GoKawiil
Tech News
Apple has refreshed its all-in-one desktop after a year's gap, introducing the M6 chip in 12- or 16-core configurations alongside a 16-core neural engine. The company says the new model delivers up to five times the AI performance and twice the graphics speed of the M4 iMac, while adding Wi-Fi 7 and faster memory. The 24.5-inch Retina display still supports 4.5K resolution and can drive two external 6K monitors.
The latest episode of the Apple @ Work podcast features guest Adam West discussing his experience at the Jamf Nation User Conference (JNUC), along with conversation about macOS Golden Gate and Rosetta. The episode is sponsored by Mosyle, which bills itself as a unified platform for deploying, managing and protecting Apple devices in enterprise settings.
Note-taking app Craft now supports Apple's new iPhone Duo, adjusting its interface between compact and unfolded modes to give users more space for writing and document navigation. The app has also received ongoing updates across iPhone, iPad, and Mac in recent months, and is currently offering 40% off for life via a 9to5Mac promo code.
Apple released version 27.2 updates across iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, and visionOS, adding a memory feature that lets Siri recall past conversations and pull from more data sources like voicemails and Messages attachments. The update also brings Siri AI to French, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, and Spanish, an 'Excluded Apps' privacy control, context-aware Messages suggestions, SynthID watermarking in Photos, Apple TV user profiles, a redesigned Apple Music logo, and Apple Pencil support for the iPhone Duo foldable.
A roundup highlights utilities like StartAllBack and Windhawk that let Windows 11 users restore classic taskbar and Start menu layouts, including left-aligned Start buttons, two-column Start panels, and legacy system tray flyouts. Windows 11 26H2 now natively allows moving the taskbar to the top or sides and offers a smaller taskbar size, but still lacks the granular control these third-party tools provide. StartAllBack costs $5 after a 100-day trial, while Windhawk uses a modular, community-driven mod system rather than a full interface overhaul.
A vintage computing hobbyist has released version 1.0 of a MacOS Extensions Pack designed for the Apple Network Server, a rare 1990s Apple machine. The project is part of the developer's broader work preserving and extending old microcomputers, Unix workstations, and classic Mac/PalmOS platforms, shared through their personal blog Old VCR.
Apple has released the MacBook Neo, a low-cost laptop priced at $700 that uses a repurposed iPhone processor rather than an M-series chip found in other current Macs. The launch comes shortly before the MacBook Air's price rose by $200 to $1,300, reportedly due to tariffs and rising memory costs.
A developer has released OnKey, a free and open-source singing trainer for Apple Silicon Macs. The app listens to songs played through Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube, learns the vocal melody after one playthrough using a vocal-separation model, CREPE pitch tracking and a note model, then displays scrolling notes with the user's pitch overlaid and a line-by-line score on repeat plays. It requires microphone and system audio access, does not store or stream music itself, and uses Shazam and LRCLIB lookups only to identify songs and fetch lyrics.
Apple has rolled out a rebranded visual identity for Apple Music, incorporating its Liquid Glass design language. The company also released a short video showing the creative process, which involved design agency TBWA/Media Arts Lab, producer Fred again.., and a physical setup using a mineral oil tank with a transducer to create ripple effects against branded panels.
Apple has revoked eight intermediate web certificates after a script flaw left their private keys guessable by testing just 256 possible values. Apple, Google and Mozilla have all blocked the certificates in their browsers, but Mozilla engineer Dennis Jackson warns that macOS and its built-in curl utility don't check revocation status, so Macs that already trusted these certificates could keep doing so.
A developer published a tutorial explaining how Mac users can generate SSH authentication keys stored in the Secure Enclave rather than as traditional key files. The process uses three terminal commands, requires Touch ID verification, and includes steps for linking the resulting key to GitHub for git-over-ssh use.
A developer released SIwithin, a single-file Python tool that runs AI coding CLIs like Claude Code and OpenAI Codex unattended, restricting them to specified folders and enforcing a dollar budget per run. It uses a loopback proxy to meter Claude API requests with a per-run token instead of the user's real key, and logs one record per run showing cost and completion status. The tool currently works only on macOS and refuses to run on Linux or Windows.