Yeah me neither especially when most users are using office apps and watching youtube.
Apple clearly is not using a yearly update cycle, like the rest of the industry, better get use to it.
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M3 Missing in Action at WWDC
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Apple clearly is not using a yearly update cycle, like the rest of the industry, better get use to it.
I could imagine Mac Pro users whining about annual refreshes. A new Ultra chip every Q2 or Q3. Mac Studio users just gleeful that they do not have to pay an extra $3k for features they do not care for.
Q4 or Q1 having a new MBA 13"/15", MBP 13", Mac mini & iMac 24" M chip just for Christmas.
Q1 or Q2 having a new Pro & Max chip for MBP 14"/16" and iMac 27" replacement.
It helps get MR clicks. Ad revenue and engagement from r/AppleYeah me neither especially when most users are using office apps and watching youtube.
Apple clearly is not using a yearly update cycle, like the rest of the industry, better get use to it.
Remember in the 2000s when we got updates to the Mac Pro/Powermac twice a year ? Everyone was pretty happy with that...
Yep. Hell, I use a 16" M1 Pro MBP for friggin' office apps. It was my only option to get the larger screen, until now. I'll keep my MBP until it wears out but assuming they keep this larger Air form factor around, I doubt I buy a MBP again.Yeah me neither especially when most users are using office apps and watching youtube.
Apple clearly is not using a yearly update cycle, like the rest of the industry, better get use to it.
2013-2023 appears to be a drop in demand for the Mac Pro as non-tower Macs were fast enough, laptops were preferred and those buying could care less about PCIe slots. This is why refreshes were lengthened beyond a year.
2013 Mac Pro is the grand experiment of ditching PCIe slots based on how 2006-2012(?) Mac Pros were being deployed.
2017 iMac Pro was supposed to be a stop gap until the 2019 Mac Pro with the return of PCIe slots.
Frankly I do not think any Mac Pro user from 2013-2023 would mind a return of the pre-trashcan tower design if they would mean annual freshes again.
Seeming there was a sizeable appreciation of the 2013 Mac Pro & 2017 iMac Pro then a 2021 Mac Studio was created.
The Studio is what the Cube and trashcan and iMac Pro should have been. It is so popular that it was refreshed less than 1.3 years later unlike the Mac Pro of the past decade.
Although I find it unfortunate that entry level 2023 Mac Pro increased from $6k to $7k from its 2019 SKU. I see it being caused by the reduction of the economies of scale of that product line as almost everyone prefers the Mac Studio.
If a 2002 Mac Studio were sold at $1,700+ back then using the same G4 chips as a $2,999 Power Mac tower I'd go with the PCI-less Mac.
I do not want to subside other people on things I'd never use. 2023 Mac Pro's $1k hike is the removal of that aid.
My point was mostly that yearly updates don't automatically make people unhappy, my personal opinion is that the Mac Pro should have a dedicated tiled based chip that is updated maybe every 3 years... the rest of the Mac lineup should try its best to keep up with the A series to make sure the highest volume Macs, iPhones, and iPads have similar architecture features.
The iPad Air is still a generation behind the iPad mini for example, which makes very little sense.
Apple choosing to make the Mac Pro an Ultra chip-only Mac is smart.
Fewer SKUs of that product line helps with its limited economies of scale.
Assuming future Ultra chip logicboards will remain largely unchanged for 1/2 a decade then they can increase its economis of scale.
This unlike the Mac Studio that has Max chip SKUs and Ultra chip SKUs as there is more demand for it.
Mac mini has M SKUs and Pro SKUs.
It's because the M2 feels like the "tock" of a tick-tock production cycle, and it's the next "tick" that will be exciting.
I think there were too many other things competing for time in the keynote, they probably could have announced M3 but they decided to wait until October, when we will see a refresh of the 13” MBA etc.
Because of how much stuff was packed into the keynote, the entire event lasted over two hours, despite only 15 minutes or so being dedicated to the new Macs. To be honest, the OS side of things feels like refinements rather than introducing a whole set of brand new features, and that was likely by design given how much focus was placed on the headset.
The Keynote over the years has increasingly become high level eye candy pulp for the press and influencers to consume to run off and generate free advertising for Apple. and whatever "be good , apple isn't evil' meme Apple wants to project. If really want to look at any new meaty , substantive new features the Platform State of the Union has usually been much better. Although with the bloat of different operating systems to cover, that too is starting to drift from substance.
The Mac stuff was first probably in part because Apple wanted to fart and walk off the stage like it didn't happen. Last June got on stage in introducted a M2 laptop. One year later got on stage and introduced a M2 laptop. I don't think they wanted folks to think about that all that hard. Likewise "we finished the transition now" ... three years after we started talking about it. Again quickly move on to slew of topics that will overload your short term memory before you think about that too long.
The XR display coming was leaked all over the place ... So the long the talk goes on and no XR display the more start to wonder about ..again has the side effect of flushing thinking deeply about what saw at the beginning of presentation.
Throw in 40 minutes of novel 'rigged demos' in at the end and reality distortion field flush done.
An A16-based M3 would be the contingency plan if the 3nm process wasn't being successfully manufactured in time. However it looks like it is going according to plan. So I can't see them releasing an A16-based M3.
Conversely, the A16 would have been made in 3nm if TSMC were further ahead in 3nm manufacturing. The A16 had one piece of low hanging fruit, which was the switch to LPDDR5 which the M2 already has.
An A16-based M3 on 5nm wouldn't offer any significant improvements.
It looks like a 3nm A17 is all go for September. The M2 is used in the MacBook Air, iPad Pro, Mac Mini and Vision Pro. The MacBook Air 15 won't be replaced in 4 months. The timing is right for between January and March for the M3 in the MacBook Air and iPad Pro.
The Mac mini will have to wait for the M2 Pro to be launched. The M2 Pro is also used in the MacBook Pro, so that launch also requires the M2 Max to be ready. So M3 Pro and Max launch together in June 2024 in new Mac minis and MacBook Pros.
The Mac Pro and Mac Studio would be introduce the new M3 Ultra 5-6 months later - which would be November 2024 -probably in a silent press release.
Conversely, the A16 would have been made in 3nm if TSMC were further ahead in 3nm manufacturing. The A16 had one piece of low hanging fruit, which was the switch to LPDDR5 which the M2 already has.
An A16-based M3 on 5nm wouldn't offer any significant improvements.
It looks like a 3nm A17 is all go for September. The M2 is used in the MacBook Air, iPad Pro, Mac Mini and Vision Pro. The MacBook Air 15 won't be replaced in 4 months. The timing is right for between January and March for the M3 in the MacBook Air and iPad Pro.
The Mac mini will have to wait for the M2 Pro to be launched. The M2 Pro is also used in the MacBook Pro, so that launch also requires the M2 Max to be ready. So M3 Pro and Max launch together in June 2024 in new Mac minis and MacBook Pros.
The Mac Pro and Mac Studio would be introduce the new M3 Ultra 5-6 months later - which would be November 2024 -probably in a silent press release.
Expecting M3 only by April 2024. iMac and Macbook Air will then probably get updated to M3.
This is what I am expecting but I'm not happy about it. That puts the M series on a 19 month M1-M2, and 22 months M2-M3. The timeline is slipping close to 2 years which is quite disappointing.
Consider switching to Sanka?
For where it is right now, I think 18 month is fine. 24 month would even work. The BIG leap - Intel to M1 - was the important one. All the rest will be iterative, until the “Next Big Thing.” Sure, they might skip an A-series core in the process… so? How does that affect me?
As the product line matures, maybe they’ll tighten up the iterations to drive sales. Or maybe they’ll loosen it to give each model a couple years. Hard to say.
As long as they actually do skip A series cores. The M3 needs to skip the A16 core for this to make sense. I think 24 months is a looong time given that Apple pitched the M1 as the fastest CPU core in the world at launch. They need to at least keep pace with Intel, AMD and NVIDIA at the same wattage, they are doing well so far because they have such a big head start, but if they slow the pace to 24 months they risk falling behind rather than staying ahead.
In Dec 2019, TSMC announced the 5nm process had a 30% yield. The 5nm A14 was released in Sep 2020. That's only 9 months later.
It takes 4 months for TSMC to complete etching a wafer. That's a long time before you know tiny change you make is working.