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M4 Macs, New iPad Mini, and iPad 11 Expected at Upcoming Apple Event
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The M3 fab process at TSMC is expensive and inefficient. Apple wants to leave the M3 behind as fast as possible. It was a stopgap. So was the M2 for different reasons. Clear skies ahead for the M series chips.
I understand the N3B issues and the resulting desire by Apple to get past M3 and A17pro products.
What was the issue with the M2?
In the bios there will be an option to have it turn on after power loss. Enable that and put it on a smart plug then cut the power to it when you want it off. When you turn the smart plug back on it will automatically power on.
Really looking forward to a new iPad mini. I use it exclusively in aviation and the mini 5 is felling a bit slow now.
There is no appeal. No one asked for thinner iPads either but here we are with overeating iPad pros with piss poor cooling.
Generally, the M2 offers less of a performance improvement over the M1 than the M3 offers over the M2. Also, the GoFetch exploit has no fix on M2 whereas M3 offers a fix.
Yeah, it's a pity... Apple's North Star is neither their customer nor making the best products and having the best lineup. It's money.
A very reasonable plan, thank you. But, in my precise circumstances, I am often out of range of basic smart plugs. So would have to use ones that are expensive/fancy ones that talk Matter or whatever.
Newsflash. You don't have to upgrade each new chip announcement.
Might upgrade to the M4 MBP. RAM will go from 32 to presumably 36… maybe a little more, even?
And CPU-bound tasks will go up 53% per core. Neat. Bit harder to predict what that means for multi-core. I'm currently on an 8p2e SoC; the new one might be 6p6e again, or perhaps 8p4e. Either way, that's another gain: battery life, which is merely OK on this machine, will be better, as 2 e-cores just aren't enough (and these newer e-cores have improved a fair bit).
Plus, probably an M4 Mac mini, as a build agent. Not sure yet whether to bother with the M4 Pro, if they'll offer it at all. The M4 with 24 GiB RAM is probably enough.
And CPU-bound tasks will go up 53% per core. Neat. Bit harder to predict what that means for multi-core. I'm currently on an 8p2e SoC; the new one might be 6p6e again, or perhaps 8p4e. Either way, that's another gain: battery life, which is merely OK on this machine, will be better, as 2 e-cores just aren't enough (and these newer e-cores have improved a fair bit).
Plus, probably an M4 Mac mini, as a build agent. Not sure yet whether to bother with the M4 Pro, if they'll offer it at all. The M4 with 24 GiB RAM is probably enough.
Price reductions here in the UK on Apple stuff is minimal, unfortunately. Not to mention, you are stuck with base configuration, so 8GB/256GB In the case of the M2 mini.
It would be nice if Apple added the ability to hook it up to more than one computer at a time!
Not sure how they're going to make an event out of no design changes whatsoever other than a smaller MacMini.
M4 seems like it will be an incremental upgrade over M3, but I guess they can spend a lot of time talking about the "coming later" Apple Intelligence features...
I have an M1 Max MBP and I'll be keeping it until there's a form factor change that makes me want to upgrade (most ideally, a thinner, lighter model).
M4 seems like it will be an incremental upgrade over M3, but I guess they can spend a lot of time talking about the "coming later" Apple Intelligence features...
I have an M1 Max MBP and I'll be keeping it until there's a form factor change that makes me want to upgrade (most ideally, a thinner, lighter model).
What isn't to update, other than resolution density the screen is old and tired:
- No HDR
- 60Hz
- iffy webcam
- over priced ergo stand
- no built in VESA
- lack of DisplayPort or HDMI in
- a waste of money if you want 2 or 3 of them (how many webcams do you need?)
The Studio Display has good speakers (if you only want in-monitor speakers), and great resolution density; but otherwise, it is a mess.
The sad part is, I still believe that Apple's next screen will probably cost about $3200.
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Apple likes to do an "Event" (that is now a spectrum of possibilities) when:
1) A new form factor
2) A new chip
3) Lots of things to announce
The Mac mini has the new form factor.
This will be the introduction on the M4 to the Mac line-up.
Between the Mac mini, the iMac, and probably some iPads, there are lots of devices to talk about.
I don't understand why "incremental upgrade" is said like it is a bad thing. I love consistent incremental upgrades, they're awesome. Go from an M1 to M5 should be more than doubling of performance, but each release is just a step in the right direction.
I bought an M4 iPad Pro over the weekend and decided to sell my M1 MacBook Pro and iPad Mini and just use the iPad. I'm going to wait until the computers are updated and consider getting one of the updated iMacs or MacBook Air with the M4. 🤔
218ppi for a desktop display is plenty. If they do move it to OLED, they'll probably bump that up by 50% or so, but not so much to actually increase density, but rather because of the subpixel arrangement.
Probably waiting on OLED.
(Personally, I don't mind mini-LED at all. But it seems they've abandoned the tech.)
Possibly with Thunderbolt 5. It immediately doubles the bandwidth required, assuming no compression.
Yeah, I think they made a miscalculation there. Few people are that excited about Center Stage; many people seem annoyed by the poor optics that come as a result.
The VESA variant doesn't cost extra.
(As for whether a height-adjustable stand should cost $400 more, well.)
I just don't see these changing.
Really, the problem with the Studio Display is that it's one of very few displays that offers a good Retina resolution. That isn't on Apple, except for the fact that they've priced it absurdly. If Apple and Microsoft pushed harder for higher-res desktop displays, we might be seeing them for three figures by now, but alas, that hasn't happened as of yet.
Perhaps.
I'm never quite clear whom Apple makes their displays for. It clearly isn't the average Mac (or iPad) user; way too expensive for that. Nor is it enthusiasts; that's a very small market segment.
This. I don't understand that criticism.
If Apple were to upgrade less frequently, that would be worse overall.
Yeah. Once I'm ready to buy a new 4K monitor, I'm just going to get one from Dell or LG or Samsung, though I am looking for one with built-in speakers and possibly USB ports. I can do without a built-in webcam, especially if on the Studio Display it's not that great, and I can likely find a good third-party HD webcam (another reason to have built-in USB ports).