Consumer Technology Report: The first Apple Silicon Macs will be the MacBook Pro and Air

[Dre801]

They sound pretty amazing from a performance/performance per watt standpoint.

[TwinIon]

On 11/11/2020 at 7:07 AM, ort said:

I really want to know more about what the fan in the Pro does or does not do.

 

Are we looking at the kind of deal where it doesn't matter at all and the Air and the Pro are equals and paying more for the Pro is silly and the fan is never used or barely matters?

 

Are we looking at the Air being seriously handicapped and not being able to get anywhere near the Pro due to the lack of heat dissipation?

 

Surely the truth is in the middle, but where?

 

Apple really didn't give us many real world numbers on these things. Hopefully reviewers have them now and the embargo lifts sooner rather than later. It should since they ship next week.

From the reviews I've read it seems the answer is that it takes something like 10min of sustained high level compute before the Air begins to throttle performance. Until then, it's just as fast as the Pro.

[TwinIon]

After looking through some reviews, I'm seriously impressed. I'm shocked they hit basically every goal you could ask for in a first release of a new architecture. It's faster, it's far more efficient (which means better battery life), and the emulation is good enough to be perfectly useable until everyone gets their native apps out. Even the IO is compatible thanks to USB4. Unless these things start to melt after a week of use or something, this could be the most successful architecture change ever.

 

I was skeptical of the emulation performance only because I don't think it's ever been done that well. I was also skeptical they would achieve both better performance and better battery life, expecting them to sacrifice one to meet the other, but it sure seems like they nailed both. I don't even own a Mac right now and I'm in awe of that they've done. Talk about a serious return on investment.

 

 

The only real questions that remain are how well future M chips will scale to the high end. I'm not dubious about their ability to build bigger or faster chips, but I'm just curious if Apple will stick with the complete SoC design for a Mac Pro. 

 

Now, if they can simply separate the GPU into a discrete chip, they'll have plenty of space for additional CPU cores, and they'll be able to expand the GPU into a real powerhouse. However, if the (quite impressive) GPU performance is dependant on being so tightly integrated, it could be a tougher nut to crack. The unified RAM also becomes a question here. While we've only seen an M1 paired to a max of 16GB of total memory, the Mac Pro is offered with GPUs that have between 8-64GB of video memory each, plus you have the max 1.5TB of system memory. I'm sure they've got a plan, I'm just so curious as to what they'll do.

 

I also don't really see the PC space responding to this anytime in the foreseeable future.

 

With their expertise in GPUs and their acquisition of ARM, nVidia seems to be best positioned to build a an M-series competitor, but even if they wanted to they'd likely be years away. Qualcomm has been building their 8cx chips for a couple years now, but they've never impressed. Meanwhile the gap between Apple's A series and the rest of the ARM mobile world seems to have grown. Google is said to be building chips that could debut in the Pixel 6, but even if they get close to A-series performance (a dubious proposition at best), it would likely take years to build any kind of competitor for the PC space, assuming they even had any interest in doing so. Samsung is in a similar spot of maybe being able to build something, but probably not anything too competitive.

 

Even if any of those companies did start making up ground, they'd still have to face the fact that they'd only be building part of the stack, and would then have to rely on Microsoft to make sure Windows for ARM doesn't find itself back in the grave. I suppose Google could put out a Chrome OS device, but that's not terribly exciting.

 

Hopefully I'm wrong, and some crack ARM/nVidia skunkworks team is poised to really compete with Apple, but at this point it's hard to imagine. I'm so impressed by what Apple has done here, and I really hope the rest of the industry finds ways to compete.

 

[ort]

Yeah, the initial reports are all amazing. It's kinda funny how Apple seemed to drop these with so little fanfare compared to how big of a leap these are.

 

I think I'll be going with the Air. I want the 16GB of RAM and I need a 1TB drive, so saving the extra $300 will help. I honestly don't need the extra speed and the battery life is so good, the extra on the Pro won't matter. I'm 100% neutral on the Touch Bar.

[Jason]

People are seriously shooting rope over how these things perform.

[Ghost_MH]

On 11/17/2020 at 4:05 PM, TwinIon said:

After looking through some reviews, I'm seriously impressed. I'm shocked they hit basically every goal you could ask for in a first release of a new architecture. It's faster, it's far more efficient (which means better battery life), and the emulation is good enough to be perfectly useable until everyone gets their native apps out. Even the IO is compatible thanks to USB4. Unless these things start to melt after a week of use or something, this could be the most successful architecture change ever.

 

I was skeptical of the emulation performance only because I don't think it's ever been done that well. I was also skeptical they would achieve both better performance and better battery life, expecting them to sacrifice one to meet the other, but it sure seems like they nailed both. I don't even own a Mac right now and I'm in awe of that they've done. Talk about a serious return on investment.

 

 

The only real questions that remain are how well future M chips will scale to the high end. I'm not dubious about their ability to build bigger or faster chips, but I'm just curious if Apple will stick with the complete SoC design for a Mac Pro. 

 

Now, if they can simply separate the GPU into a discrete chip, they'll have plenty of space for additional CPU cores, and they'll be able to expand the GPU into a real powerhouse. However, if the (quite impressive) GPU performance is dependant on being so tightly integrated, it could be a tougher nut to crack. The unified RAM also becomes a question here. While we've only seen an M1 paired to a max of 16GB of total memory, the Mac Pro is offered with GPUs that have between 8-64GB of video memory each, plus you have the max 1.5TB of system memory. I'm sure they've got a plan, I'm just so curious as to what they'll do.

 

I also don't really see the PC space responding to this anytime in the foreseeable future.

 

With their expertise in GPUs and their acquisition of ARM, nVidia seems to be best positioned to build a an M-series competitor, but even if they wanted to they'd likely be years away. Qualcomm has been building their 8cx chips for a couple years now, but they've never impressed. Meanwhile the gap between Apple's A series and the rest of the ARM mobile world seems to have grown. Google is said to be building chips that could debut in the Pixel 6, but even if they get close to A-series performance (a dubious proposition at best), it would likely take years to build any kind of competitor for the PC space, assuming they even had any interest in doing so. Samsung is in a similar spot of maybe being able to build something, but probably not anything too competitive.

 

Even if any of those companies did start making up ground, they'd still have to face the fact that they'd only be building part of the stack, and would then have to rely on Microsoft to make sure Windows for ARM doesn't find itself back in the grave. I suppose Google could put out a Chrome OS device, but that's not terribly exciting.

 

Hopefully I'm wrong, and some crack ARM/nVidia skunkworks team is poised to really compete with Apple, but at this point it's hard to imagine. I'm so impressed by what Apple has done here, and I really hope the rest of the industry finds ways to compete.

 

 

AMD was pretty much there like five years ago. The Opteron A1100 was a fantastic CPU. I still have one in production because I can't find a faster 32bit ARM CPU. No OEMs signed up 5 years ago and AMD then abandoned the line. Sucks because it was a genuinely great CPU back then.

[Dre801]

I may get an Air.  I've only ever been an iOS user, so this could finally be my first actual Mac.

 

[ort]

I ordered one. A MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 1TB Hard Drive.

 

Very excited... 2-3 weeks for delivery though... boo...

[Jason]

1 hour ago, ort said:

I ordered one. A MacBook Air with 16GB RAM and 1TB Hard Drive.

 

Very excited... 2-3 weeks for delivery though... boo...

 

Is it the one with the 7 or 8 core GPU?

[ort]

I just stuck with the 7-core model.

 

The more I read the more I feel like I probably didn't really need the 16GB of RAM either.

 

It sounds like we kinda need to rethink how much RAM we need with these machines.

[TwinIon]

We've got some initial rumors of what more powerful M chips will be like. 

 

By late next year we're expected to get a chip with 16 and 32 high performance cores (as opposed to the 8 in the M1). These faster chips are expected to show up in MacBook Pros, iMacs, and "half-sized Mac Pros."

 

They're also investigating GPUs with 128 dedicated cores.

[tbca]

I will upgrade my MBP when they have those 32 HPC versions in the future. Very impressive work by Apple. They actually lived up to their own hype video it would seem.

[TwinIon]

33 minutes ago, tbca said:

I will upgrade my MBP when they have those 32 HPC versions in the future. Very impressive work by Apple. They actually lived up to their own hype video it would seem.

I do wonder if we'll see the 32 HPC versions in a laptop anytime soon. The 16 core versions probably, but if the 32 is meant for a "half sized Mac Pro," it might only find a home there and possibly in an iMac.

 

Though I suppose it could depend more on the GPU sizes. Maybe we'll see a 32 HPC MacBook Pro with a similar number of GPU cores and the desktops will be the only ones with those rumored enormous core counts on the GPU side. Perhaps a very large 32HPC w/ some GPU cores for notebooks, and then a similar chip for desktops, but with a dedicated GPU chip on the desktop?

 

The 8 GPU cores on the current M1 make up ~25% of the chip. It's hard to imagine fitting a 32 HPC cpu and even another 32 GPU cores in a single chip, much less 128 GPU cores.

[Jason]

On 11/22/2020 at 8:57 AM, ort said:

I just stuck with the 7-core model.

 

The more I read the more I feel like I probably didn't really need the 16GB of RAM either.

 

It sounds like we kinda need to rethink how much RAM we need with these machines.

 

How have you been liking it? I've been tempted to get the base Air model (7 core GPU, 256 GB storage, 8 GB RAM) at the education price of $899, especially since Apple apparently got rid of their restocking fee in January.

[Ghost_MH]

50 minutes ago, Jason said:

How have you been liking it? I've been tempted to get the base Air model (7 core GPU, 256 GB storage, 8 GB RAM) at the education price of $899, especially since Apple apparently got rid of their restocking fee in January.

 

I don't have the Air, but I do have the M2 Pro with 8GB of RAM which is pretty much just the Air with a fan.

 

Either way, I like it. Like the Surface Pro X, I'm just shocked at how well these machines emulate x86 applications. I think I'll give Apple the win here for quality of emulation, but everything I've downloaded on the Mac side has been from the store other than Parallels and that's a native M1 app. It's the complete opposite on Windows. Also, I had trouble flashing an FPGA from the M1 Mac Pro, but had zero trouble doing the same on the Surface X. Weird little things that affect all of like five people.

 

Battery life is solid and I really appreciate his quickly this thing wakes up from sleep. It's fast enough that you'll question whether the laptop actually ever did go to sleep. I actually haven't really messed with much in the east of MY native apps other than Parallels. That was mostly because I was curious to know if it would show emulation of an ARM-based OS. Huzzah for the whole three people out there in the world that care. You can totally run Ubuntu Server for ARM in Parallels on an M1 Mac with no trickier. It just runs fully native.

 

It's a great little laptop.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

I don't have the Air, but I do have the M2 Pro with 8GB of RAM which is pretty much just the Air with a fan.

 

Either way, I like it. Like the Surface Pro X, I'm just shocked at how well these machines emulate x86 applications. I think I'll give Apple the win here for quality of emulation, but everything I've downloaded on the Mac side has been from the store other than Parallels and that's a native M1 app. It's the complete opposite on Windows. Also, I had trouble flashing an FPGA from the M1 Mac Pro, but had zero trouble doing the same on the Surface X. Weird little things that affect all of like five people.

 

Battery life is solid and I really appreciate his quickly this thing wakes up from sleep. It's fast enough that you'll question whether the laptop actually ever did go to sleep. I actually haven't really messed with much in the east of MY native apps other than Parallels. That was mostly because I was curious to know if it would show emulation of an ARM-based OS. Huzzah for the whole three people out there in the world that care. You can totally run Ubuntu Server for ARM in Parallels on an M1 Mac with no trickier. It just runs fully native.

 

It's a great little laptop.

 

How often do you hear the fans come on? I know the Air slows itself down on sustained loads. But I feel strongly about no touchbar, plus cheaper is nicer.

[Ghost_MH]

31 minutes ago, Jason said:

How often do you hear the fans come on? I know the Air slows itself down on sustained loads. But I feel strongly about no touchbar, plus cheaper is nicer.

 

The touch bar still sucks, so that is perfectly valid. Changing volume still requires a press and then a swipe. I also can't figure out who would ever use the autocorrect on the touchbar.

 

Either way, I only heard the fan coming on when I'm running a Linux VM. If it's on any other times, it's either running so slow it's inaudible or my kids are just too loud. This is the opposite of my last Macbook that ran so hot so often and often sounds like a jet. Apple is REALLY bad at keeping their laptops cool in the name of slim with hidden vents. This CPU just runs cooler than Intel.

 

I was more concerned with the life of the CPU with worse cooling than getting more speed of of Apple's M1. That's the only reason I have a Pro over the Air.

[ort]

I love my Air... don't have a single bad thing to say about it. I'm not doing much to really push the M1 to it's limits, but everything feels super smooth and fast. Battery life is amazing and it practically never gets warm. Like at all. The hottest I've ever felt it get is ever so slightly warm... There have been times I've been using it when it's cold and kinda wish it would have heated up like in the past. It's pretty funny.

 

To compare and contrast, I got a 16" Intel MacBook Pro for work at basically the exact same time... and it feels ancient. It's so hot and feels slow and sluggish in comparison. The fans come on all the time.

 

If Adobe had their software ready to go I would have gone M1 for work, but I can't be messing around with any sort of transition hiccups...

[Jason]

13 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

 

The touch bar still sucks, so that is perfectly valid. Changing volume still requires a press and then a swipe. I also can't figure out who would ever use the autocorrect on the touchbar.

 

Either way, I only heard the fan coming on when I'm running a Linux VM. If it's on any other times, it's either running so slow it's inaudible or my kids are just too loud. This is the opposite of my last Macbook that ran so hot so often and often sounds like a jet. Apple is REALLY bad at keeping their laptops cool in the name of slim with hidden vents. This CPU just runs cooler than Intel.

 

I was more concerned with the life of the CPU with worse cooling than getting more speed of of Apple's M1. That's the only reason I have a Pro over the Air.

 

Yeah, I had the original Intel MacBook Pro and one time it caused a fucking welt on my leg, and I've had three of them at work, so I know all about how the thermals and jet engine sounds and stuff can get.

 

5 hours ago, ort said:

I love my Air... don't have a single bad thing to say about it. I'm not doing much to really push the M1 to it's limits, but everything feels super smooth and fast. Battery life is amazing and it practically never gets warm. Like at all. The hottest I've ever felt it get is ever so slightly warm... There have been times I've been using it when it's cold and kinda wish it would have heated up like in the past. It's pretty funny.

 

To compare and contrast, I got a 16" Intel MacBook Pro for work at basically the exact same time... and it feels ancient. It's so hot and feels slow and sluggish in comparison. The fans come on all the time.

 

If Adobe had their software ready to go I would have gone M1 for work, but I can't be messing around with any sort of transition hiccups...

 

What do you do with your Air? Ghost mentioned a Linux VM makes the fans kick in with his M1 MBP, but I probably wouldn't do any VMs since macOS is already *nix.

[ort]

Not much honestly. I mean, I use it all the time, but it's my personal computer and is used mostly for web browsing and storing a bunch of my media.

 

I was going to install Creative Cloud on there and see how it goes, but Adobe sprays files everywhere and isn't the cleanest of installs, so I'm avoiding it and just keeping this thing pristine. I'm honestly not doing much of anything at all to take advantage of the speed of this thing.

 

I can tell you this, a 3 hour zoom meeting on my 16" MacBook Pro makes it unpleasantly hot to the touch, fans on full spin and burns through like 60% of the battery... on my M1 Air, it never even gets warm and uses about 30% of the battery.

[Guest]

Definitely ordering a couple of those M1 iMacs for our school room. Lovely.

 

And like, a gigantic bag of those AirTags 

[Kal-El814]

Those iMacs look like big iPads that happen to run MacOS, and the iPad pros now have M1 chips that run iPadOS. What a world.

 

I’m happy we’re getting more color out of Apple again, the clear, color Macs from back in the day are obviously super dated looking now but I always enjoyed how they stood out.

[Jason]

12 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

Those iMacs look like big iPads that happen to run MacOS, and the iPad pros now have M1 chips that run iPadOS. What a world.

 

I’m happy we’re getting more color out of Apple again, the clear, color Macs from back in the day are obviously super dated looking now but I always enjoyed how they stood out.

 

The lamp iMac is still the best one.

[Kal-El814]

7 minutes ago, Jason said:

The lamp iMac is still the best one.

 

I’m a mark for that model, too. When I moved to Watertown, one of my college buddies / roommates used his iMac to burn bootleg DVDs of The Venture Bros and Aqua Teen Hunger Force from iDVD on one of those, it fucking ruled.

[TwinIon]

I'm not a huge fan of the new iMacs, and from my perspective they made some questionable trade-offs.

 

A lack of ports is a common issue with Apple, but going down to two USB 4/TB ports on the base model is a bummer. A lot of basic desktop accessories are still using USB A, and losing those ports is a bummer. As someone that typically uses the 3.5mm jack for speakers, having it on the side would annoy me.

 

I do think they mostly look good, but I'd much rather they be a bit thicker and lose the bezels. Apple obviously disagrees, but I think they'd still be striking computers at double the thickness but just being pure screen.

 

Of course, these computers are not meant for me.

[Kal-El814]

I like the new iMac look, but I think if I was going to go Mac desktop anytime soon it'd be a mini with a monitor. I don't think it's likely they'll hit that line up with color, so my wallet should be safe. I'm perhaps unwell when it comes to how I like my electronics to look.

 

The ports thing is weird. I honestly don't know anyone that's used a port on their device for anything other than extended monitor in literal years with the sole exception of photographers.

 

The most disappointing thing for me that Apple's done is re-allowed the Parler app on the App Store. If I didn't have almost 13 years worth of investment in the Apple ecosystem, I'd be tempted to move... except that google is objectively worse in terms of data privacy in every way.

[TwinIon]

I recently broke the screen on my 11" iPad Pro and I was waiting to see the new iPads before replacing it.  A week later and I'm still undecided.

 

I really want to integrate my iPad more completely into my photography workflow. It's great at family events to pull full RAWs from my DSLR, open them up in lightroom, do a few quick adjustments, and distribute a group photo then and there. The problem is right now I basically end up re-importing all those photos into Lightroom Classic and re-editing them. For a few quick pics at a party, it's no big deal, but I'd really like to be able to take a short trip with only my iPad for editing and then import those edits directly into lightroom when I get back.

 

If I was only using Lightroom CC, always had a fast data connection, and paid Adobe for a ton of creative cloud space, I think their expected workflow might work, but I don't really want to move to CC from Classic, don't always have a fast connection or want to transfer 100GB+ wirelessly, and I don't want to pay even more for adobe cloud storage.

 

I don't think we'll see it, but I'd love to be able to run the full Mac Lightroom app on an M1 iPad. When they announced they had the M1 in them I was briefly excited that some sort of fusion of MacOS was coming, or even the ability to run Mac OS natively. After reading this interview and listening to Apple's comments since, I'm pretty convinced that's not happening anytime soon.

 

Reading that interview I get the impression that the Apple answer to "I want to do more Pro things with my iPad Pro" is "we'll provide the hardware and hope that the software catches up eventually." Especially when the vast majority of iPads sold won't have an M1, it seems kind crazy for Adobe or anyone else to build apps for a small selection of iPads.

[Jason]

1 hour ago, TwinIon said:

I'm not a huge fan of the new iMacs, and from my perspective they made some questionable trade-offs.

 

A lack of ports is a common issue with Apple, but going down to two USB 4/TB ports on the base model is a bummer. A lot of basic desktop accessories are still using USB A, and losing those ports is a bummer. As someone that typically uses the 3.5mm jack for speakers, having it on the side would annoy me.

 

I do think they mostly look good, but I'd much rather they be a bit thicker and lose the bezels. Apple obviously disagrees, but I think they'd still be striking computers at double the thickness but just being pure screen.

 

Of course, these computers are not meant for me.

 

Apparently the new iMacs also can't be put into target display mode? Which is a shame since they have good displays and being able to repurpose them as additional monitors is a good way to keep them out of landfills, especially seeing as they're entirely non-user-upgradeable now.

[ort]

It's been a long time since you could use an iMac as an external display. Pretty lame.

[TwinIon]

18 hours ago, Jason said:

Apparently the new iMacs also can't be put into target display mode? Which is a shame since they have good displays and being able to repurpose them as additional monitors is a good way to keep them out of landfills, especially seeing as they're entirely non-user-upgradeable now.

That's a bummer. We only have two Mac users in our office and both had been running their old iMacs as target displays. It's one reason I don't like all-in-one desktops, but at least target display mode increased their useful life for a while.

 

I imagine that Apple wants their displays to be a differentiator, because otherwise I wouldn't  be able to understand why they don't sell monitors. I'd generally recommend the Mini over the iMac, but there's no way to get a similar quality display for a decent price. Hell, the 5K LG display sold by Apple is the exact same price as the new 24" iMac.

 

Apple is all about going green, and while they should be applauded for all their efforts, I hope at some point those efforts lead them to make different design decisions. My broken iPad Pro I mentioned earlier can't be fixed, the only option is to trade it in. I guess they recycle or refurbish what they can, but repair-ability, even if only possible by Apple themselves, would likely keep a bunch of stuff out of landfills.

[Kal-El814]

Apple’s own displays never sold all that well. They were super expensive and at the time they made them it was trickier to come by information about who was making the panel. I dunno that they could get away with an Apple tax on something that’s 5% Apple and 95% Samsung when it’s only a display.

[Ghost_MH]

The 27" 2020 5k iMac is the only actual good deal Apple has offered anytime in the past several years. I mean, yes, the same money can get you an LG 5k monitor and like, a NUC, but not one with discreet graphics. I'm actually shocked Apple didn't introduce those things starting at $2k.

 

...and that was replaced with a pretty meh deal of a 24" iPad Pro with no digitizer or battery.

[ort]

Got my airtag. Pretty snazzy... the little proximity detector on the phone with an actual arrow is really cool. I'll be getting more of these eventually. It's not super exciting, but I've never had a Tile or anything similar, so this is kinda new to me.

Unfortunately 3rd party keychains aren't really available and I don't like Apple's $29 version. Into the drawer with you until a decent keychain is cheap and available to ship. Maybe later I'll hide it on one of my kids and ask him to go hide and blow his mind when I immediatly find him every time.

[ort]

I don't really give two shits, but I have to say... the Airtag is the cheapest feeling Apple product I've handled in a long time. It feels flimsy and squishy and kinda looks cheap. From the front, it looks exactly like a cheap pin-on novelty button. Like the kind you would buy at a comic book store for a dollar to put on your backpack or whatever. The metal back has kind of a sharp unpleasant feel to the edge of it. Like it has a sticker on it you can't quite get off.

 

Airtags seem to be lacking the touchability of most Apple products. They feel like something made by a different company.

That said, I'd much rather get a $29 Airtag that feels like this and has a replaceable battery than whatever Apple's worst design tendencies would have produced... probably a perfect small sealed circle without a replaceable battery that costs $79 or something silly like that...

Maybe next year we're going to get the $129 Airtag Pro with Qi charging.

[Brian]

I planned on getting an airtag for my keys since I misplace them often but lol at the $35 keychain accessory. Are you suppose to tape this shit to the item you want to track?