And I'm not scared, I'm sad. I would love to have 3 or more open competitive desktop/laptop platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS) but my view is that the release of the M1 makes that not very likely.
The M1 is almost identical to the A14, a great chip that was designed for mobile devices. It is designed to run one application at a time, don't do much compute or graphics, have a fixed set of memory and no hardware attachments. It does that brilliantly.
The problem is that a chip designed for a computer have different priorities. The need for low power consumption is less important. Even in a laptop, after 10h, Id rather take performance then more battery time. In a Computer you want more threads, expandable memory, PCI Gen 4.0, discreet graphics, GPU Compute, Raytracing, support for fast networking (the Mac Mini used to have 10Gig lan), multiple display support, expandable storage, and in a stationary computer preferably you want to be able to upgrade parts.
If we look at the M1 compare it to the A14, we can see that Apple has made almost no modifications to the architecture to make it fit in a computer rather then a mobile device. They didn't add more cores, they didn't add support for PCI, GPUs, Ethernet, or anything else that makes it more like a Computer CPU.
Maybe this is besides the point, but to me it was very telling that they didn't update the physical design of any of the 3 computers. The thermal envelope of the M1 Should make it possible to make some much sexier designs, then the old designs we where given. It tells me a lot about how Apple allocates its resources.
This paired with Apples messaging, tells me that Apple is not interested in making Macs that are competitive with PCs on the things that make you choose to use a computer over a mobile device. It feels to me like Apple has moved to Apple Silicon on the mac because its convenient for them to have a single platform, rather than it being the right design for the products.
Apple have neglected the mac and especially the pro segment for a long time. There was always a chance they would get their act together and build reasonably priced, top speced machines, that could compete with Linux and Windows boxes, but with this move, I cant see them put the resources behind their silicon to compete with AMD, nVidia, and Intel when it comes to Performance and features.
So, no I'm not scared, I'm sad that Apple has taken themselves out of the running.
If you used to run a Mac, then you'd know that they didn't redesign the outside of any Macs when they switched to Intel. It signals continuity of the platform. And besides, they just redesigned the Air two years ago. What were you expecting?
And yes, they did add more cores. There's PCIe 4. There's support for Ethernet. There's also Thunderbolt and HDMI.
You're extrapolating the three lowest-end Macs up through the entire product line. They aren't going to keep the higher-end Intel Mac mini available if they don't think it (and its specs) serves a purpose. They aren't going to invest everything they did in the new Mac Pro just to drop it after a year.
And if the performance of Apple's chips over the last decade makes you think they won't put the resources behind their silicon to compete, I don't know what to tell you.
This doesn't exclude you from being a mac hater. In fact judging from the comments you read on every post on HN that is remotely related to Apple, that seems more likely than the typical blind hatred you see on the internet broadly.
> And I'm not scared, I'm sad. I would love to have 3 or more open competitive desktop/laptop platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS) but my view is that the release of the M1 makes that not very likely.
Based on what, exactly? Very few people have their hands on an M1 mac and there hasn't been any reviews of the systems from third parties yet.
> If we look at the M1 compare it to the A14, we can see that Apple has made almost no modifications to the architecture to make it fit in a computer rather then a mobile device. They didn't add more cores, they didn't add support for PCI, GPUs, Ethernet, or anything else that makes it more like a Computer CPU.
You don't know what they did or didn't do to adapt the M1 for computers. There has to be some degree of PCI-E support since they are using thunderbolt ports. There is ethernet on the mac mini with the M1 chip. It remains to be seen whether or not supporting discrete GPUs will be a thing and that'll largely depend on how their GPU scales. The computers that use discrete GPUs in macs right now haven't released an Apple silicon variant yet.
> Maybe this is besides the point, but to me it was very telling that they didn't update the physical design of any of the 3 computers. The thermal envelope of the M1 Should make it possible to make some much sexier designs, then the old designs we where given. It tells me a lot about how Apple allocates its resources.
I think it is beside the point. There's no reason to delay new chips just for the sake of being in sync with a new redesign of the chassis. It may or may not happen next year with the iMac or Macbook Pro 16, we don't know that yet.
> Apple have neglected the mac and especially the pro segment for a long time. There was always a chance they would get their act together and build reasonably priced, top speced machines, that could compete with Linux and Windows boxes, but with this move, I cant see them put the resources behind their silicon to compete with AMD, nVidia, and Intel when it comes to Performance and features.
They only released their entry level computers. You have nothing to base this argument on. There have only been leaked benchmarks all of which seem favorable towards Apple. We won't know what it means until people start getting them and testing them.
You don't know what they did or didn't do to adapt the M1 for computers. There has to be some degree of PCI-E support since they are using thunderbolt ports. There is ethernet on the mac mini with the M1 chip.
Also, from the Docker issue that was posted here yesterday, we know that the A14 does not have support for virtualization and M1 does (I presume the ARM equivalent of VT-X, etc.).
You completely sidestep the fact that benchmarks show the air outperforming all the other laptops Apple sell today with intel chips. How can you not see that as an achievement?
None of the computers getting the M1 today previously let you put in PCI cards or do any of the stuff you claim is needed other than expand the memory.
A14 only made to do one task at a time is just not true. iOS itself runs multiple tasks and writing software utilizing multiple threads is something you do all the time in iOS. I have written more multithreaded code on iOS than on a desktop. Why? Because using grand central dispatch is a must when dealing with all sorts of low latency web APIs you access. I don’t have that issue when building desktop apps.
These Apple laptops have always had few ports. Don’t blame M1 for that.
I'm genuinely puzzled as to what Apple would have to have done to convince you with the M1 given the machines it was designed for. It's an 8 core chip that runs in a fanless laoptop and outperforms all of the competition in that form factor.
We haven't seen what the desktop versions with much higher TDPs and discrete graphics will look like yet but you've written them off?
And I'm not scared, I'm sad. I would love to have 3 or more open competitive desktop/laptop platforms (Windows, Linux and MacOS) but my view is that the release of the M1 makes that not very likely.
The M1 is almost identical to the A14, a great chip that was designed for mobile devices. It is designed to run one application at a time, don't do much compute or graphics, have a fixed set of memory and no hardware attachments. It does that brilliantly.
The problem is that a chip designed for a computer have different priorities. The need for low power consumption is less important. Even in a laptop, after 10h, Id rather take performance then more battery time. In a Computer you want more threads, expandable memory, PCI Gen 4.0, discreet graphics, GPU Compute, Raytracing, support for fast networking (the Mac Mini used to have 10Gig lan), multiple display support, expandable storage, and in a stationary computer preferably you want to be able to upgrade parts.
If we look at the M1 compare it to the A14, we can see that Apple has made almost no modifications to the architecture to make it fit in a computer rather then a mobile device. They didn't add more cores, they didn't add support for PCI, GPUs, Ethernet, or anything else that makes it more like a Computer CPU.
Maybe this is besides the point, but to me it was very telling that they didn't update the physical design of any of the 3 computers. The thermal envelope of the M1 Should make it possible to make some much sexier designs, then the old designs we where given. It tells me a lot about how Apple allocates its resources.
This paired with Apples messaging, tells me that Apple is not interested in making Macs that are competitive with PCs on the things that make you choose to use a computer over a mobile device. It feels to me like Apple has moved to Apple Silicon on the mac because its convenient for them to have a single platform, rather than it being the right design for the products.
Apple have neglected the mac and especially the pro segment for a long time. There was always a chance they would get their act together and build reasonably priced, top speced machines, that could compete with Linux and Windows boxes, but with this move, I cant see them put the resources behind their silicon to compete with AMD, nVidia, and Intel when it comes to Performance and features.
So, no I'm not scared, I'm sad that Apple has taken themselves out of the running.