Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Jony Ive’s vision was killed today
- Thread starter childu
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Depends on what you are doing. I sure you don't mind a 2021 MBP that isn't warm to hot to the touch. I went though more then one 27" iMac that heated the room rather then keeping those Macs cool like these new MBPs.
The new macs are basically just as hot to touch under heavy load as the old ones. It’s just that they output much less heat to begin with on average, so fans don’t have to work as hard. My 16” can probably disposer north if 100W of power, but I never saw the M1 Max go over 60W even in the most demanding workloads such as 4K gaming.
I disagree.
Comparing the M1 13" to the M1-Pro 14", the 13" has to run its fan at at least double the speed of the 14" while rendering.
Last edited:
That’s what I mean with total overkill. The cooling system could be 30% less capable and still support the same performance (at the cost of higher noise levels). Right now it doesn’t even have to break a sweat most of the time. Not that I’m complaining. Apple obviously left some buffer. Maybe they plan to deliver more powerful hardware on the future.
30% less capable cooling means that the M1Pro/Max would throttle a lot sooner, thus reducing performance, and there is no reality where I am interested in louder fans. They designed the cooling system for running the M1-Max at full speed.
Last edited:
It doesn’t throttle at all. The M1 Max running at full clock is physically incapable of saturating the thermal capacity of the 16” chassis. It only draws 80W under most unrealistic torture test possible, the cooling system can do 100-120W easily. Same for M1 Pro and 14” chassis. The only config where you see some throttling is the 14” M1 Max.
Last edited:
Sorry, did you mean "The only config where you see some throttling is the 14” M1 Max"?
I think they did a good job. They brought back what users felt made it a "pro" machine in the first place. I feel like pro-line and the regular macbooks SHOULD feel different and the pro line should not be constricted in the vein of being 'minimal'.
I do miss the touchbar tho.
I do miss the touchbar tho.
It's an overkill for air-conditioned offices, but computers (and especially laptops) are often used in less ideal environments. Apple officially supports using the MBP in ambient temperatures up to 35 °C, and that's what the cooling system must be designed for.
It is not overkill. Apple made sure the laptop stays quiet under heavy load.
Apple doesn’t want their laptops to spin up constantly.
Else, Apple would have clocked the M1 Max even higher for more performance.
When a computer is nearly always silent under heavy load, then the cooling is good enough. We have been accustomed to hair dryer noise from computers for far too long. My new MBP M1 Pro 16 is unreal when it comes to lack of noise. I sit in a office without AC and after 5 min rendering with CPU+GPU compute in Blender, the fan is turned on but it is barely audible. The temperature of the Al frame is just over body temperature.
My iMac at home is so noisy so when I render the same scene, I need to close the doors to the rest of the house to avoid disturbing others. That is with either CPU or GPU. Is is slower than my MBP.
Can they slim it down slightly? Yes they likely can but I believe the fan free air models are for that. Those are even more unreal in terms of silent free operations. Give us a 16 inch Air please but it would likely impact the MBP16 sales too much.
The outer shape of the new MBP is a fashion statement (well back to Ives older designs) and has less to do with the thermals at least for the 16 inch models. The interior design of cooling is something else.
My iMac at home is so noisy so when I render the same scene, I need to close the doors to the rest of the house to avoid disturbing others. That is with either CPU or GPU. Is is slower than my MBP.
Can they slim it down slightly? Yes they likely can but I believe the fan free air models are for that. Those are even more unreal in terms of silent free operations. Give us a 16 inch Air please but it would likely impact the MBP16 sales too much.
The outer shape of the new MBP is a fashion statement (well back to Ives older designs) and has less to do with the thermals at least for the 16 inch models. The interior design of cooling is something else.
Surprised this thread is still going but I'll offer up some thoughts. I feel like (and the evidence points toward the idea that) after Steve Job's return, Apple's products were designed by a "team of rivals," and that for many years Ive was perhaps "first among equals," but still had to defer to the boss (Steve) who ultimately mediated between them.
After Steve's death, this model became increasingly untenable and most of Ive's "rivals" were either pushed out of/left Apple or were minimized. This led to some beautiful designs but ultimately put the company at odds with many of its professional and power users.
On the Mac side of the business in particular, Ive's vision was plagued with a distinct lack of follow through, an inability to admit mistakes, and an obsession with form over function that cost the company dearly.
Two particularly egregious examples are:
1. The 2013 "New Mac Pro," a revolutionary design that... painted them into a thermal corner, and had unacceptable levels of failure rates (due to poor thermals) in some professional environments. Instead of addressing the problem head on, by either doubling down on the design and making it work better or releasing something new, Apple just decided not to update/talk about the Mac Pro for 7 years.
2. The 2016 MBP where Apple said the TouchBar/Wireless was the future... and then preceded to basically do nothing with them for the next five years. They also spent three generations, god knows how much money, and a whole lot of customer good will getting the butterfly keyboard "right," before finally realizing the right decision was to scrap it altogether.
That said, Ive's legacy/vision isn't dead, it's just being brought back into balance as one of many (but no longer the only/primary) factors that goes into Apple's industrial design. All you need to do is look at the 24" iMac, a gorgeous (thin) design that pays homage to the OG iMac, to see that Ive's influence is alive and well. I think if anything we're just seeing the return of balance to Apple's lineup. If you want a machine that is thin/light/stylish/form factor first, Apple will have an option for you. But Apple is no longer going to force that on everyone which is a GOOD thing.
Also, I think something that got lost in the "Ive years" was that, during real world use, acoustics matter just as much as (or more than) aesthetics in achieving good industrial design. No one cares how thin, light or attractive your machine is if it sounds like a jet engine taking off when put under load.
As someone who owns a 14" M1 Max I can tell you it is not over engineered thermally (and no I would not have been happy if we'd only had the option for a smaller footprint M1 Pro.) While the 16" chassis has a bit of headroom, it's not as massive as people think, and IMHO that headroom is a good thing as it gives Apple room to push performance in the future without having to constantly adjust the design. As for ports... if you're unhappy with more ports/less wireless/one less TB port... well Apple should've done more to push wireless standards/thunderbolt...
After Steve's death, this model became increasingly untenable and most of Ive's "rivals" were either pushed out of/left Apple or were minimized. This led to some beautiful designs but ultimately put the company at odds with many of its professional and power users.
On the Mac side of the business in particular, Ive's vision was plagued with a distinct lack of follow through, an inability to admit mistakes, and an obsession with form over function that cost the company dearly.
Two particularly egregious examples are:
1. The 2013 "New Mac Pro," a revolutionary design that... painted them into a thermal corner, and had unacceptable levels of failure rates (due to poor thermals) in some professional environments. Instead of addressing the problem head on, by either doubling down on the design and making it work better or releasing something new, Apple just decided not to update/talk about the Mac Pro for 7 years.
2. The 2016 MBP where Apple said the TouchBar/Wireless was the future... and then preceded to basically do nothing with them for the next five years. They also spent three generations, god knows how much money, and a whole lot of customer good will getting the butterfly keyboard "right," before finally realizing the right decision was to scrap it altogether.
That said, Ive's legacy/vision isn't dead, it's just being brought back into balance as one of many (but no longer the only/primary) factors that goes into Apple's industrial design. All you need to do is look at the 24" iMac, a gorgeous (thin) design that pays homage to the OG iMac, to see that Ive's influence is alive and well. I think if anything we're just seeing the return of balance to Apple's lineup. If you want a machine that is thin/light/stylish/form factor first, Apple will have an option for you. But Apple is no longer going to force that on everyone which is a GOOD thing.
Also, I think something that got lost in the "Ive years" was that, during real world use, acoustics matter just as much as (or more than) aesthetics in achieving good industrial design. No one cares how thin, light or attractive your machine is if it sounds like a jet engine taking off when put under load.
As someone who owns a 14" M1 Max I can tell you it is not over engineered thermally (and no I would not have been happy if we'd only had the option for a smaller footprint M1 Pro.) While the 16" chassis has a bit of headroom, it's not as massive as people think, and IMHO that headroom is a good thing as it gives Apple room to push performance in the future without having to constantly adjust the design. As for ports... if you're unhappy with more ports/less wireless/one less TB port... well Apple should've done more to push wireless standards/thunderbolt...
Whenever I am visiting a Starbucks which seems to have lots of laptop users I consistently see smaller Apple laptops in use. I do see some larger laptops (Apple and other brands) but those tend to take over too much of a table top. So while you could offer a bigger MBA that would impact some MBP sales, its less desirable to carry around if you want something compact. I dare say a 12" MacBook made to M1 MBA specifications would sell very well.
You are incorrect. My 16" M1-Pro throttles while doing long/high-res renders unless I force the fans to max speed, and max-speed fans are loud so I'm glad that's an option I rarely choose. I certainly don't want that racket forced on me by a thin chassis and its restrictive cooling system. The system-selected fan speeds are around 2000 rpm which is barely noticeable, but above 3000rpm the fans are loud enough to be obvious and annoying.
And before you ask. Yes I did a render comparison with the default fan control and the fans set to max-speed. The latter had shorter render times because the max-speed fans kept the SoC down around 80C which is cool enough not to throttle.
Last edited:
Excellent points, and your mention of acoustics brings up an interesting question.
Do you think Apple would have spent as much time on the MBPs' excellent speakers and microphones if they were regularly fighting against fan noise? The thin-at-all-costs 2016+ MBPs have had fairly lackluster bass, which is either due to a lack of internal space or Apple knowing that it couldn't be appreciated on computers with audible fan noise.
Last edited:
I agree,
The 16 inch 2021, 2014 MBP 15.6 and 2017 15.6 MBP are not very different from each other on the outside shape. Cooling is however more than the chassis.
The best thing to happen since Ive has "left" is that Apple is slowly moving back to function and form equilibrium. The butterfly keyboard, the lack of ports in macbooks, the lightning port , the removal of magsafe and finally the notch were all the final semblance of Ive design. His control over form was so much there was no one from function side to control him
Now after Ive has left we see
The keyboard is much better
macbook ports are back
ipads start using USB C, perhaps iphone too soon
magsafe is coming back
notch is being removed for pinhole and EVENTUALLY under the screen. I can bet if Jobs was here the notch would have not existed, instead there would be a forehead on top of iPhone with no bezel at bottom.
Now after Ive has left we see
The keyboard is much better
macbook ports are back
ipads start using USB C, perhaps iphone too soon
magsafe is coming back
notch is being removed for pinhole and EVENTUALLY under the screen. I can bet if Jobs was here the notch would have not existed, instead there would be a forehead on top of iPhone with no bezel at bottom.
This.
I went from a 2012 to a 2016 (which is what I still currently have) not because my 2012 was too thick. But because the 2016 was faster and I needed more performance. (I pre-ordered, and had no idea the world of crappy keyboard I was in for. Or how useless the touchbar was going to be. Lesson learned.)
I would've been just as happy; happier even, with a thicker MBP that had better cooling.
I probably am in the minority though in that I actually prefer USB-C over multiple ports. At this point I've bought USB-C cables (I've never even owned a dongle; I just buy a USB-C to whatever cable I need) that that's all I need anyway. The HDMI/USB-A/etc. is lost on me now.
Joni Ive had his merits… long ago.
the fantastic „classic“ MacPro was really good design.
But the era of good design ended with the MBP Retina mid-2015.
it was speedy, fantastic ergonomically, had all ports needed, a fantastic Screen, a wonderful Keyboard, heated up much less than former MBP did, the fans were much less noisier. Yes, it was even the first MBP that had no GPU-killing „feature“ … I have two of them and for me everything later on was designed by a Joni Ive gone completely nuts…and maniac.
He should have been „leaving“ apple already long before when he „designed“ the infamous „trash-bin“ MacPro that was an extremely expensive trash bin indeed…
for nearly the last 10years @ apple Joni Ive wasn’t still a designer but nothing else but just a very bad stylist.
It was not only the catastrophic butterfly-Keyboard, his start of war against laws of ergonomic,….
no Design Student on Earth would have been that bad to „design“ a mouse that can’t be used if charged… the joke of the century, really… and J.I. resisted to change this…. A real „design“maniac who seemed to have lost any contact with customers…
I believe it was not possible for Tim Cook to make him „leave“ apple before he successfully arrived firing him and get back on the path of „form follows function“ .
The 14“ and 16“ MBP make proof that apple found its way back to REALLY innovative and customer-friendly technology instead of pseudo-features and hollow presentations like „instead of more battery-life we present you a MBP that is even 1 mm thinner than the old one… and has nearly zero ports, isn’t that great!!!!?“
The day I heard that Joni Ive has been fired I opened my best bottle of Champaign…. And had a salute to Tim Cook… „Well done, Tim!“
cheers
Last edited:
You also have to consider a fouling factor for heat exchangers. Half of that overhead will vanish once dust accretes on the fins. I've cleaned the dust out of heavily used MacBooks, and seen the corresponding drop in cooling system load.
Ive left to form his own design firm and Apple is one of his clients. The new iMac is a very Johnny Ive product and the new MBPs look like the Aluminum Powerbooks which were a Johnny Ive product. Be funny if he's still working on all the new Macs.