Anyone else feel that Apple nailed it with the new Apple Silicon machines?

[clevins]

The 13” MacBook Pro did come in 32GB of RAM. Now it’s half that.

Not true. It's half that FOR THE M1 VERSION. You can still buy the Intel version if you need a new 13" MBP right now and need 32G of RAM.

It really helps the discussion if people stick to facts.

And before someone chimes in with "so I should buy Intel when they're transitioning?" Yes. If you NEED those specs and you NEED a new 13" MBP and you need it *now*, you should. But let's be honest here... very few people are in that group. Some of you might want a new machine or you might want 32g but very few people are in the group where they need a new machine (what they were using last week is unacceptable), need it now, not in 6 months or so and need (vs want) 32g+. Almost everyone here complaining about this is here to whine. Not because they need a new 32g 13"MBP right now.

Is it fair to wish they'd revised the entire 13" line with a new design and all the current RAM options? Sure. Wishing is fun. Is it fair to act like Apple failed because they didnt address your particular niche? Not really.

 

[stevoc921]

Seems to me like these are designed to be the "budget" Macs aimed at people who mostly browse web and might compose some Office docs, and use Apple apps. If that's the case, it'll likely be a fantastic machine for that. However, this is likely going to drive the price up for the Intel Macs if they continue making those. Could we see a completely Intel free Apple? It's possible. Only time and market demand will tell I guess. I can tell you that right now this launch is a non-starter for me until every app I use works on it at full speed.

 

[7709876]

I'm very sceptical of the performance of these chips until such time as I see real world objective testing.

 

[moosinuk]

I'm very sceptical of the performance of these chips until such time as I see real world objective testing.

Please see my earlier post... once its approved for viewing by the mods. I posted some screenshots from an article on Anandtech regarding potential performance after comparing the current A14 v Intel and AMD.

 

[Sanpete]

So the solution is to buy an intel version while knowing we’re transitioning to a new CPU architecture. That’s definitely a bad investment.

I don’t think it’s ludicrous to expect feature parity when compared to an old gen product.
We’re getting less features on the Mac Mini and that’s supposedly a good thing?

The solution for you, evidently, is to not buy them yet. Next year will likely see new AS that will address your concerns, if you want the new AS. (Many will prefer to stick with Intel until the software catches up. The new Mini is cheaper, so it is unreasonable to expect feature parity in that respect. Yes, cheaper is a good thing for many.)

I'm hoping that this is just an initial release. There are especially a few concerning points about the Mac Mini, especially the limit of 16GB of RAM and only 2 Thunderbolt ports - both steps backward. Hopefully Apple will update the Mini soon to return to at least a 64GB RAM ceiling and 4 Thunderbolt ports.

You can still get the Mini with more RAM and ports, just not in the base model that has the new AS. I expect more options next year.

 

[clevins]

Seems to me like these are designed to be the "budget" Macs aimed at people who mostly browse web and might compose some Office docs, and use Apple apps. If that's the case, it'll likely be a fantastic machine for that. However, this is likely going to drive the price up for the Intel Macs if they continue making those. Could we see a completely Intel free Apple? It's possible. Only time and market demand will tell I guess. I can tell you that right now this launch is a non-starter for me until every app I use works on it at full speed.

Sigh. These machines (and frankly the last several generations of them) are so far beyond that in power that your comment only serves to identify you as one of those spec snobs that thinks your workflow is demanding and the rest of us do nothing but email. You need to get out more. There's a continuum of demand from people who really only do email through to people who author VR and complex video. Numerically, the people who do the latter are a tiny percentage of the market and they were never the market for an Air, an entry level MBP or a base Mini. They genuinely need very highly specced MBPs, iMac Pros and Mac Pros. Those aren't transitioned yet.

What so many of you are either missing or ignoring is that this is a transition that will take 2 years. They've been very upfront about that. And developers will mostly take some time to make their apps native, especially the more complex apps. I would expect most if not all of the Mini and MBP line will be transitioned over the next 12 months or so and at least some of the iMac line. I'd also bet that apps will mostly be converted by late 2021.

Again, if someone truly needs a new machine that has to be highly specced, you buy the Intel boxes now. And you don't play the "but I want it to last 8-10 years" card because no one who really needs their computer to be cutting edge keeps it for a decade.

 

[canyonblue737]

A downside. Did you miss the post right before yours comparing a 999 dollar air to a 800 dollar cpu only and noting that it has similar single core performance. Did you miss the point about how that cou is the fastest x 86 cpu you can buy.
People are going to be surprised on Tuesday when reviews start coming out.
What we call entry level is what most users have and want. Apple has offered them a no cost update that takes their slow hot intel system and makes it perform like systems costing several times more.
If you are someone who does advanced 3D or editing 8k video, then your Apple silicone Mac has not been released. Yet. Imagine a 12 core Cpu or 16 for that matter, with a external GPU with 12 or 16 cores, 32 or maybe even 64 gigs of ram, 2 io controllers so 4 ports. 10 gig Ethernet. that’s coming next year. And as you will see starting Tuesday, those systems will outperform every x86 system ever by a large margin. It’s nothing like a downside.

I just simply said lets see... I know single core performance will be top class, but the power apps all use multi-core, lets see how that performs. Let's see how the GPU performs. I have NO doubt in the very near future EVERYTHING you said will be true and ARM will vastly outperform x86 but with Apple choosing to keep higher end intel computers in the lines that just added ARM to, lets see how this initial batch of M1 turns out including in rosetta.

 

[Woochoo]

There seems to some reality distortion field going on in the last 24 hours in a bad way. I think people think it is too good to be true so they are just rationalising stuff.

That's because people got both so used to Intel's slow perf increase (specially before Ryzen arrival) and the mindset of Intel being the best thing for computers, that they are just denial about something being much better by a large margin.
There are still many on denial stage with AMD Ryzens beating Intel in every area, now imagine Apple that never did a laptop/desktop CPU comming out of the blue with something so good.

 

[Maconplasma]

The lineup seems very half-baked as if they rushed it out to just have something for this year IMO. Wouldn't like to be the test consumer for these.

I hope you end up realizing your post is filled with nonsense? Apple didn't have to release ANY Macs this year with Apple silicon. And what a silly thing to say about the lineup being half-baked. That's all we've seen with Apple's competitors this entire year. Half-baked crap from Samsung and Lenovo with foldable over-priced junk that was truly rushed out to upstage Apple. No real innovations that consumers truly need. Apple did a fantastic release of their first ARM processors. I think you're in the wrong forum buddy. You need to go to Dellrumors since they are the ones who release super innovative stuff that Apple could only dream of doing, such as....using the latest Intel processors. OH WAIT, that's Intel's usual half-baked innovation. LOL.

 

[theorist9]

Another win for the AS Air is that it appears Apple has brought its SSD speed to parity with that in the MBP and Mini. The 2019 Air's SSD was significantly slower. While Apple isn't trumpeting an increase in SSD speeds for the AS MBP and Mini (suggesting they're about the same as they were before), it's advertising the Air's SSD speeds as having up to doubled (based on sequential reads).

 

[leman]

You can still get the Mini with more RAM and ports, just not in the base model that has the new AS. I expect more options next year.

I completely missed that! I though the "big" mini was canned! How silly of we, I just didn't scroll down on the Apple Store page.

With this, the people who complain about the lack of RAM have no arguments whatsoever. Nothing was downgraded, it's just that only the low-end has transitioned.

 

[Sanpete]

I completely missed that! I though the "big" mini was canned! How silly of we, I just didn't scroll down on the Apple Store page.

With this, the people who complain about the lack of RAM have no arguments whatsoever. Nothing was downgraded, it's just that only the low-end has transitioned.

It's a downgrade at the base level in ports and RAM-upgradeability (very likely because that's all their chip can manage for now), but it's also cheaper. But yes, many complaints here seem to assume there are only the AS models now.

 

[k2k koos]

During yesterday's announcement, I got fed up reading all the negative comments about what was being released. I for one felt they had exactly the right approach to this.

They've started with entry level machines, so we shouldn't be comparing to high end specs of the Intel options which are still available to order. We need to compare entry level Intel to entry level AS Macs. From my perspective..

• Entry level machines are typically bought on getting acceptable performance for the right price. They are less likely to be the power users. These new machines push battery life to new levels AND give a performance boost, both of which will appeal to this market.
• Whilst quicker Intel chips remain availablle if performance is your thing, you need to pay more dollar and accept a significant battery life drop.
• As the target market is not the Pro user, any compatibility issues with higher end 'pro' software can be worked on for the next 'x' months as things settle down, ready for the next phase of releases.
• Given the performance bump, the MB Air now becomes a feasible 2nd machine for those who can afford it. You have you max spec machine at home, but have the £999 MB Air as your travel machine that is good enough for being on the road.

If they'd gone the performance route first, I can only imagine the negative comments where people say they have good speed, but no App compatibility.

For me, they did it right. They can learn valuable lessons with the lower end machines so that when they get to the high end stuff, there is less pain to be had.

Thoughts?

Fully Agree, they are going the right way with this. I'm not too happy with the non upgradable ram, but I think the 8 or 16GB option will be more than enough for most of the target market for these machines, internal storage...now that could really do with a bump. If they offered the same machines at the same prices, but started at 512Gb, that would make these really attractive (more so than they are already)..

 

[k2k koos]

I completely missed that! I though the "big" mini was canned! How silly of we, I just didn't scroll down on the Apple Store page.

With this, the people who complain about the lack of RAM have no arguments whatsoever. Nothing was downgraded, it's just that only the low-end has transitioned.

and if you click on buy, you can still configure it with more RAM and bigger SSD's....

 

[Ethosik]

I really don't understand why you are so upset. Yes, the high-end Mac mini was canned. Maybe a replacement with a more powerful chip is coming, maybe it is not. For now the mini is back to it's roots. Maybe they determined that the "big mini" was not performing well. Who knows.

This still has no relevance on the performance of M1 Macs or the future of the lineup. I don't see anything rational in quitting a platform just because one specific niche model was discontinued — even if it happened to be your favorite for some reason. Especially now that we got a taste of what Apple can do with their own chips. The pro-level M series is going to make the x86 laptops literally obsolete.

High end Mac mini did not get canned. The m2 processor is not released yet and I can still get the Intel Mac mini with 64GB of RAM.

 

[SmOgER]

Anyone else feel that Apple nailed it with the new Apple Silicon machines?​

​

Can't say until we see the benchmarks.

 

[satchmo]

Engineering types who focus on specs: Apple hit it out of the ball park

Marketing creative types who focus on design: Apple rushed this and we need new form factor

Average consumer: $200 for the RAM upgrade?

 

[AppliedMicro]

I'm hoping the higher-powered processor also finds it's way to a Mac mini chassis but this looks like a return to 2014 when Apple decided the mini would be solidly consumer.

Curiously enough, so does the return back to the silver aluminum "consumer" enclosure - whereas the Mac mini 2018's change to space gray seemed to signal a decidedly "pro" upgrade (faster processors, more ports, higher price).

I think that's no coincidence and that it might be a clue that a more "Pro" model is in the cards. Don't quite think they're done with space gray Mac minis (and by that I don't mean them keeping the Intel models in the lineup for the time being).

 

[ssgbryan]

....

Please elaborate.

I was under the impression that the world should be taking advantage of multithreaded technology but 90% of what regular people do is still stuck entirely in the world of single threading.

The fact that some people say it (with no evidence) doesn't actually mean that it is true.

Name 5 productivity applications that are single threaded.

Been like that for a while now.

Baseline computers are moving to 8 cores/16 threads.

 

[ssgbryan]

On the contrary, since most apps continue to be mostly or entirely single-threaded, single-threaded performance typically has far more real-world relevance than multi-threaded performance.

For instance, most calculations in Mathematica are single-thread. Some that I run take hours, so I run them overnight. The only thing that will reduce my waiting time is faster single-threaded performance. If I'm waiting for my computer to do an internal search, my wait time for the search to complete is determined by my machine's single-threaded performance. AutoCad is predominantly single-threaded. Likewise, nearly all of Office (with the exception of a subset of functions in Excel) is single-threaded. So if I need to do complex operations in Word or Excel, my wait time is due to single-threaded performance.

Sure, you could argue that you are typically running more than one thread at a time. But nearly every computer sold today, outside the low-end, has at least 6-8 cores, and most people aren't running more than that number of foreground processes (by which I mean processes they are actively waiting to complete) simultaneously.

So unless you are using specialized multi-threaded software (most commonly found in photo and video editing), it's the single-threaded performance that you will notice during actual use.

8 cores (or more) means that I can have more than 1 poorly coded adobe app open at the same time.

Seriously, do mac users only have one application open at a time?

 

[profdraper]

Ha! 'Three different machines, three different price points, one spec sheet'.

 

[benjo765]

I have no problem with the hardware lineup, but for the launch event I was really hoping for more Craig and other geeky stuff to be the main. The whole event felt like a bunch of Emily in Paris telling me how good their MacBook was. More like a huawei marketing rather than an Apple one.

For consumer-tier machines doubling battery level and maxing out at 16GB/2TB is just fine, or better than fine

 

[Sanpete]

8 cores (or more) means that I can have more than 1 poorly coded adobe app open at the same time.

Seriously, do mac users only have one application open at a time?

No one has suggested multicore performance doesn't matter. Rather they've correctly pointed out that contrary to what you said, single-core performance is also still crucial, both in itself and in how it affects multicore performance. We're nowhere close to being past the days where it matters.

 

[theorist9]

Seriously, do mac users only have one application open at a time?

I never said that Mac users only have one active application open at time. Quite the opposite, so I don't know what you're talking about here.

Specifically, I acknowledged there could be multiple applications open at once. What I said was that "...nearly every computer sold today, outside the low-end, has at least 6-8 cores, and most people aren't running more than that number of foreground processes (by which I mean processes they are actively waiting to complete) simultaneously."

I.e., for most people, the number of cores isn't the limiting factor in performance (so long as there are enough of them; and, for most, there nearly always are). Rather, it's the per-core speed.

 

[Realityck]

High end Mac mini did not get canned. The m2 processor is not released yet and I can still get the Intel Mac mini with 64GB of RAM.

Why would they call it the M2 processor? Shouldn't there be some letters added to M1 to denote a SoC with a more complex architecture to support higher performance? IMHO you don't want M1 to be low performance, M2 to be desktop, M3 to be workstation.