well duh. no surprises there. I mean just whip an ARM chip out of an iPad and slap it in the socket.... the Macintosh as we knew it will be dead in a few years anyway. RIP SJ.
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PSA for Developers: Mac Mini With A12Z Chip Cannot Be Repaired at Genius Bar or Service Provider
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Interestingly, having made a macOS app submission that wasn't accepted seems to be adequate for meeting criteria - they've approved applications for transition kits by individuals whose apps have historically been rejected for violating terms.
Slow systems are good for development. This will force the developers to optimize and when the final silicon is released the apps will be super fast.
What it "tells" is that these machines are being loaned to developers, so Apple doesn't have an opportunity to screw $200 out of them for $50 worth of extra RAM.
You can do a lot with 8GB of RAM, but 16BG is peanuts in 2020 and the only reason Mac users have to compromise is that Apple wants 4x the going rate for an upgrade.
Am I the only one who finds the box of this thing has a really weird shape?
I hope this isn't a sign that their new hardware is faulty and prone to fail.
Because Apple is producing the cpus, we could potentially have RAM/SSD size as the only differentiating factors for a model of Mac (e.g. 16inch MBP all have one type of cpu and the 13inch ones all have a version with less cores). Much like the iPads now.
Sorry - the days of "I'm compiling code so I need the top end model" came to an end years ago - especially with the advent of SSDs (but I won't tell your boss if you don't - Folding@Home needs your over-specced machine to solve coronavirus ...
). (OK, I'm being snarky - there are some seriously large code bases out there and loadsa cores do help - but when I were a lad you had to swap floppies 16 times just to compile a 'Hello World' program in Pascal and we was grateful!)....but if you did manage to blag a 28-core Mac Pro "for compiling" then don't worry - you can still compile for ARM targets on an Intel Mac (if not, the iPhone would be in big trouble...)
I'd do it in a heartbeat if I got to keep the machine. As it is now, my Mac is an early 2011 MBP and I wanted to upgrade to the Mac Mini's that just came out. If they are going to be obsolete in 2 years, I'm not going to waste the money.
Yup, far too many developers are simply too lazy to test on the lowest common denominator hardware.
Seen this one on game consoles too: you literally have to test on two models, and for some reason they release a game that is unplayable on the low-end unit.
I'd say your 2011 Mac mini was obsolete in 2012 when the USB 3.0 ones came out. You'd say "But I haven't needed USB 3" (probably) to which I can say...then you'll be fine with a new Intel Mac mini now and you'll be getting a lot more than 2 years out of it (9 years is a bit of a stretch though)
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Ultimately too these systems are you there to preliminarily test your code when compiled onto ARM and iron out any obvious bugs - not to see how well it can run per se. Then a lot more native apps can be pushed when the real hardware comes out in 6 months - and in two years when all/most of the range has an ARM option you'll hopefully not be waiting for most of the apps you use to be updated. Perhaps I think we should wait for second gen ARM machines from Apple and it'll take 3 years to get an ARM system worth buying.
I use it mainly for Logic Pro and I haven't gotten the last few OS X upgrades because the machine is not supported, plus I can't get the new update for Logic Pro along with the other stuff I use on it. My issue is that if I spend $2,000 on an i7 Mini now, in 2 years they will be converting to ARM and I'll have to sell it for a big loss and get an ARM machine if I want updates.
Why would that matter? Most benchmarks aren't OS-specific, and the ones that are would still be meaningless because who cares how fast an iPad pro can run macOS? Apple isn;'t given us a12s, they are giving us "a14s"
That or it just happened to be the easiest small Apple device to shove an iPhone sized motherboard in, and it already had cooling capable of a 45w chip.
It’s also a pain in the ass to take apart, which will dissuade some from trying.
I am totally sure a new Mac mini is coming.
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Also, tip to Tim Cook: Don't let Mr Bean make your slides anymore.
Its interesting because before, we were limited to benchmark utilities that only ran on iOS, for example, Geekbench. But now, you are run pretty much anything that is supported under MacOS, which is several times more. Game frame rates, video and audio encoding speeds, etc. Even though most of these apps won't be A12 native and will be using Rosetta, it still gives a better idea how these chips will perform vs an iPad which can only run iOS applications.
I've seen companies where the IT folks always got the newest computers while everyone else was stuck with 5 year old hardware. Then when end users call in with issues, the typical response would be "works fine for me".
While on the subject of developer testing, I would really like to see them address the issue of text size. On some iPhone apps, it looks like the developer spent all his time looking at an iPhone simulator on a big monitor and didn't care about the tiny text on the actual iPhone screen. On web pages and computer applications, it looks like the developer only tested on a small laptop screen running at low resolution.
I guess I was the only person who was truly impressed with the performance level of the Demo, especially the Mayan polygon fill demo, while multi-tasking Linus in Parallels, Big Sur, iOS games and everything else - all on the A12Z silicon that has been out for the iPad Pro for over 6 months.
I thought they nearly had marketable performance on a device - right there.
Now the question remains - how much will Apple lock down? I THOUGHT Apple got slapped bad for soldering down the RAM on the Mac Mini, and many of their iMacs, as the latest revisions allow you to upgrade the RAM. I hope this trend continues. Although I am not a fan of locked down internal storage, I can understand why the T2 or U2 security enclave may make this a requirement.
But, please do not hamstring your devices by soldering the RAM down. To me, this is a deal breaker; I really want to love this line up. I really want to buy a new Mac. But solder in the RAM - and I am going to stick with my old, unsupported Mac.
I thought they nearly had marketable performance on a device - right there.
Now the question remains - how much will Apple lock down? I THOUGHT Apple got slapped bad for soldering down the RAM on the Mac Mini, and many of their iMacs, as the latest revisions allow you to upgrade the RAM. I hope this trend continues. Although I am not a fan of locked down internal storage, I can understand why the T2 or U2 security enclave may make this a requirement.
But, please do not hamstring your devices by soldering the RAM down. To me, this is a deal breaker; I really want to love this line up. I really want to buy a new Mac. But solder in the RAM - and I am going to stick with my old, unsupported Mac.