Silicon Mac users: What do you want from a new device in order to upgrade?

[uffenman]

Something that just struck me is that the M1 chips, despite still feeling new, are around 3 years old as of now... which would normally be over halfway into a life cycle. And yet, most M1 users are still reporting great battery life and the Mac never breaking a sweat. So, I'm a little curious as to what will get you to upgrade if you have a mac, if you are thinking about it, or if you didn't consider it.
(Feel free to chip in if you use an Intel as well.)

I'm not sure how to post a new comment; however, all I want is an updated 12" MacBook with an Apple Silicon chip and a Magic Keyboard. I'm still using a 2017 12" MacBook and I honestly can't complain much because I absolutely love this lightweight laptop. But....if they wanted to WOW ME....then it would be basically the same size and weight but it would also have a USB-C port on the right side as well as the left. MagSafe charger would be great but not necessary. It's kinda crazy to think that this model exists and SIX YEARS LATER THERE IS STILL NO UPGRADE!!!!! I think Apple is just leaving money on the table, but thats another story.

 

[grover5]

I just bought an M1 MacBook Air. So I’m obviously good with that silicon for quite awhile.

 

[Bodhitree]

My M1 iMac is still fast, responsive and capable — I can’t think of anything that might make me upgrade. If my life circumstances were to change and I would get back into game dev in a serious way, then I might have to buy a Mac Studio with its larger RAM capacity. Ray tracing hardware might be tempting.

But honestly right now I write for a living, and so I don’t need anything other than Pages and Safari, and Scrivener for some projects. Not exactly technically demanding.

 

[floral]

I’m very happy with my m2 air and hope to use it for at least 5 years. But I would immediately consider upgrading for the mythic iPad-that-runs-MacOS

So, maybe not entirely “my cold dead hands” but I see little real likelihood of it happening inside five years.

I've completely ignored this option... you can now vote "Not yet".

 

[SalisburySam]

Maybe you would like a Studio Display + Mac Mini combo
The Studio Display is the same size, and while it has a hefty cost, would be worth it for the identical display
(Or you know, you could just buy an average 27" display for a lot cheaper on Amazon or something ;3)

Fair point, and that combo could be a solution. I do prefer an all-in-one solution for my desktop though but your suggestion is a solid one and thanks for that.

 

[floral]

Fair point, and that combo could be a solution. I do prefer an all-in-one solution for my desktop though but your suggestion is a solid one and thanks for that.

Yeah, the mac mini is "mini" but it isn't ignorable unfortunately. You could build a small closure on your desk that holds the mini on the back side of it while holding all the ports intact and being out of view.

 

[ader42]

Or put the mini inside a monitor riser:

HiRise Pro for iMac & Display from Twelve South

HiRise Pro from Twelve South - height adjustable stand for iMac and displays. Compatible with current iMacs, the new iMac Pro and with other displays.

www.twelvesouth.com

 

[floral]

Or put the mini inside a monitor riser:

HiRise Pro for iMac & Display from Twelve South

HiRise Pro from Twelve South - height adjustable stand for iMac and displays. Compatible with current iMacs, the new iMac Pro and with other displays.

www.twelvesouth.com

Wow, a way to make your screen taller AND mask the slab? That's a win win

 

[sdwaltz]

I'll probably keep my M1 Pro 16" and M2 MBA until the form factors change. For my workflow/use case they each are MORE than enough for a very long time.

 

[dmccloud]

I plan to keep my 14" MBP as long as possible. However, a new desktop could lead to me adding a second Mac for the home office.

 

[Fingernail]

I'd like to be able to plug in a charging cable (USB-C or Magsafe) from either side, i.e. all I really want is a USB-C port on the right hand side of an Apple Silicon Macbook Air and I'd be tempted.

A larger than 13" screen in an Air would probably make me upgrade from my M1 Air.

 

[Silvestru Hosszu]

My 14’’ and 16’’ Pros are more than enough power wise.
Four things may tempt me to upgrade.
1. More battery life (I use laptops only unplugged)
2. No notch (I can live with it but preffer not to if possible)
3. One USB A port (there are still many usb A peripherals outhere and dongle life although manageable is not ideal)
4. LTE/5G connectivity (hot spot not ideal in many cases).

 

[Corefile]

They should generate more heat as they're cold to the touch.

 

[splitpea]

I use my M2 MacBook Air on battery every day for 8-9 hours. I want the lightest laptop but not at the expense of battery life. I usually end the day with 30-50% remaining though.

Yeah, there are definitely differing use cases. Different machines to satisfy each? Or an external battery that snaps on?

 

[Tagbert]

They should generate more heat as they're cold to the touch.

Maybe they can add a built-in heater? 😊

 

[lepidotós]

Currently on an i7-1065g7 Surface Laptop, but I've been eyeing up the AS MacBooks for years as an exit strategy from amd64 (with a Raptor Blackbird for a desktop) with a 2025 deadline due to how revolutionary they are as Linux/OpenBSD machines. Honestly, the three or four things I want in an AS MacBook are socketed components (soldered isn't necessary for throughput on either RAM or SSD, POWER9 gets 120GB/s RAM [cf. M2 small 100GB/s] throughput with socketed, ECC/registered DDR4 running at 2133MT/s and Ampere Altra gets 230GB/s [cf. M2 Pro 200GB/s] with the same RAM running at 3200MT/s), no notch, and I honestly do like the Touch Bar but I suppose it's not a show stopper not to have it. Another thing I'd appreciate but not cry over not having is a ProMotion screen.
I still have my last Mac, a 15" PowerBook G4 DLSD. It's almost everything I want in a laptop (3:2 aspect ratio, nice build quality, ~14-15" screen, no webcam, socketed RAM and storage, Power ISA), the only two things being its fairly meh keyboard with no tactility and that it's 17 years old, which wouldn't be much of a showstopper if the internet wasn't as bloated as it was. I daily drove it pretty much up until it stopped taking a charge, which is why I moved on to this Surface Laptop. Otherwise I'd probably still be using it -- it wasn't appreciably slower for web and word processing tasks, could still do fluent 720p video streaming even. But as well, I'm going to hopefully be entering college this Fall semester so I'll need a webcam and a CPU fast enough to stream with...
If I were to come up with my dream MacBook I'd go into debt over, it'd be a 12-core M3 14" Pro (16 or 24GB/1TB) with socketed components, a rectangular (un-notched) 3:2 screen (it's so close -- 1.54:1 vs 1.5:1), and in Midnight. Nice but not necessary would be a slightly (quarter inch or less) thicker chassis to accomodate a larger battery and better speakers and slightly deeper key travel. Oh, and LTE/5G would both be very appreciated as well, someone brought that up a bit earlier in the thread and it slipped my mind.​

 

[polbit]

Since I just got a new 14" MBP M2 Pro, nothing would make me upgrade! Although decision between 14" and 16" was agonizing, so many pros and cons between the two... Maybe if they made a 15" that was close to the 14" size!

 

[Gudi]

Why are cheaper prices not an option?
Also a new form factor, much thinner and lighter.

 

[floral]

Why are cheaper prices not an option?
Also a new form factor, much thinner and lighter.

Generally that's something you can't get because of inflation and missing out on features you previously had, but you could downgrade to an Air from a Pro if you really wanted to o_o;;

 

[Gudi]

Generally that's something you can't get because of inflation and missing out on features you previously had, but you could downgrade to an Air from a Pro if you really wanted to o_o;;

It must be much cheaper to produce ARM-based System-on-a-Chip Macs. And you asked what we want, not what’s likely. 😂

 

[floral]

It must be much cheaper to produce ARM-based System-on-a-Chip Macs. And you asked what we want, not what’s likely. 😂

I mean... true. What I want is for Macs to be 2 cents a pop... then I might consider getting one ;D

 

[dmccloud]

It must be much cheaper to produce ARM-based System-on-a-Chip Macs. And you asked what we want, not what’s likely. 😂

Not necessarily. When Apple was using Intel for all the Macs, it was Intel that ate the R&D, chip design, and fabrication costs - Apple just designed their logic boards around the Intel parts. In the Apple Silicon era, it is Apple covering all of the costs for R&D, fabrication, and design. So while the M series probably costs less per unit than Intel CPUs, the overhead costs most likely either equal what Intel cost per unit, if not cost more due to all of those overhead costs being brought in-house.

 

[Gudi]

In the Apple Silicon era, it is Apple covering all of the costs for R&D, fabrication, and design.

It’s all already covered by A-series chip research and development. The iPhone pays for all of it plus $30bn net profit per quarter. Apple could literally give away Macs for free.

 

[lepidotós]

It’s all already covered by A-series chip research and development. The iPhone pays for all of it plus $30bn net profit per quarter. Apple could literally give away Macs for free.

Not... really? M_ is based on A_, but it's not the same thing. Plus, Intel had the economies of scale of amd64 being 98.5% of the PC market prior to 2020, so e.g. i7-1065g7 shows up in more than just Macs, reducing the price of each chip. M_ is just found in Macintosh (and iPad, I guess), which means far less economy of scale... even if that's not quite as much of a problem as it could be, considering.​

 

[ahurst]

Honestly, the three or four things I want in an AS MacBook are socketed components (soldered isn't necessary for throughput on either RAM or SSD, POWER9 gets 120GB/s RAM [cf. M2 small 100GB/s] throughput with socketed, ECC/registered DDR4 running at 2133MT/s and Ampere Altra gets 230GB/s [cf. M2 Pro 200GB/s] with the same RAM running at 3200MT/s)​

Sure there are desktops that offer similar throughput, but how many sockets are we talking about on those machines, and how much power do those sockets consume? To match the 200 GB/s bandwidth of my M1 Pro, my 14" MBP would need to have a whopping 4 DIMMs of DDR5 which would be very tricky to fit into a relatively light and portable laptop. The M1 Max would need a full 8!

Here's Hector Martin of the Asahi Linux project, commenting a few months ago on the reasoning behind the soldered RAM:

The M1 Max has a 512-bit RAM bus. That is equal to 8 RAM sticks (DIMMs are 64 bits). Do you want a laptop with 8 RAM sticks?

Each one of those 4 RAM chips on the M1 Max has 8 RAM dies internally, each handling 16 bits as independent channels, for a total of 128 bits per chip. Typical DDR RAM chips as used in DIMMs are 8 bits each (which is why you get 8 per DIMM to make 64 bits). You would need 64 such chips to reach the same bus width (and thus similar bandwidth).

You just can't make that modular short of putting your RAM on a thousand-pin LGA package like CPUs themselves, and that'd still increase power consumption (and significantly increase physical size, which again makes the power consumption problem worse as it makes your interconnect longer). It just can't work with DIMMs and with standard non-LP DDR technology.

> On laptops they offer only negligible power savings that doesn't really matter.

Yeah, until you make a laptop that is actually power efficient like this one, and then suddenly it does. These things draw milliwatts when idle and have aggressive RAM power saving that puts channels into low power modes after mere microseconds (I know because I've been investigating the memory controller power management config and benchmarking memory accesses). That's part of how they get amazing battery life. You can't do that with regular DDR RAM. These things will run for a weekwith light usage, and they can do that because they are based on extremely efficient mobile architectures. Your phone lasts a day; make the battery larger without increasing idle power usage and that's how you get a week.