Apple killed my interest in ARM and Macs

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Everyone should choose what works best for them. For me, my M1 computers (9 total) are the nicest computers I've ever owned! We've had zero issues with any of them and certainly they run circles around the Intel Macs I've owned in the past including the 2019 Mac Pro Tower. Watching Intel call their 10nm parts "Intel 7" while using 300+W to reach admittedly high overall performance, I don't envy i9-14900K owners at all. Meanwhile Apple has reached 3nm with M3 but their old M1 computers are still excessive for my needs.

I had a previous life as a design engineer in the 90s drawing squares all day in Cadence on a Unix machine. The process should be ignored. The feature size is meaningless really. It's about marketing.

14900K is admittedly a hilarious cock up. But as always look over the horizon and there's some fierce competition coming.

 

[rodjam]

Everyone should choose what works best for them. For me, my M1 computers (9 total) are the nicest computers I've ever owned! We've had zero issues with any of them and certainly they run circles around the Intel Macs I've owned in the past including the 2019 Mac Pro Tower. Watching Intel call their 10nm parts "Intel 7" while using 300+W to reach admittedly high overall performance, I don't envy i9-14900K owners at all. Meanwhile Apple has reached 3nm with M3 but their old M1 computers are still excessive for my needs.

My current Mac is a base model M1 Mac Mini and it's quite fast and dead silent. It replaced the previous generation Mini with a hexacore i7. The M1 is a bit faster in all regards than the i7, but the i7 was extremely hot and loud and expensive. The trade in value for that i7 was nearly the same as the price of the base M1 system; I was really happy to get rid of that space heater.

 

[Basic75]

The M-series ARM processors were supposed to be a major technology jump and in fact they were on the first iteration. Since then things are starting to look a little less than what I hoped. The ecosystem remains pretty much closed. Despite the excellent reverse engineering efforts of many people getting quite far, any hope of retaining use of hardware after the supported OS is EOL'ed is looking unlikely.

This was pretty much to be expected, no?

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

I think the move to ARM was a good call by Apple, and the architecture is definitely expanding as Qualcomm and others are building their own SOCs and Microsoft expands their support for Windows on ARM. Since the OP mentioned Maxima, an obvious alternative would be to use a Raspberry Pi 5 with their own Linux flavor Raspberry Pi OS, which comes with a full version of Mathematica for FREE. I have used Maxima on various Macs (only the command line from the terminal, though), but I much prefer Mathematica, which runs quite well on a Pi 4 and even better on a Pi 5.

I also prefer Mathematica, but when someone else is paying for it. I need to do commercial stuff so the student license does not cover it on the Pi. I have some political objections to the Pi as well which is for another forum. It's not all roses at that Broadcom project.

Notably the only reason that the Apple ARM implementation is as good as it is comes from the stupidly deep pipeline and fairly good compiler which are both Apple things (Apple sponsors and provides staff to LLVM etc). They have fairly exclusive ability to control both the architectural implementation and the compiler which is unique. And that comes from scale. Alas Qualcomm are trying but aren't there yet and this is hurting Microsoft's prospects.

I expect a decent x86-64 reimplementation to come along (16th gen Intel) before Qualcomm produce a decent desktop ARM processor.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

My current Mac is a base model M1 Mac Mini and it's quite fast and dead silent. It replaced the previous generation Mini with a hexacore i7. The M1 is a bit faster in all regards than the i7, but the i7 was extremely hot and loud and expensive. The trade in value for that i7 was nearly the same as the price of the base M1 system; I was really happy to get rid of that space heater.

Yes I had an Intel Mini. It kept my coffee nice and warm

The M1 mini is pretty good for the money still. I'll give it that.

 

[tweaknmod]

Long term Mac user here. I've had a Mac as a primary machine for 18 years, just switching over when they dropped Intel in there. I had a G3 blue Powermac before that but to be fair it didn't get used that much. My use cases are both professional and academic. From a professional perspective I need admin tooling for Linux machines. From an academic perspective I need mathematical tools and typesetting. From a personal perspective I need basic admin (spreadsheet, word processor) and Lightroom/Photoshop. And shared across I need time management stuff.

I was using an 14" M1 Pro / Studio Display combo as my workstation and portable machine with an iPad Pro as a portable machine.

Over the last year I've started to become very disenfranchised with the ecosystem for a number of reasons I will go into.

1. The M-series ARM processors were supposed to be a major technology jump and in fact they were on the first iteration. Since then things are starting to look a little less than what I hoped. The ecosystem remains pretty much closed. Despite the excellent reverse engineering efforts of many people getting quite far, any hope of retaining use of hardware after the supported OS is EOL'ed is looking unlikely. On top of that the disparity between nearly everything else on the planet being x86-64 is actually quite crippling. It brings a lot of overhead in when you consider things like docker and some commercial packages which have to unfortunately run under emulation. Whilst there are performance and power gains, the friction tends to kick you in the nuts in another way.
   
   
2. The pricing and upkeep costs are insane. The hardware is simply too expensive and the pricing isn't justified by the performance.
   
   
3. The segmentation and SKU breakdown of the M3 series is insane, as is the storage increments and the new "Pro" class machines that aren't Pro. It stinks of desperation and craziness.
   
   
4. The ownership risk is high. Despite some improvements on repair, the devices pretty much aren't what I'd call repairable by any reasonable standard. Sure you can swap ports out etc but battery replacements are extremely difficult and keyboard replacements mean replacing the entire top case assembly and battery via official paths. The one time I've had to execute on AppleCare, they didn't have an SKU in stock and I had to wait 2 weeks without a computer entirely. My only option was to buy another one (I'll get into that later).
   
   
5. The quality of support is declining. Every time I have to phone Apple support, it's a multi day round trip of phone calls passed around departments and broken systems in the background that people have to escalate and raise tickets to get sorted.
   
   
6. Every time there is a minor macOS release, something breaks. Maxima was the last thing that killed me and I ended up using a spare PC I have around for the kids to do work on. That just worked.
   
   
7. iCloud pricing. You get nothing decent for a lot of money. I'd rather give Microsoft the money for Office 365 which I have to buy anyway for Mac.

Anyway so the MBP M1 Pro's D key on the keyboard gave up after 18 months. It's a heavily used workstation. I expect better but I have AppleCare so off to Apple who, as it's a custom build, did not have a replacement or a repair capability. It was gone for two weeks. I ambled around the Apple Store and looked at the base price M2 Studio and the M2 Mini Pro and thought "I am not spending £1600-2000 to cover this". So I sat in a pizza place and scratched out some tradeoffs with a pen and paper.

Adding some experience I had doing some travelling this year with people eyeing up my iPhone 13 Pro uncomfortably because it's about 6 months' salary out there, I've got to say that I also feel a little dirty having all this ****. Also the 13 Pro is just out of AppleCare now so I now risk tanking it and having to pay to repair it or.

So I bought a whole load of PC bits and an Android phone.

1. A custom PC build. Intel i5-13500, Noctua cooler, 32Gb RAM, 1TB SN850X NVMe SSD, MSI B760 board, 850W Corsair power supply, Asus case, Asus RTX 4070 GPU, Dell 27" 4K monitor, Cherry keyboard and Logitech Mouse. That came to £1625, LESS than the 8Gb entry level MBP just announced and only fractionally more expensive than the M2 Pro Mini on its own. What the hell Apple?
   
   
2. A Lenovo ThinkPad T14 gen 3. Intel i7-1265U, 16Gb RAM, 1TB SSD. That came to £1027, considerably LESS than the 8Gb entry level MBP just announced. The battery sucks but you know what, meh, it's not that great on my M1 Pro when I'm doing actual work on it so I have to drag the charger around for that anyway. Also what the hell Apple?
   
   
3. A Google Pixel 7A. £449. This thing is better than my daughter's iPhone 14 and much cheaper. Actually get a 90Hz display and the battery lasts literally 2-3 days no problems at all. The camera sucks just the same as the one on a 13 Pro does. I use a mirrorless camera for anything I care about anyway. And thirdly, what the hell Apple?

All three things are in Apple's new Premium colour as well: black.

I'm in the process of getting all the remaining AppleCare refunded (each £300 in the bank between devices) and selling all the Apple crap.

At the end of the day, I get a workstation, a decent laptop and a phone and fully redundant hardware in case of failure and I'm up £1154 in cash which I will stuff in the bank. I can support this myself without having to deal with the vendor. And I can upgrade this if I need to without having to throw the whole thing away. And all the software I need actually works properly on it. And I get to retain my spare kidney.

Rant over.

Edit: I have a second set of problems I'll raise elsewhere in a few days on iOS ecosystem and what I consider to be the most abhorrently painful to use computer there is: The iPad Pro.

While I don't agree with you, overall, I do appreciate the thought you put into the post. Rational debate and discussions only make forums like this better.
'Liked'!

 

[GMShadow]

I had a previous life as a design engineer in the 90s drawing squares all day in Cadence on a Unix machine. The process should be ignored. The feature size is meaningless really. It's about marketing.

14900K is admittedly a hilarious cock up. But as always look over the horizon and there's some fierce competition coming.

And next year is the year of the Linux desktop. Totally. Believe me, bro.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

While I don't agree with you, overall, I do appreciate the thought you put into the post. Rational debate and discussions only make forms like this better.
'Liked'!

Thank you. I appreciate your response.

I just want to relay my experience. I had a good couple of decades that I'm thankful to Apple for. I really wish it was a couple more.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

And next year is the year of the Linux desktop. Totally. Believe me, bro.

It will never be year of the Linux desktop 🤣

My point was more about Intel delivering something x86-64 with an ARM performance and power profile at the same time, not independently like it is now (fast OR low power). If it happens I will be happy. But yeah maybe not. Thanks to GaN chargers, it hurts less to carry them around now!

 

[GMShadow]

It will never be year of the Linux desktop 🤣

My point was more about Intel delivering something x86-64 with an ARM performance and power profile at the same time, not independently like it is now (fast OR low power). If it happens I will be happy. But yeah maybe not. Thanks to GaN chargers, it hurts less to carry them around now!

To do that they'll have to implement their clean(er) sheet x86 design that jettisons most of the legacy code...and business will smile and keep buying the legacy chips instead. AMD also will have reasons to argue against it.

Once upon a time Microsoft probably would have pushed such a thing harder in the Surface line, but after being burned badly by Skylake, they prefer to stay a generation or two behind now, and so that will worsen matters.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

To do that they'll have to implement their clean(er) sheet x86 design that jettisons most of the legacy code...and business will smile and keep buying the legacy chips instead. AMD also will have reasons to argue against it.

Once upon a time Microsoft probably would have pushed such a thing harder in the Surface line, but after being burned badly by Skylake, they prefer to stay a generation or two behind now, and so that will worsen matters.

Don't even get me started on surface. We have so many broken ones lying around the office. Good in concept but the implementation is terrible as was the reliability.

 

[Regulus67]

Yeah defeinitely. I'll do a "6 months in" post as well.

I'm 2 months in and have no problems so far.

Err, why did you even join this forum then?
I was also very late to join this forum. But I did it because I love Apple products, and have added more this year.

It does not make sense to me if you join the community just as you decide to drop out, and switch to the PC ?

 

[richmlow]

I also prefer Mathematica, but when someone else is paying for it. I need to do commercial stuff so the student license does not cover it on the Pi. I have some political objections to the Pi as well which is for another forum. It's not all roses at that Broadcom project.

Notably the only reason that the Apple ARM implementation is as good as it is comes from the stupidly deep pipeline and fairly good compiler which are both Apple things (Apple sponsors and provides staff to LLVM etc). They have fairly exclusive ability to control both the architectural implementation and the compiler which is unique. And that comes from scale. Alas Qualcomm are trying but aren't there yet and this is hurting Microsoft's prospects.

I expect a decent x86-64 reimplementation to come along (16th gen Intel) before Qualcomm produce a decent desktop ARM processor.

Perhaps, you should give Sage a try?!

However, I also prefer and use Mathematica in my research!


richmlow

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Perhaps, you should give Sage a try?!

However, I also prefer and use Mathematica in my research!


richmlow

Good suggestion. I should probably learn how to use that at this point. But I'm getting old and lazy now 🤣

 

[Pet3rK]

Keychain -> Authenticator. Works better on android than iOS

Keychain and Authenticator aren't the same. They are both different apps. One is a password manager and the other is just a 2FA authenticator. I don't go around using Keychain and stuff. That said, it's good. I've saved a recent password from Patreon and boom, it is on my iPhone very quickly and I used it on Firefox. You definitely want both since a lot websites asks for 2FA now. If anything, you should be comparing Authy to G Authenticator.

Apple Mail which has developed a serious problem recently of completely failing to render emails. I just get a white email and no way of viewing it ever again.

Something is wrong on your system. I have a lot of emails unread and downloaded. It became my central hub for iCloud, Outlook, and a bunch of GMail accounts and it works fine. It doesn't have that much wow factor but it's simple and I just want things to be like a catcher. I do have Outlook but the business part doesn't interest me at all.

unlike chrome actually allows you to block ads

UBlock Origin>>>Edge blocking. Edge can install UBlock but your argument is a moot point if we are going to add uBlock.

One thing I like about iOS and Mac is their Continuity features. The copy paste thing have been a god send for me. Seriously, I can't count how much I've used this. The native offline OCR and copy and paste from pics is a godsend for me. Again, been using it quite a lot. Notes is quite light application and I've used it to sketch some math problems which I can view from my Mac since it's sync. And besides that, I use it as a scratch paper for codes which I then copy paste from my iPhone to Mac. AirDrop too. Seriously, I've transferred gigabytes of photos I need for my lab reports from my iPhone to Mac in a sane amount of time. Saved me quite a hassle since I move places a little frequently these past few weeks.

These past few week have stressed them quite a bit for me but they still hold up.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Err, why did you even join this forum then?
I was also very late to join this forum. But I did it because I love Apple products, and have added more this year.

It does not make sense to me if you join the community just as you decide to drop out, and switch to the PC ?

I've been here a long time (years). Just not on this account. I mostly rejoined because I missed the digital photography section which is one of the least lunatic parts of the digital photography community. It's about content not tech.

 

[SpotOnT]

I agree with some of OP’s points and disagree with others.

I agree that Apple Silicon Macs are more like an iPhone than they are a traditional computer. That means they are more locked down, which can be a pain if you are into tinkering (either with hardware or software), and also more susceptible to whatever random OS changes Apple decides to implement, often with no notice or information.

What I disagree with is the pricing/value arguments. Apple Silicon Macs have not by-en-large gotten more expensive. Years of software support has not decreased. Failure rates have not increased. In short, I would argue Apple Silicon Macs are a better value than Intel Macs. Moreover, when I look at PC hardware with similar specs/performance as I buy from Apple, I find Apple is very competitively priced!

Now that doesn’t mean Apple Silicon is a good value for you specifically - maybe you needed bootcamp or maybe you can get by just fine with much less expensive PC hardware, etc. But to argue that Apple Silicon Macs are a worse value than Intel Macs in general, seems like a false statement.

 

[nvmls]

One can't make everyone happy. If Apple does not satisfy your very specific set of requirements (like reliance on highly specific x86 software), then it is only wise to use some other tool. Especially if you don't need performance and are happy to sacrifice quality/ergonomy to save some money.

"ergonomy" as in the magic mouse? I see.

 

[Howard2k]

I have a T14 from work. Pretty much every day I have to close all my work and reboot as the trackpad ***** the bed. Super frustrating. Hopefully your experience is better.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Keychain and Authenticator aren't the same. They are both different apps. One is a password manager and the other is just a 2FA authenticator. I don't go around using Keychain and stuff. That said, it's good. I've saved a recent password from Patreon and boom, it is on my iPhone very quickly and I used it on Firefox. You definitely want both since a lot websites asks for 2FA now. If anything, you should be comparing Authy to G Authenticator.

Authenticator is a keychain and password manager as well as an MFA provider. You might want to check your knowledge on the matter there. You can register it as a password provider on iOS too.

I actually used MacPass and more recently KeypassXC on Windows to manage my primary keychain. I only copy stuff into authenticator (and historically keychain) for convenience and sync to my mobile device in case I need to sign into something there.

Something is wrong on your system. I have a lot of emails unread and downloaded. It became my central hub for iCloud, Outlook, and a bunch of GMail accounts and it works fine. It doesn't have that much wow factor but it's simple and I just want things to be like a catcher. I do have Outlook but the business part doesn't interest me at all.

Yeah there is something wrong with it. And Apple support's position was "no idea mate". So to hell with it.

UBlock Origin>>>Edge blocking. Edge can install UBlock but your argument is a moot point if we are going to add uBlock.

You misunderstand. Edge on Android does not support extensions but has a fairly good built in ad blocker. Edge on the desktop allows Chrome plugins so I use uBlock Origin there.

Safari I was using AdGuard which is less than adequate.

One thing I like about iOS and Mac is their Continuity features. The copy paste thing have been a god send for me. Seriously, I can't count how much I've used this. The native offline OCR and copy and paste from pics is a godsend for me. Again, been using it quite a lot. Notes is quite light application and I've used it to sketch some math problems which I can view from my Mac since it's sync. And besides that, I use it as a scratch paper for codes which I then copy paste from my iPhone to Mac. AirDrop too. Seriously, I've transferred gigabytes of photos I need for my lab reports from my iPhone to Mac in a sane amount of time. Saved me quite a hassle since I move places a little frequently these past few weeks.

Copy and paste is very good. Until it isn't. On numerous occasions, thanks to the total inability of my iPhone to actually bother staying connected to my WiFi it'll completely hang if I try and paste. When it does work it's pretty good though.

I haven't needed to do the other things.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

I have a T14 from work. Pretty much every day I have to close all my work and reboot as the trackpad ***** the bed. Super frustrating. Hopefully your experience is better.

I've actually got three T14 gen 3's (one for myself, one each for my two eldest kids) and haven't seen that yet. Hope it doesn't manifest itself. I mostly use the trackpoint though

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

But to argue that Apple Silicon Macs are a worse value than Intel Macs in general, seems like a false statement.

That's not what I'm arguing. Apple Silicon Macs are better value than Intel Macs. But definitely not better value than PCs.

 

[kpluck]

Edit: I have a second set of problems I'll raise elsewhere in a few days on iOS ecosystem and what I consider to be the most abhorrently painful to use computer there is: The iPad Pro.

Thanks for the warning 😆

 

[leman]

"ergonomy" as in the magic mouse? I see.

Magic mouse is a crap product. As is a 3kg 3cm thick Dell mobile workstation that's slower than a mobile phone when unplugged.

 

[LambdaTheImpossible]

Magic mouse is a crap product. As is a 3kg 3cm thick Dell mobile workstation that's slower than a mobile phone when unplugged.

Hahaha I have one of those too. (Dell Precision 7670 aka "the whale")