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A redesign wasn’t heavily rumored for this new batch of Macs. All things point to a redesign coming at some point next year.

And, I hate to sound line an Apple “apologist”, but the current design of those notebooks are excellent and miles ahead of what’s offered by most competitors. Plus I’d rather get a new Mac now, knowing the current design has had ample time to iron out its wrinkles (ie: keyboard issues).

Except we don't know what keyboard design Apple is using. It was rumored the MBA would revert to the MB keyboard. I am content to wait for teardowns.
 
No-one suggested there would be a redesign.
Logic would suggest a redesign. I was thinking the Apple silicon Macs would maybe even be a cool new colour - like black? Does anyone remember the black MacBooks?

AFCBDDBC-1C32-4C04-81EC-FC8B2CF06022.jpeg
 
I can edit 2x 4K streams on a 2018 iPad Pro with only 6gb RAM faster than my 2019 MBP with a quad core i7 and 16gb RAM - all without a fan. Sorry, but I disagree with you...with 16gb, the M1 MBP will be fine.
My 2018 15” pro with 32gb ram runs way smoother than my cousin’s 2018 16gb using premiere pro with multiple 4K c300mkii streams. I’m talking about high bitrate 4K.
 
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Now that I see the 13" MBP with M1 chip in the same design with those UGLY *SS Bezels, I just can't get over it and consider even remotely buying it. I'll wait for design refresh that can match M1/2 chip and performance. Also, Big Sur is made for rounder corner screen, not square ones, so.. another hint a new redesign is in the works for 2021.
 
What I'm now wondering is what is the reason to go with an Apple Silicon Air over an Apple Silicon 13" Pro. The chip is the same (so long as you spec the Air accordingly), the ports are the same. The only question seems to be whether or not I want a TouchBar and how much faith am I putting in the fact that the lack of a fan in the Air will not suck in the way that the cooling in all 12" MacBooks and all 2018-2020 Intel MacBook Airs has been. Or am I missing something?
Don’t underestimate the difference thermals can make in a chip’s performance. An unsung change in the 2020 iPad Pro was that Apple refined the 2020 Pro’s thermals, and the net result was that in many tests of sustained performance the 2020 Pro outperformed the 2018 Pro despite the A12X and A12Z having similar theoretic performance maximums. I suspect the same will be true of the MacBook Air and Pro - the Pro will be able to sustain heavier duty workloads longer thanks to active cooling.
 
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Am I alone feeling more than disappointed about no body redesign? :(
And, they are comparing performance to Windows laptops, which again brings forth my favorite topic: is some sort of official 'Boot Camp' support for M1 Macs expected? No word on this so far.

How do you improve on something that is already near perfect in terms of minimalistic, environmentally friendly (eg. 100% recycled aluminum unibody)?

List your wish items. If you're looking for glowing lights, there are the Alienware PCs waiting for you.

We don't need change for change's sake. We've needed the Mac to move forward, and today it does BIG time!
 
Has Apple become a boring company? I mean, the chips look promising but their products look literally the same and have looked the same for around a decade and a half. I was expecting at the very least a name change. They used to show the new hardware/design first and then show the details. Now it just seems to be about the details.


This reeks of ignorance
 
Great features:
1- M1 looks impressive
2- Battery life

Bad things
1- Still in 2020 a "Pro" MBP ships with 256 and 8GB ram? that is lame.
Entry-level should have been at least 512 SSD, but again that is how Apple milks its customers.
2- Only 2 ports seem very little. Especially since one is used for charging.
3- Still a useless touchbar.
4- Still not user-upgradable RAM
5- Bezels still big and ugly.
 
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Thanks for clarifying - I'd literally just posted how the MBP having only x2 ports won't cut it. Your post clarified that and it makes sense now!

I notice they're still selling in Intel Mac Mini with x4 TB ports - shame the M1 version only has 2.
I get the impression that the M1 SoC might be limited to two TB 3 ports. And that a four-port version with possibly even more cores and even better graphics will come next year for a higher-end 13” and the 16”. That ‘M1x’ might also be suitable for a new 24” iMac. And a yet more powerful version would come a year later to replace the highest-end 27” iMacs, the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro.
 
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"Hey guys, we're switching to our own chips, they're sooo much faster! To prove it, here's some base models with vague benchmarks and no demos."

</rant>

EXACTLY.

It SOUNDS promising but there were no side-by-side demos to compare performance vs Intel machines in the videos. I wonder why?

Also, these don't replace the higher-end MBP Intel options, meaning they most likely aren't as powerful as those still. I think in the future we'll see an M1S or M1X chip or something for these higher-end Macs.

The footnotes on the product page are also vague and don't say what PC they compared too, but do say the mac to mac comparisons were done with the old base macbook pro.

If those gains are legit, that would put the M1 on par of better than an i7's performance (and the iPad pro's were meeting and sometimes exceeding i7 performance) so it might be a case of not wanting to advertise that your base products are going to potentially outperform your higher end Pro line. Apple would brag to from the top of the mountain normally, and I don't think the lag of bragging is because the new chips are slow.
 
But it isn‘t. There‘s a fan in there, suggesting that it’s clocked higher, which means more speed.
yeah, and "suggesting" a computer is faster is not on par with just laying bare the specs that say it is.

especially when they make no mention that it actually is
 
The upsales for the storage/ram are ridiculously overpriced. You need 16GB for a laptop that's going to last longer than 2 years. Flash storage is also cheap af these days, and charging $200 for upgrading 256->512 is absolutely nuts. This is good only for increasing apple stock prices.

Microsoft charges the same amount to upgrade from 256-> 512GB storage in their Surface Laptop 3 line.
 
Now that I see the 13" MBP with M1 chip in the same design with those UGLY *SS Bezels, I just can't get over it and consider even remotely buying it. I'll wait for design refresh that can match M1/2 chip and performance. Also, Big Sur is made for rounder corner screen, not square ones, so.. another hint a new redesign is in the works for 2021.

Bezels serve an important role with accurate colour perception on the screen, which is needed for photographers and video pros. The bezels are there for a reason.

One day, Apple will reduce the width of the bezels to make people happy, but it will be a downgrade for screen colour accuracy, as surrounding light will interfere with one's perception.
 
And even the top spec'd model only comes with 2 USB-C ports. That's pretty embarrassing. Since there is room in the chassis for 4, does that imply this new uber ARM chip can't handle the IO requirements of 4 ports at the same time?
Really, really embarrassing, Apple. This would also explain why the new Mini only has 2 USB-C and 2 USB-A when the 2018 model had the same two of the latter but four of the former.
USB-C is super power hungry. Even if you buy a charging brick with USB-C ports you typically never see more than 2. If you added 4 USB-C ports, I’m sure you’d have some heat issues. What laptop currently has 4 USB-C ports?
 
And even the top spec'd model only comes with 2 USB-C ports. That's pretty embarrassing. Since there is room in the chassis for 4, does that imply this new uber ARM chip can't handle the IO requirements of 4 ports at the same time?
The chip was obviously designed for the MacBook Air in mind, which has only two ports - and was being touted as the best-selling notebook or something. -> That's where they shipping the big volumes.

Putting it in the 13" Pro and Mac mini was a mere afterthought.
The silver lining is: There surely will be SOC with more USB-C/Thunderbolt ports at some point.

USB-C is super power hungry. Even if you buy a charging brick with USB-C ports you typically never see more than 2. If you added 4 USB-C ports, I’m sure you’d have some heat issues. What laptop currently has 4 USB-C ports?

USB-C is super power hungry. Even if you buy a charging brick with USB-C ports you typically never see more than 2. If you added 4 USB-C ports, I’m sure you’d have some heat issues. What laptop currently has 4 USB-C ports?
Apple has sold 13" MacBook Pros with 4 USB-C ports.
The ports themselves won't take that much power.

I rather think they didn't want to include the circuitry for more ports on the SOC (yield) for these relative low-volume first-gen products.
 
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Great features:
1- M1 looks impressive
2- Battery life

Bad things
1- Still in 2020 a "Pro" MBP ships with 256 and 8GB ram? that is lame.
Entry level should have been at least 512 SSD, but again that is how Apple milks its customers.
2- Only 2 ports seems very little.
3- Still a useless touchbar.
4- Still not user upgradable RAM
Well, 8GB of "unified" memory. Power PC to intel comparisons for Ram performance were always off, and I suspect that's more of the same here. I used to get ticked when an PC person would be like "I have 6 GB of ram and your Mac has two and half the processor speed" and my mac was 3 times faster. Power PC didn't need all that ram to outperform. 8GB could be the equivalent of 16 or more... but the vague details leaves to us to wait for the coveted benchmarking tests
 
There you have it ... and it was all going so well .... the new chips can only handle 16Gb memory. Terrible shame.

Note the "only". :rolleyes: 16GB is a massive amount of RAM, and keep in mind that RAM is just one spec. The overall system architecture must be factored in. Think iOS devices being far more performant than Android devices with half the RAM.

If you truly need more, the next Pro will give that to you.
 
I would like to game on the Mac without listening to fans going off like a hairdryer. World of Warcraft (a very Mac friendly game) on my runs horribly on my 2019 16” MBP. I hope Blizzard ports to Apple silicon soon and these games run smoothly.
 
The chip was obviously designed for the MacBook Air in mind, which has only two ports - and was being touted as the best-selling notebook or something. -> That's where they shipping the big volumes.

Putting it in the 13" Pro and Mac mini was a mere afterthought.
By that token, the two-port 13” MBP has always been an afterthought.
 
is some sort of official 'Boot Camp' support for M1 Macs expected? No word on this so far.
Apple stated months ago they weren't going to support bootcamp, nor would there be reason to. You simply can't run Windows on this hardware. Even if you got the ARM version of Windows, which is only available to OEMs and only supports apps compiled for ARM, the typical user would get zero use from it. You will not be running Windows natively and unless they add some sort of x86 instruction extension (which would go against the design philosophy of RISC), you'd have to emulate it entirely via software, which would result in terrible performance. If you were hoping to play Windows games, you'll have to get a Windows x86 machine.
 
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