[HN Gopher] Every M1 Mac is due for a 2022 refresh with faster M...
___________________________________________________________________
Every M1 Mac is due for a 2022 refresh with faster M2 chip, new
designs
Author : orangebanana1
Score : 155 points
Date : 2022-02-08 20:05 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.macworld.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.macworld.com)
| smoldesu wrote:
| I'd really love to see more memory in these devices. I have no
| need for a Mac, but everyone I know who uses one complains that
| RAM limitations come up fairly quickly with all of these devices.
| I even know a guy with a 64 gig iMac Pro who complains that he
| runs out of memory on a daily basis. I'm not sure if this is
| workflow-dependent or just a limitation of XNU's memory model
| (perhaps both), but giving people more memory options would be an
| easy fix and a big draw for programmers, sysadmins and creative
| professionals who are still using Intel Macs.
| turtlebits wrote:
| My home Macs have all been 8gb for the past 11+ years and never
| wished for more ram. (MBP 17, MBP 13, Mini, MBA M1). I've done
| light dev on them, I even run a Windows ARM VM on my M1 Air and
| play Steam games through it.
|
| That said, my work provided machines have always been much
| higher specced.
| JohnBooty wrote:
| but everyone I know who uses one complains that RAM
| limitations come up fairly quickly with all of these
| devices
|
| Everyone?
|
| The initial 2020 M1 machines maxxed out at 16GB; however the
| 2021 M1 Macbook Pros are configurable with 16GB, 32GB, or 64GB.
|
| I'm not sure what to make of "RAM limitations come up fairly
| quickly." 16GB configs haven't been a problem for developers at
| any of the shops where I've spent time in recent years. Places
| where developers were not shy about complaining. Of course, I
| recognize that lots of workloads do require more! Working with
| big data, video work, etc.
|
| My problem with the 16GB limit was more theoretical. If I'm
| shelling out $2-$3K for a machine, I'd like a more future-proof
| amount of RAM.
| nottorp wrote:
| You're still screwed if you need a desktop though.
| hvjackson wrote:
| The (now discontinued) iMac Pro officially supports 256 GB of
| RAM. 3rd party RAM resellers claim it will work with 512 GB. I
| assume any M1 or M2 replacement would support at least the same
| amount.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Not kinda true anymore with M series chips.
|
| Look at other comments here, people are amazed how their 8gb
| MacBook Air works.
|
| People have been saying this from the moment M1 came out, 8gb
| Air/Pro feels like 16gb.
| astrange wrote:
| He either has a memory leak he hasn't spotted, or is really low
| on disk space (so it can't create swap files.)
| nottorp wrote:
| He just needs more than 64 G. So yes, workflow dependent.
|
| For example, i seem to use 24 G most of the time. A 16 G M1
| won't do then.
|
| What worries me is they talk about a M2 but also about the M1
| Pro/Max making their way in more systems. Does this mean the M2
| will replace just the M1, be still limited to 16 G and the Mac
| Mini will still be crippled?
| chipotle_coyote wrote:
| It's reasonable to assume there will be Pro and Max versions
| of the M2 as well, and they'll have different capabilities
| across the line like the M1 variants do.
|
| My _guess_ is that there is going to be a Mac mini available
| with a Pro or Max chip at some point, but it 's a weakly held
| guess. It's possible that we're going to just see the Mac
| mini as the "regular" headless desktop and a Mac pro as the
| more powerful one, so we get a matrix something like:
| | | Regular | Pro |
| | ---------------- | ----------- | ----------- |
| | Laptop | MacBook Air | MacBook Pro |
| | Headless Desktop | Mac mini | Mac Pro |
| | All-in-One | iMac | iMac Pro |
| Hamuko wrote:
| Would require the Mac Pro to get _significantly_ cheaper on
| the low end. Starting price difference between M1 MacBook
| Air and M1 Pro MacBook Pro is 2x, but the difference in
| starting price between M1 Mac Mini and the cheapest x86 Mac
| Pro is 8.5x.
|
| If not, the matrix would look something more like this:
| | | Regular | Pro | Corporate
| | | ---------------- | ----------- |
| ----------- | --------- | | Laptop |
| MacBook Air | MacBook Pro | | |
| Headless Desktop | Mac mini | | Mac Pro |
| | All-in-One | iMac | iMac Pro |
| |
| JohnBooty wrote:
| That's interesting. I'd sure like to think that the M1's 16GB
| limitation (and the limitation of 2 displays) was an
| aberration.
|
| But, now that you mention it, maybe they have a segmentation
| strategy there. The M2/M3/M4/etc will be limited and the
| M2X/M3X/M4X will not.
|
| Hopefully that's not the case. I get the feeling that it's
| more of a tick/tock cycle like Intel used to do. Where they'd
| ship new architectures every ~24 months, and at the halfway
| point between major architecture releases they'd release
| interim models with beefed up cache / core counts / clock
| speeds.
|
| But perhaps that's wishful thinking.
| nottorp wrote:
| > maybe they have a segmentation strategy there
|
| That's what I'm afraid of. I'd very much like to not have
| to pay 6k+ for a Mac Pro because ... I don't need one. But
| if they continue crippling the Mini I just might have to.
| mlindner wrote:
| So would these being using the same TSMC process and instead be a
| layout change rather than a die shrink?
| B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
| They may adopting the (lost ?) Intel tick-tock approach:
|
| - one year you shrink the geometry and reap speed-power-area
| gains
|
| - the other year you refine the logic circuitry and improve
| efficiency
| parentheses wrote:
| I'm very close to doing all future development on AWS and
| avoiding depending on my machine anymore. Local price/meaningful
| performance (given frontend apps are getting fatty) is plateauing
| in my view.
|
| I'd rather migrate workflows that have high variance in compute
| requirements to a place where that variance can be satisfied
| easily and quickly.
| mberning wrote:
| An M2 mini is a day one purchase for me. I have been so
| thoroughly impressed with my M1 mini.
| nomel wrote:
| I'm assuming you're being serious here.
|
| If you consider your M1 mini as being impressive, why would it
| need to be replaced already?
| garbagecoder wrote:
| He didn't say replace. Do you only have one machine?
| throwamon wrote:
| > Do you only have one machine?
|
| Why wouldn't you?
|
| Gotta love how "fuck the environment, let me have my shiny
| toys" you guys are.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| I only have one desktop.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| If they are replacing, it is likely they have a few machines
| they run as servers and they refresh them every 4-5 years.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| swader999 wrote:
| I'd be right there with you on this if they support hdmi 2.1
| applecore wrote:
| omni wrote:
| Have you heard of eBay?
| cleancoder0 wrote:
| The impact should be in the 0.001%, compared to all of the
| other activities, like heating, cooling, meat heavy diet,
| driving a car every day, taking 1 transcontinental flight
| obliterates all savings from not driving a car for a year.
| [deleted]
| jguimont wrote:
| The MBA, 13inch MBP, the bigger imac and the mac min are all old
| designs that were updated with a M1 processor.
|
| The 2022 update will bring a new industrial design on top of the
| new architecture. The same way the imac and the 14/16MBP were
| refreshed with a new design + a new architecture.
|
| My predictions form each:
|
| - MBA -> many colors, white screen/keyboard background (similar
| to imac)
|
| - MBP 13 -> renamed MacBook, a MBA with more ports, no colors and
| black screen/keyboard
|
| - iMac -> might be renamed imac pro, black screen and keyboard
| background. Same small footprint as the consumer imac
|
| - mac mini -> the current mac min is pretty empty. I think we'll
| see something much more compact but really similar in design.
|
| EDIT: style
| als0 wrote:
| I think it's more likely that the MBA is simply renamed to
| Macbook. "Air" used to mean something but it doesn't anymore.
|
| The true successor of the MBP 13 is the 14. There is no reason
| to keep the 13 around.
| lvl100 wrote:
| I would really like to see an M1 Max Mac Mini. I've been holding
| out for March announcement.
| adolph wrote:
| Maybe the more interesting question is when will they not be able
| to make a +1 processor? Is it 5, 10 or more cycles away?
| JohnBooty wrote:
| Yeah. How much of the M1's spectacular showing is process
| advantage, how much is superior design, and is any of this
| sustainable?
|
| I think the M2 series chips will give us a pretty good idea.
|
| Of course it's also worth noting that the M1 didn't come from
| nowhere. We already have lots of other data points. Apple's
| A-series processors have been competing very well with x86 for
| a while now. For example, here's the A14 compared to its x86
| contemporaries in 2020:
|
| https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
|
| Raw performance was very close, and perf/watt was stellar
| relative to x86. And these were Apple's _mobile_ chips; they
| weren 't even targeting laptop/desktop performance at that
| point. So from a CPU perspective it suggests that they've had
| the ability to compete with Intel on more than favorable
| footing for quite some time now, and I wouldn't expect that
| advantage to dissipate soon either.
| FullyFunctional wrote:
| Annecdata: I was editing a movie in FCPX on my 27" iMac (Intel)
| w/64 GiB and it kept crashing. Reluctantly, I restarted on my 13"
| MBA (M1) and finished with no problems. Granted there might have
| been something specific to my circumstances, but I was very
| impressed with the performance on the lowest-spec M1 laptop.
|
| IMO, the M1 laptops are fairly priced, but the Mac Pros have been
| poor value in the past. I'm really curious to see if that
| changes.
| e40 wrote:
| _> IMO, the M1 laptops are fairly priced, but the Mac Pros have
| been poor value in the past. I 'm really curious to see if that
| changes._
|
| I, too, am curious how the new Mac Pros are priced. I have a
| 2013 Mac Pro I paid around $3,800 for. Still using it. Last
| fall it had a significant performance drop, which I attribute
| to the Intel security mitigations (it was apparent after a
| security update to Big Sur).
|
| The current Mac Pros are very much out of my range, but the
| processors in those things are so expensive. They might be able
| to lower the price a lot, to the level that the 2013 was at.
| Hoping, at least.
| wffurr wrote:
| Hoping the new MacBook Air redesign comes in smaller than the
| current 13" model. I'm looking to upgrade from a 2014 11" MacBook
| Air, which was one of my favorite computers I've ever owned, but
| the performance was never great. Vastly better performance in a
| similar form factor and a jaunty color to boot would be a really
| great upgrade.
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| Personally I'm expecting the Air revamp to bear a strong
| resemblance to the discontinued 12" MacBook, with the big
| differences being:
|
| - Screen with taller aspect ratio and notch
|
| - Keyboard with slightly more travel
|
| - Die-shrunken M1 CPU (M2 will probably be for flagship models
| only, similar to latest A-series in iPhones/iPads)
|
| It'll undoubtedly work better than when they tried that with
| Intel CPUs.
| ngcc_hk wrote:
| Macbook is the one I bought to side with 15". Still waiting
| for the same form factor and weight to get another macbook.
| Do have a m1 to get my feet wet.
| baq wrote:
| I begrudgingly admit that the M1 Air is one of the best
| computers ever made, having never liked Apple as a company. Not
| sure what kind of smaller you're aiming for, but that thing is
| borderline too small, which is just about perfect.
| skohan wrote:
| Agree, it's a fantastic product. Performance is great, form
| factor is great. I don't every really think about the
| computer at all, just what I'm doing with it, which is
| perfect.
|
| If anything, I think the perfect machine for me would be a
| 15" macbook air. Same thin design, slightly larger chassis
| with an edge-to-edge screen. I don't need more performance,
| but a little more screen real-estate would be nice.
| jeffbee wrote:
| There's literally no information in this article.
| theonething wrote:
| I'm still incredulous that the M1 only supports one external
| monitor. Pro and Max support two, but still, in this day and age,
| supporting only one external is ridiculous.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Have you used an M1?
|
| It _does_ suck, but the incredible speed made the tradeoff
| worth it for me.
| penjelly wrote:
| i had one and returned it because of this i KVM between devices
| and like using the same setup so it broke the deal for me.
|
| seems m1 is still highly praised though so maybe i should
| reconsider..
| gnicholas wrote:
| Apparently the M1 can support an external plugged monitor and
| an iPad via SideCar. Not a big monitor, to be sure, but it's
| not nothing. [1]
|
| 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_pBL2fMux0
| gimboland wrote:
| Yeah, I do this; 2020 M1 13" MBP; 4K external monitor and
| iPad Pro on Sidecar, plus I keep the laptop open so I have
| three screens. I find Sidecar a _bit_ flaky (it disconnects
| or freezes a bit too often to be breezily accepted), but with
| a big iPad (mine is basically A4 paper sized) and SwitchResX
| in play, it 's not bad at all.
|
| Edit: ... and having said all that, I'm looking forward to
| upgrading some time in the next year and going back to two
| "proper" external monitors. I'll still love using the
| Sidecar'ed iPad Pro as a second screen when working in cafes,
| though...
| tempnow987 wrote:
| Ridiculous for their entry level product?
| penjelly wrote:
| their previous entry level models did
| d3nj4l wrote:
| The Max supports three external monitors!
| orhmeh09 wrote:
| The M1 Mac Mini can drive two monitors.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| M1 Mac Mini in my office has 2 external monitors, one connected
| with HDMI and another one with thunderbolt (usb c).
| whatch wrote:
| Right, m1 supports up to 2 displays, including built-in one.
| penjelly wrote:
| the commenter is referring to the m1 mac mini which is a
| desktop device last i checked. which does support 2
| external monitors
| whatch wrote:
| M1 computers work with >1 external displays almost flawlessly
| with DisplayLink-capable dock-station/adapter. Dock stations
| are shit though. I use dell d6000 and do not recommend it. It's
| hot and USB ports on it stopped working. Charging and display
| outputs still work. And it's expensive.
| cosmotic wrote:
| So it's flawless and shit? Am I missing something?
| crims0n wrote:
| Not to take away from your point, but Max supports 4 displays.
| penjelly wrote:
| meta: usually i don't see comments > post score unless the
| content is poor.. this is good news from apple though, what
| gives?
| Hamuko wrote:
| I'm still just desperately waiting for the M1 Pro Mac Mini.
| barkerja wrote:
| Seriously! I have been awaiting a "Pro" Mini for a while now.
| Only reason I haven't pulled the trigger on the current M1 Mac
| Mini is due to the limits on ram (16GB).
| smm11 wrote:
| Getting a new iMac one of these days.
| [deleted]
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| I'm not much of an Apple/MacOS fan, but I do think I may get an
| M2 based laptop (esp the M2Pro when those become available).
| Didn't want to jump on the M1 bandwagon since it was still pretty
| new. Also by the time M2's are available maybe the Linux on M*
| Mac story will be better?
| skohan wrote:
| I avoid first-gen products almost as a rule, but M1 has
| delivered on promise amazingly.
| mgh2 wrote:
| Ready to take on Windows' PC market
| nebula8804 wrote:
| Windows 11 ARM runs blazing fast when virtualized on the M1
| Mac. The best Windows machine is ironically a Mac. Only problem
| is...its Windows 11 :/
|
| I think Windows 10 ARM images are floating around but it seems
| like Microsoft has discontinued them.
|
| Wish there was a way to properly virtualize Windows 7 or just
| to even see earlier Windows OS run in this M1 environment.
| vmception wrote:
| in that combination, can I run all those cool indie games on
| Steam that are Windows only? or are they really x86 windows
| only? for some reason I was just hoping they only needed some
| APIs from Direct X instead of actual architecture
| wmf wrote:
| Games are x86 only but Windows has emulation so they should
| work.
| dahfizz wrote:
| I'm going to guess that 99.9% of games ship x86 executables
| / dlls. Even if the developers used something like PyGame,
| the code is compiled before distribution.
| yardie wrote:
| Bought my MBA 13 days ago. I have 24 hours to decide if I want to
| return it for a full refund or not...
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Keep it. It's not like it's crap. If they really do release a
| must-have feature on the next one, the upgrade cost isn't
| _that_ bad (especially on an inexpensive computer like an MBA).
| In the meantime enjoy the M1.
| pl0x wrote:
| You can always resell it later. Just don't get apple care and
| any additional accessories.
| runjake wrote:
| Just keep it and trade it[1] in this Summer when the new models
| ship.
|
| 1. You'll get much less from Apple, but its still decent and
| better than dealing with randoms on Craigslist and eBay.
|
| I did this with my 16" Intel MBP that I purchased about 4-5
| months before the Apple Silicon MBP 13" was announced. I don't
| regret it a bit.
| rdtwo wrote:
| Return it if you payed more than current stock x price.
| rozenmd wrote:
| Hah, I did this with a 16" MBP when rumours came out that they
| were building ARM CPUs. Now writing this on the MBA 13" M1.
| furtive808 wrote:
| The new MBA likely won't be announced until WWDC and come out
| shortly thereafter. It will also likely have design language
| that reflects the new iMac. Let that temper your decision
| making.
| paxys wrote:
| This is an unwinnable game. The moment you purchase something a
| newer, better version will be announced.
| FredPret wrote:
| It's an unlosable game! Stuff keeps getting better
| brundolf wrote:
| I think I lost a little bit when I bought a specced-out MBP
| 16" in 2019 ;)
| andrewstuart wrote:
| I wonder if this will include the Mac Mini - over the years the
| Mac Mini hasn't been updated particularly frequently, and it only
| just got an update to the M1 chip.
|
| I know the article mentions Mac Mini but Apple doesn't seem to
| have been super enthused about it's lowest end machine in the
| past.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| I have been working on a number of projects involving ARM64
| assembly lately. My take is that we haven't even begun to max out
| the potential of Apple Silicon.
|
| First, many apps still run on Rosetta2. When they are finally
| converted, libraries and all, to native ARM code, that is real
| low-hanging fruit yet to be picked.
|
| Second, my sense--this isn't something I have data for--is that
| the code that is output by compilers can be further optimized
| much much more than for x64. One example is library routines not
| using all of the available hardware algorithms, e.g., in
| cryptogrpahy.
|
| Third, optimizing multithreaded programs for performance vs.
| efficiency cores. If there's an easy way of doing this, I
| couldn't find it. I implemented it myself. Making sure intensive
| tasks are on the performance cores and not randomly assigned to
| the efficiency cores makes a difference. OS handles this most of
| the time, I think.
|
| Fourth, Apple could open up some of the internal compute stuff
| that you need their frameworks for.
|
| Some combination of these things could see our existing M1s feel
| faster for a long time. If the M2 is a big improvement (hopefully
| in cores and RAM), I look forward to trying one.
| nebula8804 wrote:
| This is music to my ears. Thank you for your efforts. When I
| first started using my M1 Mac, it was like a computer from
| another planet. It was so freaking fast it took me back to the
| 90s/early 2000s when every upgrade was a night and day
| improvement. I could never believe a computer could be so
| snappy in everyday usage. It just brings joy every time I use
| it. Meanwhile I have this 2019 Core i9 Macbook pro at work and
| it is a slug compared to the M1.
| garbagecoder wrote:
| I had the same experience. When I got the DTK I couldn't
| believe it was running almost everything in emulation and was
| going to sell for about $500. And that wasn't even an M1.
|
| Exploring all of its unique nooks and crannies has definitely
| taken me back too!
| jsight wrote:
| More RAM for all please!
| yumraj wrote:
| Sure, but it'll come at $400 to upgrade from 16GB to 32GB :(
| dheera wrote:
| I love my $200 64GB with my Framework Laptop.
|
| Fuck Apple they should be sued for price gouging.
| dymk wrote:
| That's not what gouging is.
|
| How's that battery life treating you?
| smoldesu wrote:
| Did I miss something, or is RAM price somehow related to
| battery life?
|
| Edit: your response has literally nothing to do with the
| parent comment or my comment, so I'm not even going to
| engage with you on this.
| dymk wrote:
| Enjoy these recent user reviews of the Framework Laptop:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29808181
|
| > As has been noted time and time again, battery life is
| atrocious. As in unusable for even the travel time
| required for a three hour flight: factoring in the poor
| sleep, an hour at the airport, and time on the aircraft
| the battery is dead. Crazy for 2021/2022 - my eight year
| old Macbook does better.
|
| Basically, the Framework Laptop seems to hardly even fit
| the description of "laptop" in 2022. Certainly not
| comparable to a Macbook Pro if one is going to complain
| about price.
| dheera wrote:
| Battery life isn't a huge concern for me, there are
| outlets everywhere these days, even on planes, but user-
| swappable SSD and RAM are absolutely non-negotiable for
| me, as is the ability to run Linux natively, and actual
| function keys. Macs are unusable.
|
| That said if I'm not doing number crunching I can easily
| get through 4 hours or more and that's plenty good for my
| use case.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > they should be sued for price gouging
|
| Price gouging laws relate to raising prices in an
| emergency, which is not something they've done, or for
| people in a monopoly position for the product, which is not
| Apple as there's a huge market of laptops.
|
| It's not illegal to price something higher than you'd like.
| radicaldreamer wrote:
| A MacBook Air with 32GB RAM would be a dream
| Consultant32452 wrote:
| A MacBook Air that can push 2 external monitors is mine
| azangru wrote:
| Why do you all dream of Airs and not of Pros?
| vmception wrote:
| I waited and got the 64gb ram one
|
| Not enough to run a Solana node but I think it covers all of
| last decades use cases that i would encounter
| cosmotic wrote:
| I was worried 16GB wouldn't be enough considering my Windows
| machine would crash with docker+chrome+IDEA due to out of
| memory errors; my m1 mac with 16GB has all that plus countless
| other apps and runs very well.
| megablast wrote:
| I went for M1 8gb to M1 16gb, mainly dev machine.
|
| No change.
| f6v wrote:
| Is there a physical limit on improvements they'll hit soon? I
| mean, there's probably so much they can do considering heat and
| power requirements. But I'm totally ignorant about CPU
| architectures.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| I think that question applies to transistor/feature size in
| general. Look to TSMC's process roadmap.
| skohan wrote:
| Isn't M2 potentially the first 3nm process to be released?
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Not just on the physical side. I suspect there are still some
| architectural improvements that we'll see with the M2.
| They've had more time to characterize various types of
| workloads and that should feed back into architectural
| improvements.
| mrtesthah wrote:
| I bet there will be architectural improvements, but in the
| long run, those can only go so far in comparison to process
| improvements (or even brand new technology like optical or
| quantum computing, or who knows what else).
| fulafel wrote:
| The physics limits of a Mac size computer performance involve a
| black hole density and matter organised to form optimal quantum
| computing devices. You would need to be a very optimistic Apple
| fan to expect this in the near future.
| paxys wrote:
| Well, yeah, that's Apple's standard hardware upgrade cycle.
|
| Breaking - iPhone 13 expected to get upgraded this year with
| upgraded chip, more features.
| fartcannon wrote:
| Or basically the same chips, slightly faster but changed just
| enough to exploit the human need for 'new'. But fuck the earth,
| there's a new iphone.
| jitl wrote:
| Not for the Intel machines. MacBook Pro got at least a CPU bump
| about every 12-18 months, but machines like the Air, Mini or
| Mac Pro could go several years without any update at all.
| https://infonewt.com/apple-release-patterns/#macbook-pro
| rootusrootus wrote:
| Exactly. A yearly bump for all the computers like they
| currently do for the phone would be a huge improvement.
| paxys wrote:
| The first batch of M1 machines were released in Nov 2020.
| Assuming the refresh happens later this year that's still a
| 1.5-2 year cycle, similar to the old Macbooks.
|
| Plus, even the Intel Macbooks that didn't always get flashy
| marketing or design updates still had their processors
| bumped up behind the scenes pretty frequently.
| e40 wrote:
| The 2013 Mac Pro went 6 years without an update. 2013 to
| 2019.
| shalmanese wrote:
| Spoiler: It will be the best iPhone they've ever made
| whatch wrote:
| I thought that the previous one was the best
| turminal wrote:
| This title reads like they are going to put new chips into
| existing and already purchased computers :(
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| That's because the headline is not what the author actually
| wrote, which was: "every Mac line is due for a refresh this
| year"
|
| The editors dropped a key word.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| Over the air software update ;)
| xoxxala wrote:
| If Elon Musk ran Apple, that's the way it would work.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| This evokes in me an image of a laptop built with fully
| reconfigurable hardware (something like an FPGA).
|
| Imagine if you could actually download a faster processor :)
| kuhsaft wrote:
| You can (and most likely already do) with microcode [0] :)
|
| [0] https://www.anandtech.com/show/16549/rocket-lake-
| redux-0x34-...
| cosmotic wrote:
| As cool as these things run, an over-the-air update that just
| lets it run a bit hotter could work surprisingly well,
| especially for devices with fans.
| throwaway889900 wrote:
| In the future, nanobots will accept an over-the-air hardware
| upgrade and reassemble your CPU to a new configuration.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| ...inside your brain.
|
| As long as you're paid up.
| bitwize wrote:
| Yes but can we download more RAM?
| FredPret wrote:
| You put your existing chip in the microwave to encode the
| upgrade electromagnetically
| smoldesu wrote:
| Finally, the successor to Apple Wave!
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| I don't understand the magic at work in an 8gb M1 macbook air.
|
| If i run android emulator (consuming 4-6Gb) + iPhone simulator
| (1-2Gb) + react native hot reload toolchain (1-4gb) + vscode
| (1-2gb) + firefox (1-3gb) all concurrently, then my memory
| pressure is around 65%, i have about 3gb swapped but very little
| paging activity.
|
| Everything feels snappy.
|
| What is this magic? I was convinced it would be the speedy SSD
| masking the page faults but there's very little swapping going
| on.
|
| Quite taken with it tbh. Still think MacOS is crap overall
| though. Soon as linux is viable on M1 as a daily driver, i am
| checking out of macos.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| It's mainly three things:
|
| - ram compression (fast CPU helps that this is non-noticeable)
|
| - aggressive swapping on a fast SSD (you'll notice that macOS
| swaps unused pages even if there is ram left to make space for
| file caches)
|
| - the M1 is just very fast, especially ram, so it's snappy
| overall
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| These are all true, but you're missing the main one.
|
| "Apple Silicon" is very highly optimized for strict reference
| counting (instead of garbage collection). The retain/release
| performance is just off-the-wall -- even in Rosetta. Details
| here: https://blog.metaobject.com/2020/11/m1-memory-and-
| performanc...
|
| Anecdotally, I spent most of last year in Docker, XCode and
| Node on an 8gb Air, smoove sailing
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| I don't think that's at all the main one given OP's list of
| apps. It'll accelerate things built in Apple's Swift/ObjC
| ecosystem, but it's not going to help node, android, react
| native toolchain, etc.
|
| And regardless of that, the instructions speed the atomic
| operations required when updating references in a
| mulithreaded environment. It's lowering active CPU use.
| They're not going to do anything to reduce the impact of a
| mostly idle application in the background on the rest of
| the system.
|
| The reference counting mechanism itself does mean you don't
| have to walk memory as much to do garbage collection, which
| risks pulling rarely used memory back in from swap. But
| that was true on the Intel Macs, too.
| tempnow987 wrote:
| Interesting. I don't think retain/release itself is helping
| with the memory, but reference counting very much seems
| like it would, and the retain / release speed makes that
| possible?
|
| It's kind of crazy how well 8GB does. On a PC when you have
| all the pre-installed crapware +++ 8GB is really too low
| these days.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| That's true, I forgot that!
|
| There's also this informative comment [1] from the post
| author (Marcel Weiher) explaining some details:
|
| "This doesn't use less RAM, it decreases the performance
| cost of using the more frugal RC."
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25208007
| CraigJPerry wrote:
| Now that's a piece of the puzzle i hadn't heard of before.
| I knew about the memory compression, and iStat menus does a
| decent job of visualising it but this, this is new to me.
|
| HN is such a useful community for finding little tidbits of
| brain candy like this.
| ngngngng wrote:
| The swapping is crazy good, I had an insane memory leak on a
| process I was running and my swap was up to 60 gigs before I
| realized what was happening (slight UI stutters at that
| point) and killed the process.
| uniqueuid wrote:
| The degree to which swapping hurts responsiveness depends a
| lot on why and how it occurs.
|
| If swapping just means moving large contiguous pages that
| are completely inactive, it's a bunch of writes which
| neither slows hot memory access nor the ssd.
|
| If, on the other hand, you're swapping out pages that
| frequently need to be re-read, that's another story.
|
| So if swapping works well, that's to some degree a sign
| that your software has bloated "dead" memory regions.
| astrange wrote:
| Memory leaks typically don't swap back in, so affect
| performance less than you'd think. Something like a GC
| scan can swap them though.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| Possibly they improved caching algorithms? Cache misses are
| expensive.
| [deleted]
| fredwu wrote:
| Interesting. I had the opposite experience. I had a 16GB M1,
| and once the RAM is exhausted it grinds to a halt - everything
| lags, including simple tasks like switching browser tabs, every
| now and then the spinning beach ball of death would come on. It
| was the worst experience I've had in a modern laptop.
|
| Now I'm on a 64GB M1 Max and things are super snappy again.
| (Monterey on the other hand is buggy as hell, simple things
| like tap to click and pinch to zoom are broken. [1])
|
| [1] https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/tap-to-click-issues-
| on-...
| nostromo wrote:
| Try using Safari instead of Chrome. Chrome on M1 is a
| lackluster experience. Safari is amazingly fast, even with a
| hundred open tabs.
|
| You can tell Apple has been optimizing a web browser on their
| own silicon for a long time.
| marricks wrote:
| Maybe a lot of user issues regarding lag wasn't GB of memory
| which everyone made it out to be but really slow OS and Intel
| chips getting progressively slower all those security
| patches...
| draw_down wrote:
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| I wonder if CPU architecture differences have any perceptible
| impact on user experience. It may be my imagination but back
| during the PowerPC - Intel transition it felt like the two
| CPU archs had different "responsiveness profiles" with the OS
| stalling or feeling bogged down at differing
| times/situations.
| [deleted]
| mcphage wrote:
| I know OS X has had a feature for compressing data in RAM on
| the fly--the processor is much faster than RAM, so compressing
| & uncompressing & loading a smaller amount of data was faster
| than just loading the larger amount of uncompressed data. That
| might be what you're seeing.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| I'm keeping an eye on Asahi Linux for M[12]. Other than the
| CPU, I don't much care for the entirety of the Apple
| experience, but that's me. This M1's absolute silence with all
| the cores running and its battery life are wonderful.
| moonchrome wrote:
| What makes you think a reverse engineered driver set, with no
| official docs, on a custom and closed platform - is going to
| offer anything close to M1 MacOS experience ?
|
| If you want a quiet device with low battery consumption and
| don't care about performance you can downclock/disable turbo
| boost and get that on other devices, with better Linux
| support.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| Probably with a performance penalty in comparison to the M1
| though, and the Apple chassis quality/design is something
| else, you just don't get it elsewhere.
|
| Considering what the Asahi team has been doing so far and
| their reports I'm positive the CPU isn't a problem (since
| it's ARM). If they can get decent GPU performance (power
| consumption mostly) I'll be all over them.
| philistine wrote:
| Is there a Linux laptop like that without a fan at all like
| the M1 Macbook Air?
| floatboth wrote:
| If you're fine with the performance of a 2-core Kaby Lake
| and rather big bezels around the display, the Google
| Pixelbook is pretty awesome otherwise.
| herpderperator wrote:
| I went from a 64GB RAM ThinkPad to a 8GB RAM M1 Air, and
| ditched my PC entirely. No fans, no noise, no heat, it's like a
| fairytale. Watching videos in 4k60 has very low CPU usage if
| any thanks to excellent hardware acceleration with modern
| browsers (especially Safari for obvious reasons). Many things
| to be impressed about.
| hughrr wrote:
| This.
|
| I am considering buying a 24" iMac now as well.
| snvzz wrote:
| >Watching videos in 4k60 has very low CPU usage if any thanks
| to excellent hardware acceleration with modern browsers
|
| This is in no way exclusive to Apple.
| herpderperator wrote:
| If you know of a laptop that runs Linux which isn't
| ChromeOS that can YouTube at 4k60 without its fans ramping
| up at all or being audible, I'd love to hear it. My
| experience has not been such.
| justinsaccount wrote:
| OS X does memory compression.
|
| A few years ago I was trying to reproduce a memory issue in a
| C++ app by sending it a ton of the same thing over and over
| again.. on my OS X laptop I couldn't reproduce the problem at
| all, until I had it send random data.
|
| If you open "Activity Monitor" and look at the memory tab, it
| will show you a value for "Compressed"
|
| see https://appleinsider.com/articles/13/06/13/compressed-
| memory... or similar for more info.
| noipv4 wrote:
| memory compression allowed me to to allocate and store 20GB
| of genomics data in memory on my old 16GB MBP. ZRAM in Linux
| allowed me to do the same.
| favorited wrote:
| Which is why, as an iOS developer, you should never respond
| to memory pressure notifications by actively freeing memory!
| You'll inevitably end up touching compressed memory pages in
| the process, _increasing_ your app 's memory use as pages get
| decompressed so you can free the allocations.
|
| [this is technically true on the Mac, but your Mac app isn't
| going to get jetsam'd like your iOS app will]
| slimsag wrote:
| Would this be the case if you just used the `free(3)`
| syscall, and didn't otherwise touch the memory?
|
| I can imagine destructors in most languages involving
| touching the memory, just curious if a free syscall alone
| does it or not.
| astrange wrote:
| Above 16KB (one page) it's safer. Depends how much work
| you need to do to figure out what can be freed.
|
| It's better to free things as you go rather than wait for
| warnings.
| namibj wrote:
| Section 3 are library calls, section 2 has the actual
| syscalls.
| matvore wrote:
| Some related trivia. The `errno` command, for looking up
| syscall error codes, is not installed in `/usr/bin` in
| macOS like on typical Linux distros. But the same
| information is available in `intro(2)`, e.g.
| $ man 2 intro | grep -w 17 17 EEXIST File
| exists. An existing file was mentioned in an
| inappropriate
| xenadu02 wrote:
| This is not usually true. Memory compression prioritizes
| speed not compression ratio so even something like a bitmap
| from a JPEG source is not likely to be very compressed.
| Freeing the buffer is still a net win.
|
| Further the pages themselves (for a large allocation) don't
| all get touched when freed so the kernel can skip
| decompressing them.
|
| Measure the behavior of your application. Most of the time
| freeing cached values is the correct response to memory
| pressure, or use things like NSCache that handle it for
| you.
| astrange wrote:
| It is true except for freeing large allocations; that's
| the only safe thing. Calculating what you have to free
| can also be problematic, or running a GC which has to
| decompress pages to scan pointers etc. This will come up
| if you see your app getting background killed. If nothing
| bad happens then nothing bad happens, of course.
|
| You honestly shouldn't use NSCache as nobody understands
| what it does, or tests its eviction behavior, and what it
| actually does - evict everything under memory pressure -
| is probably the time you want your cache to work.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Windows 10 also enables memory compression by default, on
| Linux it is optionally available (zram); Android phones
| typically make use of it.
| fpoling wrote:
| On Linux there are also zswap with a compressed cache in
| front of the real swap. Depending on workload either zram
| or zswap may work better under the memory pressure.
|
| Also, there is a matter of the compression algorithm
| selection. With modern kernel using anything but lz4 or
| zstd is rather suboptimal.
|
| But then again I have Samsung 980 PRO SSD in my laptop and
| with it I just disabled memory compression and use the real
| swap. The read speed is like 2 times faster then lz4
| decompression and while the write speed is like 3 times
| less than lz4, it does not tax CPU which is a big bonus
| when I compile a big C++ project that does occasionally
| triggers the need for SWAP even with 32 GB of RAM.
| amelius wrote:
| Apple must explain what it is doing here, otherwise high
| performance programming becomes like a cargo cult.
| pwinnski wrote:
| They have explained, in some detail. Most of the explanation
| has already floated up above this comment.
| firecall wrote:
| > Still think MacOS is crap overall though
|
| And you were doing so well! ;-)
|
| WRT M1 hardware, thats my experience too!
|
| I picked up an M1 Mac mini 8/256 on the Apple Refurb Store as a
| stop gap machine whilst I waited for the Pro laptops. I ended
| up waiting a long time!
|
| But it was amazing. The 256GB drive was a bit tight, and fills
| up a little too quickly. But overall, it was the best computer
| I'd ever owned!
|
| In the early days I had USB related kernel panics, but later
| macOS updates seemed to fix all that!
|
| I replaced it with a 16" M1 Pro 16/1TB, and the Mac mini is now
| working out it's (hopefully) long life in my server cabinet!
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Quite taken with it tbh. Still think MacOS is crap overall
| though.
|
| So the amazing memory management you love so much is likely
| part of the crap os you don't.
|
| > Soon as linux is viable on M1 as a daily driver, i am
| checking out of macos.
|
| Might as well check out of the apple ecosystem and save
| yourself some money while you're at it. AMD is supposedly
| releasing an Arm SoC and theyre also working on one with
| Samsung (likely mobile). Whether either of them are
| Laptop/desktop ready or comparable to the M1 is unknown
| (unlikely competitive without a comparable software ecosystem).
| birdyrooster wrote:
| > MacOS is crap
|
| > linux
|
| Your opinions are insane.
| john_alan wrote:
| "Crap"
|
| I daily drive 3 Linux devices and 2 macOS. macOS isn't close to
| crap. It's better than Linux in some contexts and worse in
| others. Overall about par.
| _hl_ wrote:
| But that's just, like, your opinion, man.
|
| I think Windows is crap and yet it has billions (!) of users.
| carlhjerpe wrote:
| I'd argue that's because your use-case doesn't match that
| of billions of users. Microsoft has to make judgment calls
| based on user experience of billions of end users on both
| kernel and front-end parts whereas the the Linux kernel
| developers can care only about the power users, which makes
| for a great kernel with superpowers, but you also need
| superpowers to wield it.
|
| Yes desktop Linux is probably better these days for casual
| users of many degrees, but those users should probably be
| using ChromeOS (disregarding privacy questions, only UX)
| whereas the Linux desktop gives you the choices of
| boatloads of desktop environments and configurability.
| There's a reason Windows is the most used "computer
| operating system" (disregard android and ios).
|
| I'm very happy on Linux myself just to be clear, but there
| are reasons why we're just a few percent of the market, and
| using free as in Libre and gratis software mostly.
| dasloop wrote:
| Windows is crap, Linux is crap, macOS is crap... the crap
| frat in action. Maybe I'm too pragmatic, maybe OSs are
| difficult and engineers working on them deserve some
| credit. Maybe...
| mastazi wrote:
| I agree, even the GPU is impressive and I say that as someone
| whose main computer is a gaming PC with an RTX2080.
|
| But the mind-blowing part is the CPU where on some tasks I can
| get desktop-i9-like level of performance.
| pdpi wrote:
| > Still think MacOS is crap overall though. Soon as linux is
| viable on M1 as a daily driver, i am checking out of macos.
|
| This is a weird position to hold. You just argued why macOS
| does some fundamental things (at least memory management)
| really well.
| firecall wrote:
| It really is.
|
| Even if you dont like the macOS GUI, I dont think any
| reasonable evaluation could call macOS 'crap overall'.
|
| Distros like Ubuntu, are excellent, but they just dont have
| feature parity with macOS.
| drewzero1 wrote:
| It's possible to appreciate certain aspects of a product and
| still dislike the product as a whole. I appreciate how
| relatively easy it is to understand Windows' directory
| structure (for example) but that doesn't mean I want to use
| the whole OS on my own time.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Ye, I dislike the Unixy way of mounting hard drives where
| ever. There is some mental calmness of having the root of
| the HD at a drive letter in "My Computer" ...
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Hopefully Linux on the M1 won't introduce big issues. I
| remember daily driving a MacBook Pro 2014 or so and it was
| pretty horrible .
| deeg wrote:
| I have Ubuntu on a ~2017 MBP and except for the camera it
| works great. I had to fiddle with a few settings for quite a
| while to get sleep mode working well but other than that no
| problems.
|
| If I could get an M1 working as well with Ubuntu I'd switch
| in a second (currently on a Thinkpad).
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| cehrlich wrote:
| I hope they don't use the power efficient CPUs as an excuse to
| make the batteries smaller in the new entry level laptops. The
| current gen is glorious in that regard.
| azeirah wrote:
| Their batteries have been a huge marketing point. Doubt they
| will compromise.
|
| Though, with Apple, you never know.
| melenaboija wrote:
| I hate this, after weeks of thinking on whether moving back to
| Apple laptops or not after few years without them I finally
| decided to get the Mac Book Pro 16 and was going this afternoon
| to an Apple Store.
|
| I totally forgot that one of the bad things of Apple is the
| anxiety they create with the new releases. I may stay out of Mac
| world for few more years.
| m463 wrote:
| > I may stay out of Mac world for few more years.
|
| when you decide to jump back in, do it _after_ a refresh. :)
| whatch wrote:
| Just purchase something that's already "outdated". Did this
| with iphone 11 and macbook pro m1 last year. No regrets, no
| anxiety.
| d3nj4l wrote:
| The 14 and 16" MBPs aren't due for a refresh. The ones up right
| now are the air, the base model 13" pro and the mini. You can
| buy the 16" now and expect it to be top of the line for at
| least one more year.
| tqkxzugoaupvwqr wrote:
| The 16" was released three months ago. It will not be refreshed
| soon. The rumors you read around Apple's releases are just
| click bait because these websites want to generate ad
| impressions.
|
| Check https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#mac to see which
| device was released recently.
| melenaboija wrote:
| Thanks! It was just a feeling I forgot, I know that they were
| released few months ago but now I already know about M2.
|
| To me is not a secret that Apple uses this strategy, and I
| have been a happy Apple user for years.
|
| Anyway, at least i collected few downvotes from the Apple
| fanboys :)
| macintux wrote:
| Thank you, I've been trying to remember where that buyer's
| guide lived.
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is good news. I was about 95% of the way to purchasing a 14"
| MBP this weekend. The 13" is what I really want, having had a
| late 2013 13" model prior.
|
| I'm on a surface laptop 3 at the moment, but its pretty garbage
| compared to my experience with Apple previously. The keyboard is
| already starting to go out on me after barely 2 years of light
| use. I don't even write software on this thing.
|
| Assuming Apple doesn't shank this refresh with a stealth removal
| of magsafe or Fn key swap for touchbar, I'll be somewhere at the
| front of the line on launch day.
| gaoshan wrote:
| Your last sentence made me laugh out loud as I imagined them
| announcing the space bar was now a touchbar.
| hammock wrote:
| My understanding is that the 14"MBP is supposed to be ~the same
| form factor as the 13"MBP, except the bezels are smaller so you
| get a bigger screen in the same size package. Am I wrong?
| Cockbrand wrote:
| The 14" is larger than the 13" Pro it replaces. It's about
| the same size as the 13" Pro before that, i.e. the one that
| still had USB type A ports.
| rz2k wrote:
| Why not just get a 13" MBA, then sell it in a year if the M2 is
| worth it? The 13" MBA isn't heavy like the 14" model, it's
| relatively cheap for being significantly more responsive than
| the Intel 13" MBPs, and it will preserve most of its resale
| value.
| gnicholas wrote:
| Not parent, but I'm in the exact same boat. For me, the 13"
| MBA doesn't cut it because of the lack of ports. If there had
| been an M1 MBA with MagSafe + 2 USB-C, I'd have gone for it.
| But instead I'm holding out for the MBP, which will give me
| three USB-C ports, SD, and HDMI (assuming it matches the
| other MBPs).
|
| The main downsides of the the MBP for me are: (1) it will
| cost more, (2) AppleCare will cost more, and (3) it will be
| somewhat heavier.
|
| But for extra USB ports and an SD card slot, I'll take it.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _For me, the 13 " MBA doesn't cut it because of the lack
| of ports._
|
| Out of curiosity, why doesn't a powered Thunderbolt dock
| solve that problem for you? I went from a Mac mini to a
| (generally docked) MacBook Air, and that setup has worked
| great.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I don't work in one stationary location, and I don't want
| to worry about bringing yet another dongle/dock with me.
| I've had a couple docks over the years, and quality
| varies. I have friends who've found them to be very
| fiddly -- bumping the table disconnects their monitors
| and requires a couple minutes to get everything back in
| place.
|
| Oh, and they cost $150 to $250. After shelling out for a
| new computer, I don't want to spend hundreds more to have
| access to functionality that was included with every new
| MBP (and even some MBAs!) seven years ago.
| mastazi wrote:
| I've got the 13" MBA - I'm pretty impressed. My main computer
| is a beefy desktop gaming PC with an Intel i9 - but the MBA
| with M1 can do some of the tasks in a comparable time! The
| GPU is also impressive - better than any integrated GPU that
| I've tried before, and not that far behind the RX570 in my
| HTPC. I'm pleased that Apple is back to focusing on general
| computing after all those years focusing on mobile devices.
|
| Edit: I meant to say RX570 not RX560. The M1 GPU is actually
| slightly faster than an RX560 see e.g.
| https://askgeek.io/en/gpus/vs/Apple_M1-gpu-vs-AMD_Radeon-
| RX-....
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Because that's probably going to be the Apple purchase least
| likely to retain resale value in the history of their line-
| up?
| moonchrome wrote:
| 8gb version is so cheap (constantly on ~100EUR discount on
| Amazon, 950EUR right now) even if the % loss is high, total
| loss is low. I'm comparing it to new MBP pricing (13 inch
| M1 mbp seems pointless) which would be the alternative here
| - the cheapest m1x is 2.5x the price.
|
| Heck it be worth keeping as a backup device. The only
| question is - would 8gb version work for you.
| daemoens wrote:
| Also, I'd recommend buying it from Apple's education
| store for $100 off if there isn't anything cheaper. It's
| $200 off at Microcenter sometimes as well.
|
| https://www.apple.com/us-edu/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air
| kikowi wrote:
| Do you have any hands on experience with 13" MBA vs 14" or
| 16" MBP? I will be working from AirBnbs and coffee shops for
| the most part this year (digital nomad) and I am deciding
| which Macbook to take for fullstack web development.
|
| I am afraid 13" or 14" won't be big enough. I'm currently on
| 2015 15" MBP which is mostly fine and theoretically I am
| prepared to sacrificate some screen size for better mobility
| (smaller and lighter laptop).
| tedivm wrote:
| I have a 14 inch M1 and a 16 inch Intel- the M1 was
| primarily to test a bunch of ARM stuff. I've also had a
| 15inch for years.
|
| My take is that the 16 inch is a bit too big to be
| conveniently portable (especially on airplanes, it's
| impossible to use there). I don't think the 14 inch is
| unreasonably small, but it is noticeably smaller than what
| I'd like. I use external monitors though and have no
| problem, and I'd much rather carry the 14 inch around.
|
| One thing to note is that these are definitely on the
| heavier side for Apple, which is part of why I'm happier
| with the smaller one as my portable machine.
| ngngngng wrote:
| I was leaning towards the smaller models but because of
| availability and starting a new job I ended up with a 16"
| M1 Pro and I love it. Usually I prefer smaller items that I
| use daily but the screen real estate and battery life are
| worth it in my opinion. That being said, the specs on the
| base 14" and 16" are definitely overkill for web
| development. I've never had the fans turn on.
| cehrlich wrote:
| I've been working with a 13" MBA, coupled with a Lenovo 14"
| portable monitor. Obviously when I go to a coffee shop I
| leave the monitor at home. I like the setup.
| rz2k wrote:
| It depends on how much the screen size matters to you,
| though an iPad using Sidecar might be worth looking at for
| additional screen real estate.
|
| I put off upgrading a 2016 13" MacBook Pro, thinking that
| the second iteration of the M1 would be worth the wait. I
| should have just gone ahead and upgraded earlier. The best
| thing about the upgrade is that it hasn't been an exciting
| at all. Instead, all of the minor annoyances of my older
| laptop went away. It's the same size and weight as my old
| 13" MacBook Pro, but there is no beachball, no fan noise,
| and the battery lasts forever.
|
| I also like that it essentially looks the same as recent
| Intel MacBooks, so it isn't a special target for theft and
| doesn't look like I spent a ton of money on it.
|
| Here's a side by side comparison.[1] I think the single
| core Geekbench numbers are often the most relevant to how
| fast they "feel".
|
| One other note: How revolutionary will the M2 be? A lot of
| the star talent responsible for improvement in per core
| performance in the A14 (and M1) chips has been recruited
| away from Apple[2], so future progress might be slower as
| it has been for the A15.
|
| [1] https://everymac.com/ultimate-mac-comparison-
| chart/?compare=...
|
| [2] https://semianalysis.com/apple-cpu-gains-grind-to-a-
| halt-and...
| turtlebits wrote:
| Just switched jobs and got a M1 16". It's definitely
| bulkier and heavier than the previous gen Intel 16". If
| you're not at a desk and doing web dev, I would say go for
| the M1 Air. It's plenty fast and very portable.
| mdasen wrote:
| For what it's worth, the 14" MacBook Pro is nearly the same
| size. 0.34" wider (left to right) and only 0.35" deeper.
| Smaller bezels and the fact that the 14.2" screen is measured
| diagonally mean that it's actually not that much bigger than
| the 13.3" device (basically a third of an inch, 0.9cm). I was
| also worried about the size of the 14" MBP, but it's the best
| Apple machine I've ever owned and it's not even close (and I
| was coming from a 2020 13" MacBook Pro with one of the 28W
| processors).
|
| I'm skeptical of a refreshed 13" MBP. Apple doesn't like having
| products that only have minor differentiations and offering a
| screen size that is only half an inch wider seems to muddy the
| waters a lot. Offering a 13" MBP with M2 Pro would mean pricing
| it at essentially the same price point as the 14". The 16" is
| $200 more expensive (for comparable models) with a 2"
| difference.
|
| Likewise, people talked a lot about how the 13" MBP and the 13"
| MacBook Air were essentially the same machine, but the 13" MBP
| is $250 more. What does that get you? 500 nits instead of 400
| nits and 10-15% more battery? A fan that seems to never kick
| in? We know Apple is ditching the TouchBar which was the
| differentiator for the current M1 MacBook Pro (even if most
| people hated it, it did increase the cost of the unit).
|
| It just seems unlikely that Apple will want to offer a screen
| that is only half an inch less wide for basically the same
| laptop. And realistically, if they're moving to the notch and
| the 9:5.85 aspect-ratio (~16:10.4), they'll either need to
| increase the screen size from 13.3" or you'll end up with a
| narrower screen than the old 16:10. The 16:10 screen should be
| 11.3" wide so they'd need to boost it to 13.5" to keep the same
| width. At that point, what's the difference between the 14.2"
| and 13.5"? 0.7" on the diagonal, 0.6" in width. By contrast,
| the 16.2" is 2" more in the diagonal and 1.7" more in width - a
| significant difference when choosing which machine to purchase.
| The differentiation in screen size between a 14 and 16" MBP is
| 2.85x larger than the difference in screen size between a 13"
| and 14".
|
| Either Apple creates a 2022 13" MBP that's essentially an
| identical product to the MacBook Air or they create a product
| nearly identical to the 14" MacBook Pro.
| vmception wrote:
| What sold me on the 16" is that it is not larger than the 2015
| 15" models
|
| What wasn't good enough for you in the 14" line?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| The M2 may not actually offer a performance advantage over the
| M1Pro/Max. It will have a more "consumer" core setup.
|
| I suspect that we'll be seeing an M2Pro/Max, soon enough.
|
| That Air might be nice.
| zippergz wrote:
| I went from a 13 to the new 14. For the most part it feels like
| the same size as the old 13, but the screen is noticeably
| bigger. Other than price, it's hard for me to imagine anything
| that is better in the 13 than the 14...
| ehutch79 wrote:
| Just for reference, the 14 is not actually much bigger than the
| 13" at all. It's the reduction in bezels around the screen that
| does it
| bob1029 wrote:
| This is good to know. I probably need to take a trip to the
| store and compare for myself then. I didn't realize it was
| basically the same physical size as the older 13" models.
| HatchedLake721 wrote:
| Why old 13" instead of the new 14"?
|
| Same size but bigger screen with less bezels, and new keyboard
| technofiend wrote:
| I'm particularly excited about the fact that Apple has added 10
| gigabit support and reasonably priced it at $100 more on mac
| minis. Looking forward to the M2 refresh as long as it includes
| the mini.
| Kognito wrote:
| That's the expectation. Rumours suggest the form factor of the
| mini will be slimmed down too, given there's a lot of excess
| space in the chassis from the Intel days.
| technofiend wrote:
| As long as they leave plenty of thunderbolt ports.
| [deleted]
| hartator wrote:
| I really hope for a design form like the MacBook 12".
|
| CPU was really underpowered but it felt so small, cute, and
| optimized in term of reducing footprint. M2 can bring this form
| factor to the next level.
| ahmetsulek wrote:
| I still use 12" as my 13"Pro with touchbar (worst apple
| macbook) died several times and I'm tired of paying for it.
| megablast wrote:
| 12 was the best machine they made, maybe a little underpowered.
| With the M1/M2 it would be a dream.
| tim333 wrote:
| Yeah I'd like that too. I've got the M1 MBA but it's a bit
| bigger and heavier than I'd like.
| aryamaan wrote:
| Planning to buy a dev laptop and contemplating which M1 pro
| flavour I should go with? They come with in so many gpu cores
| options
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