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Introducing the next generation of Mac

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Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#551

Post by miles »

EgoIncarnate wrote: post #501
tiffanyh wrote: post #445

I don't understand the pricing of the MacBook Air vs the 13" Pro. The Air ($1249) vs 13" Pro ($1299), you get: - same CPU - same GPU - same Neural chip - same RAM (8gb) - More storage for the Air (512gb vs 256gb with 13" Pro) - You get Touch Bar with 13" Pro So if you don't care about the Touch Bar, you actually get with the Air: - better specs - smaller device footprint - and $50 cheaper. Am I missing something?

On the Air only 7 GPU cores (vs 8 on Pro). Also no active cooling, so likely lower max CPU performance under thermally limited conditions.

The $1249 MacBook Air in question has 8 GPU cores:

https://www.apple.com/shop/buy-mac/macbook-air/space-gray-ap...

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#552

Post by WhyNotHugo »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #519
submeta wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh Apple, why are you doing this, taking freedom from your customers. I don‘t want to use Windows, neither do I want to tinker with Ubuntu. But if you keep going that path, you are forcing your power users to think about migrating to platforms that respect users freedom to do whatever they want to do with their machines. After two years of using an otherwise beautiful iPad Pro (along with my MBP) I came to realize th…

Yes the iPad is "crippled" in that sense, but I find it's an excellent accessory to a computer. Not everything I do needs a terminal, my Python scripts, favorite text editor, and rapid multitasking. The iPad is a wonderful (albeit expensive) side device for lighter activities on the couch, in the kitchen, or on the go. It doesn't need to be our only computing device to be appreciated, and not every computing device n…

Same here. I can't stand macOS, the interface is terrible and it's an awful development environment.

But the iPad is an excellent companion, since I use that to scrible around, consume media, photo editing, keep my music sheets, and all that stuff that would suck on Linux.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#554

Post by rbanffy »

CydeWeys wrote: post #529
sg47 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome, Slack, Zoom, Docker, k8s, VS Code, etc.

The median Macbook user is not a developer. A web browser and videocalling are the only two from that list you'd expect the median user to be doing with a Macbook.

Also Office. Lots of open Word documents.

My "typical Mac user" in this case, is my wife. Her 8GB MBP is holding up very well.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#555

Post by aroman »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #474
stjo wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IIRC at WWC Apple said it would still be possible to boot unsigned OS, but it would show some kind of warning.

I'd be tempted to buy one if this ends up being the case

But what would you run on it? What OS besides macOS has support for running on Apple Silicon?

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#556

Post by aroman »

reaperducer wrote: post #543
regulation_d wrote: post #46

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we're all using these cameras way more, I really thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.

are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? I'm pretty sure there was a part of the presentation talking about a camera upgrade. But it's not something on my wish list, so I didn't pay attention. Double-check the recording on Apple's web site. The answer may be there.

The camera remains 720p, but they're claiming improved performance via signal processing algorithms[1]

[1] https://www.macrumors.com/2020/11/10/macbook-pro-m1-720p-cam...

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#557

Post by WhyNotHugo »

boogies wrote: post #503
submeta wrote: post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh Apple, why are you doing this, taking freedom from your customers. I don‘t want to use Windows, neither do I want to tinker with Ubuntu. But if you keep going that path, you are forcing your power users to think about migrating to platforms that respect users freedom to do whatever they want to do with their machines. After two years of using an otherwise beautiful iPad Pro (along with my MBP) I came to realize th…

> neither do I want to tinker with Ubuntu You can get XPS Developer Edition, System76, Purism, or many other laptop brands (eg. any of these https://elementary.io/store/ with elementaryOS, whose DE should feel fairly familiar to a macOS user) with GNU preinstalled these days.

Although very slowly, this list of companies providing good Linux-ready laptops is growing.

I do wish someone would dare ship something high-end non-amd64 (e.g.: ARM). Kinda like what we're seeing from Apple.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#558

Post by bosswipe »

hankchinaski wrote: post #485
AnonHP wrote: post #140

Apple mentioned in the event that these Macs will have hardware verified secure boot. Since I’m not very knowledgeable in this area, can someone explain (or even try to guess) what this would/could mean for running Linux on these? I use Macs way beyond Apple’s support timeframe with OS X/macOS, and Linux is the one that runs on some of the older Macs and provides adequate security and security related software update…

i personally prefer secure hardware at the expense of not being able to play around with other OSes - i am sure i am not alone

What advantage do you see to "secure hardware", I'm unaware of any recent Mac security issue that would have been prevented by it. It gives Apple a lot more control over the device but I don't see any advantage to the user.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#559

Post by kllrnohj »

WhyNotHugo wrote: post #547
AnonHP wrote: post #140

Apple mentioned in the event that these Macs will have hardware verified secure boot. Since I’m not very knowledgeable in this area, can someone explain (or even try to guess) what this would/could mean for running Linux on these? I use Macs way beyond Apple’s support timeframe with OS X/macOS, and Linux is the one that runs on some of the older Macs and provides adequate security and security related software update…

The reality is that we can't answer this until we have some hands on. It really depends on whether their secure boot architecture can be disabled (unlikely knowing apple), or allow adding ones own keys (unlikely). Bootcamp probably won't happen since windows does not support the architecture: they'll be pushing people to use VMs. They might also provide some untrusted path to boot without it being able to access cert…

> Bootcamp probably won't happen since windows does not support the architecture

Windows supports ARM and has for a while. But still probably Bootcamp's days are over, yeah.

Re: Introducing the next generation of Mac

#560

Post by pavlov »

nl wrote: post #494
pavlov wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably binning where faulty memory gets disabled and flagged as a 8GB chip? Intel did that for the 486SX processor 30 years ago. The 486 was the first x86 CPU with an integrated FPU. Chips that failed the FPU test were sold as cheaper 486SX with the FPU disabled.

I've never heard that the 486SX was a binned 486 - my impression was that it was a deliberate choice done during manufacture. Wikipedia backs up my recollection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_80486SX

Yeah, seems like “SX is a binned faulty DX” was a popular but unconfirmed rumor that has stuck with me for 30 years.

The die is the same, but there’s no evidence Intel rebranded rejected DX chips. Here’s an extremely pedantic discussion (when it comes to obsolete hardware, the best kind of discussion) on the topic:

http://www.os2museum.com/wp/lies-damn-lies-and-wikipedia/

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