Typo? Apple has said repeatedly that it is a two-year transition. I suspect the clock started with the release of the first M1 Macs. So November 2020-November 2022.
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Do you expect an M1X and M2 SoC to be released this year?
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Interesting idea. I expect it would depend on whether there was a major differentiator between laptop and desktop processors, e.g. dGPU or much higher power consumption. I doubt we would see more than 12+4 CPU cores in any laptop, but the desktops are expected to have up to 32 performance cores.
People care about features. Mac users especially. A fanless MacBook Air that gets all day battery and still is wickedly fast is something that a lot of people care about. Do they care about the CPU that Apple uses? That's harder to answer. Certainly if people need actual x86 compatibility instead of Rosetta 2 or x86 Windows booting they will care but how many users is that? Most people will want to know, does it run my software, is it noticeably laggy, and how long does the battery last.
Using "fanboy" is insulting and diminishes your credibility. Why use terms like that? This is a Mac dedicated forum and website. Certainly people here care more about the Mac than the regular user but it isn't something irrational.
I agree. I don't really see any problem for Apple here; quite the contrary - the brand has been greatly strengthened by the adoption of Apple Silicon. People buy Macs because they are perceived as high quality, reliable and well-built computers that offer a somewhat better user experience for most other brands using other operating systems.
I expect nearly all Mac users understand that they can't directly run software designed for Wintel computers, so the move to Apple Silicon is unlikely to make any difference to them (except to a small group of more technical users who used virtualized x86 Windows or Linux on Intel Macs).
Macs seem to be very popular in the professional and personal circles that I move in, and I haven't personally found many disadvantages to using a Mac (as a client machine) instead of Windows or Linux in 20 years as an IT professional.
It's an expression, mate.
But don't worry, it ain't happening anyway. 16 will come with the M1x IMO.
So armageddon averted!
I think what you mean to say that 99.9% of people (and probably much more than that) don't care about running S-Frame and Civil3D, whatever those are. If you have some very precise software requirements that require specific OS and hardware, no, these ARM machines are not for you. For many other users, including many users from STEM fields, they are great. There are plenty of users out there that have a need for a faster portable machine with a better battery life.
You are completely correct however that an average user doesn't know about AS. An average user will look at the recommendations and get a machine accordingly. They won't care which CPU architecture they run. Current M1 laptops compare very favorably with Windows laptops, and the users see that.
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This must depend heavily on the field. In the STEM fields I'm familiar with, everything runs on Linux servers by default, and at least 50% of laptops are Macs. Windows is more common with administrators and management than with the people doing actual STEM work.
Personally
Can I use an AS equipped Mac for MANY things in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Yes, I certainly can and certainly do.
I like how he focuses on civil engineering software and then equates civil engineering as the only STEM field basically.
Can I use an AS equipped Mac for MANY things in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics. Yes, I certainly can and certainly do.
I'm sure you are right. From a brief investigation, quite a lot of 3D / CAD software is Wintel only, with some Linux and Mac. I would expect a lot of software created by academic institutions to be Linux based (open source, cheaper and more easily supported). Software that is mostly server or cloud-based (e.g. enterprise web-apps) will be strongly biased towards Linux for the same reasons.
Yes, you are right. The 99.9% just begged for a response, though. AS is getting enough buzz where Intel felt compelled to very publically offer up its own benchmarks vis a vis AS and its board has forced a leadership change. I think the AS announces and successes were a tipping point.
It is very industry, market, or niche dependent. Unix has long been a huge consideration within various STEM fields and Apple has seen a lot of success on that front. Linux of course has made inroads, but often loses out to the Mac with it’s lack of mainstream commercial software — mostly being a platform for open source on one end and then high-end specialty on the other. And that most Unix app distributions that require the end user to compile can be built just as handily on OSX(BSD) as they can on any other *nix platform.
Apple’s move to their own chips is going to be great for them, and various industries, as time goes on. But I don’t see it having any impact on overall market share of Macs vs. [Windows] PCs. I’m curious as to how long Apple will continue to offer Intel based solutions. They say they will continue to offer them for a while longer. As much as I like what Apple’s silicon is promising here — and I’m really enjoying the 13” M1 MBP and just bought an M1 Air for my daughter as she needed a new laptop for college. ...I still need to have a full Windows installation in addition to MacOS when I’m mobile. My 16” MBP fits the bill just fine and will for a while longer. In terms of workstations, I have been a mixed shop of Mac, Windows and Linux for years. I don’t see that changing.
That was true 10 years ago, but less so today. macOS has become less reliable as a *nix platform over the years due to many little choices Apple has made. Apple Clang no longer supports OpenMP, C standard headers sometimes go missing after a macOS upgrade, and things like that. These days I find it easier to have a Ubuntu virtual machine for most things that require a *nix environment.
I’ll be honest, as a developer, I also care more that Apple delivered on the MBA and 13” MBP with great battery (at least in my use cases), less heat, and less noise. How Apple accomplished it is secondary.
I still like keeping tabs on the tech and how it was done, but yeah, it’s a means to an end, not the end itself. So long as my workflow on the Mac isn’t disrupted by the transition at least. Homebrew has been a pain point, but surprisingly smooth otherwise.
I’ve just switched from MacPorts back to Homebrew. MacPorts was very helpful early on but seems to have stalled recently while brew seems to have caught up on the M1 and surpassed MacPorts.
My impression has always been that MacPorts has been built by *nix geeks while Homebrew is built by Mac geeks. The later really care about user experience, even if it means sacrificing some edge use cases. The former care about the engineering aspect and configurability, but don’t really care about anything else. I am a firm believer in “configurability is the root of all evil”, so it’s not difficult to guess in which camp I sit
^This.
As long as your software or scripts still run without incident then it really doesn't matter how it is achieved. The benefits of the new Apple processors are evident and the future of personal computing looks promising.
The future of personal computing without Intel indeed looks bright. All these Intel machines already look (and sound) like dinosaurs. And, for the first time ever, Apple's low end range beats my 2009 12-core Mac Pro. I knew something would finally come along to best my trusty Mac Pro, and I knew for a fact it would not be a product with an Intel processor inside. As an aside, it's also hilarious seeing a $1000 MacBook Air destroy a $1,700 Dell XPS in every single way.
I hope we don't haver to wait that long for a more powerful AS Mac mini, since I want to upgrade from my 2014 Mac mini.
But I can be patient since I do have an M1 MBP, and I am curious to see if we get a Mac Pro mini / Mac mini Pro.
It seems we’re getting both over the next 12 months: a more powerful Mac Mini and an AS Mac Pro (that will be much smaller than the current MP).
The future indeed looks bright for Apple computers and computing overall.
This is quite possible. The main difference with the desktop chips could be the lack of efficiency cores as they need no optimisation for longer battery life.
I am certain that efficiency cores have their place on desktop as well. They are not just for saving energy (which is as relevant for desktop as well btw) - having low-energy cores to run background tasks means that the main cores have more headroom. In other words, you don’t have to waste your high performance cores on menial tasks like fetching emails or preparing backups when they could do more important work. Four efficiency cores take as much space on die as one performance core, which is a reasonable tradeoff.
By the way, upcoming Intel desktop CPUs will feature 8 performance cores and 8 efficiency cores. I think that anything beyond 4 efficiency cores is a waste, but who knows...
Another reason to have low power cores is to help with heat reduction. With reduced heat means you can have a fan that runs at a lower RPM. Also, with reduced heat you can have a simpler cooling system.
You won’t get a simpler cooling system since you still need it to be capable enough to handle the full performance case.
That is quite a valid point as well. I am curious what sort of a line-up they will come up with. Also agree with you on having more than four efficiency cores being a waste. What I wonder more is whether 16" MacBook Pro and 27" iMac will have different chips or not. There is also chance that both will get the same chip with the iMac one having a higher power envelope.