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Silly John Fatty

macrumors 68000
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Nov 6, 2012
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When I move files it's very fast, you definitely feel it. Same thing when I boot it. 9 seconds until Apple logo appears, 11-12 until login screen appears. It's almost instant you could say.

And yet, there's still many moments where it's not that fast. It kind of like hangs sometimes, when you open an app or something. You'd expect it to open it absolutely instantly, but it doesn't happen.

Is this even an SSD question at this point or does it depend on something else?

I have the 4 TB option so it should be the fastest, and I also have 32 GB of memory. I came from a computer that's over 10 years old and thought this would be much faster.
 
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In early May, I upgraded my early09 mini to M2 Pro mini and it started with Ventura 13.3.1(a). Every thing was super fast not only as OP mentioned - booting, transfer data, but apps also opened instantly! Gradually, Ventura was updated to the final version: 13.6 Then I started to notice some of the apps I used became slow to open just like OP mentioned. The most noticeable apps are: Adobe reader and Gimp (photo editor). They are all latest (newest) versions though. That could be the reason the MacOS was caught up or something to open them?
 
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macOS is kinda slow tbh. It doesn't open instantly. It also could just be that you got a defective one. My MacBook Pro 14" with m2 pro is just fine. No hangs or anything (same ram as you, but I got 1tb instead of 4)

My thought was also that it might be MacOS, because I find Ventura to be rather glitchy (I came from High Sierra, but it was a catastrophe as well).

I bought my Mac refurbish from the Apple online store, so it might be defective in fact, but how can I verify that?

In early May, I upgraded my early09 mini to M2 Pro mini and it started with Ventura 13.3.1(a). Every thing was super fast not only as OP mentioned - booting, transfer data, but apps also opened instantly! Gradually, Ventura was updated to the final version: 13.6 Then I started to notice some of the apps I used became slow to open just like OP mentioned. The most noticeable apps are: Adobe reader and Gimp (photo editor). They are all latest (newest) versions though. That could be the reason the MacOS was caught up or something to open them?
Yes , hardware seems to progress while the os regresses

Good to know I am not the only one who is feeling this. I spent a lot of money on this computer and wish it was faster.
 
I also have a Mini M2 pro, and upgraded from an old 2012 i7 Mini.
The M2 Mini is much more powerful. Although I have noticed on the odd occasion that an app might take a few bounces in the dock before it launches. I don't recall which app/s, but if an app requires Rossetta, then that may explain some lag?
Other than the occasional lazy app launch, it's ben a plenty fast Mac for for me in my experience 👍
 
I also have a Mini M2 pro, and upgraded from an old 2012 i7 Mini.
The M2 Mini is much more powerful. Although I have noticed on the odd occasion that an app might take a few bounces in the dock before it launches. I don't recall which app/s, but if an app requires Rossetta, then that may explain some lag?
Other than the occasional lazy app launch, it's ben a plenty fast Mac for for me in my experience 👍

Yeah, this is one of the things I was thinking of. I don't use Rosetta though, I have practically only native apps that were only installed on it.
 
update: While the two apps (Gimp and Adobe Reader) continue slow opening, considering my Mini hasn't reboot for a long time, I decided to give it a restart. Right after the restart, both apps still opened quite slowly. So finally I called Apple support to see if this was MacOS's fault. Argued a bit and asked her to tele-view my screen as I tried opening the apps to show... Surprise! When I opened Gimp, it instantly opened. Adobe Reader also opened instantly! I couldn't believe it and the girl started laughing... I guess it may have little to do with the MacOS or the hardware? Any comment?
 
I noticed my Mac was super slow just recently when I clicked on the dock icon to open up Excel. The icon was bouncing for a while until excel opened. I wasn't opening any specific file. You'd think on such an expensive device it would start up instantly.
 
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I have an M1 mini, M1 Pro MacBook Pro and an M1 Max Studio. The M1 mini is my testing/backup desktop. I also have a 2015 iMac 27 and a 2015 MacBook Pro. There is quite a difference between the old Intel stuff and the Apple Silicon Macs. I normally don't close programs - I leave them open outside of my production programs which use a lot of RAM.
 
Your machine isn’t slow. You are seeing the effect of the connected computing era and massive cache usage that SSDs have enabled. When you open an app, it is loading caches, running security scans, phoning home, hooking into cloud accounts, enabling multi-user functionality in productivity apps. The app is no longer opening into a minimally functional state. I remember in the Leopard or Snow Leopard days that most apps would open in one or two bounces. We finally reached the processing power required by the typical office worker. From there the cloud computing era and SSD eras started. Waiting for web-based data takes way longer than accessing it locally. SSDs enabled the bandwidth to read much larger caches, etc.

The fact that any machine with a SATA III or faster SSD feels remarkably similar in normal computing tasks points to the fact that the SSD and processor speeds are not the bottleneck when opening apps.

It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that new computer feel. In fact it was when I installed an SSD in my 2012 MBP.

I know from your previous posts that you spent a small fortune on this machine chasing the best specs you could get for a mini. I just hope that you have a workflow that can truly take advantage of the pro level chip and thunderbolt SSD enclosures.
 
Your machine isn’t slow. You are seeing the effect of the connected computing era and massive cache usage that SSDs have enabled. When you open an app, it is loading caches, running security scans, phoning home, hooking into cloud accounts, enabling multi-user functionality in productivity apps. The app is no longer opening into a minimally functional state. I remember in the Leopard or Snow Leopard days that most apps would open in one or two bounces. We finally reached the processing power required by the typical office worker. From there the cloud computing era and SSD eras started. Waiting for web-based data takes way longer than accessing it locally. SSDs enabled the bandwidth to read much larger caches, etc.

The fact that any machine with a SATA III or faster SSD feels remarkably similar in normal computing tasks points to the fact that the SSD and processor speeds are not the bottleneck when opening apps.

It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that new computer feel. In fact it was when I installed an SSD in my 2012 MBP.

I know from your previous posts that you spent a small fortune on this machine chasing the best specs you could get for a mini. I just hope that you have a workflow that can truly take advantage of the pro level chip and thunderbolt SSD enclosures.
What?

The issue is MacOS. Apple haven't even attempted to optimise any of their OS' since Jobs passed.

They get iOS/MacOS to a "functional" level for new chips and leave it at that. It's garbage.

Windows/Linux are significantly more responsive and smoother than MacOS will ever be at this point. They have to keep up with the hardware or they'd have an entire planet reliant on their OS with pitchforks at their doors.

Apple don't have to serve their customer base in the same way, because almost all of them only care about having the newest, shiniest Apple logo. Nothing else.

Unfortunately that means those who use the devices for more professional workflows suffer as a result. As the casual user base grows, the professional base dwindles, and that suits Apple just fine.

Casual users don't care that iOS can't maintain 60fps when scrolling the home screen or a simple settings menu, let alone the 120fps that the Pro iPhones demand. They care about telling their friends they have the new iPhone. In the same way, the casual users that buy Macbook Air's in their millions each year don't care that the OS is actually slow and bogged down, because it's usually the first computer they've ever used or the first in a very long time, so of course it feels fast. They again don't care that MacOS is plagued by UI stutters and slowdown, because they don't know any different. Why would Apple bother to optimise any of this if they known only a small, and not very vocal, minority actually care?

Even in Windows 11, I click Chrome and it's open before I even have time to react. On a pretty basic PC at this point, with a low end gen 4 SSD. I click Safari, and I have time to start procrastinating and forget why I opened Safari in the first place before it opens. This is on a basic M1 Mac Mini, but the points stands. If the trash SATA III SSD that's 98% full on our 9th Gen Intel hand-me-down desktops at work that are encrypted to their balls can launch Chrome faster than a custom Apple machine then there's something seriously wrong at an OS level.

You only need to look at the serious memory leak issues that crop up every MacOS release to see that there's a serious problem. Saying anything otherwise is drawing attention away from the issues and thus helps prevent them from every being seen or fixed.
 
Apologies for derailing a bit there OP, but unfortunately until Apple get their act together in this regard then I can only advise to not think about it as much and try to just enjoy the machine for it's intended purpose.

I'm hoping that once the VisionOS flops and Apple send the engineers back to their old jobs developing iOS/MacOS that things will improve.

As a slight side note, a lot of people will say they don't have the same issue you describe, but many on this forum have little or no experience with modern computing outside of Apple so it's always difficult to gauge how widespread some problems are.
 
What?

The issue is MacOS. Apple haven't even attempted to optimise any of their OS' since Jobs passed.

They get iOS/MacOS to a "functional" level for new chips and leave it at that. It's garbage.

Windows/Linux are significantly more responsive and smoother than MacOS will ever be at this point. They have to keep up with the hardware or they'd have an entire planet reliant on their OS with pitchforks at their doors.

Apple don't have to serve their customer base in the same way, because almost all of them only care about having the newest, shiniest Apple logo. Nothing else.

Unfortunately that means those who use the devices for more professional workflows suffer as a result. As the casual user base grows, the professional base dwindles, and that suits Apple just fine.

Casual users don't care that iOS can't maintain 60fps when scrolling the home screen or a simple settings menu, let alone the 120fps that the Pro iPhones demand. They care about telling their friends they have the new iPhone. In the same way, the casual users that buy Macbook Air's in their millions each year don't care that the OS is actually slow and bogged down, because it's usually the first computer they've ever used or the first in a very long time, so of course it feels fast. They again don't care that MacOS is plagued by UI stutters and slowdown, because they don't know any different. Why would Apple bother to optimise any of this if they known only a small, and not very vocal, minority actually care?

Even in Windows 11, I click Chrome and it's open before I even have time to react. On a pretty basic PC at this point, with a low end gen 4 SSD. I click Safari, and I have time to start procrastinating and forget why I opened Safari in the first place before it opens. This is on a basic M1 Mac Mini, but the points stands. If the trash SATA III SSD that's 98% full on our 9th Gen Intel hand-me-down desktops at work that are encrypted to their balls can launch Chrome faster than a custom Apple machine then there's something seriously wrong at an OS level.

You only need to look at the serious memory leak issues that crop up every MacOS release to see that there's a serious problem. Saying anything otherwise is drawing attention away from the issues and thus helps prevent them from every being seen or fixed.
The stutters are indeed frustrating particularly because they are the default Apple apps. Truth about Windows 11 and its responsiveness in comparison.
 
update: While the two apps (Gimp and Adobe Reader) continue slow opening, considering my Mini hasn't reboot for a long time, I decided to give it a restart. Right after the restart, both apps still opened quite slowly. So finally I called Apple support to see if this was MacOS's fault. Argued a bit and asked her to tele-view my screen as I tried opening the apps to show... Surprise! When I opened Gimp, it instantly opened. Adobe Reader also opened instantly! I couldn't believe it and the girl started laughing... I guess it may have little to do with the MacOS or the hardware? Any comment?
You actually called apple support over this?
 
Your machine isn’t slow. You are seeing the effect of the connected computing era and massive cache usage that SSDs have enabled. When you open an app, it is loading caches, running security scans, phoning home, hooking into cloud accounts, enabling multi-user functionality in productivity apps. The app is no longer opening into a minimally functional state. I remember in the Leopard or Snow Leopard days that most apps would open in one or two bounces. We finally reached the processing power required by the typical office worker. From there the cloud computing era and SSD eras started. Waiting for web-based data takes way longer than accessing it locally. SSDs enabled the bandwidth to read much larger caches, etc.

The fact that any machine with a SATA III or faster SSD feels remarkably similar in normal computing tasks points to the fact that the SSD and processor speeds are not the bottleneck when opening apps.

It’s been a long time since I’ve experienced that new computer feel. In fact it was when I installed an SSD in my 2012 MBP.

I know from your previous posts that you spent a small fortune on this machine chasing the best specs you could get for a mini. I just hope that you have a workflow that can truly take advantage of the pro level chip and thunderbolt SSD enclosures.

You're probably right somewhere. Some apps open instantly, especially when I just used them. Excel needs ages, but now that I just opened it, and I try to re-open it, it opens up instantly.

I don't really have many apps that call home, but Excel certainly does it. And I do use cloud services too, so all of these apps call home in some way.

I mean, all in all, it's still fast. It's just that sometimes I wonder why it's not faster. I come from a 12-core Mac Pro so maybe the difference is not as big as I expected it. I do basic stuff like Word, Excel, Notes, GarageBand, Photos, and I'll re-install Logic Pro sometime, and I use some heavy websites too sometimes.

You actually called apple support over this?

If you don't it will get even worse, that's the risk. :D
 
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Yes , hardware seems to progress while the os regresses
It's always been like that. Even back in the early 2000's when I'd hackintosh my PC laptop, OS X would be silky smooth, animations didn't stutter, and the system would remain responsive no matter what - but apps would take so long to load. In comparison, Windows on the same PC would stutter about in every which way, but it would launch apps in 1/2 the time.
 
Which version of Office are you using? It’s always been trash, but some specifics would be helpful. If you’re running like Office 08 it’s going to be a bad first launch experience no matter what you run it on.
 
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Which version of Office are you using? It’s always been trash, but some specifics would be helpful. If you’re running like Office 08 it’s going to be a bad first launch experience no matter what you run it on.

Latest version, but I don't think we can do anything about it anyway. It's just the way it is - not well made. 🤣
 
I have agreed with many readers, but the Mac OS is slow due to all extras, like predictive writing and loads of backdrop tasks. All you have to do is look at the activity monitor and see how it's jumped in numbers. Things slowed for me when adobe apps are installed. I have always hoped that one year Apple would clean up the MacOs and not induce any new features, but just make better/faster features (iCloud Sync looking at you), but I guess they feel users just want new features that bloat the system.
 
The 365 subscription version that calls home every time it’s open by default?
My experience, and I do have the 365 subscription, is that opening is slow (albeit on my old iMac), that the Microsoft apps do indeed take time to phone home.

My solution? I never quite Excel. So when I click on it in the dock a spreadsheet (if I have one open) pops up very quickly. And this on a 15 year old iMac.

Maybe some people think they have to quit apps? The real memory hogs I use, like Chrome, I might have to quit. But Firefox, Excel, and many others I can keep open.

And as a result they are responsive when I ask them to do something.

Adobe apps have always been slow, as long as I can remember. They can take up a lot of memory, too. I suspect this arose because Adobe built their software without trying to optimize for any one machine as they want their products to run on many platforms. And now of course the Adobe apps phone home too (and you have to!)
 
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