Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs.
Lol. You updated 200 Macs in 16 hours. Right.
And your billable rate is $25 an hour. Mkay.
How is that so hard to believe? Remember Macs of yore didn't need to be completely disassembled to upgrade the RAM (I know, right?? how novel!). The RAM slot was under the chin, a single 2.5mm Allen key allowed access, out with the old RAM and in with the new. 5 minutes at most. The 27" iMacs are barely more difficult now. If you had a clue you'd know it's a 5 minute job.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs.
Lol. You updated 200 Macs in 16 hours. Right.
And your billable rate is $25 an hour. Mkay.
Nothing he said sounds fishy. Not that I want Macs to back to the way they were, but RAM used to be easy.
I’m hoping for better cores, both CPU and GPU. That’s really much more important than huge numbers of cores for most people. Even after all this time, most software will work better with, as an example, two high power cores than with three cores, that together have the same performance as the more powerful two. And yes, this holds true for multitasking as well. Obviously I was thinking about the iPhone there.
but for desktops, the same is true, as we see from the M1, which has four high performance cores, and four low power cores, which together are around the power of one of the others, so we effectively have a five core chip. But that beats x86 six core chips, and equals, or slightly beats x86 8 core chips often. And 8 cores is about the maximum that most people can use. So I’d like to see an eight core chip where the cores are about 30% more powerful than current M1 chips. I’d much rather see that, than a 12 core chip with about equal performance per core as the M1. Most of those cores won’t be used most of the time.
if people turn activity monitor on, and just keep the core performance strip on when they use their computer, you’ll notice that all cores are rarely used, and when they are, usually they peak at a fraction of their ability. Fewer cores simply means that the peaks reached are higher.
what we’ve been seeing the last few years as x86 core performance dramatically slowed down for both AMD and Intel, is the core race. The same thing as the old MHz race. Apple getting caught up in that would not be a good thing. Do we really need 16 cores? Or the 32 cores some are predicting? No! The only place that comes in useful is in heavy Pro video editing, servers with virtual OS’s per core, large databases and spreadsheets. Nobody else can use that, including image editing, CAD and music production. Word processors basically require two cores for best performance, assuming fast cores.
a Mac Pro can always have two chips for more cores, the way my older Mac Pro’s have two Xeons. That way you can have faster clock speeds and more cores, if needed. Just remember, the more cores on a chip, the lower the clock speed and per core performance. Apple isn’t immune to that.
How about being able to connect two of those new 24” iMac’s together and using as one machine (workstation)? Apple can make it happen but they won’t.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs.
Lol. You updated 200 Macs in 16 hours. Right.
And your billable rate is $25 an hour. Mkay.
How is that so hard to believe? Remember Macs of yore didn't need to be completely disassembled to upgrade the RAM (I know, right?? how novel!). The RAM slot was under the chin, a single 2.5mm Allen key allowed access, out with the old RAM and in with the new. 5 minutes at most. The 27" iMacs are barely more difficult now. If you had a clue you'd know it's a 5 minute job.
Not a "billable rate", I was not a contractor.
I have a clue because I’ve moved a hundred or so Macs before as a volunteer.
And you didn’t boot to make sure it still worked? Nice.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs.
Lol. You updated 200 Macs in 16 hours. Right.
And your billable rate is $25 an hour. Mkay.
How is that so hard to believe? Remember Macs of yore didn't need to be completely disassembled to upgrade the RAM (I know, right?? how novel!). The RAM slot was under the chin, a single 2.5mm Allen key allowed access, out with the old RAM and in with the new. 5 minutes at most. The 27" iMacs are barely more difficult now. If you had a clue you'd know it's a 5 minute job.
Not a "billable rate", I was not a contractor.
I have a clue because I’ve moved a hundred or so Macs before as a volunteer.
And you didn’t boot to make sure it still worked? Nice.
Moving "a hundred or so Macs" is somehow equivalent to upgrading their RAM? Well next time I post a Mac to someone, I'll make note to expect a RAM upgrade mid-transit by the courier.
Since I was installing the RAM before I imaged the machines from our Xserves, yes I did boot them to make sure it worked. You don't need to wait for one machine to finish starting up before you begin installing RAM on the next.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
"Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. "
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
I agree, very few pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. But that is irrelevant, because very few non-pros need a smaller, sealed desktop computer either. Does the average person need to slot their iMac back into a gap between their toilet and fridge after use? Making it upgradable apparently means there's "fuss"? Whether they're interested in upgrading or not is also irrelevant, the point is they don't *need* a smaller, sealed desktop, making it thinner results in unnecessary compromises and makes upgrades impossible; which is used as an excuse that "people don't upgrade". Which I note no one has actually provided any concrete proof for. I'd wager Mac users traditionally have been more likely to upgrade their Macs, as they tend to be more knowledgeable and informed than your average PC user.
First off, you’re in no position to decide what the mass market consumer needs (and this is Apple’s core market by the way). I’m pretty sure they’re capable of deciding for themselves. And judging by Apple’s most popular products, they have spoken. They care about ease of use, convenience, mobility, integration & powerful tools in small packages. Steve Jobs understood this very well when he introduced the colourful lineup of iMacs in 1999. It also happened to be the device that saved Apple from going bankrupt.
Apple’s #1 goal with the new iMac was to make it as thin as possible to make a point. ARM-based chips are the future. You can have an incredibly powerful machine in an unbelievingly thin package. This is the original MacBook Air all over again. Apple is selling their vision of the future. With 1+ billion iPhone users, 400 iPad users & 130 million Mac users, I think they’re doing a pretty good job.
What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more RAM or storage space to a desktop machine bring? I await your reply, but I doubt you will since you never concede when asked something awkward.
The disadvantage is that it would be slower than the implementation in the M1 where the memory is in the package and “unified” to the processor.
More storage is just cost. $800 is a bit steep for 2TB but I can get an external 2TB Samsung T7 for about $300. I can do a single nvme 2TB ssd in a thunderbolt enclosure for not much more. 512MB is reasonable to host the OS and apps and for a desktop the mini with an external nvme based 4 ssd thunderbolt 3 RAID will be very speedy. Perhaps not as speedy as some the benchmarks for the M1 mini but that’s another trade off. If you want high speed storage then $800 may be a fair price given the performance.
So using slow swap and wearing out the soldered SSD is better than having slightly slower RAM off-package which won't run out? They're going to have to have RAM off-package for the >16GB models, else the package would be gigantic and you'd lose the advantage of on-package RAM anyway.
A TB enclosure with the same data transfer rate (4 lanes) as the internal SSD is $139, which is quite a bit more, and results in one of the whole two USB ports in use on the iMacs. That doesn't actually answer the second part of my question though, which was "What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more storage space to a desktop machine bring?" That was in the context of internal storage, to be clear.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
"Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. "
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
I agree, very few pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. But that is irrelevant, because very few non-pros need a smaller, sealed desktop computer either. Does the average person need to slot their iMac back into a gap between their toilet and fridge after use? Making it upgradable apparently means there's "fuss"? Whether they're interested in upgrading or not is also irrelevant, the point is they don't *need* a smaller, sealed desktop, making it thinner results in unnecessary compromises and makes upgrades impossible; which is used as an excuse that "people don't upgrade". Which I note no one has actually provided any concrete proof for. I'd wager Mac users traditionally have been more likely to upgrade their Macs, as they tend to be more knowledgeable and informed than your average PC user.
First off, you’re in no position to decide what the mass market consumer needs (and this is Apple’s core market by the way). I’m pretty sure they’re capable of deciding for themselves. And judging by Apple’s most popular products, they have spoken. They care about ease of use, convenience, mobility, integration & powerful tools in small packages. Steve Jobs understood this very well when he introduced the colourful lineup of iMacs in 1999. It also happened to be the device that saved Apple from going bankrupt.
Apple’s #1 goal with the new iMac was to make it as thin as possible to make a point. ARM-based chips are the future. You can have an incredibly powerful machine in an unbelievingly thin package. This is the original MacBook Air all over again. Apple is selling their vision of the future. With 1+ billion iPhone users, 400 iPad users & 130 million Mac users, I think they’re doing a pretty good job.
And you're in a position to tell me that consumers do actually need a smaller, sealed desktop, and it's not actually a way of Apple upselling to the next version that has at least a few more of the ports of the model it replaced? No I didn't think so. So if this iMac hits the spot as you say it does, then we should see Mac sales double in the next year? Or will they stay near enough flat as they have since about 2012/2013?
Great, is that "to make a point" like they did with the Macbooks with the butterfly keyboards? I agree ARM is the future, but form over function and doing things "to make a point" isn't a customer focussed strategy.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
For many products, a lack of upgradability means a smaller, sealed product which is more reliable and easier to carry around. In my own business, we generally had about 32 Macs. We would replace about a third every year, moving them down a tier in production until the forth year, when we either sold them or gave them away to employees. So we replaced all of our Macs over a three year period. Every other production house I knew did pretty much the same thing. My wife worked at Citicorp for 28 years, and she got a new computer every three years too, and most corporations are on a three year replacement schedule.
we found that it cost more, and was a loss in productivity, to upgrade machines. For a short while that was a popular thing, as you could get excellent CPU upgrades for the Mac, significantly enhancing performance, something that never worked well with Windows machines. What we found best was to just get machines equipped the way we needed them in the first place. If you’re making real money with your machine, either as an individual, or as a corporation, you get to deduct many expenses, such as cost of equipment in several ways for tax purposes, making your purchases less expensive over the life of the machine. Discuss it with your accountant.
increasing RAM can help, but not by nearly as much as you think. The reason why some claim this as a big thing is because they bought the lowest config in the beginning, which was below their needs. So yes, increasing it made a noticeable difference. But if you buy what you need in the beginning, adding more leads to a minor difference. Same thing with drives. Don’t skimp on a startup drive. Smaller drives and storage is always slower. That’s true for hard drives, SSD’s and internal NAND storage. There are real reasons for that. Figure out what you really need, and double it. Be realistic about both. Remember these days that 512 NAND will be almost twice as fast as 256, and that 1TB doesn’t add much speed above that. But I always get 1TB startup because you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health.
there are a bunch of common sense rules to follow if you understand your needs and how to satisfy them. Upgrading in mid stream rarely gets you much unless you starved your machine in the beginning.
Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer.
Your business is one data point, the business I worked at had about 200 Macs and we would buy the base config. I personally upgraded the RAM in each machine, saving around $150 on Apple's prices. It took about 5 minutes per Mac, and about $400 of my time to do so for all 200 Macs. That is absolutely worth it. And you are right - they were below our needs until I upgraded them. Why should we give Apple $150 extra per machine for RAM they should have had in the first place? Of course with the 21.5" iMac it was almost impossible because Apple made the idiotic decision to put the RAM on the back of the logic board and remove the upgrade door, so it goes from 5 minutes to 2 hours, making it not worth it. Also getting more SSD space from Apple is extortionate too, so with all the things you claim people should get ends up with each machine costing $3000 rather than the $1500 starting price. That is unjustifiable for a lot of people, businesses included. People may be able to afford the base machine at $1500 and then upgrades later, but not $3k in one go. They'll just get a PC instead that has the $1500 of Apple config options for $400.
Also you make way too many generalisations about NAND; 512GB is only twice as fast as 256GB if the manufacturer used a single 256GB chip rather than two 128GB ones. Some 1TB NAND uses 4 256GB chips, and is faster than 512GB. Also "you really shouldn’t keep NAND more than about 60% full for good NAND long term health" is rubbish. The controllers shuffle data around to keep the charge in cells fresh, and to exercise old cells. SSDs have spare flash to facilitate this.
"Very few people need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. "
Very few Pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. For the mass market, a desktop like the iMac is a great choice. They're not interested in upgrading their machine. The users in that market only care about plugging and get using it. No fuss.
I agree, very few pro users need a smaller, sealed desktop computer. But that is irrelevant, because very few non-pros need a smaller, sealed desktop computer either. Does the average person need to slot their iMac back into a gap between their toilet and fridge after use? Making it upgradable apparently means there's "fuss"? Whether they're interested in upgrading or not is also irrelevant, the point is they don't *need* a smaller, sealed desktop, making it thinner results in unnecessary compromises and makes upgrades impossible; which is used as an excuse that "people don't upgrade". Which I note no one has actually provided any concrete proof for. I'd wager Mac users traditionally have been more likely to upgrade their Macs, as they tend to be more knowledgeable and informed than your average PC user.
First off, you’re in no position to decide what the mass market consumer needs (and this is Apple’s core market by the way). I’m pretty sure they’re capable of deciding for themselves. And judging by Apple’s most popular products, they have spoken. They care about ease of use, convenience, mobility, integration & powerful tools in small packages. Steve Jobs understood this very well when he introduced the colourful lineup of iMacs in 1999. It also happened to be the device that saved Apple from going bankrupt.
Apple’s #1 goal with the new iMac was to make it as thin as possible to make a point. ARM-based chips are the future. You can have an incredibly powerful machine in an unbelievingly thin package. This is the original MacBook Air all over again. Apple is selling their vision of the future. With 1+ billion iPhone users, 400 iPad users & 130 million Mac users, I think they’re doing a pretty good job.
And you're in a position to tell me that consumers do actually need a smaller, sealed desktop, and it's not actually a way of Apple upselling to the next version that has at least a few more of the ports of the model it replaced? No I didn't think so. So if this iMac hits the spot as you say it does, then we should see Mac sales double in the next year? Or will they stay near enough flat as they have since about 2012/2013?
Great, is that "to make a point" like they did with the Macbooks with the butterfly keyboards? I agree ARM is the future, but form over function and doing things "to make a point" isn't a customer focussed strategy.
Wow, just a few too many straw man arguments for a single reading, so I'm surmising that you will post again, and again?
Great fairly predictable what will be interesting is what direction M2 goes?
Right on to my desk inside a new 27”-30” iMac or Mac as soon as possible.
Same here maybe given we are sorely in need of some new hardware in the office. As has been answered well in the thread the kind of interesting general question is what M1->M2 tells us about future M3 and beyond.
To your other comments. x-ray view of 24 iMac seems like it's set up to have a different motherboard in it and suddenly be a Display. Still yes 2 iMacs side by side working as one would be choice. Although iMac, Second Display and M1 iPadPro all working as a team would be my weapon of choice personally. Hoping this still might happen it's kind of the final part of Steve Jobs return to Apple roadmap that hasn't become real yet.
Hey if not upgradable memory then it would be cool to get "Storage Memory"CXL NAND on a replaceable card like is becoming popular in data centres. I see that fitting well with M1 architecture so far.
I love that Apple is breaking free of “evil inside” intel. I also like, the fact that Apple can now maneuver more quickly without the intel monkey on its back. Intel sits waaay too long on their chipsets, and definitely stifled/slowed apples progression. That said, sarcastic part here; why not just start in with the M2 chip or hell M3,4,5,6 ooh how about the MX!!? I mean cmon no one buys 1.0 of anything anymore anyway. To be clear, it’s also just as annoying to “innovate” so fast products don’t get a chance to land/mature. By moving so fast you alienate and leave folks frustrated. Owning a product for less than a year only to find its now incompatible with the latest features is just plain rude. Last months/weeks iPad Pro owners, sure are feeling the pain of that. Ok, enough of my complaining. Now the solution. Never ever buy anything Apple New again. Second market is the way to go! If you have the luxury of time on your side, don’t buy unless it’s a super deal… as many used Apple products have a unrealistic or way too high re-sale asking. Rule of thumb for buying used electronics, (a good deal) is at least 50% depreciation. Hope this helps someone out there, and helps get realistic pricing back on track for Apple stuff.
Adding cores improve, but only when there is better multithreading management. These days people stop using threads in development of applications and start using asynchronous programming paradigm for performance. When I see Firefox opening 430 threads on my old macOS and gets chocked blocking my system I wonder what ignorant wrote that software. On the other way same at Google people think that computer has endless amount of resources and opening new Chrome processes is the way to go (I am not sure if they have good practical engineers like we do in financial trading where we have to use super efficient and fast algorithms and methods ... or they just have theoretical scientists with attempts at practical processing solutions).
Agree. Different and better management would be rather obvious.
There are plenty of repairs you can make yourself on a modern automobile.
Unless you are a very experienced and/or certified car mechanic for the relevant modern/new car, please advise the next owner what repairs you have carried out before the sale is completed. It's highly unlikely that the next owner of such car would be me.
After seeing some of the dangerous repairs passed off by "certified" mechanics at official dealers, I'd trust a local garage or a car enthusiast more than I would them.
...but that isn't you, is it? You must have a different view than me of the term "modern automobile".
I cannot wait for this processor. The whining and denial from the PC crowd will be satisfying. Te M2 should place somewhere between the 12 -core or 16-Xeon in the MacPro in multi-core and push the GPU up to a serious discreet card level on par with the M5500 with up to 64GB or more of memory. It will be interesting to see where the memory is located, on or off package.
Should we glue everything together in cars too such that the entire thing has to be replaced when a tyre wears out?
Makers of MODERN automobiles ARE preferring glue to stitch their cars together. If they can avoid a weld or some bolts and nuts, they will certainly use glue. The glue is not the reason that MODERN cars gets scrapped if damaged. CERTIFIED workshops have the tools and competence to replace glued parts.
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
His biggest (only?) complaint about his M1 MacBook Air is that it can't meet his needs because it is frozen in time with what it came with when he bought it -- versus his MacPro which grew and developed with enhancements as his needs, wants and requirements grew.
Likewise, my 9 year old i7 Thinkpad runs perfectly well and meets all of my needs -- because it's been upgraded to a 500Gb SSD, 16Gb Ram and an internal harddrive used for ongoing, real time backups. Without those cheap and very simple to install (5 minutes or less) upgrades the machine would have been scrap
Statements such as this remind me of my now deceased father who used to long for the days of when he could service his car himself. I sometimes wonder what he would say seeing today's Teslas or Priuses.
Either way, all technology will move towards this way of doing things with ARM architecture taking up more space. Apple is just ahead of the curve on this.
I don't see the logic behind equating an inability to service or upgrade something as synonymous with better products.
How often do you service or upgrade your iPad? Your iPhone? Your Apple TV? Your Watch? Your TV set? etc... Yet these are clearly better products than the more-easily serviceable early-computing counter-parts, right? Side note, my grandad used to repair his vacuum-tube tele, but I have never done this nor will I. My solid-state flat panel TV lasts way longer, and by the time it fails, it won't be cost effective to try to repair its electronics. I'll dispose of it properly and get whatever newer tech is out.
You apparently don't understand the goals of appliance computing, after all these decades. That's fine, but that doesn't mean Apple is going to conform to you. Nor will you being able to crack open your Tesla and work on the OS or CPU.
The new Mac Pro is in some ways "clearly better" than the older Mac Pro, both of which are equally serviceable. You are making a false correlation that serviceability is mutually exclusive to how good a machine is. The lack of serviceability isn't the definition of how good a product is. What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more RAM or storage space to a desktop machine bring? I await your reply, but I doubt you will since you never concede when asked something awkward.
Not sure who you think you're kidding when you say there are consumer advantages to non-serviceable products, the only advantage is to Apple, more repair profits and more RAM/SSD upgrade profits. Should we glue everything together in cars too such that the entire thing has to be replaced when a tyre wears out?
R.E.L.I.A.B.I.L.I.T.Y 🤭
—compare mean time to failure of socketed vs soldered parts! Add to that, the increased cost of manufacturing the device.
favors the unibody-design not only because of the aesthetics and the fabulous sound when pronounced. Previously, MacBooks had replaceable battery. Great! A once mobile laptop rendered OFF unless tethered to uninterrupted power supply, is happiness to no one. Period. However, there are several unintended consequences: The latch to the battery compartment canwill break at some point. Further, available battery capacity is lower in a modular design as the interior, effective volume becomes compartmentalized and the exterior surface enlarged. —as a result, many users will notice their laptop develops an uneven base: the damn thing wobbles unless I rebalance it with gum!
Most of us should be more continuous about ecology, especially the way we perceive and dispose things instantaneously. However, remember the scale at which operates: It is vast! And cumulative cost of users delivering/returning devices to service are not to be dismissed.
And what about the resources to provide support to the DIY-crowd? We are tremendously stupid and there’s no end to our ingenuity when it comes to how we make use of even the simplest, idiotic proof hardware 😳
As interesting this is (or not), consider this: How come devices exhibit the highest resale value despite the increasing lockout of all but iFIXIT?
For all those defending the "Everything Glued together & soldered together" assembly of the MacBooks by saying "Nobody ever upgraded a computer", Andrew just called bull!
I'm pretty sure no one on this forum ever said what you've quoted.
People are literally saying that right in this thread.
Where?
People commenting about their personal use and their preference in the trade off is in no way the same thing as "nobody ever upgraded a computer".
Comments
Not a "billable rate", I was not a contractor.
Memory upgrade and the ability to connect two M2 iMac’s together side by side and run as one screen/computer would be nice.
How about being able to connect two of those new 24” iMac’s together and using as one machine (workstation)? Apple can make it happen but they won’t.
Since I was installing the RAM before I imaged the machines from our Xserves, yes I did boot them to make sure it worked. You don't need to wait for one machine to finish starting up before you begin installing RAM on the next.
A TB enclosure with the same data transfer rate (4 lanes) as the internal SSD is $139, which is quite a bit more, and results in one of the whole two USB ports in use on the iMacs. That doesn't actually answer the second part of my question though, which was "What disadvantages to you would the ability to add more storage space to a desktop machine bring?" That was in the context of internal storage, to be clear.
Great, is that "to make a point" like they did with the Macbooks with the butterfly keyboards? I agree ARM is the future, but form over function and doing things "to make a point" isn't a customer focussed strategy.
As has been answered well in the thread the kind of interesting general question is what M1->M2 tells us about future M3 and beyond.
To your other comments.
x-ray view of 24 iMac seems like it's set up to have a different motherboard in it and suddenly be a Display.
Still yes 2 iMacs side by side working as one would be choice. Although iMac, Second Display and M1 iPadPro all working as a team would be my weapon of choice personally.
Hoping this still might happen it's kind of the final part of Steve Jobs return to Apple roadmap that hasn't become real yet.
Hey if not upgradable memory then it would be cool to get "Storage Memory"CXL NAND on a replaceable card like is becoming popular in data centres. I see that fitting well with M1 architecture so far.
—compare mean time to failure of socketed vs soldered parts!
Add to that, the increased cost of manufacturing the device.
favors the unibody-design not only because of the aesthetics and the fabulous sound when pronounced. Previously, MacBooks had replaceable battery. Great! A once mobile laptop rendered OFF unless tethered to uninterrupted power supply, is happiness to no one. Period.
However, there are several unintended consequences: The latch to the battery compartment can will break at some point. Further, available battery capacity is lower in a modular design as the interior, effective volume becomes compartmentalized and the exterior surface enlarged.
—as a result, many users will notice their laptop develops an uneven base: the damn thing wobbles unless I rebalance it with gum!
Most of us should be more continuous about ecology, especially the way we perceive and dispose things instantaneously. However, remember the scale at which operates: It is vast! And cumulative cost of users delivering/returning devices to service are not to be dismissed.
And what about the resources to provide support to the DIY-crowd? We are tremendously stupid and there’s no end to our ingenuity when it comes to how we make use of even the simplest, idiotic proof hardware 😳
As interesting this is (or not), consider this: How come devices exhibit the highest resale value despite the increasing lockout of all but iFIXIT?
People commenting about their personal use and their preference in the trade off is in no way the same thing as "nobody ever upgraded a computer".