The Mac, formerly the more austere Macintosh, turns 40 today, putting Apple's longest-running product squarely in middle age. But like someone who sees the back half of their life approaching and gets in marathon-runner shape, the Mac is in the strongest place it's been for decades. From a revenue perspective, Mac sales declined precipitously in 2023, but that came on the heels of four years of growth that was likely the product of pent-up demand for an improved Mac lineup. In 2020, Apple finally started delivering on that, thanks in large part to Apple Silicon arriving in the Mac, ushering in the era we're in now. While the Mac was on shaky ground prior to Apple Silicon, it would now be pretty silly to suggest the Mac won't make it to its 50th birthday.

My son has grown up using a MacBook Air for Minecraft. He swears by the keyboard layout, and having witnessed the blazing speed with which he does things in the game, I understand his reluctance to use his Alienware laptop. Both machines are almost six years old and due a refresh, so I'm looking for a Windows laptop that is powerful enough to run games like Civilization 6 (with mods) but with a keyboard layout that is sufficiently similar to a MacBook that he can continue to use the muscle memory he has built up over the years. Does such a beast exist? One alternative is to buy a MacBook Pro and use it to run Windows (either Bootcamp or Parallels), but the Windows performance strikes me as a compromise (for more money).

Apple has announced some significant upgrades to the MacBook Pro. On Thursday, the iPhone maker debuted refreshed 13-inch and 15-inch models that sport more powerful processors, improved displays and new keyboards. For the first time, Apple has integrated both laptops with always-on Siri voice activation. The new MacBook Pro laptops are available starting today and start at $1,799 for the 13-inch with a Touch Bar and $2,399 for the 15-inch with a Touch Bar. On Thursday, Apple debuted refreshed 13-inch and 15-inch models that sport more powerful processors, improved displays and new keyboards.

Apple has updated its MacBook Pro laptops with new processors, keyboards and display technology, and hands-free Siri. The update is slightly more than an expected specifications improvement for Apple's popular "Pro" laptops. Both the 13-inch and 15in MacBook Pros with Touch Bar will now come equipped with the latest eighth-generation Intel Core i5, i7 and i9 processors, bringing them into line with competition from Windows PC manufacturers such as Huawei, Dell and others. The 13in laptop gains quad-core versions of the i5 and i7 processors, up from the dual-core versions used until now, which Apple says will be up to twice as fast. The larger 15in laptop gains 6-core i7 and i9 processors, replacing the quad-core versions, which Apple says will be 70% faster.

Dell's redesigned XPS 13 (early 2018) The Dell XPS 13 9370 may be the planet's best 13-inch laptop but the MacBook Pro is still enormously popular. Below, I also use my mid-2017 MacBook Pro 15 for reference on features like the Touch Bar.) Summary / tl;dr: The latest XPS 13 (about 2.7 pounds) maintains its small overall size courtesy of a thin display bezel: it's as close as a 13.3-inch laptop can get to the size of a typical 12- or 12.5-inch class laptop. The 2018 redesign also comes loaded with upgrades including improved fiber material in the palmrest, a new keyboard with more tactile feedback, a fingerprint scanner embedded in the power button, faster Windows Hello face recognition, and a higher-resolution 4K touch display on the top-of-the-line model. Display: The Dell XPS 13 has probably the most advanced display assembly on any 13-inch laptop today. An almost-borderless 13.3-inch 4K Ultra HD (3,840-by-2,160) touch display that also makes room for infrared imaging sensors to authenticate and unlock Windows via facial recognition.

The anticipation for Apple's upcoming iMac Pro 2017 has just gotten stronger after developers stumbled upon codes that appear to suggest the presence of the "Hey Siri" functionality in the Cupertino giant's new computer. Over the weekend, developers Guilherme Rambo and Steven Troughton-Smith revealed what they found after some digging into Apple's "BridgeOS 2.0" code and macOS. What's very interesting here is that the chip seems to have support for "Hey Siri" functionality. Seems to handle the macOS boot & security process, as expected; iMac Pro lets Apple experiment with tighter control without the rest of the userbase freaking out," Troughton-Smith wrote on Twitter. As per Apple Insider, this could mean that the ARM coprocessor controls the boot process, security and the FaceTime camera. Not only that, the publication said that the inclusion of the A10 Fusion means the iMac Pro is capable of accepting and processing the "Hey Siri" voice command sans the need of clicking the Siri icon or keystroke to activate the voice assistant.

Microsoft Monday is a weekly column that focuses on updates in regards to the Redmond giant. This week, Microsoft Monday includes details about features removed from the Windows 10 Creators Update, the So.cl social network shutting down, Teams being released tomorrow, flash support being added to the Pix app, a new partnership between Microsoft and Qualcomm, Skype for macOS now supporting the Touch Bar and much more! Last week Forbes contributor Gordon Kelly pointed out that the Windows 10 Creators Update will have some feature removals. Flash autorun in Edge - Flash will be turned off by default in the default Windows 10 browser. Microsoft Paint extended language support - Microsoft Paint will only support languages on the main localization list going forward.

There are apps that let users keep tabs on smartphone use, especially for parents wanting keep an eye on their kids. Q: I am really worried about my teenage daughter. She is on her phone all the time. Is there a free app to see what she is doing? A: Cell phones are a blessing and a curse.

Apple has been doomed for decades, if the steady stream of headlines about the company, its stock price, and its product lineup are to be believed. If The Macalope has taught us anything, it's that the Apple deathwatch business is a brisk (and bizarre) one. The truth is much more complex. But by any measure, 2016 was a particularly tough year for Apple. The company endured a bitter legal fight with the FBI, saw its first revenue decline in more than a decade, and faced backlash over hardware tweaks in its upgraded flagship products: the iPhone 7's lack of a 3.5mm audio jack and the overhauled MacBook Pro's less-than-pro specs for a decidedly pro price.

Apple released its latest laptops on Thursday, a new range of computers to replace the ageing range of Retina MacBook Pros. They are thinner and lighter than their predecessors, with a new touch bar at the top of the keyboard and a fingerprint sensor replacing the power button. They are £750 more than the machines they replace were – though their price has also gone up. The larger of the two new MacBook Pros, the 15in with Touch Bar, is the first laptop the company has released with a starting price of more than £2,000 for more than a decade: it begins at an eye-watering £2,349, with build-to-order options taking it well north of £4,000. Apple's former cheapest laptop, the £749 MacBook, is also being retired.