Technologies

Apple M2 Pro and Max Chips Repeat a Successful Upgrade Strategy

First the M2. Now we’ve got the M2 Pro and M2 Max. Maybe we’ll see an M2 Ultra processor powering Apple Mac Pro computers in the coming months.

With its M2 Pro and M2 Max processors, Apple is repeating a strategy that worked well for its earlier M1 designs. By grafting some extra circuitry onto an efficient chip foundation, Apple can offer a significant upgrade to its new M2-based MacBook Pro laptops without a full chip overhaul.

Apple introduced its first in-house Mac processor, the M1, for MacBook Air laptops that arrived in 2020. The M1 already took advantage of chip design work for the iPhone’s A-series chips, but Apple beefed up the M1 with more processing cores to make the M1 Pro and M1 Max in late 2021 for higher-end MacBook Pro laptops. Then, in 2022, it glued two M1 Max chips together into the top-end M1 Ultra.

Now, Apple is headed the same route with the M2, which debuted in 2022 and now is joined by the M2 Pro and M2 Max for new MacBook Pro models. If history continues to repeat itself, we could see a Mac Pro based on a hulking M2 Ultra processor in the coming months.

The chips’ speed boost over M1 equivalents that debuted 15 months ago is significant — 20% at least by Apple’s measurements. Owners of year-old M1-generation MacBook Pro laptops to upgrade. But for those using older Macs based on the older Intel chips Apple ejected from its product line, the speed boost and better battery life could be much more compelling.

«These new Macs should help entice moving off Intel to M series in 23,» Creative Strategies analyst Ben Bajarin said in a tweet Tuesday. His firm estimates 42% of Mac owners in the US are still using Intel-based models, and the fraction is probably higher worldwide.

Apple didn’t respond to requests for comment. Intel declined to comment.

How did Apple speed up the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips?

The M2 Pro and Max chips are faster thanks to new designs for the chip’s central processing unit cores for general computation and graphics processing unit cores for handling graphics tasks and some other jobs that work on GPUs. The new designs also have more CPUs, GPUs and another core type for accelerating artificial intelligence tasks, which Apple calls its Neural Engine.

The M1 Pro has eight or 10 CPU cores, depending on configuration, and the M1 Max has 10. The M2 Pro has 10 or 12, and the M2 Max has 12. The M2 generation is 20% faster, Apple said, citing unspecified but industry standard speed tests.

CPU performance is the foundation of everything a processor does, and all the M-series Pro and Max models employ four power-efficient CPU cores for better battery life. The remaining CPU cores offer higher performance cores for more important work. Intel also has adopted this approach, pioneered for smartphones.

For GPUs, used for tasks like playing games and editing photos and videos, the M1 Pro came with 14 or 16 cores and the M1 Max with 16 to 32 cores. The M2 Pro boosts that to 16 or 19 GPU cores, and the M2 Max to 30 or 38. The M2 GPU performance is 30% faster, though part of the speed boost comes from better cache memory on the chip, Apple said.

The neural engine has 16 cores on both M1 and M2 generations, but Apple boasts its AI performance is 40% faster with the new chips. AI software is just getting started, but it’s used in important jobs like some Adobe Photoshop image editing, and you can expect that AI performance to become more and more important as more developers figure it out.

Speed boosts compared to Intel-based Macs, which use years-old Intel chips, are more notable. The M2 Pro is 2.5 times faster at compiling software and 80% faster at Photoshop image editing compared with an older 16-inch MacBook with an Intel i9 processor, Apple said. As for the M2 Max, it’s twice fast at video color adjustments and six times faster at Da Vinci Resolve video editing.

Some of the speed boost on the M2 Max comes from faster memory transfer, doubling to 400 megabytes per second, which helps with data-heavy chores like video editing and 3D modeling. The M2 Max new models also accommodate up to 96GB of memory, up from 64GB on the M1 Max.

We won’t see third-party speed tests until MacBook Pro reviews with the M2 Pro and Max processors arrive. CNET editor Dan Ackerman gave the M2-based MacBook Air an editor’s choice accolade, citing its «excellent performance and battery life.»

That model came with a $200 price increase over its predecessor, though, and the M2-generation MacBook Pro laptops aren’t cheap, either. The model with a 14-inch screen and lowest-end 10-core M2 Pro costs $1,999; with a 12-core M2 Max and other improvements, the price increases to $3,099. The 16-inch models start at $2,499 but rise to $3,499 with an M2 Max processor and more storage capacity.

How are the M2 Pro and M2 Max chips built?

As with all Apple-designed processors for the last few years, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) builds the chips.

As with the M2, the M2 Pro and Max are built with a second-generation 5-nanometer manufacturing process. (A nanometer is a billionth of a meter, and chip manufacturing processes with lower nanometers refer to more advanced manufacturing processes. However, for years now, the numbers have been mere labels of convenience, not actual measurements signifying actual miniaturization progress.)

New manufacturing processes shrink chips’ fundamental electronic elements, called transistors, although that miniaturization is harder these days. That permits more circuitry on a chip. The transistor tally increased from 33.7 billion in the M1 Pro to 40 billion in the M2 Pro; the Max models increased from 57 billion to 67 billion.

TSMC has begun mass product manufacturing on a newer 3 nanometer (3nm) process. Expect that to be used for future iPhone, iPad and Mac processors, a move that should permit even more transistors.

Technologies

Skip Your iPhone’s Lockscreen: Here’s the Hidden Flashlight Trick You Need to Know

A couple of taps can really make a difference on your iPhone.

Not long ago, your iPhone’s lockscreen would only allow two app shortcuts that you couldn’t change: camera controls and a flashlight toggle. However, iOS 18.2 allows you to customize these shortcuts to almost anything you might want. This small but impactful change is one of many ways iOS 18 supercharges customization for iPhone and iPad users. But what if you still want an easy-to-access way to toggle your flashlight without unlocking your phone?

Apple introduced an accessibility feature in iOS 14 that, once enabled, allows you to perform actions by just tapping on the back of your phone. The feature is called Tap Back and it remains a sleeper feature that’s sneakily hidden away in your settings menu. Enabling Tap Back essentially allows you to create a button on the back of your iPhone to perform an action without needing to take up any space.

Once you have Tap Back enabled, it doesn’t take long to see how much of a game-changer it can be with its added convenience. Below, we’ll show you how to set it up so a couple of taps on the back of your iPhone will let you launch just about anything you want.

For more, check out what’s in the latest iOS 18.4 release.

How to set up Back Tap on iPhone

Whether you want to link Back Tap with your flashlight, camera or launch a different iPhone app, the path through your iPhone settings begins the same way.

On your compatible iPhone (iPhone 8 or later), launch the Settings application and go to Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap. Now you have the option to launch your action (in this case, your flashlight) with either two or three taps. Although two taps is obviously faster, I would suggest three taps because if you fidget with your phone, it’s easy to accidentally trigger the accessibility feature.

Once you choose a tap option, select the Flashlight option — or a different action if you prefer. You’ll see over 30 options to choose from, including system options like Siri or taking a screenshot, to accessibility-specific functions like opening a magnifier or turning on real-time live captions. You can also set up Back Tap to open the Control Center, go back home, mute your audio, turn the volume up and down and run any shortcuts you’ve downloaded or created.

You’ll know you’ve successfully selected your choice when a blue checkmark appears to the right of the action. You could actually set up two shortcuts this way — one that’s triggered by two taps and one that’s triggered by three taps to the iPhone’s back cover.

Once you exit the Settings application, you can try out the newly enabled Back Tap feature by tapping the back of your iPhone — in my case, to turn on the flashlight. To turn off the flashlight, you can tap on the back of your iPhone as well, but you can also just turn it off from your lock screen if that’s easier.

For more great iPhone tips, here’s how to keep your iPhone screen from dimming all the time and canceling all those subscriptions you don’t want or need.

Technologies

All the Nintendo Games You Can Update to Switch 2 for Free

Bad news: Mario Kart World will cost $80. Good news: These classic games will get free revamped versions for Switch 2.

Nintendo’s Switch 2 launch event on Wednesday has upset some fans for one key reason: pricing. The new console will be released on June 5 at a starting price of $450, and it will have new games, like Mario Kart World, Kirby Air Riders and Donkey Kong Bananza. But those games could cost as much as $80 (and that’s before factoring in possible tariffs).

Fortunately, Nintendo has also announced that some Nintendo Switch games will get free updates to improve playability on the upcoming console.

«By connecting your Nintendo Switch 2 to the internet, you can download free updates that may improve performance or add support for features such as GameShare in select games,» the company posted.

Here are all the Nintendo Switch games that can get a free update for the Switch 2.

Nintendo also announced that other Switch games will have upgraded versions of the base game, called Switch 2 Editions. These games, which include The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, may offer improved graphics, unique ways to play the game with the Switch 2 hardware, and other features.

You can buy a digital or physical copy of these games if you’re purchasing them for the first time. But Switch 2 Edition games are not free if you already own the Switch version of one of these games, so you’ll have to buy an upgrade pack to play the updated version.

It’s unclear how much Switch 2 Editions of games and upgrade packs will cost, and it’s also unclear how upgrade packs will work with physical versions of Switch games.

The Nintendo Switch 2 will also be backward compatible with certain games. While we don’t know all the Switch games that will be playable on the Switch 2, we know some Switch games have startup (PDF) or in-game (PDF) compatibility issues with the upcoming console.

For more on the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, here’s what we know about the upcoming console and what to know about games like Mario Kart World and Duskbloods.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Friday, April 4

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for April 4.

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 NYT Mini Crossword about knocked me out. I struggled with 1-Across, «Elphaba’s broom in ‘Wicked’ or Aladdin’s lamp in ‘Aladdin,’ thinking it was a word like «magic» but with one less letter. And I was also stumped by 4-Down, «kibble nibblers,» which I thought for sure was «dogs» or «pups.» Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? Read on. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

The Mini Crossword is just one of many games in the Times’ games collection. 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 at those Mini Crossword clues and answers.

Mini across clues and answers

1A clue: Elphaba’s broom in «Wicked» or Aladdin’s lamp in «Aladdin»
Answer: PROP

5A clue: Thorough investigation
Answer: PROBE

6A clue: Metaphor for an unquestioning rule-follower
Answer: ROBOT

7A clue: Harvard and Yale, for two
Answer: IVIES

8A clue: ___ Wearhouse (department store chain)
Answer: MENS

Mini down clues and answers

1D clue: Definitively determine
Answer: PROVE

2D clue: Herald of spring
Answer: ROBIN

3D clue: Orchestral reeds
Answer: OBOES

4D clue: Kibble nibblers
Answer: PETS

5D clue: Fastidiously proper
Answer: PRIM

How to play more Mini Crosswords

The New York Times Games section offers a large number of online games, but only some of them are free for all to play. You can play the current day’s Mini Crossword for free, but you’ll need a subscription to the Times Games section to play older puzzles from the archives.