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2020 MacBook Air with M1 chip
Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple is holding a launch event on Monday to announce new products, like a redesigned MacBook Pro.

Apple has a chance to drive continued momentum to its Macs ahead of the holiday shopping season, especially since it’s expected to announce more computers that run on its own chips instead of Intel’s processors.

Recent computers that run on the company’s powerful M1 processor have “fueled” Mac growth, Apple CEO Tim Cook said in June. In the most recent three quarters ending in June 2021, Apple sold $26 billion in Macs, up nearly 33% from the $19.59 billion it sold in the same period last year. “In fact, the last three quarters for Mac have been its three best quarters ever,” Cook said in June.

Before the pandemic, which drove new computer sales, many customers and analysts worried Apple was neglecting the Mac in favor of newer, faster-growing businesses like its Apple Watch and iPhones. But Mac computers remain essential for Apple. It’s only possible to develop iPhone apps on a Mac through Apple’s Xcode software, for example, and Mac remains a larger business than iPad.

Last month, Apple announced and subsequently released new iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches, leaving Apple’s line of Macs as the remaining major product line that hasn’t been updated this fall. The larger 16-inch MacBook Pro, Apple’s highest-end laptop, hasn’t been updated since 2019 and currently uses Intel processors instead of newer Apple chips.

Here’s what to expect on Monday.

A completed transition

If Apple announces new MacBook laptops on Monday, it will be the culmination of a two-year transition to completely revamp the entire Mac lineup.

Since 2019, Apple has been replacing Intel processors inside Macs with its own processors, called M1, which provide longer battery life and allow Apple to more tightly integrate its hardware and software. Apple’s chips also enable new features while still providing enough power to run demanding applications.

So far, Apple has released four different Macs using its new chips: The MacBook Air, the Mac Mini, the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the redesigned 24-inch iMac.

Apple is likely to emphasize the advantages of its own chip, as it has done during the past several Mac launch events. Expect a new name for the M1 chip if Apple makes significant performance improvements. It could call it the M1X or M2, depending on how Apple wants to market the processor improvements.

Apple has reportedly been prepping a redesign for its high-end MacBook Pros with its own chips and new ports, including space for an HDMI cable to connect the laptop to monitors, and a magnetic charger, according to Bloomberg. Also in the works is an iMac with a bigger screen and a Mac Mini desktop with more power, according to the report.

On Monday, Apple is also likely to provide a release date for macOS Monterey, the latest version of the Mac software, which was announced in June but has not yet been officially released.

More ports

Touch bar on the 2020 13-inch MacBook Pro
Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple’s Mac growth has also been driven by changes the company has made to address some longstanding consumer issues with some products.

Between late 2017 and the second fiscal quarter of 2020, Apple reported eight out of 10 quarters of flat or negative annual growth in its Mac business. Growth started taking off in 2020.

In 2015, Apple introduced a thinner keyboard design for its laptops, often called “butterfly keyboard.” In the coming years, the thinner keyboard became standard in Apple’s line of laptops.

But the keyboard was plagued by reports that it was unreliable, and that crumbs or dust could make certain keys “sticky” and fail to register or type certain letters twice. Apple has an ongoing service program to fix malfunctioning butterfly keyboards manufactured from 2015 through 2019 for free. It’s also facing a class-action lawsuit over whether it knew that the keyboards were defective.

During this period, the biggest new feature addition to Apple’s laptops was the Touch Bar, a strip of touchscreen that replaced the function keys. However, many users found it frustrating and less useful than regular keys. Software developers never flocked to create software for the touchscreen, and Apple’s recent M1 MacBook Air doesn’t have it.

Simultaneously, Apple significantly reduced the number of ports on its laptops, streamlining them into a few USB-C connectors. Users complained that they needed adapters, often called dongles, to attach things like mice and external monitors to the laptops, which sometimes used older USB-A connections. The dongles that Apple made were expensive, often costing more than $20 per adapter. The company temporarily slashed prices on adapters in 2016 after users complained.

That could change on Monday. Apple’s new MacBook Pro design could include an HDMI port for connecting the laptop to external monitors or TVs, an SD card port for photographers, and a new version of its MagSafe magnetic charger, addressing many complaints from professional users, according to Bloomberg. Apple’s 2017 MacBook Air was the last laptop to feature MagSafe charging, even though customers liked it.

Apple has started to reverse some of the Mac design decisions it made over the past decade. The M1 MacBook Air and 13-inch MacBook Pro now have a more traditional keyboard with deeper keys. Both computers have received positive reviews. The laptops still use USB-C ports for charging, but Apple’s new iMac desktop, the first redesign since 2015, has a new kind of magnetic power adapter.

A surge in PC sales

Apple iMac M1 2021
Todd Haselton | CNBC

Apple’s Mac business has been boosted by a global surge in PC sales during the Covid-19 pandemic as schools, businesses, and individuals bought new laptops and desktops to go to school or work from home.

Earlier this year, at its peak, PC sales (including Windows) had their highest year-over-year growth in 20 years, according to research firm Gartner. Research firm IDC said PC sales jumped 55% year-over-year in the first quarter. Analysts covering the PC industry and component makers said at the time that they were optimistic that there had been a permanent shift in PC sales trends.

But the pandemic-related PC surge may be coming to a close. In the third quarter, typically a boom time because of back-to-school sales, the U.S. PC market shrunk for the first time since the first quarter of the pandemic, according to market researcher IDC.

Apple’s computer shipments grew 10% during the third quarter, according to IDC, but the pandemic trends that lifted all manufacturers seem to have slowed significantly. Before the pandemic, PCs were one of the slowest-growing tech markets, with several years of flat growth in the past decade.

Apple hopes shiny new Macs can buck that trend.

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Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot resigns following Coldplay ‘kiss cam’ incident

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Astronomer HR chief Kristin Cabot resigns following Coldplay 'kiss cam' incident

Chris Martin of Coldplay performs live at San Siro Stadium, Milan, Italy, in July 2017.

Mairo Cinquetti | NurPhoto | Getty Images

Days after Astronomer CEO Andy Byron resigned from the tech startup, the HR exec who was with him at the infamous Coldplay concert has left as well.

“Kristin Cabot is no longer with Astronomer, she has resigned,” a company spokesperson wrote in an email to CNBC Thursday. Cabot was the company’s chief people officer.

Cabot and Byron, who is married with children, were shown in an intimate moment on the ‘kiss cam’ at a recent Coldplay show in Boston, and immediately hid when they saw their faces on the big screen. Lead singer Chris Martin said, “Either they’re having an affair or they’re just very shy.” An attendee’s video of the incident went viral.

Byron resigned from the company on Saturday. Both Cabot and Byron have been removed the company’s leadership team webpage.

Pete DeJoy, Astronomer’s interim CEO, wrote in a post earlier this week that recent and unexpected national attention has turned the company into “a household name.”

In May, the New York-based company, which commercializes open source software, announced a $93 million investment round led by Bain Ventures and other investors, including Salesforce Ventures.

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Musk’s Starlink hit with outage day after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service

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Musk's Starlink hit with outage day after rollout of T-Mobile satellite service

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

Elon Musk‘s satellite internet service Starlink said it had a “network outage” on Thursday. The company said it was working on a solution.

There were more than 60,000 reports of an outage on Downdetector, a site that logs issues.

Starlink is owned and operated by SpaceX, which is also run by Musk.

Musk apologized for the outage on his social media platform X and said, “Service will be restored shortly.”

Musk posted earlier Thursday that the company’s direct-to-cell-phone service was “growing fast” following the announcement that T-Mobile‘s Starlink-powered satellite service was available to the public.

T-Mobile said the T-Satellite service was built to keep phones connected “in places no carrier towers can reach.”

Starlink didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Starlink internet speeds and reliability decrease with popularity, a recent study found.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the T-Satellite service was affected by or involved in the outage.

Read more CNBC tech news

CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this story.

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Intel beats on revenue, slashes foundry investments as CEO says ‘no more blank checks’

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Intel beats on revenue, slashes foundry investments as CEO says 'no more blank checks'

The Intel logo is displayed on a sign in front of Intel headquarters on July 16, 2025 in Santa Clara, California.

Justin Sullivan | Getty Images

Intel reported second-quarter results on Thursday that beat Wall Street expectations on revenue, as the company’s new CEO Lip-Bu Tan announced significant cuts in chip factory construction. The stock ticked higher in extended trading.

Here’s how the chipmaker did versus LSEG consensus estimates:

  • Earnings per share: Loss of 10 cents per share, adjusted.
  • Revenue: $12.86 billion versus $11.92 billion estimated

Intel said it expects revenue for the third-quarter of $13.1 billion at the midpoint of its range, versus the average analyst estimate of $12.65 billion. The chipmaker said that it expects to break even on earnings while analysts were looking for earnings of 4 cents per share.

For the second quarter, Intel reported a net loss of $2.9 billion, or 67 cents per share, compared with a $1.61 billion net loss, or 38 cents per share, in the year-earlier period. Earnings per share were not comparable to analyst estimates due to an $800 million impairment charge, “related to excess tools with no identified re-use,” the company said. That resulted in an EPS adjustment of about 20 cents.

The report was Intel’s second since Lip-Bu Tan took over as CEO in March, promising to make the chipmaker’s products competitive again, and to reduce bureaucracy and layers of management, including slashing staff in Oregon and California.

In a memo to employees published on Thursday, Tan said that the first few months of his tenure had “not been easy.” He said that the company had “completed the majority” of its planned layoffs, amounting to 15% of the workforce, and that it plans to end the year with 75,000 employees. Intel previously said it was trying to reduce operating expenses by $17 billion in 2025.

Intel shares are up about 13% this year as of Thursday’s close after plummeting 60% in 2024, their worst year on record.

Tan also announced several other spending cuts in the memo, particularly in the company’s costly foundry division, which makes chips for other companies and is still looking for a big customer to anchor the business.

Intel said its foundry business had an operating loss of $3.17 billion on $4.4 billion in revenue.

Tan said that Intel had cancelled planned fab projects in Germany and Poland, and will consolidate its testing and assembly operations in Vietnam and Malaysia. He added that the company would slow down the pace of its construction of a cutting-edge chip factory in Ohio, depending on market demand and if it can secure big customers for the facility.

“Over the past several years, the company invested too much, too soon – without adequate demand,” Tan wrote. “In the process, our factory footprint became needlessly fragmented and underutilized.”

Tan wrote that the company’s forthcoming chip manufacturing process, called 14A, will be built out based on confirmed customer commitments.

“There are no more blank checks. Every investment must make economic sense,” Tan wrote.

The company’s client computing group, which is primarily comprised of sales of central processors for PCs, had $7.9 billion in sales, down 3% on an annual basis.

Revenue in the data center group, which includes some AI chips but is mostly central processors for servers, rose 4% to $3.9 billion. Tan wrote in his memo that Intel wants to regain market share in data center chips, and is looking for a permanent leader for the business. Longtime rival Advanced Micro Devices has increasingly been winning server business from cloud customers.

Tan added he would personally review and approve all chip designs before they are taped out, which is the final step of the design process before a new chip is manufactured.

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