been on your screen, you can later find it with the use of some clever AI.

Microsoft’s initial launch was delayed due to security problems, but now they have a revised version in beta. The utility of this feature can’t be argued. While us nerds can do a pretty good job of finding old data, most users are clueless. If you could throw a query at a local AI that could find anything in the computer’s past, it would solve a lot of problems for a lot of people.

The problem, of course, is privacy, but there’s no company better to address that problem than Apple. Through some concoction of encryption and perhaps even the Secure Enclave, Apple should be able to pull this off in a way that is entirely local and entirely private to the user. Of course, you’d be able to turn it off, and of course, there would be a lot of privacy controls. But for most of us, I think it would just be damn useful.

I’m not saying it’s easy, but I firmly believe it’s possible. I’d be shocked if Apple doesn’t have a team looking into this already.

New Macs Coming Next Week

Apple is teasing an “exciting week of announcements” starting Monday. If you’ve been holding off on buying a new Mac, next week might be an expensive one. We’re expecting the M4 iterations of the MacBook Pro, Mac Mini, and iMac, which have been anticipated for a while now.

It looks like Apple won’t be holding a formal event but will instead roll out the new products over the course of the week. Rumor has it that we’ll also see USB-C versions of Apple’s Magic keyboard, trackpad, and mouse. So if that one remaining Lightning cable has been driving you nuts, relief is on the way.

The Hypothetical Cellular Mac

Ryan Christoffel, over at 9to5Mac, wrote an excellent article about how we are at an interesting crossroads over Macs with cellular chips. Specifically, Apple seems closer to releasing their own cellular chip and a lot of folks, myself included, have used that event as the hypothetical tipping point where Apple starts putting cellular chips in Macs.

If they don’t have to pay a fee to some other manufacturer, why not? Right?

If Apple doesn’t start putting cellular chips in Macs after they start shipping their own cellular chip, I have to wonder if they’ll ever do it.

Unread for Mac

I’ve always considered Unread one of the most attractive RSS reader apps. However, there has never been a Mac version. Today marks the release of Unread for Mac. It’s an RSS reader made with taste. It has great typography, themes, search, and compatibility with the usual suspects. I love having this app on my Mac.

About this Folding Mac Rumor

There is a new rumor that Apple is working on a foldable, keyboard-less Mac for release in a few years, which will get a 20-inch display in something resembling a 13-inch MacBook Air footprint. That would be impressive, but it would also raise many questions.

First, what about the keyboard? Once you take away a keyboard, is it still a Mac? I’d say it is so long as it’s running macOS. A lot of folks tend to like their keyboards. At the same time, voice-to-text dictation is moving rapidly as artificial intelligence kicks into high gear. I also can’t help but note the irony that I am typing this out on a virtual keyboard on my 13-inch iPad Pro without any trouble.

Second, if Apple released an all-screen Mac, wouldn’t it make sense to include a touch screen and maybe even Apple Pencil support?

Something different, for sure.