Disappointed in Apple Silicon: Apple Marketing vs. Reality / Intel

[MajorFubar]

Are you always this condescending and unwilling to admit you're wrong?

Just read these whole 7 pages and question yourself a bit. It'll do you some good.

OP turned obnoxious as soon as their attempt to have their claims vindicated 'by committee' backfired.
Then all their toys ended up tossed out of the pram.

 

[Adreitz]

The OP doesn't want to fix his/her problem. The OP just wants to get angry.

This was obvious right from their initial approach: "14" M1 Max is terrible, prove me wrong!" OP seemed to just be searching for validation that they face a common problem indicating that Apple lied or produced a trash product. Faced with a mountain of evidence that their problem is NOT common, they proceed to abuse the other forum members as somehow biased.

Out of the goodness of their hearts, a number of forum members looked past this behavior and tried to provide genuinely good advice:
1) Show us the problem you are talking about. Seeing what is going on (in terms of a video showing the thermals or battery reduction, or performance numbers compared to OP's old computer) can often be a great help in troubleshooting.
2) Look for a rogue process in Activity Monitor.
3) Try the same video edits in a different application (FCP or Davinci Resolve). Maybe it is due to an iMovie problem?
4) Take the computer to Apple and ask them to troubleshoot.

OP simply ignored all of this, choosing instead to continue their tirade against Apple and anyone who had a different experience with their computer.

OP, it's time to face facts. You tried to see if your problem is a common experience. By all measures, it is not. You now have a choice to make. Either calm down and start considering people's advice, working through troubleshooting steps one by one and giving feedback on exactly what you saw each time so everyone can understand, or continue to lash out uselessly and end up receiving the consequences. I hope you can see what the logical path is.

 

[MacRail]

Just to clarify, the 2020 MacBook Pro 13 you referenced, was it the late 2020 with the M1? Because there’s not a blown away difference between those two machines. You must be referring to a early or Mid 2020 MacBook with Intel.

@Sammy in SoCal - I should have been more careful. It was the Intel version. In probably the worst case of timing I ever had, I purchased that laptop right before the M1 was released.

 

[Sammy in SoCal]

@Sammy in SoCal - I should have been more careful. It was the Intel version. In probably the worst case of timing I ever had, I purchased that laptop right before the M1 was released.

Alright I was gonna say…

But Yeah, 2020 was a weird year for MacBook releases especially because Apple released the Intel garbage machines along with the M1 that year. It was a premeditated jerk move by apple to release their own silicon machine without warning. I say this because of your own experience with buying that machine. How much did you spend on it.

 

[russell_314]

I absolutely love the fact that Apple came out with their own chips. At first I was a bit disappointed that I couldn’t run x86 Windows but that one downside is well worth all the positive things.

I have recently found another downside of Apple Silicon compared to Intel on a MacBook. When I’m using my M2 MacBook Air wearing shorts the bottom aluminum part is really cold on my legs 🥶… I didn’t have this problem with Intel. I hope in future models Apple somehow incorporates a heating element for the bottom to fix this issue.

 

[dmr727]

^^^ I'll take some!

My M1 Air has been fantastic. I don't use it for sustained loads unless I'm playing a game, which is the only time it ever feels even the least bit warm. It's ridiculous how responsive it is.

 

[jav6454]

In what real usage are the M1 Max and M1 Ultra being stressed because you cannot play games on Mac's, unlike on AMD and Intel machines.

So Apple Silicon is nice on laptops, because you get the 21 hours battery life. But for desktops (Mac Studio), it's probably better to go for a desktop PC as you have more power and much more real world applications for that power.

In the CPU side of things, the mobile CPU can run circles around several desktop class CPUs even when said desktop CPUs pull in over 60W of power.

As per graphics on the desktop side of things of the M-series line, are you talking iGPU or dGPU setup? If you mean iGPU then the M-series still dominate. However, said PC has a dedicated GPU, then by all means that setup should win as it has a dedicated card that draws 10x to 20x the power of a simple M-series GPU.

If you wish to compare things on the desktop side, do it in oranges to oranges.

 

[roach1245]

My ideal setup with Macs would be using multiple 4K+ high refresh rate monitors and I would want the system to comfortably support this. With the specs describing things like "two 60 Hz 6K monitors" it's always a trial and error what it actually supports for something like 4K screens with high refresh rates and HDR.

I'm running my M1 Max with 3 4K monitors (2 are 60hz, 1 is 120hz) and it's been a flawless experience since I got the M1 Max on launch day 9 months ago. Incredible laptop.

 

[PsykX]

Disappointed in the GPU, but the rest of the original post is smoke and mirrors to me.

Otherwise, I'm disappointed in Apple offering only 8GB RAM / 256 GB Storage in the base models, but that has to do with Apple wanting more profit margins and not with Apple Silicon itself. This will get fixed over time.

 

[booksbooks]

I can't be bothered to read this whole trainwreck of a thread, but for me the things still keeping me from buying an Apple Silicon Mac are largely related to display handling.

• None of the Macs available at the moment support HDMI 2.1 in any form. Even USB-C/TB to HDMI 2.1 adapters don't allow above HDMI 2.0 speeds due to MacOS just not working with them. With more displays coming with a combination of 1x DP + 2x HDMI 2.1 port setups it's a relevant issue if you run multiple computers with the same monitor if you want to get max resolution/refresh rate with all your systems as it involves using multiple ports.
• The weird hidden limitations on HiDPI scaling whether you have M1/M2 base or M1 Pro/Max/Ultra as described in this thread
• The limitations on the number of displays. M2 Air supporting one external display is miserable even though otherwise it would be a good option for me. In the PC realm a GPU equivalent of a potato can usually handle 2-4 displays yet somehow this is all reserved for the higher end Macs.
• The terrible pixel response times on Macbook Pros. There is no excuse for them being that bad, especially if you try to pass them as 120 Hz capable when they can't even keep up properly with 60 Hz. If "image quality first" options are needed, there should be separate modes/settings presets for this rather than gimping the display performance for everyday use.
• The arbitrary issues for HiDPI support when you are using something that is not a 4K/5K/6K 60 Hz 16:9 screen. Usually HiDPI support just nopes out unless you use something like BetterDisplay to work around it.
• HDR support seems very flaky, even on Intel Macs.

My ideal setup with Macs would be using multiple 4K+ high refresh rate monitors and I would want the system to comfortably support this. With the specs describing things like "two 60 Hz 6K monitors" it's always a trial and error what it actually supports for something like 4K screens with high refresh rates and HDR.

I can't be bothered to read this trainwreck of a post.

 

[booksbooks]

Interesting choice. Why the hotter more power hungry M1 Max in the smaller chassis and the cooler less power hungry M1 Pro in the larger chassis.

Already answered this question.

 

[booksbooks]

Which it does which is why I made the switch to Mac last year. So many Mac haters became Mac lovers because of the M1 chip. The Apple Silicon Macs are so good they're now dominating the laptop market outselling everything else, and it's hard to recommend any other laptop now because the price to performance ratio plus absurdly long battery life on the Apple Silicon Macs cannot be matched.



Unless you're running Cinebench, lol no. Of course the Apple Silicon Macs will get warm, but nowhere near to the point of the Intel ones. The Intel ones thermal throttled at over 100 degrees celsius right out of the box after just putting in under a tiny bit of load.

Meanwhile on the M1 Pro/Max running Cities Skylines at megapolis stage, the fans didn't even kick in above idle stage and the game was still running at a solid framerate with all the computations. On an Intel Mac you'd be hearing a Boeing 737 through your Mac.



Wait a minute...



There's your answer. You're using a 14 inch with the M1 Max chip in it. That chip drains the battery quickly compared to the M1 Pro as the smaller laptop doesn't have bigger batteries to handle the M1 Max. I applaud Apple for giving the option to put the M1 Max in the 14 inch body, but that chip was clearly meant for the big 16 inch or the stationary Mac Studio.



Wait so do you have a 14 inch M1 Max AND a 16 inch M1 Pro? You have the beefier chip in the smaller laptop and the midtier chip in the bigger laptop. I...I don't...whyyyyyyy?!



The M2 Macbook Air doesn't have a fan in it so of course there's a speed difference. It also doesn't have the same CPU as the M1 Pro and Max chips, with 4 high performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, versus the 2 efficiency and 8 performance cores in the M1 Pro/Max. It's also why the pro laptops have different battery life since they have less efficiency cores since they're meant to be running demanding programs.



But...they have delivered. Those laptops outperform the 2019 Meme Pro at a third of the cost, even at base spec.

No, they have not delivered, for me.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

No, they have not delivered, for me.

What on earth are you running that couldn't possibly have made the laptops deliver for you?

 

[booksbooks]

Finally something we can all wholeheartedly agree on.

Finally, we are in agreement.

 

[Romain_H]

Are you always this condescending and unwilling to admit you're wrong?

30 minutes of iMovie use in a 16" MacBook Pro M1 Pro with 1 TB HD and 16 GB RAM with about 7 other applications open none of which are heavy Apps other than Safari and ~20% drop in battery = FAIL. No excuses.

You are still ignoring that your machine could be faulty. That‘s on you, nobody else

 

[booksbooks]

What on earth are you running that couldn't possibly have made the laptops deliver for you? (Aside from the fact you have your specs reversed)

Why is this so hard for you or anyone to understand. Why can you not just look at the evidence and just be objective. Because bias, bias toward a for profit company. If I told you that a prolific thief came into my store, and at the same time a box of chocolate bars was stolen but we don't have video of it, you would likely believe he stole them. But when it comes to the worship of a for profit company who in the eyes of its whorshippers can do no wrong, the bias blinds the objectivity and any implication of that company's products failing or not living up to the hype or marketing etc. is rejected.

I don't care about you, or Apple, because you don't care about me and Apple doesn't care about me. Apple doesn't care about any of us either. We could be dead laying in a ditch and nobody from Apple would care. They want our money. I want their stuff to work. Obviously something is "wrong" when my battery life dumps 20% in 30 minutes of using iMovie. But again, that is not my problem, that is Apple's problem and my experience is objectively what it is. I am also not getting more than about 7 hours of battery life on my 14" M1 Max MBP. I will take it, but it's not much better than my outgoing Intel MBP. Apple clearly markets and pumps its battery life in the very beginning of its marketing, and even states "Up to 21 hours battery". Yes, we all know averages, mileage may very blah blah.

Obviously as an Apple guy I like many aspects of Apple's products, but the bottom line is, I am not getting much better battery life out of the 16" MBP M1 or the 14" MBP M1 than I was compared to my outgoing Intel MBP.

 

[booksbooks]

You are still ignoring that your machine could be faulty. That‘s on you, nobody else

I am not ignoring that. I agree, and accept, the machine could be faulty. I have not once rejected anyone else's experience, that is the difference between me and them.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Why is this so hard for you or anyone to understand. Why can you not just look at the evidence and just be objective. Because bias, bias toward a for profit company. If I told you that a prolific thief came into my store, and at the same time a box of chocolate bars was stolen but we don't have video of it, you would likely believe he stole them. But when it comes to the worship of a for profit company who in the eyes of its whorshippers can do no wrong, the bias blinds the objectivity and any implication of that company's products failing or not living up to the hype or marketing etc. is rejected.

I don't care about you, or Apple, because you don't care about me and Apple doesn't care about me. Apple doesn't care about any of us either. We could be dead laying in a ditch and nobody from Apple would care. They want our money. I want their stuff to work. Obviously something is "wrong" when my battery life dumps 20% in 30 minutes of using iMovie. But again, that is not my problem, that is Apple's problem and my experience is objectively what it is. I am also not getting more than about 7 hours of battery life on my 14" M1 Max MBP. I will take it, but it's not much better than my outgoing Intel MBP. Apple clearly markets and pumps its battery life in the very beginning of its marketing, and even states "Up to 21 hours battery". Yes, we all know averages, mileage may very blah blah.

Obviously as an Apple guy I like many aspects of Apple's products, but the bottom line is, I am not getting much better battery life out of the 16" MBP M1 or the 14" MBP M1 than I was compared to my outgoing Intel MBP.

You're stalling. Answer the question: What software are you trying to run that your Apple Silicon Macs are supposedly not delivering better performance than your Intel Macs?

 

[Romain_H]

@OP: Ok. So as a first check, maybe someone with a similar machine could replicate what causes the battery drain on your computer and see if the issue is persistent on different machines

 

[Vaccaria]

mmm, this is on M2 as well

Safari got a nice speed increase over the last couple of months.

This is the current score on the iMac M1 16/1T under Safari.

 

[Sammy in SoCal]

I am not ignoring that. I agree, and accept, the machine could be faulty. I have not once rejected anyone else's experience, that is the difference between me and them.

Well don’t you think you should’ve done your due diligence to find out if your machine is faulty, ruling it out, before proceeding with this post?

 

[Weaselboy]

Moderator Note:

I don't think we are covering any new ground here. Thread closed.