What would the M3 need to make you upgrade from an M1?

[spnc]

- SSDs in that capacity are still incredibly expensive, regardless of form factor. External SSDs are incredibly convenient, lightweight and take up very little space in my bag. I have a 2TB Samsung 970 Pro in an M.2 external enclosure and it flies when transferring data to and from my MBP.
- To accommodate FaceID, the lid of the Mac would have to be thicker and the notch possibly enlarged to accommodate the additional sensors. That would increase the overall bulk and weight of the machines.
- a 24 hr battery would require significant improvements in battery technology without increasing the total watt-hour capacity. Keep in mind that there are FAA-imposed limits for laptop battery capacities, so most existing battery designs that could provide 24 hour battery life would far exceed those limits and limit the ability to take your laptop with you when traveling (whether for business or pleasure).
- WiFi 6E would be the better option at this time for a few reasons. Wider availability, increased performance even connected to WiFi 6 routers, lower cost due to being an established protocol instead of a new one, etc. With a WiFi 7 part, you'd be paying a premium for technology with limited usefulness at present.

- External SSDs are not convenient at all when you have 14TB of data and MBP max capacity of 8TB is not enough and SanDisk still hasn't released their 8TB external v3 yet (prototype at CES only)... so no this is REALLY annoying that I need to carry them anyway, carry them and connect them like it's ugly and takes my USB ports and etc. Plus they're not as fast as internal MBP SSD. Plus I have Dropbox and it makes things complicated to save an external location on top of the Dropbox fodler, especially since Dropbox is planning on removing external disk sync soon because of a fight with Apple (which is pretty unsafe and slower anyway, so I'd rather have everything on local SSD and simply sync the whole lot with Dropbox, so smooth like I've been using it for 10 years this way, don't wanna change my habits).

- They will work FaceID out on MBP, they said it. Only a matter of time, like anything else in this world. Every year these devices get smaller and lighter, it's a non-issue.

- Same, maybe not M3 but later on the battery will be further optimised by 40% and therefore will reach 24h.

- I can live with WiFi 6E. But soon most internet providers (here in Europe anyway) will roll out Wi-Fi 7 so I doubt Apple will leave this technology behind on their flagship product, since they often future-proof their products. So it'd make sense that the 2024 models will already be equipped since the competition will already have Wi-Fi 7 by end of 2023.

Again Apple is a brand for those who can afford the latest tech, if you don't have the money for it, buy a Wincrap.

 

[Sydde]

Perhaps they could work out faceID and get rid of the notch by using an alternate method, placing cameras in the corners. It would defeat using a picture to fool it because the separate images would have to sum correctly, which a picture would not. And the SoC will have the power to average out the image for FT.

 

[thebart]

GPU, GPU, GPU

Apple has proven it can compete, and often surpass intel and AMD in the CPU department. However, Nvidia is the king in the GPU market and Apple really needs to push harder on this front. Ray tracing also needs to come to the Mac too.

Apple needs GPU options that are on par with 4070, 4080, 4090 for them to truly wipe the floor.

Isn't that like way too big a leap? Isn't the m2 pro only around a 3050?

I don't know what it'd take for Apple to make Macs a serious gaming platform, but that would bring a lot of people over. Right now, a lot of PC people are intrigued by Apple Silicon, but knowing they still have to have a PC to game makes the Mac too much of a luxury. Why not just use a PC for everything? Sure it uses more energy but $600 at minimum buys lots of kwh

Otoh i don't know if increasing mac's market share is even something Apple stays up at night thinking about

 

[unrigestered]

what's so great about FaceID on a laptop?
you'd still need to activate it by a press on the keyboard anyway, preferably on a specific key, otherwise wouldn't it be highly unsafe to use and easily exploitable anyway?

 

[spnc]

what's so great about FaceID on a laptop?
you'd still need to activate it by a press on the keyboard anyway, preferably on a specific key, otherwise wouldn't it be highly unsafe to use and easily exploitable anyway?

Fake news, FaceID has been released since 2017 on iPhones and working pretty fine... you need to catch up!

It's totally fine if TouchID is required from time to time / for some more sensitive operations, but if 90% of routine tasks can be dealt with FaceID it will save us a lifetime.

Don't be scared of technology, soon we will have brain implants, this is just the way things evolve over time.

 

[xraydoc]

As a person that uses both I find Windows MASSIVELY better for multitasking. More so on a large ultrawide. The simple fact I need to add 3rd party add-ons to get Window management as good as Windows for me is a HUGE failure on Apples part. I could not care less about how "opaque" Windows is. If an OS is pretty means nothing to me. I care about how FUNCTIONAL my OS is, how fast I get around it, and how it hleps me get my work done. For me MacOS has fallen WAY behind MacOS in all those things.

Just out of curiosity, what do you find better?

I use both Windows and macOS daily, each on a multi-display machine, and I'm very proficient with either OS. But I've found Windows no better than macOS (no worse, either, to be fair) insofar as multitasking and window management. I've got both Windows Power Tools installed on my home Win10 machine (though IT guys won't let me install at work) and on my Win11 VM, and Magnet on my Mac. And while Power Tools is a bit more customizable than Magnet in terms of hot spots, they're both pretty good for snapping app windows in to place in various patterns (2x2, 3x1, etc).

MacOS's tabbed Finder windows makes file navigation easy, I think, and hitting the space bar to preview a file is great, something that requires a 3rd party app on Windows to emulate.

Not starting an OS war, but just genuinely curious, one power user to another.

 

[unrigestered]

Fake news, FaceID has been released since 2017 on iPhones and working pretty fine... you need to catch up!

thanks, i'm using FaceID on my iDevices too
i need to swipe up to unlock on those first though
and when i'm doing transactions or other things that require my ID or password, i need to confirm that first too before FaceID is starting to do it's job

otherwise everything would be insta-buys/installs before you could even react or realize and could easily exploited by websites or apps

 

[Warped9]

Don't be scared of technology, soon we will have brain implants, this is just the way things evolve over time.

Although we already have primitive forms of this I’m certainly not in any hurry to see more of what you’re suggesting.

 

[unrigestered]

MacOS's tabbed Finder windows makes file navigation easy, I think, and hitting the space bar to preview a file is great, something that requires a 3rd party app on Windows to emulate.

macOS needs, as you've mentioned before, third party apps for window snapping though. so i don't see why this should be a negative for Windows if it's totally fine for you using 3rd party stuff on Mac to get "on par" to Windows in other cases.

having said that, while i love my Macs (Windows is still very good too of course and if your workflow is more mouse focused, could actually be your preferred system in many ways))
i think the very first Linux distro i ever tried just recently (Fedora Workstation, which uses the GNOME desktop) is actually better than both in most regards regarding workflow and usability.
maybe there are even "better" ones out there too - i dunno as i'm not having any plans for "distro-hopping"

macOS has of course the upper hand when it comes to "professional" (meaning expensive) software support and it is now (begrudgingly) admitting that it's not impenetrable and has anti malware measures pre-installed and running in the background, which Linux probably won't have out of the box for a good while with a mindset "from the 90's" that there is no malware that could harm Linux with no way of knowing that something malicious is going to happen to your system until it is already too late

 

[Jorbanead]

Isn't that like way too big a leap? Isn't the m2 pro only around a 3050?

This post is about M3 in general which includes M3 Max and likely M3 Ultra as well.

I think an M3 ultra needs to at least come very close to a 4080

 

[thebart]

This post is about M3 in general which includes M3 Max and likely M3 Ultra as well.

I think an M3 ultra needs to at least come very close to a 4080

My point was you just can't project huge generational leaps. For the M3 ultra to come close to a 4080, some existing M2 would have to be in the 3070-3080 range. That's just not true as far as I know. Apple is still way behind in GPU. Let's not even mention ray tracing.

 

[Jorbanead]

My point was you just can't project huge generational leaps.

To be very clear - I'm not saying M3 Ultra WILL be at the level of a 4080 im saying that’s what I would want in order to upgrade - the whole point of this post. I’m not projecting anything.

some existing M2 would have to be in the 3070-3080 range.

I believe the M2 Max is on par with an RTX 3060.

 

[Rafterman]

This post is about M3 in general which includes M3 Max and likely M3 Ultra as well.

I think an M3 ultra needs to at least come very close to a 4080

That's about 64 tflops. Apple would need to almost triple graphics performance over their current best 38 core GPU.

 

[spnc]

thanks, i'm using FaceID on my iDevices too
i need to swipe up to unlock on those first though
and when i'm doing transactions or other things that require my ID or password, i need to confirm that first too before FaceID is starting to do it's job

otherwise everything would be insta-buys/installs before you could even react or realize and could easily exploited by websites or apps

Not true, my payments in store only require FaceID.

 

[Sydde]

I am waiting for the entire line to gradually switch over to STT-RAM. iPhone, iPad and MacBook battery life will be measured in days instead of hours. And there will no longer be a "Sleep" mode, just an equivalent "Off" (with a separate flush/restart function). For iMacs and other non-portables, users will occasionally benefit from not losing any work if there is a power failure.

 

[thenewperson]

I am waiting for the entire line to gradually switch over to STT-RAM. iPhone, iPad and MacBook battery life will be measured in days instead of hours. And there will no longer be a "Sleep" mode, just an equivalent "Off" (with a separate flush/restart function). For iMacs and other non-portables, users will occasionally benefit from not losing any work if there is a power failure.

Is there anywhere one can read more about (in layman terms 😅)? Also is it more expensive than current RAM?

 

[trevpimp]

15"/17" option with the M3 will be awesome

 

[spnc]

I am waiting for the entire line to gradually switch over to STT-RAM. iPhone, iPad and MacBook battery life will be measured in days instead of hours. And there will no longer be a "Sleep" mode, just an equivalent "Off" (with a separate flush/restart function). For iMacs and other non-portables, users will occasionally benefit from not losing any work if there is a power failure.

Game changer!

 

[Sydde]

Is there anywhere one can read more about (in layman terms 😅)? Also is it more expensive than current RAM?

Not much to read. It is a NVRAM that uses magnet domains to hold data. One company has a 1Gb chip that runs at DDR3 speed, and they are chasing 12nm, so it is not happening this year. 3~5 years, maybe, but I think Apple would have to revise some of their cache designs and memory hierarchy to make really good use of it.

There is more that I do not quite understand. Talk of a direct memory-based compute layer. Designers would be looking at ways to leverage that in order to gain fullest use of the hardware. But we could be seeing some impressive advances by decade's end.

 

[spnc]

No WiFi 7 as expected, yet they came through with the 128GB RAM, which might just entice me to upgrade from my late-2020 M1.

What are everyone's reactions post-event? Appreciate your insights.

 

[MallardDuck]

I’ll wait for the 4 with TB 5, WiFi 7, and hopefully dump the useless hdmi and sd ports for a fourth TB port.

 

[bobcomer]

No WiFi 7 as expected, yet they came through with the 128GB RAM, which might just entice me to upgrade from my late-2020 M1.

What are everyone's reactions post-event? Appreciate your insights.

I might have been interested in a 24" iMac, but not with just an M3 / 24G of RAM, need a pro and at least 32G. I'll stick with my M2Pro Mini and 27"iMac.

I'm not in the market for any macbook (no notch Bob here), so they didn't say much to me, though the new GPU stuff was interesting.

 

[darngooddesign]

I’ll wait for the 4 with TB 5, WiFi 7, and hopefully dump the useless hdmi and sd ports for a fourth TB port.

I hope Apple keeps the dedicated port, and uses a multi-format slot for SD, CF, and XQD.

 

[pshufd]

I might have been interested in a 24" iMac, but not with just an M3 / 24G of RAM, need a pro and at least 32G. I'll stick with my M2Pro Mini and 27"iMac.

I'm not in the market for any macbook (no notch Bob here), so they didn't say much to me, though the new GPU stuff was interesting.

I couldn't find a spec sheet and it's hard to compare. It says up to 22 hours battery life but what's that in the real world? I'll check MacRumors news to see if there's a spec sheet.

 

[spnc]

I’ll wait for the 4 with TB 5, WiFi 7, and hopefully dump the useless hdmi and sd ports for a fourth TB port.

Damn that too. Those M3s still have a hdmi and sd ports? Bummer.