Tech
Key Execs Reveal How The Mac And iPad Were Revitalized
In 2020, Apple made a switch in the company supplying the processors for its Mac computers, from Intel to Apple itself. The rise of homegrown silicon for Apple had begun more than a decade before with the iPhone 4. With the M1 chip, the silicon in its Macs was built in-house, too.
Apple MacBook Pro with M5 processor, launched in fall 2025.
Apple
The new processors brought a huge improvement in performance, offering a big uptick in speed and, crucially, battery life.
Since then, there have been multiple upgrades, with the latest M5 chip appearing in the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro. The iPad, uniquely, uses a mix of M and A chips in its range. I sat down to talk exclusively with Tom Boger, Apple’s Vice President of Mac Product Marketing and Tim Millet (pronounced Mill-ay), who is Vice President Platform Architecture.
First, I ask if that big uptick in performance with M1 was a one-off and we should expect smaller increases now.
“When the M1 first arrived, moving from the Intel architecture to Apple Silicon was a huge step change, and we were excited to put a Mac based on Apple silicon in the hands of our customers, and it was just radically different,” Boger says. But since then, we haven’t taken our foot off the gas. We continue to drive the architecture as hard as always. And M5 introduced another step change, and that’s from an AI standpoint. We brought neural accelerators to the GPU, so the AI compute with M5 when you compare it to M1, is six times greater, and four times the compute from M4. We’ve continued to push further on all the vectors in the chip. So the performance difference between now and then is pretty huge.”
“We built excellent systems for probably more than a decade with Intel, and moving to M1 was not just moving to a different chip, we were moving to a different architecture,” Millet says. ”Intel didn’t just build a CPU, they built a platform where they brought their pieces, and they worked with an ecosystem of partners to build their pieces. It was a super-successful platform for many years. But in the end, when we had built up enough capability with our chips for iPhone and then for iPad, we realized there was a different architecture there that was actually better suited to where we wanted our Mac to go.
“And this architecture was one with a focus on energy efficiency. It also had a focus on the unified memory, which is sharing a common pool of memory between all the major compute blocks We had built up this toolbox of capabilities through our iOS products, bringing them to the Mac, and creating a sense of wow. But it wasn’t day one and done. It was a desire to move the Mac up to the same state-of-the-art curve that we have for all our products. I think AI is going to be an area where the unified memory that we’ve introduced into these platforms is a perfect fit. Now, did we know that that was going to happen back in 2020, when we launched it? I think we were trusting our judgment that a unified memory platform is much more flexible.”
So, did Apple predict that memory-hungry AI demands or the needs of large-language models like ChatGPT were coming?
“When you combine pools of memory into a high capacity memory system, you create something somewhat interesting,” Millet says with a note of understatement. “And again, we were trusting our architectural judgement, that this is a better platform for where we want to take the Mac.”
Since the launch of the M1, M chips have appeared on the most powerful iPads, too. I’m interested in how this commonality came about. “It was a very natural thing. The transition of the Mac from the Intel architecture to the Apple Silicon platform brought the iPad and the Mac into a common technology pool. And if you look at kind of what the needs are that are common, it’s a huge overlap. You could ask how, as a chip designer, you could keep both customers happy. It’s because we co-design with our system partners, our software partners, our design partners, to make sure that every detail is taken care of.
“We scaled the neural accelerators from the A19 Pro chip in the iPhone 17 Pro and introduced them in M5, in a much bigger GPU appropriate for the MacBook Pro and the iPad Pro. We didn’t think, hey, this M1 is great. We should try it on an iPad. We plan years ahead. We know exactly where our chips are going, which is a huge benefit for my team to know exactly what our targets are. We can anticipate the product, and that’s where architecture really matters. You want to make sure you’re building a scalable, robust platform. We made investments in M1, even, to include the neural engine that we had introduced into the iPhone years before, and that has paid dividends, because all of our Apple Silicon Macs now have the ability to run on-device LLMs, at a scale, and at a performance level. And part of it is the neural engine.”
The neural engine was first introduced as “a way to extend camera processing, really, with a focus on computational photography,” Millet explains. “What we did that was interesting was we took the neural engine from being a component of the camera processor, extracted it and centralized it, so it became a first-class compute engine. But we felt like there was more opportunity to go beyond just photography, which is why we wanted to make sure it was available to any application. It was a little risky. I always have to be careful about introducing new hardware, because if we put it in and software doesn’t use it, we call that dark silicon. It’s transistors on the chip we paid for, but we’re not making great use of. I get in trouble for that.
“This was in 2017 that we released this in the iPhone. That same year, my team that built a neural engine.They pored over every interesting Machine Learning paper and saw this paper called “Attention Is All You Need”. This is the paper that led to the development of the Transformer model, which allowed all of these large-language models in the generative AI explosion. The neural engine came way before all that, in 2020, when we released M1, two years before the large language models showed up. M1 had support, really, first class support for running this new class of models, even before it was obvious why you should.”
In hindsight, Apple M1 chips, and the later M chips have been a big success. I wonder whether that looked like being the case before the M1 launched.
“Our mission is, build the best possible product that we can with the tools that are in front of us,” Millet says. “The Mac was in a great place when we introduced M1. We did not want to go out the door and miss something obvious. So, we spent a good amount of time thinking through all the different things that mattered to the Mac, really getting engaged with the system teams and the software teams. But when you got all of that input, it really did help solidify our confidence that this was going to, this was going to get out without a bump. We’re never anticipating huge success. We’re always worried about the thing we missed. The team is never resting on their laurels. They’re always focused on what comes next. Some of it is a judgement call, but it’s always about looking into the future. My team, we live three to four years into the future.”
Annoyingly, neither Millet or Boger will be drawn on what that future will look like. So, finally, I play devil’s advocate. There are plenty of people who bought Macs with M1 processor and don’t need to update their machines because they’re still so fast and effective. Did they do their jobs too well?
Boger is keen to answer. “First of all, we love that sentiment. We love the fact that people are so satisfied and happy. If they’re still happy on an M1 system, that’s great, because that’s our goal, right? We’re constantly trying to, number one, build the best product we possibly can, but number two, give our users the best experience possible. And if they, right now, are walking around with an M1 based Mac and they love it, and it’s meeting their needs, we’ve done our job.
“But then, you know, we haven’t rested on our laurels. If you look back, compare an M5 to M1, and you look at battery life, or CPU performance, GPU performance, AI performance. Now, the gains are starting to become pretty massive in the latest systems. It’s like we’re challenging ourselves and setting a high bar with each generation to see if we can create something that’s great at the time, but also relentlessly asking ourselves, how do we push things even further.”
Millet adds that he has “friends who are constantly upgrading because they need the compute. Folks who are working on media processing are now looking at M5 and saying we have enabled them to more easily extend applications with AI, which is magically faster than it was before. Or take metal-effects scaling, a tool that allows the GPU applications rendering for gaming to essentially render something at low resolution but use AI-driven scaling to make it look like high fidelity, much higher resolution. This used the neural engine.
“All of our engines are designed to operate in tandem. So I think we’re excited about making sure the Mac is never in the situation it was in 2020, where the state of the art was high, and the Mac was living on an architecture that was a step function below. And the idea that we would just let the technology curve move forward and leave the Mac behind doesn’t make any sense.”
Samsung’s Galaxy Z TriFold
Samsung Newsroom
Taking a look back at this week’s news and headlines across the Android world, including the Galaxy Z TriFold arrives, Galaxy S26 Ultra specs, the new Exynos promise, Pixel 10a pricing, Nubia Fold details, OnePlus 15 heads to America, and Google’s QPR2 source code released.
Android Circuit is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Android in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Apple news here on Forbes.
The Galaxy’s Number Is Now Three
Samsung has launched the highly anticipated Galaxy Z TriFold, a foldable device with three screen elements and two hinges to offer a pocketable phone and a tablet screen that is significantly less square than other foldable devices in the South Korean company’s portfolio. It’s a technical marvel, but it may not be the best seller some in the community are looking for:
“It will be available more widely, but no date has yet been attached. “Samsung Electronics will launch the ‘Galaxy Z Trifold’ in Korea on the 12th and then launch it sequentially to global markets such as China, Taiwan, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States,” Samsung said in a newsroom post. No exact date yet, then, though I’d be astonished if it was before 2026.”
The Galaxy S26 Comparison
What will be a best seller, all being well, will be the Galaxy S26 family. With specifications widely available, albeit unconfirmed by Samsung, it’s possible to compare the upcoming S26 devices with the current S25 models. As the flagship, the Galaxy 26 Ultra has the most scrutiny:
“Samsung is switching to a new 6.9-inch M14 AMOLED panel, although it probably will not get much brighter. European users will likely only get 12GB RAM, compared with 16GB in other regions such as China. At least Samsung fans around the world will probably get to enjoy the Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 instead of the Exynos 2600.”
Here Comes The Exynos
Samsung has confirmed its flagship Exynos 2600 chipset. This will draw direct comparison to Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Elite 5 chipset, which is currently debuting in premium handsets across the Android space. The Samsung community has generally preferred Snapdragon over Exynos, at least on the top-tier Galaxy Ultra handsets. The S26 Ultra is still expected to ship in the first quarter of 2026 with a Snapdragon chipset, but Exynos could dominate the other handsets in the S26 family. Sammobile’s Asif Shak has more:
“A teaser video of the Exynos 2600 was just published by Samsung on its YouTube channel. In the video, the company says, “In silence, we listened,” hinting at controversies around performance and overheating issues associated with some previous Exynos chips. It is the South Korean firm’s indirect way of saying it understands the criticism around its chips and that it intends to improve upon their shortcomings.”
The Pixel 10a Price Conundrum
Google’s next smartphone is expected to be the Pixel 10a, which will bring the latest AI-focused hardware and smartphone technology to the mid-range. It’s expected to remain at $499, but there are still questions that need to be addressed.I took a closer look at these earlier this week.
“A more interesting question on the price will be around the pricing in the Google Store. The Pixel 9a has been discounted by $100 in the US store for a long time before the Pixel Black Friday offers. There’s every chance that the discount stays in place for Christmas. Will this forever discount carry on into the new year? What happens when the Pixel 10a arrives? Does the Pixel 9a remain discounted, and does the Pixel 10a lock in at $499 for the summer? Or does the continued use of older silicon see the 9a quietly removed from the portfolio, leaving the Pixel 10a as he sole ‘A-class’ on sale as a new handset?”
Nubia Fold Details Published
The first folding smartphone from Nubia has been confirmed by Japanese network Y!mobile. The Nubia Fold has appeared on its website, with a list price of 178,560 yen ($1,145). Given the specs, this is a very competitive offer, especially if this Fold gets a global release. GSM Arena has collected the specs, including the all-important display.
“The nubia Fold features an 8-inch main display with 2,480 x 2,200px resolution and a 6.5-inch cover screen with 2,748 x 1,172px resolution. Both panels offer 120Hz refresh rates, and the main panel supports split view modes for certain apps…
America Is Ready For The OnePlus 15
Following its global release, those looking for the OnePlus 15 in the United States were left in limbo. Without FCC certification, the device cannot go on sale, and with the government shutdown, no certification could be issued. Well, that hurdle has now passed. As GSMArena notes, the FCC is back in business, the certification has been issued, and the OnePlus 15’s US adventure is set to continue.
And Finally…
Google has released the source code for its latest Android update, feeding it back into the open-source community. Given the two-month delay in the release of Android 16’s QPR1, the community is taking the almost immediate release of QPR2 as a positive sign.
“Given that context, some developers worried Google might repeat that strategy and withhold Android 16 QPR2’s source code for an unspecified time. Thankfully, that hasn’t happened. Google started uploading Android 16 QPR2’s source code almost immediately after releasing the update. This suggests the previous delay was indeed tied to the mid-cycle Pixel Drop, and that today’s update — while not officially labeled a Pixel Drop — is one in all but name.
Android Circuit rounds up the news from the Android world every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future, and of course, read the sister column in Apple Loop! Last week’s Android Circuit can be found here, and if you have any news and links you’d like to see featured in Android Circuit, get in touch!
People check the new iPhone 17 lineup at an Apple store in Shanghai on September 19, 2025 (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images
Taking a look back at this week’s news and headlines from across the Apple world, including iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 17 sales success, balancing iOS 18 and iOS 26, four new MacBooks, Apple Satellite upgrades, moving to Meta, and the Christmas Tree lights are turned on.
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the many discussions around Apple in the last seven days. You can also read my weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes.
An iPhone 17 Pro Display Warning
Apple’s new cover on the iPhone 17 Pro and 17 Pro Max displays has increased the protection on offer. Ceramic Shield 2 also increases scratch resistance and reduces reflections. Yet its interaction with some screen protectors reduces the anti-reflection technology, which requires direct contact with air. An iPhone 17 study by Astropad has taken a closer look at the impact of a screen protector. Forbes contributor David Phelan looks at the options you have:
“[the report] goes on to say that some screen protectors, when placed on top of Ceramic Shield 2, doubled the amount of reflectivity on the display. An anti-reflective coating is desirable, so this result is not.
“The study promotes Astropad’s Fresh Coat solution as a way or reducing reflectivity, though you could argue that it might be an even better solution to not put any protector on at all, if Apple’s claims of less scratchability prove correct — and they haven’t been widely disproved yet”
Apple Reaps iPhone 17 Rewards
The success of the iPhone 17 in global markets is having a positive effect on the iPhone market. New research from IDC suggests that Apple is on course to grow sales by more than six percent, in large part due to the vanilla iPhone’s adoption by the Chinese market. Juli Clover takes a closer look at the numbers:
“Total 2025 shipments are forecast to grow 6.1 percent year over year due to iPhone 17 demand and increased sales in China, a major market for Apple. Overall worldwide smartphone shipments across Android and iOS are forecast to grow 1.5 percent, primarily because of the success of the iPhone.”
The Balance Between iOS 18 and iOS 26
Since the launch of the iPhone 17 and iOS 26, Apple has been supporting iOS 18 for older incompatible iPhones and for users who are not yet ready — for whatever reason — to upgrade their phones. While the updated versions of iOS 18 are still available, the UI has been reconfigured to highlight iOS 26 and minimze the visibility of iOS 18.
“…the iPhone’s Software Update screen now features iOS 26.1 prominently, while iOS 18.7.2 has been demoted to ‘alternate version’ status. Users may now see a badge on the Settings app indicating the new update is available, but it won’t be installed without direct user action. For major OS upgrades, users need to manually install the new version even when they have ‘Automatic updates’ turned on.:
Three New MacBooks Before One Big Boss
This week saw a rush of details around Apple’s plans for the MacBook. While the M5 chipset has made a soft debut, 2026 should see more variants going on sale throughout the year. These will include a low-cost MacBook that will likely compete with Chromebooks, an update to the MacBook Air and the introduction of an M5 Pro MacBook Pro model. As for the fourth model…
“The biggest update arrives later in the year. Both Kuo and Gurman say Apple is working on a redesigned MacBook Pro with M6 chips and OLED displays. These machines are expected to bring some of the most dramatic changes in years, including …OLED panels with deeper blacks, higher contrast, and better power efficiency …Touch-screen support while keeping the full keyboard and trackpad.”
The Benfits And Cost Of Apple Satellite
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman has revealed Apple’s plans for satellite connectivity, including navigation in Apple Maps, support for sending photos in Messages, and an API to allow developers to offer satellite connectivity. The question now is who pays for the services?
“Today, Apple’s satellite connectivity features are available for free. For more advanced capabilities in the future, Apple reportedly plans to let customers pay satellite carriers for features directly. Apple could also create a paid option for extended connectivity with a company like SpaceX. Gurman added that there have been discussions in the company about offering its own satellite service, but concerns that Apple shouldn’t act like a carrier have stifled that possibility.”
Apple To Meta Moves
One of Apple’s longest-tenured executives is leaving the company to join Meta. Alan Dye has been the head of Apple’s user interface design team for ten years. Meta’s move is seen as a precursor to designing and releasing new hardware, and will start work as Chief Design Officer on Dec. 31. Apple confirmed the move in a statement provided to Bloomberg News:
“Steve Lemay has played a key role in the design of every major Apple interface since 1999,” Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook said in the statement. “He has always set an extraordinarily high bar for excellence and embodies Apple’s culture of collaboration and creativity.”
And Finally…
The annual Christmas Tree reveal at Apple’s offices in Battersea, South London. Previously, Apple turned to noted designers and artists. This year twenty-four designs by the public are in rotation until Christmas Eve:
“Apple’s annual holiday projections go live at 5 p.m. U.K. time on Thursday, Dec. 4. These projections light up the 330-feet chimneys and washtowers of the Battersea Power Station in south London, Apple’s U.K. HQ. This year, for the first time, members of the public could submit their designs: Apple has just revealed the winners, and they look great.””
Apple Loop brings you seven days worth of highlights every weekend here on Forbes. Don’t forget to follow me so you don’t miss any coverage in the future. Last week’s Apple Loop can be read here, or this week’s edition of Loop’s sister column, Android Circuit, is also available on Forbes.
The Antigravity A1 drone and Vision goggles headset
Ben Sin
Over the past two years DJI and Insta360 — two tech giants which have respectively dominated the drone and 360 camera field — have increasingly ventured into the other brand’s territory. After years of making similar performing smartphone gimbals and small action cameras, DJI launched its first ever 360 camera a couple months ago, and now Insta360 is introducing a drone under its new sub-brand Antigravity.
The A1 drone in unfolded (left) and folded form (right)
Antigravity
The A1 weighs 249g, just under the 250g standard set by many countries that would require registration. This means you can bring this drone into countries and fly it without hassle. In fact, during my testing period I brought the A1 to Vietnam, Thailand, Hong Kong and Indonesia without being stopped at the airport. While the Antigravity A1 may look like a typical DJI consumer drone at first glance, it has a fundamentally different approach to documenting the skies, which also alters how the pilot controls the drone. This is a good thing, because DJI’s consumer drones are already near flawless, so Antigravity’s new drone going in a new direction is a fresh take.
There are a pair of cameras at top and bottom of the drone to capture a 360 degree view.
Antigravity
The A1 differs from any other drone on the market because it shoots 360-degree videos, just like parent company Insta360’s X series of cameras. In fact, the lens on the A1 are almost the same as the lens on the Insta360 X5: a pair of 1/1.28-inch lenses that each shoot 180-degree field-of-view videos, and with some clever software stitching, the two footage produces a single 360-degree video that covers the entire canvas.
Once the A1 is in the air, the pilot will be able to see an entire 360-degree view of the sky from the headset, which resembles a VR headset or Apple Vision Pro.
The headset is officially named Vision Goggles
Antigravity
Piloting the drone is done via a remote control made up of various dials, buttons and triggers, and is designed to be operated with one hand. The user can navigate the drone using the dials on the controller, or simply by moving and pointing the remote controller, as it has a built-in gyroscope. So in other words, if you want to turn left, you can either rotate the dial left, or simply point the controller left.
piloting the drone with the controller.
ben sin
The footage captured by the drone is in 8k resolution, but you have to remember this is 8k resolution spread across an entire 360-degree canvas, so footage looks clean, but not “razor sharp” like an 8K television footage would look. When the drone is airborne, the goggles show me the entire 360 view, and I have to either move my head, or spin the drone, to see my entire surroundings. I can also look up and down. The experience feels like an immersive VR video, but showing me real-time footage from the drone.
As someone who’s afraid of heights, the first time I looked down from the drone’s perspective gave me a scare, because it looked and felt so real.
A screenshot of a 360 video captured by the A1 drone. This was the perspective looking downwards from high above.
Ben Sin
A screenshot of a 360 video capturing the Bangkok skyline.
Ben Sin
You can see actual video footage from the drone in the video below. You can see the experience can be quite immersive.
A major advantage of having a 360 camera instead of the conventional regular camera on a DJI drone is that the A1 captures everything in one go, so you don’t have to worry about framing, or missing a scene. For example, if I am shooting a skateboarder or a mountain biker with a DJI drone, I may have to do a retake if the first flight didn’t frame and capture the person correctly. Maybe I flew the drone too low and the framing cropped off part of the subject’s face, or maybe the drone was too high and didn’t record the landing. But with the A1, since it captures everything, there would be no such worries.
Of course, one disadvantage of the A1 is that a 360 camera has so many pixels to cover that videos aren’t going to be quite as sharp as a dedicated conventional camera with a narrower field-of-view.
The Antigravity A1, being a flagship drone with excellent 360 cameras, doesn’t come cheap. The cheapest option is the standard bundle which retails for $1,600, and there are higher tier bundles (with more accessories) that go for around $1,700 or $1,800. But this is the price of premium flagship drones, and at least the A1 can claim to be able to capture footage no other drone can do.
Galaxy TriFold Revealed, OnePlus 15’s American Adventure, Pixel 10a Pricing
iPhone 17 Pro Display Issues, Apple’s Satellite Upgrades, Four New MacBook Pro Models
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