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re: Apple One More Thing- Apple Silicon
Posted on 11/12/20 at 8:43 am to colorchangintiger
Posted on 11/12/20 at 8:43 am to colorchangintiger
I'm really not trying to shite in the middle of you guys' circle jerk, but I just don't understand how Apple can always be so focused on hardware performance claims yet their products always seem slow as frick. Like is the OS really that fricking heavy?
This goes back to the 90s for me, when they used to make claims that their PPC chips were faster than Intel's. I just never saw it. I used a 90MHz PPC Mac side by side with a 75MHz Windows machine, and the Mac just got obliterated at every real-world task. And since then I haven't used Apple stuff very often, or for very long, but every time I have it has just been agonizing. "No viruses, no bloatware, 10X faster chips", and the experience has always just been click and wait. Spinning beach ball.
Granted, I doubt I have ever used a high end Mac, but I have used several MacBook Pros and they were all slow. But even low end Macs should be decent, right? Without exception, I have never ended a 5+ minute session on a Mac and come away with the impression that it was fast. I can't remember NOT thinking "why is this taking so long?"
So is it just bad luck? Or are Mac users just used to it? I honestly don't get it.
This goes back to the 90s for me, when they used to make claims that their PPC chips were faster than Intel's. I just never saw it. I used a 90MHz PPC Mac side by side with a 75MHz Windows machine, and the Mac just got obliterated at every real-world task. And since then I haven't used Apple stuff very often, or for very long, but every time I have it has just been agonizing. "No viruses, no bloatware, 10X faster chips", and the experience has always just been click and wait. Spinning beach ball.
Granted, I doubt I have ever used a high end Mac, but I have used several MacBook Pros and they were all slow. But even low end Macs should be decent, right? Without exception, I have never ended a 5+ minute session on a Mac and come away with the impression that it was fast. I can't remember NOT thinking "why is this taking so long?"
So is it just bad luck? Or are Mac users just used to it? I honestly don't get it.
4
Posted on 11/12/20 at 9:47 am to Korkstand
I've had the complete opposite experience as you. I still have a 2012 Mac Mini that works great and a 4 year old MacBook Air that still feels like the day I bought it. Call me crazy but I don't think they slow down at all. I've had plenty of Windows PC's for work and I always feel like they bog down after a year or so, never fails. I'm not a fanboy, I just enjoy using the OS and have had great luck with a few products.
Posted on 11/12/20 at 10:01 am to Korkstand
Last Mac I owned was an '07 MacBook with a Core 2 duo, 7200rpm drive. I bought it used 3 years after it was made. It compared very well to the laptops I had around that time in terms of the speed to get things done.
Just like my windows laptops in those eras, it would "hang" up on certain tasks. There were a few things that it truly sucked at doing (quicktime to youtube upload was an integrated feature all the way back then, but for me it was a 2.5 hour process or longer).
The OS is very different. I used to play around on a handful of linux distros, including a laptop around this time that ran Ubuntu 10.04 + Win7. I thought Ubuntu was the best OS of the 3 and the performance was better than the others fairly significantly, but I don't think the actual OSX was "bad." And it felt much less resource-intense than Win7, but there were just a few tasks that my machine was not doing well with.
It's got all the advanced features you could ask for, but if you want to go beyond the real simple stuff that 90% of users use, sometimes it gets a bit complicated to find settings. It's absolutely no harder than googling "how do I...?" And you find an answer quickly. It's more organized to find answers than Ubuntu forums. It's fairly comparable to Windows online, I'd wager. The difference is that everyone's got a neighbor, brother, cousin, etc that knows Windows inside and out and can do just about anything. If you're interested in things beyond what's available, you can search GitHub and find a custom program or script for just about anything you want to do on windows already written. Maybe I just haven't looked since I was playing with a laptop and not that interested in using the machine for home server and automation tasks, but I didn't see this sort of widely available stuff. Doesn't mean it isn't there. Doesn't mean it isn't easy to write, but the relative unpopularity for that sector is somewhat evident there.
Takeaway: the OS is passable and not really phenomenal or bad. I didn't have your experience of it being unbelievably slow. Playing around on them in their store through the years, I never found them impressively fast or slow. They seemed like computers that worked well enough once you figure out where things are.
But what am I actually excited about?
1) mobile app integration with continuity into a desktop OS.
No one does this. Bluestacks exists. Bluestacks functions. I don't know that it does much more than that. It doesn't "hand off" information from one platform to the next.
1.1) there's now finally an overpriced streaming box that has a web browser and essentially every available streaming app. It's ability to be controlled by a Logitech Harmony will make me real excited or real annoyed
2) quoted battery life is impressive for the laptops. I doubt I'll own a laptop anytime soon
3) let's say it doesn't suck. $700 for a desktop that is capable + includes a pretty usable alternative to MS Office for those who struggle with tech (ie: parents. I'm talking mostly about geriatric parents). At the price, you're going to get limited hard drive space which is a pretty huge negative that annoys me to no end, but external and cloud storage is nearly negligibly cheap these days, so to add texting and facetime to a platform that (in my case) they're more likely to sit down in front of and use that is going to have decent longevity is a pretty decent deal.
What I didn't say there was:
-you can't beat it for the price
-The apple productivity/creative suites are better than others
-Facetime is better than (pick)
But one thing I've come to accept is:
So many damn people are using these platforms that it's just easier to get on board. Because Grandma isn't downloading Skype, Mom needs a new computer to build the slideshow she puts together every year for her kindergarten class, my group text with 6 coworkers aren't going to stop being annoyed that my bubbles are green (and they're not downloading GroupMe).
In a bubble where enough people are using their products for the interactive stuff, their products are absolutely passable. Piecing things together to find the best application to do what I want it to do is fun for me. I've learned that most the people around me aren't like me in that regard. And I'm often the one they ask for help, so I'm trying to learn a new thing. I like new things.
I'm not getting rid of my desktop. In fact, I just upgraded the GPU on it (good luck trying that on the new m1 Macs. And good luck trying to compete with essentially any modern discreet GPU). It's a toy that I'm excited about playing with. The numbers are fun to look at.
Just like my windows laptops in those eras, it would "hang" up on certain tasks. There were a few things that it truly sucked at doing (quicktime to youtube upload was an integrated feature all the way back then, but for me it was a 2.5 hour process or longer).
The OS is very different. I used to play around on a handful of linux distros, including a laptop around this time that ran Ubuntu 10.04 + Win7. I thought Ubuntu was the best OS of the 3 and the performance was better than the others fairly significantly, but I don't think the actual OSX was "bad." And it felt much less resource-intense than Win7, but there were just a few tasks that my machine was not doing well with.
It's got all the advanced features you could ask for, but if you want to go beyond the real simple stuff that 90% of users use, sometimes it gets a bit complicated to find settings. It's absolutely no harder than googling "how do I...?" And you find an answer quickly. It's more organized to find answers than Ubuntu forums. It's fairly comparable to Windows online, I'd wager. The difference is that everyone's got a neighbor, brother, cousin, etc that knows Windows inside and out and can do just about anything. If you're interested in things beyond what's available, you can search GitHub and find a custom program or script for just about anything you want to do on windows already written. Maybe I just haven't looked since I was playing with a laptop and not that interested in using the machine for home server and automation tasks, but I didn't see this sort of widely available stuff. Doesn't mean it isn't there. Doesn't mean it isn't easy to write, but the relative unpopularity for that sector is somewhat evident there.
Takeaway: the OS is passable and not really phenomenal or bad. I didn't have your experience of it being unbelievably slow. Playing around on them in their store through the years, I never found them impressively fast or slow. They seemed like computers that worked well enough once you figure out where things are.
But what am I actually excited about?
1) mobile app integration with continuity into a desktop OS.
No one does this. Bluestacks exists. Bluestacks functions. I don't know that it does much more than that. It doesn't "hand off" information from one platform to the next.
1.1) there's now finally an overpriced streaming box that has a web browser and essentially every available streaming app. It's ability to be controlled by a Logitech Harmony will make me real excited or real annoyed
2) quoted battery life is impressive for the laptops. I doubt I'll own a laptop anytime soon
3) let's say it doesn't suck. $700 for a desktop that is capable + includes a pretty usable alternative to MS Office for those who struggle with tech (ie: parents. I'm talking mostly about geriatric parents). At the price, you're going to get limited hard drive space which is a pretty huge negative that annoys me to no end, but external and cloud storage is nearly negligibly cheap these days, so to add texting and facetime to a platform that (in my case) they're more likely to sit down in front of and use that is going to have decent longevity is a pretty decent deal.
What I didn't say there was:
-you can't beat it for the price
-The apple productivity/creative suites are better than others
-Facetime is better than (pick)
But one thing I've come to accept is:
So many damn people are using these platforms that it's just easier to get on board. Because Grandma isn't downloading Skype, Mom needs a new computer to build the slideshow she puts together every year for her kindergarten class, my group text with 6 coworkers aren't going to stop being annoyed that my bubbles are green (and they're not downloading GroupMe).
In a bubble where enough people are using their products for the interactive stuff, their products are absolutely passable. Piecing things together to find the best application to do what I want it to do is fun for me. I've learned that most the people around me aren't like me in that regard. And I'm often the one they ask for help, so I'm trying to learn a new thing. I like new things.
I'm not getting rid of my desktop. In fact, I just upgraded the GPU on it (good luck trying that on the new m1 Macs. And good luck trying to compete with essentially any modern discreet GPU). It's a toy that I'm excited about playing with. The numbers are fun to look at.
Posted on 11/12/20 at 10:05 am to OSoBad
Crazy. I have a 2011 Mac Mini right here that is almost unbearably slow on a fresh install, and my daily driver is still a 2012 model Thinkpad (running Linux) that still rips through everything I do on it. It's just night and day, same experience I've had through 25 years of computer use.
I know Windows can bog down after a while, but fresh installs of up to date OS side by side on same-era hardware, you find the Mac faster?
I know Windows can bog down after a while, but fresh installs of up to date OS side by side on same-era hardware, you find the Mac faster?
Posted on 11/12/20 at 10:32 am to Hopeful Doc
Hey I get it. I get why people try Apple, and I get why they like it. I even find OSX mildly enjoyable in some ways when it isn't dragging me through the mud.
And I know that Apple is always innovating in hardware, and this chip might be very impressive. It might even be mindblowing as far as performance per watt. I'm just saying that, thus far, I am highly confused by their marketing like "5X this or that" and reality ends up being almost the exact opposite for me.
Regardless, I think moving all their machines to ARM is an excellent idea for them. For a long time I've thought they would eventually merge iOS and OSX, and it looks like they're finally doing it.
And I know that Apple is always innovating in hardware, and this chip might be very impressive. It might even be mindblowing as far as performance per watt. I'm just saying that, thus far, I am highly confused by their marketing like "5X this or that" and reality ends up being almost the exact opposite for me.
Regardless, I think moving all their machines to ARM is an excellent idea for them. For a long time I've thought they would eventually merge iOS and OSX, and it looks like they're finally doing it.
quote:Yeah that's kind of the holy grail. Hasn't Google pretty much pulled this off already on Chromebooks? Personally, being a huge Linux fan, I'm more interested in the advances KDE, Gnome, and other desktops are making in scaling down to mobile screens. There are some libraries being developed to help desktop apps scale down and be responsive to screen size, as well.
But what am I actually excited about?
1) mobile app integration with continuity into a desktop OS.
No one does this.
Posted on 11/12/20 at 11:03 am to Korkstand
quote:
Hasn't Google pretty much pulled this off already on Chromebooks?
I've admittedly never touched a chromebook, so I will have to admit ignorance here. I read very mixed reviews from unusably slow to "best email checker around." I've never read positive or negatives about using Android apps on chromebooks. I need to look into that- sounds like another new toy to try once I get the wife behind it!
The flip side that I sort of left out before: my current phone is a Note 9. It has "Samsung DeX" which I am not impressed with- it runs about as poorly as bluestacks. If there's a need for a mobile app and a big screen, it functions. But I'm not certain it does more than that. And it's not just on Windows either- I have a phillips 49" ultrawide monitor that has a handful of inputs, but then also a built in KVM and allows me to just plug USB-c into my phone and use my keyboard/mouse to run Samsung DeX directly on the monitor (I had originally thought it used the computer's hardware to emulate Android, but it runs on the monitor which has no OS or significant computing hardware that I'm aware of, and the monitor's USB-c doesn't share connection to the desktop's motherboard. It's merely a kvm/hub with 2 upstream connectors).
quote:
Personally, being a huge Linux fan, I'm more interested in the advances KDE, Gnome, and other desktops are making in scaling down to mobile screens. There are some libraries being developed to help desktop apps scale down and be responsive to screen size, as well.
I love this idea.
I was actually a huge fan of Windows Mobile and had the two Palm phones that ran mobile windows (750 and 850/pro I think). They were far ahead of their time.
I think Windows has somewhat peaked (and the others caught up) in terms of features, but Windows XP MCE was beyond ahead of its time, and it had so much useful capability at a relatively cheap price. Back in these days, I had zero desire to move away from it. The desktop cradle and phone picture/folder sync was ridiculously cool and useful. Palm had an online-based app store that you could purchase apps that would get delivered to the phone. And it was in the early days of SD card storage, meaning carrying around a flash drive was for the birds. Then windows tried to make a mobile phone OS that was more modern for touchscreens that never really caught on, for one reason or another. And even now, the windows store apps seem fairly stripped down vs native desktop apps without the real benefit of being optimized for a mobile platform, because they killed that off.
Why do I bring up something totally different?
Because Apple is the bastards who gained the market share to make the idea that was semi-functioning 15 years ago popular. And they're doing it at the time where browser-based apps are now probably close to the majority of what people use.
While I like linux in at least a handful of forms, I don't see it reaching the point that my wife can sit on the couch, control it with a remote to pull up Netflix, get a text from her brother on the screen, and then start a family facetime call from the tv before deciding she wants to walk outside and show off the flower beds, or whatever the frick women use facetime for.
Could all of that be done one way or another now? Yes. And it would be particularly difficult. But no one does it with anythint. At least not anyone I know.
Now off to look into chromebooks...
Posted on 11/12/20 at 12:10 pm to Hopeful Doc
quote:
*Macbook Pro.
Article literally states
quote:
the single-core performance is better than any other available Mac
Posted on 11/12/20 at 12:59 pm to Korkstand
None of the stuff you are saying matches up with mine and many others' experiences with macs. Maybe you are a hater?
The old PowerPC macs probably weren't that great for average users, but they were money for video and audio production. The current x86 macs continue that tradition and this new ARM silicon, with the special ML instruction sets will be great for video production/SFX.
My daily driver is a 15" 2013 Macbook Pro retina and it is still rock solid and snappy. Combined with Logic Pro X, it is great for producing and mixing audio.
What Apple is doing here with the M1 chips isn't entirely new, but it's still a game-changer. Everyone will follow. The move away from generic x86 chips will allow the Apple ecosystem to thrive. Plus, all reports indicate that these chips are indeed a leap forward in performance.
The old PowerPC macs probably weren't that great for average users, but they were money for video and audio production. The current x86 macs continue that tradition and this new ARM silicon, with the special ML instruction sets will be great for video production/SFX.
My daily driver is a 15" 2013 Macbook Pro retina and it is still rock solid and snappy. Combined with Logic Pro X, it is great for producing and mixing audio.
What Apple is doing here with the M1 chips isn't entirely new, but it's still a game-changer. Everyone will follow. The move away from generic x86 chips will allow the Apple ecosystem to thrive. Plus, all reports indicate that these chips are indeed a leap forward in performance.
This post was edited on 11/12/20 at 1:02 pm
Posted on 11/12/20 at 1:57 pm to BeepNode
quote:Nah. I mean have you even tried using similarly priced Macs and PCs?
None of the stuff you are saying matches up with mine and many others' experiences with macs. Maybe you are a hater?
quote:Yeah it seems they optimize for this type of "creative" work, but even so similarly priced PCs tend to match or beat Macs at their forte. And then when doing more general purpose computing Macs have always been dog slow for me. I guess I'm alone, eh?
The old PowerPC macs probably weren't that great for average users, but they were money for video and audio production. The current x86 macs continue that tradition and this new ARM silicon, with the special ML instruction sets will be great for video production/SFX.
quote:Maybe so, but the marketing says the same thing for every generation. By Apple's guess, they are outpacing the rest of the industry by an order of magnitude, and I just haven't seen it. They put out charts with unlabeled axes.
all reports indicate that these chips are indeed a leap forward in performance.
If you like the OS, use it. If it doesn't feel slow to you, great. But if these new chips perform per dollar and per watt like they say they will, we would all be stupid to buy anything else. I don't see it happening.
Posted on 11/15/20 at 12:54 pm to Hopeful Doc
I upgraded my mbp to Big Sur yesterday and it feels more like iOS.
It could be that they just want to share design and be consistent but I wonder if this means that touchscreens are coming to macs or if the desktop OS is coming to the iPad pros.
It could be that they just want to share design and be consistent but I wonder if this means that touchscreens are coming to macs or if the desktop OS is coming to the iPad pros.
Posted on 11/15/20 at 4:01 pm to BeepNode
I think it’s more likely that the iPad Pro/MacBook merges into one product line in the next few years
Posted on 11/15/20 at 4:15 pm to tlsu15
Looking at buying a MacBook Pro and have never owned a Mac product and am not tech savvy. Reading through this topic was like trying to read Chinese for me.
Can y’all breakdown the performance I should expect from a new MacBook Pro if I get one and should I get one?
Can y’all breakdown the performance I should expect from a new MacBook Pro if I get one and should I get one?
Posted on 11/15/20 at 5:16 pm to TigerGrad2011
quote:
Can y’all breakdown the performance I should expect from a new MacBook Pro if I get one and should I get one?
It's difficult to say at this point. We'll know more once people get them in their hands and developers start trying to take advantage of the new chips.
My guess is that it'll be a mixed bag. For me, I'm interested in audio production, video editing, running docker containers, etc. I think it'll be great for this unless you use 3rd party apps that are older and not good about updating their software. (*cough* protools *cough*)
Posted on 11/15/20 at 7:12 pm to BeepNode
quote:
I think it'll be great for this unless you use 3rd party apps that are older and not good about updating their software.
There is a built in emulator(Rosetta 2) that converts the application on the first start to work on silicon. Apple engineers say the first time you open an app, it recompiles it in around 20 seconds. After that, it opens as any other app.
Posted on 11/15/20 at 7:46 pm to OSoBad
quote:
There is a built in emulator(Rosetta 2) that converts the application on the first start to work on silicon. Apple engineers say the first time you open an app, it recompiles it in around 20 seconds. After that, it opens as any other app.
Yes, and they claim that the x86 apps will run at native speeds and in some cases faster. That's no small feat. We shall see.
Posted on 11/15/20 at 7:54 pm to Korkstand
quote:
Hasn't Google pretty much pulled this off already on Chromebooks?
Yes. The OS mounts and runs the Android applications natively. The Android apps are buggy at times. I have no doubt that Apple will provide a much cleaner experience. That said, being able to actually navigate the Android app files in the Debian CLI could be pretty powerful. ChromeOS has come a long way.
Just as impressive to me is how ChromeOS is now both a desktop OS as well as a tablet OS. I have a Lenovo Chromebook Duet and I love the little device. I can do some light work on it in desktop mode, switch it into tablet mode to take notes while I'm doing site surveys, or for media consumption and social media. Even games.. My wife has an HP Chromebook where the screen flips and turns into a giant tablet also, and we love our Chromebooks for what they are.
I have digressed from the OP but wanted to express my experience with a Chromebook.
More relevant to the OP, I use Mac and Windows both, and I have found that my Mac laptops for work last impressively long. I had a 2011 Macbook Pro up until 2019 and honestly it still functioned pretty well. I switched it out for a 2016 because the 2011 fans were basically constantly spinning at max because the processor was struggling, and it was LOUD during meetings with customers. I am still using the 2016 and have started running into similar issues now so probably going to get a new one in a year or two.
ETA
The old 2011 is still our IP group's lab & packet capturing machine, too. Functions well enough for that still.
This post was edited on 11/16/20 at 6:55 am
Posted on 11/16/20 at 12:01 am to TigerGrad2011
quote:
Can y’all breakdown the performance I should expect from a new MacBook Pro if I get one and should I get one?
This thread is speculation and anticipation.
Check back in a week or two for experiences and early reviews.
Posted on 11/16/20 at 12:43 am to Hulkklogan
There's supposedly a benchmark on GeekBench for the fanless Macbook Air with the M1 chip. What's raised my eyebrows is that the scores are higher than the latest 16" Macbook Pro with an 8-core i9 cpu. 
LINK
The new macs will be in the hands of tech blogs this Tuesday. If these scores are anywhere close to accurate then they are about to print money.
LINK
The new macs will be in the hands of tech blogs this Tuesday. If these scores are anywhere close to accurate then they are about to print money.
This post was edited on 11/16/20 at 12:46 am
Posted on 11/16/20 at 9:18 am to BeepNode
Yeah the performance claims are pretty wild, especially with this being their 1st iteration. I wonder what their next silicon chip bring next year when they update the 16" models and Mac Pros.
Posted on 11/17/20 at 12:50 pm to OSoBad
The MKBHD review is out. Of course these people have had the m1 macs for week in advance. The performance is so good it makes Macs the cheapest way to get a really fast and thin laptop.
ETA: The $999 MacBook Air runs Photoshop faster than a pimped out Dell XPS, and that’s in spite of Adobe not recompiling for ARM.
ETA: The $999 MacBook Air runs Photoshop faster than a pimped out Dell XPS, and that’s in spite of Adobe not recompiling for ARM.
This post was edited on 11/17/20 at 1:42 pm
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