The bell is tolling for Intel Macs with the arrival of the first Apple Silicon specific fe...

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  • Reply 21 of 39
    swineoneswineone Posts: 66member
    swineone said:
    many of the best new macOS Monterey features will only work on Apple Silicon. And so they should.

    Planned obsolescence much? Indeed that's the case as will be clear from the breakdown below.

    [pretend engineering snipped]

    Conclusion: yeah, it's all marketing, and Apple pressuring us into an upgrade we don't really need. So much for being so "green", it's all about the greenbacks (as well it should be, but let's not pretend Apple is a saint).
    Nah, you just made up a bunch of crap and claimed it as fact.
    Do you have any counterarguments, or only lame attempts at disqualifying my well reasoned arguments? Protip: that’s how you lose, not win, arguments.

    As for “pretend engineering”, I do happen to be an engineer, and quite well qualified to speak on the matter. But let’s not turn this into an argument of authority. Just point out precisely where I am wrong. I’ll be happy to eat crow if you’re right.
    williamlondonmuthuk_vanalingamMplsPmobirdelijahg
  • Reply 22 of 39
    blastdoorblastdoor Posts: 3,258member
    Webex and Zoom on intel Macs do the blurring thing and virtual backgrounds. Dragon voice recognition software has done on-device dictation for a long time. Etc.

    I can appreciate that apple might not want to bother implementing these features on intel, and I can appreciate that these features might work much better on an M1 MBA than intel MBA because of performance per watt. But it’s disingenuous to suggest these features could not be implemented on beefier desktop intel Macs — they almost certainly could. 
    muthuk_vanalingamwilliamlondonmobirdBeats
  • Reply 23 of 39
    Fidonet127Fidonet127 Posts: 507member
    It isn't that these features will not work on Intel Macs, however I think Apple is choosing to implement these using the features of the ASi Macs to ensure smooth usage of these features. This creates a different in code, that Apple may not want to spend the resources to create the code needed for Intel Macs. The Intel Macs still do 100% of what they did when they were bought.

    Other companies do the same thing. I have a game, that ran fine on older OSs and computers. When they added Metal and ASI optimizations, they then required Big Sur or later. They could of spent the time and money to have the game optimized with Metal and still work on earlier OSs. However it wasn't worth the money spent. 
    williamlondonBeatscrowleyDetnatorwatto_cobra
  • Reply 24 of 39
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    blastdoor said:
    Webex and Zoom on intel Macs do the blurring thing and virtual backgrounds. Dragon voice recognition software has done on-device dictation for a long time. Etc.

    I can appreciate that apple might not want to bother implementing these features on intel, and I can appreciate that these features might work much better on an M1 MBA than intel MBA because of performance per watt. But it’s disingenuous to suggest these features could not be implemented on beefier desktop intel Macs — they almost certainly could. 
    Maybe they don’t want to do them on beefier desktop Intel Macs. 

    Maybe they want to do them on low end Macs without turning a small room into an oven. 
    williamlondonDetnatorwatto_cobra
  • Reply 25 of 39
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    blastdoor said:
    Webex and Zoom on intel Macs do the blurring thing and virtual backgrounds. Dragon voice recognition software has done on-device dictation for a long time. Etc.

    I can appreciate that apple might not want to bother implementing these features on intel, and I can appreciate that these features might work much better on an M1 MBA than intel MBA because of performance per watt. But it’s disingenuous to suggest these features could not be implemented on beefier desktop intel Macs — they almost certainly could. 

    Well of course they could. I don’t think anyone is saying that it isn’t possible… it’s possible to pound in a nail with a rock, doesn't mean anyone would or should. To me this seems obvious that Apple is attempting to increase efficiency and move all new developmental efforts to target their entire line of products. Apple silicon provides extra functionality that does not hinder the performance of the rest of the system. An Intel CPU trying to perform the same functionality of the ANE and ISP and other specialized processors, would tax the system with a noticeable performance hit.

    And by the way… having less features does not make something obsolete.
    williamlondoncrowleyDetnatorwatto_cobra
  • Reply 26 of 39
    snow66snow66 Posts: 15member
    I wonder if a majority of these Apple Silicon specific features such as blurred facetime backgrounds are implemented using the Apple Neural Engine.  If so adding those features to a M1 based Mac would be a minor lift and shift from the iOS code base, compared to a complete new development effort to implement these on Intel based Macs.

    While Apples M1 Macs demonstrate their ability to run Intel code on Apple Silicon, I'm sure Apple can't wait to take advantage of the efficiency and tight integration that common silicon across their entire product range brings to the table.  These are the benifits of making such a significant shift in architecture.  If they weren't going to do this, they would have stayed with Intel.

    FileMakerFellerwilliamlondonBeatsDetnatorwatto_cobra
  • Reply 27 of 39
    swineoneswineone Posts: 66member
    Look, it’s nice and all that people are mentioning the neural engine. It’s quite likely it’s being used for some of these features.

    However, assuming Apple has decent software engineers that actually follow best practices in the field (something you can no longer be sure of since they’re so worried about the newest “racist” hire or pressuring Apple into taking sides in middle eastern wars), they have a machine learning API that can and should have multiple computational backends. So the code is the same regardless of where it is executed. One of these backends, sure enough, is the neural engine. But GPUs were there long before there was a neural engine, and even CPUs can handle simpler workloads in real-time — assuming real-time is even a constraint, which it certainly isn’t in some of these scenarios.

    So yeah, this reeks of a marketing strategy to get people to upgrade.
    elijahgwilliamlondonMassimo1926Beatscrowley
  • Reply 28 of 39
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    sbdude said:
    Seems less about the capabilities of the M1 chip vs. the "incentive" to move to a mac with an M1 chip. I'm almost certain macs made with an intel chip in the last two years could accomplish the same feat. This is not unusual for apple.
    You have no data from which to base that claim. You’re suggesting it’s a mustache-twirling conspiracy to force you to upgrade, despite your Intel-based machine doing 100% of what it did when you bought it. And in the past we have learned Apple did indeed have technical reasons for not implementing something on older hardware, reasons other than pure spite. The conspiracy theories are just silly coping mechanisms. 
    Well other than the fact that these things are all done already, often in the browser on Intel Macs and PCs alike. Where is your data to prove these features *need* an M1? It's laughable but also quite sad that you really believe Apple isn't limiting at least some of these things to incentivise an upgrade. 
    edited June 2021
  • Reply 29 of 39
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    mjtomlin said:
    sbdude said:
    Seems less about the capabilities of the M1 chip vs. the "incentive" to move to a mac with an M1 chip. I'm almost certain macs made with an intel chip in the last two years could accomplish the same feat. This is not unusual for apple.

    Not really… just about all the above features make heavy use the ANE and ML accelerators on the CPU, which do not exist on any Intel Mac. The M1 contains specialized cores for handling certain tasks that NO Intel based Mac could ever keep up with.
    Except ones with a real GPU, which have "specialised cores" for handling certain tasks that NO M1 based Mac could ever keep up with. Including machine learning. Blurred background and text recognition are not difficult, OCR has been a thing with scanned documents since the mid 90's and the blurred backgrounds are available in Skype etc with no ML. IBM's ViaVoice was doing real-time dictation back in the late 90's. None of this requires specialised hardware, at all. Defending Apple's profit driven decisions and making baseless excuses for them on this kind of thing really is quite sad.
    edited June 2021 muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 30 of 39
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    mjtomlin said:
    blastdoor said:
    Webex and Zoom on intel Macs do the blurring thing and virtual backgrounds. Dragon voice recognition software has done on-device dictation for a long time. Etc.

    I can appreciate that apple might not want to bother implementing these features on intel, and I can appreciate that these features might work much better on an M1 MBA than intel MBA because of performance per watt. But it’s disingenuous to suggest these features could not be implemented on beefier desktop intel Macs — they almost certainly could. 

    Well of course they could. I don’t think anyone is saying that it isn’t possible… it’s possible to pound in a nail with a rock, doesn't mean anyone would or should. To me this seems obvious that Apple is attempting to increase efficiency and move all new developmental efforts to target their entire line of products. Apple silicon provides extra functionality that does not hinder the performance of the rest of the system. An Intel CPU trying to perform the same functionality of the ANE and ISP and other specialized processors, would tax the system with a noticeable performance hit.

    And by the way… having less features does not make something obsolete.
    Nice generalisation there. You really think a 10 core i9 would get a "noticeable performance hit" doing something like blurring a background? Or an iMac with a Pro Vega GPU, a GPU literally designed for that kind of work? A GPU that has a Metal score of 60,000 vs the M1's 20,500? Right.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 31 of 39
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,718member
    According to the Verge's article on the same subject, my Intel Mac running macOS Monterey can show the globe in Apple Maps like this (from my Intel MBP running Maps in macOS Monterey).
    williamlondon
  • Reply 32 of 39
    safi_czsafi_cz Posts: 3member
    swineone said:
    many of the best new macOS Monterey features will only work on Apple Silicon. And so they should.

    Planned obsolescence much? Indeed that's the case as will be clear from the breakdown below.

    [pretend engineering snipped]

    Conclusion: yeah, it's all marketing, and Apple pressuring us into an upgrade we don't really need. So much for being so "green", it's all about the greenbacks (as well it should be, but let's not pretend Apple is a saint).
    Nah, you just made up a bunch of crap and claimed it as fact.
    Swineone is right and you are wrong. It is planned obsolesce and also logical step. Fact: Apple I9 Macbook pro is still the most powerfull Macbook Apple has in its lineup. Even today Apple continues to promote it as a powerful tool for graphic and video professionals. And such pro tool (claimed by Apple)  is not capable to handle real time blur? Or almost real time OCR?  Yes it is. 

    Second - "green environment".  You may not remember, but there were days, when you can change battery in your laptop without changing half of its case. Milled aluminium case. 

    However - Apple would be stupid not to make some new features available only for M1 otherwise Apple would act against its long time strategy. After all - it is company, which primary goal is to make money:-) 

    williamlondonelijahg
  • Reply 33 of 39
    cincyteecincytee Posts: 403member
    neilm said:
    A Virtual PC emulation approach isn't going to cut it in today's world — it was barely usable back in those days. The solution to Windows on Apple Silicon is Microsoft's Windows on ARM product running natively in a VM on macOS. Unfortunately Win on ARM is a barely functional product at present, so the fix needs to come from MS. That will happen eventually because of demand by Windows users on their own platforms, not Mac users. But it hasn't happened yet.
    I have no doubt that there will be a virtual PC emulation solution for Apple silicon machines fairly soon. Of course it will not be the same as running directly on Intel chips, but it will be adequate for the relatively light needs – a particular program not available for macOS, for example – that most dual users will have. Yes, that will still leave a slice of users out in the cold, but apparently it's a small enough slice that Apple is willing to accept it.

  • Reply 34 of 39
    cincyteecincytee Posts: 403member
    sbdude said:
    Seems less about the capabilities of the M1 chip vs. the "incentive" to move to a mac with an M1 chip. I'm almost certain macs made with an intel chip in the last two years could accomplish the same feat. This is not unusual for apple.
    It's not “more” or ”less” about either: It's that the capabilities of the M(x) chip – particularly the neural engine – allow for features that could be an incentive for someone to buy an Apple silicon Mac. Not a lot different from Lincoln in the 1930s saying you should buy a new Zephyr because it was now available with a V-12. New model, more powerful engine, better performance ... an incentive to buy. This is how manufacturing works.
  • Reply 35 of 39
    mjtomlinmjtomlin Posts: 2,673member
    safi_cz said:
    swineone said:
    many of the best new macOS Monterey features will only work on Apple Silicon. And so they should.

    Planned obsolescence much? Indeed that's the case as will be clear from the breakdown below.

    [pretend engineering snipped]

    Conclusion: yeah, it's all marketing, and Apple pressuring us into an upgrade we don't really need. So much for being so "green", it's all about the greenbacks (as well it should be, but let's not pretend Apple is a saint).
    Nah, you just made up a bunch of crap and claimed it as fact.
    Swineone is right and you are wrong. It is planned obsolesce and also logical step. Fact: Apple I9 Macbook pro is still the most powerfull Macbook Apple has in its lineup. Even today Apple continues to promote it as a powerful tool for graphic and video professionals. And such pro tool (claimed by Apple)  is not capable to handle real time blur? Or almost real time OCR?  Yes it is. 

    Second - "green environment".  You may not remember, but there were days, when you can change battery in your laptop without changing half of its case. Milled aluminium case. 

    However - Apple would be stupid not to make some new features available only for M1 otherwise Apple would act against its long time strategy. After all - it is company, which primary goal is to make money:-) 


    It is not planned obsolescence. "Planned obsolescence" is when a product has an inherent feature that is designed to fail at some point, making that product unusable and forcing an upgrade. There is no such thing in Intel Macs. Making a new products more desirable by giving them extra features, does not make older products obsolete. All this is, is incentivizing users to move forward and onto new hardware.

    The fact is, the M1 has specialized processors that can perform tasks and process data without affecting the rest of the system. This is what makes Apple's SoC's so powerful and efficient. Apple could very well add all these "features" to Intel Macs, but those systems would probably take a major performance hit and Apple didn't think it was worth wasting the resources for a sub-par experience.


    edited June 2021 Fidonet127williamlondonJFC_PAsphericBeatswatto_cobra
  • Reply 36 of 39
    sphericspheric Posts: 2,544member
    elijahg said:
    sbdude said:
    Seems less about the capabilities of the M1 chip vs. the "incentive" to move to a mac with an M1 chip. I'm almost certain macs made with an intel chip in the last two years could accomplish the same feat. This is not unusual for apple.
    You have no data from which to base that claim. You’re suggesting it’s a mustache-twirling conspiracy to force you to upgrade, despite your Intel-based machine doing 100% of what it did when you bought it. And in the past we have learned Apple did indeed have technical reasons for not implementing something on older hardware, reasons other than pure spite. The conspiracy theories are just silly coping mechanisms. 
    Well other than the fact that these things are all done already, often in the browser on Intel Macs and PCs alike. Where is your data to prove these features *need* an M1? It's laughable but also quite sad that you really believe Apple isn't limiting at least some of these things to incentivise an upgrade. 
    The point is that any features that can be developed to take advantage of the iOS hardware architecture can exist "for free" on Apple Silicon Macs, wherease the functionality needs to be back-ported and optimised for Intel machines (J*bs knows there's already a lot of stuff that turns my 2016 MBP into a leaf-blower), with unclear results regarding efficiency, especially for lower-end machines without extra GPU. And the stuff that runs on GPUs requires that the discrete graphics be activated for these processes, which absolutely kills battery life on the Intel machines. 

    Lots of effort, questionable returns, vs. "free" for Apple Silicon, moving forward? It is utterly unsurprising that Apple is doing this.

    Anybody surprised or outraged here *really* hasn't been paying attention to what has been happening on iOS/iPadOS over the past five or six years, and why Apple is switching to Apple Silicon in the first place.  

    Being able to hard-code these kinds of features into their SoC's for minimal power usage and maximum performance is *exactly* why they're ditching Intel. 


    Your (and my) Intel Macs will *still* get new features with Big Sur, so they will actually be able to do MORE than they did when we bought them — but obviously some basic features are going to be reserved for the new platform that was developed specifically to support them. 

    I don't remember people being outraged in 2006 when Apple announced Boot Camp and didn't make it available for PowerPC machines… 
    edited June 2021 williamlondonDetnatorwatto_cobra
  • Reply 37 of 39
    safi_czsafi_cz Posts: 3member
    mjtomlin said:
    safi_cz said:
    swineone said:
    many of the best new macOS Monterey features will only work on Apple Silicon. And so they should.

    Planned obsolescence much? Indeed that's the case as will be clear from the breakdown below.

    [pretend engineering snipped]

    Conclusion: yeah, it's all marketing, and Apple pressuring us into an upgrade we don't really need. So much for being so "green", it's all about the greenbacks (as well it should be, but let's not pretend Apple is a saint).
    Nah, you just made up a bunch of crap and claimed it as fact.
    Swineone is right and you are wrong. It is planned obsolesce and also logical step. Fact: Apple I9 Macbook pro is still the most powerfull Macbook Apple has in its lineup. Even today Apple continues to promote it as a powerful tool for graphic and video professionals. And such pro tool (claimed by Apple)  is not capable to handle real time blur? Or almost real time OCR?  Yes it is. 

    Second - "green environment".  You may not remember, but there were days, when you can change battery in your laptop without changing half of its case. Milled aluminium case. 

    However - Apple would be stupid not to make some new features available only for M1 otherwise Apple would act against its long time strategy. After all - it is company, which primary goal is to make money:-) 


    It is not planned obsolescence. "Planned obsolescence" is when a product has an inherent feature that is designed to fail at some point, making that product unusable and forcing an upgrade. There is no such thing in Intel Macs. Making a new products more desirable by giving them extra features, does not make older products obsolete. All this is, is incentivizing users to move forward and onto new hardware.

    The fact is, the M1 has specialized processors that can perform tasks and process data without affecting the rest of the system. This is what makes Apple's SoC's so powerful and efficient. Apple could very well add all these "features" to Intel Macs, but those systems would probably take a major performance hit and Apple didn't think it was worth wasting the resources for a sub-par experience.


    I agree that M1 can perform such task with much less watts and overall CPU / GPU utilisation. And Apple probably made right decision to not implement some features for Intel Macs to keep / provide longer battery life, because this is what matters the most in Covid / post Covid new reality (together with good camera). 

    However I believe, that obsolescence in computer word is a standard planned and calculated product feature that most manufacturers do (including Apple) and it is not bad. And Apple has many good reasons to do it for Intel Macs and speed it to delicate point, that Apple customers will still accept it. Mainly not because of additional revenues it brings, but because of following reasons:
    - OSX development for two CPU platforms is pain in the ass and longer you do it, the higher risk you take and that can easily result into PR disaster or in lawsuit (security, performance, design flaws, etc..).
    - You may have the best managers in the world, but there are limits of what you can successfully manage. From certain point required communication and decisions process complexity rises exponentially.
    - Sooner you stop production of OSX for Intel, the sooner you can get rid of the messy situation and streamline you organisation structure, processes and effort. Also you can reduce number of your staff. I worked for Czech Airlines that used planes from both manufacturers - Boeing and Airbus. You may not believe, how many processes even in HQ could be avoided by switching to only one plane manufacturer. Not only plane purchase, maintenance, pilot training, but overall management - cost prediction, revenue calculation, back office activities, audit, compliance with regulations etc.
    - Working on technology to be depreciated is not a good motivation for employees - many negative HR impacts. 
    - HW design and manufacture process for two CPU platforms is not cheap activity.
    - Support for HW and SW required by law in some countries (including replacement parts). 

    In my opinion Apple has a valid motivation to push current Intel Macs users to M1, and use all methods that his users/customers consider as legal or morale adequate. Do not  forget - Apple prefers to accept all regulations from non democratic regimes like China or Russia to protect revenue for its shareholder (valid and correct business decision), so Apple is capable of pushing its customers little bit more that we all would like it.  

    But it does not mean, that I like it as a intel mac user (cannot switch due to my client M1 unsupported OSX frameworks).

    EDIT: We should not forget about Apple T2 chip, that has some picture/video features too. 
    edited June 2021 williamlondonmuthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 38 of 39
    nicholfdnicholfd Posts: 824member
    omasou said:
    Once the M# chip(s) support dual monitors, I'm all in.
    They all have, from the beginning - exactly 2 x displays.  If it's a laptop M1, the internal display counts as one of the dual.
    williamlondonwatto_cobra
  • Reply 39 of 39
    omasouomasou Posts: 564member
    omasou said:
    Once the M# chip(s) support dual monitors, I'm all in.
    Apple Silicon has always supported dual displays. With the Mini, it is two monitors, everything else, it is the built in display plus a monitor.
    Perhaps I should have said MacBook Pro w/dual 5K displays and MacBook display.
    watto_cobra
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