DuhSesame

rmoo said:

TheDrivenDev said:

Considering the performance of M1 against its peers, I'd be surprised if Apple doesn't delay releases simply because the competition isn't challenging their product's performance. Let's be honest, Intel isn't even really in the game at this point.

Huh? Intel "isn't in the game" when it comes to power per watt. But 11th gen Intel Core i7 was within ballpark of the M1 and 11th gen Core i9 exceeded it. 12th Gen Intel Core i7 exceeds the M1 Pro and M1 Max. 12th gen is actually an outdated design because it needed to wait until Intel's 10nm process was ready. 13th gen launches in 4Q2022 with performance and efficiency enhancements and a mature 10nm node, meaning that 13th gen Core i5 will be competitive with the M1 Pro. 

It is amazing how the discourse went from "we are pleasantly surprised that Apple's CPUs are competitive with Intel's!", which was actually true, and "Apple's CPUs are clearly better than Intel's!", which was never true, and to the degree it was, it was only due to Apple's decision to use unified memory instead of RAM and being on a 5nm process instead of a 14nm one. On the former, general purpose CPU makers using unified memory is very stupid because unified memory removes flexibility and upgradability. On the latter, once Intel's 7nm chips arrive in 2023, while the Apple power-per-watt advantage will remain, it will significantly decrease to the point where no one is going to talk about it anymore. For example, you are going to see 7 inch Nintendo Switch-type devices and 12 inch Windows 11 tablets running 14th gen Intel Core i5 CPUs that won't require discrete GPUs or fans that will have very good battery life. 

Even Apple claimed that they were never going to be able to outdo Intel (or AMD) in single core or multicore performance and their big advantage was going to be power per watt. The problem is that unless you run a data center or are someone whose job requires them to be constantly "on-the-go" (and the people in the latter group switched to smartphones and tablets as their primary devices ages ago) then power per watt isn't going to be something that you care about that much. People aren't going to start valuing that metric overnight just because Apple says that they should, and the people who are going to all of a sudden after all these years start claiming that power per watt is the most important thing are going to be loyal Mac customers already. 

MplsP said:

saarek said:

hucom2000 said:

I wish there was a 16 inch MacBook Air, that would be perfect for what I need in screen size and plenty powerful.

Amen to that, it’s not just professionals that want a larger screen!

Yes! I'm a professional, just not a professional audio/video editor. I technically don't need a 16" screen, but the larger screen makes it far easier to work. The problem is, the 16" MBP is definitely overkill in terms of what I need for processing power. A 16" M1 MBA would be perfect. I suspect Apple won't make one because it would cannibalize (decimate) the 16" MBP sales.

sflocal said:

lam92103 said:

So Apple took away our way to upgrade the machine, removed USB ports, and now they are wondering why no one is buying?

Why do people do this? "No one is buying" is such a false, fabricated statement.  Anything but the base models is for the most part sold-out, with up to a month lead-time for delivery.  Everyone is buying them.

Just stop.  Go troll elsewhere.

Yes, it appears the new machines are selling quite well. Even the old machines did, despite these drawbacks. 

Skeptical said:

Dumbest article to date. Slow news day?

Well, the 'pro' moniker is repeatedly debated around here, so it's not a dumb question. I can't count how many posts I've seen that say something like "well, a 'pro' needs this," or "Real pros don't use that." 

The problem with the article is that it didn't answer the question, but that's probably because it's not answerable. The real question is does the word 'pro' mean anything at all? What about the iPhone 'Pro?' Is it only for 'professionals?' I think the problem is people assume the word 'pro' in Apple products means 'professional.' In reality, it's a modifier to describe a more powerful device, not unlike the different trim levels when buying a car. It's also marketing so people feel better about paying more because they're getting a 'professional' machine.

My answer is a 'professional' is someone who needs the extra features and is willing to pay for them.

macplusplus said:

tundraboy said:

macplusplus said:

tundraboy said:

macplusplus said:

This has nothing to do with Jony Ive. Intel forced Apple to go minimalistic because of the generous heat it produces. Give it more oenclosure it would retain more heat. Now that Intel has gone, with Apple Silicon you can make it as large as you want because the heat is minimal.

You have it backwards.  You're confusing heat with temperature.  If you go minimalistic on a device that generates a lot of heat, that heat will be 'concentrated' on a smaller volume, causing temperature to be higher, and it is temperature that damages internal components.  The key is to think in terms of heat dissipation not heat retention.  A larger enclosed volume (all other things equal) would have better heat dissipation especially if a lot of that enclosed volume is empty space that can be used for airflow to cool the internal components.

This is the metal mass that retains heat the most not the air that flows over or in it. Besides, the air flows only from the processor to the heat sink by means of a pipe and the fan, the flow is constrained to the pipe. There is no air "moving freely" in a larger enclosure. Since the air flows only from the processor to the sink, it has no (or minimal) effect on the overall cooldown of the enclosure. To make it cool down faster, you have to make it smaller so that it retains less heat and dissipates it faster. That "cooling air in a larger enclosure" is an urban legend. There is no such thing.

I didn't spell it out explicitly but of course when I said airflow, I'm speaking about it in the context of the MacBook Pro which has fans.

In an electronic device, the internal components generate the heat, not the enclosure.  You want to dissipate that heat so that the temperature of the internal components don't rise to the point that they fry.  What an enclosure does is absorb the heat generated by the components and then dissipate it by radiating it off its external surface area.  (Heat never ever flows from a cold body to a hot body.  At least not in this universe.) So, all other things equal, the smaller your enclosure, the less mass it has to absorb the heat from the components, and the less external surface area it has to dissipate that heat it absorbed from the components.  And that's not even talking about heat sinks and cooling fans.

Now let's stick heat sinks and cooling fans into the narrative.  If a smaller enclosure gives you less internal space, forcing you to use smaller heat sinks, smaller fans and smaller airflow channels, then clearly going minimalistic is going to reduce, not increase, your ability to dissipate the heat generated by the components.

This is why your assertion that the generous heat produced by Intel chips caused Apple to go minimalistic is problematic.  The heat generated by a chip is in fact an obstacle to going minimalistic.

That's where the vicious death cycle begins. Put bigger fans, bigger pipes, bigger sinks, they will require bigger batteries and bigger enclosures that will retain even more heat that will require even bigger fans, bigger pipes, bigger sinks that will require.... and so on.

Bigger enclosure may absorb more heat, but once it absorbs that it becomes a heat source itself. According to your mentality we can cool down a hot object faster if we put it into an enclosure instead of leaving it in the open air !..

JWSC said:

zimmermann said:

I was shocked to see the new MacBook Pro. It really looks fat. Heavy. 

Some of that extra volume is for internal airflow.  The larger the airflow volume the less the fans have to work, saving battery life.