PC Users Switching to Apple Silicon

[rui no onna]

1366x768 is an ancient joke, just as bad as the 1280x800 of the old 13" MBPs. The 1440x900 of the MBAs were already more useful, and the bare minimum I would recommend today for mixed causal use.

In regard of the topic - can't believe many people are switching to Apple just because of the M1. But I can guess many people, including myself, are leaving from Apple soon. Why? Because they give up more and more standards/compatibility, like x86, Bootcamp, 32bit, CUDA, OpenCL which is just stupid if your OS market share is hovering around 10% and less. Yes, progress is important and good, but just like their idiotic MacBook ports decision, their way is too radical and prosumers + companies are getting annoyed.

Remember when Macs had been solid Machines for 3D/CAD once? Guess what, Windows and Linux are the way to go now. One example: The Blender developer team had always struggled with the poor OpenGL/CL implementation in prior OSX versions, and now, since it got entirely ditched for Apple's proprietary Metal bs, they stopped GPU rendering support in version 2.8 and newer. You have solid hardware, like a Radeon 580, Vega 48 or even XT5700 built in? Entirely useless in Blender now, because de-facto you have no OpenCL, no CUDA, no Vulcan, just Metal. And from now on, no more Intel either, but own chips. You think all software manufactures gonna transcode their apps for said 10% market share? The big guys, like Adobscription for sure, but for the rest, I doubt so.

I gonna keep my MBP 2015 and iMac 5K 2017 with Mojave as long as I can, but then I guess, time to leave, as much as it hurts. Their mobile devices are great, my Macbook is still a badass DJ/audio machine, but I don't like the path they have chosen. Luckily, customers have the choice to go their own path.

The question is how many casual users can they entice with the new M1 Macs? I know the original MBA was a gateway drug for many new Mac users.

Honestly, more users just need a basic machine to handle office, web, video streaming, etc. The entry level MacBook Air offers that along with excellent battery life, good thermals and silent operation.

 

[Rashy]

Hmm, sounds like you want one but are making excuses.

Sounds to me like marketing balderdash. "Fastest chip, best battery, blabla"... But you didn't even read and understood my post, so I'm not wasting more time here.

Honestly, more users just need a basic machine to handle office, web, video streaming, etc.

I do agree with you here. For those folks they are great! I was just stating my position from a semi-pro user, who is more reliant on smooth software, system, plugins and api support. I have barely any benefit of a battery lasting 15 instead of 9 hours, while crucial software is either no longer supported, buggy/incomplete or uncertain. The first transition phase was from a niche (PowerPC) to mass-compatible architecture (Intel), it greatly benefited software and even gaming support, plus Bootcamp dual system. Now they are doing the same backwards. The hardware/chip becomes superior, but the environment more enclosed again. And several studios might just say "bye then Apple, gonna priotize our resources for the 90% Win userbase then."

 

[Lethen]

The question is how many casual users can they entice with the new M1 Macs? I know the original MBA was a gateway drug for many new Mac users.

Honestly, more users just need a basic machine to handle office, web, video streaming, etc. The entry level MacBook Air offers that along with excellent battery life, good thermals and silent operation.

Thats exactly why I bought an MBP M1. This is my first Mac, have used Windows since 1985 and stil use it for work. Love the M1's instant on, speed and silence. But I will probably switch back to windows when they offer the same, I feel inept on the Mac.

 

[rui no onna]

Thats exactly why I bought an MBP M1. This is my first Mac, have used Windows since 1985 and stil use it for work. Love the M1's instant on, speed and silence. But I will probably switch back to windows when they offer the same, I feel inept on the Mac.

Sadly, same here. Well, not switch, but I'll buy a new Windows laptop and use interchangeably with the MBA.

I've mostly been using the MBA for the same things I do on the iPad, with a dash of work RDP and occasional Calibre ebook management.

The keyboard layout and keyboard shortcuts are totally tripping me up productivity-wise. When I need to RDP into the work PC for longer sessions, I fire up the ThinkPad and just deal with the fan noise. I just prop up the ThinkPad on a food tray since using pillows for extra elevation ain't gonna work like they do for the M1 MBA.

 

[adderthorn]

Thats exactly why I bought an MBP M1. This is my first Mac, have used Windows since 1985 and stil use it for work. Love the M1's instant on, speed and silence. But I will probably switch back to windows when they offer the same, I feel inept on the Mac.

Me too. Although I will likely keep this mac around for development purposes. For browsing the web and email, I'm perfectly productive since I use Firefox and Postbox on Windows too and, aside from keyboard shortcuts, the behavior is mostly the same. But death by 1,000 cuts adds up with the small differences.

...The keyboard layout and keyboard shortcuts are totally tripping me up productivity-wise...

This is the hardest thing for me. Especially with development. Coming from Windows (and Linux) I've run into so many shortcuts that are different and I have to lookup or remember that Home/End behave differently on Mac.

 

[Maconplasma]

Thats exactly why I bought an MBP M1. This is my first Mac, have used Windows since 1985 and stil use it for work. Love the M1's instant on, speed and silence. But I will probably switch back to windows when they offer the same, I feel inept on the Mac.

You can count on that never happening. After over 20 years Intel still can't make efficient processors that run extremely cool and manage resources to a point that battery life is nothing to be concerned about. AMD is no better. Apple's M-series chips won't be matched.

 

[adderthorn]

You can count on that never happening. After over 20 years Intel still can't make efficient processors that run extremely cool and manage resources to a point that battery life is nothing to be concerned about. AMD is no better. Apple's M-series chips won't be matched.

Not today, but possibly in the future. Microsoft is starting to design its own ARM chips. It's possible in a few years to see competitive performance with Windows on ARM.

 

[AndyMacAndMic]

You can count on that never happening. After over 20 years Intel still can't make efficient processors that run extremely cool and manage resources to a point that battery life is nothing to be concerned about. AMD is no better. Apple's M-series chips won't be matched.

Who says it has to be done by Intel or AMD? Also, never say never. Since you can't look in the future (just like everybody else) you have no way of knowing. Do you really think other companies are going to sit on their laurels?

 

[Lethen]

Not today, but possibly in the future. Microsoft is starting to design its own ARM chips. It's possible in a few years to see competitive performance with Windows on ARM.

I agree, windows on arm has existed for years and will likely get more attention now after Apple also made the switch. Arm SOCs already has many manufacturers so they just need to focus their development on laptop power envelope and performance.

Apple will likely keep a lead for years, but they just need to reach the M1-M2 level, that’s enough for my use.

 

[Tech198]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

PC switches may be more comfortable switching to Intel Mac first... Learn that. THEN switch to Silicon..

Otherwise, its just bypassing some of the lessons just to get to the ending. You gotta walk before you can run.

Until MS releases Windows in Parallels no one will know. And that is just the start.. WHat about ESXi ? No chance...

It might come one day, but the compatibility in a business, plus the backwards software compatibility will be far too great to make it work for them. Rosetta 2 is only an interim till people get settled. it won't stay forever

 

[09872738]

PC switches may be more comfortable switching to Intel Mac first... Learn that. THEN switch to Silicon..

This makes no sense. macOS is the same on both platforms, so noone would even notice the difference. Why should switchers forego the advantages of ASi, which are the reasons for switching in the first place?

 

[CRoebuck]

I wonder how many Apple computers are involved with the REAL manufacture of Apple computers?
All the CNC design and machine software control packages to actually get the real work of actually making a physical product?

Apple often mandates that Mac's are used in certain aspects of the manufacturing process even if that involves a VM to make it happen....seems crazy and causes manufacturing engineers serious headaches but I guess they don't like the idea of Tim walking down a production line seeing Dell Optiplex's running the pick and place machines

 

[Piggie]

Apple often mandates that Mac's are used in certain aspects of the manufacturing process even if that involves a VM to make it happen....seems crazy and causes manufacturing engineers serious headaches but I guess they don't like the idea of Tim walking down a production line seeing Dell Optiplex's running the pick and place machines

I get the impression, anything "Front Facing" which might be seen my media or Tim-Apple type of person is made very Apple looking but round the back where the work gets don't it awash with PC's

A bit like going into a building where there are some iMac's at reception, in the board room etc.
But on the 6th floor where the bulk of the office staff are, on the phones doing bookings, taking orders etc, and choc full of cheap PC's actually making the money for the company.

 

[leman]

I do agree with you here. For those folks they are great! I was just stating my position from a semi-pro user, who is more reliant on smooth software, system, plugins and api support. I have barely any benefit of a battery lasting 15 instead of 9 hours, while crucial software is either no longer supported, buggy/incomplete or uncertain. The first transition phase was from a niche (PowerPC) to mass-compatible architecture (Intel), it greatly benefited software and even gaming support, plus Bootcamp dual system. Now they are doing the same backwards. The hardware/chip becomes superior, but the environment more enclosed again.

You are absolutely correct that for some niche use cases like CAD, Apple Silicon is less usable because of the lacking software infrastructure. Still, you can’t generalize from this. ARM is not a “niche” platforms by any means, it’s one of the most ubiquitous architectures out there, with mature compiler and library support. And ARM-based servers are on their way to challenge the x86 hegemony, with newer chips such as Ampere Altra essentially matching the performance of AMD and Intel offerings at lower cost and power consumption. By adopting ARM, Apple is making their desktop binary compatible with a huge amount of existing devices, simplifying portability and compatibility. Not to mention that performance and the environment are very enticing for pro users (unified memory, excellent SIMD ISA, low-latency thread communication etc.).

From my perspective (software development and scientific computation), Apple Silicon is excellent. All the software I use already works (only required a series of minor patches here and there), and with new Big Sur frameworks Macs can be finally used with TensorFlow (not something I use, but some of my colleagues are very happy about this). For creative pros, it is already working very well. Case in point: it only took a couple of weeks of community effort to resolve some of the biggest issues in using Homebrew on Apple Silicon. Docker support is already available. Major developer tools, Java, Rust etc. are all available. And the list goes on. This should show that there is significant interest in supporting the platform.

And several studios might just say "bye then Apple, gonna priotize our resources for the 90% Win userbase then."

Others will quickly jump in to fill the void. The performance is just too good. If there is a thin and light laptop that can rival the performance of a large desktop workstation (as the upcoming AS 16” will certainly be), pro users would want to use that laptop. You mention Blender. I don’t know the Blender community and whether they use Macs. If they are interested, making Blender fly in Apple Silicon shouldn’t be too difficult - the basic prerequisites are there.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

my company still primary based on internet explorer. All our internal Applications are still based on Internet Explorer.

What a nightmare.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

Apple is pretty much the only big tech company left who isn't supporting the Blender foundation at all.

There are far more big tech companies that aren't on that list than are on that list. What are you even talking about?

With regards to support, I guess Apple will just have to settle with Maya

 

[SlCKB0Y]

The first transition phase was from a niche (PowerPC) to mass-compatible architecture (Intel)

This was their second hardware transition, not first.

 

[SlCKB0Y]

no CUDA, no Vulcan, just Metal. And as next step, no more Intel either, just own chips. You think all software manufactures gonna transcode their apps for said 10% market share? The big guys, like Adobscription for sure, but for the rest, I doubt so.

Isn't CUDA proprietary?

I was around for the PPC to Intel migration and I can tell you, in terms of the software migration, things are happening at a much more rapid rate this time around and for the apps that haven't yet been ported, Rosetta 2 is way more stable and performant than it's predecessor.

You've got to remember, for the Intel migration, there was a lot less consistency and stability in the ecosystem as a whole - 32bit vs. 64bit and a lot of apps had not yet made the full migration to the OS X Cocoa APIs and were still reliant on Carbon.

I guarantee this is the reason why support for both 32bit and Carbon were both removed from macOS in the last few years - to streamline this migration.

Whilst we may shed some developers during this transition, the Intel migration was pre-iOS/iPadOS and we now have a huge amount of developers whose bread and butter is writing native apps for Apple ARM (and yes, Metal) and macOS support is now just a code fork away for away for them.

During the time since the intel migration we have also had a massive shift towards SaaS and a lot of the software we now use is browser based and platform agnostic.

We'll be just fine thank you!

 

[SlCKB0Y]

I feel inept on the Mac.

In a month or two you'll be completely fine.

 

[pshufd]

Not today, but possibly in the future. Microsoft is starting to design its own ARM chips. It's possible in a few years to see competitive performance with Windows on ARM.

Sure. They may be able to match the M1's performance in four or five years. But they'll be competing with the M4 or M5.

 

[Ethosik]

I occasionally check out the /Mac Reddit threads. Holy cow, the threads are packed with PC users who are supposedly switching. Most are into video production and photo editing. (Don't know why they were using PCs for that anyway, but whatever.) My favorite anecdote is by a user whose new 8 core MacBook Air blew by the maxed out workstation PC he built. He could not believe smooth 8K raw playback on the Mac. Something his workstation could not achieve.

Don't know if Apple silicon will entice the large Windows business installed base to convert. Probably don't need all that horsepower for spreadsheets, word processing, billing software, etc.

Because Apple really messed things up with the trash can Mac Pro which caused many professionals to leave the Mac market. The fact that a $700 Mac mini, in some ways, can do things that a $15,000 2019 Mac Pro struggles is very impressive!

 

[sky87]

PC switches may be more comfortable switching to Intel Mac first... Learn that. THEN switch to Silicon..

Otherwise, its just bypassing some of the lessons just to get to the ending. You gotta walk before you can run.

I'm not sure how Intel Mac would be more comfortable than an Apple Silicon Mac for someone switching from Windows?

I'm currently using an Intel Mac and an Apple Silicon Mac interchangeably and they function and operate identically. Both would present the same difficulties/challenges for someone switching from Windows...

Unless the meaning is that the Intel Macs can run Windows as a safety net while the M1s currently can't? (For what it's worth though, I did the Windows to Mac switch a couple of years ago and while it was nice to know that my Mac could run Windows if really necessary, I never had to actually run Windows on my Mac...)

 

[Captain Trips]

In a month or two you'll be completely fine.

This. I was just about to post my own response when I saw SICKB0Y's post.

All of us using Macs now were new to it once and felt inept / at sea / uneasy. But it will pass with continued usage.

This reminds me of "Windows / Linux / whatever is intuitive." No they aren't - the person saying that has just used it long enough that it feels intuitive.

For me the "Mac is intuitive."

 

[adderthorn]

Sure. They may be able to match the M1's performance in four or five years. But they'll be competing with the M4 or M5.

This is why the M1 is great for the PC market in general, competition! When Intel released the Core and then Core 2 and AMD released Bulldozer it really looked like AMD was circling the drain and would never catch up. Now Intel is struggling and AMD has surpassed Intel's offerings in price and performance. I'd love to see someone else surpass Apple and force Apple to continue to innovate and keep the cycle going.

 

[pshufd]

This is why the M1 is great for the PC market in general, competition! When Intel released the Core and then Core 2 and AMD released Bulldozer it really looked like AMD was circling the drain and would never catch up. Now Intel is struggling and AMD has surpassed Intel's offerings in price and performance. I'd love to see someone else surpass Apple and force Apple to continue to innovate and keep the cycle going.

Looking at the A-series chips - it seems to me that Apple hasn't stopped innovating, at least in chip design. If we get the same level of effort in the M-series as the A-series; then the future looks bright and AMD and Intel are going to have to work a lot harder.