Welcome back to another week of Editor's Desk with yours truly, folks. Can you believe that Turkey Day is just a few days away? It's been a wild year, that's for sure, but we're fast approaching the end of 2020, so you know what that means: Black Friday and the holiday madness is just around the corner! We'll be covering all of the best Black Friday Apple deals once Thanksgiving is over, so make sure to stay tuned right here if you want to save some bucks.
Anyway, this past week was the launch of the new Apple silicon Macs: MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini with M1. Android Central managing editor Daniel Bader got his hands on the M1 MacBook Air, and he gave it a glowing review, along with pretty much everyone else. Even the new 13-inch M1 MacBook Pro outperforms the 16-inch MacBook Pro in benchmarks, and the M1 MacBook Air SSD is also 2x faster than its predecessor and can build apps in Xcode faster than an iMac Pro. Basically, these M1 Macs are the bee's knees. I'm still holding out for an iMac, but my late-2013 15-inch MacBook Pro that I'm still using at my desk is really starting to show its age. I'm not sure how much longer I can wait, but hopefully Apple pushes out an M1 iMac sooner rather than later (crossing my fingers!)
Going back to the iPhone 12 world, new details have emerged about Apple's MagSafe Duo charger — it doesn't support 15W charging. I have some thoughts here. First off, the price for this travel-focused charger is a little high, and the fact that it doesn't even support 15W like the regular MagSafe charger? C'mon now. The report also says that the maximum supported output for the MagSafe Duo charger is 14W, so just 1W short of the 15W that the regular $39 MagSafe charger has. And to top it off, the MagSafe Duo needs a 27W charger to reach the maximum 14W output, which Apple doesn't even make. The next closest thing is the 30W charger, which is $50. Since the MagSafe Duo charger, like the iPhone 12 and MagSafe Charger before it, does not come with a power adapter, you're looking at spending about $179 minimum to use this travel charger (and we aren't even traveling like we used to).
To me, the MagSafe Duo pricing and output just doesn't make sense. The high price tag is only getting you the convenience of a travel charger that can charge your iPhone 12 and Apple Watch at the same time, but is it worth that much? Considering that we're not even traveling as much as before, nah. It seems like many people are also in dismay at the silliness of the MagSafe Duo charger. I certainly won't be buying one anytime soon — there are better alternatives out there for less.
And even though we just had three Apple events in the past three months, I'm still hoping for one more. One of the popular Apple leakers, L0vetodream, seems to hint at one more potential surprise from Apple in December. Could we see the long-awaited AirPods Studio or AirTags? At this point, I doubt it, but who knows. L0vetodream's tweet specifically says that it would be "good for winter," so maybe we'll see some new Apple Watch band colors? No matter what Apple has in store for us, I'm sure it would be fun, that is, if there is anything at all.
If you need some distractions, you should check out Hades on Nintendo Switch. It's an incredibly fun hack-n-slash roguelike from the developers behind Bastion and Transistor. I have the game, and it's definitely one of the best new indie games to come out this year. And now that Big Sur is out, it's fun to take a trip down memory lane and watch how macOS has changed over the years, from OS X to macOS.
And as the year comes winding down to a close, make sure to check out iMore's Best of 2020, where we have our favorite picks from the year across Apple devices, apps, games, tech accessories, and more. And for Nintendo Switch fans, don't miss out on our Best Nintendo Switch Games of 2020 awards.
Until next week, folks.
-Christine Romero-Chan
