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.
Sunday October 12, 2025 7:05 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple plans to announce new products "this week," according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
Apple's "Mac Your Calendars" teaser last October
In his Power On newsletter today, Gurman said the products set to be updated this week include the iPad Pro, Vision Pro, and "likely" the base 14-inch MacBook Pro, with all three likely to receive a spec bump with Apple's next-generation M5 chip.
Gurman...
Saturday October 11, 2025 6:59 pm PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's software engineers are internally testing iOS 26.0.2, according to MacRumors logs, which have been a reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions.
iOS 26.0.2 will likely be a minor update that addresses bugs and/or security vulnerabilities, but we do not know any specific details yet.
The update will likely be released within the next few weeks.
Last month, Apple released iOS...
Monday October 13, 2025 8:25 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Buried in its announcement about "F1: The Movie" making its streaming debut on December 12, Apple has also announced that Apple TV+ is being rebranded as simply Apple TV.
A single line near the end of the press release states "Apple TV+ is now simply Apple TV, with a vibrant new identity," though Apple's website has yet to be updated with any changes, so we're unsure on the details of the...
Saturday October 11, 2025 10:10 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are still nearly a year away, a handful of new features and changes have already been rumored for the devices.
Below, we have recapped some of the early iPhone 18 Pro rumors so far.
Smaller Dynamic Island
The standard iPhone 18, iPhone 18 Pro, and iPhone 18 Pro Max will be equipped with a slightly smaller Dynamic Island, but the devices will...
Friday October 10, 2025 5:57 am PDT by Tim Hardwick
Update: the Naver account appears to be referencing a speculative post on X by Vadim Yuryev, dated October 6. The original article follows.
Apple will announce new products through a series of press releases beginning as soon as next week, according to a dubious claim posted on the Korean blog Naver.
The Naver blog account yeux1122, which aggregates rather than originates Apple...
Sunday October 12, 2025 9:24 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
After releasing AirPods Pro 3 last month, Apple is already working on the next AirPods Pro, according to Bloomberg's Mark Gurman.
It is unclear if the new AirPods Pro would be branded as AirPods Pro 4, or if they would be considered an updated version of AirPods Pro 3. Gurman did not take a position, opting to describe them as a "new version" of the "high-end in-ear buds."
AirPods Pro 2...
Sunday October 12, 2025 9:43 am PDT by Joe Rossignol
Apple's second-generation smart glasses with an in-lens display may have two modes, depending on which device they are connected to.
Meta Ray-Bans without an in-lens display
In his Power On newsletter today, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said he was told a future version of Apple's smart glasses may be able to run a full version of the visionOS operating system when they are paired with a Mac, and...
Saturday October 11, 2025 9:06 am PDT by Eric Slivka
Apple has essentially discontinued Clips, its video-editing app designed to allow users to combine video clips, images, and photos with voice-based titles, music, filters, and graphics to create enhanced videos that can be shared on social media sites.
The app has been removed from the App Store, and a support document on Apple's site says that the app is no longer being updated and would no ...
Recent reports suggest that there are now no redesigned Apple Vision headsets in active development, with the company's focus pivoting decisively to smart glasses.
When Apple announced the Vision Pro in mid-2023, it described the device as the dawn of "spatial computing," a new paradigm that would eventually rival the iPhone in importance. With a $3,499 starting price, intricate design and...
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.
