Apple Silicon

Apple silicon is a series of system on a chip (SoC) and system in a package (SiP) processors designed by Apple Inc., mainly using the ARM architecture. It is the basis of most new Mac computers as well as iPhone, iPad, Apple TV, and Apple Watch, and of products such as AirPods, HomePod and its successor HomePod Mini, iPod Touch, and AirTag.

Apple announced its plan to switch Mac computers from Intel processors to Apple silicon at WWDC 2020 on June 22, 2020. The first Macs built with the Apple M1 processor were unveiled on November 10, 2020. In early 2022, most Mac models were built with Apple silicon; exceptions included the Core i5/i7 Mac Mini and the Mac Pro

Mac computers with Apple siliconHT211814

Starting with certain models introduced in late 2020, Apple began the transition from Intel processors to Apple silicon in Mac computers.

Mac computers with Apple silicon:

On Mac computers with Apple silicon, About This Mac shows an item labeled Chip, followed by the name of the chip:


To open About This Mac, choose Apple menu  > About This Mac.

On Mac computers with an Intel processor, About This Mac shows an item labeled Processor, followed by the name of an Intel processor. A Mac with an Intel processor is also known as an Intel-based Mac.

naked domain

Removing or adding “www” as the first domain label. Some websites operate identically in two Internet domains: one whose least significant label is “www” and another whose name is the result of omitting the least significant label from the name of the first, the latter being known as a naked domain. For example, http://www.example.com/ and http://example.com/ may access the same website. Many websites redirect the user from the www to the non-www address or vice versa. A normalizer may determine if one of these URIs redirects to the other and normalize all URIs appropriately. Example:

http://www.example.com/ → http://example.com/

Modern Apple Device Battery Performance Recommendations

Avoid extreme ambient temperatures.

Your device is designed to perform well in a wide range of ambient temperatures, with 62° to 72° F (16° to 22° C) as the ideal comfort zone. It’s especially important to avoid exposing your device to ambient temperatures higher than 95° F (35° C), which can permanently damage battery capacity. That is, your battery won’t power your device as long on a given charge. Charging the device in high ambient temperatures can damage it further. Software may limit charging above 80% when the recommended battery temperatures are exceeded. Even storing a battery in a hot environment can damage it irreversibly. When using your device in a very cold environment, you may notice a decrease in battery life, but this condition is temporary. Once the battery’s temperature returns to its normal operating range, its performance will return to normal as well.

iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple Watch Comfort Zone

iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Apple Watch work best at 32° to 95° F (0° to 35° C) ambient temperatures. Storage temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C).

MacBook Comfort Zone

MacBook works best at 50° to 95° F (10° to 35° C) ambient temperatures. Storage temperature: -4° to 113° F (-20° to 45° C).

Remove certain cases during charging.

Charging your device when it’s inside certain styles of cases may generate excess heat, which can affect battery capacity. If you notice that your device gets hot when you charge it, take it out of its case first. For Apple Watch Edition models, make sure the cover of the magnetic charging case is off.

Store it half-charged when you store it long term.

If you want to store your device long term, two key factors will affect the overall health of your battery: the environmental temperature and the percentage of charge on the battery when it’s powered down for storage. Therefore, we recommend the following:

  • Do not fully charge or fully discharge your device’s battery — charge it to around 50%. If you store a device when its battery is fully discharged, the battery could fall into a deep discharge state, which renders it incapable of holding a charge. Conversely, if you store it fully charged for an extended period of time, the battery may lose some capacity, leading to shorter battery life.

  • Power down the device to avoid additional battery use.

  • Place your device in a cool, moisture-free environment that’s less than 90° F (32° C).

  • If you plan to store your device for longer than six months, charge it to 50% every six months.

Depending on how long you store your device, it may be in a low-battery state when you remove it from long-term storage. After it’s removed from storage, it may require 20 minutes of charging with the original adapter before you can use it.

Plug in and power on your computer to charge your device.

Make sure your computer is plugged in and powered on when you’re using it to charge your iOS device via USB. If your device is connected to a computer that’s turned off or is in sleep or standby mode, your device’s battery may drain. Note that iPhone 3G and iPhone 3GS cannot be charged with a FireWire power adapter or FireWire-based car charger.

Modern Mac Battery Charging

With macOS Big Sur or later, your Mac learns from your charging habits to improve the lifespan of your battery.

In macOS Big Sur or later, Optimized Battery Charging is designed to improve the lifespan of your battery and reduce the time your Mac spends fully charged. When the feature is enabled, your Mac will delay charging past 80% in certain situations. Your Mac learns your charging routine and aims to ensure that your Mac is fully charged when unplugged.

On Mac computers with the Apple silicon or the T2 security chip, Optimized Battery Charging is on by default when you set up your Mac or after updating to macOS Big Sur or later.

Resume charging

If you need to have your Mac fully charged sooner, click Charge to Full Now in the battery status menu. 



Check the charge status

When Optimized Battery Charging is active, the battery status menu displays when your Mac will be fully charged or whether charging is on hold. If you keep your notebook connected to power most of the time, you might see the message "Charging On Hold (Rarely Used On Battery)" when charging is paused.


Pause or turn off Optimized Battery Charging

If you want to temporarily pause or turn off Optimized Battery Charging, follow these steps:

  1. Choose Apple menu  > System Preferences.

  2. Click Battery, then select Battery in the sidebar.

  3. Deselect "Optimized battery charging", then click Turn Off or Turn Off Until Tomorrow.

MAC address

Label of a UMTS router with MAC addresses for LAN and WLAN modules

A media access control address (MAC address) is a unique identifier assigned to a network interface controller (NIC) for use as a network address in communications within a network segment. This use is common in most IEEE 802 networking technologies, including Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Within the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) network model, MAC addresses are used in the medium access control protocol sublayer of the data link layer. As typically represented, MAC addresses are recognizable as six groups of two hexadecimal digits, separated by hyphens, colons, or without a separator.

MAC addresses are primarily assigned by device manufacturers, and are therefore often referred to as the burned-in address, or as an Ethernet hardware address, hardware address, or physical address. Each address can be stored in hardware, such as the card's read-only memory, or by a firmware mechanism. Many network interfaces, however, support changing their MAC address. The address typically includes a manufacturer's organizationally unique identifier (OUI). MAC addresses are formed according to the principles of two numbering spaces based on Extended Unique Identifiers (EUI) managed by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE): EUI-48, which replaces the obsolete term MAC-48,[1] and EUI-64.

NFC

 
 

Near-field communication (NFC) is a set of communication protocols that enables communication between two electronic devices over a distance of 4 cm (11⁄2 in) or less. NFC offers a low-speed connection through a simple setup that can be used to bootstrap more-capable wireless connections. Like other "proximity card" technologies, NFC is based on inductive coupling between two so-called antennas present on NFC-enabled devices—for example a smartphone and a printer—communicating in one or both directions, using a frequency of 13.56 MHz in the globally available unlicensed radio frequency ISM band using the ISO/IEC 18000-3 air interface standard at data rates ranging from 106 to 424 kbit/s.

The new NFC Forum 'Wayfinding Mark' was launched in 2021 to 'provide designers and product manufacturers flexibility'. There are two main variants of this for use with NFC tags - the 'directional' option and a 'simplified' version. 

NFC Forum Wayfinding Mark

Both the simplified version (on the left) and the directional version (middle) have extra official 'instructional' variants with a hand/phone hovering over the icon. 

There's also been another newcomer on the scene which is gaining a little bit of popularity. The material.io NFC icon is a square representation of a simple NFC antenna. Generally used within digital elements such as websites or Apps, the icon has also started to be used on products, printed material and other items. Material.io is described as a 'design system' and the NFC icon is a clear, obvious NFC based element.

The EMVCo contactless logo

In addition to the NFC Forum logo, there is also the Contactless Indicator logo from EMVCo. This is a very common mark that is typically used to indicate the ability to make contactless payments rather than perhaps interaction with an NFC tag.