Technologies

Apple Silicon Is the Mac Pro Upgrade You’ve Been Waiting For

The company’s power pro desktop goes to the top of the Apple silicon heap with the new M2 Ultra chip.

Apple’s serious modular pro desktop gets its first real update since 2019, incorporating the new M2 Ultra chip announced at WWDC 2023. The move finally completes Apple’s transition of its hardware to its own CPUs, which not only brings the system into line with the rest of its laptops and desktops, but seems to make significant cost savings possible as well.

See the Mac Pro at Apple $6,999 at Apple

The system starts at $6,999 — $1,000 higher than the former Intel Xeon model’s base price was at launch — but the top configuration maxes out at around $12,000, far lower than the Xeon’s top configuration had been. Not having to pay for Intel’s CPU or AMD’s Radeon graphics cards, as well as removing the necessity of one or more Afterburner cards at $2,000 a pop (for accelerating ProRes and ProRes Raw video transcoding), probably helps cuts a lot from the cost of upgraded configurations.

Watch this: Apple Upgrades the Mac Pro with Silicon

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The Ultra is a pair of M2 Max chips tied together, delivering a 24-core CPU, 60- or 76-core GPU and 32-core neural engine. But there’s also a $1,000 difference between the 60- and 76-GPU core versions of the M2 Ultra chips Apple offers for its configuration options. In practice, that’s a lot more performance over the antiquated Xeon in the old version and means support for more high-res displays. It also means support for more modern standards, like PCI Gen 4, Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3.

Finally moving to Apple silicon from the out-of-date (circa 2019) Xeon chips also means Apple could integrate two HDMI 2.1 ports — HDMI 2.1 first arrived for Apple in the MacBook Pro 16. The system can support up to 192GB of unified memory and has eight Thunderbolt 4 ports.

More from WWDC 2023

One irony of the M2 Ultra upgrade, though, is that Apple has essentially made the Mac Pro less modular, which was the reason everyone clamored for it to begin with. Apple has integrated all the options that traditionally were added via the PCI bus (an Apple I/O card still comes in the four-channel PCI 3 slot). It doesn’t look like you can use a discrete AMD GPU or the GPU MPX modules of the old model; being able to upgrade the GPU is one of the big reasons why modularity is important.

That’s not to say you won’t ever be able to do it. For all we know, Apple is just pretending you can’t for now (or waiting for someone to try it before admitting it’s possible), or plans to enable GPU add-on cards or modules via a firmware upgrade at some point. Because no matter how powerful a GPU is, the type of tasks you perform on a workstation can always benefit from more — if not right now, then in a couple years.

You can read the play-by-play of the announcement in the archive of our live blog.

Technologies

iPhone 17 Preorders Spike and Overall Phone Sales Aren’t Slowing Down Despite Tariffs

Global smartphone shipments saw a notable increase in the third quarter of 2025. Plus, preorders for Apple’s new iPhone 17 beat out the iPhone 16.

Despite tariffs and market uncertainty, global smartphone shipments increased 2.6% in the third quarter of 2025, compared to the same time last year, according to the International Data Corporation. Additionally, preorders for the iPhone 17, which launched last month, outpaced last year’s iPhone 16.

These increased sales include premium phones like the latest iPhones and Samsung foldables, suggesting yet again that pricier phones still sell in periods of economic strain. It’s a remarkable achievement, says IDC senior research director Nabila Popal, citing shrewd financing options as the reason people keep buying these high-end phones, which cost anywhere from $800 to nearly $2,000.

«[Phone makers] have mastered the art of innovation not only in hardware and software to entice upgrades but also in removing purchase friction. They have flawlessly combined cutting-edge devices with innovative financing models and aggressive trade-in programs that make the upgrading decision a ‘no-brainer’ for consumers,» Popal said in an IDC press release.

Apple sold 58.6 million iPhones this quarter, an increase of 2.9% over the same period in 2024, with more preorders for the iPhone 17 series than its predecessor. But Samsung wasn’t far behind, with its Galaxy Z Fold 7 and Galaxy Z Flip 7 selling better than all of the company’s prior foldables. The company still reigns atop the phone market with 61.4 million phones sold, representing 19% of the market in the third quarter of this year — an increase of 6.3% from the same period last year. Meanwhile, Apple lands slightly behind Samsung with 18.2% market share this quarter.

The other phone makers trailing Apple and Samsung are, in order: Xiaomi, with 13.5% of the market; Transsion, with 9%; and Vivo with 8.9%. The remaining companies in the phones industry, from Chinese stalwarts like Oppo and Honor to Motorola and Google, make up the remaining 31.4% of the market for the quarter. All told, 322.7 million phones were sold, up from 314.6 million in the third quarter of 2024, according to IDC.

IDC’s findings for the third quarter continue the small but steady growth of phone sales over the year, including a modest 1% increase in the preceding three months — which includes the April deadline when President Donald Trump unveiled sweeping tariffs. In the second quarter, IDC cited midrange devices like Samsung’s Galaxy A36 and other phones that started incorporating AI. But even persistent tariffs haven’t slowed down people’s appetites for pricier phones in the third quarter.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Tuesday, Oct. 14

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Oct. 14.

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Today’s Mini Crossword has an odd vertical shape, with an extra Across clue, and only four Down clues. The clues are not terribly difficult, but one or two could be tricky. Read on if you need the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.