The first E-Waste event for 2025 is being held May 24, 2025 in the City Hall parking lot on McCarty Street. These events are usually in the mornings.
I recently found some great Web links from Apple that describe in clear detail what to do if you’re passing on or recycling an Apple device. Each link shows the steps you need to take to make sure your personal information is removed from the device, and that it’s safe for whoever that device is given to to set it up and get their information moved onto it.
It’s always difficult to talk about electronic obsolescence. But I think the time has come for those of you that are McIntosh users to start thinking about that particular topic. Back in November 2020 Apple released its first M series processor, the M1 since then, Apple has converted the entire MacIntosh lineup, and actually the iPad lineup and the iPhone lineup to processors built on Apple Silicon. Today, nearly the entire line has some version of an M4 processor. I am always an advocate for you to continue to use your computer as long as you’re comfortable with it and as long as it functions for the tasks that you purchased it for. But once in a while, there comes a time when technology moves beyond what you currently have and you need to begin considering moving forward with that technology.
If you are one of those people that are still using a Mac with an Intel processor, it’s come time for you to consider a replacement. You can check your processor by going to the Apple menu and selecting About This Mac. It will clearly tell you both a version of the operating system you are using and also the type of processor. If you’re still using a machine with an Intel processor that means that it’s probably about five years old or getting very close. Max typically have a lifespan of about seven years, and I’m not saying these Intel Macs are dead, but the functionality that Apple is adding to its devices, including Apple Intelligence, are only going to be supported on Apple’s new M1 or newer processors. We are already starting to see that while these machines will update to macOS 15, many of the new features that Apple has added to that version are not available to entail processors. I’ve also experienced recently the difference in performance between any Mac with an Intel processor and any Mac with an Apple Silicon processor. The speed difference is truly astounding. Even the M1 processor is going to be multiple times faster than what you have with Intel. The new M4 Macs are even more astounding. You would be amazed the difference in manipulating a photo library with 20,000 images, or even a documents folder with 500 documents in it. The performance difference is like night and day.
So while it might not be something you have to consider tomorrow, you need to put it on your radar that if you’re using an Intel Mac, you probably need to be considering a new Mac. There is good news in all of this, though that because the new max are so much faster than the old ones, you may not need as expensive a machine as you purchased in the past. If you’re using a MacBook Pro, you might be able to consider the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air is using an M4 processor and is extremely fast. The new iMacs are also so much faster than the previous versions, you may not need to upgrade as high in the lineup to get performance that will suit your needs.
In addition, the lower end machines, our lower priced than they were the last time you purchased a machine. If you need a desktop machine, a Mac mini starts at $599. You can even get sales of that machine debt to almost $500. Same goes with the MacBook Air, an M3 MacBook Air, now that the M4’s are out, is selling for less than $1000. It has to, Apple reduce the price of the M4 MacBook Air to just $999.
I’m always happy to consult with you and discuss what your needs might be. But keep in mind, support for Intel processors with Apple operating systems is going to go away. It’s just a matter of time, and the performance difference we’re seeing in these new Apple Silicon machines is so much better, it’s time to start considering the change.
Apple ID. The single sign-on information used with all Apple products and services. Over the years, as Apple was implementing their Internet strategy, the poor Apple ID started off with many other names.
When I first got my Apple account, it was called a iTools. Over the years, the services evolved and change names to .Mac in September 2002, to MobileMe in June 2008, and finally to Apple ID in 2011. Hidden in a few lines of a press release, Apple announces that beginning with the operating systems coming in the fall of 2024 your Apple ID changes again. Now, Apple ID will be referred to as your Apple account. If you want to read more about this evolution, check this on Wikipedia.
In retrospect, Apple account probably makes more sense than all these other names that it’s been called over the years. Hopefully Apple account will become common in all the terminology that people use when they talk about logging into an apple device. But I still deal with clients, that when we have to look up their password in their password book, we have to look for .Mac, MobileMe, Apple ID, and now Apple account.
In an Apple Newsroom Press Release about features in the new releases, in the last paragraph, , Apple says,
With the releases of iOS 18, iPadOS 18, macOS Sequoia, and watchOS 11, Apple ID is renamed to Apple Account for a consistent sign-in experience across Apple services and devices, and relies on a user’s existing credentials.
So, beginning in September with the release of the new operating systems, we will begin referring to it as your Apple account.
The next big step for Apple is here. Apple Intelligence is personal intelligence built into your iPhone, iPad, and Mac to help you write, express yourself, and get things done effortlessly.1 All while setting a brand-new standard for privacy in AI.
At WWDC24, Apple introduced Apple Intelligence, the personal intelligence system for iPhone, iPad, and Mac that combines the power of generative models with personal context to deliver intelligence that’s incredibly useful and relevant. Apple Intelligence is deeply integrated into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia. It harnesses the power of Apple silicon to understand and create language and images, take action across apps, and draw from personal context to simplify and accelerate everyday tasks. With Private Cloud Compute, Apple sets a new standard for privacy in AI, with the ability to flex and scale computational capacity between on-device processing and larger, server-based models that run on dedicated Apple silicon servers.
Apple Intelligence unlocks new ways for users to enhance their writing and communicate more effectively. With brand-new systemwide Writing Tools built into iOS 18, iPadOS 18, and macOS Sequoia, users can rewrite, proofread, and summarize text nearly everywhere they write, including Mail, Notes, Pages, and third-party apps. Whether tidying up class notes, ensuring a blog post reads just right, or making sure an email is perfectly crafted, Writing Tools help users feel more confident in their writing. With Rewrite, Apple Intelligence allows users to choose from different versions of what they have written, adjusting the tone to suit the audience and task at hand. From finessing a cover letter, to adding humor and creativity to a party invitation, Rewrite helps deliver the right words to meet the occasion. Proofread checks grammar, word choice, and sentence structure while also suggesting edits — along with explanations of the edits — that users can review or quickly accept. With Summarize, users can select text and have it recapped in the form of a digestible paragraph, bulleted key points, a table, or a list. For more on this, see Apple’s Press Release.
So, why does this all matter?
Apple intelligence is the first step in Apple’s process of implementing artificial intelligence in all of its operating systems. But unlike many other developers or development platforms, Apple decided to implement artificial intelligence as a means of completing tasks that users want to do this makes artificial intelligence much more, understandable to users rather than just implementing something that is supposed to answer all your questions and do everything for you. Apple’s implementation of this will allow users to have the control over whether the intelligence, comes from your laptop or your phone or the intelligence comes from the cloud in a large language model such as chat GPT. I think this is the beginning of an exciting transition for operating systems on Apple devices. We’ll see this all come to fruition in the fall with the operating system implementations coming this year..
Microsoft recently introduced the world to a new category of Windows PCs designed for AI, Copilot+ PCs.
Copilot+ PCs are the fastest, most intelligent Windows PCs ever built. With powerful new silicon capable of an incredible 40+TOPS (trillion operations per second),all–day battery lifeand access to the most advanced AI models, Copilot+ PCs will enable you to do things you can’t on any other PC. Easily find and rememberwhat you have seen in your PC with Recall, generate and refine AI images in near real-time directly on the device using Cocreator, and bridge language barriers with Live Captions, translating audio from 40+ languages into English.
These experiences come to life on a set of thin, light and beautiful devices from Microsoft Surface and our OEM partners Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo and Samsung, with pre-orders beginning today and availability starting on June 18. Starting at $999, Copilot+ PCs offer incredible value.
This first wave of Copilot+ PCs is just the beginning. Over the past year, we have seen an incredible pace of innovation of AI in the cloud with Copilot allowing us to do things that we never dreamed possible. Now, we begin a new chapter with AI innovation on the device. We have completely reimagined the entirety of the PC – from silicon to the operating system, the application layer to the cloud – with AI at the center, marking the most significant change to the Windows platform in decades.
The fastest, most secure Windows PCs ever built
Microsoft introduced an all-new system architecture to bring the power of the CPU, GPU, and now a new high performance Neural Processing Unit (NPU) together. Connected to and enhanced by the large language models (LLMs) running in our Azure Cloud in concert with small language models (SLMs), Copilot+ PCs can now achieve a level of performance never seen before. They are up to 20x more powerful and up to 100x as efficient for running AI workloads and deliver industry-leading AI acceleration. They outperform Apple’s MacBook Air 15” by up to 58% in sustained multithreaded performance, all while delivering all-day battery life. With incredible efficiency, Copilot+ PCs can deliver up to 22 hours of local video playback or 15 hours of web browsing on a single charge. That is up to 20% more battery in local video playback than the MacBook Air 15”.
Windows now has the best implementation of apps on the fastest chip, starting with Qualcomm. We now offer more native Arm64 experiences than ever before, including our fastest implementation of Microsoft 365 apps like Teams, PowerPoint, Outlook, Word, Excel, OneDrive and OneNote. Chrome, Spotify, Zoom, WhatsApp, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Lightroom, Blender, Affinity Suite, DaVinci Resolve and many more now run natively on Arm to give you great performance with additional apps, like Slack, releasing later this year. In fact, 87% of the total app minutes people spend in apps today have native Arm versions. With a powerful new emulator, Prism, your apps run great, whether native or emulated.
Every Copilot+ PC comes secured out of the box. The Microsoft Pluton Security processor will be enabled by default on all Copilot+ PCs and we have introduced a number of new features, updates and defaults to Windows 11 that make it easy for users to stay secure. And, we’ve built in personalized privacy controls to help you protect what’s important to you. You can read more about how we are making Windows more secure
So, why are these new PC’s so interesting to me?
Microsoft is doing exactly what Apple did when they introduced the new M1 chip. They’re moving the machines over to an architecture that is much faster, and much more suitable for artificial intelligence. They even reference the MacBook Air in their documents describing the performance of these machines. New copilot plus PCs change the architectural discussion. As long as application developers follow along, and create applications that will all run natively in the arm architecture, these machines are going to be real rivals to Apples M1 processors.
It’s a little too early to be able to recommend these new computers for everyone. But for people who are using Microsoft applications like Microsoft Office, getting email, and surfing the web, these are a great option for you to get a machine that is more future proof than a lot of PCs on the market .
I’ve been told recently that Apple has added a new support site landing page. This is a location where you can look up information about your machine, find the manual, and get software updates for your Apple device.
This is a compilation video created by Jack Dodson and myself of the 2024 Eclipse. Jack and I travled to Bloomington IN and filmed the eclipse at the Trinity Reformed Church. It was a spectatular event that can never be reproduced on video but we created this to show some of the better video and photos we took.
At least once a year I like to give my opinion on what type of a computer someone should be looking for if they’re in the market to purchase a new machine. Many times, there are so many computers on the marketplace that it’s hard to make a decision based upon the functionality you’ll need to use. Basically I break these into two categories, a minimum performance machine and a high-performance machine. If you are a high-performance user, you already know that. If you’re not sure, a minimum performance device is probably where you need to be working.
Often times in the big box stores you find machines that have some of the specifications but not all of them. Big box machines are typically built, particularly on the PC side, with a price in mind. Often times, the machine has specifications that don’t meet current use specs. This also shows up on many Internet sites. Be sure to look into the specifications you’re selecting for the machine that you’re looking to purchase.
In my opinion, brands do matter. Seeing many machines with problems, I can say that Macintosh computers are generally the most trouble free and will maintain good performance for a longer period.
But some people need Windows for specific applications. When it comes to Windows computers, my experience says that I would look for these brands (in order):
Dell
HP
Lenovo
All three of these vendors maintain good support websites and make updating hardware drivers easier. That doesn’t mean much when the machine is new but as it ages, it means everything.
Windows Systems
Laptop, Minimum Performance
Memory: 16 GB
Processor: Intel Core i5 (with at least 4 cores)
Storage: 256 GB SSD minimum
Graphics: Integrated graphics
Networking: wireless
Operating System: Windows 11
Laptop, Higher Performance
Memory: 32-64 GB
Processor: Intel Core i7 or i9
Storage: 512 GB SSD minimum
Graphics: Integrated graphics or dedicated if available
Networking: wireless
Operating System: Windows 11
Foe Macintosh Systems, a MacBook Air is the correct machine for entry to mid stream users today. For more professional uses and MacBook Pro is great. If you want a desktop the new M3 iMac is great and either the Mac mini or Mac Studio on the higher end make great sense. Avoid the Mac Pro desktop. It’s price vs performance is low for nearly all users.
The first E-Waste event for 2025 is being held May 24, 2025 in the City Hall parking lot on McCarty Street. These events are usually in the mornings.
