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.
