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Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

forbes.com

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Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#81

Post by tehwebguy »

alisonkisk wrote: post #51
crb wrote: post #29

This device, and the non-Touch Bar "MacBook Escape" before it, succeed or fail based on what you think "Pro" means. John Gruber thinks when Apple says "Pro" they mean "deluxe" or "nicer". (See https://daringfireball.net/2015/11/the_ipad_pro for example.) You can argue that this could have been avoided by calling this particular device the MacBook. But that might have made people think it was the default choice, where…

Apple trashed the "Macbook" reputation with the previous generation of intentionally crippled 1-port (including charging!) machines. Now they are stuck with a 13" pro that stopped being Pro.

The single port MacBook is my favorite computer to date! It’s not for everyone, including you obviously, but I’m not sure what reputation would have to do with that. Just different computers with different purposes.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#82

Post by chrisseaton »

alisonkisk wrote: post #48

> During Covid-19, I know many people using their LTE-infused notebooks so they don’t have to compete with their kids for bandwidth. That's just bizarre and makes me question this reviewer's comprehension of technology. He doesn't understand hotspots? He things hes maxing out a home wifi+ISP connection but LTE can handle the load?

I think it’s not uncommon for 4G to be faster than home broadband for people outside major areas.

If you use 4G not only do they get a faster connection in the first place but they also avoid contending with other family users also on the slower broadband.

Doesn’t seem bizarre or technically ignorant to me?

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#83

Post by othercharles »

ethbr0 wrote: post #64
othercharles wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I probably use it for around 10-15% of navigation and scrolling on web sites. It's not a case of "I'm on a web site designed for a touch device, I will therefore now start poking the screen", but more along the lines of noticing it'd be much quicker to work a sequence of buttons by touch than by tap. Touch is definitely much faster to get through certain styles of forms. The first that came to mind where I'd often te…

Does {tab}/{space} not work in some forms?

As it happens, tabbing around a badly designed form often doesn't work correctly. Then there are UI with hundreds of focusable inputs where while tabbing might work correctly, is extremely cumbersome and slow to use.

This is not to suggest replacing a keyboard with a touchscreen, any more than suggest a keyboard is no longer required since a mouse or trackpad is available. It's just an additional form of input, and one I'd personally definitely miss.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#84

Post by mcculley »

the_lucifer wrote: post #45
mcculley wrote: post #38

That there is still not an LTE modem indicates some kind of market failure. Is this because of the Qualcomm patents?

Qualcomm's payments IIRC are also dependent on the final device cost so I'd think that the payments can get absurdly expensive. I'm hoping that cellular modems might come to the Mac when Apple gets their in-house modems ready

That is my guess as well, but I haven't found any official word on this. It is ridiculous that I can buy a Dell with an LTE modem and not a MacBook Pro.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#85

Post by CalChris »

bstar77 wrote: post #30
CalChris wrote: post #22

A few Pro features Apple could add to the MacBook Pro: ECC, ZFS, function keys Yeah, function keys like on the Air. I don't know anyone who likes the Touch Bar. I'd like to get a Pro but the Air is very very good and I don't find anything that I really value on the Pro. Yes, the Pro is faster than the Air but the Air is fast and faster apparently requires a fan.

The pro is not any faster, it just has a fan that kicks in that prevents the machine from throttling as quickly. Someone who buys a PC with a water cooler isn't buying a machine that's faster than someone buying one with an air cooler. I realize there's a nuance here.

Good catch. It's the same chip.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#86

Post by Fnoord »

CalChris wrote: post #22

A few Pro features Apple could add to the MacBook Pro: ECC, ZFS, function keys Yeah, function keys like on the Air. I don't know anyone who likes the Touch Bar. I'd like to get a Pro but the Air is very very good and I don't find anything that I really value on the Pro. Yes, the Pro is faster than the Air but the Air is fast and faster apparently requires a fan.

> ZFS

Not going to happen. It almost happened around 2007, when Sun's Jonathan Schwartz announced it on his blog. Then Apple conceded the development, sticked with HFS+ for another decade, only to eventually roll out APFS.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#87

Post by Fnoord »

bxk1 wrote: post #41
leroy_masochist wrote: post #37

Does anyone know if the Rosetta issue described in the review would affect the performance of a Parallels instance running MS Office products? Maybe this question would be better phrased, does Parallels fall into the category of software that runs poorly on the new M1 chipset?

> does Parallels fall into the category of software that runs poorly on the new M1 chipset? It does for most use cases where you want to run images meant for different CPU architectures, like amd64. It shouldn't if you want to run something meant for the same CPU architecture, which isn't going to be a thing for a long long time.

> It shouldn't if you want to run something meant for the same CPU architecture, which isn't going to be a thing for a long long time.

Why not? If you consider there are 3 main desktop OSes, these are Windows, macOS, and Linux. MacOS and Linux already work on ARM64.

For Windows software, CrossOver for Mac runs on M1.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#88

Post by Closi »

grey-area wrote: post #56
Closi wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Outlook isn’t a weird software choice to be fair, I’ve never found another email application that comes close if you are a heavy user. Adobe reader and edge... I agree have better alternatives that come shipped with Mac.

Sure I think Outlook is fairly widely used in corp environments, though I’d be surprised to find many such environments who use outlook purchasing or supporting mac laptops for their users. There are cheaper and perfectly capable windows machines for office work. So it is an unusual choice on an Apple laptop, but also I expect it to be supported in time, and it is unsurprising that it is not amongst the first apps po…

Plenty of companies have a mix of Mac and Windows.

The last company I worked for had a mix of Windows & Mac devices, and everyone got the office suite on it (including Outlook).

Additionally, my current company is a small business that runs on Windows computers and the office suite, however I have installed Outlook on my personal Mac as a single licenced user can install it on 5 devices, and use it for answering work emails from home (I've also got it on my iPad and phone - it works great).

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#89

Post by SloopJon »

mikl wrote: post #8

It should hardly come as a surprise to anyone with just a little technical knowledge, that when you switch to a completely new system architecture, 3rd party apps do not all work perfectly from day one. Apple did not promise anything wrt. 3rd party apps, so talking about “broken promise” is downright dishonest. But that’s just the usual from the Forbes Contributor Network and Clown Car Testing Facility.

> Apple did not promise anything wrt. 3rd party apps

Of course they did: "With the introduction of Rosetta 2, M1 and macOS Big Sur seamlessly run apps that haven't yet transitioned to Universal versions. So without updating, you can keep working on Fusion360 projects or reach the next level in your favorite game."

Rosetta 2 (and Rosetta before it) may be an amazing technical accomplishment, but it's entirely fair for a reviewer to say it doesn't cut it for him. As funny as some of his choices are (Edge on a Mac, on purpose?), he's not reaching; this is what he uses everyday. It's also fair to point out that if your favorite game doesn't happen to be Rise of the Tomb Raider, your mileage may vary.

I think the reviewer is a little unfair in his emphasis on "Apple-chosen" reviewers, but this frankly is the kind of thing I look for. Five-star reviews are rarely as useful to me as three-star reviews.

Re: Apple MacBook Pro 13” M1 Review- Why You Might Want to Pass

#90

Post by gbourne »

I've been wondering about the sent from heaven M1 reviews. I don't have the MacBook Pro yet, but planning on picking up on on Black Friday.

Because of this article I've started to put my must have apps list together. Apps like Chrome, VS Code, Node (and the packages I use), Hyper Terminal, Slack, Postman, and Edge (just kidding).

I've compared my list against this wonderful site: https://isapplesiliconready.com/

Overall, my only concern is Postman.

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