The M4 MacBook Pro

Hooray! The new M4 MacBook Pro is here. The case design is the same in both 14- and 16-inch variants, with support for the M4, M4 Pro, and M4 Max chips with increased CPU/GPU performance.

It’s nice to see Apple improving on the built-in camera, which is now 12MP, including support for Center Stage and Desk View. Like the Mac mini, announced yesterday, it includes Thunderbolt 5 support. You can get it with up to 128GB of memory. The device promises 24-hour battery life on certain models.

The MacBook Pro screens continue to be a highlight, with up to 120Hz refresh and an option for Nano-texture. When will Apple bring the tech they are using in the MacBook Pro to a stand-alone monitor?

If you’ve been waiting for a new MacBook Pro, you won’t be disappointed with this one. If you are still on the Intel architecture, this is a no-brainer. If you are on Apple silicon, it’s more of a head-scratcher. Make sure the new device will result in a noticeable performance improvement before upgrading.

The New Mac mini & iMac Lineup

This week, Apple introduced a wave of M4 Macs, bringing some exciting updates.

New iMacs

The M4-powered iMacs come in refreshed colors: orange, blue, green, yellow, pink, purple, and silver, each with matching accessories. Apple’s design flexibility shows, though it makes the grayscale of other devices feel more mundane. The iMac lineup now starts with 16GB of memory, upgradeable to 32GB, and offers four Thunderbolt 4 ports in high-end models. A $200 Nano-texture glass option is also available.

The New Mac mini

Compact yet powerful, the new Mac mini now includes M4 and M4 Pro chips in a 5×5 inch (12.7×12.7 cm) frame, with support for Thunderbolt 5. Configurable with up to 64GB of memory, with two front-facing USB-C ports, it starts at $599 — a stellar value.

These new Macs are inspiring. The iMac colors are tempting, even if not quite my fit, and the compact Mac mini with front-facing ports will likely become a popular desktop choice.

iA Writer Improvements

For reasons unknown, I took about a year off from using iA Writer and recently rediscovered it.

They’ve made a lot of improvements. For example, you can import text into your document, and iA Writer will track that as imported text. This works well if you use a large language model (LLM) to help with your writing.

The ability to highlight structure and grammar is better than ever, and the library features are much improved. Historically, I felt that was the weakest point of this application. Another feature that caught me flat-footed was inter-document navigation. Just surround the document name with two square brackets and command-click to jump between them. Everything links these days.

I’ve always felt the iA Writer team has respected the application’s primary purpose: to give you a focused writing environment. However, the evolution of the application, with a few additional features, dramatically improves its utility without losing sight of that.

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.

I’m Still Digging Kagi

I just paid my monthly Kagi subscription and I’m reminded of how much I like this web search service. If you’re unfamiliar with it, Kagi is a search engine with no advertising. I’ve used it in place of Google search for most of this year, and when I occasionally stumble into a Google search, I’m shocked at how bad it looks and how much I prefer Kagi. In the most recent update, they’ve now started labeling artificial intelligence-generated images as AI in their image search. I know many folks are anti-subscription, and it seems silly to pay for a search engine, but if you search a lot, it sure is nice having one more concerned with giving you good results than selling ads.

A page from search engine Kagi showing results from a ‘macsparky’ search.
I’m still using Kagi as my search engine

I also just discovered that the same company that makes Kagi makes an accompanying web browser called Orion. I haven’t spent any time with it, but if you like Kagi, you may want to go check out their browser as well.

The bigger question for me is whether or not I’ll want any search engine in the near future as artificial intelligence gets better at bringing back results instead of a list of websites.

Focused 215: The Sparkly Language Model

Mike and I revisit the topic of AI on this episode of Focused to consider what’s changed in the last year and discuss how it can be helpful for those of us who strive to live a focused life.

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