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Both Intel and AMD updates their mainstream line ups annually. It might be a huge disadvantage for most of Macs except for Mac Pro.
 
An Apple silicon Mac Pro will ship no later than the end of 2022, to complete the two year transition Apple has planned...

In case you're bored. TL;DR: Apple will most likely miss its own deadline due to the pandemic.

What's revealed in this article, i.e. the 18-month upgrade cycle for the M-series, just lends more weight to my claim. Mac Pro is a product line where "getting it right" is far more important than "getting it out." Apple is not going to put M1 in the new ASi Mac Pro in the last quarter of 2022 when M2 Max is slated for the first half of 2023 and before you ask, no, they're not going to put M2 in the new ASi Mac Pro either when M2 Max is already on the roadmap. What else would they use M2 Max for if not Mac Pro?

They're going to miss their own deadline on the transition just like how they miss their own deadline on Universal Control, among many other targets. They're already delaying return to corporate offices indefinitely. That's a sign that things are going to get delayed.

Some people are too optimistic about what can be done remotely when it comes to complex hardware design and software testing and deployment.
 
In case you're bored. TL;DR: Apple will most likely miss its own deadline due to the pandemic.

What's revealed in this article, i.e. the 18-month upgrade cycle for the M-series, just lends more weight to my claim. Mac Pro is a product line where "getting it right" is far more important than "getting it out." Apple is not going to put M1 in the new ASi Mac Pro in the last quarter of 2022 when M2 Max is slated for the first half of 2023 and before you ask, no, they're not going to put M2 in the new ASi Mac Pro either when M2 Max is already on the roadmap. What else would they use M2 Max for if not Mac Pro?

They're going to miss their own deadline on the transition just like how they miss their own deadline on Universal Control, among many other targets. They're already delaying return to corporate offices indefinitely. That's a sign that things are going to get delayed.

Fair enough on the slipping transition completion time frame...

But if you have read any of my posts, it would be clear that I know the entry-level Mn chips would never go into a Mac Pro (tower, Cube, whatever); anyone who thinks so would be a fool...

If the transition time frame does slip, then hopefully we will jump straight to M2 Max Duo / Quadra MCMs in the new 2023 Mac Pro Cube...!

And maybe, just maybe, they have hardware ray tracing onboard...!

For me though, I am just waiting on the machine in my sig and Blender 3.1; I will wait on the M3 Max Duo / Quadra products to see about getting a Mac Pro Cube...! ;^p
 
Both Intel and AMD updates their mainstream line ups annually. It might be a huge disadvantage for most of Macs except for Mac Pro.

For the past few years, Intel-powered Macs were seldom on the same annual update cycle as Intel. Generally they updated every-other Core generation for the popular models and longer for models like the Mac mini and Mac Pro.
 
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In case you're bored. TL;DR: Apple will most likely miss its own deadline due to the pandemic.
No, that article erroneously pins the start of the transition to WWDC2020 when Apple only announced the transition, not to the actual release of the first M1 Macs in November 2020!

So they actually still have 11 months from now!
 
No, that article erroneously pins the start of the transition to WWDC2020 when Apple only announced the transition, not to the actual release of the first M1 Macs in November 2020!

So they actually still have 11 months from now!
And they'll miss that deadline (too).
 
What disadvantage is that supposed to be? Intel's CPUs are far behind Apple's. It doesn't matter how often Intel iterates when the steps they make are too small to catch up.
lol, I guess you didnt even check 12th gen CPU. Intel is not far behind. Wake up, buddy.
 
And they'll miss that deadline (too).
I very much doubt that anyone outside of Apple has any real inside information on that.

The only CPU variant they still need to complete is the Mac Pro one if the iMac Pro will use the same M1 Pro / Max as the MBP (which is practically certainly the fallback plan even if they had originally planned otherwise).

That is perfectly doable, we just can't know which supply issues may or may not be in the way throughout the coming 11 months. I'm pretty sure Apple's crystal balls are considerably better than ours there, and they have multiple tiers of backup plans as usual, even though they may yet decide to rather exceed their original plans than resort to their less attractive fallback plans.

But the cited article makes multiple incorrect assumptions (the reference date is wrong, also TSMC's total capacity is largely irrelevant to Apple since they have priority access there, pushing other customers out of the way if necessary etc.).
 
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Not even close in terms of performance / Watt and overall efficiency.
From what? Intel starts using big little cores and who cares about the wattage and efficiency on desktop? Do you also aware that Intel is using 7nm(10nm previously) while Apple is using 5nm? Clearly, Intel isn't dead at all. You just wanna ignore others.
 
I very much doubt that anyone outside of Apple has any real inside information on that.

The only CPU variant they still need to complete is the Mac Pro one if the iMac Pro will use the same M1 Pro / Max as the MBP (which is practically certainly the fallback plan even if they had originally planned otherwise).

That is perfectly doable, we just can't know which supply issues may or may not be in the way throughout the coming 11 months.
Yes, it's all speculation. And mine is that they'll miss it. You can refer to the thread where I had long discussions on this subject for my reasons.

You're certainly free to think that Apple will stick an M1 variant in a whole new ASi Mac Pro while M2 Max is already on the horizon. It definitely won't be the craziest thing that they've done. ;)
 
They don't do that, actually. It is more complex than that. They've never just sat on TSMC's laurels but they have always improved the architecture with every release, just not always in exactly the same way, and going to Intel's method would actually be a step backwards which I hope they won't take!
The mobile chips were going through a natural progression in the last 5 years so that made sense but the general rule was same that alternative releases occured with a new manufacturing process (smaller die).

Apple has almost never published anything like an actual roadmap and it's unlikely they will now. Surprise is their lifeblood, even if they have been pretty consistent overall, so we could generally know what to expect, not least with the help of sites like this one.
Actually iPhones have a very strict release schedule it happens around the 2nd week of September. The iPad releases are sketchy, and so are the mac devices, but so far the mac side delays were mostly because of Intel and, the whole reason people were happy that Apple ditched them was because we wanted a more streamlined release schedule, the performance gains are a welcome change but no one actually expected them to be so incredible.

"Dicey"? What?
iPad Pro releases don't follow any set schedule, infact Apple has literally zero consistency in the iPad lineup, the products are great but the lineup itself is scattered. I mean there's no A15 iPad Air, so more people would buy the iPad Mini 6.
 
The second half of the year begins July 1 so it's entirely possible Apple launches the first M2 products in the summer, especially if they want to position them for back-to-school sales. Second half doesn't automatically mean fall.

I don't really see Apple introducing the M2 with the iPad Pro. The current iPP is already ridiculously overpowered for what it can do so they might keep that on an 18 month refresh cycle and not update it until September/October.
You could be right but historically Apple hasn’t held many events in July/August. They usually have a single hardware event in April/May, WWDC in June which includes few if any hardware releases and then rest of hardware follows in September, October, November in 2-3 back to back events.
 
I plan to keep my M1 Mac Mini until I have eeked out the last bit of performance in whatever software is made available for that processor. Unless, of course, an M1Max Mac Mini (32Gb/1TB) comes out and we have the funds to buy it. I'm still looking forward to the Mac Pro... I think they should come out with an M1 Ultra (20-core CPU/ 64-core GPU/ 20-core Neural Engine, etc.) in a 64Gb/1TB configuration. Yup. That would get my saliva flowing!

Yup... I think the Mac Mini, 13" Macbooks, and smaller iMacs should have 1st iteration SoC (and follow behind higher-end models, in every iteration). The Mac Pro should have the top-tier SoC (like the "M1 Ultra" SoC) that you NEVER get with the other models, which would promote sales to buy that unit, for top performance. You want low-end desktop performance? Get the Mac Mini and smaller screen Macbook/iMac (M1). You want mid-level performance? Get the large screen iMac/Macbooks (M1 Pro/Max). You want the high-end performance... get the Mac Pro (M1 Ultra).

When the M1 SoC is tapped out (no higher iterations)... then the new Mac Mini, small screen iMac, and 13" Macbook get the M1 Pro/Max configuration, the mid-level (14" Macbook and larger iMac) get the M2, the 16" Macbook gets the M2 Pro/Max, and the Mac Pro gets the M2 Ultra.

This way, if you want the HIGHEST performance of each SoC iteration, you gotta wait for the Mac Pro every cycle. You willing to settle for a little less... you buy one of the other models. So every model of Mac gets every iteration (except Ultra, which is exclusive to the Mac Pro). Trust me, I'd be saving my bucks up to buy me a Mac Pro every cycle! :D
 
Just because the CPU cycle is an even 18 months does not mean that the products will be.
For example, the M1 MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini launched in November 2020, but the M1 iMac and iPad Pro didn’t launch until May 2021.
So just because the M2 Will be available 18 months after the M1 launched, so around April – May 2022, doesn’t mean that they will launch any significant products at that time. They could wait until September – October to launch the MacBook Air, it takes time for things to go into mass production.
Another example, the M1 pro and max shipped in the new MacBook Pro‘s this past October, but aren’t rumourd to ship in the new IMAX until next spring. Same processors, they’re ready to ship, they’re available, but the iMacs are not yet.
Also, we still have M1 chips that are being readied to be introduced, the M1max Duo and Quad for the Mac Pro and possibly the iMac Pro.
That’s what I expect to come first.
I just find it interesting people are trying to come up with Apple AS CPU cycle approximations when Apple keeps their new processors a total secret until paired with actual products. While Intel/AMD can say there our new processors are, we will never hear the same from Apple because they don't want product specifics leaked. ;)
 
As iMac 24” was a little “slow” getting M1 in, 6 months later than Air’mini, is it still a good time to buy an M1 iMac now?

I presume they won’t update it for a while, even if M2 comes in spring ‘22 as have to update other Mac’s first, 27” one particularly?
 
And they'll miss that deadline (too).
They will not.
Apple is not going to delay the Macpro M1Max Quad just because the M2Max Quad might be available sometime in late 2023 or early 2024.
No matter what, even if M2 is released in the MacBook Air, the Mac Pro with M1Max duo and quad will still be their fastest and most powerful processors.
People forget that before 2010 or so, Apple updated the Mac Pro, very regularly. At least once a year.
August 2006, April 2007, January 2008, March 2009, July 2010.
Not a big stretch to say that they could introduce an M1Max Quad MacPro in 2022, and then update it a year later with a faster processor.
But they’re definitely not gonna delay their entire transition a full year just because faster processors might be available a year from now. That’s not how they work, obviously if you buy a piece of technology it will be outdated eventually.
Also, people are very mistaken if they think that just because the M2 series is introduced, the M1‘s will disappear. I don’t think that’s going to happen, I think you’re going to see Apple continue selling the M1 MacBook Air and iMac for years to come
 
How does that help apple to release a more stable product? I’m also talking about hardware.
Apple has typically not needed more time to flesh out their hardware. It has always been their software that has problems.

Sure a flex cable or screen issue here and there. But not nearly enough to warrant thinking the extra time would make any noticeable different to the hardware.
 
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