Enlarge / The Framework Laptop 13. (credit: Framework)

Framework will release a fourth round of iterative updates and upgrade options for its Framework Laptop 13, the company announced via a blog post yesterday. The upgrades include both motherboards and pre-built laptops that feature new Intel Meteor Lake Core Ultra processors with Intel Arc dedicated GPUs; lower prices for the AMD Ryzen 7000 and 13th-gen Intel editions of the laptop; and a new display with a slightly higher 2880x1920 resolution and a 120 Hz refresh rate.

The Core Ultra boards can come with one of three CPU options: an Ultra 5 125H with four P-cores, eight E-cores, and seven graphics cores; an Ultra 7 155H with six P-cores, eight E-cores, and eight graphics cores; or an Ultra 7 165H with the same number of cores but marginally higher clock speeds. Prices start at $899 for a pre-built or DIY model (before you add RAM, storage, an OS, or a USB-C charger), or $449 for a motherboard that can be used to upgrade an existing system.

All of the Core Ultra systems and boards ship in August as of this writing. Once this first batch sells out, a second batch will ship in Q3.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

The Windows 11 24H2 update isn’t scheduled to be released until sometime this fall, but testers can get a near-final version of it early. Microsoft has released Windows 11 24H2 build 26100.712 to its Release Preview testing channel for Windows Insiders, a sign that the update is nearly complete and that the company has shifted into bug-fixing mode ahead of general availability.

Microsoft has generally stuck to smaller but more frequent feature updates during the Windows 11 era, but the annual fall updates still tend to be a bigger deal. They’re the ones that determine whether you’re still eligible for security updates, and they often (but not always) come with more significant under-the-hood changes than the normal feature drops.

Case in point: Windows 11 24H2 includes an updated compiler, kernel, and scheduler, all lower-level system changes made at least in part to better support Arm-based PCs. Existing Windows-on-Arm systems should also see a 10 or 20 percent performance boost when using x86 applications, thanks to improvements in the translation layer (which Microsoft is now calling Prism).

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Here at Ars, we’ve been around long enough to chronicle every single time that Microsoft has tried to get Windows running on Arm-based processors, instead of the Intel and AMD-made x86 chips that have been synonymous with Windows for more than three decades. The most significant attempts happened in 2012 with Windows RT, which looked like Windows 8 but couldn’t run any x86 Windows apps; and in 2017 when Windows 10 Arm PCs arrived with rudimentary x86 emulation.

The main PC company backing each of those Arm efforts was Microsoft itself, which launched the original Surface to showcase Windows RT and the first Surface Pro X during the Windows 10 era. Since then, Microsoft has periodically refreshed the Arm version of the Surface tablet while continuing to sell Intel versions. A couple of PC OEMs put out Windows RT tablets, and most of them took a stab at one or two Windows 10-into-11-era Arm PCs. But there was never a big unified push that made it clear that the entire consumer PC ecosystem had bought into Arm.

This week’s announcements felt different—yes, there was a new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop from Microsoft leading the charge (and the new Surface Pro is the first Surface Pro ever to ship Arm as the default option for most people). But the Surface launch was accompanied by a major wave of systems from essentially every major PC OEM, suggesting at least some level of elevated enthusiasm for the Snapdragon X series that didn’t exist for older Arm chips.

Enlarge / The Qualcomm Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows fits a Snapdragon X Elite and 32GB of RAM into an $899 mini desktop. (credit: Qualcomm)

Microsoft and Qualcomm are both making a concerted effort to make Windows-on-Arm happen after years of slow progress and false starts. One thing the companies have done to get software developers on board is to offer mini PC developer kits, which can be connected to a software developer's normal multi-monitor setup and doesn't require the same cash outlay as an equivalently specced Surface tablet or laptop.

Qualcomm has announced the Snapdragon Dev Kit for Windows, a small black plastic mini PC with the same internal hardware as the new wave of Copilot+ PCs with Snapdragon X Plus and Snapdragon X Elite processors in them. The box is fairly generously specced, with a slightly faster-than-normal version of the Snapdragon X Elite that can boost up to 4.3 GHz, 32GB of RAM, and a 512GB NVMe SSD.

Unlike the Windows Dev Kit 2023, which appeared to be a repurposed Surface Pro 9 motherboard thrown into a black plastic box, the Snapdragon Dev Kit appears to be purpose-built. It has a single USB-C port on the front and two USB-C ports, an HDMI port, two USB-A ports, a headphone/speaker jack, and an Ethernet port in the back. This isn't an overwhelming complement of ports, but it's in line with what Apple offers in the Mac mini.

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  Microsoft's Surface Pro 11 comes with Arm chips and an optional OLED display panel. [credit: Microsoft ]

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Microsoft has announced a pair of new devices powered by Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Plus and X Elite processors. They're far from Microsoft's first PCs with Arm processors in them—2012's original Surface, the Surface Pro X, and the Surface Pro 9 with 5G have all shipped with Arm's chips instead of Intel's or AMD's. But today's new Surface Pro and Surface Laptop are the first Arm devices to be the primary Surface offerings rather than a side offering, and they're the first to credibly claim that they can both outperform comparable Intel- and AMD-designed chips while offering better battery life, a la Apple's M1 chip in 2020.

One caveat that I hadn't seen mentioned in Microsoft's presentation or in other coverage of the announcement, though: Microsoft says that both of these devices have fans. Apple still uses fans for the MacBook Pro lineup, but the MacBook Air is totally fanless. Bear that in mind when reading Microsoft's claims about performance.

Enlarge / The new Arm-powered Surface Laptop. These Copilot+ PCs are all pictured with a refreshed version of Windows 11's "Bloom" wallpaper. (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft is announcing some fairly major changes for Windows and the Surface lineup as part of its Build developer conference this week, but there’s one thing that’s definitely not coming, at least not right now: a Windows 12 update.

Speculation about the “Windows 12” update began propagating at some point last year in reports that suggested that Microsoft was shifting back to a three-year release cycle like the ones used for Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10 in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

And Microsoft may have intended to call this fall’s release “Windows 12” at some point, and it does come with substantial changes both above and under the hood to better support Arm systems and to emphasize Microsoft’s AI focus.

Enlarge (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft is using its new Surface launch and this week’s Build developer conference as a platform to launch its new “Copilot+" PC initiative, which comes with specific hardware requirements that systems will need to meet to be eligible. Copilot+ PCs will be able to handle some AI-accelerated workloads like chatbots and image generation locally instead of relying on the cloud, but new hardware will generally be required to run these workloads quickly and power efficiently.

At a minimum, systems will need 16GB of RAM and 256GB of storage, to accommodate both the memory requirements and the on-disk storage requirements needed for things like large language models (LLMs; even so-called “small language models” like Microsoft’s Phi-3, still use several billion parameters). Microsoft says that all of the Snapdragon X Plus and Elite-powered PCs being announced today will come with the Copilot+ features pre-installed, and that they'll begin shipping on June 18th.

But the biggest new requirement, and the blocker for virtually every Windows PC in use today, will be for an integrated neural processing unit, or NPU. Microsoft requires an NPU with performance rated at 40 trillion operations per second (TOPS), a high-level performance figure that Microsoft, Qualcomm, Apple, and others use for NPU performance comparisons. Right now, that requirement can only be met by a single chip in the Windows PC ecosystem, one that isn't even quite available yet: Qualcomm's Snapdragon X Elite and X Plus, launching in the new Surface and a number of PCs from the likes of Dell, Lenovo, HP, Asus, Acer, and other major PC OEMs in the next couple of months. All of those chips have NPUs capable of 45 TOPS, just a shade more than Microsoft's minimum requirement.

Enlarge / A PC running Windows 11. (credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft is going all-in on Arm-powered Windows PCs today with the introduction of a Snapdragon X Elite-powered Surface Pro convertible and Surface Laptop, and there are inevitable comparisons to draw with another big company that recently shifted from Intel’s processors to Arm-based designs: Apple.

A huge part of the Apple Silicon transition’s success was Rosetta 2, a translation layer that makes it relatively seamless to run most Intel Mac apps on an Apple Silicon Mac with no extra effort required from the user or the app’s developer. Windows 11 has similar translation capabilities, and with the Windows 11 24H2 update, that app translation technology is getting a name: Prism.

Microsoft says that Prism isn’t just a new name for the same old translation technology. Translated apps should run between 10 and 20 percent faster on the same Arm hardware after installing the Windows 11 24H2 update, offering some trickle-down benefits that users of the handful of Arm-based Windows 11 PCs should notice even if they don’t shell out for new hardware. The company says that Prism's performance should be similar to Rosetta's, though obviously this depends on the speed of the hardware you're running it on.

Enlarge / The RetroArch app installed in tvOS. (credit: Andrew Cunningham)

Apple’s initial pitch for the tvOS and the Apple TV as it currently exists was centered around apps. No longer a mere streaming box, the Apple TV would also be a destination for general-purpose software and games, piggybacking off of the iPhone's vibrant app and game library.

That never really panned out, and the Apple TV is still mostly a box for streaming TV shows and movies. But the same App Store rule change that recently allowed Delta, PPSSPP, and other retro console emulators onto the iPhone and iPad could also make the Apple TV appeal to people who want a small, efficient, no-fuss console emulator for their TVs.

So far, few of the emulators that have made it to the iPhone have been ported to the Apple TV. But earlier this week, the streaming box got an official port of RetroArch, the sprawling collection of emulators that runs on everything from the PlayStation Portable to the Raspberry Pi. RetroArch could be sideloaded onto iOS and tvOS before this, but only using awkward workarounds that took a lot more work and know-how than downloading an app from the App Store.

Enlarge (credit: VMware)

Broadcom's acquisition of VMware last year has led to widespread upheaval at the company, including layoffs, big changes to how it approaches software licensing, and general angst from customers and partners. Broadcom also discontinued the free-to-use version of VMware's vSphere Hypervisor/ESXi earlier this year, forcing home users to find alternatives.

But today there's a bit of good news—for home users, at least. Broadcom is making VMware Fusion Pro 13 and VMWare Workstation Pro free for personal use.

Fusion Pro and Workstation Pro certainly aren't the only free-to-use virtualization products—VirtualBox has existed for years, and there are many indie projects that make use of Apple's virtualization frameworks for macOS. But VMware's products are a bit more polished and easier to learn than some of those alternatives, and VMware's file formats are also commonly used when redistributing virtual machines for retrocomputing purposes.

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  Lego Barad-dúr silently surveils a living room. [credit: Lego ]

Here's something for any Lord of the Rings fan with a tall, narrow space available on their tchotchkes shelf: Lego has announced a $460, 5,471-piece rendition of Barad-dûr, which viewers of the films will recognize as "that giant black tower with the flaming eye on top of it."

Sauron, Base Master of Treachery, will keep his Eye on you from atop the tower, which will actually glow thanks to a built-in light brick. The tower includes a minifig of Sauron himself, plus the Mouth of Sauron, Gollum, and a handful of Orcs.

The Lego Barad-dûr set will launch on June 1 for Lego Insiders and June 4 for everybody else. If you buy it between June 1 and June 7, you'll also get the "Fell Beast" bonus set, with pose-able wings and a Nazgûl minifig. It doesn't seem as though this bonus set will be sold separately, making it much harder to buy the nine Nazgûl you would need to make your collection story-accurate.

Enlarge (credit: Apple)

Apple has released the latest updates for virtually all of its actively supported devices today. Most include a couple handfuls of security updates, some new features for Apple News+ subscribers, and something called Cross-Platform Tracking Protection for Bluetooth devices.

The iOS 17.5, iPadOS 17.5, macOS 4.5, watchOS 10.5, tvOS 17.5, and HomePod Software 17.5 updates are all available to download now.

Cross-Platform Tracking Protection notifications alert users "if a compatible Bluetooth tracker they do not own is moving with them, regardless of what operating system the device is paired with." Apple has already implemented protections to prevent AirTag stalking, and Cross-Platform Tracking Protection implements some of those same safeguards for devices paired to non-Apple phones.

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  The new 13-inch iPad Air with the Apple M2 processor inside. [credit: Andrew Cunningham ]

The iPad Air has been a lot of things in the last decade-plus. In 2013 and 2014, the first iPad Airs were just The iPad, and the “Air” label simply denoted how much lighter and more streamlined they were than the initial 2010 iPad and 2011’s long-lived iPad 2. After that, the iPad Air 2 survived for years as an entry-level model, as Apple focused on introducing and building out the iPad Pro.

The Air disappeared for a while after that, but it returned in 2019 as an in-betweener model to bridge the gap between the $329 iPad (no longer called “Air,” despite reusing the first-gen Air design) and more-expensive and increasingly powerful iPad Pros. It definitely made sense to have a hardware offering to span the gap between the basic no-frills iPad and the iPad Pro, but pricing and specs could make things complicated. The main issue for the last couple of years has been the base Air's 64GB of storage—scanty enough that memory swapping doesn't even work on it— and the fact that stepping up to 256GB brought the Air too close to the price of the 11-inch iPad Pro.

Which brings us to the 2024 M2 iPad Air, now available in 11-inch and 13-inch models for $599 and $799, respectively. Apple solved the overlap problem this year partly by bumping the Air's base storage to a more usable 128GB and partly by making the 11-inch iPad Pro so much more expensive that it almost entirely eliminates any pricing overlap (only the 1TB 11-inch Air, at $1,099, is more expensive than the cheapest 11-inch iPad Pro).

Enlarge / One of many human-created objects destroyed in Apple's "Crush!" ad for the iPad Pro. (credit: Apple)

Earlier this week, Apple took the wraps off of a thoroughly leaked iPad Pro refresh with a 1 minute and 8 second ad spot wherein a gigantic hydraulic press comprehensively smushes a trumpet, an arcade cabinet, a record player, paint cans, a piano, a TV, sculptures, a bunch of emoji, and plenty of other tools that one might loosely categorize as "artistic implements."

At the end of the ad, the press lifts away to reveal a somewhat thinner, somewhat faster version of Apple's iPad Pro. The message of the ad, titled "Crush!" and still available via Apple's YouTube channel and CEO Tim Cook's Twitter account, is obvious: look at all of the things we've squeezed into this tablet!

"Just imagine all the things it'll be used to create," wrote Cook.