This week on AI: New Mac Pros and iMacs, Apple building its own GPUs & more

Apple paid rare attention to its pro customers this week, teasing a redesigned Mac Pro along with catered iMacs. Behind-the-scenes dealings also made headlines, particularly news that Apple will developing its own GPUs.

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Everything you need to know:

A modular Mac Pro is coming in 2018 > >
2017 iMacs will include models with pros in mind > >
Apple is ditching graphics partner Imagination Technologies > >
Apple could sell a "premium" TV bundle with HBO, Starz & Showtime > >
AppleInsider reviewed the new 9.7-inch iPad > >
Apple released its Clips video editor for iPhone & iPad > >
A surprise iOS 10.3.1 update fixed a few issues > >

For in-depth discussion of this week's hottest stories, listen to the AppleInsider podcast. Subscribe here, or stream the embed below:

A roundup of all of our hottest stories this week:

All-new Mac Pro with modular design, Apple-branded pro displays coming in 2018

Apple plans new iMac configurations targeting pro users for later this year

Apple ditching Imagination Technologies GPU technology, moving design in-house

Apple considering selling 'premium' TV bundle with HBO, Starz & Showtime - report

Review: Apple's 2017 9.7" iPad with A9 CPU isn't a game-changer, but it isn't supposed to be

Apple launches new social-focused Clips video editing app for iPhone & iPad

Apple pushes out iOS 10.3.1 update, fixing iPhone 5 & 5c OTA update issue

Apple to reveal fiscal Q2 2017 earnings on May 2

Notorious patent troll Uniloc targets Apple over Maps, Apple ID, remote software updates

Trump repeals federal protections stopping ISPs from selling user data

Apple's Mac mini an 'important product,' staying in lineup

Rumor: Supply chain issues with 'iPhone 8' 3D sensors may lead to late launch in Oct. or Nov.

Apple sued by Australian regulator over 'Error 53' glitch, hardware repair practices

Apple asked to pay hundreds of millions in back taxes in Australia in wide-reaching probe

Nvidia reveals Mac Pro-compatible Titan Xp PCI-e GPU, macOS drivers for Pascal-based video cards

First look: Apple's Clips app for iPhone & iPad

Apple upgrades 2013 Mac Pros with more cores & faster GPUs

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6 Comments

Ozarkcanoer

said about 7 years ago

Conversation was pretty one-sided with Dan D. being the only one to articulate and report on the Apple plans for PRO desktops. I expected better commentary.

gmgravytrain

said about 7 years ago

It sure would be nice if Apple could build some low-power discrete GPUs for the MacMini instead of always relying on Intel Graphics. I think Apple wasn't even using the Intel Pro Graphics 6xxx in the MacMini as I believe those were reserved for the 21" iMacs. I suppose the MacMini wasn't meant to be a graphics machine, so I'm not all that surprised. I'm fairly certain mini Windows PCs did use more powerful Intel Graphic chips than Apple did. Anyway, I'm glad to hear Apple is designing GPUs as it may lead to something worthwhile in the future in terms of large numbers of compute cores for AI and such.

lkrupp

said about 7 years ago

By the way, April 7 has come and gone. Has the ‘Turkish Crime Family’ followed through with erasing hundreds of millions of iCloud accounts? Or did Apple cave and give them an iTunes gift card? Just asking.

Marvin

said about 7 years ago

lkrupp said:

By the way, April 7 has come and gone. Has the ‘Turkish Crime Family’ followed through with erasing hundreds of millions of iCloud accounts? Or did Apple cave and give them an iTunes gift card? Just asking.

They claimed they got paid here via bitcoins:

https://twitter.com/turkcrimefamily/status/850450732780318720

but you can see from their comments in that thread the kind of people they are:

"It's calling tumbling the btc to another wallet noob you can't fake blockchain transactions"

They are obviously just kids trying to mess around. The following site reaches this conclusion and part of their goal was publicity. They make money selling phone unlocks using IMEI codes:

https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-where-the-apple-accounts-hackers-are-threatening-to-wipe-came-from/

They look like the kind that are involved in 4chan/reddit/tor/bitcoin/hacktivism... some of whom don't like companies with a lot of control. The following twitter account is a follower of the main one and only has an anti-apple gif on it:

https://twitter.com/hasan41x

They'll have found the hacked logins from places like tor sites. To pull off an automated attack would need them to script the login process and use multiple compromised machines; if they did it all from one or a few machines or it showed up a lot of incorrect logins, Apple would just block it immediately:

https://twitter.com/turkcrimefamily/status/844681417095335936

It's one thing to run a DDOS by firing traffic from compromised machines at a server but this would need them to run login scripts on the compromised machines so they'd need to control the environments of all the machines. Plus, Apple and all large tech companies should have made attempts to gain access to these kind of login lists as soon as the breaches happened to make sure they weren't vulnerable, the above site says Apple has the lists already as they contacted some of the people on the list.

Threats like this have to be taken seriously, Sony suffered a lot of damage from this kind of thing and the gaming services get taken offline repeatedly with compromised machines. I would expect iCloud to be bombarded on a regular basis with the same. Facebook made a graphic of their security:

https://html2-f.scribdassets.com/9402fgjse8189nlw/images/1-b985527baf.jpg

They block 250-600k accounts and 220m posts every single day. That's what comes from having over 1 billion users on a service.

MacPro

said about 7 years ago

Marvin said:

lkrupp said:

By the way, April 7 has come and gone. Has the ‘Turkish Crime Family’ followed through with erasing hundreds of millions of iCloud accounts? Or did Apple cave and give them an iTunes gift card? Just asking.

They claimed they got paid here via bitcoins:

https://twitter.com/turkcrimefamily/status/850450732780318720

but you can see from their comments in that thread the kind of people they are:

"It's calling tumbling the btc to another wallet noob you can't fake blockchain transactions"

They are obviously just kids trying to mess around. The following site reaches this conclusion and part of their goal was publicity. They make money selling phone unlocks using IMEI codes:

https://www.troyhunt.com/heres-where-the-apple-accounts-hackers-are-threatening-to-wipe-came-from/

They look like the kind that are involved in 4chan/reddit/tor/bitcoin/hacktivism... some of whom don't like companies with a lot of control. The following twitter account is a follower of the main one and only has an anti-apple gif on it:

https://twitter.com/hasan41x

They'll have found the hacked logins from places like tor sites. To pull off an automated attack would need them to script the login process and use multiple compromised machines; if they did it all from one or a few machines or it showed up a lot of incorrect logins, Apple would just block it immediately:

https://twitter.com/turkcrimefamily/status/844681417095335936

It's one thing to run a DDOS by firing traffic from compromised machines at a server but this would need them to run login scripts on the compromised machines so they'd need to control the environments of all the machines. Plus, Apple and all large tech companies should have made attempts to gain access to these kind of login lists as soon as the breaches happened to make sure they weren't vulnerable, the above site says Apple has the lists already as they contacted some of the people on the list.

Threats like this have to be taken seriously, Sony suffered a lot of damage from this kind of thing and the gaming services get taken offline repeatedly with compromised machines. I would expect iCloud to be bombarded on a regular basis with the same. Facebook made a graphic of their security:

https://html2-f.scribdassets.com/9402fgjse8189nlw/images/1-b985527baf.jpg

They block 250-600k accounts and 220m posts every single day. That's what comes from having over 1 billion users on a service.

It's a subject I know zip about but I always wonder if the large powerful companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft and so on, couldn't collaborate and reverse attack these twerps in some way and fry their servers.