How can it be-Apple, like how we are familiar with AS SoC’s from TSMC used in macs for several years yet? Apple is all about you don’t know until it’s announced now.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple's 2023 Roadmap: When to Expect New Product Launches This Year
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
M1 to M2 is a small upgrade. Why so many people, like you, desire an M2 Mac Mini? I mean, it won't make such a difference getting an M2 on the same machine, they'll still perform as low-end SoCs. If you need power, go for iMac or Mac Studio.
If you, for instance, expect a M1 Max/Ultra performance on a Mac Mini, I think you'll have to wait fo another 5/6 years, when the low-end M8 will be on par with todays' M1 Max/Ultra.
It has already been stated more than once that Apple is likely to skip the M2 in the iMac. Indeed when they released the new MacBook Air with M2 that would have been the perfect time to put M2 into the iMac, but they chose not to. Sure, it could have been an issue of supply and they favoured the new MBA figuring they’d likely sell more of those than iMacs, but there might have been another as yet undisclosed reason to skip M2 in an iMac.
After apple released its M1 chip, we were all in awe. This lead us to expect a great performance improvement year after year. But I think we were wrong. Apple had (and probably will) increase M SoCs performance slowly, over time, just like we've seen between M1 and M2.
This is exactly where I ended up. The won is weak and wages have been stagnant in Korea for ~15 years ... figure an iMac with less performance than you know you need, so you will replace it in 3 years or a Mac Studio with a little more quid and get maybe 6-7 years of more performance than you need this very moment. It's cheaper in the long game.
Ah, that's nothing, try hauling a 2012 27" iMac around in your arms. I do this every couple of years to take out the GPU and bake it (yes, that really works again and again). 85% of the weight is the screen, once that is out it's like a ragdoll. While I miss being able to take the glass off with suction cups and get the screen out with a T8 to work on pre-2013 iMacs like regular computers, I love having a lighter Mac.
Exactly. I would be somewhat surprised to see the M3 released before 2024, but I would be shocked to see M3 Pro or Max released within a year of the M2 Pro/Max.
That’s for the multi-trillion dollar company to resolve that NASA-level engineering 🤣
I don't grok this.
The gap between the M1 Mac mini and the M1 Max Studio is huge. There is plenty of space for an M2 Pro Mac mini, especially given the lack of any M*Pro desktop currently.
16G/512G M1 Mac mini is $1099
32G/512G M1 Max Mac Studio is $1999
I would place bets on the Studio Display "1/4 XDR price" sticking around for years, and the new miniLED Apple monitor will start at "1/2 XDR price", so about $3000. :/ Apple's prices are at least consistently ridiculous?
Hopefully, and I expect it will happen, the PC market will start seeing >200 DPI screens, as they need something to compete at, and between DSC and DisplayPort2, and soon 80Gbps TB, it won't be that hard to power.
Apple regularly skipped Intel chip generations on some mac models all the time. It is entirely normal for Apple to release what it wants, when it wants, independent of technology availability.
As much as I love unsolicited, highly-opinionated advice (/s) my interest in the M2 has almost nothing to do with expectations in terms of computing improvements, but rather to avoid buying a machine that is already over a year old. It's more about being pot committed.
Just a little unsolicited advice back to you: framing your point of view with posts that assume to speak for large numbers of people and/or injecting your own criteria for judging things into discussions and assuming that must apply to everyone else (see previous comment) seems really arrogant. Not trying to be rude to you because you seem well-meaning, but you should consider the tone of your posts. This approach comes off as needlessly aggressive.
I wonder how many would experience a difference between M1 and M1 Pro in a blind test. Apple couples good and large display options with stronger SoC which is really bad. A 15.5 inch Air would destroy the interest for MBP for most people.
As long as it also inspires enough other customers to spend/buy more, that is fine?
The CPU from the M1 to M1 Pro isn't much of a leap, but the GPU is more noticeable?
The M1 Pro features a maximum total of 10 CPU cores, including 8 high-performance cores, and 2 energy efficient cores.
The M1 only has 8 CPU cores, with an equal balance of high-performance and energy-efficient cores (4/4)
M1 offers 66 GB/s Memory bandwidth vs a M1 Pro offers 200 GB/s Memory bandwidth. (Running a SSD test will be twice as fast)
M1 max RAM is 16 GB, M1 Pro max RAM is 32 GB.
So there is a lot more to a M1 Pro then just double the GPU cores.
I suspect when the Mac Pro is unveiled it will be so underwhelming because it will be the same chip options as the Max Studio (M2 variants of course) scaled up in a tower form factor. What might make it interesting is if Apple maintains modularity beyond purchase and potentially work out a deal with nVidia for powerful discrete graphics options and support for Metal.
Apple is likely doing that as well as working with pro application developers like AutoDesk, Adobe to really drive home the value of having a computer like this. A big part of why they are still selling the Intel Mac Pro too is that there are still some pro apps out there that are just not optimized for Apple silicon. They run well, but not well enough to compete with the native speeds.
Also, I am wondering if Apple is reading the market right now and determining there isn’t really a demand for either the Mac Pro and Studio. Budgets are really tight right now and many companies are stretching their existing hardware investments as long as they can. Top that off with all the supply chain issues, many of the predictions discussed in this article might never come to fruition.
That iPhone line up in particular is up for some real disruption.
Apple is likely doing that as well as working with pro application developers like AutoDesk, Adobe to really drive home the value of having a computer like this. A big part of why they are still selling the Intel Mac Pro too is that there are still some pro apps out there that are just not optimized for Apple silicon. They run well, but not well enough to compete with the native speeds.
Also, I am wondering if Apple is reading the market right now and determining there isn’t really a demand for either the Mac Pro and Studio. Budgets are really tight right now and many companies are stretching their existing hardware investments as long as they can. Top that off with all the supply chain issues, many of the predictions discussed in this article might never come to fruition.
That iPhone line up in particular is up for some real disruption.
Precisely for that, I'm not waiting for anything fancy from the old Mac Mini. I'm saving money already for the Mac Studio and decent RAM.
Nah! Once all the form factors have been updated, the M-series will probably update as often as the A-series. With much greater performance improvements as the power and size limits are much wider. The M1 to M2 upgrade was pretty significant with clock speed, bandwidth, memory size, graphics, pro-res and even 2nd generation 5nm technology. Sure the M1 is not totally outdated yet, but that doesn't mean nothing happened with M2.
Larger displays mean larger footprint and larger batteries. Where would you put your strongest SoC, in the smallest laptop available?
I thought the comment section's purpose was to share our ideas. I expressed my idea in what I deem to be a humble, non arrogant way.
Also, if I may, you shouldn't feel hurt for what I said, cuz possibilities are many, including the one where you just represent a small percentage of people in that regard.
Yes, cpu-speedwise. But that was already excellent. M2 has 25% more transistors than M1, mostly to increase graphics performance.