Apple looking very good on the main specs that count, but weird how they've let themselves be shown up in the versions of HDMI, SD and Bluetooth.
Because they’re appeasement features with little to no value. Nobody needs 3 seperate ports providing power, video & data. Even the corporate workplace gets the single cable approach replacing the proprietary laptop docking stations. As CFast emerges, SD drops out of the Pro market necessitating dongles anyway.
There were just to many emotive, irrational, old-thinkers with loud voices who lashed out when something was taken away.
These ports make as much sense as the Mac Pro.
You’re replying to the wrong guy buddy, I like that the ports are back. Also, Bluetooth isn’t a port, and since when did the Mac Pro not make sense?
And you didn’t even address my point. If Apple were trying to appease the “old-thinkers”, then it seems even more odd that they’ve left room for criticism by delivering outdated protocols.
You said “…let themselves be shown up in the versions of HDMI, SD and Bluetooth.” - I offered an explanation as to why. They did a half-arsed job because old ports are a nonsense request.
Do you always react this way when people disagree with your point of view?
React what way? We're just talking, and it's ok to disagree.
I don't think Apple consider these ports to be nonsense. It also doesn't strike me as very Apple-like to consciously do a half-assed job.
HDMI is probably restricted by the M1's limited I/O, but the SD speed and Bluetooth versions are an odd limitation.
If it has enough bandwidth for 3x Thunderbolt 4 controllers I think it can handle a consumer video port. Appeasement & satisfaction aren't the same thing, the only reason people are complaining is because some (largely redundant) things were taken away, so they gave them back if only for customers to realise they no longer need them -because the world's moved on.
Thunderbolt 4 does not support HDMI 2.1, it doesn't have the bandwidth; even if it is a "consumer video port". And it's reasonable to assume that the M1 doesn't have an HDMI 2.1-capable video interface, because otherwise they would have used it on either or both of the MBP and the Mac mini (which never lost HDMI btw). I'm sure it could be re-engineered so it does support HDMI 2.1, but that's not the M1 any more, that's an M2.
Postulating that Apple deliberately didn't do something that was easy for them to do in order to spite customers who don't know what they want (while giving them want they want) seems bizarre to me. Apple are in the business of selling things; they want to make things that people will buy. The MBP seems like it doesn't have HDMI 2.1 because it can't, the M1 doesn't support it. And it has slower SD and Bluetooth speeds probably just because Apple had other priorities. I'm sure they'll fix it, though it's a little disappointing that they need to.
DisplayPort2.0 encapsulated in TB4 peaks at 80Gbps well beyond HDMI 2.1’s 48Gbps. It’s good enough for driving projectors/TVs when you’re caught short but it’s too limited & not worth investing in. Good for PlayStations though.
Downplaying a substandard tech is totally in Apple’s playbook these days, previously they wouldn’t have insulted their customers’ intelligence by including it.
Thunderbolt does not support HDMI 2.1. It doesn't have the bandwidth unless you use a one way alt mode, and while that has been incorporated into Thunderbolt 4 for DisplayPort 2.0 it has not been implemented for HDMI 2.1. Apple cannot provide HDMI 2.1 through a Thunderbolt 4 controller without additional messing with the standard.
As for the rest, I'm not interested in HDMI vs DisplayPort penis waving. They're both good interfaces, with capability well beyond what most people will use them for anyway, and are appropriate in different situations. Apple know this, and I see no evidence for the "downplaying a substandard tech" that you're talking about. They included it because people want it, and Apple have an interest in giving people what they want. Simple as.
And quit with the "insulted their customers’ intelligence" crap. Lots of people are happy to see these ports back, and they aren't unintelligent for it. You've got a severe case of the superiority syndrome, just because you don't need or want HDMI.
Come off it, HDMI2.1 can’t handle anything above 8K/30fps without compression & most applications for both standards are unidirectional.
So? 8K at 30Hz is a lot of headroom. Very few people have 8K displays. HDMI 2.0 on the other hand only goes to 4K at 60Hz. That's decent for most uses today, but not very future proof.
As for TB4 not encapsulating HDMI2.1 it’s not a lack of performance, as DP2.0 drives at a higher bandwidth, it’s just not supported by the standard and so the M1 Thunderbolt controllers won’t deliver it. That would require extra dedicated controllers & transistor budget.
That's pretty much exactly what I said. Not sure why you felt the need to restate it.
HDMI’s only real advantage is CEC a consumer device control standard, apart from that it’s an inferior standard so why would Apple go all out to support it with extra controllers?
Because people want it, and Apple sell to people, not superiority complexes.
My ability to acknowledge these facts isn’t evidence of any superiority complex but it should beg the question of why you won’t. Misplaced allegiance is my guess.
Allegiance to what, HDMI? I sometimes use HDMI, I don't have any interest in its long term prospects. I don't dispute that DisplayPort is superior to HDMI in technical capability, but that's not the only thing that's important. And what people need is what is most important.
So, basically at the current moment and these price points, the Razor and the Apple are SPOT on an equal "match."
But as far as the future of Architecture and Operations, which absolutely has nothing to do with these machines and not to hammer the point, but Apple is essentially at 1/4 the power consumption and 1/4 heat, and then there is macOS versus Windows.
Where the Razor (and other x86_64) laptops will be in a suspect and questionable future, specifically concerning GAINS, but the MBPs have a GREAT future...
The weirdest thing is a comparison of specs, but no benchmark data or performance comparisons.
It's unfortunate but not surprising. There are very few multi-platform benchmarks.
The serious PC hardware testers usually compare GPUs with a battery of tests, both synthetic benchmarks (like 3DMark Time Spy and 3DMark Port Royal) and actual games -- recent titles with demanding graphics. There could be 4-6 synthetic benchmarks and a suite of actual games, between 8 to 15 games.
Geekbench is the synthetic benchmark that is most frequently quotes by Mac followers but it is deeply flawed. One glaring problem is that the runtime is too short to subject hardware to an extended workload. Serious PC hardware reviewers frequently ignore Geekbench. 3DMark is a better synthetic graphics benchmark but it runs on Windows, iOS and Android, no macOS.
For real world game testing, the biggest problem is the lack of recent AAA titles for macOS. There should be a variety of games but all of them should be relatively demanding from a graphics perspective. No one benchmarks GPUs with Disco Elysium or with an old game that will run on a potato even if it is an enjoyable classic like Left 4 Dead 2 (which is like twelve years old).
The only two really graphically demanding macOS games from recent years are Shadow of the Tomb Raider and Metro Exodus both of which run under Rosetta 2 on Apple Silicon Macs. Some might argue that testing Macs with games running under Rosetta 2 is unfair but others would point out that it IS real world performance.
Games like Cyberpunk 2077, Resident Evil Village, various driving or flight simulations (like Dirt, F1 or Forza Horizon), Far Cry 5, Borderlands 3, Red Dead Redemption 2, or Horizon Zero Dawn don't exist for Mac. All of those -- in addition to Shadow and Metro -- are titles frequently used by PC reviewers.
Testing 3D productivity software would also be problematic. You can't run Final Cut Pro on Windows PCs so you'd have to rely on applications that are multi-platform. Adobe? DaVinci Resolve? Blender?
There is a site that does test those things…..and the Razor (a plugin basement) machine fails badly.
But what fraction of laptop buyers would need or use such power?
It's reminiscent of auto companies showing off their high end, limited production, performance cars....
I have never known anybody who needed such power in a laptop.
Yes, there are some. But they are few: most using that kind of power simply go with a desktop -- and the majority of those are gamers.
So, assuming the biggest audience for these machines wold be gamers, I would like to see a comparison between these machines and, say, a $500 XBox Series X connected to a 4K 120Hz display.
But what fraction of laptop buyers would need or use such power?
It's reminiscent of auto companies showing off their high end, limited production, performance cars....
I have never known anybody who needed such power in a laptop.
Yes, there are some. But they are few: most using that kind of power simply go with a desktop -- and the majority of those are gamers.
So, assuming the biggest audience for these machines wold be gamers, I would like to see a comparison between these machines and, say, a $500 XBox Series X connected to a 4K 120Hz display.
The biggest audience for the PCs would be gamers but for the Mac it's content creators and developers. Content creators and developers use PCs too but gamers outnumber them on PC. Think of the amount of Youtube videos made every day, amount of TV commercials, the number of DJs/musicians, illustrators, photographers, software/app/game developers, film makers. They all use higher-end machines like these.
Relatively they are much fewer in number than people who use the mainstream models, that's why Apple updates those first, but this level is still around a few million Mac units per year. I'd estimate 60-70% of users on the lower models and around 20% on these (somewhere around 5 million Mac units per year). Given an upgrade cycle around 5 years, there would be about 20-30 million active Mac users on these models.
Every new iteration more people find their computers are overkill for what they do and some drop down to cheaper models. Some people are finding they are only using around half the capability of the higher-end Max models and dropping down to the Pro model but there is still a significant market for these.
But what fraction of laptop buyers would need or use such power?
It's reminiscent of auto companies showing off their high end, limited production, performance cars....
I have never known anybody who needed such power in a laptop.
Yes, there are some. But they are few: most using that kind of power simply go with a desktop -- and the majority of those are gamers.
So, assuming the biggest audience for these machines wold be gamers, I would like to see a comparison between these machines and, say, a $500 XBox Series X connected to a 4K 120Hz display.
The biggest audience for the PCs would be gamers but for the Mac it's content creators and developers. Content creators and developers use PCs too but gamers outnumber them on PC. Think of the amount of Youtube videos made every day, amount of TV commercials, the number of DJs/musicians, illustrators, photographers, software/app/game developers, film makers. They all use higher-end machines like these.
Relatively they are much fewer in number than people who use the mainstream models, that's why Apple updates those first, but this level is still around a few million Mac units per year. I'd estimate 60-70% of users on the lower models and around 20% on these (somewhere around 5 million Mac units per year). Given an upgrade cycle around 5 years, there would be about 20-30 million active Mac users on these models.
Every new iteration more people find their computers are overkill for what they do and some drop down to cheaper models. Some people are finding they are only using around half the capability of the higher-end Max models and dropping down to the Pro model but there is still a significant market for these.
There is a sizable chunk of folks in STEM fields using MBP machines. It's essentially Unix + MS Office. With Unix, the environment is basically identical on macOS versus a Linux cluster for most code (Python, Ruby, C, etc) while users have access to "standard" Office apps, as well as first class multimedia apps and the ability to run X-Windows apps in a mostly native fashion too.
I know I would like to have the fastest possible machine. If I could cut down my scripts from 2 minutes to 1 minute, that's a huge win. I can run them over and over again. So, 2 minutes ends up being a lot!
But what fraction of laptop buyers would need or use such power?
It's reminiscent of auto companies showing off their high end, limited production, performance cars....
I have never known anybody who needed such power in a laptop.
Yes, there are some. But they are few: most using that kind of power simply go with a desktop -- and the majority of those are gamers.
So, assuming the biggest audience for these machines wold be gamers, I would like to see a comparison between these machines and, say, a $500 XBox Series X connected to a 4K 120Hz display.
The biggest audience for the PCs would be gamers but for the Mac it's content creators and developers. Content creators and developers use PCs too but gamers outnumber them on PC. Think of the amount of Youtube videos made every day, amount of TV commercials, the number of DJs/musicians, illustrators, photographers, software/app/game developers, film makers. They all use higher-end machines like these.
Relatively they are much fewer in number than people who use the mainstream models, that's why Apple updates those first, but this level is still around a few million Mac units per year. I'd estimate 60-70% of users on the lower models and around 20% on these (somewhere around 5 million Mac units per year). Given an upgrade cycle around 5 years, there would be about 20-30 million active Mac users on these models.
Every new iteration more people find their computers are overkill for what they do and some drop down to cheaper models. Some people are finding they are only using around half the capability of the higher-end Max models and dropping down to the Pro model but there is still a significant market for these.
Thanks! You are right, I was not thinking of that world of less formal artists developing all that stuff -- almost another gig economy but on a higher plain. And, that world -- and their needs -- will only be growing.
Comments
That's pretty much exactly what I said. Not sure why you felt the need to restate it.
Because people want it, and Apple sell to people, not superiority complexes.
Allegiance to what, HDMI?
But as far as the future of Architecture and Operations, which absolutely has nothing to do with these machines and not to hammer the point, but Apple is essentially at 1/4 the power consumption and 1/4 heat, and then there is macOS versus Windows.
Where the Razor (and other x86_64) laptops will be in a suspect and questionable future, specifically concerning GAINS, but the MBPs have a GREAT future...
I'm good, thx for the read.
There is a site that does test those things…..and the Razor (a plugin basement) machine fails badly.
Relatively they are much fewer in number than people who use the mainstream models, that's why Apple updates those first, but this level is still around a few million Mac units per year. I'd estimate 60-70% of users on the lower models and around 20% on these (somewhere around 5 million Mac units per year). Given an upgrade cycle around 5 years, there would be about 20-30 million active Mac users on these models.
Every new iteration more people find their computers are overkill for what they do and some drop down to cheaper models. Some people are finding they are only using around half the capability of the higher-end Max models and dropping down to the Pro model but there is still a significant market for these.
I know I would like to have the fastest possible machine. If I could cut down my scripts from 2 minutes to 1 minute, that's a huge win. I can run them over and over again. So, 2 minutes ends up being a lot!