Dissecting the Apple M1 GPU, the end

I never understood this project. Maybe I'm missing something, but the timescale is such that by the time they're done the product isn't even being sold anymore

At least with Panfrost it made more sense bc it still being used

M1 chip laptops can only be bought second hand at this point

I believe Walmart has a deal[1] with Apple to sell[2] M1 MacBook Airs. This has been the case for a year or so, so I don't think it's old stock. They have been in stock for since that date, and slowly getting cheaper.

[1]https://9to5mac.com/2024/03/16/walmart-m1-macbook-air-launch...

[2]https://www.walmart.com/ip/Apple-MacBook-Air-13-3-inch-Lapto...

Oh interesting! I for some reason thought Apple devices can only every be purchased from Apple (maybe that was only during the Steve Jobs era)

But 8GB of RAM.. that's unfortunately completely unusable by most developers. (Panfrost drivers you can at least use on RPi-like devices)

Maybe in another 5 years it'll work on the M3/4 and I'll revisit this. Good to know the devices are still being built so long after release

They’ve always been available at Best Buy, BH Photo, and other authorized partners in the US.

The Walmart deal is a total mystery. It started, seemingly, as dumping new old stock without selling it on Apple.com, but they’ve even updated the machine I think so clearly it’s an ongoing concern.

Nothing like it I know of for Apple, ever. I’d love to know the story.

I would guess Apple’s goal is increasing the number of people buying recurring Apple services, such as icloud and tv+.

It has been a long time since people have needed cutting edge laptops, so an M1 bought today will still work for 90% of people for the next 5+ years. Even if Apple doesn’t earn a large profit margin on the sale of the laptop, they could earn a decent amount on monthly services revenue, plus increased odds of that person buying a watch/airpods/phone/etc.

I would agree except the machines are so low spec I don’t think they’re a good experience.

An M1 is great. But RAM and storage won’t hold up as long.

I suspect they can sell them at that price and still make a killing, and all the equipment to make chassis/etc is already paid off.

Storage can at least be expanded externally, if at a cost of speed, reliability, and convenience.

For the RAM, 8GB is not enough, but in fairness, when the system can page out at 200GB/s, paging out doesn't hurt nearly as bad. Its only when things have to thrash the page file that it becomes readily apparent on these (say, an application needs to have more than a few GB of stuff resident in memory all the time).