M2 MacBook Air is First Apple Silicon Mac With Built-in Accelerometer
The new MacBook Air is the first Apple silicon Mac to feature a built-in accelerometer, recent teardowns have discovered.
The M2 MacBook Air's logic board, with the accelerometer highlighted (via iFixit). During its
first teardown of the new MacBook Air, repair site iFixit discovered that the device contains an accelerometer – making it the first Apple silicon Mac to contain such a component. There is as yet no word on what the accelerometer might be for.
Accelerometers have been key to the iPhone and iPad since they launched, providing movement, rotation, speed, and acceleration data, but there is no obvious use-case for the component in an Apple silicon Mac, since it is much less likely to be subject to movement that influences use.
Some observers have speculated that the accelerometer may be used to determine if the laptop has been dropped for service and warranty purposes. Alternatively, it could be used to support video stabilization. Indeed, the Studio Display contains an accelerometer, but again, it is unclear what its purpose is within the device. If it is not already used for a specific function, Apple could release a software update in the future to take advantage of the accelerometer.
Using a sensor in a device with no obvious purpose would not be unprecedented for Apple. Indeed, the HomePod mini contains a seemingly unused temperature and humidity sensor.
Along with the single 256GB NAND storage chip, iFixit's teardown revealed other logic board components that include the 64-bit 8-core M2 chip, an Apple-designed Thunderbolt 3 driver, and a USI Bluetooth and Wi-Fi chip.
Popular Stories
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 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....
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 ...
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...
Best Buy is discounting a collection of M3 MacBook Pro computers today, this time focusing on the 14-inch version of the laptop. Every deal in this sale requires you to have a My Best Buy Plus or Total membership, although non-members can still get solid second-best prices on these MacBook Pro models. Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Best Buy. When you click a link and make a...