ARM rushed to fulfill "by end of year" ?

[dinobear]

That's what it feels like to me.
Adobe photoshop won't be available until next year (wasn't this supposed to be a simple easy thing?). No new designs for one of the most significant updates in the history of the company. On top of that, slick marketing not giving us any numbers on specs really, only using 2X, 3X, 6X performing of old intel CPUs and old intel integrated graphics?

Next year will be better for them after they do a proper re-design and have a decent GPU for pros.

The air and mini is overall a much better machine than it was before this update. Nice big "X faster" marketing for that (but also what chips are they referring to exactly). So for anyone in the market for an air/mini and apple-only software it's a solid update.

But there was a lot of talk on these forums about how Apple wouldnt market their own chips as the "low end" versions. And that's what they did.

I think this new direction is promising and they will come out on top, but I think they should have waited. the 2nd revision on the ARM MacBooks are going to be substantial no doubt.

 

[jav6454]

Apple usually hits the markers they market in independent testing. I have yet to see an article which details blatant marketing lying by Apple.

Specs are for comparison to something we know. What we have now is a new architecture and a new chip. This is new ground with nothing to compare it to.

Those things should come in handy for M2.

Also, most likely apps like iStats can tell you the information you need.

 

[LDF]

To me it makes sense. But then I'm someone that would always want to test waters.

I think it would be way too ambitious to try and get the "pro" market with silicon for their first attempt. Target the general public and education first, as they likely won't be effected by apps that are not optimised, or even ask "what is M1" when purchasing.

Feels more like a safe move than a rushed move. That doesn't mean its bad.

Also the "talk" the community makes, is just talk. It wasn't like Apple said they weren't going to target lower end and then did.

 

[bobmans]

First of all: Adobe is being Adobe. They're always slow with everything.

I don't think this is rushed at all.
Apple released their entry level SoC package and transitioned their Macbook Air, low-end Mac Mini and Low-end Macbook Pro 13" to it. The transition going from low-end -> high end is how this will go.

Next batch of Macs that will be transitioned are probably the High-end Mac Mini, High-end Macbook Pro 13", Low-end Macbrook Pro 16" to the M2 or whatever chip comes next.

There's going to be a whole SoC/chip family (M1, M2, M3, M4 for example), they started with the entry-level chips which makes sense to me.

 

[LDF]

First of all: Adobe is being Adobe. They're always slow with everything.

Yeah if they waited for a substantial amount of the creative cloud suite to run natively on arm we'd never get it! Haha.

 

[acidfast7_redux]

It the first transition to a new architecture. Safe and solid. Can't ask for much else, to be honest.

 

[darthbane2k]

That's what it feels like to me.
Adobe photoshop won't be available until next year (wasn't this supposed to be a simple easy thing?). No new designs for one of the most significant updates in the history of the company. On top of that, slick marketing not giving us any numbers on specs really, only using 2X, 3X, 6X performing of old intel CPUs and old intel integrated graphics?

Next year will be better for them after they do a proper re-design and have a decent GPU for pros.

The air and mini is overall a much better machine than it was before this update. Nice big "X faster" marketing for that (but also what chips are they referring to exactly). So for anyone in the market for an air/mini and apple-only software it's a solid update.

But there was a lot of talk on these forums about how Apple wouldnt market their own chips as the "low end" versions. And that's what they did.

I think this new direction is promising and they will come out on top, but I think they should have waited. the 2nd revision on the ARM MacBooks are going to be substantial no doubt.

Next year will always be better

 

[Krevnik]

First of all: Adobe is being Adobe. They're always slow with everything.

I think one thing that Apple does a piss poor job of is adding the asterisk that needs to be placed next to the claim "ported in days". There's a huge difference between getting the core of a big, bloated, legacy app stood up on a new platform/architecture, and the amount of time/energy it takes to polish that work into something you can ship without derailing all the other engineers working in the codebase.

But yeah, rapid development is not what I'd attribute to any large legacy project. The Adobe Suite and MS Office being two of the larger ones I can think of.

 

[Apple_Robert]

ARM feels rushed because Adobe isn’t ready? Absurd.

 

[JPack]

Mac revenue during the past quarter was at an all-time high. Apple isn't about to dynamite the bridge they're standing on.

Keep in mind the transition was always going to start on the low-end. People who believed otherwise were just nuts or wildly uninformed. The only software guaranteed to be compatible with the M1 is in the Mac App Store. If you're a productivity professional, you rely on commercial software not yet available in the App Store.

There was simply no way Apple was going to do a top to bottom transition without the native apps.

 

[Aj6658]

Doesn't make sense to redesign just yet. They want AS>>> Intel front and centre. They also dont want to juggle redesign and new processors.

 

[Briskit]

I think this new direction is promising and they will come out on top, but I think they should have waited. the 2nd revision on the ARM MacBooks are going to be substantial no doubt.

Based on what was shown today, it's safe to say you might want to wait until the 3rd revision. After all, its a 2 year transition. If they release M2 next year, it'll be in the middle of their transition. M3 seems to be the sweet spot for getting into Silicon, plus, by then all the iOS apps will be all on Mac.

 

[Andropov]

First of all: Adobe is being Adobe. They're always slow with everything.

Like their apps!

 

[darkmatter343]

There's going to be a whole SoC/chip family (M1, M2, M3, M4 for example), they started with the entry-level chips which makes sense to me.

I agree but I think they’ll differentiate the family’s with M1, M1X, M1Z etc... for the Product lines, then each year it’ll be M2, M2Z etc... I can’t see Apple running through the alphabet each year with the new family of chips, as in; next year it would be N1 etc. But time will tell.

 

[satchmo]

I get they didn’t want to deal with both new internal engineering and a new form factor. But from a perception standpoint, it feels lazy and rushed even if it wasn’t.

I wished they could’ve simply differentiated these M1 Mac by painting them black or graphite.

We can cut them slack this first gen, but they really shouldn’t milk the same design for another year (especially with the iMac).

 

[AppleFeller]

Sitting on this 2018 Air....this is honestly the slowest MacBook I have ever used it gets slow with a few safari tabs and iMessage open not kidding. No using internet recovery and starting fresh does not help the computer is just pitiful with the crappy intel y series chip not even MacOS optimization saves it. I am getting the Pro simply because that design is more appealing to me over the wedge of the Air and the active cooling is preferred to me alongside the better battery life.

 

[Erehy Dobon]

I doubt it. Apple has been certainly working on this for years. When they made the announcement at WWDC in early June, they likely had the final M1 SoC candidate running in their labs.

Their prototype Apple Silicon designs probably exceeded both Intel and AMD solutions a couple of years ago. I'm sure there are prototype units running all of the latest Intel and AMD silicon somewhere in Cupertino.

Transitioning to AMD for a year or two before switching to Apple Silicon would make zero sense. It was either stick with Intel for another year or two or make the switch. My guess is this was decided in 2019.

Also, there are prototype chips right now that will eventually be part of the Apple Silicon family. 16-core chips, 24-core chips, 32-core chips, whatever. There's a 16" MacBook Pro running on an M-class SoC, an iMac, a Mac Pro.

While the keynote video was rolling, likely there were Apple engineers working on M-class chips that will be released next year (M1X? M2? M10? M20? M100?) and obviously software engineers working on the successor to Big Sur.

Likely there are mechanical engineers working on new enclosure designs for all three products announced today.

As Apple has pounded time and time again, this is a two year transition period from Intel to Apple Silicon. Today was just the first step.

 

[fhturner]

Specs are for comparison to something we know. What we have now is a new architecture and a new chip. This is new ground with nothing to compare it to.

Yes, but it doesn't look like we can even compare 2 bits (or 3) of the same, new thing. There's so much "Star Trekking" of the numbers (abstracting everything to just multiples and percentages) that it's really tough to even know how each M1 model compares to the others. For example, 8 GPU cores in the "better" config doesn't seem like much improvement over the 7-core GPU "good" config, so is it really just 1/7 or 14% faster on GPU tasks only? Or is there more to it? How do they compare in real-world performance? And is the 8/8 MacBook Air config running at the same base or boost frequency as the 8/8 MacBook Pro config that has a fan? I realize and understand it's a totally new architecture, but it wouldn't hurt to have some concrete #s to refer to and compare...

 

[AidenShaw]

The Kool-Aid is strong with this one.

 

[Andropov]

8 GPU cores in the "better" config doesn't seem like much improvement over the 7-core GPU "good" config, so is it really just 1/7 or 14% faster on GPU tasks only?

Most likely.

 

[fhturner]

Most likely.

Right, but my point is, we get very little to go on here. It MAY just be 1/7 incrementally faster, OR that 8th core may unlock space-time portals for all we know.

 

[Andropov]

It MAY just be 1/7 incrementally faster, OR that 8th core may unlock space-time portals for all we know.

Ooh that must be where the AirTags went. Stupid space-time portals.

(JK, realistically GPUs scale ~linearly with the number of cores even in "real-world" performance so I'd be surprised to see that number deviate significantly from the 1/7th extra power figure).

 

[Erehy Dobon]

The Kool-Aid is strong with this one.

I know Mac Kool-Aid won't be the same as iPhone Kool-Aid. However much has to do with the software.

Apple iPhone destroyed RIM BlackBerry and Windows Mobile both in hardware and software. Nokia handsets are just a feeble brand name today.

Microsoft's catastrophic failure in the mobile space is now a classic case study at B-schools.

Let's remember that the Intel-Apple Silicon transition is completely different. Apple has a very robust ecosystem of ARM-powered mobile devices and a rich library of applications that is actively been developed on Intel-powered Macs.

 

[ADGrant]

That's what it feels like to me.
Adobe photoshop won't be available until next year (wasn't this supposed to be a simple easy thing?). No new designs for one of the most significant updates in the history of the company. On top of that, slick marketing not giving us any numbers on specs really, only using 2X, 3X, 6X performing of old intel CPUs and old intel integrated graphics?

....

But there was a lot of talk on these forums about how Apple wouldnt market their own chips as the "low end" versions. And that's what they did.

I think this new direction is promising and they will come out on top, but I think they should have waited. the 2nd revision on the ARM MacBooks are going to be substantial no doubt.

No they should not have waited. The M1 MacBooks are better than the Mac Books they replaced and the Mini is better than the low end Mini it replaced and better than the high end Minis for GPU Performance. Developers need machines in end users hands so they have someone to release software to.

Anyone who thought they would launch with a 16" MacBook was delusional but not as delusional as those who were expecting a 27" iMac (someone even started a thread on that subject ).

As for Photoshop, it is an ancient application. Probably has a lot of crufty code in there and maybe even some x86 Assembler.

 

[the8thark]

I agree but I think they’ll differentiate the family’s with M1, M1X, M1Z etc... for the Product lines, then each year it’ll be M2, M2Z etc... I can’t see Apple running through the alphabet each year with the new family of chips, as in; next year it would be N1 etc. But time will tell.

Well we have the
A series (iPhone / iPad)
S Series (Watch)
T Series (Secure enclave)
W Series (Wi-Fi)
H Series (AirPods)
U Series (Ultrawide band)
M Series (Mobile Macs) - We assume

So having the desktop class on Apple Silicon being the D Series or whatever letter Apple chooses is quite possible indeed. This is if they are different chips. If they are just a different version of the M then M1Z is plausible.

My opinion though is it's called M for a reason, and the desktops will have their own letter. It's all about how similar the desptop and mobile silicon actually is.

But only time will tell.