Another ARM(1) - Apple event introduces new low-end Macs as well as updated OS

[progamer21]

11 hours ago, LAwLz said:

Apple's first silicon for PCs will be named "M1".

 

 

CPU:

• 4 big cores that are, according to Apple, "the fastest core in the world", and I actually believe them. I would not be surprised if this CPU core performs better than Zen 3.
• 4 small cores that are meant for power efficiency. Didn't quite hear what Apple said about performance but I do believe they said the quad core low power cores would offer performance better than the dual core Intel Mac. I am far more skeptical of that claim though, and they might be measuring at some specific power level that is optimal for the M1's small cores but not for whichever Intel CPU they are comparing it against.
• At 10 watts of power limit (the MacBook Air limit) the M1 offers twice the performance of Intel's latest CPU.
• 3 times higher performance per watt compared to Intel at other power budgets.

 

GPU:

• 8 cores.
• 128 execution units.
• 2.6 TFLOPs of performance.
• 82 gigatexels per second
• 41 gigapixels per second.
• Twice the performance per watt at 10 watts power envelop, but we have no idea which chip they are comparing against (probably the Intel chip in the latest Macbook).
• "World's fastest integrated graphics".

 

 

Other:

• 16-core Neural Engine with 11 trillion operations per second.
• It's an SoC, so it as a lot of stuff built in. Basically everything is on a single chip just like in the iPhone and iPads.
• It has a "unified memory architecture" which lets all SoC components (CPU, GPU and I presume NPU) access the same memory directly. So no need for the GPU to request resources from the CPU.
• 16 billion 5nm transistors.
• Secure enclave built in.
• Very low power video playback.
• Neural Engine.
• PCIe 4.0 support
• Thunderbolt and USB 4 support.
• Very good image processing (probably the same as in the iPhone).
• Crypt accelerator (although a lot of CPUs has this these days).
• NVMe support
• "Always-on processor" which probably refers to some very deep sleep state.

 

 

Software:

• MacOS using M1 processors can directly run iPhone and iPad apps!
• MacOS Big Sur has been optimized for the M1.
• "iPhone-style instant-on" which to me mean you never really turn the computer off, you just lock it and it goes into sleep. This is really nice.
• Safari is 1.9x as responsive on the M1 compared to some other Mac configuration. They don't specify what they are comparing against really.
• "Universal apps" is Apple's name for packaging both ARM and x86 compatible apps into one program. So developers only have to release one version of their apps and it will be able to run on both ARM and x86. None of this "which version do you want to download ARM|x86" we have seen on Windows.
• Rosetta 2 allows x86-only programs to run on Apple's ARM processor. According to Apple some programs even perform better on Rosetta 2 than on an x86 Mac. But that might just be some handful of apps and because the M1 is faster than the x86 processor. Performance remains to be seen.

THE NEXT WAR APPLE VS AMD lol

[progamer21]

Just now, gabrielcarvfer said:

Apple doesn't sell their chips to other OEMs, so I don't see how it could be a war.

its a joke but ok

[RedRound2]

11 hours ago, NotTheFirstDaniel said:

Linus is going to be mad that the Mac Mini no longer comes with a 10-gigabit Ethernet option.

 

I feel like that's gonna be the climax of the review...

Yeah even I found this suprising. But I think they didn't have enough PCIe express lanes on the first gen M1 chip. It's quite evident by the fact that all M1 equipped macs have only 2 thunderbolt ports, with Mac mini having 2 more USB ports.

 

Hopefully M2 will address this shortcoming and they will be able to reintegrate 10 GbE

10 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

Actually the system should perform fine.

It uses the latest just released from ARM, Cortex CPU architecture, which bring the CPU, not only faster, but also Octo Core.

Already the Surface Pro X demonstrated with Qualcomm chip that the device is very competent and provide a great (performance wise) experience. Of course, its issue is that the CPU lacks performance for any x86 demanding applications. But this new CPU should allow Apple to deliver a good experience, and I expect, the day, Qualcomm decides to use it, that the latest Surface Pro X can deliver more interesting performance on x86 side (and x86-64 translation support should be coming next year)

Well, you're being way too optimistic about two companies who has famously lagged behind Apple in all their domains. Qualcomm doesn't have anything remotely competitve to A series processors, forget M series chips and Microsoft has always just been bad at software. 

 

Even if Apple leapfrogs everyone with their shiny new M series chips in terms of performance and proves to the world that ARM is a legitimate contendor for performance and efficieny crown, we'll still be stuck with x86 chips because of Windows. It will take Qualcomm a good few years before they catch up to good enough perfomance and Microsoft at least half a decade (at best) to actually fix Windows and make it work without BSODing all the time (we're talking about a company who still hasnt finished migrating control panel settings to "Modern UI" settings even after 5 years of bi-annual release)

[LAwLz]

7 hours ago, Dracarris said:

We do not know how Apple arrived at that number, but even the amount of mid- to high-tier laptops that was sold in the last two years should by far exceed 2% of whatever market.

If you still think this is a 8-core machine that must be compared to 6- and 8-core x86 cores you failed to understand the fundamentals of the M1 architecture (and most recent phone/table SoCs).

I understand the M1 very well. The reason why I say you need a 6 core or higher to be better is because the M1 is most likely more powerful than any quad core on the market. 

I am not saying that because "herp derp apple says it's an 8 core so it must be compared to an 8 core". 

 

The only processors that outperform the M1 have 6 or more cores.

[captain_to_fire]

22 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

The biggest msft issue, in my humble opinion, is the lack of focus.

This. This is why Microsoft can never get UI consistency right especially when they made Metro style Windows 8, and it's made worse with Windows 10's touchscreen/desktop hybrid UI.

[RedRound2]

54 minutes ago, gabrielcarvfer said:

And yet, they're the largest and the most important software company in the world...

 

The biggest msft issue, in my humble opinion, is the lack of focus. They support and develop a bazillion different languages, UI frameworks, driver models, products, etc. Don't get any of those particularly polished, and then go to the next one.

They are only relevant because of the Windows effectively became ubiqitous. There's nothing special about Windows apart from the fact that everyone is used to it and most applications have been made for windows. macOS is very real alternative, except Apple doesn't sell it to anyone else. Honestly, if it wasn't for Bill's ingenious move back then to give Windows away for free to capture a stronghold in market, Microsoft wouldve gone irrelevant years ago.

 

All their software are crap. And as you said they lack focus.

[RedRound2]

23 minutes ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

This. This is why Microsoft can never get UI consistency right especially when they made Metro style Windows 8, and it's made worse with Windows 10's touchscreen/desktop hybrid UI.

And it baffles me how their UI is still incosistent in Windows 10 20H2 release after initally introducing Windows 10 5 years ago. Like wth? All major OS has their UI redesign done in like a single release. How come a company as large as microsoft not able to manage it and worse yet they release broken OS upgrade everytime they do change migrate 2 more settings from control panel to windows settings

[captain_to_fire]

22 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

And it baffles me how their UI is still incosistent in Windows 10 20H2 release after initally introducing Windows 10 5 years ago. Like wth? All major OS has their UI redesign done in like a single release. How come a company as large as microsoft not able to manage it and worse yet they release broken OS upgrade everytime they do change migrate 2 more settings from control panel to windows settings

I think it’s because Microsoft’s strategy is to merge a tablet and desktop OS. Sure it means one less device to carry, but at the expense of inconsistent UI and software bugs. Apple nailed UI consistency with macOS and iPadOS. Everyone knows that the file manager for the Mac is Finder, System Preferences for settings, and Files and Settings for iPadOS. Though to be honest I find the new Big Sur icons to be fugly, the macOS Catalina icons are way better imo.
 

Windows 10 simply can’t have that UI consistency. If anyone has tried navigating the ribbon in File Explorer with a touchscreen 2 in 1, it’s pretty bad even with tablet mode enabled. 

[AlTech]

The main shortcomings I see with the M1 is 16GB RAM limitation, as other have mentioned lacking PCI-E lanes.

 

It looks like on the Apple based Macs compared to an identically specced Intel Mac Apple is discounting the M1 based macs by £200.

 

I see everybody calling this an 8 core CPU. It's not. It's got 4 High Performance cores and 4 Low Power cores.

 

This should be compared to the 15W Intel CPUs.

[AlTech]

Also, I forsee a lot of people getting confused in the future cos Apple already has an M series CPU lineup.

 

It's been in iPhones since 2013 as the motion co-processor.

[RedRound2]

2 minutes ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

I think it’s because Microsoft’s strategy is to merge a tablet and desktop OS. Sure it means one less device to carry, but at the expense of inconsistent UI. Apple nailed UI consistency with macOS and iPadOS. Everyone knows that the file manager for the Mac is Finder, System Preferences for settings, and Files and Settings for iPadOS. 
 

Windows 10 simply can’t have that UI consistency. If anyone has tried navigating the ribbon in File Explorer with a touchscreen 2 in 1, it’s pretty bad even with tablet mode enabled. 

I do know the reason. They have inconsistencies because they seem to be not able to decide if they want touch friendly UI or more information/functionality dense UI. This is why Apple has straight up denied and refused to combine macOS and iOS, rather just letting macOS and iPadOS grow in their own ways. 

 

We all knew it was dumb move with Windows 8 back in 2012. At this point it just seems like microsoft has given up and just go along with whatever works

[RedRound2]

6 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

The main shortcomings I see with the M1 is 16GB RAM limitation, as other have mentioned lacking PCI-E lanes.

Hopefully M2 or M1X in higher end machines will address it in early months of next year with redesigned 14" and 16" in MBP

 

Quote

This should be compared to the 15W Intel CPUs.

YES! People jump straight to i9 and threadrippers with their comparisons

5 minutes ago, AluminiumTech said:

Also, I forsee a lot of people getting confused in the future cos Apple already has an M series CPU lineup.

It's been in iPhones since 2013 as the motion co-processor.

They have stopped marketing the motion co processor for few generations for now. Last I heard i think was for the A9. And realistically nobody actually talks about the motion co processors, so i think it will be fine

[AlTech]

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Hopefully M2 or M1X in higher end machines will address it in early months of next year with redesigned 14" and 16" in MBP

I suspect we'll see a M1X or M2X in the 16 inch MBP and the iMacs.

 

For what it's worth the 4 Thunderbolt 3 port Intel core i5 and i7 13 inch MacBook Pros haven't been discontinued precisely because of the flaws of M1.

 

And Apple is still selling the core i5 and core i7 Mac Minis.

 

I'd be shocked if we see the 13 inch MBP being fully replaced with Apple Silicon until M2 generation unless Apple plans to kill off 4 Thunderbolt port macs.

2 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

YES! People jump straight to i9 and threadrippers with their comparisons

They have stopped marketing the motion co processor for few generations for now. Last I heard i think was for the A9. And realistically nobody actually talks about the motion co processors, so i think it will be fine

The other thing which is annoying is the SSDs are still soldered to the logicboard. And you still have the same problem as with T2 chip since that's now effectively built into M1.

[AlTech]

Also it appears the M1 in the MacBookAir is passively cooled with no fan. I suspect the MacBookPro is using a fan.

 

It looks like the MacBookPro 13" with M1 uses Active Cooling.

 

So you might get a lot more out of MBP despite MBA having the same chip.

[leadeater]

58 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

All their software are crap. And as you said they lack focus.

Then how do you explain Microsoft SQL Server, widely regarded as the best relational database engine that exists and is extremely well optimized and high performance. What about Active Directory, the most widely deployed authentication and administration tool/software that MacOS and Linux aren't even in same ballpark with any option they have.

 

There's a lot of other great software the Microsoft makes, or server role/features that are excellent. I think you might have a case of judging completely unrelated software by your peroneal opinion of another and the faults and missteps with that software that have happened.

[RedRound2]

7 hours ago, leadeater said:

Then how do you explain Microsoft SQL Server, widely regarded as the best relational database engine that exists and is extremely well optimized and high performance. What about Active Directory, the most widely deployed authentication and administration tool/software that MacOS and Linux aren't even in same ballpark with any option they have.

 

There's a lot of other great software the Microsoft makes, or server role/features that are excellent. I think you might have a case of judging completely unrelated software by your peroneal opinion of another and the faults and missteps with that software that have happened.

I clearly wasn't talking about their server software. I thought that was evident from the context. I know Azure is making really good strides in web services, especially under Nadella. And that's their focus now

 

But unfortunately the same team nor the same principles apply to their consumer software. Windows 10 is a mess, Teams is a mess, any software they acquire they ruin it like Skype. Of the few good things maybe Microsoft Office isnt that bad, but the fact it's expensive as hell when comapred to free alternatives makes it a deal breaker for many

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

I clearly wasn't talking about their server software. I thought that was evident from the context. I know Azure is making really good strides in web services, especially under Nadella. And that's their focus now

 

But unfortunately the same team nor the same priciples apply to their cosumer software. Windows 10 is a mess, Teams is a mess, any software they acquire they ruin it like Skype. Of the few good things maybe Microsoft Office isnt that bad, but the fact it's expensive as hell when comapred to free alternatives makes it a deal breaker for many

Except Windows Server uses the same Kernel and is developed by that team thus is shared between Windows Server and Windows Desktop operating systems. I'm also pretty sure a good portion of the people work on both operating systems too.

 

But the problem is you said all their software is crap, which it is not. And you also ignored that historically Windows operating system has actually been an exceptionally good choice and didn't just get where it has by fluke, also not sure where you came up with this Microsoft giving away Windows for free back then (back when?), it was not free at all.

 

Windows got popular because it legitimately was the best option at the time at providing the functions that people needed.

[RedRound2]

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Except Windows Server uses the same Kernel and is developed by that team thus is shared between Windows Server and Windows Desktop operating systems. I'm also pretty sure a good portion of the people work on both operating systems too.

And Windows server is usually one or two versions behind. The latest one 2019 is based on Windows 1809 codebase. So what about the general consumers? What are we beta testers?

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

But the problem is you said all their software is crap, which it is not.

Their cosumer softwares have always been pretty bad. They were good when it was their main focus, during XP days, but what about now? WIndows 10 is a mess. Granted usable mess (after reitierating it over if from 2012) but still a mess

 

Google is predominatly a search engine company that they excel at and eventually grew into other things and they've done a decent job. Apple is both software and hardware and you know where Apple is today. Samsung is predominatly a hardware company and they do make really good hardware in most spaces, say from phones, to TVs, to home appliances. Microsoft is a software company and they cant even make good software. Even in cloud services, AWS is leading.

14 minutes ago, leadeater said:

And you also ignored that historically Windows operating system has actually been an exceptionally good choice and didn't just get where it has by fluke, also not sure where you came up with this Microsoft giving away Windows for free back then (back when?), it was not free at all.

More like it was the only option. My mistake, I thought I read somewhere Windows was free, but rather it was cheap and it came preinstalled in all IBM PCs. Macs at the time were quite expensive and Windows was made to run on any device. So naturally most people ended up with Windows. And as with OSes we have time and time again seen that it very hard to come out with something new when there aren't developers supporting it. That's why once plentiful smartphone OS market shrunk to only iOS and android

 

[AlTech]

5 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

And Windows server is usually one or two versions behind. The latest one 2019 is based on Windows 1809 codebase. So what about the general consumers? What are we beta testers?

Essentially yes. People who use Windows 10 Home and Pro are the beta testers of Windows Server and the people who are in the insider program are essentially the beta testers for the beta testers.

 

[leadeater]

13 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

Their cosumer softwares have always been pretty bad

 

13 minutes ago, RedRound2 said:

They were good when it was their main focus, during XP days

 

Can you make your mind up? Also Windows 7 is even more popular then XP was. I also think you seem to forget a lot of pre-2000 software were overall badly designed and made when evaluating with todays standards. Microsoft Office is also another standout good software they make that is the standard in the office productivity sector, so much so Microsoft has been through various lawsuits about it and their file format.

 

Sort of relevant but may I ask when you started using computers? It matters because some of us, potentially you, lived through pre-2000 personal computing with significant usage of them. I get the impression your experience of that pre-2000 period is limited.

[GDRRiley]

10 hours ago, Dracarris said:

How do you arrive at this absurd conclusion? This is simply not true. Both the air and especially the Pro-13" are bread-and-butter daily-driver models for many people in IT, engineering and academia (not only students at all).

being in IT and working on engineering projects 13in laptops are just too small to get work done. It also sucks for content creation, I've edited photos and videos on 13 and 15in macbook pros. I'll take a 15 every time.

14-16 is the sweet spot. (in 16x10 or 15x10:3/2) got to get those extra few inches vertical

Edited November 11, 2020 by GDRRiley
added taller displays

[captain_to_fire]

This is the real “one more thing”, imo. Apple is bringing back the “Get a Mac” campaign from 2006-2009. He pretty much described my current laptop (i3-7100U) when I’m having a Google Meet or Zoom class, the fans spin so loud.
 

 

[captain_to_fire]

1 hour ago, leadeater said:

What about Active Directory, the most widely deployed authentication and administration tool/software

Forgive my ignorance but, is Active Directory the same as Azure?

[leadeater]

1 minute ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

Forgive my ignorance but, is Active Directory the same as Azure?

No, Active Directory is a server role found in Windows Server. Among it's functions it's an LDAP server, so that's a good place to have a quick look at. Active Directory also has other fasciitis to it like Group Policy which is the part that no other OS has an equivalent of to the same standard, or even close to. Apple has Profile Manager but that's extremely limited in comparison, still a nice tool to have and I wouldn't not want it. 

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, like_ooh_ahh said:

This is the real “one more thing”, imo. Apple is bringing back the “Get a Mac” campaign from 2006-2009. He pretty much described my current laptop (i3-7100U) when I’m having a Google Meet or Zoom class, the fans spin so loud.
 

 

Omg yes, I love these cringy ads lol. Glad they are back.