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Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

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Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#261

Post by DominikPeters »

yardie wrote: post #16

I'm typing this from a 2014 i7-4980HQ 15" MBP. This machine would have been replaced in 2017 but I wasn't impressed with that years model. I had planned to upgrade in 2020 but the announcement of the M1 basically quashed that. I've been on this planet long enough to know when Apple changes course like this the old architect is already obsolete. 68k -> PPC -> x86_64 -> ASi. The PPC G5 got exactly 1 OS upgrade (10.5) b…

If rumors are to be believed, the next macbook generation is going to get a new body design and new screen, so will be 1st gen in a different, probably more severe sense. Makes it difficult to decide whether to just buy now.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#262

Post by jandrese »

rowls66 wrote: post #254
brundolf wrote: post #25

This is fascinating: > Retain and release are tiny actions that almost all software, on all Apple platforms, does all the time. ….. The Apple Silicon system architecture is designed to make these operations as fast as possible. It’s not so much that Intel’s x86 architecture is a bad fit for Apple’s software frameworks, as that Apple Silicon is designed to be a bespoke fit for it …. retaining and releasing NSObjects i…

The bit about reference counting being the reason that Macs and iOS devices get better performance with less ram makes no sense. As a memory management strategy, reference counting will always use more ram because a reference count must be stored with every object in the system. Storing all of those reference counts requires memory. A reference counting strategy would be more efficient in processor utilization compar…

I think it's more a design pattern you see more with GC collected languages where people instantiate objects with pretty much every action and then let the the GC handle the mess afterward. Every function call involves first creating a parameters object, populating it, then forgetting about it immediately afterward.

I've seen this with java where the memory usage graph looks like a sawtooth, with 100s of MB being allocated and then freed up a couple of seconds later.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#263

Post by 1over137 »

sneak wrote: post #190
jolux wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh hey another emacs user! You can turn off all the telemetry in macOS and they ask you if you want it on when you setup the computer. Agree to disagree on Big Sur, I love the new look. Keep in mind they’re calling it macOS 11, so there are probably bigger and less superficial changes down the road.

> You can turn off all the telemetry in macOS and they ask you if you want it on when you setup the computer. That's false. You can turn off OS analytics but there is tons of telemetry built into almost every Apple app, separate from that, that you cannot disable. It tells you about it on first app launch. Open Maps, for example, and it will tell you about the unique, rotating identifier it uses to track your searche…

Exactly. But at least pre-Big-Sur you could use Little Snitch to block Apple apps from sending things, but now that's no longer possible. :(

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#264

Post by harpratap »

jamiek88 wrote: post #145
eulers_secret wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tiger Lake matches M1 in single-core perf, but gets trounced in multi. AMD has some good options, but I haven't seen a thin&light style AMD based laptop come out yet. Check out System76, their Linux support is unparalleled. The lemur pro is interesting. I don't know if you'll find the specs for the screen/speakers, though. I got the XPS 13, myself, but it still requires 'tweaks' - like running thermald master so your…

Tiger lake at 26w compared to M1 at 10W matches single thread. So not really Apple to apples there.

> In multi-threaded scenarios, power highly depends on the workload. In memory-heavy workloads where the CPU utilisation isn’t as high, we’re seeing 18W active power, going up to around 22W in average workloads, and peaking around 27W in compute heavy workloads. These figures are generally what you’d like to compare to “TDPs” of other platforms, although again to get an apples-to-apples comparison you’d need to further subtract some of the overhead as measured on the Mac mini here – my best guess would be a 20 to 24W range.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...

So the Tiger Lake TDP is of multicore usage, not single core.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#265

Post by jandrese »

victor106 wrote: post #109

> A task like editing 8K RAW RED video file that might have taken a $5000 machine before can now be done on a $699 Mac Mini M1 or a fan-less MacBook Air that costs $999 That’s insanely great. Maybe I am exaggerating but Apple’s M1 might be the best innovation in the tech industry in the past 5 years.

The RAM limitation on the first gen M1s makes this claim a bit dubious.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#266

Post by vatican_banker »

iJohnDoe wrote: post #209

I’m starting to wonder if this is the reason we had some serious problems with macOS and iOS in recent months and years. Serious bugs and serious security flaws. The A-team was working on getting everything ready for M1. The B-team was working on the usual releases. If the M1 is as good as everyone says, then that means they had the best people on it.

My guess is that the team working on M1 is a non-overlapping set with the team working on macos releases

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#267

Post by neogodless »

Havoc wrote: post #162

Exciting times ahead. I hope the rest catch up though. If Apple dominates completely it'll be carnage for competition

I do think it is too early to count out the competition. To be sure, the Air and 13" Pro are ultrabooks, and this seems to be a great fit for the great performance being extracted while sipping battery life.

On the other hand, it's not a foregone conclusion that higher performance systems will dominate the competition. For most Apple-focused users, this is a comparison between overheating Intel chips shoved into Macs, and these slick new M1 chips, and it's a no-brainer. And yes, the M1 does compete very well in several benchmarks on a per core/instruction per clock basis. But the higher end "many" core CPUs (especially outside the Intel universe cough AMD) with much higher TDP are still achieving much higher overall performance. Apple still has to catch up to them in those markets.

And for many people, right now Apple systems just are not an option. Not until all software and games run without issue. Software is a near certainty - games remain to be seen, but Apple has not prioritized them in the past. (And while the M1 integrated graphics are great, they are not at all competitive with existing dedicated graphics, and will not be suitable for replacing gaming systems.)

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#268

Post by socialdemocrat »

neilpanchal wrote: post #4

I just got one. I’m blown away by the speed as well. Chrome runs insanely fast! Alas, it’s not developer ready yet. Brew is a mess. Docker doesn’t work. PyCharm is WIP although can use x86 version. I was skeptical of the hype but this little laptop has made me realize how slow everything else is. Unfortunately, while the hardware has accelerated far beyond expectations, the software - specifically MacOS BigSur is a m…

I don't mind an upgrade to better looking UIs on regular intervals, but functionality and ease of use should come first. And here there is pandering to the iOS crowd when a touch based interface makes no sense for an OS operated with a mouse and a keyboard.

But I suspect it is a consequence of the incessant screaming by all the hipsters and clueless morons that think iOS and macOS should be merged for no other reason than their belief in MORE is MORE. No LESS is MORE, and that is what Apple was built on.

So yeah I feel your pain even if I have a slightly different take on this. macOS should be primarily designed to be the ultimate OS for somebody using a mouse and keyboard. iOS should be optimized for touch. We don't need to merge these two world. That is what clueless MBA types of people think. Because all they can think of is things like "synergy effects"...

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#269

Post by brundolf »

mhh__ wrote: post #247
brundolf wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The M1 is much more than a CPU, and a CPU is much more than an instruction set

That's true but for it to be a "swift machine" as mentioned above it would imply some kind of isa level design choices, as opposed to "just" being extremely wide or having a branch predictor that understands what my favourite food is

I think they were using hyperbole to make a point.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#270

Post by gumby »

sooheon wrote: post #219
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Stop changing the UI like you’re working at Hermès. It’s not fashion. Of course it is. Our phones are intimately close to us. Physically, cognitively, socially and even emotionally. They may be the most widely-owned intimately-connected object humans have ever invented outside religion. Our computers don't occupy as close of a niche. But they're in a similar space. I agree with your observation that the new OS feel…

I'm surprised they're getting rid of long held keyboard shortcut conventions though. Previously, modal popup options (i.e. for saving docs) could be selected via Option-letter, i.e. "Save _a_ll" could be selected with Option-a. Their new popups which may or may not be prettier force you to either use the mouse or turn on "Use keyboard navigation to move focus between controls" globally and tab around. Neither of thes…

I agree: this kind of thing is infuriating because it's such a slowdown to have to go touch the mouse and find the pointer on the screen. Really interrupts the workflow.
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