mjtomlin

safi_cz said:

StrangeDays 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.

Beats said:

What a mess. It calibrates according to the user looking in a direction for a certain amount of time?

What if user is talking to someone? What if they’re looking down at their iPhone? What if they’re in the kitchen?.....

If the user is sitting off to the side and not directly in front of the TV will the objects follow their assumed panning? (Admittedly this would be cool).
For example you’re on the left side of the room. Batmobile speeds off to the left in the movie. It sounds like you’re gonna be ran over. 

I’ve wanted a TrueDepth camera array for Apple TV for years pre-Spatial Audio and the lost benefits are compounding. The camera would have solved these problems.

Seriously, man. This is a solution for the rare individual that sits in front of the TV and actually looks at the screen while watching a movie or TV show. Who then may at some point briefly get up or momentarily look away. This isn't meant for Cirque du Soleil performers who just want background noise.

You sound like one of those people who are constantly asking questions, talking over dialog because you're not paying attention to the movie. The only mess here, is your wild, defeatist imagination. 

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.

The big issue here is that Apple does not allow 3rd party apps to indefinitely access Bluetooth while they're in the background on iOS. So Tile's tracking system is left at a disadvantage as it is not able to constantly monitor unless their app is open and running. The FindMy system in iOS is allowed, specifically because it is a system level service.

So the question becomes is it ok for Apple to allow its operating system to do this, but not 3rd party apps? And of course the answer is, yes.

iqatedo said:

mjtomlin said:

eightzero said:

Seems that silicon iMac is perhaps a greater possibility given the recent demise of the iMac Pro. 

I'm really on the fence about selecting iMac as my replacement desktop. I've been using iMac since the first models, and my needs are very modest. It is only because my current 2009 27" iMac still meets my needs that I've not been pushed to a decision. I have a second 4K monitor and was going to drive it with a M1 mac mini, but Apple certainly knows how to price iMac to make it an attractive alternative. Looking forward to seeing what they produce.

Well that and the little iMacs haven't been updated in a long time!!! So, yeah, I think the rumored 24" iMacs are waiting in the wings.

I have the same iMac and it is still good enough for what I need. However, I couldn't wait and ended up buying a base model M1 Mac mini and use the iMac as the display for it. It's actually a pretty good set up!

I was wondering how well that works. Thinking of the same route, though my display has been marginal from time-to-time. However, oddly, it is better now than 5 years ago. (Probably something to do with the standard of soldering of the graphics chip.)

If you do it, make sure you get a Mini Display cable and a USB-C to Mini Display Adapter. Stay away from anything that's labeled Thunderbolt.

I also have them connected directly with one another over ethernet, so that I can "Share Screen" of iMac on the mini.