As another datapoint Ian (of Anandtech) estimated that the M1 would need to be clocked at 3.25Ghz to match Zen 3, and these systems are showing a 3.2Ghz clock: https://twitter.com/IanCutress/status/1326516048309460992
M2, M3... that is when I think we will see stellar performance against things like Ryzen.
I’m excited for whatever is next.
Apple often has 2-3 future generations in development. This was just the first complete design they turned into a product.
That RAM design, tho...
It'd be more surprising at this point if it _wasn't_ more powerful.
Doubtful. You know they've been using ARM-based Macs with the requisite version of macOS for at least a year inside of Apple.
They've done a processor transition two other times; unlike the last two times, this time Apple controls the entire stack, which wasn't the case going from 68K to PowerPC or from PowerPC to Intel.
Apple has been designing their own processors for a decade now. There's nothing in the smartphone/tablet market that even comes close to the performance of the A series in the iPhone and iPad; there's no reason to believe this will be any different.
Apple has been running a version of OS X on these CPUs for 10 years now. The only thing which is "beta" here is Rosetta.
Now things are settled a bit I thought may be it isn't as bad as I thought . Had the MacBook Air Priced any lower, it would have seriously hurt their sales of 16" MBP. Once MacBook Pro transition to ARM, with a rumoured of Mini-LED Screen refreshed as 14" and 16". ( MingChiKuo has been extremely accurate with regards to Display Technology used on iPad and Mac ) So MBP wont be lower in price but offer more features ( Mini-LED is quite costly ). And possibly an M2 with HBE? I am not sure how Apple is going to coupe with the bandwidth requirement. It would need to be LPDDR5 Quad Channel at 200GB/s or HBM2 if we assume M2 will double the GPU core again.
May be only then Apple could afford to offer a MacBook 12" at $799. And educational price at $699. Although I am not sure if that is enough, Chrome Book in many classes are going at $299. Apple doesn't have to compete dollar to dollar in pricing, but 2X difference is going to be a hard battle to fight. But at least it would allow Apple to win key areas in Education market where TCO and Cost are not as stringent.
May be Apple will do just one more Final update for some Intel Mac like Mac Pro ( At least I hope they do for those who really need an x86 Mac )
Oh M3 in 2022, Still within the 2 years transitional period, I think we are going to see a 3nm monster Chip for Mac Pro. When Intel is Still on their 10nm. And I think 2022 is when we will see an Apple console. Cause I dont think the Mac Pro Monster SoC volume is enough for its own investment. Some other product will need to use that, and Game Console seems like a perfect fit. ( At least that is how I could put some sense to the Apple Console rumours )
"Don't upgrade MacOS to x.0 version" is already a common idea. Why would it be any different for their hardware?
Because hardware and software are very different. The M1 is the next stage of Apple’s A series of SoCs—and they've shipped over 1.5 billion of those. I’d like to think all of the R & D and real world experience Apple has learned since the A4 in 2010 has lead to where we are today with the M1.
If anything, this simplifies things quite a bit compared to using an Intel processor, a Radeon GPU (on recent Macs with discrete graphics), Intel’s EFI, etc. This transition has been in the works for several years and Apple knows they only get one shot a making a first impression; I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be shipping if they weren't ready. I’m not concerned in the least about buggy hardware. They just reported the best Mac quarter in the history of the company; it's not there's pressure to ship the new hotness because the current models aren't selling [1].
The release version of Big Sur for Intel Macs is 11.0.1 and I've been running it for 2 days now. It's been the smoothest macOS upgrade I've done in a long time—and I've done all of them, going back to Mac OS X Public Beta 20 years ago.
[1]: https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/29/21540815/apple-q4-2020-e...
>Whilst in the past 5 years Intel has managed to increase their best single-thread performance by about 28%, Apple has managed to improve their designs by 198%, or 2.98x (let’s call it 3x) the performance of the Apple A9 of late 2015.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
In the market, I think M1 systems will not alienate Apple-app-only users (Logic, Final Cut, Xcode-for-iPhone development) and may attract some purely single-page-application users.
Mostly, Zoom call efficiency will drive its broader adoption this year among the general population. If the Air is fast, quiet, and long lasting for Zoom calls, it will crush.
I won't buy one. I have a 32GB 6-core MBP that will satisfy my iOS dev needs until M2 (and a clearer picture of the transition has developed). But I might start recommend Airs to the folks sitting around our virtual yule log this year.
Apple is already doing quite well in the low-end education market with the base model iPad. These are competitive with Chromebooks on price. They also do a better job of replacing paper with Notability or GoodNotes and open up project opportunities with the video camera. Most kids seem to be fine with the on-screen keyboard, but that part is not ideal without an external keyboard/keyboard case.