Any truth to MB PRO 16 M1 having a soft release next week?

[AnthonyHarris]

Let us agree to talk this over by late March or WWDC 2021.

Apple: The transition will take 2 years.

People on internet: *Idle speculation intensifies*

 

[pshufd]

Apple: The transition will take 2 years.

People on internet: *Idle speculation intensifies*

There is the M1Y and the M1Z to space out.

 

[Hexley]

Apple: The transition will take 2 years.

People on internet: *Idle speculation intensifies*

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2005: The transition will take 2 years.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO

Tim Cook at WWDC 2020: The transition will take 2 years

I say: It can be done in ~7 months to avoid Osborne Effect, to continue record Mac earnings and improve margins by using their own chips.

Everyone appears to not understand how large Apple is even if you present numbers.

So better to wait it out until late March and WWDC 2021 and talk about it.

Demand for Intel Macs have dropped to a level that will crater Mac earnings and make shareholders question Tim Cook's decision to not move out of Intel sooner.

Why buy a $1,799 MBP 13" with worst performance over a $1,299 MBP 13"?

Why buy a $5,999 Mac Pro with worst performance over a $599 Mac mini"?

 

[Hexley]

There is the M1Y and the M1Z to space out.

"M1X" can come out on any Tuesday in March (~80% certainty on month) for an early 2021 Mac event. 100% certainty between January-April 2021.

"M1Z" can come out on any Tuesday in June for WWDC 2021. Certainty of ~100%.

 

[pshufd]

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2005: The transition will take 2 years.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO

Tim Cook at WWDC 2020: The transition will take 2 years.

I say: It can be done in ~7 months as well.

Everyone appears to not understand how large Apple is even if you present numbers.

So better to wait it out until late March and talk about it.

One thing about the M1X rumor that directly affects me.

I have a new 10700 and I have been thinking about upgrading the CPU.

With the M1 coming out, it's made less likely because I could just add a Mini to double my compute power though spreading it between two systems would be a little inconvenient.

With the rumor of the M1X coming out, it freezes my decisions on CPUs completely. I imagine lots of other people thinking about powerful Windows systems are going to wait it out because, when the M1X comes out, it will be the most powerful CPU out there.

I was also wondering if they are going to try to increase clock speeds on the performance cores. There is variation on Geekbench 5 scores for M1s and some of that may be due to variations in how cool their CPUs run at the same speed.

 

[4sallypat]

Right now the entire computer industry is reeling in their dropped jaws, and lets face it, the ASi 13" Pro is overkill for the majority of consumers. Do they really need a flashy event to launch the 16" ?

Hell, I'd start tooting Apple's horn if they release the 16" soon...

I agree - the M1 totally surprised me as I ordered a base M1 Mini just to see how it work against my workhorse and reliable, super hot running i7 Quad core BTO Mini Server from 2012.

1 day later: SELLING the i7.

Reason: i7 runs way too hot even with a cooling fan underneath, noisy exhaust fan spinning up so many times a day and system slows down when it heats up.

 

[ophh1]

Extremely doubtful.

Here's what Mark Gurman wrote a week before the M1 Mac "One More Thing" event...
(the language is key here & I added bold and italics for emphasis)

Mark clearly writes 3 Mac laptops with Apple silicon & singles out one of the 3 as the 16" MBP.

We later learned "further ahead in production" meant "available next Tuesday." The 13s were pretty much ready to go. So then how further behind is the 16" MBP? Seems like it's well on its way if Gurman's reporting on it. He's got a solid track record.

"Beyond the processor switch" reaffirms the next 16" MBP is getting Apple silicon of some kind.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1328727843258458124

I am literally waiting for this 16-inch MBP because Gurman reported it is already in production. So the release date should be imminent.

I won’t exclude the possibility that it will be announced via press release because this was how Apple announced the original 16-inch back in 2019. MacBook Air deserves a press event because it is the most popular Mac afterall.

 

[pshufd]

I agree - the M1 totally surprised me as I ordered a base M1 Mini just to see how it work against my workhorse and reliable, super hot running i7 Quad core BTO Mini Server from 2012.

1 day later: SELLING the i7.

Reason: i7 runs way too hot even with a cooling fan underneath, noisy exhaust fan spinning up so many times a day and system slows down when it heats up.

I have a friend who bought a Mini, and installed 32 GB. He loves the machine and his workload is similar to mine. His one complaint about it is that it runs really, really hot. Which is why I built a Windows system - my alternative would have been the Mac Pro. Another of my friends does use a Mac Pro for what we use computers for and he is very happy with it. He has been using Mac Pros for trading for at least twelve years and he did ask for my help in configuring it.

My wife has the i3 Mini and it is the perfect system for her. She does email, web browsing and YouTube. She would frequently ask us for tech support when she was running a Windows desktop and she doesn't ask with the Mac.

I have been considering building a Hackintosh with an 8950 but, with the M1 out and the M1X coming out, why bother? The pricing matters but if Apple put an M1X in a Mini, who would bother to go through the trouble to build Hacks? Assuming you're not gaming of course.

 

[Hexley]

One thing about the M1X rumor that directly affects me.

I have a new 10700 and I have been thinking about upgrading the CPU.

With the M1 coming out, it's made less likely because I could just add a Mini to double my compute power though spreading it between two systems would be a little inconvenient.

With the rumor of the M1X coming out, it freezes my decisions on CPUs completely. I imagine lots of other people thinking about powerful Windows systems are going to wait it out because, when the M1X comes out, it will be the most powerful CPU out there.

I was also wondering if they are going to try to increase clock speeds on the performance cores. There is variation on Geekbench 5 scores for M1s and some of that may be due to variations in how cool their CPUs run at the same speed.

You quoted me before I added some extra details.

Apple does not disclose product or chip roadmaps due to (a) Osborne Effect from customers like you & me and (b) they do not sell parts/tech to other companies unlike Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc.

If I knew Apple Silicon Macs are this good I would not have bought any new laptops after switching to a 2012 MBA and accepted an offer to buy any of my Macs last month and just make do until March 2021.

People on Windows who like the modularized nature of their computers will never switch unless it's that compelling. A starting price of $700 for a desktop-only computer and $1000 for an laptop is a hard sell when ~80% of all PC shipped are priced below those price points.

This is why I say all Macs using M1 chip makes up ~80% of all Macs shipped as these are the cheapest. In same way that all desktops & laptops sold below the price points of their Mac equivalents are ~80% of all personal computers shipped.

The names of future chips that are guesses based on the naming conventions of Apple iPhone chips.

For the "M1X" (Core i7 or i9 replacement) that will be used in early 2021 Macs

• 5nm process like the M1 and A14 chips
• Uses more than 5W that A14 uses or 15W that M1 uses
• A physically larger chip
• more transistors
• more than 20 hours battery
• more than 16GB memory
• more than two TB4/USB4 ports
• more high-performance cores
• more high-efficiency cores
• more GPU cores
• more everything
• near Threadripper 3900-series CPU performance
• near RTX 30-Series GPU performance
• eGPU support
• multiple display support
• 10Gb Ethernet

For the "M1Z" (Xeon replacement) that will be used in mid 2021 Macs

• Performance points that will finally merit the more than $5,000 price tag of the iMac Pro & Mac Pro
• A prelude to a Apple-owned ARM-based cloud service.
• Possible contender to the fastest supercomputer that is ARM-based on Linux.

 

[pshufd]

You quoted me before I added some extra details.

Apple does not disclose product or chip roadmaps due to (a) Osborne Effect from customers like you & me and (b) they do not sell parts/tech to other companies unlike Intel, AMD, Nvidia, Samsung, Qualcomm, etc.

If I knew Apple Silicon Macs are this good I would not have bought any new laptops after switching to a 2012 MBA and accepted an offer to buy any of my Macs last month and just make do until March 2021.

People on Windows who like the modularized nature of their computers will never switch unless it's that compelling. A starting price of $700 for a desktop-only computer and $1000 for an laptop is a hard sell when ~80% of all PC shipped are priced below those price points.

This is why I say all Macs using M1 chip makes up ~80% of all Macs shipped as these are the cheapest. In same way that all desktops & laptops sold below the price points of their Mac equivalents are ~80% of all personal computers shipped.

For the "M1X" (Core i7 or i9 replacement) that will be used in early 2021 Macs these are my speculation

• 5nm process like the M1 and A14 chips
• Uses more than 5W that A14 uses or 15W that M1 uses
• A physically larger chip
• more transistors
• more than 20 hours battery
• more than 16GB memory
• more than two TB4/USB4 ports
• more high-performance cores
• more high-efficiency cores
• more GPU cores
• more everything
• near Threadripper 3900-series CPU performance
• near RTX 20-Series GPU performance

For the "M1Z" (Xeon replacement)

• Performance points that will finally merit the more than $5,000 price tag of the iMac Pro & Mac Pro

If the M1 were out before I built my system, I would have considered buying two M1 Minis to drive 3x4k monitors. It would have sufficed for my workload. My custom build was about $1,700 and the Minis would give me almost twice the compute power for a similar price. I also considered a Mac Pro in case I wasn't happy with Windows.

I see lots of people out there builing 8, 12, 16 core Hacks and those cost a few bucks. Similar with 10700 and 10900 systems. Many of these are for gaming so the M1 isn't really a consideration yet but many buy them for real work too.

I like modularized computing and love my new system but I can mix and match computers with three monitors or via screen sharing. I liken that to the approach of doing everything on a MacBook Pro and then having a desktop Windows system for gaming.

I think that the engineers at Apple are having a fun time putting together all sorts of configurations to play around with and that marketing is gleefully looking at market segments and new segments that they can go after. I am also thinking that software companies are going to take a serious look at porting to macOS and the M1 because the hardware is so compelling. And they might just skip macOS/Intel.

 

[Hexley]

If the M1 were out before I built my system, I would have considered buying two M1 Minis to drive 3x4k monitors. It would have sufficed for my workload. My custom build was about $1,700 and the Minis would give me almost twice the compute power for a similar price. I also considered a Mac Pro in case I wasn't happy with Windows.

I see lots of people out there builing 8, 12, 16 core Hacks and those cost a few bucks. Similar with 10700 and 10900 systems. Many of these are for gaming so the M1 isn't really a consideration yet but many buy them for real work too.

I like modularized computing and love my new system but I can mix and match computers with three monitors or via screen sharing. I liken that to the approach of doing everything on a MacBook Pro and then having a desktop Windows system for gaming.

I think that the engineers at Apple are having a fun time putting together all sorts of configurations to play around with and that marketing is gleefully looking at market segments and new segments that they can go after. I am also thinking that software companies are going to take a serious look at porting to macOS and the M1 because the hardware is so compelling. And they might just skip macOS/Intel.

You quoted me before I added some extra details.

I hope all you say comes true.

 

[DHagan4755]

I won’t exclude the possibility that it will be announced via press release because this was how Apple announced the original 16-inch back in 2019. MacBook Air deserves a press event because it is the most popular Mac afterall.

It may have a press event based purely on the fact that it's transitioning to Apple silicon & the benefits that come from that. And who knows about a separate, discrete GPU. But it will be teamed with something else like Airtags or AirPods Studio.

When Apple transitioned to Intel in 2006, Apple had a special event in late February to announce the Intel Mac mini & iPod Hi-Fi. So I'm thinking something along these lines...

 

[AnthonyHarris]

Steve Jobs at WWDC 2005: The transition will take 2 years.

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO

Tim Cook at WWDC 2020: The transition will take 2 years

I say: It can be done in ~7 months to avoid Osborne Effect, to continue record Mac earnings and improve margins by using their own chips.

Everyone appears to not understand how large Apple is even if you present numbers.

So better to wait it out until late March and WWDC 2021 and talk about it.

Demand for Intel Macs have dropped to a level that will crater Mac earnings and make shareholders question Tim Cook's decision to not move out of Intel sooner.

Why buy a $1,799 MBP 13" with worst performance over a $1,299 MBP 13"?

Why buy a $5,999 Mac Pro with worst performance over a $599 Mac mini"?

There are a few reasons why one might buy a Intel MacBook Pro at the moment and probably one hundred different reasons why someone might buy an Intel Mac Pro over a Mac mini and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you why.

Apple completed their transition after 7 months 15 years ago. They didn’t have their own chips to design or Covid to contend with.

Nobody but Apple know what their roadmap is, so I’m basing my expectations on their words.