Some people may not be familiar with the fact that BlackMagic Design incorporated its motion graphics and VFX package, Fusion, into Resolve a few years ago. It's an incredibly powerful compositing package, though its node-based architecture may present a nontrivial learning curve for people accustomed to the pre-comping workflow of AE.
Back in the early 90s, when Apple was literally building their first product line with the Mac, they would come out with their second big honking powerhouse Mac: the Macintosh IIx. It blew everything out of the water. Then they would come out with their next budget all-in-one machine. But computing was improving so fast, with prices for components dropping so quickly, that the Macintosh SE/30 ended up as impressive as the Macintosh IIx with a much lower price. That's how the legend of the SE/30 was born, turning it into the best Mac ever for most people.
With how fast and impressive the improvements are coming with the M-series processors, it often feels like we're back in the early 90s. I thought the M1 Macbook Air would be the epitome of Apple's processor renaissance, but it sure feels like that was only the beginning. When we look historically at these machines in 20 years, we'll think of a specific machine as the best early Apple Silicon Mac. I don't think that machine is even out yet.
In the 90s, you probably wouldn't want to be using a desktop from 4 years ago, but the M1 is already 4 years old and will probably be fine for most people for years yet.
No kidding. The M1 MacBook Pro I got from work is the first time I've ever subjectively considered a computer to be just as fast as it was the day I got it.
I think by the time my work-provided M1 MacBook Pro arrived, the M2s were already out, but of course I simply didn't care. I actually wonder when it will be worth the hassle of transferring all my stuff over to a new machine. Could easily be another 4 years.
Maybe the desktops, but the laptops were always nigh-unusable for my workloads (nothing special, just iOS dev in Xcode). The fans would spin up to jet takeoff status, it would thermal throttle, and performance would nosedive.
There was a really annoying issue with a lot of the intel MacBooks where due to the board design one of the two power sockets would cause them to run quite a bit hotter.
Yeah I remember that, I posted a YouTube video complaining about it 6 years ago, before I could find any other references to the issue online. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rox2IfViJLg
That would cause it to throttle even when idle! But even on battery or using the right-hand ports, under continuous load (edit-build-test cycles) it would quickly throttle.
Or your lap gets hot. Or the fans drive you mad. Good luck with the available ports. Oh, it’s slow AF too, but if you get the right model you can use that stupid Touch Bar.
Apple's marketing is comparing this season's M4s to M1s and even two generations of Intel ago. The 2x or 4x numbers suggests they are targeting and catering to this longer cycle where subliminally suggested updates are remarkably better, rather than suggesting an annual treadmill even though each release is "our best ever".
I mean, most people don't buy a new phone each year, let alone something as expensive as a laptop. They are probably still targeting Intel Mac, or M1 users for the most part.
So long as Apple is willing to keep operating system updates available for the platform. This is by far the most frustrating thing. Apple hardware, amazing and can last for years and even decades. Supported operating system updates, only a couple of years.
I'm typing this from my mid-2012 retina mac book pro. I'm on Mojave and I'm well out of support for the operating system patches. But the hardware keeps running like a champ.
Apple hardware, amazing and can last for years and even decades. Supported operating system updates, only a couple of years.
That’s not accurate.
Just yesterday, my 2017 Retina 4k iMac got a security update to macOS Ventura 13.7.1 and Safari even though it’s listed as “vintage.”
Now that Apple makes their own processors and GPUs, there’s really no reason in the foreseeable future that Apple would need to stop supporting any Mac with an M-series chip.
The first M1 Macs shipped in November 2020—four years ago but they can run the latest macOS Sequoia with Apple Intelligence.
Unless Apple makes some major changes to the Mac’s architecture, I don’t expect Apple to stop supporting any M series Mac anytime soon.
To be fair, MOST computers are like that nowadays, regardless of brand. I'm using a Intel desktop that is ~8 years old and runs fine with an upgraded GPU.
Sure, apple isn't the only one making good laptops, though they do make some of the best. My point was just that we definitely aren't back at 90s level of progress. Frequency has barely been scaling since node shrinks stopped helping power density much, and the node shrinks are fewer and farther between.
I bought an M1 MacBook Pro just to use it for net and watching movies when in bed or traveling. I got the Mac because of its 20 hours battery life.
Since Snapdragon X laptops caught up to Apple on battery life I might as well buy one of those when I'll need to change. I don't need the fastest mobile CPU for watching movies and browsing the internet. But I like to have a decent amount of memory to keep a hundred tabs open.
Agreed. It might share the title with the M1 Air which was incredible for an ultraportable, but the M1MBP was just incredible period. Three generations later it's still more machine than most people need. M2/3/4 sped things up but the M1 set the bar.
It’s not a server so it’s not a crime to not always be using all of it and it’s not upgradable so it needs to be right the first time. I should have got 32GB to just be sure.
Apple's sky-high RAM prices and strong resale values make this a tough call, though. It might just about be better to buy only the RAM you need and upgrade earlier, considering you can often get 50% or more of the price of a new one back by selling your old one.
Thankfully, Apple recently made 16GB the base RAM in all Macs (including the M2/M3 MacBook Airs) anyway. 8GB was becoming a bad joke and it could add 40% to the price of some models to upgrade it!
Yep, that's definitely a thing I'm proud or correctly foreseeing. I was upgrading from an old machine on 8GB, but I figured especially with memory being non upgradable it was better being safe than sorry, and if I kept the machine a decade it would come out to sanwitch money in the end.
I was the same with the M1 Air until a couple months ago when I decided I wanted more screen real estate. That plus the 120Hz miniLED and better battery and sound make the 16" a great upgrade as long as the size and weight aren't an issue. I just use it at home so it's fine but the Air really is remarkable for portability.
I have the M1 Air, too. I just plug in to a nice big Thunderbolt display when I need more screen!
I'll likely upgrade to the M4 Air when it comes out. The M4 MacBook Pro is tempting, but I value portability and they're just so chunky and heavy compared to the Air.
I owned an SE/30. I watched my first computer video on that thing, marveling that it was able to rasterize (not the right word) the color video real-time. I wish I had hung onto that computer.
>the Macintosh IIx. It blew everything out of the water.
naa... Amiga had the A2500 around the same time, the Mac IIx wasn't better with regards to specs in most ways. And at about $4500 more expensive (Amiga 2500 was around $3300, Mac IIx was $7769), it was vastly overpriced as is typical for Apple products.
Worth remembering that Amiga went out of business just a few years later, while Apple today is the largest company in the world by market capitalisation. Doesn't matter how good the product is: if you're not selling it for a profit, you don't have a sustainable business. Apple products aren't overpriced as long as consumers are still buying them and coming back for more.
The 100 million dollar investment from Apple ended up not being needed. Jobs put the hatchet to enough projects to reverse the trend himself. That investment from Microsoft was valuable because they promised to keep releasing Office for Mac.
Nonetheless, Apple was almost out of business at one point. Microsoft invested in Apple instead of Commodore. If the opposite happened, we may be having a discussion about Commodore now, and not Apple.
That doesn't even make sense. Microsoft hadn't released any software for the Amiga AFAIK, while the Mac market for Word/Excel/Powerpoint was still a decent chunk of revenue for Microsoft at the time (obviously still much less than the Windows/PC market).
I've got one and it's really not that impressive. I use it as a "desktop" though and not as a laptop (as in: it's on my desk hooked to a monitor, never on my laps).
I'm probably gonna replace it with a Mini with that M4 chip anyway but...
My AMD 7700X running Linux is simply a much better machine/OS than that MacBook M1 Air. I don't know if it's the RAM on the 7700X or the WD-SN850X SSD or Linux but everything is simply quicker, snappier, faster on the 7700X than on the M1.
I hope the M4 Mini doesn't disappoint me as much as the M1 Air.
There are tons of affordable and upgradable NUC form factor machines for running Linux, so why a Mac Mini (if you're not running LLMs locally, then the good support and fast integrated RAM might be a reason)?
Yes, but I suspect the 64GB of memory in the studio compared to 24GB in the mini the is going to make that studio a lot faster in many real-world scenarios.
It would be $2,199 for the highest end CPU and the 64GB of memory but I think you're point remains: the Studio is not a great buy until it receives the M4 upgrades.
But it was a great buy for the customers who needed it when it was released. I presided over IT at an architecture firm that bought a bunch of Studios when they were new. Just because it's no longer a good buy two and a half years later, when compared to the thing that ships next week, doesn't mean it wasn't a great machine.
Personally, the Mac Mini will be my reentry into desktop computers after more than 1.5 decades [1]. Your comment got me thinking: could this be another perfectly calculated move by Apple? After all, I’ve only bought mobile devices from them until now. I’m eager to see Apple’s financial results for Q4 2024 and Q1 2025 to understand how this strategy plays out.
I’m already planning on swapping mine for an M4 Ultra.
I love my M1 Studio. It’s the Mac I always wanted - desktop Mac with no integrates peripherals, a ton of ports - although I still use a high end hub to plug in… lot more. Two big external SSDs, my input peripherals (I’m a wired mouse and keyboard kind of guy) then a bunch of audio and USB midi devices.
It’s even a surprisingly capable gaming machine for what it is. Crossover is pretty darn good these days, and there are ARM native Factorio and World of Warcraft ports that run super well.
I haven’t dug too much into gaming since I have a Linux PC that supports all my steam games but what’s the experience of running Crossover on Apple Silicon like? Can you run x86 Windows games using Rosetta (or is it some other method)?
I mean, you actually probably COULD play Dark Souls on it, but you'd be turning settings down a bit I bet (I don't actually know how optimized that game is). I'm pushing a 1440p display which certainly doesn't make things easier on the Mac.
The biggest annoyance I've hit actually is that game controller support is pretty bad. Don't expect generic USB HID game controllers to work, support for that isn't baked into MacOS the way it is Windows (Via DirectInput, etc).
The happy path is pretty much specifically a bluetooth xbox controlle.
I like it in every way except price. It just works, comes back online after a power outage, etc. I don't recall any unscheduled disconnects.
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Additional thoughts:
I think there are complaints about the fan being loud so I swapped it out when I first got it. I also have it in my basement so I don't hear anything anyway -- HDDs are loud, especially the gold ones
This is the best steelmanning I've seen of the Magic Mouse charging port design; I'm surprised I never encountered it before. It actually makes a lot of sense considering how stiff the cables typically are, and it also then makes sense that the (immobile) Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad do have a charging port you can use while the device is in use.
It's nonsense -- plenty of people use phones and iPads while tethered to a charging cord. The port is well secured to the logic board of the device because it has to survive a lot of yanking, accidental falls, etc. It doesn't explain the Magic Mouse design.
I went to a middle school in the 1990s that clearly came out of the same 1970s wave of “rethinking school design.” Ours had the benefit of the what-were-we-thinking retrofit walls being proper drywall, but, perhaps in trying to dodge the climate control problems you mention, most classrooms still didn’t have doors.
I wouldn’t learn what the Lindy effect was until decades later, but looking back, it was an instructive early lesson.
Curious why this is currently flagged. It’s an in-depth look at what is almost certainly the most sophisticated and consequential physical supply-chain attack in history, and will be covered in security textbooks for years to come.
For a small site with relatively technical administration, Grav is unsurpassed. I've been using it for years for my portfolio and various side projects, and it is a joy to build with.
For a larger site with multiple contributors, I'd probably still stick to Wordpress, though. Its admin experience and ecosystem are just too mature to not take advantage of.
This is why I recommend people look into Statamic. It's absolutely smaller than WordPress, but it's set up for the professional community so there is an environment of plugins, themes, etc. It's also built on top of a Laravel foundation, so you're not stranded having to do things "the WordPress way".
If the simulation hypothesis is real, perhaps it would follow that all the dark matter and dark energy in the universe is really just extra cycles being burned on layers of interpreters and JIT compilation of a loosely-typed scripting language.
Yeah, this should remove any doubt that there were explosives involved. At the 500 to 1000 mA hour capacity typically used in pagers, even tampering with the battery's venting in an attempt to build up gas pressure would at worst result in a pop and some smoke from the top of the bag.
Blowing a hole in the side of the bag and sending debris for several meters is obviously not plausible with that quantity of lithium.
