Now that Apple is replacing the traditional Intel-based 21.5 inch iMac with the new 24-inch M1-powered iMac, the Fusion Drive is officially gone forever.
The announcement came as part of the Apple Spring Loaded event, which spotlighted the new iMac design, alongside a number of updated products.
For those unfamiliar, the Fusion Drive is Apple’s implementation of a hybrid drive, combining flash storage and hard drive storage in one. Around 2012, when solid-state drives were relatively expensive, the option was standard on most iMac models, promising a mix of speed and storage. At the time, it was a smart solution.
But as the years went on, the lack of larger-capacity SSDs for the iMac became a sticking point. Before this recent announcement, you could configure the 21.5-inch iMac with a 256GB SSD, but if you wanted more storage, you’d have to jump to the 1TB Fusion Drive. Those were you’re only options.
With the $2,000-plus cost of an iMac, the Fusion Drive received tough reviews in performance, with low cache speeds, low read and write speeds, and poor optimization when moving large files. The Fusion Drive was always dubbed as one to avoid in modern times.
But now, the new M1-based 24-inch iMacs come with SSD options configurable from 256GB, 512GB, 1TB, or even 2TB of storage.
That means Fusion Drives are finally nowhere to be found on the modern iMac lineup, roughly nine years after its late 2012 introduction in the iMac and Mac mini.
Combined with Apple’s new M1 chips, these new solid-state drives offer big updates to the iMac. Apple is promising that the new M1-based iMacs can be up to 85% faster than before, while graphics performance is now up to twice as fast.
The design of the iMacs is also more modern, with flashy new colors, a thinner profile, a brighter display, and more. You can catch up on all the news from today’s Apple event in our recap, which looks at the iMac, iPad Pro, Apple TV, Air Tags, and more.
In 1950, Alan Turing asked whether machines can think. Rather than argue over definitions, he turned the question into a party game, where an interrogator trades typed messages with hidden players and tries to work out who is who. Since then, chatbots have gotten so good that they have already fooled humans in modern versions of the test.
So, four researchers from Paris Cité University asked the obvious follow-up question in a new study published in Computers in Human Behavior Reports: can AI at least catch its own kind?
Mozilla is giving Firefox’s Smart Window two new tricks. If you haven’t tried it yet, Smart Window is an optional AI mode in Firefox with a built-in chat that helps you get things done while you browse. With this update, it can fill out online forms using details from your tabs and keep an eye on websites for you.
Tired of typing the same details into every form?
The absolutely absurd idea of putting a touchscreen display on a mouse isn't exactly new. Turtle Beach already did it with its Command Series MC7, which features a 2.25-inch control screen. But apparently, even that wasn't ridiculous enough for Arctic Fox Technologies. Its new Super Mouse looks like someone took the chunky old Atari ST mouse, slapped a touchscreen and scroll wheel on it, and called it an upgrade.
The result is a rather unusual-looking mouse that is now on Kickstarter, starting at $199. And as ridiculous as it looks, some of its features are genuinely intriguing.