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  The 2020, M1-equipped Mac mini. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

Apple is crazy, right? The Mac just had its best year of sales ever, and Cupertino is hitting the platform with a shock like it hasn’t had in nearly 15 years—back in a time when the Mac was not having such a good year. Apple is beginning the process of replacing industry-standard Intel chips with its own, custom-designed silicon.

In a way, we're not just reviewing the new Mac mini—a Mac mini is always a Mac mini, right? We're reviewing an ARM-based Mac for the first time. And this is not exactly the same story as all the other ARM machines we've looked at before, like Windows 10 on ARM—a respectable option with some serious tradeoffs.

Sure, longer battery life and quick waking from sleep are already out there on other ARM computers. But as you may have seen in our hands-on earlier this week , what we're encountering here is also a performance leap—and as you'll also see in this review, a remarkable success at making this new architecture compatible with a large library of what could now, suddenly, be called legacy Mac software.

Enlarge / Apple's App Store. (credit: Silas Stein/picture alliance via Getty Images )

In one of the biggest changes to the App Store model ever, Apple today announced that the majority of third-party developers releasing apps and games on the company's App Store will see a reduction in Apple's cut of revenues from 30% to 15%. The company calls it the App Store Small Business Program, and it aims to improve the company's standing in public perception and antitrust battles while minimally impacting its own bottom line.

The program is opt-in, and any developer whose combined revenue across all their apps was less than $1 million in the previous year (or any developers new to the App Store) can apply and be accepted. The revenue measure at play here includes not just app purchases, but in-app purchase (IAP) and subscriptions revenue.

If during the course of the year the developer surpasses the $1 million threshold, the 30% rate will kick back into effect for the remainder of that year. If the developer falls below the threshold again, they'll receive the 15% rate once more the following year.

Enlarge (credit: Patrick Wardle)

Firewalls aren’t just for corporate networks. Large numbers of security- or privacy-conscious people also use them to filter or redirect traffic flowing in and out of their computers. Apple recently made a major change to macOS that frustrates these efforts.

Beginning with Big Sur released last week, some 50 Apple-specific apps and processes are no longer routed through firewalls like Little Snitch and Lulu. The undocumented exemption came to light only after Patrick Wardle, a security researcher at a Mac and iOS enterprise developer Jamf, disclosed the change over the weekend.

“100% blind”

To demonstrate the risks that come with this move, Wardle—a former hacker for the NSA—demonstrated how malware developers could exploit the change to make an end-run around a tried-and-true security measure. He set Lulu to block all outgoing traffic on a Mac running Big Sur and then ran a small programming script that interacted with one of the apps that Apple exempted. The python script had no trouble reaching a command and control server he set up to simulate one commonly used by malware to receive commands and exfiltrate sensitive data.

Enlarge / A promotional image for macOS Big Sur.

Mac users today began experiencing unexpected issues that included apps taking minutes to launch, stuttering and non-responsiveness throughout macOS, and other problems. The issues seemed to begin close to the time when Apple began rolling out the new version of macOS, Big Sur—but it affected users of other versions of macOS, like Catalina and Mojave.

It didn't take long for some users to note that trustd —a macOS process responsible for checking with Apple's servers to confirm that an app is notarized—was attempting to contact a host named oscp.apple.com but failing repeatedly. This resulted in systemwide slowdowns as apps attempted to launch, among other things.

Users who opened Console and filtered to find the error encountered numerous successive errors related to trustd , as pictured below.

Enlarge / No operating system is an island, but macOS Catalina is named after one. (credit: Apple )

Earlier this week, Apple released updates for iOS, iPadOS, and watchOS—but nothing for macOS. Usually, Cupertino updates all its operating systems at once, but we're in an odd place right now with new annual releases of the former three making their way to users' devices while macOS Big Sur still sits an indeterminate amount of days away.

However, Apple nonetheless followed up today with an update for macOS Catalina labeled 10.15.7. It's likely the last update to Catalina before Big Sur is released. The company also released new versions of Final Cut Pro X and iMovie for the Mac.

The Catalina update is a modest one that fixes three bugs: a graphics-related problem on new iMacs with Radeon Pro 5700 XT graphics cards, a bug that prevented automatic connection to WiFi networks, and an iCloud Drive syncing issue.

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  Final Cut Pro on an iMac and a MacBook Pro. [credit: Apple ]

Apple has released a major new update to its Final Cut Pro X video editing application. Labeled Final Cut Pro 10.4.9, the update is focused primarily on improving workflows for proxy files to make teams working together remotely—obviously a common situation amid the COVID-19 pandemic—more efficient.

Additionally, the new update includes a machine learning-driven feature that automatically crops vertical aspect ratios (like you see in TikTok or Instagram videos on mobile phones) from widescreen footage, plus Apple has included some other improvements and features.

The company also updated iMovie, its mass-market consumer video editing software, to version 2.2.10 on iPadOS and iOS, and version 10.1.15 on macOS. These updates include stability improvements and bug fixes, as well as additional filters. The iOS and iPadOS versions get three new filters: Comic, Comic Mono, and Ink.

Enlarge / Removing the scissor switch in a 16-inch MacBook Pro, courtesy of iFixit. (credit: iFixit )

Today, Apple announced that it will expand a program that gave third-party repair shops access to its own proprietary tools, diagnostics, and parts. Launched last year , the program initially only provided the resources for servicing iPhones. Now it will apply to Macs as well. As with the iPhone program, shops can sign up for the program for free, and those that join will be given free training and access to parts.

Apple has tried to make its own services like AppleCare+ and the Genius Bar at Apple retail stores a major selling point for would-be Mac users who want good repair options without having to figure out which shops are reliable or to do any of the work themselves. While those services often get high marks from Apple's customers, there's a major problem: the company's own Apple Store locations mainly service major urban centers in relatively wealthy nations.

There are several gaps in that coverage, leaving iPhone or Mac owners who don't live in these locations with fewer options. This repair-parts program may be a first step to alleviating some of that problem. It will allow some third-party shops that serve areas that Apple Stores don't to provide a level of service for iPhones and Macs that is closer to what consumers would get at an Apple Store.

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  The front of the 2020 27-inch iMac. [credit: Samuel Axon ]

It’s a weird time to be in the market for a new Mac. Earlier this summer, Apple announced that it will begin rolling out Apple Silicon —its in-house-designed riff on ARM processors as seen before in the iPhone and iPad—to the Mac product line. That marks a seismic shift in direction for the Mac.

But the company also said it would be releasing new Macs that use Intel’s CPUs—the more traditional choice for desktop and laptop computers—in the future and supporting Intel-based Macs for years to come.

Enter the new 27-inch iMac, announced just a couple of weeks ago. It’s the first new Mac product since the Apple Silicon announcement, and it’s a refresh for one of the company’s most iconic and popular products—one that’s been falling behind the rest of the Mac lineup for a while now.