wizard69

Mike Wuerthele said:

Hap said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

Hap said:

To be clear. The ports are still USB3/TB3. They are not USB 4.

USB 4 would mean USB data rates of 40Gbps regardless of TB support. That is not the case for these ports.

According to Apple, the ports support this:

• Thunderbolt 3 (up to 40Gb/s)
• USB 3.1 Gen 2 (up to 10Gb/s)

Yes, they have TB3, but USB4 does not require TB to operate at those speeds.

They are USB4. 

While the TB3 thing is correct, Apple has told us that they support full USB4 speeds, and use a USB 4 controller, making them beyond a shadow of a doubt, USB4. Because a port supports a speed, does not mean it is limited to those speeds.

For the time being, though, there isn't very much around in regards to peripherals that support USB4.

You're right. I missed that Apple called them USB4 above. I think was is somewhat deceiving about them though is that they don't support a lot of USB4 speeds - only 10Gb/s and not the 20Gb/s or 40Gb/s. Note I'm talking about USB speeds and not TB speeds.

Would be nice if they actually said it support DisplayPort 2.0 which is part of the USB4 spec as well.

We're not happy about how Apple has labeled this either. We shouldn't have had to hammer on PR folks to find out.

Mike;
You are not the only ones that are not happy with Apple and how they have handled this release.   It would be nice if you and AI can use whatever influence you have to express how revolting the dog and pony show was.   Much of what we are seeing confusion wise would never exist if Apple had decent spec sheets for the machines, and spent far more time in the video concisely relaying information.    Instead they went way out of  their way to commit to nothing.   As far a conveying useful information, the show is the worse I've seen from Apple.   

This is really disgusting because M1 deserves better.    I really believe we are at the foot of a step hill of new innovation from Apple.   At least that is my hope for the future of the company because innovation in the Mac sector has been non existent for some time.   The problem is Apple can make or break any product and frankly they need to pull head form butt and stop treating their customers like idiots.

neilm said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

neilm said:

Very surprised the M1 MBP can only support a single external monitor. Probably half our current MBP users have a dual monitor setup, usually a pair of 4K, in addition to the built in display. This limitation takes the M1 off my list.

Clearly it’s not an inherent limitation of the M1 GPU, since the M1 mini can drive dual monitors.

So can the M1 in the MBP or MBA. The internal display just counts as one of the two.

It is absolutely a limitation of the M1.

Duh! Of course you’re right. 

Then it’s a surprising limitation of the M1’s GPU. Guess we may have to wait for an M2 for that.

I'm not convinced that the GPU is powerful enough for two displays anyways.   I'm not too concerned on the entry level machines, but on the MBP, I think Apple jumped the gun! The SoC does not appear to support everything that would be ideal on a MBP.

However they have turned the MBA into a machine that replaced both the Mac Book and the Mac Book Air.   I'm waiting on benchmarks but this really looks like the ideal travel computer for people with light needs.   The only thing it needs is a solar charging option.

scartart said:

lkrupp said:

melgross said:

In June, during the presentation for the DC, Apple clearly stated that Office would be available when the first new Macs came out, so this is a disappointment.

They’re taking about a universal binary version. Are you claiming the current version will not run under Rosetta 2? Isn’t that what Rosetta 2 is for, running Intel coded apps? And you don’t need a universal binary to do that, right?

Apple demonstrated Word, Excel and Powerpoint all running natively on AS in June so I guess it is a little disappointing that you will only be able to get it within the Beta channel at product launch. Hopefully it is a stable version of Office recompiled, rather than including new Beta features as well which don't always work too well.

From MS perspective it makes a lot of sense to sync the version up with the next major release of Office.   It is probably better for users too if that new Office version is not that far away.

bobolicious said:

I'll be watching the free https://www.collaboraoffice.com/collabora-office-android-ios-release-notes/ and perhaps libreoffice to break away from proprietary software moving forward... I've had more issues with MS Office than just about any other software, including the orphaning upgrades every few years - I know some swear by it however I simply don't get it...?

It is the corporate world mentality.   I can get a lot of work done with Numbers and that is a very basic spread sheet.   Which brings up the question of why Apple doesn't try to improve Numbers to be more competitive.

On a another software note, the M1 reveal Apple indicated that all their software will be native upon shipping of the laptops.   Now exactly what is meant by "all" is hard to determine, however apparently all of the OS that ships with the machine is native.  This is great news as everything that users initially see will be running at full performance.   In many ways it looks like this is going to be an excellent launch.

Sarkany said:

williamlondon said:

Sarkany said:

Comparing mobile chips to the likes of 10900K...that is extremely laughable.

Yes, laughable...

We got desktop computers (with hefty cooling solutions) running at 80C+ during CPU/GPU intensive tasks, but we’re supposed to believe iPhones/iPads/Mac Laptops are able to run the same programs without undergoing a full meltdown. Yeah, okay. I love my Apple devices, but don’t get ahead of yourself there, buddy.

It is possible and in large part due to x86 being a terrible architecture.    Now do I believe Apples hype, well lets put it this way I believe they are accurate in the very precise context that they have laid out.   That means very little for the average user as we need to know how these machines perform under various workloads.   In the case of MBA we need to know how badly it throttles compared to the MBP.   You see Apple doesn't so much lie as they only focus on parameters that make the product look good - classic marketing.   What we need is a board selection of benchmarking from various sources that give us a better idea of what is happening with this hardware.   In effect before we dismiss the products we need all the information that Apple left out.

To put it another way we already have a good idea of how A14 works in a thermally constrained environment.   What we have now is a slightly enhanced version of A14 that has far fewer thermal constraints.   This is going to be real interesting hardware no matter what your point of view.