Egg Freckles

December 2022

• HalfBook Pro

  Ars Technica reports the new M2 MacBook Pro’s 256GB SSD is only about half as fast as the M1's SSD. Sustained disk read speeds run by Max Tech using the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test showed a drop from about 2,900MB/s in the M1 MacBook Pro to 1,446MB/s in the M2 MacBook Pro. Write speeds dropped from 2,215MB/s in the M1 Pro to 1,463MB/s in the M2 Pro, a smaller but still significant drop. The culprit appears to be the NAND flash configuration. Both YouTubers took the bottom off of the new MacBook Pro and discovered that the 256GB versions use just one 256GB NAND flash chip, whereas the M1 MacBook Pro uses a pair of 128GB flash chips. On drives with more physical NAND chips, SSD controllers use a process called interleaving to read data from and write data to multiple physical chips at once. Use fewer chips, and you can limit your peak performance. The Pro in Apple's product lines hasn't stood for professional in some time.

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• M2 Display Support

  Back in the day of translucent plastics and PowerPC processors, Apple used to differentiate its pro line of PowerBooks by crippling the video hardware in its consumer line of iBooks. Starting with 1999's PowerBook G3 (Bronze Keyboard) Apple's PowerBooks could extend their Mac OS desktop to a second display, while all models of iBook were restricted to display mirroring only. This restriction turned out to be superficial; reversible in the iBook's Open Firmware. Which makes sense considering the lowliest iBook contained video hardware superior to the earliest PowerBooks that supported extended desktop. Still the restriction of display mirroring was enforced on all of Apple consumer computers, iBooks, iMacs, and eMacs, until the introduction of Intel CPUs in 2006. Flash forward to 2020, and Apple is holding back the hardware of its consumer laptops again. This time by limiting external display support of the M1 MacBook Air to a single display, while the previous 2018 Intel MacBook Air…

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• 2022 MacBook Air

  Apple just announced the "all-new 2022 MacBook Air, supercharged by the new M2 chip." Apple's newest notebook comes with a larger 13.6" Liquid Retina display, 1080p FaceTime HD camera, three-mic array/four-speaker sound system, in a streamlined chassis that resembles the 2021 MacBook Pro but available in two new mediocre colors.1 At the heart of the 2022 MacBook Air is the new M2 chip which boasts 18% percent faster compute, and 25% faster graphics than the previous M1; while containing the same media engine found in Apple's larger M1 Pro/Max notebooks. Available in July, the 2022 MacBook Air is the Mac I would get provided you are not a video editor, 3D graphics professional, or need two external displays.2 Just be sure to get a model with at least 512 GBs of storage, 16 GBs of RAM, and in anything but Space Grey.3 Power Adapter As for the choice between the 35W Dual USB-C Port Compact Power Adapter and 67W USB-C Power Adapter, get the adapter with the higher wattage.…

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• Paul C. Pratt is…

  Last week Richard Moss, author of The Secret History of Mac Gaming, tweeted: Mini vMac author Paul C. Pratt has been MIA for the past year, and after numerous failed attempts to check that he's okay the folks at E-Maculation are worried something might have happened to him. If you know him, or you have a lead, please chime in Paul C. Pratt's dedication to early 68k Macintosh emulation and software preservation is well known. In my opinion the Mini vMac collection of early Macintosh emulators, targeting the Macintosh 128K, 512K, 512Ke, SE, Classic, and SE FDHD are some of the best emulators ever produced. And while Macintosh II emulation remains a work in progress, one of the most remarkable aspects of Paul C. Pratt's efforts has been his venerable build system and its multitude of configurable options. I hope for the sake of himself, his friends and family, Paul C. Pratt is alive and well. His site the [Gryphel Project] has not been updated since April 4th, 2021, and if you are…

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• Swinsian

  Swinsian1 is a native music jukebox app for the Mac. It displays songs in customizable columns with a browser just like iTunes did before it became a music store, video player, iOS app organizer, social network, and streaming service. With Swinsian you can make smart playlists. You can edit tags on multiple tracks at once. You can shuffle songs. There is a 31 band Graphic Equalizer, and real-time search. Swinsian even syncs your music with classic iPods, and streams my music over AirPlay. In short Swinsian is everything you expect from "Classic iTunes" running on a modern Mac. In addition to being a great iTunes replacement, Swinsian has some powerful features for managing a large music library. FLAC Unlike Apple Music/iTunes Swinsian plays FLAC. "Digital audio compressed by FLAC's algorithm can typically be reduced to between 50 and 70 percent of its original size and decompresses to an identical copy of the original audio data." FLAC is free software, with…

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• Ripping My Music

  During the pandemic I realized I am never going to subscribe to a streaming music service. At 38 I am spending less time discovering new music, and more time listening to the music I already own. I listen to albums, and own physical copies of most of my music. The COVID19 lockdown gave me the opportunity I needed to replace the digital albums I previously purchased with physical CDs, and re-rip my entire music collection in a lossless format. With the help of my Kabylake powered PC, MacBook Pro, and four 32× optical drives, I was ready to rip my 500 album CD collection. I choose to rip my CDs using iTunes because I wanted my collection in Apple's Lossless Audio Codec. For most people the popular FLAC format is more compatible and easier to error-check, but I still listen to music on older iPods and operating systems that require a format compatible with retro Apple hardware. iTunes can't import CDs from multiple optical drives simultaneously, but it will automatically import the next…

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• My First iPod

  I got my first iPod in 2003. It was the second generation model; the first iPod to include a capacitive touch wheel. I bought the 10 GB model with the included inline remote control, not only because it was cheaper at $399, but because it was thinner at 0.72 inches1. Back in those days the smaller capacity iPods were also the thinnest. All through out high school I listened to my music collection via mini discs I mixed myself, using my CD collection and the family DVD player. Each mini disc could only hold an albums worth of music, and mastering them was a tedious process of swapping CDs and waiting for each track to playback in real time.2 ↩︎ Thanks TOSLINK It took me months to save up for my first iPod, but the reward was worth it. With over 2,000 songs in my pocket, my iPod was the first time I could listen to all of my music without changing discs. Thanks to FireWire I could transfer my whole music collection to my iPod in a matter of minutes instead of wasting hours swapping…

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• Mac Source Ports

  Video games were a big part of my adolescence. And although my memories of playing these games as a child will never die, far too often the chance to replay these games is tied to obsolete hardware that is both hard to come by and difficult to preserve. Not true for source ports! Source ports are projects derived from a original game's source code, designed to extend the game's capabilities while providing compatibility with modern hardware like Apple Silicon. For example, id Software released Quake III: Arena in 1999. In 2005, after the game and engine’s commercial life was over, they released the source code freely under an open source license. Shortly thereafter the ioquake3 project was born and has been maintained ever since. In this case, Quake III: Arena is the game, and ioquake3 is the source port. Although the original executables for Quake III: Arena have long since stopped working on modern Macs, source ports like ioquake3 have seen constant maintenance so they allow you to…

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• Apple Store Pickup

  I went to the Apple Store today to pick up a MacBook Air I had repaired under warranty. Apple requires a state ID or passport at time of pickup to prove identity. I am legally blind so I don't carry a driver's license, and my state ID had expired during the pandemic. I could prove my identity with my MIT employee photo ID, major credit cards, and a copy of my birth certificate I brought along just in case. Apple would not accept any of my forms of identification; including the repair ticket I was issued when I dropped off my computer. In my pocket was an iPhone registered to the same Apple ID registered to my MacBook Air. The same Apple ID I used to sign up for my Genius appointment when I dropped off the computer. I know the username and password for this Apple ID, and could prove it with Apple two-factor authentication. Apple wouldn't accept their own forms of identification either, and told me the only way they would return my computer to me was if came back to the store with a…

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• Universal Charging

  Mark Gurman writing for Bloomberg: A major change to the new computers will be how they charge. Over the past five years, Apple has relied on USB-C ports for both power and data transfer on its laptops, making them compatible with other manufacturers’ chargers. But the company is now bringing back MagSafe, the magnetic power adapter that means any accidental yanking of the power cable would simply detach it from the laptop rather than pull down the entire computer. It was a favorite feature of the company’s portable PC lineup that was first introduced in 2006 and most recently revived for its latest lineup of iPhones. The return of MagSafe with the next MacBook Pros will also allow those laptops to charge at a faster rate, the person said. The connector will be similar to the elongated pill-shape design of the older MagSafe port. I would be happy to see the return of MagSafe, but not as a replacement for the universal charging USB Type-C provides. Universal charging means I am less…

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