According to The Information (paywalled), Apple reportedly moved up the release of new Mac mini and Mac Studio models after unexpectedly strong enterprise demand for Macs capable of running AI workloads. MacRumors reports: Apple normally releases new Mac models in the autumn, closer to October or November, making this week's announcement unusually early, falling just before the anticipated arrival of new iPhone models. The Information says that the AI-driven boom in Mac Studio and Mac mini sales is behind the early launch. Apple noticeably promoted the ability to link multiple Mac Studios together into a single, more capable system for running large frontier AI models, a feature aimed at business and developer customers rather than everyday consumers. Apple highlighted the Mac mini and Mac Studio's shift toward business buyers in June, with a "Business at the Park" event involving executives from major companies Ford, Disney, and Anthropic. The Mac mini was said to be the "darling" of the event. Even so, enterprise's rush toward powerful desktop Macs more broadly took Apple by surprise. The company reportedly did not possess an engineering team dedicated to business customers or staff focused on developer relations, and lacked an enterprise AI strategy. Businesses that approached Apple asking to buy access to the company's Private Cloud Compute infrastructure were reportedly turned down. Apple is instead leaning on partners such as WebAI and Mount Thor, which provide AI tools and execution environments built on Apple hardware.

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Apple has unveiled a new Mac mini with either its new M6 chip or the M5 Pro chip released earlier this year. It adds faster CPU, GPU, storage, and AI performance along with Wi-Fi 7, Bluetooth 6, and 2.5Gb Ethernet as standard. There's also a new higher starting price of $899, which is up from the previous $799 base price and far above the $599 starting price of the 2024 model. MacRumors reports: The M6 chip is equipped with a 12-core CPU and a 12-core GPU, up from a 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU in the M5 chip. In addition, the M6 chip features the first-ever dual Neural Engine with two 16-core engines, up from one in previous chips. The M6 chip has up to 170GB/s memory bandwidth, up from 153GB/s for the M5 chip. Apple said the Mac mini with the M6 chip delivers up to 40% faster CPU performance, up to 4x faster performance for AI tasks in particular, up to 2x faster graphics performance, and up to 2x faster storage speeds compared to the previous-generation model with the 10-core M4 chip, 32GB of unified memory, and 2TB of storage. There are two M5 Pro configurations available, including one with a 15-core CPU and a 16-core GPU, and another with an 18-core CPU and a 20-core GPU. Both of these models are equipped with a single 16-core Neural Engine for AI tasks. For both the M6 and M5 Pro configurations, Apple said the Mac mini now includes Neural Accelerators in each GPU core for the first time.

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joshuark shares a report from Ars Technica: Dutch officials have warned that a high-severity macOS vulnerability that allows attackers to execute malicious code is under active exploitation. "The NCSC has received a notification indicating that active abuse of this vulnerability has been observed on multiple systems on which port 5900 was accessible from the Internet," the Netherlands National Cyber Security Centrum warned earlier this week. "In all these cases, root had been accessed on the affected system and a Monero crypto miner had been placed." The vulnerability, tracked as CVE-2026-65400, received a patch from Apple last week for macOS Tahoe, Sequoia, and Sonoma. The vulnerability, with a severity rating of 7.1 out of 10, stems from a bug in the macOS screen sharing capability, which allows a remote party to view the screen and control the keyboard and mouse while a machine is turned on. A flaw in the "state management," which keeps track of preceding events, user interactions, variables, and other system states, is the underlying cause. A video of the exploit in action can be found here. Details of CVE-2026-65400 became public at last week's Black Hat security conference. Apple said last week that CVE-2026-65400 "may" allow an attacker without credentials to gain access to a Mac. It's unclear why Apple hedged, but softening language is common among most tech developers when disclosing vulnerabilities. As noted by the NCSC, the vulnerability is being exploited when port 5900 is exposed to the Internet. When screen sharing is turned on, the macOS firewall opens the port. Routers and dedicated firewalls generally block the port unless configured to override that setting. Security practitioners generally advise Mac users to keep the port closed even when using screen sharing and to instead connect over a VPN or through SSH tunneling. The alternatives require actions that aren't within the capabilities of most users. The safest practice is to block screen sharing, enable it only when screen sharing is needed, and to turn the feature off once a session has ended. Screen sharing can be turned on or off by accessing System Settings > General > Sharing and toggling the switch for Screen Sharing. Of course, installing last week's security update is also a must. Sharing is not caring.

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