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The Apple Silicon discussion and experience thread

marcos_eirik said:
So Apple launched the M3-family of chips last night:


View: https://www.youtube.com/live/ctkW3V0Mh-k?si=Ko10U_72rFpUnBne
TLDW:
- 3nm node, more efficient, more power, cores from the A17Pro.
- (vanilla) M3, M3 Pro, and M3 Max all launched at the same time.
- Big GPU upgrades, now supporting HW ray tracing, HW accelerated mesh shading, and dynamic caching.
- Odd ram configurations on the M3 Pro, less memory bandwidth.
- 13" (TouchBar) MacBook Pro is dead, replaced by a 14" with a base M3 chip with one less T4-port.
- 14" and 16" MacBook Pro with M3 Pro and M3 Max now comes in a new Space Black finish.
- 24" iMac was upgraded with M3 the chip, no other changes.
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The newest SODIMMs for PC have non-8GB, non-16GB & non-32GB modules.

It still uses LPDDR5 memory and not LPDDRX5

I am sad that 32" 6K panel parts arent ~$600 yet. This would allow for $2k iMac 32" 6K M3. I'd buy that once the webpage updates.
 
They reeeeeeeeeeally need to get a video input on those iMacs so they can be used as a monitor later. I don't know why this bugs me SO much as a full-on Windows user, but it *really* puts a bad taste in my mouth.
 
It's the fact that previous apple computers did have target display mode to do just exactly that. And that failure to add it as a feature now means that a perfectly good display will have to be thrown out with the computer when it does become obsolete.

It's quite wasteful.
 
And that's why you get a Mac Mini instead. It's not as neat, but it's way more versatile. (Too bad it's yet to be updated with the M3 chip.)

Speaking of the M3 chips, holy smokes, I really, really, really want the vanilla M3 MacBook Pro. Bump it to 16GB of RAM, and it seems like the perfect laptop for me. Good thing it's not available in Space Black, too, as I'd really want that too, but that's gonna be one hell of a fingerprint magnet.
 
evoWALO said:
I am sad that 32" 6K panel parts arent ~$600 yet. This would allow for $2k iMac 32" 6K M3. I'd buy that once the webpage updates.
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After what John Ternus, (Senior VP of Hardware Engineering at Apple) in the event (at about 26:20), I think the chances of ever getting a larger than 24" iMac took a big hit. He said that the 24" M3 iMac is the "[...] perfect size and resolution to replace both the 4K and 5K Intel-based models [...]" I also think that the introduction of the Mac Studio sort of was the death knell to the larger iMac.

I'm a little bit disappointed that they didn't use the whole dark and spooky theme of the event to also add some kind of black or dark colored iMac to the lineup, as I can imagine the Apple Silicon iMac would look great in a similar color to the "Midnight" M2 MacBook Air.
 
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NecroJoe said:
They reeeeeeeeeeally need to get a video input on those iMacs so they can be used as a monitor later. I don't know why this bugs me SO much as a full-on Windows user, but it *really* puts a bad taste in my mouth.
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The guts of an old i5 or i7 iMac has aged about the same as the display. Both are still usable.
 
marcos_eirik said:
After what John Ternus, (Senior VP of Hardware Engineering at Apple) in the event (at about 26:20), I think the chances of ever getting a larger than 24" iMac took a big hit. He said that the 24" M3 iMac is the "[...] perfect size and resolution to replace both the 4K and 5K Intel-based models [...]" I also think that the introduction of the Mac Studio sort of was the death knell to the larger iMac.
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The $1299 base model price is shared with the 2019 21.5" 4K Core i5 & 2023 24" 4.5K M3 iMacs.

Apple was able to source 24" 4.5K display parts that was nearly priced to 21.5" 4K display parts.

For a $1799 to $1999 iMac 32" 6K M3 to occur would necessitate that the 32" 6K display be priced at $500-600

John's having difficulty getting to that price point hence the marketing push to convince 2012 iMac 27" 2.5K owners like myself to buy into a smaller iMac that is 11 years more advanced.

My 2012 has 32GB RAM. His iMac maxs out at 24GB RAM.
marcos_eirik said:
I'm a little bit disappointed that they didn't use the whole dark and spooky theme of the event to also add some kind of black or dark colored iMac to the lineup, as I can imagine the Apple Silicon iMac would look great in a similar color to the "Midnight" M2 MacBook Air.
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I would not be surprised that a future 2024 iMac 32" 6K will be in silver or space grey. That's how Apple customarily paints their consumer vs pro models.
 
I think dual monitor setups are eating the iMac's lunch a bit. They're even more of a thing today than they were ten years ago.
 
evoWALO said:
The $1299 base model price is shared with the 2019 21.5" 4K Core i5 & 2023 24" 4.5K M3 iMacs.

Apple was able to source 24" 4.5K display parts that was nearly priced to 21.5" 4K display parts.

For a $1799 to $1999 iMac 32" 6K M3 to occur would necessitate that the 32" 6K display be priced at $500-600

John's having difficulty getting to that price point hence the marketing push to convince 2012 iMac 27" 2.5K owners like myself to buy into a smaller iMac that is 11 years more advanced.

My 2012 has 32GB RAM. His iMac maxs out at 24GB RAM.

I would not be surprised that a future 2024 iMac 32" 6K will be in silver or space grey. That's how Apple customarily paints their consumer vs pro models.
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I still think that the introduction of the Mac Studio was the nail in the coffin of the larger iMac. Besides that, as Perc pointed out above, most workstations today use multiple monitor setups, or ultra wide (21:9+) displays, that would leave an iMac Pro in an awkward position.

I know the rumors are saying that a 32" iMac Pro is going to show up some time next year or the year after, but I'm not so sure about that. The rumor mill has been surprisingly inaccurate for the past few years. Remember, they were dead sure we were going to get a 27" version of the M1 iMac as well, but in stead we got the Mac Studio and the 27" Studio Display. So the rumored 32" iMac Pro may just as well be a refresh of the existing Pro Display XDR (turns 5 years old at the moment) or just the introduction of a larger higher resolution Studio Display.
 
Indeed the replacement for a larger iMac/iMac Pro seems to be a Mac Studio and one (or two) High-Quality displays. It's more flexible, you don't have to throw away excellent displays when your unupgradeable computer dies and they'll function perfectly well with whatever updates/upgrades you intend to have in the foreseeable future thanks to type-C.

In all of the conversation about the possible 27" iMac replacement. A lot of the tech rumor mill seems to have forgotten about whether we need such a thing.
 
I don't miss my iMac at all. Replaced it with a 27" 4K which was powered by a MacBook Pro and now a Mini.
 
It _does_ suck and _is_ unacceptable though. Yes, in benchmarks and light desktop use it may be fine. But for what a "Pro" is intended for, even 32GB are oftentimes a limiting factor, Apple Silicon or x86 does not really matter ultimately. I regularly run into memory limitations on the 32GB M1 Pro work machine that I use for the current customer project, and would love to have my 64GB of the M1 Max machine that my own company provides... unfortunately, that customer's IT is too thick-skulled to figure out BYOD, so we have to deal with their hardware.
 
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marcos_eirik said:
I still think that the introduction of the Mac Studio was the nail in the coffin of the larger iMac. Besides that, as Perc pointed out above, most workstations today use multiple monitor setups, or ultra wide (21:9+) displays, that would leave an iMac Pro in an awkward position.

I know the rumors are saying that a 32" iMac Pro is going to show up some time next year or the year after, but I'm not so sure about that. The rumor mill has been surprisingly inaccurate for the past few years. Remember, they were dead sure we were going to get a 27" version of the M1 iMac as well, but in stead we got the Mac Studio and the 27" Studio Display. So the rumored 32" iMac Pro may just as well be a refresh of the existing Pro Display XDR (turns 5 years old at the moment) or just the introduction of a larger higher resolution Studio Display.
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Time will tell.

If I was clever enough to not buy any 14nm Intel laptop I'd likely have upgraded from a 2011 MBP 13" 32nm to a 2021 MBP 16" 5nm with a 2021 Studio 27" 5K display and just sell my 2012 iMac 27" 22nm.

When a 2026 iMac 32" 6K 2nm comes out then I'd buy into that.
 
This highlights one of Apple's biggest problems with slumping sales today:

View: https://youtu.be/EI71YeG7vqw?si=Nui_VZcEE1CC0zvA
The M1 generation was a quantum leap forward, the M2 and M3 are iterative by comparison. The M1 generation was also fairly aggressively priced also, and can still be had new from both Apple and 3rd party retailers at a lower price, and offers way more performance than 95 % of their typical users actually need, they will also last them many years, like 5-7 years before there is any point to upgrade. Currently I can't see any reason to upgrade from my M1 Mac at all, maybe I'll do it in 5-7 years.
 
I have a Mini and an Air M1, I see no reason to upgrade other than perhaps combining both into a new 15" Air because my need for a desktop isn't what it once was. The M1 is still great.
 
Perc said:
I have a Mini and an Air M1, I see no reason to upgrade other than perhaps combining both into a new 15" Air because my need for a desktop isn't what it once was. The M1 is still great.
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There used to be a great performance gain to be had to go for a desktop computer, but after the introduction of Apple silicon you get exactly the same performance in a notebook, which you can just unplug and bring with you wherever you go. The Mac mini is cheaper though than an equivalently specced MacBook so it's got that going for it. I have found myself mostly using my iPad mini whenever I'm not at home, so I could have replaced the MacBook Air with a Mac mini. That being said, the iPad mini is just a proper display output and (preferably) 1Tb of storage away from being able to replace my MacBook Air as well.
 
My M1 Air is my second computer, so it doesn’t see a lot of use. Over the last couple of weeks it’s been sitting on my kitchen table. I’ve used it for reading the news every morning. It was down to 16% battery yesterday, at which point i had a look and realized it had last been hooked up to a charger on February 17th.

I do love Apple Silicon.
 
After having my work PC shit its pants this morning because I dared to unplug its USB-C (yes, USB + altmode DP) from my home display and plug in the dock at work and then having to endure a 15 min (i'm not kidding) reboot, I am all the more astonished how muh fancy new macbook just wakes up in a second after just sitting on the table for two days. all the while losing like 1% of battery or something :|

... which sort of makes me dread that I'll eventually just get fed up with the piece of garbage work invironment i'm forced to work with. eh, scratch that, i'm already there :|
 
QoL improvements with M1 / Apple Silicon have been amazing: silence, instant on/off, power draw, overall responsiveness... My Windows desktop is basically never on anymore, because it's noisier, takes much more power, and is less snappy than the M1 work Macbook than I can explicitly use privately as well. Gaming is the only thing missing, but oh well, I haven't been much of a gamer in recent years nayway.
 
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