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schneeland

macrumors regular
May 22, 2017
242
778
Darmstadt, Germany
Since ~2010, the three base tiers of ~250 GB, ~500 GB, and 1 TB have pretty much remained the same, with the only major change being the shift from HDDs to increasingly fast SSDs. With the increasing use of streaming services and media formats taking up about the same space as they did 10 years ago (unless you're an editor working with raw 4/8K), I don't see the storage demands of the average user increasing much anytime soon.
I would argue that Apple is a bit on the frugal side here (same as for RAM), since even entry-level PC laptops now regularly ship with 512GB NVMe SSDs, but even considering that, the trend you identified probably still holds true in general.
 

Jorbanead

macrumors 65816
Aug 31, 2018
1,209
1,438
Well said. Some prefer to live by myths and hot air rather than reality. Forums attract these individuals like moths to the flame.
Apple themselves confirmed they do slow down iPhones to help preserve battery. It’s not made up. It’s just widely misunderstood.
 
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ericwn

macrumors G5
Apr 24, 2016
12,113
10,902
Apple themselves confirmed they do slow down iPhones to help preserve battery. It’s not made up. It’s just widely misunderstood.

In situations of batteries passing a certain battery health threshold peak performance may be cut and is as far as I understand it easily solved by getting a fresh battery.

That of course has absolutely zero to do with the nonsense from post 16 in which context my reply is written.
 

Puonti

macrumors 68000
Mar 14, 2011
1,567
1,187
I legitimately cannot comprehend a world where someone believes this? Every Intel Mac ever made, and quite frankly every computer ever made, has gotten slower with each major update that follows.
There's different ways to slice that claim, though, which could explain why different people believe different things:

1. After purchasing a Mac, the hardware itself becomes slower with each subsequent update to macOS released, regardless of if those newer versions are installed on that Mac or not

2. After purchasing a Mac, the macOS version it came with becomes slower on that Mac with each subsequent update to macOS released, even when those newer versions are not installed on said Mac

3. After purchasing a Mac, it runs each subsequent update to macOS more slowly than the one it came with

4. After purchasing a Mac, your perception of its performance changes for the worse over time, regardless of if newer versions of macOS are installed on that Mac or not

...

Option 1 is untrue, but it's also a bit of a cheeky way to interpret the claim. The components of the Mac can of course wear down over time and thus perform worse than they did when brand new, but if your HDD starts filling up with bad sectors, for example, you usually say the harddrive is failing rather than the Mac is becoming slower.

Option 2, taken at face value, is untrue. If all you do every single day is boot the Mac up, run a "real workload speed test" and then shut it down, it's not going to become slower over time. It can become slower due to externalities such as filling the harddrive completely and thus hindering the normal operation of macOS, but that's user error rather than hardware error.

Option 3 can be true, but it being true has nothing to do with the original hardware becoming slower, and everything to do with the intent and requirements of newer software becoming more demanding as newer hardware becomes more capable. This option, I'm guessing, is the most common way to interpret the claim by people who don't see or understand the distinction.

Option 4 can be true, simply because people have varied experiences. It's also highly personal, and not really something that can serve as a universal truth. One person might perceive their Mac performing worse because they're enamored with a newer Mac and really, really want to justify that purchase to themselves (or their partner, as is the case sometimes). Another person might have graduated from browsing the web to editing daily 4K videos of their offspring, and the Mac that used to do just fine now suddenly feels slow.

Did I miss an option?
 
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UBS28

macrumors 68030
Oct 2, 2012
2,893
2,340
I legitimately cannot comprehend a world where someone believes this? Every Intel Mac ever made, and quite frankly every computer ever made, has gotten slower with each major update that follows.

But with Intel MAC, you are not stuck with Mac OS. You can always run Windows or Linux on it if Mac OS becomes too slow.
 
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MauiPa

macrumors 68040
Apr 18, 2018
3,438
5,084
My M1 MBP is faster with Monterey than it was with original (BigSur, I think). So probably not, still probably making optimizations for Apple silicon
 
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ahurst

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2021
410
815
But with Intel MAC, you are not stuck with Mac OS. You can always run Windows or Linux on it if Mac OS becomes too slow.
The first public alpha of Asahi Linux for Mac is just about to be released, with a good chunk of the core drivers already written (CPU, power management, NVMe, keyboard/mouse, USB, Wi-Fi) and accepted upstream in the Linux kernel:
Work on a fully functional display driver, GPU acceleration, and audio is also well underway.

Regardless, I’ve personally never found macOS to get “too slow” on older hardware, just too out-of-date for software at some point after Apple drops support for that Mac’s latest possible version. That’s the only time I’d bother installing Linux.
 

Digitalguy

macrumors 601
Apr 15, 2019
4,636
4,463
For those that do not want to read the full post, let me answer the question here: no, your M1 Mac (even the 8GB RAM version) will be just as fast in the future (till its last OS upgrade) as now, and might even become faster. But there are things to consider nonetheless. Details to follow:

As many have said, hardware does not slow down by itself, software can slow it down. And, as mentioned, the main culprit is generally RAM. But there are differences between IOS and MacOS:

1. IOS uses RAM compression and ejection, while MacOS uses RAM compression and swapping the the SSD (= using the SSD as RAM)
2. IOS system updates generally cannot be rolled back, while MacOS can.

It should be pointed out that not every OS update will require more resources, some actually require less, but the long term trend is that they require more. Also some updates can make better use of newer hardware but not of older one.

The original question was if MacOS would slow down M1 as IOS slowed down devices, but that assumes that all IOS devices would slow down with time (or at least to an extent that become perceptible by the user), which is probably not the case.

In the past, Apple was very stingy with RAM on IOS devices (and still is to some extent with non pro models), which coupled with a long series of OS updates, caused devices to first starting ejecting apps from RAM more frequently and then slowing down due to constant memory compression (just like constant swapping to disk may slow down things considerably) and ultimately crash more and more (see iPad 2 on IOS 9).

But how can we tell that RAM is more of a culprit than CPU/GPU?

We need 2 devices with the same SOC but different RAM quantities. 2015 12.9 iPad pro (4GB RAM) and 2016 9.7 pro (2GB RAM) fit this.
Until IOS 12 or even iPadOS 13 they felt roughly the same (with a slight advantage to the 12.9) except that the 9.7 reloaded apps and tabs much more frequently. But with 14 and 15, the 9.7 pro got progressively slower while the 12.9 dual core A9X seems to keep up well (also because RAM compression was not impacting its CPU so much). Even if it gets more updates, it's safe to assume that the 2015 iPad pro will keep its speed thanks to its RAM.
The same thing can be said about the iPad 6 (A10 2GB RAM) and iPad 7 (A10 3GB RAM) for now.
However reloads have increased to some extent in all devices, which shows that iPadOS is progressively requiring more RAM to operate. This trend will probably continue to some extent that we cannot exactly predict, but it's safe to assume that while 3GB devices are probably next in line for slowdowns over time, 4GB devices will probably not slow down over the next 5 years, let alone 6 or 8 GB RAM devices, which will probably end their update cycle just as fast as now, but with more reloads.

M1 Macs start at 8GB, but the "slow down" scenario is very different, not only because of SSD swap, but because it's possible to multitask much more on MacOS and it's possible to have much more apps running at start-up and/or in the background (whether the user realizes this or not it's a different issue....).
It's safe to assume that, a M1 Mac that is freshly installed with MacOS 20 (assuming it will get it) will feel just as fast as now if not faster with something like a couple of simple apps running (including the browser with 1-2 tabs), but could become slower more quickly as apps start to accumulate in the background (including browser tabs) if the OS itself take a larger part of that RAM (but it's very unlikely that even in 8 years MacOS will become so bloated that with 8GB RAM it starts to slow down as soon as you open something, 8GB is plenty for the OS alone and will still be in this decade). 16GB will give much more room of course.
But again the question is not so much will the system slow down with 8 or 16GB, as the answer is clearly no, but is it possible that, in addition to the system using a bit more of that RAM, my personal use of the system increase so that 8 or 16GB or even the 8 cores are no longer able to keep up?

As a rule of thumb, if my normal use is 6-7GB of RAM I take 16GB, but since now my normal use is more 10-12GB RAM, my next Mac will have 32GB RAM to leave me some room to grow.
 

MisterAndrew

macrumors 68030
Original poster
Sep 15, 2015
2,895
2,389
Portland, Ore.
The first public alpha of Asahi Linux for Mac is just about to be released, with a good chunk of the core drivers already written (CPU, power management, NVMe, keyboard/mouse, USB, Wi-Fi) and accepted upstream in the Linux kernel:
Work on a fully functional display driver, GPU acceleration, and audio is also well underway.

Regardless, I’ve personally never found macOS to get “too slow” on older hardware, just too out-of-date for software at some point after Apple drops support for that Mac’s latest possible version. That’s the only time I’d bother installing Linux.
I've been loosely following the Asahi Linux project and it's really interesting!
 
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dtm84

macrumors member
Oct 10, 2021
79
167
My previous 2011 mbp was still fine because I got the higher end one and maxed out the RAM. My new mbp has a M1 max and 64gig of RAM so I expect it to last another decade.

My issue is that Apple locked my old system out of OS upgrades which forced me to buy a new machine even though the machine was still perfectly fine for the tasks that I needed it to do. This issue is due to Software developers requiring libraries that depend on low level hardware functions that are introduced over time. They could write code to support the legacy hardware (albeit probably slower) but there is no reason to do that unless the government legislates them to do so.

A lot of people get angry at companies for something that is the government's fault. A company exists to make money. They have an obligation to their shareholders to do. They can't decide to be nice and give good deals or protect the environment unless they are obliged to do so by the laws regulating their markets. Therefore if you want the companies to pay employees more or reduce e-waste then you need to convince the government to pass laws that obligate the companies to do so. Then doing so is a cost and requirement of business and therefore the companies will comply (and probably also lobby against it). But a proper system requires the government to represent the interests of its people (and not corporations). You can obviously see the problem if the government represents corporate interests and then is lobbied by lobbyists with corporate interests - there is no balance.
 
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Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,234
7,270
Seattle
I legitimately cannot comprehend a world where someone believes this? Every Intel Mac ever made, and quite frankly every computer ever made, has gotten slower with each major update that follows.
That happens sometimes but is not consistent, nor universal. Machines are sometimes faster after a new OS version.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,494
19,632
Regarding perf, there was that little issue with Apple purposefully slowing down phones because 'batteries aged' - which was a deserved black eye for Apple.

@mr_roboto already provided an excellent account on this. I would like to add that this is a standard industry feature, everyone limits the hardware max power usage if the battery cannot supply the needed voltage (laptops in particular have been doing it since forever). Apple’s “mistake” was ”admitting” that they do it, which got massively blown out of proportion. It was a PR/communication problem, not a technical one.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,494
19,632
My previous 2011 mbp was still fine because I got the higher end one and maxed out the RAM. My new mbp has a M1 max and 64gig of RAM so I expect it to last another decade.

If you are satisfied with the performance of the 2011 machine, a MacBook Air with 16 GB would already be an overkill for you.

My issue is that Apple locked my old system out of OS upgrades which forced me to buy a new machine even though the machine was still perfectly fine for the tasks that I needed it to do. This issue is due to Software developers requiring libraries that depend on low level hardware functions that are introduced over time. They could write code to support the legacy hardware (albeit probably slower) but there is no reason to do that unless the government legislates them to do so.

You are massively trivializing the issue. Writing code is not easy. Supporting legacy stuff will most often come at the expense of performance, stability and cost.

A lot of people get angry at companies for something that is the government's fault. A company exists to make money. They have an obligation to their shareholders to do. They can't decide to be nice and give good deals or protect the environment unless they are obliged to do so by the laws regulating their markets. Therefore if you want the companies to pay employees more or reduce e-waste then you need to convince the government to pass laws that obligate the companies to do so. Then doing so is a cost and requirement of business and therefore the companies will comply (and probably also lobby against it). But a proper system requires the government to represent the interests of its people (and not corporations). You can obviously see the problem if the government represents corporate interests and then is lobbied by lobbyists with corporate interests - there is no balance.
What a bleak capitalist outlook. Regulations are not there to force everyone to do “the minimum”, they are there to limit bad players. Plenty of companies want to do things the right way, but existence of bad players limit their ability to compete. That’s why regulations are important. But this “everyone is a bad player” sentiment is needlessly harsh. And mandating legacy hardware support on the government level would be devastating for hardware and software innovation.
 
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fluxtransistor

macrumors member
Aug 7, 2018
64
107
You’re also forgetting a couple of facts about mobile vs. desktop development.

Consider that Intel machines really haven’t gotten that much faster over time when compared to iOS devices in recent years.
2010 MacBook Pro (17”, i7 640M) Geekbench score: 460/951
2010 iPhone 4 Geekbench score: 212 (not even a dual core!)

2018 MacBook Pro (15”, i9): 1053/5113
2018 iPhone XS: 1101/2708

2021 MacBook Pro (M1 Pro Max): 1746/12268
2021 iPhone 13 Pro Max: 1675/4614

Consider the implications: the performance delta between an iPhone 2G and an iPhone 4 is massive, which is why the 3G had extreme issues running iOS 4 (designed for a device with 4x the RAM, 3X the processor speed). iOS support has increased as performance has reached parity with Macs - which is why my iPhone XS is still perfectly fast in 2022 as it was in 2018 - conversely an iPhone 3G in 2012 was painful to use (I should know, I had one at that time).

By the time a Mac is dropped from mainline support, it will be too slow to use, or be architecturally limited in some fashion (for example, this is why a “perfectly good” 2011 MacBook Pro never got 10.14 - no Metal graphics support, or why the White 2008 MacBook was dropped after 10.7 - an awful Intel iGPU + no proper 64bit support for that GPU). Given the parity on development between mobile vs. desktop, and Apple’s long-term support lifecycle of ~7 years mainstream, 9 years including security updates, I’d expect this next generation of Macs to have the same robust support that the Intel Macs enjoyed (indeed, given how much faster they are, possibly even longer support).

Those using legacy Intel Macs, though, should be prepared to be dropped in the next few OS releases, as Apple makes MacOS fully Apple Silicon native.
GeekBench will end up being very misleading due to the different versions used.
 

satcomer

Suspended
Feb 19, 2008
9,115
1,977
The Finger Lakes Region
I don't about the rest of you I only upgrade to ONE new version of Mac OS during my lifetime of this Mac. This plus deleting caches once about every two-three months keeps my Macs in the b west shape at their age!
 

ahurst

macrumors 6502
Oct 12, 2021
410
815
GeekBench will end up being very misleading due to the different versions used.
Here’s some plots I made in a different thread comparing iOS and Mac performance over time using Geekbench 4 scores (which supports A5 devices up to the latest iOS chips):
1646748599313.png

1646748567639.png

Please note that the Y-axis is log-scaled so it’s easier to view long-term trends. As you can see, the Apple CPU growth rate has been much steeper than Intel chips in the same time frame (though has slowed a bit recently) with Intel Macs only managing to keep pace in the last ~5 years by throwing more cores in their chips while their single-core gains plateaued.

Will be interesting to see how well Apple can keep it’s current pace of single-core gains!
 

Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,234
7,270
Seattle
I don't about the rest of you I only upgrade to ONE new version of Mac OS during my lifetime of this Mac. This plus deleting caches once about every two-three months keeps my Macs in the b west shape at their age!
I only recently retired my 2014 MBP. It went through a series of annual OS updates and to the end was just a fast as it ever was. the whole story that OS updates always slow down a computer is just a story and while there may be cases here and there, it is not a universal principle and not something to expect.
 

TechnoLawyer

macrumors regular
Nov 7, 2021
118
93
It sounds to me like you already have an answer in mind and are just looking to validate your opinion.

But I’ll bite.

For the record I do support things like right to repair and reducing environmental impact as much as possible.

But the more I’ve thought about it I’m not convinced modular components are that important to reducing e-waste.

I’ll start with anecdotes:
I’ve had a number of computers that were extremely repair friendly, low and mid range Dell laptops mostly, and by the time they got unbearably slow, even the upgradeable parts didn’t offer that much of a benefit.

My first Mac was a base MacBook Air, and it still lives on as my grandma’s primary machine. Despite it being much less repairable than any of the other laptops we’ve owned.

What I did to the old laptops hanging around was to repurpose them for other things, and in some instances cannibalize their parts for frankenstein experiments.

Frankly, I’m not sure that having replaceable components really does extend the usable life of a computer in the real world, since tech advances so quickly in general. In terms of processors alone Intel are notorious for changing sockets every two gens, and AMD only made AM4 last five years before deciding to move to AM5. And I can just about guarantee that your Mac will last five years.

Personally I’ve gotten about ten years of usable life from my machines whatever they are.

Now, will these machines get “slower”? No. Will software requirements grow? Probably. There’s always the option of running older or alter software in that case.

If we look at the iPhone for example, I think we can expect about 7 years of official support for a given Mac. And it doesn’t end with official support, you can use these machines for as long as they function. (Or repurpose them!) and I’d be confident in at least a decade of use in these computers, by which time a newer model is likely to be leaps and bounds better than anything, replaceable components or not.

Easily swappable components only really seems to matter when you didn't order properly for your needs initially, like not ordering enough ram or storage space. Otherwise, as you say, they don't really extend the usable life of a machine that much.

The only real way I have found to extend the usable life of a PC is to install Ubuntu on it when Windows is no longer usable. That'll extend it pretty much indefinitely, if in a limited fashion.
 

ric22

Suspended
Mar 8, 2022
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I’d not noticed this. My 2017 iPad Pro is just as fast today on the latest iOS as it was when new. Perhaps low end iOS devices will have limited memory issues that are not relevant to the M chips in laptops with 8/16 GB+ (and desktops soon). Is it just the lower end iPads etc ones that seem to slow down, my parents base models from 2017 don’t seem much slower on the new iOS, maybe a bit, but they were never that nippy compared to the Pro so I might not have noticed?
My 2017 iPad Pro feels slower than it did to me, and I've only filled half the disk. Every iOS device I've ever owned has slowed down after about 3 years, usually appallingly. I see why the OP is asking the question. Hopefully the processors have now got to the point where they're well ahead of the software...

My current devices are only 2 years old, and aren't slowing down at all yet. I think we've got past the days of rapid slowdowns.
 
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ric22

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Mar 8, 2022
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Are they? I have not seen any substantiation of this claim. A bit of personal anecdote - I usually keep my iPhones for four or five years before updating and I haven’t noticed any slowdowns with updates.
I'll work on the assumption you aren't trolling.... I can only assume you're not as good as others at gauging the speed of devices. I've owned iOS devices since the first iPod touch, and EVERY iPhone/iPod/iPad didn't just slow, it damn near ground to a halt by its final software update. I'm not just talking for demanding apps- the absolute basics like web browsing go from being super slick to deathly slow- even the camera usually slows right down!

Maybe I'm unlucky or maybe I'm doing something wrong :rolleyes:😅

I've had much more luck with my various Intel Macs and Intel PC's over the years. I still have one PC with a Xeon chip running that is at least 13 years old, and in terms of basic stuff it doesn't miss a beat. It has a modern SSD and I use it for playing old games. With a newish graphics card it can still play newish games, believe it or not.
 
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Tagbert

macrumors 603
Jun 22, 2011
6,234
7,270
Seattle
I'll work on the assumption you aren't trolling.... I can only assume you're not as good as others at gauging the speed of devices. I've owned iOS devices since the first iPod touch, and EVERY iPhone/iPod/iPad didn't just slow, it damn near ground to a halt by its final software update. I'm not just talking for demanding apps- the absolute basics like web browsing go from being super slick to deathly slow- even the camera usually slows right down!

Maybe I'm unlucky or maybe I'm doing something wrong :rolleyes:😅

I've had much more luck with my various Intel Macs and Intel PC's over the years. I still have one PC with a Xeon chip running that is at least 13 years old, and in terms of basic stuff it doesn't miss a beat. It has a modern SSD and I use it for playing old games. With a newish graphics card it can still play newish games, believe it or not.
Regardless of your situation with those iOS devices, if you are asking about a Mac that is a Mac OS issue and there have been no problems with Mac OS slowing down computers. The chip being Intel or Apple has nothing to do with it. If you get the lowest amount of RAM and lowest about of storage, you might run int performance issues a little sooner than if you had a little more work room.
 

ric22

Suspended
Mar 8, 2022
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Regardless of your situation with those iOS devices, if you are asking about a Mac that is a Mac OS issue and there have been no problems with Mac OS slowing down computers. The chip being Intel or Apple has nothing to do with it. If you get the lowest amount of RAM and lowest about of storage, you might run int performance issues a little sooner than if you had a little more work room.
I wasn't asking about the processor. OP was. I speculated that old iOS processors were slow, and got caught out by laptop level apps. If I'm right, the premature slowing of devices should be a thing of the past. Of course, Apple's stingy allocation of RAM in iOS devices also hamstrung them.
 
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