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Gurman: Apple Event on March 8, At Least Four M2 Macs to Launch Later This Year
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I read all the bits, I just commented on what I thought was prevalent...?
Am I wrong that the M1 Pro has more CPU cores than the M1...?
- M1 = 8-core CPU (4P/4E)
- M1 Pro = 10-core CPU (8P/2E)
Please no. No more single-port laptops. The ability to charge while still having a second native port available is too valuable.
All laptops should have a minimum of two USB-C ports in my opinion.
Agreed - and ideally one on each side
Great answer to the considerations of using Apple Silicon in the existing Mac Pro form factor. I think a new model might only have 2 -4 PCIe slots, but it does seem like it will be difficult to provide 4xTB4 and 4 x PCIe4/5 slots with a mix of lanes. It would need at least one x16 slot for high speed devices presumably?
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When Apple drives M1 Macs to M2 what is your guess for the M1? Lower end iPads? Too big for Watches but maybe AppleTV+ ? If you assume Apple has written off the R&D costs of M1 with Mac sales it could be a cheap product to use in future products, like an Apple supported Car. Those processors could probably be sold to auto makers for Apple based use in replacing the various apps, including from iPhones and iPads. That could open a major new market, especially if Apple doesn't offer exclusive use to one company.
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I would expect that they would simply retool most, if not all, of the current M1 fabrication for production of M2.
I don't know enough about fabrication to provide an accurate answer, but I assume that the capacity is limited, so it seems unlikely that Apple or TSMC would keep a full production line for M1 once M2 is released. I expect they reduce capacity gradually until the product line is discontinued and end-of-life. I suppose they keep some capacity to allow for repairs for the duration of Apple Care etc.
An M1 is probably overkill for Apple TV, but maybe Apple will use it to make a "gaming console" version of ATV?
But, M1 and M2 will probably cost the same to make, so why would not use the current "M-generation" in new products?
Maybe this is out of place but for me leakers should stop saying "M2"
Please tell me if I'm wrong but there's any official detail that tell this will be the next processor's name
Still remember M1X? I remember it all too well
The actual Pro and Max names leaks literally came less than a week before announcement
Please tell me if I'm wrong but there's any official detail that tell this will be the next processor's name
Still remember M1X? I remember it all too well
The actual Pro and Max names leaks literally came less than a week before announcement
Apple has already shown a progressive numerical naming scheme with the A-series of mobile SoCs; the first Apple silicon (for Mac computers & iPad Pro tablets) SoC was the M1, so the follow-up makes sense to be the M2...
I could see them announcing the larger iMac, showing a cool video, and then saying "Coming September." ??? Hope my 2015 iMac doesn't take a nose dive before then.
That nonsense again?
There are plenty of professionals whose needs are met by the entry-level MacBook Pro. There’s no reason they should be deprived of a product that that meets their needs just because its existence hurts your feelings.
How about fixing all the issues in the current products before releasing new?
Wouldn't be as fun trying to do a MacOS USB recovery with dongle then the process says to plug in power but the two USB-C ports on the MBA M1 are too close together for both to fit. Another Magic Mouse moment. Now I know what "Think different" means.
Wouldn't be as fun trying to do a MacOS USB recovery with dongle then the process says to plug in power but the two USB-C ports on the MBA M1 are too close together for both to fit. Another Magic Mouse moment. Now I know what "Think different" means.
Sounds like you're supposed to just "buy a whole new computer" instead.
"Eco Apple" at work again..
But it only makes probable sense. It’s no different when the S2 chip was announced following the S1 chip for the Apple Watch, most refered to it as the ‘S1 Chip’. It’s like the A-series processor(s), A-13–>A-14–> A-15, etc. If they use any other type of naming moniker, it would only create more confusion.
Plus, with Apples trajectory, they usually follow suit when it comes to naming the next processor after M1, The next in line would be ‘M2’ naturally.
I agree iPhones and Macs have significantly different purchase patterns and lifecycles, which is why I mentioned that one last.
But I'll also point out that the perceived purchase pattern of iPhones for people that frequent places like this, or the sort with high-end plans that basically include a new phone (with trade-in) every two years, does not necessarily reflect actual use patterns. Reasoning:
Almost exactly a year ago, Apple made the claim that 1 billion iPhones were in active use. Based on estimated sales data, that would mean if zero iPhones were lost or broken, every single iPhone sold since spring of 2016 was in use as of the start of 2021. So even by the most pessimistic estimate iPhones stay in use for an average of 5 years.
Shorter than the average Mac, to be sure--at work we have a half-dozen 2013 iMacs that are still in active use. But anecdotally, everybody I know other than myself and one other super-geek type uses their phone (iPhone or Android) until it literally falls apart, and the data on number of iPhones in use backs this up.
I like your (accurate) set of definitions of "pro" depending on who you talk to and how they think, and I'm in complete agreement about everything you say regarding the product line naming, and particularly how awkwardly the older low-end 13" and even more so today's 13" fits into an otherwise clearly delineated lineup.
But I do take exception to one tiny bit, about "why would a Pro machine have a non-Pro processor?" The obvious answer is "thermal envelope".
This is demonstrated in the most obvious way by the iPad Pro versus the Air. The iPad Pro uses an M1 CPU, which in the notebook lineup is the consumer model. But for a tablet, it is way better equipped than the A-series chip in the iPad Air, the device is unquestionably a "pro" tablet in terms of price, capability, and CPU power, and trying to put the M1 Pro CPU into it would be impossible without completely changing what the product is (and ruining it).
Just as there are many possible definitions of "pro" (many of which are reasonable), what qualifies as a "pro CPU" or "non-pro CPU" depends entirely on what it's going in.
Which is not to say that the M1 13" MacBook Pro deserves that moniker. It has very little reason to exist at all, but if it is to continue, it should probably be just MacBook (like the old iBooks!), as a parallel to the "just iPad".
Personally, what I'd like to see in the MacBook lineup is something akin to the iPad's "normal", "Air", "Pro" distinction. The "Just a MacBook" are budget options similar to either the current Air or 13", suitable for the average user, running a base M2 CPU. The MacBook Air is a lineup in thinner cases like the MacBook Pros of 2020, using something like an M2 Plus, with similar or modestly better performance to the base models but more RAM and more ports. And then MacBook Pros using the same chunky form factor as the 2021s, with beefy, high-power M2 Pro/Max CPUs.
I own and love one of the new 16" MacBook Pros, but there's something really special about the super-thin previous generation, and a lot of the users I know don't really need something that industrial, but could genuinely benefit from a bit more oomph than the base models provide and would like a bigger screen. Apple now has CPUs that can do justice to the ultra-thin MBPs of old, why not resurrect them as a middel-of-the-lineup Air series competing with other ultrabooks (or whatever), instead of portable workstations?
I hope the form factor is fanless, and has a battery! And the new display also has a battery, and connects wirelessly over universal control.
My point was more like "if you have a processor called 'M1 Dogcow' and a computer called 'MacBook Dogcow' that doesn't have a 'Dogcow' processor then maybe your naming convention needs work." - perhaps Apple should find a way of naming its processors that is completely orthogonal to its computer names.
Meanwhile, I don't think people buy a computer based on the processor TDP per se - it's the consequences of low/high TDP that matter - i.e. lots of computing power vs. thin, light and long battery life. It's as much about the computer design as the CPU. No sense in putting a M1 Pro in a MacBook Air - it would get throttled (...and that was part of the problem with the 2016 MBP - the case/battery was too small for the CPU). Meanwhile, the only point of putting a regular M1 into a 14/16" MBP case would be to save money - now, I don't think anybody outside of Apple has the data, but I suspect the marginal cost difference between a regular M1 and a binned 8/14 core M1 Pro is only a very small part of the retail price difference between a 13" and 14" pro.
This is even more so with Apple Silicon: with Intel you had distinct ranges of processors based (largely) on TDP 'hidden' by the i3/5/7/9 labels which were only ever about target price-points within a particular range (any correlation with caches sizes, cores, hyperthreading support etc. only applied within the same suffix) - so there was really no comparison in power between a U-series i7 in a 13" MBP and a H-series i7 in a 15" MBP. With Apple Silicon it's looking like the only physical difference between the processor in the MacBook Air and top-end Mac Pro is going to be 'more of the same CPU cores, GPU cores, TB interfaces, RAM channels, accelerators' with the TDP simply scaling with the number of cores etc. It's almost a matter of "pick how many cores/ports/displays etc. your job needs and rely on Apple to fit it into the smallest possible case".
...and, yeah, it's bad enough trying to armchair-quarterback the Mac range, but if you start dragging the iPad and iPhone range into it. The iPad has already flip-flopped between "Air" meaning extra-thin-and-light vs 'economy'. Having a M1 in an iPad Pro is probably massive overkill - a lot of the M-series vs. A-series differences were to make it more suitable for MacOS - but it's just more economical (for Apple) to under-use a M1 than to produce an A15zx++ son-of-the-bionic-woman chip just for the iPad Pro.
16" MBP Industrial? Methinks someone has forgotten (or never had) the joy of lugging a PowerBook G3 or 17" MBP on a flight...
Honestly, I'd have to agree that Apple could do with a somewhat wider range of computers. Some people would like a MacBook Air with a larger screen (not everybody is editing 4k movies - some people still work with documents and spreadsheets and 'writing code' long since stopped being an excuse to buy a super-powerful CPU), a real portable workstation, with desktop-class CPU and GPU, designed for desk->car boot->desk 'portability' rather than true mobile use, not to mention the fabled basic mini-tower with PCIe slots. The whole '4 quadrant' thing was appropriate when Apple had one foot in the grave and the previous range was a hot mess - it's a different world today, and Apple could afford to expand the choice a bit without turning into HPDelnovo - or even re-creating the Mac Performa dumster fire of the 1990s.
I agree with the bigger screen idea if that actually represents a price saving vs. a 16" MBP. But, as for "oomph"... the regular M1 now has plenty of "oomph", the benefit of better cooling in the Mini and 13" MBP is pretty negligible, and the extra "oomph" you get from the M1 Pro/Max is highly conditional on having the sort of workflow that can utilise more CPU and/or GPU cores: it might be night and day for video rendering, but it's probably not going to speed up your spreadsheets.
I'm currently sticking with my Intel iMac until the high-end ASi Mac Mini and 5k iMac replacement come out (...ideally both, so I can choose between them) but, frankly, a regular M1 would provide enough CPU "oomph" for what I do - but I do want support for 2-3 external displays and enough I/O to drive a gazillion USB devices, which is what rules out the M1 at the moment.
We still really don’t. The news is that they are “in the pipeline” and “likely”. That’s not any kind of revelation.
We’ve had multiple, credible rumours of the M2 and new Air replacing the M1 Air “sometime in 2022” since last summer. That’s aside from the entry in the Encyclopaedia of the Bleeding Obvious saying that the M1 will be superseded by an M2 after a year or two. Will that be followed by M2 versions of the other M1 machines in the following months? Of course it will be. In the current climate, though, I’d be surprised if even Apple are certain quite whether they’ll be “in the shops for Christmas”.
The only “interesting” tidbit is that the 13” MBP might be getting a M2 refresh, when some people have speculated that it would be dropped - but the only basis for it being dropped is that some people (myself included) have an opinion that it would be redundant alongside a revamped Air - and while I’d love to be proven right, I’ve never seen any claimed leaks or “industry sources” saying it is anything but speculation. So a M2 13” MBP in the next year or so is pretty much the null hypothesis.
Not sure why I was being quoted and deserved a Webster's dictionary definition on the word Professional.
Because:
circular definition:
see: circular definition.
Plus there are plenty of other people here arguing about whether particular models deserve the "pro" monicker based on their personal (and usually unstated) idea of what it means.
Professionals want to be able to tailor the display size they need, and the CPU they need, and the memory and battery they need. They don’t want to spend all their money on a “pro laptop” that forces them to compromise and suffer from all-in-one design.
What Professionals need is a new paradigm for portable computers: separate the screen from the computer. Give each its own battery.
What Professionals need is a new paradigm for portable computers: separate the screen from the computer. Give each its own battery.
And when they do state their ideas, they are often quite bizarre. Like proclaiming that videogamers are pros but doctors and lawyers are not.