While the terms and conditions for Apple's new "Developer Transition Kit" forbid developers from running benchmarks on the modified Mac mini with an A12Z chip, it appears that results are beginning to surface anyhow.
Geekbench results uploaded so far suggest that the A12Z-based Mac mini has average single-core and multi-core scores of 811 and 2,781 respectively. Keep in mind that Geekbench is running through Apple's translation layer Rosetta 2, so an impact on performance is to be expected. Apple also appears to be slightly underclocking the A12Z chip in the Mac mini to 2.4GHz versus nearly 2.5GHz in the latest iPad Pro models.
It's also worth noting that Rosetta 2 appears to only use the A12Z chip's four "performance" cores and not its four "efficiency" cores.
By comparison, iPad Pro models with the A12Z chip have average single-core and multi-core scores of 1,118 and 4,625 respectively. This is native performance, of course, based on Arm architecture.
Thursday January 15, 2026 10:56 am PST by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another eight months, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices.
Below, we have recapped 12 features rumored for the iPhone 18 Pro models, as of January 2026:
The same overall design is expected, with 6.3-inch and 6.9-inch display sizes, and a "plateau" housing three rear cameras
Under-screen Face ID...
Friday January 16, 2026 7:07 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to upgrade the iPad mini, MacBook Pro, iPad Air, iMac, and MacBook Air with OLED displays between 2026 and 2028, according to DigiTimes.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman previously reported that the iPad mini and MacBook Pro will receive an OLED display as early as this year, but he does not expect the MacBook Air to adopt the technology until 2028 at the earliest.
A new iPad Air is...
Friday January 16, 2026 12:12 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
In select U.S. states, residents can add their driver's license or state ID to the Apple Wallet app on the iPhone and Apple Watch, and then use it to display proof of identity or age at select airports and businesses, and in select apps.
The feature is currently available in 13 U.S. states and Puerto Rico, and it is expected to launch in at least seven more in the future.
To set up the...
Sunday January 18, 2026 3:51 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
iOS 27 is still many months away, but there are already plenty of rumors about new features that will be included in the software update.
The first beta of iOS 27 will be released during WWDC 2026 in June, and the update should be released to all users with a compatible iPhone in September.
Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said that iOS 27 will be similar to Mac OS X Snow Leopard, in the sense...
Sunday January 18, 2026 6:50 pm PST by Joe Rossignol
MacBook Pro availability is tightening on Apple's online store, with select configurations facing up to a two-month delivery timeframe in the United States.
A few 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro configurations with an M4 Pro chip are not facing any shipping delay, but estimated delivery dates for many configurations with an M4 Max chip range from February 6 to February 24 or even later. At...
Apple needs to do better than this for desk top performance. I am a little scared now.
1) down-clocked slower than iPad Pro! 2) Running benchmark in rosetta 3) Only using 4 out of 8 cores for some reason 4) not the chip that will be used in macs
We all knew that this would happen. However, we also know that the real Apple Silicon Macs will use a completely different chip, no doubt modified and optimised in ways we don't know about yet. While this is interesting (and I'll read all the news articles that come up about this), its going to tell us next to nothing about what's coming.
Why? It's only a developer tool that's not representative of what their real chips will be capable of plus it's going through Rosetta. This is exactly why they didn't show benchmarks at WWDC and why they don't want people running them on these things.
