This MacNN thread notes an interesting inactive feature of OS X 10.1, posted by moki (Andrew Welch):
The window server has a cool feature in OS X 10.1 that isn't enabled by default (though it will be in an upcoming update, as I understand it): window buffer compression.
later....
So what Apple did was they implemented a compression mechanism into the window server. When a window's contents haven't changed for a given period of time, the window server compresses them, so they take up less memory. Since it uses a compression method that doesn't require the buffer to be fully decompressed to do compositing (dragging a window around, updating the screen, etc.), you won't notice a slowdown with this compression turned on.
In fact, because less memory is being used up by the window buffers, more RAM will be available for your applications, with will mean less virtual memory paging, and may in fact result in speeding up your machine. Additionally, since less data needs to be read (it is compressed, after all!), things like updating windows may be faster as well.
Apple has announced it will be holding a special event on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 a.m. Pacific Time (10 a.m. Eastern Time), with a live stream to be available on Apple.com and on YouTube as usual. The event invitation has a tagline of "Let Loose" and shows an artistic render of an Apple Pencil, suggesting that iPads will be a focus of the event. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more ...
Wednesday April 24, 2024 3:39 pm PDT by Juli Clover
Apple today released several open source large language models (LLMs) that are designed to run on-device rather than through cloud servers. Called OpenELM (Open-source Efficient Language Models), the LLMs are available on the Hugging Face Hub, a community for sharing AI code. As outlined in a white paper [PDF], there are eight total OpenELM models, four of which were pre-trained using the...
Apple has dropped the number of Vision Pro units that it plans to ship in 2024, going from an expected 700 to 800k units to just 400k to 450k units, according to Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. Orders have been scaled back before the Vision Pro has launched in markets outside of the United States, which Kuo says is a sign that demand in the U.S. has "fallen sharply beyond expectations." As a...
Apple is finally planning a Calculator app for the iPad, over 14 years after launching the device, according to a source familiar with the matter. iPadOS 18 will include a built-in Calculator app for all iPad models that are compatible with the software update, which is expected to be unveiled during the opening keynote of Apple's annual developers conference WWDC on June 10. AppleInsider...
Wednesday April 24, 2024 2:05 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple is set to unveil iOS 18 during its WWDC keynote on June 10, so the software update is a little over six weeks away from being announced. Below, we recap rumored features and changes planned for the iPhone with iOS 18. iOS 18 will reportedly be the "biggest" update in the iPhone's history, with new ChatGPT-inspired generative AI features, a more customizable Home Screen, and much more....
