I don't think we are meant to think memory isn't important but that memory better placed and is more efficient than memory on an intel system.
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8GB RAM is a disappointment?
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The way I think about it is that it is the whole system on a chip. Apple packaged a computer that is designed to handle anything that you can throw at it and the system manages itself to get the job done gracefully.
This is actually similar to designing an Apple product vs other products and the idea that "it just works" as a whole. I think that is the magic.
In this case memory or the UMA is not an entity that is separate from the system, but is just at par with other functions of the system that just works. This includes the UMA, Neural Engine, Integrated GPU, ISP, Security, and Compute.
So think of it this way:
Really the M1 has two chips: one with 8gb and one with 16gb.
While the Intel can have one chip but 2 or more memory configurations.
To achieve the 17 hour battery life, everything within that chip should work together to achieve the smallest power draw, while getting the job done. That is not at all possible with the Intel computers.
Or even when stress testing the memory, everything else is working so that it does not hold up the other functions of the system. This is where you have Chrome throttling with 400 tabs but only Chrome, and the rest of the OS is still speedy.
Even when the system is on swap something else is happening to cover for that expected slowdown.
It is not just a matter of having more transistors.
That is the difference.
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I think it’s odd that a pro can’t develop their product on their own device and have necessary ports built in to hook it up to Ethernet or a projector when meeting with a client. I’m okay with calling the 13” prosumer MacBook, “pro” if they had at least one model that had I/O utility of a cheap 13” DELL latitude. Not much thicker, has USB A/C, HDMI , and Ethernet. MacBook Pro, 4 usb-C and a handbag of dongles.
But I’m glad it’ll run cooler, faster, and longer. I am a longtime Apple customer. I own the 2019 MacBook Pro 15” and it’s nice. But I still have to carry a dongles, mini dock and cooling bar with me. It would be great if a 15”-17” notebook with ports and card slots could be an available option for pros on the go. If I’m going to carry a side bag I’d prefer it to be less a gaggle of dongles. That’s just my opinion.
I can never understand the ports argument. Ports are very subjective. What if someone never uses ethernet? What if someone uses DisplayPort instead of HDMI? There you go, two wasted ports on a system. USB-C/Thunderbolt can be completely universal. It can be HDMI, DisplayPort, USB, power, NAS, Thunderbolt devices, eGPU and more. Instead of getting stuck with the 1Gbit Ethernet port on the laptop, you could potentially have future expansion up to 20/40 Gbps networking with one port.
As I have said in other threads, "Pro" is a marketing term and not a designation of the machines' suitability for professional work. I read it as "Plus", with an implication that it has some benefit or features not found on cheaper non-Pro models.
The problem with with "Professional" as a definition of a tool is that professional users vary so much as have such different requirements. The majority of professionals who use a Mac in their work, such as pretty much any office-bound work, will just use it for writing, administration, finding information and communication - i.e. productivity apps, web-browsing, mail, messenging, audio/video conferences and maybe some specialized software (accounting, legal etc.). These tasks don't require any a particularly powerful computer or specialized I/O other than the ability to connect to an office network and display devices (screens & projectors).
USB-C is now standard enough to meet these requirements for many devices (plenty of USB-C -> HMDI/DisplayPort cables), and a lot of office-based users have some kind of docking station with which to permanently connect laptops to screens and Ethernet where this is used.
If you travel a lot, then yes, you do need to carry some adapters (or a mini dock) if you are not sure what will be available at your destination, but increasingly devices will have USB-C connectors on them. I still carry a couple of USB-C->USB-A adapters and a small dock with HDMI, Ethernet, USB-A and SD card "just in case", but I don't always need it. I sometimes take a display cable with DisplayPort or DVI if I think may need it.
The number of people who actually require a big selection of ports is decreasing. Wi-fi is ubiquitous, files are copied via CloudStorage rather than USB sticks or drives and many displays now have USB-C inputs.
Exactly! The "U" in USB is actually living up to its name as being universal. I think the issue for some people is that if you need a particular kind of interface, you now have to buy it yourself as an extra rather than having it included "for free" on the machine. We used to need a wider range of ports because there were more devices in frequent use - ethernet networks, USB drives (or Firewire before USB-3), wired keyboards & mice, different display connectors (VGA, displayport, HDMI, DVI), SD-cards, expansion cards.... At lot of that is now wireless, with the exception of displays, which seem to be slowly standardising on USB-C on the computer end.
In the world of software development. An 8GB machine will have trouble running Eclipse/IntelliJ, Java, docker, a database, and some more in parallel as it is often needed.
I am also pretty sure that certain scientific use cases will greatly benefit from more RAM.
For the average use cases, which mostly or exclusively use the software provided by Apple themselves and some apps, 8GB may be sufficient.
Max Tech didn’t compare games and that is where I am worried about. I still like to play WOW and Shadowlands asks minimal 8 GB RAM recommended. So 16 will give a bit more headroom. So I have to wait for my 16 Gb option.
Just my opinion:
What he totally misses is the swapping. If you do edit photos or videos and you only get the 256gb base model, how long will it last? Swapping will degenerate your ssd (which is soldered and can't be replaced) quickly. I didn't find any information which technique the ssd uses (MLC, TLC), but it may die after arount 200-300 TB written. That is still a 100 GB a day for a 5-year use-period, but editing photos for a few hours will easily write some 100s of GBs of swap onto your SSD. And every written data will slowly decrease the speed of the ssd.
For this reason I will bought the 16GB version. It will last longer and it has way more reserves.
Just to follow up on this, here's ServiceNow using 3GB RAM and slowing my base MBA down.
7GB swap..
I did like the four ports on the previous MBP - two on each size is best so you can pick the side that is most convenient and also in some cases eliminate the need for a docking device
But the M1 laptop products only ever had the 2 ports. We have not had the MX or whatever the next M processor will be replace the high end 13" MBP with 4 ports yet.
Mac mini was a bummer, but I bet COVID delayed something involved here and they felt it was good enough to throw in the Mac mini box too. I bet the Mac mini was planned to have a different processor with the same ports it had before.
Adapters are cheap. You can convert Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 to virtually anything but you cannot convert anything (USB A/HDMI) to Thunderbolt 3/USB 4. Apple should just put 6 Thunderbolt 3/USB 4 ports on each machine and forget the rest (USB A/HDMI).
Just remember you cannot add RAM to these computers.
Reminder - the Intel MBP 13's were available in both two-port and four-port configurations.
Presently only the two-port models are transitioned to ARM. The four-port models remain available on Intel.
If you need a four-port MBP13, you'd be better off waiting for the four-port models to transition.
Here are a few screen shots from OS9 - emulated on my intel iMac. I still have the OS9 system discs collecting dust in my draw though from back in the day hen I used to have an older Mac. The Mac is gone but the discs remain.
One game I emulate OS9 for is the original Diablo. Rarely when I decide to play it, it's there and works well. In the get info box for any application you can choose memory and set the memory values that the application will use.
Under the Apple menu, you can select memory and set how much of the HDD you want as cache and as virtual RAM. If memory serves me correctly it was moved in later OSes to a separate menu option as it is here.
The version of MacOS I am emulating.
I am very impressed with the mini running just 8GB or memory. I've been able to through everything and anything at it and it just works great. Still going with the 16GB when the custom configuration gets here. I always have a ton of apps open and that will definitely be aided by the additional memory. I'm honestly amazed by this little thing. The weirdest thing is working in absolute silence. I never realized how often the fan in the iMac or 16" MacBook Pro were kicking up.
Is that a native app?
Anyway another point as to why 16gb may be needed is you could be using runaway apps that are just not written well enough for the system. You won't have these kinds of apps in iOS since they are all app reviewed and iOS is a more restrictive platform for apps.
The chances of getting bad apps that are resource hogs and have mem leaks can be higher on OSX than on iOS. So you need that headroom which is a cost penalty for us just by running these bad apps that have no alternative.
Chrome is one of them but good thing there is Safari.
If you look at the memory pressure its nothing - install "htop" and run from the terminal...you will see same swap but memory in use will be less than 1gb...... the more I look the more I see this to be very effective. I believe the system is keeping in memory only the most needed artifacts, everything else is sent to swap.
I’m not interested in pressure. If the system feels sluggish and I reduce the memory/swap and it feels fine again, I’m using that as a gauge.
It’s a cloud based app that runs JavaScript.
This is true, but I definitely see a trend to requiring less powerful machines for development due to the increased use of Cloud infrastructure. I've been working with public cloud since about 2015 and now *only* work with customers using AWS or MS Azure, and there are a lot of them!
I used to need a beefy machine with as much RAM as I could reasonably afford in order to run VMs and local resources, but these days, it's much easier, quicker and arguably cheaper (if time=money) to spin up such services on cloud platforms. I do some development locally, but it is now both possible and practical to do the whole job in the Cloud, including the IDE.
My main reason for wanting more memory and decent performance is to open up more browser tabs to monitor all the stuff that's running on my cloud infrastructure!
Actually at the end of the video (at about 19 minutes), Max does mention the swapping and SSD longevity, and he claims that modern SSDs are unlikely to fail due to excess read/write cycles.
Ran today on my 8gb M1 - nodejs, vscode, postgresql, dbeaver, citrix workspace, zoom, second monitor on 4K, a few terminals opened, a few browser tabs (safari)....memory was impeccable.... I do want more memory, pretty sure I don’t need - want vs. need.