[HN Gopher] Introducing the next generation of Mac
___________________________________________________________________
Introducing the next generation of Mac
Author : redm
Score : 379 points
Date : 2020-11-10 18:47 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.apple.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.apple.com)
| jere wrote:
| Any new security implications to having memory shared by
| everything on the chip?
| speedgoose wrote:
| No touchscreen?
| mrweasel wrote:
| No, because that would make it an iPad. While I don't see the
| need for a touchscreen on a laptop, I think Apple fear that it
| would hurt iPad sales.
| speedgoose wrote:
| An iPad with a good keyboard and an operating system that
| allows the user to do more things would be nice. Like running
| Linux for development, having a web browser that is not
| Safari inside, having to visual studio code...
| cma wrote:
| Are they doing any kind of x64 emulation, or is it a clean break?
| AnonHP wrote:
| Apple mentioned in the event that these Macs will have hardware
| verified secure boot. Since I'm not very knowledgeable in this
| area, can someone explain (or even try to guess) what this
| would/could mean for running Linux on these? I use Macs way
| beyond Apple's support timeframe with OS X/macOS, and Linux is
| the one that runs on some of the older Macs and provides adequate
| security and security related software updates.
| Asmod4n wrote:
| No Bootcamp for Apple Silicon Macs, you can't install any other
| Operating System on it. But you can run arm linux in a virtual
| machine.
| grishka wrote:
| So, a locked bootloader with someone else's public key as the
| only one trusted? Can you even call that a computer?
| rconti wrote:
| Betteridge's Law of Comments
| heavyset_go wrote:
| This exact issue is something Stallman[1] and others have
| talked about for a while now[2].
|
| [1] https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/can-you-trust.en.html
|
| [2] https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I use a mac for work (and paid for by work) but refuse to
| spend my money on something I can't use the way I would
| like to use it. I think that these companies shouldn't be
| able to lock you out of you using your
| tractor/car/computer like everyone seems to be moving
| towards. It's a real shame. I understand if they want to
| void the warranty because a user blew away some critical
| firmware, but that's another ball of wax and it's on the
| user to suffer the consequences.
| kjsthree wrote:
| Agree wholeheartedly!
|
| Void my warranty, boot with a scary splash screen,
| whatever, but don't lock me out of the thing I ostensibly
| own. Or, maybe change the "buy" button to a "license to
| use" button in your store.
| kbenson wrote:
| Well, certainly not a _personal_ computer. : /
| lovelyviking wrote:
| It is no longer a Personal Computer. And it is a security
| disaster if you cannot control own hardware of your
| computer. It should be made illegal for Apple to operate
| like this. User MUST have full control of the computer. It
| is user right and should be human right. Then only reason I
| used Macs is their respecting ability to use any OS I want
| if I Want.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| It means that you need to find a vulnerability in bootloader
| and exploit it to break free from Apple secure garden. Linux
| works on ARM for years, so I'm sure that it won't be impossible
| to port it over, but whether enthusiasts will do it or not is
| another question, as you would need to write drivers for
| proprietary GPU and storage to make it useful.
| submeta wrote:
| Oh Apple, why are you doing this, taking freedom from your
| customers. I don't want to use Windows, neither do I want to
| tinker with Ubuntu. But if you keep going that path, you are
| forcing your power users to think about migrating to platforms
| that respect users freedom to do whatever they want to do with
| their machines.
|
| After two years of using an iPad along with my MBP I came to
| realize that a crippled machine that is very limited in how I
| use a computer is not the future of computing I like. The
| device collects dust for quite some time as I prefer a
| computing environment where I use the terminal a lot, where I
| use my bash and Python scripts a lot to automate, where I use
| Emacs a lot to write tech docs, do my project planning,
| writing, automating workflows, and many more things that are
| not doable on a crippled (iPad)OS.
|
| You keep going toward your vision of a computing platform where
| your customers are just consumers, not hackers and doers, and
| us hackers need to look for alternative platforms, most
| propably Linux.
| benhurmarcel wrote:
| Yes the iPad is "crippled" in that sense, but I find it's an
| excellent accessory to a computer. Not everything I do needs
| a terminal, my Python scripts, favorite text editor, and
| rapid multitasking. The iPad is a wonderful (albeit
| expensive) side device for lighter activities on the couch,
| in the kitchen, or on the go.
|
| It doesn't need to be our only computing device to be
| appreciated, and not every computing device needs to be
| powerful.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Same here. I can't stand macOS, the interface is terrible
| and it's an awful development environment.
|
| But the iPad is an excellent companion, since I use that to
| scrible around, consume media, photo editing, keep my music
| sheets, and all that stuff that would suck on Linux.
| boogies wrote:
| > neither do I want to tinker with Ubuntu
|
| You can get an XPS Developer Edition, System76, Purism, or
| many other laptop brands with GNU preinstalled these days.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| Although very slowly, this list of companies providing good
| Linux-ready laptops is growing.
|
| I do wish someone would dare ship something high-end non-
| amd64 (e.g.: ARM). Kinda like what we're seeing from Apple.
| hankchinaski wrote:
| i personally prefer secure hardware at the expense of not being
| able to play around with other OSes - i am sure i am not alone
| bosswipe wrote:
| "secure hardware" means that it's secure from you being able
| to use it as you like.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| I also prefer secure hardware, but I find macOS completely
| useless for work.
|
| While I can appreciate that some see other-OSs as something
| of a curiosity, for many of us it's a big deal-breaker, and
| it's a shame Apple is not willing to provide their hardware
| to so many potential clients who simply don't want their
| software.
| brian_herman__ wrote:
| Probably something similar to their secure boot with their
| phone iBoot.
| https://www.theiphonewiki.com/wiki/IBoot_(Bootloader)
| amelius wrote:
| Take action: buy a Mac, and return it. If they want to know
| why, tell them1.
|
| Repeat for every new model.
|
| 1 They will have to give you a full refund: it's your right as
| a consumer. Note that this may not work for companies.
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Who downvoted your comment and why ? This is a good comment
| and good strategy to teach them a lesson. Without some
| efforts those companies would not recall moral values.
| Richard Stallman was warning us about this development long
| ago and he was right. Cripled hardware is useless for hacking
| mind.
| reitzensteinm wrote:
| It might be too subtle. I suggest taking a can of spray
| paint and writing "fuck your locked bootloader" in three
| foot high letters on the front of their fancy glass Apple
| stores.
|
| After the fifth or sixth time it'll make its way up the
| chain of command.
|
| Just don't get caught by the sentries, or if you do, make
| sure your grammar is impeccable.
| OJFord wrote:
| I don't know the answer^, but how old is your current old Mac
| hardware? I don't know about the desktops, but Macbooks from
| 2016 are not well supported hardware-wise in Linux - things
| like no WiFi even. There was a good GitHub repo tracking it for
| up to I think the first touchbar Pro, and basically it was
| dismal then and only got worse (according to repo owner who
| consequently stopped bothering iirc).
|
| So.. depending what you want to do on these older machines, my
| point is that this may be the least of your worries.
|
| ^(though I think it's fine, because it's the reverse that would
| be a problem? Bad news for 'hackintosh' if all supported
| versions of macOS can expect secure boot hardware, I _think_ )
| spear wrote:
| Yeah, I think you mean this repo:
| https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux
|
| I bought a 2017 MBP hoping the situation would eventually
| improve but it never did, so I never got around to installing
| Linux. I'm expecting it'll be even worse for these M1
| systems.
| OJFord wrote:
| That's the one, thanks.
|
| It is a shame, it's not something I ever really did (or not
| for long, for a period I do recall having Arch on my 2013
| Air) but I like the idea - I like Apple's hardware, just
| not the software.
| Matthias1 wrote:
| I have a MacBookPro15,2 (2019, with T2), on which I duel boot
| Arch Linux. It is perfectly usable. The hardware support is
| not great. In particular, resuming from suspend is very slow,
| and I haven't gotten the built-in mic to work. And getting
| the system to work did require using a patched Linux kernel
| installed from Github. So not easy, but possible.
|
| Your claims about "dismal then and only got worse" are
| unfounded. The repository you refer to is still active.
| https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux If anything,
| activity has slowed down in these threads because it was
| figured out how to make it work.
|
| Even among people who run Linux on these MacBooks, the
| general recommendation is to keep a macOS partition around
| for stability. Some of the value you get from any Apple
| computer is in the software. If you intend on instantly
| installing Linux or Windows as your only OS, this probably
| isn't the computer for you. But if you want to or have to use
| Linux sometimes, these T2-chip Macs can do it.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _I don 't know about the desktops, but Macbooks from 2016
| are not well supported hardware-wise in Linux_
|
| Which is unfortunate, because the 2015 models make great
| Linux machines.
|
| The introduction of the T2 chip made proper Linux support
| much harder to achieve.
| spijdar wrote:
| Until 2019 Apple sold 13 inch MBPs without the touchbar,
| and these models did not have a T2 chip. They are still
| miserable computers to run Linux on, although I think the
| original 2016 touchbar-less MBP performs better than all
| the rest, albeit (IIRC) no working audio, very poor
| suspend/resume functionality, and until pretty recently no
| keyboard/trackpad functionality.
|
| Oh, and Apple's NVMe interface is non-compliant. This is
| widely reported as Apple locking Linux out with the T2
| chip, but that's not really true. The T2 chip _will_ by
| default prevent unsigned kernels from reading /writing to
| the SSD, but this can be disabled.
|
| Even if it's disabled, the controller is not standards
| compliant, and Linux won't see the underlying block device.
| I saw some diffs floating around on github a few years ago
| that fixed it, but I don't think it was ever mainlined.
|
| Basically, post-2016, Apple seems to have incorporated even
| more custom (and undocumented) hardware that running
| alternative OSes on them is basically impossible. Windows
| works because of the Apple-provided HAL + drivers for
| WinNT.
| fpoling wrote:
| Even in Bootcamp Apple did not bother to expose all
| hardware to Windows . The touchpad is reported as a mouse
| with a scroll wheel, no option to enable hardware
| encryption or to use Touch ID to unlock.
| stjo wrote:
| IIRC at WWC Apple said it would still be possible to boot
| unsigned OS, but it would show some kind of warning.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I'd be tempted to buy one if this ends up being the case
| aroman wrote:
| But what would you run on it? What OS besides macOS has
| support for running on Apple Silicon?
| sneak wrote:
| This is the best news I've heard all day, thank you!
|
| I'm totally fine with a chromebook-style unsigned boot
| warning.
| pkulak wrote:
| Why not just support a company that doesn't do this crap?
| katbyte wrote:
| Because most people don't care?
| Asmod4n wrote:
| During WWDC they said you can't use any other operating
| System at boot time, only through virtual Machines.
|
| Update: here a podcast with Craig Federighi on that matter
| https://youtu.be/Hg9F1Qjv3iU
| shaicoleman wrote:
| Link with timestamp: https://youtu.be/Hg9F1Qjv3iU?t=3772
|
| "we're not direct booting an alternate operating system,
| it's purely virtualization"
| wmf wrote:
| Even if you could turn off secure boot, Linux doesn't have
| drivers for Apple Silicon. Maybe in 2030 someone will port
| Linux to a jailbroken M1 Mac.
| WhyNotHugo wrote:
| The reality is that we can't answer this until we have some
| hands on.
|
| It really depends on whether their secure boot architecture can
| be disabled (unlikely knowing apple), or allow adding ones own
| keys (unlikely). Bootcamp probably won't happen since windows
| does not support the architecture: they'll be pushing people to
| use VMs.
|
| They might also provide some untrusted path to boot without it
| being able to access certain secure features. I wish they did
| this, but also won't keep my breath!
|
| That said, the kernel itself needs to have support for the
| hardware architecture, and then drivers for all the new
| hardware they're pushing out. I don't expect this to be soon,
| though I'd definitely be willing to sponsor anyone willing to
| work on this.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > Bootcamp probably won't happen since windows does not
| support the architecture
|
| Windows supports ARM and has for a while. But still probably
| Bootcamp's days are over, yeah.
| paulpauper wrote:
| Is the macpro worth the cost? I want to keep 300+ browser tabs
| opens, 6+ chrome user sessions, and many other programs running.
| My PC usually gets sluggish after a day of this. I don't do
| graphics design or gaming, but rather need to keep a lot of tabs
| and sessions open on chrome and to a lesser extent on Firefox.
| ako wrote:
| What do you do with 300+ browser tabs?
| paulpauper wrote:
| i like having everything accessible when I need it.
| iulian_r wrote:
| I think you have to upgrade your laptop often or you won't keep
| up with the increasing requirements of software. I have a
| similar flow as you do (tons of apps, tabs, Linux workspaces,
| code compiling, video running etc). I also get easily annoyed
| when I do some basic stuff and all of a sudden the computer
| lags behind, is stuck etc.
|
| in the end I went with a desktop computer (if you have the
| space and you don't mind losing portability - I also have a
| Dell XPS in a pretty good shape for when I need it). It does
| waaay better when it comes to multitasking, never gets
| sluggish, much easier to upgrade, no throttiling/overheating
| problems, cheaper.
| kccqzy wrote:
| There's no new Mac Pro announced today.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Mac Mini? _sigh_
|
| edit: No wait... here comes the pro!
| Darmody wrote:
| I backed a game a while ago on Kickstarter with native support
| for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Several weeks ago they sent us a
| message saying they were ditching the MacOS version due the
| architecture change.
|
| I wonder how it'll affect the whole ecosystem. I think it'll end
| being like an iOS on steroids.
| aaomidi wrote:
| How hard would it be to release an ARM version? Also out of
| curiosity, what game was it?
| Macha wrote:
| For a traditional PC/console game, it's likely porting to
| Metal is the bigger issue.
| Darmody wrote:
| Last Epoch.
|
| It's made by an indie studio which doesn't have the resources
| to port a game like this to a ARM. They also use a lot of
| third party software so it's not even up to them.
| mattgreenrocks wrote:
| I think their hope is that the Mac's anemic game ecosystem will
| be filled in by iOS games which run natively. I hope they're
| right, and I say that as someone who has a gaming PC and still
| hasn't found many quality core games on iOS.
| acomjean wrote:
| The fact that they say it will run the iOS version of "among
| us" and HBO max, means I think your right.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| Considering most developers who have ported from x86 to MacOS
| have had few issues, it seems like the ecosystem will be just
| fine. Also, all the big pro software developers--Adobe,
| Microsoft, Apple--are onboard.
|
| Hard to say what this will do to gaming on MacOS, but gaming
| has never been the big strength of MacOS.
| fastball wrote:
| Gaming isn't strong on MacOS but it is fairly strong on Mac
| if you're dual-booting windows.
| ZeroSync wrote:
| Arm based Chromebook with a worse kernel, lack of 32gb is a no
| go. Trying to squeeze some sales right into the end of the year
| seems like.
| struct wrote:
| It's interesting that all the chips are branded as the M1 - I
| wonder if there are any clock, memory or cache differences
| between the devices?
| ryanferg wrote:
| I'd imagine thermal throttling will be responsible for actual
| performance differences across devices (but this is just a
| guess)
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Yes I'm waiting for the shop to open to find out if they can be
| configured - I bet not.
|
| EDIT: the store does not let you configure anything but the RAM
| which is absurdly expensive.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I'm pretty sure they're all identical chips. No doubt there are
| clocking differences. But that may be automatic based on
| thermals and not actually represent a difference in the actual
| chip.
| rehangs_plot wrote:
| The base model m1 air has a 7 core gpu compared with 8 core
| in the others.
| aaomidi wrote:
| It probably has 8 cores, just that one failed and they
| disabled it. Making CPUs is expensive and a faulty process.
|
| A lot of CPU given any release is the same high end CPU
| with faulty cores disabled.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| For the Apple TV, they can overclock since it's plugged into
| the wall. They may do something similar here.
| scep12 wrote:
| Optimistically: I suspect the reason they didn't upgrade the 16"
| pro is because of the RAM story. In other words: no 16" w/ the M1
| is an acknowledgment that configurations with 32gb (and hopefully
| 64gb) of RAM are not ready, and it would be unreasonable to
| release the highest end MBP without those options available.
|
| Hopefully we'll see the 13" and 16" MBPs with M1+ and more RAM
| next Spring.
| poulsbohemian wrote:
| When I was an active software developer, I always had the biggest
| and beefiest machine possible, plus a MBP for when I was on the
| move.
|
| Now, off in another career field, I'm really wondering why I
| would choose a MPB over an iPad Air or Pro. By the time you add a
| keyboard to the iPad, it kinda feels like the only real
| difference is whether you want to run Xcode. Other than that, is
| there really anything you can do on a MBP that you can't do on an
| iPad?
| samjmck wrote:
| The UX for multitasking is, in my opinion, still much better on
| a laptop that it is on the iPad.
| andybak wrote:
| > is there really anything you can do on a MBP that you can't
| do on an iPad?
|
| If the App Store gatekeepers get their way then "run a shell".
|
| (I've recently got my first iPad - my first iOS device in a
| very long time - and it's actually less locked down than I was
| expecting. I had no idea they had relaxed the rules on
| scripting on the device. But it's still way, way more locked
| down than a real computer)
| tiffanyh wrote:
| No FaceID, interesting.
|
| I've said this in another thread and thought they might use
| FaceID as a "Pro" only feature like they do on the iPads but
| nope, they also released an updated 13" MacBook Pro without
| FaceID.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| As much as Apple touts features as "incredible innovations", I
| think a lot of them are just engineering solutions.
|
| I see FaceID as the compromise of increasing screen size to
| fill all the real estate on the iPhone. The Macbooks have tons
| of room for extra sensors on the keyboard part but not a lot
| can be put on the screen.
| jzymbaluk wrote:
| iOS and MacOS are clearly starting to converge here, this current
| gen of Macs are even able to run iOS apps. I wonder if we'll ever
| see macs with touchscreens, or if iPads will become macs before
| macs become iPads
| wirthjason wrote:
| Only up to 16gb of memory on the M1 MacBook Pro?!?! The intel one
| is configurable to 32gb. Choosing between memory and CPU. So
| torn, so disappointed.
|
| P.S. I'm a developer, like many here.
|
| (Edit: specify the M1, not the existing Intel.)
| codazoda wrote:
| There's a 64GB version.
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/16-inch-space...
| [deleted]
| eatmyshorts wrote:
| That's an Intel MBP, not an M1 MBP.
| Ayesh wrote:
| I was eager to buy this one too (my primary device is Windows),
| and this is what stops me from buying it this year too.
| cromka wrote:
| The Intel one takes up to 64 GB - at least that's how much mine
| has.
| wirthjason wrote:
| 16 inch? I believe the 13" Intel is limited to 32gb max.
| ibraheemdev wrote:
| And it's no longer user accessible. No more saving money by
| buying 8gb and upgrading manually, even on the Mac Mini
| Xylakant wrote:
| RAM on MacBooks hasn't been upgradable for quite some time.
| I'd say at least 2 or 3 generations.
| [deleted]
| tomjen3 wrote:
| That does seem weird. Probably Apple doesn't care about
| developers or rather expects them to wait for the 16 inch
| version?
|
| Personally I brought a windows workstation laptop and I have
| pretty much regretted that most of the time - if you are going
| for that kind of performance, running VMs, etc you are probably
| better of with a desktop. I expect that if you build a system
| with the new Ryzen 3 you can smoke almost any of the new mac
| models for 50%-75% of the cost.
|
| Screws you pretty hard if you actually need the computer to be
| a mac for some reason.
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _Only up to 16gb of memory on the MacBook Pro?!?!_
|
| It supports up to 64GB of 2666MHz DDR4 memory. (Source: Went
| through the "Buy" process to see the options.)
| klelatti wrote:
| That's an Intel not an M1 powered version.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Indeed, thank you.
| [deleted]
| mikestew wrote:
| Try again. I just went through the "buy" process for the M1
| model, and 16Gb was the max configurable memory.
| CharlesW wrote:
| Oops! Thanks for the correction, I was confused.
| kzrdude wrote:
| Is this the first time they call their laptops "notebooks"?
| saagarjha wrote:
| Apple has called them notebooks for many years, I believe this
| is how they referred to them on the box too.
| Austin_Conlon wrote:
| The term was used frequently in the Jobs keynotes.
| frank2 wrote:
| I read somewhere about 15 years ago that the term was
| introduced when laptops would get so hot that the legal
| departments at laptop vendors started to worry about their
| liability if they kept calling them laptops and they got sued
| by someone whose lap got burned.
|
| Now that Apple's laptops run much cooler, my guess is that they
| continue to say "notebook" because Apple owns an important
| trademark that ends in "Book".
| flomo wrote:
| In addition, the original brandname was PowerBook.
| andybak wrote:
| This is a bugbear of mine. I've never met a real human being
| who uses that term. I don't even know if people would
| understand me if I started using it in normal conversation.
|
| They are laptops outside of industry marketing material. Why
| can't they just admit they lost this rebranding battle?
| EduardoBautista wrote:
| Up to 20 hours of battery life on the MacBook Pro. If anything, I
| believe the increased battery life will be what most people will
| notice.
| kkylin wrote:
| For me, battery life has been the biggest disappointment with
| the 2018 MBP. It used to be that if one paid more for a MBP,
| one got more of everything. With the last couple gens of Intel
| MacBooks, one had to choose: speed? battery life? Now their
| lineup (and pricing) makes sense again.
| miohtama wrote:
| They also say "compiles 4x code" on the video.
| xattt wrote:
| It is interesting to abstract battery life as a limit of how
| many values can be calculated.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| total flops before failure assuming you lose half your
| battery life from display regardless.
| iamben wrote:
| This is galling. I bought a new top spec Air earlier in the year
| to replace the one I'd owned since 2013. I hate it. The fan comes
| on about every 30 seconds (doing things on the new machine that
| were fine on the 2013 one). Literally no at Apple seems to care
| and I'm not the only one complaining.
|
| It's taken then less than 6 months to refresh the entire line?
| What an absolute kick in the teeth - especially on the back of a
| machine I really dislike. Super shitty move from Apple.
| a_c_s wrote:
| I'm sorry you got a lemon but what does that have to do with
| how often Apple releases new machines? How often is Apple
| allowed to refresh their laptop lines for it not to be
| 'galling'?
| rafaelturk wrote:
| My expectation for the #AppleEvent was actually a MacBook Pro
| without the Touch Bar.
| lprd wrote:
| Very interested to see some actual benchmarks...
| jason0597 wrote:
| I hope these new Macs will respect the openness we've had on the
| PC platform for the past 30 years and allow you to run any
| operating system you like without being beholden to the
| manufacturer (like they do on the iPhone). I'm really worried
| that Apple is gaining too much power over the platform and they
| are going to make it difficult (or near impossible) to boot other
| operating systems (e.g. Linux)
| cgufus wrote:
| Eehm. What is the actual difference between the MBA M1 and the
| MBP 13 M1? (except the latter is thicker?) Checked the
| compareison and didn't find anything substantial...
| lightbulbjim wrote:
| Active cooling.
| xondono wrote:
| On the chip itself the only difference is probably binning
| bartq wrote:
| 13 inch Pro has brighter screen I think, and that is noticable.
| pgib wrote:
| Yeah, that's what I was just looking at. Up to 2 more hours of
| battery life, TouchBar, and a [slightly?] better microphone is
| the only difference I can see. Not much price difference
| either.
| aaronjl wrote:
| The MBP gets all 8 GPU cores, the MBA gets 7 (but you can
| upgrade the MBA to get all 8 for effectively $50 with a $200
| upgrade to the storage as well). Touchbar and bigger battery. I
| think those are the only differences
| aaomidi wrote:
| I think also "Studio Microphone Quality" - whatever that
| means.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| That would seem to imply whatever quality it has resembles
| a studio microphone. It doesn't say 'Quality Studio
| Microphone' after all.
|
| It reminds me of my recent purchase of an electric shaver.
| The front of the box proudly proclaimed 'WAHL: The Brand
| Professionals Use.'
|
| It wasn't until I got home and started opening it that I
| saw a little bit of fine print on the side of the box: "not
| to be used in a professional capacity."
| saagarjha wrote:
| Fan, likely clock speed. And a different design.
| shilgapira wrote:
| No multiple displays. Less RAM than an Intel. Lame.
| stakkur wrote:
| Aaaand the Touchbar remains on the Macbook Pro.
| skohan wrote:
| I'm interested to see the benchmarks vs. comparable AMD systems.
| Some of the claims, like 2x performance increase on the MBP are
| impressive, but intel laptops have been absolutely trounced by
| AMD 4000-series laptops of late.
|
| Also will be interested to see the benchmarks of the integrated
| GPU vs. discreet GPU performance.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| They claim 2 TFlops for their GPU. RTX 3090 features 143
| TFlops.
| skohan wrote:
| What would be a comparable card at 2 TFlops?
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > Also will be interested to see the benchmarks of the
| integrated GPU vs. discreet GPU performance.
|
| If they're "only" claiming 2x over anyone else' integrated,
| then it's not going to be all that interesting to compare
| integrated vs. discreet. By comparison here the 2060 Max Q is
| around 4x faster than the Vega 8 in the 4800U.
|
| Although that 2x faster than anyone else's integrated also has
| some really big question marks on the claim. The fine-print on
| that claim includes:
|
| "Integrated GPU is defined as a GPU located on a monolithic
| silicon die along with a CPU and memory controller, behind a
| unified memory subsystem"
|
| Which sounds a bit weasel-y like it's trying to specifically
| exclude what's commonly thought of as integrated graphics like
| the two-die approach in Tigerlake. Which how the product is
| packaged shouldn't really matter?
| CraftThatBlock wrote:
| I don't think they included Intel's new Xe or AMD's APU in
| those 2x for iGPUs.
| DCKing wrote:
| This M1 chip is really interesting, but they seem to be hard
| limited in RAM to 16GB. That will surely limit the interest there
| is in the initial batch amongst the HN crowd. It makes sense
| maybe for the MacBook Air, but not that much for the Mac Mini or
| MacBook Pro 13".
| redm wrote:
| What I can't find is how many external monitors can be supported
| on the M1 chip? I don't see any detailed specs. Al they say about
| the M1 specs are:
|
| "The Apple M1 chip is the first system on a chip (SoC) for Mac.
| Packed with an astonishing 16 billion transistors, it integrates
| the CPU, GPU, I/O, and every other significant component and
| controller onto a single tiny chip. Designed by Apple, M1 brings
| incredible performance, custom technologies, and unparalleled
| power efficiency to the Mac.
|
| With an 8-core CPU and 8-core GPU, M1 on MacBook Pro delivers up
| to 2.8x faster CPU performance1 and up to 5x faster graphics2
| than the previous generation."
| davio wrote:
| From MacBook Pro tech specs:
|
| Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in
| display at millions of colors and:
|
| One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz
| Thunderbolt 3 digital video output
|
| Native DisplayPort output over USB-C VGA, HDMI, DVI, and
| Thunderbolt 2 output supported using adapters (sold separately)
| capableweb wrote:
| Strange, they list the resolution you can use if you use one
| external display. What about two monitors? I don't believe
| you could only have one display connected, that would be
| ridiculous, but I also don't understand why they only write
| about one display and not about many?
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| Possibly because OSX still doesn't support DisplayPort
| multi-stream and you can't plug multiple monitors into one
| USB-C port.
| capableweb wrote:
| Thanks, didn't realize the laptop only had one port on
| it.
| dawnerd wrote:
| What? I can run currently two monitors over thunderbolt 3
| with a caldigit dock no problem.
| amiga-workbench wrote:
| Exactly, a Thunderbolt 3 dock. If you're trying to use an
| (inexpensive) adaptor that takes advantage of USB-C DP
| alt modes you will run into this problem.
| dawnerd wrote:
| That's disappointing. Dual 4k isn't that uncommon. Sounds
| like their chip isn't quite as powerful as they're leading
| on?
| propelol wrote:
| Shouldn't one 6k display be the same data transfer as two
| 4k displays?
| dawnerd wrote:
| Yeah I'm hoping it's just a case of them not having the
| specs in right. Otherwise it would be a pretty poor
| downgrade for those that use two monitors. I don't use
| the laptop screen either when docked so really no reason
| it shouldn't be able to drive them.
| fastball wrote:
| You run two 4k screens and the laptop screen itself from an
| existing 13" laptop?
| asdff wrote:
| You can do that on the intel macbook air.
| dawnerd wrote:
| Yes. Current apple intel specs for the 13 read: "Up to
| two external 4K displays with 4096-by-2304 resolution at
| 60Hz at millions of colors"
| entropea wrote:
| Am I reading right that it only supports one display output?
| I may be reading that incorrectly....
| jklein11 wrote:
| I was under the impression that Native display port would
| be able to drive 2 external monitors. I do not consider my
| self to be an authoritative source on this.
| masklinn wrote:
| DisplayPort 1.4 can chain up to 6 displays at 1080p. It
| can only chain two 4K@60Hz.
|
| However that requires MST support which afaik is missing
| from OSX entirely.
| bochoh wrote:
| It will only drive one 4k display at 60hz, I would imagine
| it would support multiple lower resolutions with no issues.
| samjmck wrote:
| That would be weird. Thunderbolt 3 supports 2x 4K60, so
| this should as well.
| dawnerd wrote:
| I keep seeing comments about lack of MST support but
| they're ignoring that you can currently already like you
| say drive dual 4k60. I'm doing it right now.
| ava1ar wrote:
| You probably has monitors with native thunderbolt input?
| They are not that many such monitor exists. Without MST
| you are out of luck to do thing with Display Port (via
| DP, mDP or USB-C), and this is what majority of monitors
| on market has.
| dawnerd wrote:
| No, they're both DP. Thunderbolt 3 can do dual 4k60 over
| a single cable (including also providing power, ethernet,
| audio, etc) https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/
| masklinn wrote:
| OSX doesn't support MST.
| samjmck wrote:
| You don't need MST to be able to connect to 2 monitors
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Perhaps not (I've never tried daisy chaining) but a
| MacBook Pro can drive two 4K@60Hz monitors over a single
| Thunderbolt 3 dock cable (I'm doing it right now).
| fastball wrote:
| Presumably if you're not using the laptops screen it can
| drive two.
| CharlesW wrote:
| For the Mac mini: "Connect one external display up to 6K and a
| second with HDMI 2.0 up to 4K."
|
| https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/
| intpx wrote:
| https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro-13/specs/
| One external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz
|
| https://www.apple.com/mac-mini/specs/ One
| display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz connected via
| Thunderbolt and one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz
| connected via HDMI 2.0
| [deleted]
| nostromo wrote:
| I'm also curious if eGPUs are still supported.
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| Not likely, lack of arm build drivers and all. Though with
| the Mac Pro I'm curious how they'll handle hardware upgrades.
| I hope they don't revert back to trashcan mac like video
| situations.
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Anyone else wonder if these new apps will allow installing
| software from outside the App store - I was worried when they
| were talking about Secure Enclave.
| saagarjha wrote:
| Yes.
| davio wrote:
| It's so weird that the cheaper Air is down a single GPU core - 7
| instead of 8
| flyinglizard wrote:
| Maybe that's a fab yields play (binning, disabling cores with
| issues and sending them down to Air)
| kbar13 wrote:
| binning i guess?
| coolspot wrote:
| Maybe binning. Good chips go into Pro, chips with defects in
| one of the GPU cores go to Air.
| davio wrote:
| Sure, but it's kind of a cheap limitation. 6/6 CPU/GPU would
| make more sense in terms of positioning the different models.
|
| Up to .14x faster graphics performance for $250
| saagarjha wrote:
| Apple doesn't typically expose this kind of thing as an
| option during sale.
| foldr wrote:
| The Air is fanless so may not have the thermal head room to
| make good use of 8 GPU cores anyway.
| supernova87a wrote:
| I wonder, is the 8GB vs. 16GB "unified memory" the kind of thing
| where all of the hardware actually has 16GB, but they disable
| half of it to sell the lower price version? Like Tesla's Model S
| 40 kwh?
| spockz wrote:
| The unified memory used to mean that the ram is shared with the
| graphics card so you have not all available for your use. Also
| called shared memory.
| jjcm wrote:
| Very excited for the tear downs of these to understand that as
| well. Could just be a binning thing as well if there's faults
| in the memory.
| pavlov wrote:
| Probably binning where faulty memory gets disabled and flagged
| as a 8GB chip?
|
| Intel did that for the 486SX processor 30 years ago. The 486
| was the first x86 CPU with an integrated FPU. Chips that failed
| the FPU test were sold as cheaper 486SX with the FPU disabled.
| nl wrote:
| I've never heard that the 486SX was a binned 486 - my
| impression was that it was a deliberate choice done during
| manufacture. Wikipedia backs up my recollection:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486SX
| pavlov wrote:
| Yeah, seems like "SX is a binned faulty DX" was a popular
| but unconfirmed rumor that has stuck with me for 30 years.
|
| The die is the same, but there's no evidence Intel
| rebranded rejected DX chips. Here's an extremely pedantic
| discussion (when it comes to obsolete hardware, the only
| good kind) on the topic:
|
| http://www.os2museum.com/wp/lies-damn-lies-and-wikipedia/
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| That's not the only way they "bin" things. some have one time
| blow fuses and they will disable parts of the chip if they
| are being "lean" and just manufacture towards the number they
| expect to sell of each version. . It costs about as much to
| make one with an FPU or without it from a chip manufacturing
| point of view.
| lukifer wrote:
| Curious about the same thing, re: the 7-core GPU vs. the 8-core
| GPU on the Air. Seems like a pretty arbitrary upgrade (and only
| a $50 difference).
| noneeeed wrote:
| As with Pavlov's comment about the memory this could be a
| yield thing. It may be that there are enough dies where one
| of the cores fails that it's worth turning them into a lower
| spec model as happened with the 486 SX all those years ago.
| More than one core failing might not happen often enough to
| warrant making them a product line.
| lumberingjack wrote:
| Lots of people talking about frequency binning and Benning
| in general. I would like to add in here someplace that AMD
| used to make 100% identical chips for an entire full lineup
| and then adjust the frequency and prices to the actual
| binning process like if they tested a bunch of chips and
| got a lot that did 3.8 then they sold them all as 3.8 if
| they did 4.1 they sold them as 4.1 it was quite common to
| buy the lowest possible cheapest AMD chip and get one that
| could essentially be and overclock to their number one
| highest bench chip. See fx 8120 the lowest bulldozer chip
| overclocking to be and identical performer to the much more
| expensive and higher chips.
| theorg wrote:
| Watching this event was definitely an interesting look at the top
| rungs of Apple. Their own corporate self-perception has certainly
| evolved in the last few years. I think many commentators have
| noted the way that Apple has tried to take its "decisive-break-
| with-the-past" marketing of prior years and prior hardware
| generations and make it something that can keep selling into the
| long term. Making their own chips seems like yet another salvo in
| that effort. For anyone interested in questions about the
| corporate structure of Apple behind-the-scenes, you might like
| this article: https://theorg.com/insights/the-minds-behind-
| apples-revoluti...
| keyle wrote:
| Quick question - if it's so super duper gfx 4X speed .... why
| still ship the new macbook pro with a radeon mobile chip?
|
| It basically means your M1 won't get close to a radeon mobile
| chip...
| CraftThatBlock wrote:
| You are likely looking at the Intel models
| tobr wrote:
| Surprised that they didn't take the opportunity to update the
| industrial design, especially of the MacBook Air which retains
| its wedge-shaped heft.
| interestica wrote:
| They returned to the design elements introduced for the iPhone
| 4 in the iPhone 12. That general form would be pretty
| interesting for an ultra portable laptop.
| steffan wrote:
| From a marketing standpoint it doesn't make sense to update the
| design (this is typical Apple from what I've observed) - People
| will buy into the novelty of the new CPUs. For the refresh, you
| will probably see some design changes.
| egypturnash wrote:
| How would you improve on the Air? It's such a beautiful, sleek
| little thing. I've currently got a 13" Pro and it just feels so
| damn clunky next to the succession of Airs it replaced.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Weight? It is almost a pound heavier than the discontinued
| Macbook 12".
| [deleted]
| akmarinov wrote:
| No 32GB RAM on the 13"
| callamdelaney wrote:
| I'll be sticking with my 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13". Great
| machine, not too thin, heavy enough, no stupid touch screen, usb
| ports, great keyboard. Everything apple has done since hasn't
| compared.
| ellipticaldoor wrote:
| I had that macbook and I was very happy with it. Now I have the
| latest i7 macbook air without nonsense touchbar and it's been a
| great replacement.
|
| Now with the new model being even faster and without a fan
| things look even better for the future.
| christian008 wrote:
| I am in the same boat. I love this Laptop, but Lightroom (CC)
| is really slow compared to how it runs on iOS. I would assume
| the new M1-based machines could run the iOS version of
| Lightroom almost out of the box.
| pgrote wrote:
| >2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13"
|
| How long will OS updates be distributed for it?
| kccqzy wrote:
| Since the current Big Sur release supports 2013 MacBook Pros,
| I'm guessing maybe another two or three years?
| bromuro wrote:
| Luckly Big Sur is supported! I just bought a second hand 2015
| ... better than the 16" of the last year!
| weystrom wrote:
| Have the same machine, it's starting to chug. Modern web is too
| heavy for the old dualcore i5, unfortunately.
| qayxc wrote:
| > Modern web is too heavy for the old dualcore i5,
| unfortunately.
|
| It's a shame that the web has become this borderline unusable
| mess. I shouldn't need a quad-core machine with multiple
| gigabytes of RAM to just read the news online.
| yoz-y wrote:
| The only bad thing about the current 16" is the Touch Bar.
| There is a lot to like about the rest though.
| VectorLock wrote:
| Is the keyboard less awful now compared to say 2018-19 15"
| MBPs?
| yoz-y wrote:
| It's very similar to the 2014 models, it has scissor
| switches and not the controversial butterfly keys. If you
| ever tried a magic keyboard then it's basically that.
| asdff wrote:
| much better than those but a far cry from the one they
| killed off in 2015. feels like half the key travel.
| perfect_wave wrote:
| I agree here. I really don't understand some of the bashing
| that happens every single time the Macbook Pros come up in HN
| comments.
|
| I was a longtime happy owner of a 2015 15" MBP until earlier
| this year when I decided it was time to upgrade to a
| refurbished 2019 16" MBP. I was a bit nervous at first but I
| have to say that I have no major complaints, other than the
| fact that I wish I had F keys instead of the touchbar.
| Contrary to everyone else, I really like the keyboard.
|
| As for solving the touchpad issue, I use Pock [1] which I
| read about on HN. It removes the need for using a slider
| every time I want to adjust the volume or brightness and lets
| me control Spotify and see what song is currently playing.
|
| I also have a 2018 15" MBP for work. If you believed the
| comments here you'd think that I am unable to type or use the
| damn thing. Honestly, after 1 week of use I'm already used to
| the keyboard. Not having an escape key kind of sucked, but I
| have rebound caps lock to escape on all of my Macbooks and
| enjoy that even more than having an escape key.
|
| My other complaint is that the trackpad is a bit too large -
| I find myself accidentally hitting it sometimes and it just
| seems excessive. Finally, it's a shame that you can't mess
| with the battery/RAM/SSD yourself but unfortunately that's
| more of a trend for the industry than just Apple.
|
| Overall I'm a totally happy user on both the 2018 and 2019
| Macbook Pros. I was quite nervous about the possibility of
| having to use a Windows PC for work when I started my new
| job. And don't even get me started on having to use a
| Pixelbook at Google.
|
| [1] https://pock.dev/
| jll29 wrote:
| My company gave me the current 16" late last year, and it's
| been a piece of junk: suddenly starts to roar without a
| reason (while plugged in to power supply) so people on a
| phone conference complain I should switch off the hoover.
|
| Often freezes with not much open other than a few Chrome
| tabs, O365 and Sublime (not actually DOING much with any of
| them at the time).
|
| I also dislike the 16" form factor compared to 13", as it
| breaks all my leather bags when I try to carry it (not so
| relevant anymore in the days of the home office..).
| claudeganon wrote:
| I was having issues with my 16" until I disabled
| TurboBoost. I dunno if it's specific to the i9 model, but
| it was running hot and processes were spinning up out of
| control. Since disabling, it runs a lot cooler and I have
| pretty much zero issues.
|
| http://tbswitcher.rugarciap.com/
| ewmiller wrote:
| The newest one fixed it enough to satisfy me, i.e. it has a
| physical escape key again. I never used the rest of the
| function keys anyway, and I like the customizable nature of
| the touch bar. The lack of a physical escape key when they
| first introduced it was my only real gripe.
| werber wrote:
| I use the 2020 macbook air personally and 16in professionally
| and the keyboard drives me insane, to the point I bought a
| magic keyboard to be able to function without screaming at my
| computer for accidentally turning my video camera on yet
| again during a meeting. I really wish they would have a no
| touch bar option, because I could use more power but still be
| able to touch type. Touch bar is the worst technological
| "improvement" I've ever come across.
| fastball wrote:
| I'm genuinely surprised you are accidentally touching the
| TouchBar. I have had the 16" for 8 months and haven't done
| that once.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Must be finger positioning. I hit the TouchBar
| accidentally several times a day, each of which was
| infuriating, until I managed to semi-disable it by
| turning it into a row of inferior function keys.
| a_c_s wrote:
| Did you know that you can change what buttons are on the
| Touch Bar? You can make it almost behave the same as other
| keyboard by having it always show F-keys.
|
| https://support.apple.com/en-qa/guide/mac-
| help/mchl5a63b060/...
| asdff wrote:
| the difficulty isn't the content but the fact you can't
| blindly hit the key reliably. reminds me of back in the
| day where you could send a composed complete text message
| from your phone without taking it out of your hoodie
| pocket in class. not the case anymore in our touch screen
| world without tactile feedback.
| gnicholas wrote:
| For those of us who are trying to stay on Mojave (or older),
| being forced to use the current OS is also a downside.
| mFixman wrote:
| You are missing out if you don't have 4 USB-C ports in both
| sides of your laptop. You can charge your laptop and connect a
| display with a single cable and without caring about putting
| the computer in the right direction.
| egypturnash wrote:
| My 2017 13" Pro (no touch at) has two USBC ports, both on the
| same side. It is annoying. Especially after it turned out
| there is a design flaw in the 2017 Pros where charging on one
| side tends to trash your battery - guess which side both
| ports are on?
|
| It's nice to only have to plug in one cable when I dock it at
| my desk but I would have greatly preferred not having to
| replace the battery twice in the three years I owned it due
| to this. Especially since only one replacement was covered
| under the warranty thanks to the 'rona shutting down all the
| authorized service centers in my city.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| But I can't get photos off of an SD card without a dongle,
| and if I trip on the power cord: bye, bye laptop. It's all
| relative I guess.
| rplnt wrote:
| Yeah, but the new MB Pro is a joke, again.
|
| > And it features two Thunderbolt ports with USB 4 support to
| connect to more peripherals than ever,
| shrimpx wrote:
| I have this machine, it's a super portable and reliable
| powerhouse. I recently upgraded to a 2019 15", mostly to go up
| to 32G ram, and it feels like a downgrade in terms of design
| and usability.
| 0xFFFE wrote:
| I returned my brand new top spec 2019 model to IT and took the
| 2015 model from their retired stock.
| cyrialize wrote:
| Used Apple products maintain their value very well. The 2015
| MBP Retina can be found on Ebay between $700-$1000. I've
| thought about getting one myself.
| Thorentis wrote:
| Also have this one. It was my first macbook, and I think I got
| really lucky with getting in when I did. Been going strong for
| 5 years, and has no difficulty doing anything I need it to do.
| Only thing I wish I did was get more storage (only got the
| 128GB model).
| nicoburns wrote:
| FYI the storage is upgradable on these machines (and it's
| very straightforward to do). It's a nonstandard SSD
| interface, but you can official modules 2nd hand on ebay
| quite cheaply these days.
| coredog64 wrote:
| $20 will get you an adapter that allows standard m2 NVMe. I
| have one on my Amazon wishlist, just haven't pulled the
| trigger yet.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Do your research on the adapters though and drives. Some
| have issues with suspend. Make sure the hardware you add
| has been tested by some brave youtuber or blogger before
| buying anything. It looks like the actual act of repacing
| it isn't that bad though.
| ValentineC wrote:
| Adding on: this forum thread should be able to get most
| people started: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/upgrad
| ing-2013-2014-mac...
| lisper wrote:
| You can upgrade the SSD yourself with a kit from OWC.
| porcc wrote:
| Don't do this, use an NVMe adapter, lets you use
| faster/cheaper/bigger normal SSDs. I have one myself and it
| works perfectly.
|
| PS also don't waste your time trying to find ways to
| repurpose the old Mac SSD, an equivalent SSD or flash drive
| is cheaper than the enclosures
| 0x008 wrote:
| You can buy a $20 adapter on Amazon and stick any m.2 nvme
| ssd in there.
| sebmellen wrote:
| Same here, I love this machine. Everything after 2015 went
| downhill in my view.
| acomjean wrote:
| Same. This is the best machine I've owned.
|
| I heard yesterday that Apple does not offer a battery
| replacement for 2014s and you have to go third party. This is
| an unfortunate development and I'm wondering if I should
| inquire about getting mine replaced.
| mikeklaas wrote:
| I replaced the battery in my 2013 about 11 months ago,
| FWIW.
| christiansakai wrote:
| I have this machine as well, currently going slow, is it the
| OS? or do I need to open the machine and clean the fan?
|
| I'm going to install Linux on it.
| tiffanyh wrote:
| I don't understand the pricing of the MacBook Air vs the 13" Pro.
|
| The Air ($1249) vs 13" Pro ($1299), you get:
|
| - same CPU - same GPU - same Neural chip - same RAM (8gb) - More
| storage for the Air (512gb vs 256gb with 13" Pro) - You get Touch
| Bar with 13" Pro
|
| So if you don't care about the Touch Bar, you actually get with
| the Air:
|
| - better specs - smaller device footprint - and $50 cheaper.
|
| Am I missing something?
| mrfusion wrote:
| Same screen?
| threeseed wrote:
| Likely to be 10w TDP on MacBook Air versus 35w on MacBook Pro.
|
| So lower clock speeds on the CPU/GPU.
| danielfoster wrote:
| Are there any differences in screens? I have no idea but would
| guess that the Pro has a better screen with more accurate
| colors.
| bcherry wrote:
| tech specs say 500nits on the pro and 400nits on the air, so
| its possible they are different screens but also possible
| they just have different backlights
| keyle wrote:
| As a previous macbook pro top model owner, with the huge amount
| of dysfunctional features it had, I'd be totally in for a mac
| book air.
| css wrote:
| Air only has passive cooling; Pro has a fan.
| adwi wrote:
| Depending on benchmarks sounds like another win for the
| MBA...
| Osiris wrote:
| So the Pro should be able to maintain higher clock speeds for
| longer, is the assumption?
| ralph87 wrote:
| The emphasis here being on the word "should". I wouldn't
| buy just yet until some third party has published a
| sustained load/heat test. Apple have sucked at this for
| quite some years now, I wouldn't touch a MacBook for
| anything remotely compute-intensive
| minxomat wrote:
| They have said exactly that multiple times in the
| presentation. Mini & MBP will maintain higher clock speeds
| indefinitely.
| kjsthree wrote:
| Yes, that is almost certainly the case. They didn't mention
| clock speed at all though so we'll have to wait for real-
| world tests.
| divbzero wrote:
| Does this make a practical difference to end users?
| marta_morena_28 wrote:
| Oh I am sure judging by how excellent MacBook Pros cool
| things, having passive cooling will make no difference at
| all. I mean, during summer I put my MacBook on a large ice
| block that I freeze over night, this way I can maintain
| acceptable build & development speeds during the day. Should
| work the same for the MacBook Air. No?
| justin66 wrote:
| Perhaps this pricing was brought about by the same head injury
| that must have caused someone in management to believe 8GB is
| an adequate base spec for RAM in 2020.
| shakow wrote:
| It is definitely an adequate base spec. What would the random
| MacBook user fill 16GB of RAM with?
| sg47 wrote:
| Chrome, Slack, Zoom, Docker, k8s, VS Code, etc.
| threeseed wrote:
| Your definition of random user seems a little off.
| CydeWeys wrote:
| The median Macbook user is not a developer. A web browser
| and videocalling are the only two from that list you'd
| expect the median user to be doing with a Macbook.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Also Office. Lots of open Word documents.
|
| My "typical Mac user" in this case, is my wife. Her 8GB
| MBP is holding up very well.
| TuringNYC wrote:
| Chrome, Slack, Docker. Pick 1 (and only 1)!
| 0xFFC wrote:
| Another chrome tab!
|
| That will do it.
| api wrote:
| Electron apps.
| robotmay wrote:
| Chrome?
| snazz wrote:
| I don't do any tab-hoarding in Chrome (that's the job of
| Safari on my machine), but I'm pretty sure that it will
| suspend tabs long before you run out of RAM. 8 GB is
| still plenty for web browsing.
| justin66 wrote:
| More than one electron app?
| rbanffy wrote:
| We are not looking at a typical Mac user here, are we?
| obilgic wrote:
| I literally had to cancel orders after noticing this as well,
| was very confusing even for a developer.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _what 's the difference between the left and the right
| versions_
|
| Just the storage. They're suggested configurations, presented
| to make it easy for the masses, not the HN tinkerers.
| russianbandit wrote:
| For Air, the one on the right has one more GPU core too.
| EgoIncarnate wrote:
| On the Air only 7 GPU cores (vs 8 on Pro). Also no active
| cooling, so likely lower max CPU performance under thermally
| limited conditions.
| harg wrote:
| The higher spec air has 8 gpu cores as well
| miles wrote:
| The $1249 MacBook Air in question has 8 GPU cores:
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/space-gray-
| ap...
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Not having the Touch Bar is worth at least several hundred
| dollars.
| komali2 wrote:
| Presumably a bigger battery on the Pro?
| rsp1984 wrote:
| Interestingly, the Air and the Pro now are almost identical in
| specs: same SoC, same display, same connectors, same RAM, same
| SSDs.
|
| On the plus side I only see the larger battery for the Pro. On
| the minus side it's more heavy and a bit more bulky. And it's got
| the TouchBar (I'd count that as a negative...).
|
| Honestly, why spend the $300 extra? I'd take the Air any day.
| 3adawi wrote:
| thing it does have a better mic and better cooling so you get
| better performance from your CPUs
| _alex_ wrote:
| I think it's going to come down to battery and the fan, which
| will let them run the chip hotter (faster) for longer
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Have they said anything about hyperkit on the new platform? And
| being able to run stuff like Docker for Mac?
|
| I've seen lots said about the lack of Bootcamp support but I've
| actually never even used Bootcamp, Linux VMS are much more
| relevant for me and I imagine many other developers.
| rjsw wrote:
| Do you want to run a Linux/x86_64 VM or a Linux/aarch64 one ?
| cactus2093 wrote:
| Well if I get to choose then I might as well ask for both.
|
| But ultimately I don't really care, I just want to `docker
| run postgres:latest` to develop web and mobile applications
| against against, and build a Dockerfile to be able to run a
| server-side ruby, python, java, go, etc. app locally for
| development.
| dwaite wrote:
| From their roadmap, it does not appear they have really
| investigated this yet. [1]
|
| Rosetta 2 translates Mac apps and can deal with JIT, but I do
| not believe it will work through virtualization.
|
| It should be relatively light lifting to make Docker for Mac
| run an ARM linux installation and ARM-built containers.
|
| From there, you likely would want to strategically add multi-
| arch container support to the docker runtime. This might be
| implemented based on existing qemu containers [2]
|
| 1: https://github.com/docker/roadmap/issues/142
|
| 2: https://github.com/multiarch/qemu-user-static
| ariporad wrote:
| During WWDC, they explicitly said that Apple Silicon will
| support virtualization and Docker. Rosetta doesn't work for
| virtualization though, so you have to run an ARM version of
| Linux. They don't support booting directly to a non-Mac OS,
| AFAIK.
|
| Rumor has it that they'll eventually support virtualized
| Windows, but it's currently impossible for an end-user to buy a
| copy of ARM Windows.
| lisnake wrote:
| Windows 10 version for raspberry pi used to be freely
| available
| [deleted]
| dcchambers wrote:
| The 16GB RAM limit is unfortunate.
|
| Five years later and I still can't buy a new 13" laptop from
| Apple with more RAM than my 2015 MBP.
|
| Edit: Apparently you _can_ configure a (Early 2020) Intel-based
| 13 " MBP with 32GB of RAM - I was not aware of that. Hope they
| bring that option to the ARM versions ASAP, especially if the
| performance gains are as good as Apple claims.
| deergomoo wrote:
| Which is real weird considering the Intel 13" (which is still
| on sale) has a 32GB BTO option.
| wtn wrote:
| Only the Pro has that option, not the Air.
| fastball wrote:
| How is it weird that a computer which has the CPU and RAM
| separate has more options than a computer where everything is
| on a SoC?
| nottorp wrote:
| It's worse. The 13" intel MBP can go up to 32 Gb, but the intel
| Mac Mini can go up to 64!
|
| 16 is basically useless for dev purposes, unless you're only
| doing web stuff. And maybe not even then, containers/vms?
| magikMaker wrote:
| I was literally about to order a new mac mini, until I
| noticed it only has 16GB max memory. How can they do this?!
| The previous model could be upgraded to 64GB, had 4 USB-C
| connectors (instead of now 2) and the option for faster
| ethernet. It really sounds like this new mac mini is a
| downgrade from the previous model. I wonder if the new M1
| chip/architecture really makes that much difference to make
| up for the downgrade of the rest.
| [deleted]
| auggierose wrote:
| Think of it that way, you are getting a GPU with 16GB Ram. How
| much do those cost again?
| foobiekr wrote:
| Just because the memory is unified does not mean the GPU can
| address all of it.
| auggierose wrote:
| I think that is pretty much what unified means, unless you
| know that for some reason it can address only 8GB of it or
| something like that?
| tlapinsk wrote:
| fwiw, you can configure a 13" Macbook Pro with an Intel chip up
| to 32GB. But I agree, I wish they launched the new M1 based 13"
| Pros with up to 32GB RAM
| dcchambers wrote:
| It definitely would have been a way to differentiate the Pro
| and the Air rather than giving them identical SOCs.
| jmisavage wrote:
| The low end Air only has 7 GPU cores compared with 8 on the
| one with more storage. So they must be disabling a bad core
| and selling it the cheap model. Other than that all these
| machines use the exact same CPUs. Which means that an iMac
| or 16" MBP are probably going to use a M1X or something
| with more cores.
| zitterbewegung wrote:
| Could be disabling but it could also be the fact to
| increase yields to their most appealing product.
| [deleted]
| ARandomerDude wrote:
| > So they must be disabling a bad core and selling it the
| cheap model.
|
| I really don't know much (anything) about the hardware
| manufacturing world. Is this a common practice?
| User23 wrote:
| Yes. Chip fabrication is super sensitive to the condition
| of the silicon wafer used. Chip companies talk about
| yields, because some percentage of chips can't, for
| example, be run at the highest clock rate. Indeed, some
| can't run reliably at all. If there is a microscopic flaw
| on the wafer that ends up being where one of the cores is
| located, disabling that core altogether is an option to
| keep that silicon marketable.
| maxioatic wrote:
| This. I just want 32GB and a 13" screen!
| jacobolus wrote:
| That has been available for a while with the Intel chip
| version:
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch-
| space...
|
| If you need 32 GB with the new ARM chips, you'll probably
| have to wait a generation or two.
| ogre_codes wrote:
| This is almost certain to be temporary.
|
| Keep in mind the rollout of the new CPUs is a 2 year process.
| rbanffy wrote:
| If they started now. They've been working on this for some
| time.
| geoffeg wrote:
| I'm guessing that since the RAM is now on the SOC instead of on
| separate chips creating models with more RAM becomes more
| difficult not only from a space constraint on the die but a
| cost to manufacture more variants?
| brundolf wrote:
| This is a good point and begs an interesting question: will
| they continue using the same ARM chip across the whole line
| when the 16" MBP and the other iMacs make the switch, and if
| so, will all Macs of the same generation always have the same
| amount of RAM? Or will they branch the chips (M2 and M2S, or
| something)? Is RAM becoming less relevant when you have smart
| integration of software and hardware components, to a point
| where stratification is no longer necessary in most cases?
| yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
| > Is RAM becoming less relevant when you have smart
| integration of software and hardware components, to a point
| where stratification is no longer necessary in most cases?
|
| If they intend these things to run software development,
| audio/video editing, CAD, or any other resource-intensive
| workloads, there will absolutely be demand for more.
| brundolf wrote:
| I could see the M2 coming with 32GB across the board, at
| which point the only current outliers (setting aside the
| Mac Pro as a special case) would be the 64GB
| configuration for the 16" Macbook Pro and the 64GB and
| 128GB configurations for the iMac. I could imagine
| Apple's optimizations closing the performance gap with
| the current 64GB offerings, and then perhaps they just
| leave 128GB customers to go all the way for the Mac Pro.
| I would be surprised to hear that they sell very many
| 128GB iMacs right now anyway.
| mseidl wrote:
| I'm waiting for their mac pro with apple silicon to be
| capped at 16gb of ram! ;)
| bochoh wrote:
| I'm imagining the mac pro with n M1 chips such that you
| get the memory you want. Not dissimilar to how Ryzen
| memory access works.
| brundolf wrote:
| Haha yeah. I assume the Mac Pro will remain a special
| case (as it is now), probably getting its own totally
| custom ARM chip when the time comes.
| jimbokun wrote:
| That is probably exactly why they are holding off on the
| 16" and iMacs, so they can engineer an Apple Silicon
| package with more RAM expansion options.
| qz2 wrote:
| I imagine they all are made with 16Gb on and the ones that
| are broken get sold as 8Gb.
|
| What worries me is my desktop has 64Gb of RAM which cost 1/3
| of Apple's usual upgrade mugging.
|
| I think I'll walk away from this.
|
| Edit: just seen PS200 to upgrade from a 8Gb unit to 16Gb.
|
| 8GB of RAM for PS200 is "get fucked" territory. I paid PS240
| for the 64Gb in my desktop.
| DavidSJ wrote:
| Sorry to interject this and I don't mean to distract from
| your point, but please don't say bits when you mean bytes.
| qz2 wrote:
| My bad. I should know better! GiB next time :)
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _GiB_
|
| Please don't.
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" I imagine they all are made with 16Gb on and the ones
| that are broken get sold as 8Gb."_
|
| Don't think so. The M1's RAM is integrated into the SoC
| package, but it's not actually on the same die.
|
| There's some images showing the discrete RAM modules in
| Apple's marketing material.
|
| > _" Edit: just seen PS200 to upgrade from a 8Gb unit to
| 16Gb."_
|
| It's always been this way with Apple. Just in the old days
| you could pop the modules out and upgrade the RAM yourself.
| gruez wrote:
| > I imagine they all are made with 16Gb on and the ones
| that are broken get sold as 8Gb.
|
| that gets done for GPUs and CPUs because they're a
| monolithic die, but AFAIK that's not done for memory chips.
| jiofih wrote:
| The iPad Pro has a mere 4GB of RAM and is faster at almost
| every task AND multitasking than any of my other beefy
| machines. I wouldn't discount this yet.
| qz2 wrote:
| I have an iPad Pro. It's not. And it's not very flexible.
| sitzkrieg wrote:
| what kind of tasks are those? my eyes rolled into outer
| space
| jonplackett wrote:
| I think it depends what they've done with Big Sur.
|
| Take a look at your activity monitor and see how many
| background tasks you laptop is running right now (I
| currently have 481 and I only have 4 apps actually
| running).
|
| Compare that to iPad which can run 2 apps max and apple
| controls all the background activity.
| nottorp wrote:
| I use 27 Gb of RAM currently on my hackintosh and none of
| my work VMs are on right now. No way I can get an arm Mac
| until they're available with 64+.
| qz2 wrote:
| This. I was hitting a wall on RAM instantly at 32Gb.
| conductr wrote:
| Out of curiosity, doing what??
| qz2 wrote:
| IDE + VMs + office + slack + zoom etc
| Bahamut wrote:
| I don't see this issue having IntelliJ, Xcode, VSCode,
| Slack, Discord, and more open simultaneously on a
| continuous issue...with 16 GB of RAM.
|
| I'm somewhat impressed by some of these stories about RAM
| usage - what are people doing?
| qz2 wrote:
| 4 node Kubernetes cluster, vagrant build environment.
| Macha wrote:
| Debugging Ember or Spring applications.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yeah, I found running all my dev environments in
| Docker/VMs made everything too slow. So I've just
| installed everything natively and have my own little
| docker-compose style runner to simplifying running our
| in-house microservices. I would definitely appreciate
| decent Docker performance, but it was actually
| surprisingly painless to set this up.
| conductr wrote:
| Blows my mind, I do most of the same on a 2013 MacBook
| Air with only 8GB RAM. I've never had a perf hiccup
| unless I try video editing or gaming. But I just don't
| really have a want to do those things, hence why I'm
| still getting by on this thing. I was going to upgrade
| once for the hell of it but all the keyboard issues kept
| me seated.
|
| I expected you to say you did something with
| graphics/media. I guess the VMs could be the difference.
| I don't use. But I have 100 chrome tabs open at most
| times lol.
| quicklyfrozen wrote:
| Right now I have 6GB for VMs (for ~12 docker containers)
| and 8GB for various IDEs and editors. Probably typical
| for those on my development team. Surprisingly Chrome
| isn't even the top ten for memory footprint on my laptop.
|
| So far 16GB has been fine on this 2017 MacBook. Wouldn't
| turn down 32 though :-)
| matsemann wrote:
| You have reduced performance, you're just accustomed to
| it.
| conductr wrote:
| Could be true. But I get instant feedback from all apps,
| so what's the measure of "reduced performance" that would
| matter?
| selsta wrote:
| All these things work with 8GB RAM. macOS uses all
| available RAM aggressively, so if you have 32GB RAM it
| will appear as what you are doing requires 32GB RAM,
| which is not the case.
| qz2 wrote:
| No they don't. It starts compressing pages when the
| memory pressure goes up and then it starts running like
| dog shit.
| nottorp wrote:
| On my machine, if it goes more than 5G into swap it
| starts to become less responsive.
|
| It really depends on your usage patterns. VM abusers and
| people who need to keep an eye on more than one project
| at the same time (as in multiple IDEs) can't do with 16
| Gb.
|
| And please don't tell me to start closing software, I'm
| willing to pay for more ram to have everything handy.
| Except... I can't.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| Hitting a wall how? The machine stops working properly?
| Or you see all the RAM allocated in Activity Monitor?
| Because MacOS aggressively allocates RAM even under a
| normal workload.
| qz2 wrote:
| Well when you start getting memory pressure you start
| losing cycles to compressing and decompressing pages
| which makes everything run like complete shit.
| jonplackett wrote:
| The only thing could be some really aggressive swap disk
| situation offloading anything not needed that second. But
| that won't work for things where you need all the ram
| right now, video editing for example.
| selsta wrote:
| macOS use RAM aggressively, so it appear as your task
| requires more RAM than they actually do.
| easton wrote:
| But you don't have background services on the iPad and
| apps are hibernated to disk if they aren't active and iOS
| needs more ram. It's possible that Apple is doing the
| same thing on macOS, but we don't know (it would break a
| ton of apps).
| [deleted]
| monocasa wrote:
| It's not on the same die just the same package which albeit
| is still space constrained.
| geoffeg wrote:
| Thanks, I sometimes get those terms confused.
| ssivark wrote:
| Crazy to imagine this, but restricting developers to 16GB
| machines might be the most effective way to fight against
| (cough... electron driven) software bloat :-)
| intpx wrote:
| Not all RAM is created equally. Better memory management means
| less RAM can be better than more RAM. Pair that with superfast
| flash storage for SWAP and you might not even be able to tell
| the difference between 16 and 32.
|
| Besides, this release cycle is 100% optimized for an impressive
| speed boost, tempered by a need for a more impressive battery
| life.
|
| The proof will be in the pudding.Time will tell.
| bpyne wrote:
| I have the same reaction. I suspect a lot of RAM is wasted by
| os's and applications.
| Razengan wrote:
| Yeah, 16 GB is hardly enough if you want to run more than 2
| Electron apps.
| dcchambers wrote:
| Yes that's true, for the "average consumer" that really only
| needs that RAM to power the 100+ browser tabs they have open.
| But if you're doing lots of virtualization or containerized
| work, super fast SWAP isn't going to cut it.
| ksk wrote:
| I no longer code so I'm probably close to the 'average
| consumer' now. I personally consider 32GB to be the minimum
| amout of RAM that anyone should consider in 2020,2021 (with
| obvious caveats on money). My multi-GB workloads are read-
| heavy and include loading multi-GB games, editing hundreds
| of RAW images, opening 50+ tabs, etc, all without leaving
| the cosy confines of my RAM - which I still sometimes do. I
| have a 100GB system commit limit on my W10 box, and with my
| current usage pattern, I hit about 50GB @ peak.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > Better memory management means less RAM can be better than
| more RAM
|
| No, it can't. If more RAM means it's _slower_ RAM then
| _maybe_ it can be better to have less of it in some
| workloads. But otherwise it 's never better to have less RAM
| than more RAM. Better memory management can make the _impact_
| of less RAM be less severe, but it 's still unambiguously
| _worse._
|
| Especially if you have workloads that actually need the RAM
| like large ML models or editing 8K videos.
| fastball wrote:
| Only worse if your only goal is "have more RAM".
|
| If the purpose of owning a computer is "get shit done",
| better memory management absolutely can be better than just
| throwing more RAM at the problem.
| ksk wrote:
| It's true that if the OS could predict exactly which
| memory pages to keep and which to swap out, we could save
| memory wastage, but so far I haven't seen any memory
| management scheme that can reduce memory consumption by
| half.
|
| For me personally, I won't even consider a machine with
| less than 32GB ram in 2020/2021. With 32GB, I never close
| out of applications that I use regularly, and so it
| allows me to switch state instantaneously for not that
| much more money. My workloads are typically read-heavy &
| multiple GBs - editing/screening/cataloging hundreds of
| RAW photos, loading of multi-GB games, having about 50
| tabs open in FF, etc. After having switched careers I
| rarely code anymore, and I don't think these are uncommon
| requirements.
| kllrnohj wrote:
| > better memory management absolutely can be better than
| just throwing more RAM at the problem.
|
| Those are not competing in any way. Better memory
| management does not require nor benefit from less RAM.
|
| Apple doesn't give you a different kernel when you choose
| the 8GB SKU instead of the 16GB one. It's the same
| software, just with less RAM. And having that less RAM is
| best case break-even in "day to day" experience, but
| never _better._
| stdbrouw wrote:
| I used a MBP with 4 GB of RAM up until 2018 for rather heavy
| duty data science workloads. Wasn't ideal, but one thing I
| learned was that you really can't infer the amount of swapping
| and performance degradation that occurs just by looking at how
| much RAM is in use vs. how much you have, because the OS will
| eat up whatever it gets. The little memory pressure graph you
| can see in Activity Monitor is quite good, and on my current
| machine with an "unfortunate" 16 GB of RAM, memory's always
| full but I have no complaints about speed whatsoever.
| viscanti wrote:
| Do most people with MacBook Airs have workloads that require
| more than 16GB or ram or do they generally value a lower price
| point?
|
| Cost, performance, light weight - pick two right? Apple seems
| to have picked a combination of lower cost and light weight.
| Customers who need more ram probably move up to a MBP.
| Aperocky wrote:
| I honestly can't think of a situation where you need more
| than 16GB of ram on an ultrabook. If your job is heavy video
| editing - I don't think getting a laptop is a good idea.
|
| I know I use a lot of RAM for compiling and tests, but we
| have cloud instances with up to 500GB of RAM for that.
|
| Also with the new ARM instructions, I suspect more heavy task
| like these will be forced to move elsewhere. Businesses might
| not want to switch for a few years to wait for dev tools/ARM
| servers to be available.
| wtetzner wrote:
| The 13" MBP has the same limitation.
| viscanti wrote:
| For the lowest end models right? It's the same tradeoff to
| bring down prices for people buying the lowest end
| machines. Presumably they understand that people who need
| the higher end spec'd machines will wait to buy a new
| laptop until more software has been migrated to run
| natively.
|
| If you need a 13" MBP that supports more than 16gb of ram,
| they sell it. It seems unlikely they'll stick with a 16gb
| limit once they start replacing the higher end devices.
| dbbk wrote:
| The MacBook Pro is also limited to 16GB.
| Shivetya wrote:
| This is 16GB which is shared with their GPU so it will be
| interesting to see what limit Apple puts on the GPU for
| grabbing memory.
|
| There are stories that Apple is working on a gGPU so that would
| free space up on a future Mx chip for additional processors or
| memory. However looking at the space occupied by DRAM and GPU
| it looks like a larger die is required for any on board memory
| expansion.
| brigade wrote:
| The Intel 13" MBP with 2 TB3 ports also topped out at 16GB.
| They're actually still selling the Intel 13" MBP with 4 TB3
| ports, which is the model that can be configured to 32GB.
| rsync wrote:
| "The 16GB RAM limit is unfortunate."
|
| This is a charitable characterization.
|
| More correct would be to term this limit "absurd" or
| "clownish".
|
| _Even if_ Apple views the use-cases of these machines as
| primarily consumption devices and the users of these machines
| not as creators but as consumers, the _bloat of the modern web_
| is expensive and getting more expensive every day.
|
| The end user needs this memory even if they really are just
| using these as facebook machines.
|
| EDIT: That's not just the notebooks - the mini appears to have
| this limitation as well (down from 64GB previously).
| lovelyviking wrote:
| Who is downvoting your perfectly reasonable thoughts? How
| it's done and why?
| hankchinaski wrote:
| disappointed with the design refresh or lack thereof. also
| disappointed with the subpar camera, 8gb ram as base spec. so
| thanks but i will pass
| tiffanyh wrote:
| I'm surprised the dropped Intel so fast.
|
| I would have thought they would have allowed people to buy both
| ARM and Intel models for a period of time.
|
| I guess not.
| yoz-y wrote:
| They still sell a lot of other intel Macs, including a 13" MBP
| and a Mac mini.
| ibraheemdev wrote:
| Apple has been getting trashed lately by developers for how hot
| and loud their macbooks get. You can tell how much focus they put
| on cooling in this presentation. The macbook air literally
| doesn't even have a fan!
| dasKrokodil wrote:
| Wasn't the latest Intel-based MacBook Air fanless as well?
| waterhouse wrote:
| No; I have one. (Perhaps you're thinking of the 12-inch
| Macbook, which was fanless, and which they stopped
| manufacturing a year ago.) And I go to extremes to keep the
| fan from spinning up: using Turbo Boost Switcher, and/or
| running a program that repeatedly does the equivalent of
| "kill -STOP" and "kill -CONT" to a process, hundreds of times
| per second, to force it to use less CPU.
| Ayesh wrote:
| It's not clear if they use the exact same M1 chip in Airs, but
| I'm pretty sure they run under a very low TDP. iPad A14 runs on
| 6W TDP.
| nicoburns wrote:
| In the chip part of the presentation they mentioned the Air
| TDP as being 10W.
| dang wrote:
| Url changed from https://www.apple.com/mac/ to the press release
| with more info. If there's a more accurate and neutral third-
| party article, let me know and we can change it again.
| jonplackett wrote:
| Lots I'm impressed with but... it's a shame to see they've cut
| the storage capacity in half!
|
| Finally with the last update of Macbook Pro they ditched the
| ridiculous 256gb SSD and went 512/1tb in the 2 pre-built models.
|
| Now we're back to 256/512. The impressively low starting price is
| hiding behind this and the halving of default RAM too.
| shrimpx wrote:
| The new Air looks good. The new mbp 13" not so much. If they're
| going to lower the max ram they should at least provide an
| explanation why 16g in the new architecture is comparable to 32
| in the previous, if that's indeed the case.
| lostgame wrote:
| 16GB RAM max prevented me from an immediate purchase. Next
| year, when I can at least have 32GB and be somewhat future-
| proofed.
|
| That they are still selling new computers for $1000+ in 2020
| with 8GB RAM as the default and 16GB of RAM max is a bad joke.
| bfrog wrote:
| My T460 has had 32GB in it for years now... can't even
| imagine going back to 16GB with all this electron bullcrap
| Baeocystin wrote:
| I finally switched to 32GiB this year, and man, what a
| difference. I hadn't thought I was all that constrained by
| 16, but now that I'm not, all the edge cases where that was
| the pain point are thrown in to relief.
| matsemann wrote:
| Not strictly comparable, but my company provided Lenovo P1
| that's a few years old got 64 GB. Can't imagine having to
| deal with 16 GB a few years later..
| geodel wrote:
| Dell XPS 1000+ 8GB, Lenovo X1: 1000+ 8GB, Thinkpad T14s 1000+
| 8GB, this list could be long. Even System76 linux computers
| are 1000+ for 8GB config. I do not know where you got this
| idea that 1000+ laptop have 16GB default.
|
| I am sure there will be consumer (crap) computers like HP
| pavilion, Dell inspiron etc where one can get 1000+ computer
| with 16GB or so RAM.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| One random thing: one of the photos in the announcement has a
| Chinese (I think) keyboard layout
| https://www.apple.com/newsroom/images/product/mac/standard/A...
|
| matches https://www.apple.com/shop/product/MLA22LC/A/magic-
| keyboard-...
| blux wrote:
| Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB
| of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a
| developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As
| for me, I do all my professional development (C++17/Linux, Vim,
| EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me
| the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM
| running some of the larger customer tests for which I have to go
| to a beefy machine in our network, but that happens rarely.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| I asked the same question. I get why people need more than 16GB
| of RAM, but honestly a lot of the answers seem to neglect that
| RAM (in most laptops) is not going to be your limiter, the CPU
| and/or GPU will be the limiter first for many of the cases
| people list. At that point, no amount of RAM will save you
| (though it may help).
| xondono wrote:
| I do CAD.
|
| Both SolidWorks and Altium are such RAM hogs that I've had to
| upgrade to _64GB_.
|
| It would be lovely to work on laptops, since it's the default
| assumption for most managers, so I either stick out as a weirdo
| for asking for a desktop every time I switch jobs, or shut up
| and spend most of my day dealing with slow laptops and random
| crashes, and having to make design choices around my computer
| (unnecessary) limitations.
| ethanp61 wrote:
| Any applications with image processing are usually bottlenecked
| by the available RAM on a system. If you're running any ML
| applications, it's most efficient to run models on batches of
| images and batch size is determined by RAM.
| 1_player wrote:
| I can easily make good use of 32 GB doing normal full stack
| development: Browser, Visual Studio Code, a few Docker
| containers including PostgreSQL, Slack.
|
| Actually this should consume a dozen GB of RAM more or less,
| the rest is in caches, which I think you're undervaluing a lot.
| Having everything you use in hot caches means any applications
| starts in a couple hundred of milliseconds, and everything is
| as fast as your RAM and CPU are, especially if you're running
| an OS that has a good implementation of file caching (e.g.
| Linux).
|
| Having more leeway means I never have to close anything if I
| forget to. I might have my dev environment chugging along in a
| desktop workspace, while I'm in another with a few dozen
| browser tabs, talking on Discord with a full screen game
| running on the other monitor.
|
| That's what a PS150 module of 32 GB of RAM gives me. But
| actually I'm running 64 GB :-)
| geoah wrote:
| Chrome (~1-4Gb), Slack with quite a few orgs (~2Gb), Discord
| again with quite a few orgs (~1Gb), Docker for local dev work
| (~1-8Gb), Gopls (golang's language server) (~1Gb per open
| vscode).
|
| Running out of RAM is not my main problem, continuously
| swapping is as has a performance hit across the whole system
| for some reason.
|
| As with many things, it's not a NEED, it's more that having to
| care about what I have open at any given moment gets annoying.
| Razengan wrote:
| > _Chrome (~1-4Gb), Slack with quite a few orgs (~2Gb),
| Discord again with quite a few orgs (~1Gb)_
|
| Those ravenous apps are the problem here. Seriously, fuck
| Electron.
| mrweasel wrote:
| I can see people needing more RAM, but I think people are
| forgetting that these are just the first few models Apple are
| bring to the market. If Apple truly believe that no one needs
| more, they could have dropped more of the Intel models.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| 4 gb for Chrome tabs, 6 gb for your docker WM, 2gb or whatever
| slack requires, 2gb because your music is now streamed and the
| app is just a few html pages rendered through Chrome. Plus a
| couple of gb for your IntelliJ IDE.
|
| If you are writing C++ in Vim for an embedded platform, you are
| limited by CPU power because C is so heavy to compile, but you
| are most likely also not likely to be the typical HNer.
| ako wrote:
| Had a t470s (24Gb), now on a p1 gen 2 (32Gb). Even 24Gb can
| feel limited when running kubernetes, number of docker images,
| oracle rdbms, kafka, java development environment, a browser,
| office suite...
| allwein wrote:
| I imagine that it's someone that runs either either a lot of
| virtual machines or a lot of Docker Containers.
| dtech wrote:
| docker, JVM VMs, IDEs that take a couple gigs. You can always
| use it.
| twalla wrote:
| I know Android Studio will basically eat up however much RAM is
| on your system. Also, with containers becoming more common,
| lots of people use something like Docker Compose locally to
| mock multiple services or parts of a system, which, depending
| on how well optimized those containers are, can add up quickly.
| seanalexander wrote:
| As a developer, I routinely need over 128GB. 32GB is cutting is
| short.
| asdff wrote:
| why aren't you using a server?
| regulation_d wrote:
| Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the
| camera? The low light performance of the current version is real
| bad. Since we're all using these cameras way more, I really
| thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much
| detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.
| gnicholas wrote:
| I agree that the cameras are subpar. I wonder if Apple figures
| that most Mac users already have an iPhone, and that if they
| want to use a better camera for videoconferencing, they can
| always just plug in their iPhone and use it as the camera.
|
| Has anyone done this? I've considered using my iPad Pro's
| camera this way but have never cared enough to actually do it.
| whiddershins wrote:
| I saw mention of a whole bunch of camera stuff including
| improved face detection.
| cromka wrote:
| That's via Image Signal Processing, not the camera itself.
| akmarinov wrote:
| It's looking like they stuck the M1 in the same bodies of
| existing Macs with the intention of upgrading everything next
| year.
| dijit wrote:
| If you look at the cooling solutions on the current macs I'd
| say the inverse: that these chassis were designed with the M1
| in mind and they shoehorned Intel CPUs into them.
| tomjen3 wrote:
| I brought a decent external camera, and while being able to
| position it is a must have, the quality means that if I don't
| shave or have a nick or something in the background, it is
| obvious.
|
| Whereas the people I am on an online call with have about has
| many pixels dedicated to their hair as Laura in Tomb Raider 3.
|
| I still care enough that I use it, and I am disappointed in
| Apple not including their iPhone camera, but it might not be
| something the average person wants.
| crazygringo wrote:
| I'm curious, are higher-quality cameras even available that fit
| into the thin lid? (At a reasonable price?)
|
| I was always under the impression that the built-in camera is
| so much worse than your phone's front-facing camera simply
| because the phone is thick and has room, while the MacBook lid
| is much thinner.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| Considering how good they are at iphone cameras there is
| absolutely no reason to have a poor camera nowaday in the
| laptop. They know how to make cameras that fit in tight
| places. They're just being lazy/cheap
| afandian wrote:
| That's a kind-of-backwards argument though isn't it? The lid
| needs to be thick enough to contain the necessary components,
| not the other way round.
| dijit wrote:
| But if the entire lid was as thick as a phone because of a
| camera then it would be enormous for no realistic reason.
|
| The rest of the screen display is thinner than the camera
| module already.
| crazygringo wrote:
| Obviously Apple sees thinness as a major feature.
|
| The reality is, for most people 720p is more than enough,
| since most videoconferencing is at a heavily compressed
| 480p anyways, and it's not like most people really want it
| super obvious that they missed a spot shaving or have a
| small zit anyways. And sure the quality arguably falls to
| below 480p in very low light conditions, but that's not an
| issue in any normal well-lit office, coffee shop, or
| kitchen or living room.
|
| I would assume Apple is making the right call here that a
| higher-resolution camera isn't worth additional thickness.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _are they, once again, not upgrading the camera?_
|
| I'm pretty sure there was a part of the presentation talking
| about a camera upgrade. But it's not something on my wish list,
| so I didn't pay attention.
|
| Double-check the recording on Apple's web site. The answer may
| be there.
| aroman wrote:
| The camera remains 720p, but they're claiming improved
| performance via signal processing algorithms[1]
|
| [1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-
| pro-m1-720p-cam...
| onepointsixC wrote:
| No, I don't think you're wrong. Apple has a bizarre product
| offering which combines an 8 core processor with a 720P camera
| and 8GB RAM.
| rbanffy wrote:
| Surprising as it seems, 8GB seems to be enough for most
| "normal" users. My wife has an 8GB MacBook Pro and I'm always
| shocked by how many open tabs she keeps in Chrome and how
| many Office documents are open at any given time.
|
| My 16GB MBP is constraining sometimes and the next one will,
| doubtlessly, come with at least 32GB. Until Apple can do
| that, I won't use an ARM-based Mac as my daily driver.
|
| As for the 8-core, it's 4 beefy ones and 4 low-power ones.
| Load will shift from one kind to the other according to usage
| patterns. This is how they achieve that 20-hour battery life.
| KMnO4 wrote:
| Surprisingly, the dealbreaker for me on this current generation
| is 2x TB3 ports on one side. I really like being able to charge
| from either side.
| AnonHP wrote:
| On a tangential note, there were reports about the Intel based
| MacBook Pro from earlier this year having CPU usage spikes and
| heating issues when charging from the left side port. For users
| with this problem, it was effectively "charge using the right
| side port".
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Yes, the original thread for this I believe is here:
| https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/363337/how-to-
| find...
| threeseed wrote:
| As a MacBook Pro owner this is nonsense.
|
| It throttles badly and overheats no matter which side you
| charge on.
|
| Actually surprised it didn't get more attention. If you're
| downloading and charging at the same time then your computer
| is unusable.
| eyelidlessness wrote:
| I definitely get more heat and throttling powering on the
| left side than the right, on my 2019 16". There are quite a
| lot of people who have reported the same, for all models
| which have USB-c ports on both sides. If you're not seeing
| a difference, it's pretty likely your workload or some
| background process is still pushing the thermal limits of
| your machine.
| tgarv wrote:
| Hmm, I wouldn't say this is nonsense. I can consistently
| reproduce the issue by charging on the left side (making
| the computer completely unusable), and then switching to
| the right side and having it run perfectly fine. Since I
| started charging on the right side I've had zero issues
| with it.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Hmm, I'll check this out today. Ironically I was
| downloading XCode last night and the fans sped up for an
| hour.
| [deleted]
| samjmck wrote:
| You can charge from either side though. You just don't get all
| the bandwidth that USB4/TB4 normally provides.
| masklinn wrote:
| You can't charge from either side if there are only ports on
| one side, which, if I understand the design and Gp's comment
| correctly, is the case for the ARM macs. Which would be those
| GP meant as "this generation".
| samjmck wrote:
| I assumed they had 4 ports like the current non-base model
| 13's, my bad.
| [deleted]
| saagarjha wrote:
| (This isn't a new design, FWIW.)
| bsimpson wrote:
| What a bizarre limitation. You'd think once they had them on
| both sides, they'd keep them that way for exactly the kind of
| flexibility you mention.
| jedberg wrote:
| You would also think they would keep the MagSafe connector,
| which was truly revolutionary (and has definitely saved me at
| least a dozen times), but yet here we are.
| asdff wrote:
| I've already tripped or stumbled on my usb-c cable dozens
| of times working from home. The damn thing is already
| pulling out at the ends. Why can't apple make good cables?
| They make their environmental statement making you buy the
| charger for your phone rather than shipping one in the box,
| just to sell you junk cables that don't last.
| interestica wrote:
| How was this not called AppleCore(tm)
| Shivetya wrote:
| What also stood out for me is how few big names they had for
| companies moving to Apple Silicon. I really did not recognize
| most of the companies they did highlight.
|
| I had been hoping for a web page dedicated to showing all
| companies on board with products coming or expected in the next
| year
| devxpy wrote:
| Excuse me, but why does the pro version even exist? It feels like
| paying 300$ for the novelty of a ... fan?
| samename wrote:
| There's probably some limits they've placed on the Air since it
| doesn't have a fan.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| Fan allows for better performance. Also Pro features Touch bar.
| jiofih wrote:
| The performance improvements here are astounding. I can't even
| remember when we last saw a 2x improvement in CPU perf, much less
| 3-5x and with better battery life to boot!
| tobr wrote:
| Two _fewer_ Thunderbolt ports on the MacBook Pro. That's not an
| upgrade...?
| saagarjha wrote:
| You're comparing it with the wrong computer.
| stevewodil wrote:
| What do you mean by this?
|
| The commenter is stating how the 2016-2019 MBP 13" had 4
| thunderbolt ports, and this new one only has 2
| saagarjha wrote:
| Not every 13" MacBook Pro has had four Thunderbolt ports;
| the base model always had just two. This computer clearly
| replaces that one, and Apple will launch another MacBook
| Pro in the future to replace the rest.
| stevewodil wrote:
| Oh that's right there was the model without the touchbar
| that had two ports and was a carryover from 2017, thanks
| for clarifying
| asdff wrote:
| There was a model even with the touchbar that only had
| two ports and one fan. the four port model got you more
| cores and two fans, quite a different computer internally
| despite sharing the same shape and 13" macbook pro label.
| very confusing for consumers.
| sccxy wrote:
| That PC ending was cringe.
|
| Silly Apple.
| notahaterbut wrote:
| The peak of the mac mini was the 2012 Mac Mini Server where you
| could add an extra HDD and had easy access to the memory. That
| was the Apple I respected.
|
| I'm not sure I understand why the current Mac Mini's needed to be
| a unibody design, since it just sits on your desk.
|
| While I am excited for the M1 chip and the future of ARM, I'm
| absolutely disgusted by the price gouging in the name of memory
| and HDD space.
| mLuby wrote:
| - 16GB RAM
|
| - 1TB SSD
|
| - 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7
|
| - 2 Thunderbolt
|
| - 2 USB B
|
| - Headphone jack
|
| - MagSafe power
|
| - HDMI
|
| - SD Card Reader
|
| - Physical function keys row
|
| MacBook design peaked in 2015.
| twalla wrote:
| you forgot:
|
| - retina display
|
| - actually good keyboard
|
| - the ability to upgrade storage
| tgv wrote:
| One word: keyboard.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I have the 2015 model, and I completely agree. It's a real
| shame though, because I would absolutely love a faster
| processor.
| tosh wrote:
| I was hoping for a re-introduction of the 12" Macbook, I guess
| we'll have to wait a little bit longer
| protomyth wrote:
| Looks like the Mac mini no longer has the ability to have a 10GBe
| Ethernet port. So, we could get 64GB of RAM and 10GBe in the last
| generation, and now this.
| vbezhenar wrote:
| They still sell Intel version, it's not gone. Also I think that
| there will be USB dongles for 10GBe Ethernet which is not as
| convenient, for sure, but bearable. And RAM limit is
| unfortunate indeed. I wouldn't buy 8GB RAM in 2020 at all and
| 16GB is barely enough, so this device won't last long given the
| lack of upgradability. Probably better RAM options will come
| next year.
| protomyth wrote:
| Well, the current USB-C to 10GBe is a big box (about two
| decks of playing cards) and costs about $150. I'm a bit
| unhappy about it. When a community college is starting to buy
| all 10GBe interfaces, its about time for Apple to move on.
|
| I'm going to get two Mac minis to look at, and then wait to
| replace my current machine when 32 or 64 GB ARM machines are
| available.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Performance gains are probably welcome aside from the ram
| limitation, though I was at 16gb anyway. For those mentioning USB
| ports on the pro, it seems like 4 are available on the highest
| spec version. I'm also excited for Big Sur, let's hope it isn't a
| catastrophe like Catalina was.
|
| Otherwise I'm disappointed that there wasn't a physical design
| iteration. I was really hoping for __something __. MicroLED
| screen, faster refresh rate, different colours of unibody,
| smaller bezels, more durable anti-reflective coating, more dent
| resistance, but nothing AFAICT.
| jbverschoor wrote:
| Still only 720p FaceTime cam. Too bad it's only TB on one side,
| and too bad it's not a 14" design. Apart form that - excellent!
| SamuelAdams wrote:
| Super interesting how they kept the touchbar on the Macbook Pro
| keyboard but not on the Air. As a software developer, I'm going
| to be more likely to buy an Air just due to the keyboard.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Same, the only issue with the current air for me is that the
| graphics struggle a bit when driving a large 4K monitor.
|
| If the new graphics capabilities are that much better I would
| be very tempted to upgrade
| tarasmatsyk wrote:
| Almost exactly what I thought, however specs are too low for me
| to ditch the bar no matter how useless it is comparing to
| physical keys
| Dirlewanger wrote:
| [deleted]
| Aperocky wrote:
| Didn't they revert the keyboard to the previous version?
| (Magic vs butterfly)
| entropea wrote:
| I am also not a fan of the keyboard or touch bar, but
| especially the touch bar. It's a cool idea and I can see
| useful functions, but not pushed up against a place where
| you're typing. I am constantly bringing up Siri or changing
| volume when hitting numbers, -= or delete from a finger
| swiping across the touch bar accidentally. There used to be a
| tactile force needed to activate F key functions, but now
| there's just a capacitive touch bar.
| buu700 wrote:
| What's wrong with the new keyboard (touch bar aside)? I
| haven't tried one yet, but I thought it was supposed to be
| more or less the same as the 2013 - 2015 MBP's.
| kbar13 wrote:
| as a software dev who went for air before the current gen of
| pro macbooks with hardware esc, dont do it
|
| the air is really sluggish for anything but the lightest of
| tasks. there was even extremely noticeable latency using
| gmail.com
| jxi wrote:
| agree about old airs, but this new one has the same CPU as
| mac mini and macbook pro (although without a fan). If it's
| even 80% as fast as a mac mini, it'll be plenty fast for 90%
| of software development needs.
| marc11111 wrote:
| Agree for the current Macs. The new Air seems to have the
| same specs as the new 13" Pro though or is there a
| difference?
| ogjunkyard wrote:
| If you configured them the same (chose the more expensive
| Air), the Air and the 13" Pro have the exact same specs
| from what I can tell other than a slightly brighter screen
| (500 nits vs. 400 nits) and slightly bigger battery (58.2
| whr vs. 49.9 whr) on the 13" Pro.
| AnonHP wrote:
| Since the new MacBook Air doesn't have a fan while the
| MacBook Pro does, I'm sure there are some differences that
| Apple isn't admitting right now. The battery life claimed
| by Apple is also higher on the Air compared to the Pro.
| Maybe the Air is throttled or runs at lower clock speeds.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| The base model air has 7 GPU cores instead of the 8 that
| the higher end Air, Pro, and Mini have.
| Zarel wrote:
| There's a noticeable latency using gmail.com on my iMac Pro,
| too.
|
| I've always used powerful desktops (Mac Pro, iMac Pro) and
| MacBook Airs while traveling, and while the Airs aren't very
| good for video games like StarCraft II, I've never had a
| problem with performance while doing anything else (I work in
| VS Code on TypeScript). My unit tests run in ~20 seconds on
| the MacBook Air as well as the iMac Pro.
| hyperdimension wrote:
| Honestly, I'm not even sure if that's an indictment of the
| hardware or gmail itself.
| breck wrote:
| I've been using Airs as my primary machine since 2010. I
| don't use bulky software (XCode, Adobe suite, Office, etc),
| so if you use any of that I wouldn't recommend it, but for
| software dev it's been plenty fast and a real joy to use.
|
| The only time I'm speed constrained is deep learning, but
| generally I just run tiny test sets locally and then run full
| jobs on a cluster or the cloud.
|
| In the mid 2010's I had a desktop with like 64GB of Ram and
| four million processors, and I found programming on the Air I
| was still more productive. Productivity wise I think it's a
| very high dimensional space to consider.
|
| (P.S. Can't wait to get this new Air!!!)
| Aperocky wrote:
| I place my faith in ARM and 5nm TSMC processing.
| minimaxir wrote:
| The OP is likely referring to the newly-announced Air with
| the same M1 chip.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| I only notice any issues when driving a big 4k monitor -
| seems like the graphics is the limitation to me.
| tshaddox wrote:
| The MacBook Air never had the Touch Bar, right?
| saagarjha wrote:
| No, it never did.
| vmarsy wrote:
| They kept the touch bar but it seems that they added (back) a
| physical Esc key, isn't that the most criticized missing key?
|
| Which other key do you miss now that Esc is back?
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| Having used an MBP keyboard, I'd say "all of them".
| dkarl wrote:
| Having bought a Macbook Pro with an Esc key earlier this
| year, lack of an Esc key was 90% of my issue with the touch
| bar. My biggest issue now is when I accidentally activate it.
| I didn't have an issue accidentally hitting the function keys
| on my 2013, so why not bring those back? Or invent something
| new. Forward or back, I don't care, just admit the touch bar
| was a dud and get it off my keyboard.
|
| EDIT: My mother also says she gets distracting autocomplete
| suggestions on the touch bar while she's typing. I vaguely
| remember doing something to turn that off on mine, but she is
| terrified of Covid so I haven't had a chance to get at her
| laptop and fix it for her. I don't know what human factors
| genius at Apple decided it would be helpful for people to see
| words hopping around at the edge of their vision while
| they're trying to type.
| dbbk wrote:
| Funnily enough the MacBook Pro product page actually shows
| both the physical and virtual escape keys on the touch bar.
| Hopefully that's a mistake...
| rusk wrote:
| That's great!
| plorkyeran wrote:
| All of them? I use the function keys regularly and it's much
| harder to hit the correct one without looking at the keyboard
| with the touch bar.
| buu700 wrote:
| This is such a bizarre unforced error. Why would they just
| arbitrarily remove a row of the keyboard? Taking it away
| and asking why I need it is like asking why I need right-
| click, pinch-to-zoom, or my left pinky finger. It makes no
| sense that we have to choose between fully featured input
| and active cooling.
|
| Either way, based on this announcement I'll probably hold
| off on upgrading for another generation. That'll leave some
| time to see how the transition goes, and with any luck the
| next ones will include 32 GB RAM, Mini-LED, and 5G (along
| with a full keyboard).
| asdff wrote:
| Don't know why they didn't just add a screen to the blank
| function key width gap of bare aluminum between the
| keyboard and the hinge if they were looking to add some
| decoration to the keyboard. That would have been
| _praised_ , instead it's been a pariah.
| jedberg wrote:
| What do you use function keys for? I was thinking about
| this, and I don't think I've used a function key in years.
| skrtskrt wrote:
| Jetbrains IDEs and VSCcode have a ton of default
| shortcuts using the fn keys.
|
| I'm happily tapping away with them on a 2020 MBA
| ataylor32 wrote:
| I'm not the person you replied to, but I frequently use
| the play/pause key and also the volume keys. I
| occasionally use the function keys in my text editor too.
| jedberg wrote:
| Ok yeah I guess I use volume sometimes.
| oblio wrote:
| Do you use IDEs for debugging?
| plorkyeran wrote:
| Step Over/Into/Out shortcuts in Xcode (F6/F7/F8) are the
| really obvious ones which I hit many times per day.
| Play/pause/etc. with the Fn key are easier to hit without
| looking than the touchbar.
| Macha wrote:
| The lock button is super sensitive and prone to being pressed
| when hitting backspace.
| alquemist wrote:
| light level down, light level up, mute, volume down, volume
| up.
| pavelrub wrote:
| The physical Esc key was already added in the previous
| generation
| reaperducer wrote:
| I'm with you. My work computer has the TouchBar, and my
| personal computer has the physical keys.
|
| While I prefer the physical keys, once you get the TouchBar
| configured properly (I use MTMR), it's really quite nice.
| Combined with a physical escape key, it would be ideal.
|
| Considering how the people on HN boast so much about being
| L337 Haxxorz, I'm surprised they don't see the value in a
| secondary interactive screen that they can make do anything
| they want.
| usaphp wrote:
| I actually miss "Esc" key being in the touchbar, it felt
| quicker to tap it on previous gen macbook pro instead of
| pressing it on my new macbook pro.
| api wrote:
| Has anyone _ever_ seen anyone use the Touch Bar? Like really
| use it?
| [deleted]
| dotancohen wrote:
| I think that the Photoshop crowd likes it.
| egypturnash wrote:
| Depends on how you use it, if you use a lot of actions
| (basically macros) via keyboard shortcuts then you probably
| hate the touchbar, because they can only be bound to
| f-keys.
| stblack wrote:
| My fondest wish is a high-end MBP 16" with no touch bar. The
| touch bar's sole role is to generate errors and missteps
| resulting from merely grazing over it.
|
| Even setting the touch bar to vanilla F-keys, grazing
| triggers F-key actions which is so frustrating.
| rusk wrote:
| Give me the 2015 model any day
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Yes - I always assumed the eventual goal was a touch bar
| with the same haptic feedback as the trackpad (and no the
| trackpad doesn't move).
| hackstack wrote:
| FWIW there are third-party software options for the Touch
| Bar such as MTMR (my touch bar, my rules), which at least
| allows you to activate the haptic feedback in the
| trackpad when touch bar buttons are pressed. I found that
| it helped dramatically with accidental touch bar presses.
|
| MTMR also solves the other main problem with the Touch
| Bar which is that it hides brightness and volume controls
| behind a tap (so you can't, for example, instantly mash
| "volume down" when you find it is unexpectedly loud.)
| With MTMR (and others I believe) you can make multi-touch
| gestures on the bar to adjust volume and brightness
| swiftly.
|
| All that said, I'm not convinced that the touch bar adds
| enough value to justify its cost. If your day-to-day
| computer use includes tasks it is good it, maybe. As a
| developer, probably not.
|
| Just my $0.02 as a touchbar-skeptic-cum-macbook-owner.
| gumby wrote:
| There are quite a few people who look at the keyboard as they
| type and for them it's great. Seems like it would be more
| useful in a consumer laptop.
| crazygringo wrote:
| It was designed for, and is widely used by, the graphics and
| audio professionals crowd.
|
| The ability to use touch sliders, filmstrips, etc. is a huge
| boon.
|
| It just gets a ton of hate here on HN because obviously
| there's very little overlap between the populations.
|
| A lot of people forget that "Pro" has _never_ referred to
| software professionals, it 's always referred to multimedia
| professionals.
| TMWNN wrote:
| If Touch Bar were in addition to the function keys + Escape
| key, everyone would praise it as yet another brilliant Apple
| innovation, and rivals would be copying it the way every
| notebook nowadays looks like the late-2008 unibody Macbook
| Pro (and really, all the way back to the 2001 titanium
| PowerBook). But it's not, so they don't and they aren't.
| Razengan wrote:
| Has anyone ever seen anyone use the F# keys in a Mac app?
| thesquib wrote:
| I dislike it immensely, mainly because it changes all the
| time and this makes ot hard to use worhout looking at it
| every single time. The best way is to use an external
| keyboard.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Like most oldsters, I have presbyopia, which is exacerbated
| in low light. When I need to turn up the brightness of my
| monitor, I can actually see the "button" on a touchbar. On
| all my non-touchbar laptops, I randomly press F keys and hope
| for the best or pull out my phone for a flashlight.
|
| Yes, I miss the physical esc, but F-keys are usually SW
| configurable and I can configure splat-1-10. That said, I am
| not a frequent programmer...
| jonfw wrote:
| I use it for exactly what I've always used function keys for-
| brightness and volume.
|
| I also occasionally use the emoji picker or app specific
| stuff. For example- my markdown editor has Touchbar
| selections for code blocks and all that sort of stuff. I
| don't write enough markdown to remember everything- so the
| touchbar makes it nicely discoverable without having to click
| through menus.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| I love the Touch Bar. All those cmd-opt-shift bizarro
| keyboard shortcuts, I have mapped to custom buttons across
| lots of apps. A couple popup apps on globally-available
| buttons. Even a swiping gesture while on iTerm to fly through
| command history.
|
| It's great if you take the time to actually customize it.
| Eric_WVGG wrote:
| incidentally, I place the "blame" for the poor uptake of
| the Touch Bar at Apple's feet. They relied on uninterested
| developers to make it useful, and didn't but the necessary
| tools in the hands of users to make it useful themselves.
| In five years, they've done nothing to expand its
| capabilities since the debut.
|
| Everything cool I can do with the Touch Bar is thanks to a
| third-party tool, BetterTouchTool. It rules. Give it a
| look. https://www.folivora.ai
| Razengan wrote:
| Samplr is an example of how cool it can be:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMlmzTBF_LE
| qz2 wrote:
| Personally I tried using it for F keys which is quite frankly
| the only requirement I'd have and it was awful. At a fully
| extended hand, which you need to do if you've hit a meta key,
| it's impossible to hit the right F keys every time. I don't
| know how anyone writes code on those machines.
|
| It went back to the Apple store within a week and I got an
| air. Which went to the Apple store in a week because the
| keybbboooaaarrdd wwaaass aawwwful.
|
| Then I bought a thinkpad. Which is less of a shiny toy.
| wtetzner wrote:
| Which Thinkpad did you get, and how do you like it? Are you
| running Windows, or Linux?
|
| I'm trying to figure out what my next laptop should be, but
| I have no prior experience with Thinkpads.
| qz2 wrote:
| T495s running Ubuntu 20.04. Absolutely perfect machine as
| far as I am concerned. Everything works flawlessly that
| I've tried and the quality is excellent. Really like it.
| core-questions wrote:
| VirtualDJ supports using it for a crossfader, but then, it
| would be a way better move to buy an Air, and a real audio
| interface and mixing board, or at least an external
| controller.
| gknoy wrote:
| I only use it for brightness and volume controls (and TIL
| about the Emoji picker thanks to a sibling comment). I _LOVE_
| the analog-feeling controls on brightness and volume. Even
| though I know it 's the same under the hood as an
| incrementation button, the UX of it makes me feel
| substantially happier. I absolutely miss the volume and
| brightness sliders when I go to use my Chromebook or my
| wife's laptop.
|
| I normally keep the touchbar configured to only show the ~4
| most used buttons (night mode, brightness, volume, and mute),
| and find that I use the other buttons rarely enough that I
| forgot what else was on there -- mainly because I use
| touchpad gestures instead.
|
| I rarely (never?) used F-keys in my IDE (Jetbrains) or other
| apps, so I don't miss them. I have a physical Esc key (which
| is nice), though I used it rarely enough on my previous
| generation touchbar mac that it wasn't very infuriating.
| Having the physical escape + power keys removed any
| complaints I previously had about it.
| bradstewart wrote:
| Interesting. Volume and brightness adjustment is my least
| favorite part of the touchbar. With physical keys I can
| adjust the volume/brightness without looking down.
|
| If it were a physical slider, I'd totally agree with you.
|
| (Not that there's any right or wrong or answer here.)
| tiffanyh wrote:
| Apple officially has dropped mentioning the CPU _frequency_ for
| these new Macs (just like they don 't mentioned it with iOS
| devices)
| djhaskin987 wrote:
| Indeed. The CPU is 3.5x faster "than before". What is this
| before? December 2020 or the last time they made their own
| chip?
| FireBeyond wrote:
| And "faster than the latest Intel mobile CPU".
|
| Note they say "latest", not "best". That means that a Celeron
| 5205U, dual core processor with 1.9GHz, no turbo, no hyper
| threading, 2MB L1, would be a valid baseline.
| keyle wrote:
| Yep we're 4X this and 3X that and here is a graph with a 2
| curves and no scale, but it's a glowing line!
|
| Then the top model still ships with a Radeon mobile chip. So...
| your super duper M1 graphics, not so super duper.
| Semiapies wrote:
| And if you look at the footnotes, they're making these
| comparisons with things like...the i3 Mac Minis. Not
| impressive.
| _alex_ wrote:
| I think it's actually a good move for the first gen. If they
| put out the CPU frequency, people would be comparing it to the
| intel parts. ARM and x86 being different architectures, a 2GHz
| M1 is going to perform differently than a 2GHz Core i5
| asdff wrote:
| There's been dozens of macs that have come out with a lower
| baseline frequency than the current gen. My ancient 2004
| ibook G4 has a higher frequency than a 2020 macbook air,
| doesn't mean customers conflate it to be faster nor should
| they if your marketing was worth a damn.
| damnencryption wrote:
| Apple's direction of marketing is better suited for mainstream
| consumers. Many of them don't know what CPU frequency means.
| For them, its additional noise with no added value. Consumers
| have too many choices and throwing a spec sheet often make them
| compare for hours and still can't make a decision whereas you
| know that this year's Mac is likely faster and better than last
| year's.
| duhi88 wrote:
| It is sorta meaningless these days. The 3.6GHz chip in my P
| consistently averages at 4.3GHz, and climbs up to high 4's when
| it needs to. It's also much faster than a 3.6GHz processor from
| 5 years ago.
|
| It's a great baseline for comparing same-generation computers,
| though. Without benchmarks, none of us has any idea which is
| faster, the Air or the Pro, or the 15".
| howmayiannoyyou wrote:
| Just ordered a Mac Mini. It finally has the performance config I
| can justify. Can't wait to take this thing for spin.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| The macmini can be a superior 'apple tv' replacement for a TV. It
| fits nicely, can support USB controllers for emulating
| SNES/MAME/etc. supports airdrop etc.
| midrus wrote:
| I'm already ordering a Thinkpad.
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| I missed something -- will older apps still work or must all your
| apps be new versions, recompiled for M1?
| PopePompus wrote:
| Older apps will run via Rosetta 2
| htk wrote:
| Rosetta 2 is the translation layer to keep older versions
| running on the new chip.
| mynegation wrote:
| They mentioned Rosetta 2 - emulation layer for Intel-only apps.
| cromka wrote:
| It's a translation, to be precise, not emulation.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's both.
| cromka wrote:
| No, no it's not. Rosetta Stone 2 does not virtualize and
| virtualization from x86 to Silicon (arm) will not be
| supported by Apple themselves.
| saagarjha wrote:
| It's called "Rosetta 2", and I have no idea why you're
| bringing up virtualization when I was talking about
| translation and emulation.
| metahost wrote:
| Older apps are _supposed to_ work as is (with Rosetta).
| [deleted]
| andy_ppp wrote:
| They have Rosetta 2 (translates Intel apps to Arm) and said the
| integrated graphics are so much faster than Intel's you can
| expect faster performance in games than before.
|
| I am quite skeptical of this but let's see.
| kps wrote:
| Rosetta 1 worked perfectly, but Apple dropped it after 2 OS
| versions. Fool me once and all that.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Straw poll: I need a new development machine, price is not an
| object but it has to be a Mac. Should I buy this new M1 or go
| with the Intel 16 inch MBP?
|
| My gut says there's going to be a year or two of cross-
| compilation nightmares. I do a lot of Docker-based development.
| Wondering what everyone else thinks?
| Shivetya wrote:
| To be honest. You should wait a few weeks for all the expected
| reviews which will not only perform performance comparisons but
| highlight what software works that which does not
| AdamN wrote:
| Get the Apple Silicon. If it doesn't meet your expectations,
| return it and get the Intel one. Returns are trivial with Apple
| if within 2 weeks (might be longer now with covid).
| dubin wrote:
| Oh really? That's good to know. Thanks!
| ericmay wrote:
| If you need something new yea I'd go with the Intel MBP right
| now.
| seunosewa wrote:
| For development, definitely the Intel. Most Macs in use would
| be Intel Macs for a while.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _Should I buy this new M1 or go with the Intel 16 inch MBP?_
|
| IMO, it depends on how long you're going to keep your computer.
|
| If you're the sort of person who keeps using the same computer
| for eight or nine years, you don't want to end up on the old
| chips when all the software has migrated years earlier.
|
| Imagine still running a PowerMac in 2010.
|
| I was ready to buy an M1 model, but the deal breaker for me is
| the screen. I use a 2011 Air. An 11" screen was fine a decade
| ago, but my eyes aren't what they used to be, and I don't think
| 13" is going to cut it. When a 15" or 16" option becomes
| available, I'm there.
| dstick wrote:
| Go for the 16 inch. I've upgraded from my 2015 model (couldn't
| stand the butterfly keys) and the wait was worth it! Great
| keyboard, physical escape key, 16 threads, large screen - great
| machine. It took them 5 years to get there so don't get your
| hopes up for this new one ;-)
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Yeah, I think that's what I'll do. Although the 16" is bigger
| than I need; I wish they kept the 13" Intel lineup available.
| reaperducer wrote:
| _I wish they kept the 13" Intel lineup available._
|
| They did. They're right there in the store below the M1
| models. Just scroll a little bit.
| berkut wrote:
| There are still some MBP-13 Intels (i5) with 4 Thunderbolt
| ports + more RAM still available I think?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Hm... not that I can find on their online store.
| berkut wrote:
| There for me on both US + NZ stores:
|
| https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-pro/13-inch
|
| scroll down to second row...
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Oh! I totally missed that :) thanks!
| sgt wrote:
| As with anything brand new - wait for the 2nd version of it,
| especially if you are a power user.
| afandian wrote:
| I sometimes wonder what the overhead of Docker costs on a Mac.
| The fact that you have to run a whole linux VM, with guest OS,
| then send data back and forth over that, especially with volume
| mapping. I'm sure it can be quantified over running linux
| directly on the same hardware.
|
| My machine (MacBook Pro 13-inch, 2018, 2.7 GHz Quad-Core Intel
| Core i7, 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3) often runs screaming hot (with
| screaming fans too), when I only have a browser, zoom, docker
| and IntelliJ running, and I wonder what went wrong.
| fpoling wrote:
| The memory approaching the limit and MacOS starts to compress
| it which is CPU intensive. Try to limit RAM for Dicker VM.
| rabscuttler wrote:
| Have you tried Turbo Boost Switcher?
|
| It does wonders for my 2019 16 MBP, ensuring the fans very
| rarely kick in and CPU temps stay reasonable doing similar
| workloads to what you describe.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Yeah, it's pretty crazy especially when you've got a bunch of
| bind mounts. My current machine is a 2013 MBA and after
| cumulative 100+ hours of fighting with docker over the years,
| I finally gave up and started using remote development in
| VSCode on a Linux server. That was a great decision.
| bengale wrote:
| Glad to hear this has gone well. My current plan is to
| stick a Linux workstation under my desk and then use my
| MacBook for remote vscode.
| afandian wrote:
| Last time I tried that the network file serving was a
| bottleneck. But I guess there comes a point where you have
| to choose your bottleneck.
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| VSC is the real workhorse here. It's way beyond something
| like an SSHFS mount. The server actually runs an instance
| of VSC. It's really quite good and I don't even notice
| I'm editing on another machine. Would recommend trying
| it.
| afandian wrote:
| Thanks, today I learned something. I'll try it out.
|
| All the more disappointing that Jetbrains won't support a
| language server beyond Intellij.
| getpost wrote:
| Yeah, Docker is an issue for me as well. Great idea!
| Thanks! Care to share any more details? Who is hosting
| what configuration?
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| Just google VSCode Remote Development. It's very easy to
| setup. I personally use a Scaleway machine.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| > I sometimes wonder what the overhead of Docker costs on a
| Mac.
|
| I wouldn't use Docker on a Mac. The fan goes like crazy the
| whole time, and the battery life is like an hour or less.
| Whereas with vagrant and virtualbox the fan stays off and the
| battery lasts all day.
| p0nce wrote:
| With Rosetta a lot of x86_64 programs actually do work, and the
| porting to arm64 is not _that_ bad.
| fpoling wrote:
| For such workflow 16gb is not enough. Docker on Mac is a VM and
| you need to have a lot of ram for disc caching to compensate
| for slow IO in VM even if 16GB looks like they could do it.
| slavoingilizov wrote:
| Can you run docker and virtualisation software on these? I read
| a comment about Federighi mentioning that there's no EFI or
| dual boot, which I can't find now, and I assumed there's no
| virtualisation at all.
| unvs wrote:
| I'd say the 16, but with a caveat. By itself it is a great
| machine. In clamshell mode with an external 4k screen it is a
| great machine. With the laptop screen open connected to an
| external 4k screen it is EXTREMELY noisy and hot.
|
| ~173 pages of complaints on Macrumors here:
| https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an...
| bengale wrote:
| What difference does having it closed make? I keep my on a
| stand but open just for slack really. It does make a hell of
| a racket when I've got a lot of containers running.
| mindajar wrote:
| In clamshell mode it only has to drive one display
| asdff wrote:
| Is the reality of the 4k era that if you want dual
| monitors and peformance that you have to go back to 1080p
| monitors? Looks like I'll be holding onto my $100 dell
| screens for a while yet.
| pbronez wrote:
| Honestly the new MBP seems dead on arrival if only because of
| the RAM limitation.
| bengale wrote:
| This is just the first SKU, no need to be dramatic about it.
| cute_boi wrote:
| I bought macbook pro 13 inch 2017 edition but I regret it forever
| due to its screen issue. Apple asks like 800$ repair for around
| 1100$ laptop atm. They placed tcon board near heatsink and
| congratulation if ur cpu gets heated your screen will suddenly
| stop working.
|
| So please buy after checking how much it can be repaired :/
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