A key reason why the pace of Mac hardware updates has slowed in recent years can be placed in the hands of Intel. As they fell behind releasing new silicon, Apple was left without the parts they needed to do proper refreshes. True, Apple did allow the Mac to languish way beyond the release of […]

When Apple released the Late 2016 MacBook Pro, one major criticism was about using an older processor, Skylake, instead of Kaby Lake, the latest and greatest Intel silicon. Apple also got dinged for its decision to limit memory to 16GB instead of 32GB. There were other criticisms, but Apple was constrained by Intel’s roadmap and its […]

Walt Mossberg is a long-time tech journalist who used to hang his hat at the Wall Street Journal. His achievements include co-hosting those All Things D events some years back that featured such luminaries as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. These days he’s Executive Editor of The Verge and Editor at Large for Recode. When he reviews a […]

As Intel gets later and later in releasing processor upgrades that offer only slight performance boosts from previous processors, the impact on Macs is obvious. New models are late not so much because Apple doesn’t care about Macs, but because of Intel’s roadmap. Sometimes Apple sticks with the previous year’s parts, which incites the critics. Regardless, benchmarks may […]