Has Apple lost their mind? March 8th Event Disappointment

[bobcomer]

Yep Windows 7 was my favorite too! And for the reasons you specify is why I use Windows in some cases (except I still prefer development in Windows) and macOS in others. I like all three - Windows, macOS and Linux for various things. They all have their advantages and disadvantages.

I liked the UI of Windows 7 the best too, but it really didn't handle memory or processor resources as well as Windows 10/11.

I'm not really a fan of Linux, there are too many not so great pieces in it, but I use it if it fits the task. (usually from a VM running on Windows or Mac OS!)

 

[bobcomer]

Ah well, let me have some fun

But no, in all seriousness, if a thin laptop can operate an M1 Max at maximal clocks without throttling, then a small chungus like Studio with it's copper heatsink and huge fans won't have a problem with a 180W Ultra either.

Since I've never seen an M1 Max laptop, I don't know that it doesn't throttle. I know my MBA sure did though and why I'm looking forward to get my Studio. I would have preferred to get the Ultra's cooling on top of my Max though, never know when it might come in handy. Over-engineering has never been one of my pet peeves.

 

[wonderings]

Apple has always cost more and I was generally ok with that because I felt I was getting something more with Apple. That has not been the case for a long while as they have moved away from what really made them great, blending hardware with software in unique and incredibly well thought out designs. When Jobs came back to Apple and brought about the Apple we knew the computers really were marvels. Think about the PowerMac G3's G4's and G5's. Incredible layouts, super clean cable management and even more easy to work on and access every bit of the computer that I would say has not been matched today. PC's are much better, but not to the same level. Even the laptops were always pushing the boundary while at the same time you had options for the very basic upgrades most people would only need, hard drives and RAM. If a hard drive goes or you get some bad RAM it should not take bringing your computer into an Apple store and having them completely replacing the insides with something new... if they have the right spec in stock. So Apple has completely locked us down from upgrading ourselves and at the same time charge through the roof for RAM and Hard drive space and justifying it by saying how fast it is.

So again we have a release of a new product, Mac Studio. Impressive, no amazing performance for some specific industries. They have just made a tiny computer, PC builders have been doing this well for a while, but they can upgrade their components. Not exactly a good comparison as the hardware is vast different. I would like to think if Jobs was around still and this came out they would have shown them to be real masters of design by making this form factor but at the same time having some crazy easy way to add in more ram and hard drive space yourself. This reminds me of the trash can Mac Pro, buy it and then go external for all your storage which I think is safe to say most people don't want to do but are being forced to by the prices Apple charges for their hard drives.

As for the monitors, I can't really speak to those though I would say I wish they had a bare bones option that brought the price down. I don't need or want speakers or a camera in a monitor.

 

[JouniS]

No argument here, but honestly, if you really need more than 64GB to run tests then you probably also want more than 8 CPU cores.

It's the opposite for me: If I want to use more than 8 CPU cores, I need more than 128 GB memory. Human chromosomes are the size they are. Many tasks parallelize naturally with one job per chromosome. Each job uses from gigabytes to tens of gigabytes of memory, depending on the task and the size of the chromosome.

And when it comes to debugging, the usual workflow involves repeatedly loading the data into memory, doing some preprocessing, and then computing something for a fraction of a second. Some parts of it are inherently sequential, and there is not much difference between using 4 and 16 CPU cores.

 

[uller6]

I've read 7.5 pages of comments so far, and I see that the people talking about the Mac Studio's performance and "value proposition" are making the same mistakes:

1. We don't know if the performance claims are based on HOURS of peak usage (and therefore the machine does not suffer throttling), or just a few minutes of peak usage (before thermal throttling starts to set in). Apple wont tell us. But you know what kind of language is NOT on the Mac Studio marketing pages at Apple.com? The language found on the Mac Pro marketing pages that talk about getting peak performance ALL DAY LONG. HINT HINT, people.

2. Having to buy the top end Mac Studio M1 Ultra, just to get more than 64GB of RAM, is NOT cost effective, and therefore sabotages the value notion for many people. If you don't know for sure how long you need to keep this machine (for me, it's likely a decade; longer if I'm going to be spending as much as it seems), nor how much RAM and storage you might need in several years (between OS and software "upgrades" that will bloat and slow things), you MUST buy as much as you can afford RIGHT NOW. There's no upgrading later. There's no third-party cheaper RAM or storage to avoid Apple's insane pricing on both.

3. Maintenance: If one component goes bad after your 1 year warranty (or whenever you decide to stop paying for AppleCare insurance), the whole machine is probably junk. Everything is integrated. If there's a defect in RAM, storage, CPU, GPU... it's basically a new board, or a refurbed machine (from someone else's return), and a LOT of money will be demanded for that "repair". That also sabotages the "value" proposition. I mean, yeah, they got the display separated, but the Mac Studio is NOT "modular" by any other metric.

One of the benefits of integration is actually much improved durability and reduced failure rates for every subsystem.

 

[leman]

Since I've never seen an M1 Max laptop, I don't know that it doesn't throttle.

I own one, trust me

I know my MBA sure did though and why I'm looking forward to get my Studio. I would have preferred to get the Ultra's cooling on top of my Max though, never know when it might come in handy. Over-engineering has never been one of my pet peeves.

MBA is a consumer level passively cooled laptop with target TDP of 10-15W. It’s a wonder it performs as well as it does.

That has not been the case for a long while as they have moved away from what really made them great, blending hardware with software in unique and incredibly well thought out designs.

Couldn’t disagree more. Mac value proposition has never been better. They are still pricey, but you can’t get anything comparable for any amount money. Abs entry level Macs are extremely capable everyday machines.

Even the laptops were always pushing the boundary while at the same time you had options for the very basic upgrades most people would only need, hard drives and RAM. If a hard drive goes or you get some bad RAM it should not take bringing your computer into an Apple store and having them completely replacing the insides with something new... if they have the right spec in stock. So Apple has completely locked us down from upgrading ourselves and at the same time charge through the roof for RAM and Hard drive space and justifying it by saying how fast it is.

Apple laptops were not user-serviceable since 2008 I think? Anyway, if upgradeability is what you need, Apple simply is not the right company for you. And never was. They pursue a different vision. And there is nothing wrong with that. You can’t have it all, so at some point you need to choose what to focus on.

So again we have a release of a new product, Mac Studio. Impressive, no amazing performance for some specific industries. They have just made a tiny computer, PC builders have been doing this well for a while, but they can upgrade their components.

Which exactly illustrates what I have written above. It is physically impossible to build a small factor PC of comparable size and performance as the Studio. Simply can’t be done.

I would like to think if Jobs was around still and this came out they would have shown them to be real masters of design by making this form factor but at the same time having some crazy easy way to add in more ram and hard drive space yourself.

Is it the same Jobs we are talking about? At least now Apple has a very good technical reason why RAM can’t be upgraded. And regarding „crazy easy way to add more RAM“… entirely possible. If you don’t mind paying twice as much as what these things cost already and give up all the efficiency benefits.

 

[leman]

It's the opposite for me: If I want to use more than 8 CPU cores, I need more than 128 GB memory. Human chromosomes are the size they are. Many tasks parallelize naturally with one job per chromosome. Each job uses from gigabytes to tens of gigabytes of memory, depending on the task and the size of the chromosome.

And when it comes to debugging, the usual workflow involves repeatedly loading the data into memory, doing some preprocessing, and then computing something for a fraction of a second. Some parts of it are inherently sequential, and there is not much difference between using 4 and 16 CPU cores.

I see. Yeah, that is a use case that’s a bit more tricky. I can imagine that the software lacks scalability as well, normally one would stream the data from the SSD, but I assume your software requires everything to be preloaded.

 

[bobcomer]

I own one, trust me

Okay. Logically given the power usage I would think you're right anyway, but I don't know it.

MBA is a consumer level passively cooled laptop with target TDP of 10-15W. It’s a wonder it performs as well as it does.

I agree, especially now that I have experienced it. Really, my expectations on the MBA were WAY of of range. (in more ways than one, of course) I guess I wanted something new bad enough not to think about it enough. Lesson learned.

I definitely agree the performance is really good when you compare it to other non-actively cooled devices like tablets. It just doesn't fit what I want in a computer.

 

[ahurst]

I'm almost this upset. Where I'm most pissed is that we have almost no options anymore. If you're worried about needing more RAM and storage in the next few years, you have two choices:

1. Suffer, when you realize the model you chose at purchase time isn't enough, because there isn't any upgrading,

or

2. Spend way WAY MORE on the M1 Ultra on DAY ONE so you can have 128GB of RAM.

Remember: that's SHARED RAM, and software developers always bloat their products to fill the latest "norms" in available RAM...

Apple management know this will happen. This is designed in.

(Emphasis mine)

It's a perfectly valid concern, but I think it might be one that would matter a lot more 10 years ago than today if current trends continue. I'm almost certain I've posted this plot in here before, but here's the base RAM sizes (in MB) in all Mac SKUs released since 1984 (Y-axis is log-scaled). Note the plateau in growth that starts in the early 2010s:

If that earlier rate of year-over-year growth had continued, Macs would have hit an average base RAM size of 32 GB in ~2018! Since OEM PCs have kept with this curve more-or-less over the same timeframe, I'd say that the "more RAM -> hungrier apps -> more need to upgrade RAM" cycle isn't what it used to be, either due to slowing in the development of cheaper high-density RAM, reduced need for more capacity, the influence of low-RAM smartphones on website/software design, or a combination of all three.

Unless something dramatic changes, 16 GB RAM in 10 years is going to be a much healthier than 4 GB RAM (the average base RAM in 2012) is today.

EDIT: Here's base storage over the same timeframe:

Of course, that doesn't help if you unexpectedly find yourself with a workload that requires more RAM or storage, but at least we don't have Moore's Law working against us the same way it used to. Plus, with Mac SSD speeds having DDR2-comparable bandwidth (not sure about the latency), swap is much less painful than it used to be.

 

[SergueiTemp]

So let's pretend I'm an undercover Apple insider (because let's be honest this site is going to have at least one), what in your opinion should we have launched? It better be good...not another thin pretty laptop shaped like a wedge of cheese with a crap keyboard, one port, throttled performance and poor battery life...we tried that and it didn't go well. Any ideas, if our current alternative options don't suit you?

1. Make a modular-design tabletbooks, allowing for tablet/notebook mode
2. Make a hybrid system, that switches between tablet and pc modes when you remove screen from the base

 

[Adult80HD]

Since I've never seen an M1 Max laptop, I don't know that it doesn't throttle. I know my MBA sure did though and why I'm looking forward to get my Studio. I would have preferred to get the Ultra's cooling on top of my Max though, never know when it might come in handy. Over-engineering has never been one of my pet peeves.

If your MBA is the Intel one they suck and have sucked for a long time because of how hot the Intel chips run. After I saw how crazy fast my wife's M1 MacBook Pro was when we got it in late 2020, I got my daughter a new M1 MBA this summer and it's insanely fast and has crazy battery life--and it doesn't throttle. Meanwhile I've not gotten my 16" M1 Max to throttle even when I've run it at full processor load for more than two hours--the fans spun up after about 30 minutes but even then they were really quiet--the only reason I noticed them is because normally you can't hear them at all.

 

[Andropov]

Oh, antiquated versions of FileMaker databases… That’s probably something that keeps more older Macs in business more than anything else. I don’t know what level of backwards compatibility current versions of FileMaker have, but the cost of computer upgrades (for 40+) and licenses for newer versions of FileMaker (at least $80000, assuming $2000 for a computer and FileMaker license) means that cost alone was one reason they held onto those iMacs as long as they did.

They switched to some kind of very low-end PC minitower, so the cost of the computer + screen would've been <$800 for sure. I imagine that at some point maintaining ~20 year old computers became less and less of an option (no new parts, few people who know how to service them...). I'm surprised they lasted that long. They were on 12h a day, 5 days a week, for two decades.

I think you are oversimplifying things a bit. „Very good“ 4K displays cost over $1000 and the few miniLED models are well beyond that. As I see it, the problem is simply that costumers don’t want to spend money on quality stuff and therefore manufacturers are cutting corners left and right.

One of the main reasons I don't like seeing Apple's 27" iMac go. People choose terrible displays.

Okay. Logically given the power usage I would think you're right anyway, but I don't know it.

I have the 16" M1 Pro and the cooling system is so massive for the power consumption of the chip that I have never heard the fans spin up. Not a single time. M1 Max uses more power, but still. No way those things throttle.

 

[B.A.T]

@ahurst I love those graphs. Reminds me of my first Apple laptop that I bought in 1993 or 1994 with a black and white screen. I remember the salesman at the computer store (yes they used to be sold in computer stores) telling me that it had 4 megabytes of ram BUT!!!! it was expandable to 8 megabytes ?

 

[bobcomer]

If your MBA is the Intel one they suck and have sucked for a long time because of how hot the Intel chips run. After I saw how crazy fast my wife's M1 MacBook Pro was when we got it in late 2020, I got my daughter a new M1 MBA this summer and it's insanely fast and has crazy battery life--and it doesn't throttle. Meanwhile I've not gotten my 16" M1 Max to throttle even when I've run it at full processor load for more than two hours--the fans spun up after about 30 minutes but even then they were really quiet--the only reason I noticed them is because normally you can't hear them at all.

Mine was an M1. (16G RAM, 1TB Disk) It throttled with my workload and was quite hot to the touch.

 

[Adult80HD]

Mine was an M1. (16G RAM, 1TB Disk) It throttled with my workload and was quite hot to the touch.

Interesting, what were you using it for? She just does general use, but some coding and modeling for college economics classes. I think her use case is the design case for an MBA--as a totally passively-cooled machine its not meant to be a workhorse.

 

[Danfango]

Not OP in that one but I was using my MBA for heavy compilation and transcoding. I didn’t give two craps if it throttled. It didn’t however crash or turn itself off like the crappy ass Dell I was putting up with.

And it took less time and power than my Ryzen 3700X did.

So throttling - so what!

 

[bobcomer]

Interesting, what were you using it for? She just does general use, but some coding and modeling for college economics classes. I think her use case is the design case for an MBA--as a totally passively-cooled machine its not meant to be a workhorse.

I'm general business and development too, but with a heavy dose of DB analysis work, spreadsheets, java, terminals to other machines, and virtual machines.

 

[aurora_sect]

This is one where you have to ponder a bit as to why this is the case? A lot of people making this argument are completely missing the point. The reason you can't find competitive 5k displays are because Apple is the only company who has decided 5k displays are worthwhile. And if you think about it, the reason for this is pretty simple, margins . The entire industry has pretty much coalesced on 4k and you can find a ton of very good 4k monitors, high refresh rate, hdr, mini-led etc. you name it and obviously competition drives down the price.

But Apple sells this 5k monitor because they know there is no competition and they can charge ridiculous margins on it and people are sadly falling for this. Sure, it might be a good monitor, but its exorbitantly priced. They have basically plopped some speakers, a webcam and center stage into an 8 yr old monitor and selling it for $1600.

I'm not thrilled about shelling out $1,600 for the new display, but the reason I did is because there literally is no alternative if you want something as nice as your last iMac display in terms of performance, design, and build quality.

I'd be thrilled to pay $1k for a stripped down version w/ no speakers, fewer ports, and a more basic webcam, though.

 

[Homy]

My numbers are correct, go to the NORWEGIAN page and do the same specs as I did - boom, there they are. *Then* try to falsely claim I'm making up numbers. Whatever, I have better things to do than partake in pointless drawn-out autistic arguments. The Mac Studio is a great product, with a not-so-great price. That's not a controversial take, but obviously the fanboys are desperate to protect their favorite trillion dollar company from any legitimate criticism.

Did you even read my explanation? Yes your prices are accurate but your comparison is askew, illogical and dishonest. You complain that "We used to get a new generation of a specific product with improved technology, at a similar price point. Now we have to pay more or more money, for improvements in technology from one generation to the next.", but you compare a Mac Studio with M1 Max to a MBP with M1 Pro and claim that Mac Studio is too expensive?

In your comparison you ignore the fact that Mac Studio has 10c CPU instead of 8, 24c GPU instead of 14, 400 GB/s bandwidth instead of 200 and more video encode/decode engines. Spec up MBP 14" with the same M1 Max and boom, there you are, a price difference of $900 in favor of Mac Studio. There you have a new generation of Macs with M1 Max without having to pay more and more and paying $900 less.

 

[januarydrive7]

That's a pretty huge point of contention, seeing as this Mac Studio has ZERO upgrade capacity.

....
3. Maintenance: If one component goes bad after your 1 year warranty (or whenever you decide to stop paying for AppleCare insurance), the whole machine is probably junk. Everything is integrated. If there's a defect in RAM, storage, CPU, GPU... it's basically a new board, or a refurbed machine (from someone else's return), and a LOT of money will be demanded for that "repair". That also sabotages the "value" proposition. I mean, yeah, they got the display separated, but the Mac Studio is NOT "modular" by any other metric.

Hold your horses a bit. No one has these in hand, yet. There is no reason to conclusively state that there is no way to upgrade e.g., SSD's later on; in fact, there's a thread somewhere here where that's a topic of discussion, based on the reveal video and what looks like socketable m.2 connections. Edit, link: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/potential-user-upgradeable-storage-on-mac-studio.2337121/

Further, this isn't the Mac Pro replacement, so those needing upgradeability would be best served by the product that typically trumpets that as a selling point, not by one that is clearly presented as a replacement to typical mid- to high-end iMac users, who aren't accustomed to upgradeability in the first place. For them, this system (including the display) is more "modular" than an iMac in the limited sense that now you can have something quite close to the iMac with the benefit of being able to substitute the underlying compute behind the display that so many love.

 

[ahurst]

@ahurst I love those graphs. Reminds me of my first Apple laptop that I bought in 1993 or 1994 with a black and white screen. I remember the salesman at the computer store (yes they used to be sold in computer stores) telling me that it had 4 megabytes of ram BUT!!!! it was expandable to 8 megabytes ?

Thanks! They were fun to do, there's a thread I made in the Early Intel Macs forum that has a few more (Geekbench scores, inflation-adjusted prices, etc.).

But yeah, just looking at the trend from 1995 to 2000 shows a growth in average base RAM from ~8 MB to ~64 MB (an 8x increase!). It's been 15 years since the average base RAM was 1/8 of what it is today (~2 GB in 2007)! Things really moved quickly back then.

 

[darngooddesign]

1. Make a modular-design tabletbooks, allowing for tablet/notebook mode
2. Make a hybrid system, that switches between tablet and pc modes when you remove screen from the base

What happens if you receive last minute changes to a project, or want to work on something which only has a Mac OS app, and you don't happen to have the base with you? Do you stop what you are doing and drive to wherever the base is just so you can complete the task?

 

[dysamoria]

on what system and what OS ?

iMac 12,2, final version of High Sierra (which it’s stuck at).

 

[TiggrToo]

Then there are the Mac OS memory leaks (right now, my Finder is using 6.7GB; looks like I have to kill/restart it, sigh).

Unsure the relevance of this today considering you're still on High Sierra...

 

[dysamoria]

There are tons of reviews, owner reports etc. My 16" M1 Max can run 24/7 at max utilisation without throttling, why would you assume that Studio will have any issues? The 16+4 M1 CPU only draws 50-60 watts (with RAM), that's less than a Mac Mini. The 64-core GPU will draw around 80-90 watt at most. Add 20w for RAM at maximal utilisation — that is less combined TDP than even the crappiest PC tower.



It means that hardware has limited capability of using RAM efficiently. It doesn't matter how much RAM the browser consumes, as you are only working with a single tab at a time. If you have more RAM than your machine can actually utilise efficiently (via parallel processors and plenty of memory bandwidth), you RAM just ends up being an expensive cache. And with RAM compression and very fast SSDs using RAM as this kind of cache has very little benefit on Apple Silicon Macs.

At the end of the day, this is about problem sizes. If you have a problem that requires 128GB RAM, you probably also want to be able to process this problem in an efficient manner, which means having enough processors and enough bandwidth to feed them. You don't need 64GB RAM to use a browser — you only need enough RAM to fit the single active website.

Are you suggesting there’s no benefit to having more RAM because of VM in storage, and that paging to and from flash storage is now so fast that RAM doesn’t matter?

I find this argument unconvincing, if so. Can you show me data to support this claim?

RAM doesn’t wear out from use. Unless things have suddenly changed and I missed it, flash storage does wear out. There’s been debate about virtual memory/caching being of concern for wear on solid state storage because of frequent and repeated rewrites. In talking about “expense”, I’d think solid state storage cells wearing out prematurely due to excessive paging would be the “more expensive” concern. Even if it’s considered unlikely to add up to much in terms of exhausted flash storage cells during a device’s “expected lifetime”, I’d still rather not push my luck with something that cannot be repaired/replaced because it’s integrated into the SoC.

My iPhone 4 is currently acting as an iPod and I have encountered corrupted music files (the originals on my Macs are fine). The device doesn’t get used for anything else. Several corrupted music files showing up at this point is concerning.

No, the 3-year use-and-replace cycle that Apple and other corporations have pushed for is NOT sustainable or reasonable (and they’ll push for two years, and then one).

I doubt SoC computers’ usability over the long term: they may never end up joining the ranks of what we currently consider “classic” computers from 30+ years ago. The old tech is at least serviceable: I have an Apple IIgs, Amiga 1200, Atari ST, and two Tandy PCs, all working happily with new flash storage devices. Today’s all-in-one machines won’t likely see that kind of long-term functionality because of integrated parts that won’t last and are not serviceable (can today’s SoC machines be made to boot from external storage when the internal storage fails?).

It’s also probably extremely difficult to recycle the materials locked away in them once they become trash, like the mountain of disposed electronics we already have spewed across the planet.