Silicon Macs Announced

[MartyByrde]

Well, Apple had their Silicon event earlier today, and here is what they announced:

Apple unveils new MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini with its M1 chip

The switch from Intel processors to Apple Silicon is now underway, and Apple on Tuesday during its u201cOne more thingu201d event unveiled three Macs with Appleu2019s new M1 processors.

www.macworld.com

Need to wait regarding their speed and battery-usage claims, but certainly sounds impressive. I especially like the prices for the lower end Mac Mini and the MacBook Air. If I do make a move, it would be first to a new MacBook Air.

Nothing about Big Sur, though.

 

[maw_walker]

Bought the wife a new iMac with the M1. It's crazy thin and very snappy. Her usage is very minimal and I bought it to replace an ancient MacBook Pro. Got it for the screen size - we are not young and she can see the 24" monitor much better than a laptop screen.

 

[Nukeban]

Need to wait regarding their speed and battery-usage claims, but certainly sounds impressive.

It's impressive if one needs additional speed, which most people probably don't.

In my bombastic opinion, the key to selling these ever faster machines would be to offer one or more compelling new must have "killer apps" which require these advanced speeds. I don't know what that is really, but maybe something like a virtual reality platform which can run virtual reality apps from many developers? Something sexy like that...

Without some compelling new software, I'm not really all that sure how most of us would benefit from the advanced speeds. Am I really going to spend $1200 so a file opens in one second instead of 3 seconds?

What I see instead is that Apple is doing something very new in order to provide a feature most of us don't need, and that something new is likely to come with growing pain beta bugs that we also don't need. We might solve this by just waiting patiently until the M1 rollout has had time to mature, but by the time that happens M1 will be being phased out in favor of some other new technology.

All of the above could be discarded by those who really do need the new speeds. For example, the person who is using their Mac to do video editing or 3D development as a business, where resource demands are high and time is money.

What I see coming is that more and more people are going to figure out that they don't really need a pricey new Mac to do email, web and family photos, and so they'll choose a dramatically cheaper ChromeBook instead.

Apple is becoming more like a race car manufacturer who brags that their cars can go 160mph!!!! Ok, that's cool and everything, but where am I going to actually drive such a car??

 

[Nukeban]

A super knowledgeable video expert nerd on a video forum says that only apps designed for M1 will see a speed increase. In fact, he says Hitfilm runs slower on M1 machines than Intel machines, as there is as yet no M1 version of Hitfilm.

If this is correct, then built in Apple apps should see the speed increase, but other software may run slower than usual on the new machines, until that software is updated for M1.

If true, then users should probably check with the developer of any important software to see if/when it will be updated for M1 before buying a new Mac.

I have no idea how big of a deal updating apps for M1 will be or how long it will take.
If a user is not planning on buying a new Mac anytime soon then this is probably a non-issue.

 

[Lufbrarunner]

I will wait a while as I have no compelling reason to get a new machine. I do like the look of the orange iMac though

 

[maw_walker]

Wife loves her new iMac (pink). There was nothing wrong with her 2010 MacBook Pro but she is terribly impatient and waiting for it to do anything drove her nuts. I have upgraded her MacBook pro with an SSD and maxed out the ram but it's still not snappy enough for her. I guess a new one every decade isn't bad...