Mike Wuerthele

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Mike Wuerthele
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  • Apple Silicon M1 Mac mini review - speed today and a promise of more later

    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele
    cloudguy said:
    But, no pun intended, the failures are the edge cases, and compatibility is the norm.

    Yeah, no, that is not true at all. As predicted, lots of major apps are either running very slowly, frequently crashing or not running at all. 

    https://news.softpedia.com/news/it-s-not-only-milk-and-honey-terrible-app-experience-on-apple-silicon-531592.shtml

    https://www.extremetech.com/computing/317715-early-adopters-of-apple-m1-macs-should-be-cautious-about-compatibility

    https://mspoweruser.com/too-good-to-be-true-plenty-of-software-not-compatible-with-apple-m1-laptops/

    The initial reviewers were mostly "journalists who write about tech" types - including one who literally stated "who cares about Linux ... it is hard and practically nobody uses it" - who mostly rely on first party Apple software, browser stuff as well as software that Apple "helpfully" recommended. None of them applied a QA testing "let's see what works and what breaks" type of rigorous approach because that wasn't their background.

    Of course, I wouldn't expect Apple Insider to do such a thing ... but a lot of the folks at the alleged "independent tech-oriented sites" have egg on their faces right now. I have noted for years that when you read those sites, their "tests" of computing devices include video/photo editing (which virtually no one in the workforce outside of a few jobs/industries does) and they always compare everything to their MacBook Air/iMac/iPad/iPhone. But the first person to get the ball rolling was Patrick Moorhead. The guy doesn't like Apple much - so sue and boo him - but he is a tech consultant who regularly uses Macs for his job. He states:

     I have experienced application crashes in Microsoft Edge, Outlook, WinZip and Logitech Camera Control. I got installation errors with Adobe Reader XI, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, a Samsung SSD backup application, and Xbox 360 Controller for Mac. I couldn’t even install Adobe Reader XI 11.0.10. The installer just sat there, and I had to hard reboot the entire system. Acrobat DC would not install either. Given how many incompatibilities the M1 chip is having, a samaritan has created a site called “Is Apple Silicon Ready” documenting incompatible apps."

    https://isapplesiliconready.com/

    Granted, this is to be expected. We are basically a week into the launch of both a new hardware stack and a new operating system version. However, I felt that I had to reply to the "the failures are the edge cases and compatibility is the norm" when major applications like the entire Intellij suite - used heavily for programmers/developers - and Adobe applications aren't working and Outlook is unreliable. No one should buy M1 Macs as their primary work machines right now, but as secondary machines for specific applications. 


    There were always going to be failures, and they were always going to come from the regular sources who have played fast and loose with Apple programming guidelines for all three hardware transitions -- Adobe, Microsoft, and et cetera. We've mentioned that we were expecting problems from them before, given history.

    We've thrown a LOT of software at Rosetta, including the four that I mentioned in the story, plus a really ancient one-trick pony photo cropping app that I think I'm the only licensed user of. It sucks if your app doesn't work, but nearly everything works, and works well, so I stick with my statement.

    A major app not working, doesn't make the statement not true. What bothers me more are some inconsistencies in the lists. For example, the Samsung SSD app was broken under Big Sur's release (not M1) for some, with the M1 taking it the rest of the way, and Outlook works fine here.

    In regards to the "    No one should buy M1 Macs as their primary work machines right now," I'm not sure this is the case universally, and I did talk about this in the end of the review a bit. I am a strong proponent of letting other folks get flaming data for you, but the less you rely on Microsoft and Adobe, the less true this is.
    WgkruegerwilliamlondonchiajimmydeanseanjJWSCAlex1Nbageljoeymuthuk_vanalingamRayz2016

  • Apple Silicon M1 Mac mini review - speed today and a promise of more later

    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele
    tenchi211 said:
    Is it possible to use this Mac mini with a 2017 27 inch iMac as a monitor?
    There are software solutions to do that, but nothing native. Target Display Mode ended with the 2014 iMac.
    muthuk_vanalingamdewmecornchiptenchi211Alex1N

  • Apple Silicon M1 Mac mini review - speed today and a promise of more later

    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele
    longpath said:
    Because of the differences in RAM handling, I would very much like to see a test that compares how well the new model does as a render node, a common use of the prior Mac mini. I don’t imagine I am the only person who is wondering whether or not the 16 GB maximum renders the M1 variant less useful as a render node, or of the new architecture means that 16GB will do just fine when rendering in C4D & other 3D graphics apps.
    From the folks I've spoken to so far, they're waiting on M1-native render hosts to do any real testing in this regard. That said, performance will depend, I suspect, on the size of the data that's getting shunted to the minis for rendering. I'm hoping to have more info on this relatively soon, but I'm not expecting any until mid-December at the earliest.
    cornchipAlex1NLoby01rundhvid

  • Apple Silicon M1 Mac mini review - speed today and a promise of more later

    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele
    davebarnes said:
    The 16GB of RAM is a deal breaker for me.
    My 2020 iMac has 64GB of RAM which I figure will last for 5+ years.
    RAM handling is a bit different with Apple Silicon. While if you're hitting swap space on that 64GB often now, it won't help you, how the M1 is handling RAM basically leads to a "8GB is the new 16, and 16 is the new 32" situation.

    We'll see more with time. I don't expect the 16GB limit to remain on whatever comes after the M1.
    tmayJWSCcornchipAlex1NboboliciousTheObannonFilewatto_cobra

  • Apple Silicon M1 Mac detection of Thunderbolt 3 eGPU gives hope for future support

    Mike WuertheleMike Wuerthele
    Mike or Malcolm, could you please clarify this statement?
    In plugging a Pro Display XDR into a Blackmagic eGPU inserted into a Thunderbolt 3 port, it was found the eGPU enclosure was still detected and functions. The display communicates with the MacBook Pro as normal, complete with video playback.
    What exactly do you mean by "complete with normal video playback"? Do you mean that you can get a video stream to play on a monitor connected to the eGPU? Does this mean you can have a third monitor connected as long as all you're doing is playing video? If so, what about other display output (though unaccelerated)? Can you get a normal, if slow, desktop?

    Thanks.

    BTW, either way I find the 10GbE thing more interesting, as it strongly suggests there's more I/O on the M1 that we'd otherwise have any reason to assume. I haven't seen anyone talking about that, but it's big news - both because it implies more lanes of PCIe support, and because that's still within their insanely small power envelope.

    On the Blackmagic, the connected monitor on USB-C works. It's not doing anything with the video card at all, and is instead connecting with the daisy-chained signal in a USB-C alt mode.

    On eGPUs without a pass-through, like the Razer, the monitor does nothing attached to the PCI-E card. 
    chiabeowulfschmidt