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Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

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Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#371

Post by mulmen »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #177
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…

> 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…

The proximity is exactly why I don’t want it to change.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#372

Post by zamadatix »

kllrnohj wrote: post #272
anigbrowl wrote: post #228

For those of us who just don't where MacOS is concerned, what are the prospects for Linux on an M1?

Probably not very good, but the recent Ryzen offerings are still pretty strong, as is the very newest Intel stuff. See for example the 4900HS & 4800U on this Anandtech chart comparing spec2017 vs. the M1: https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph16252/119365.png That's basically just sorted by power consumption. 4900HS is the most power used & fastest, followed by the ~22W M1 with all 8 cores loaded, then the 15W 480…

Just to note this is probably the single most slanted you could pick for M1 vs Zen 3 performance. For instance I could pull this graph instead https://images.anandtech.com/graphs/graph16252/119343.png and make the exact opposite claim. In reality it's probably best to read the full review and come to your own conclusions https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste...

The truth is desktop Zen 3 is only decently ahead of certain multi core workloads at 10x or more the wattage, the rest is either very close or somehow behind. The mobile versions are already going to be week in comparison and it's going to be nothing but a travesty if the best hardware stays vendor locked to Apple only. Especially when the M2 (or whatever is next) rolls around as Apple has been on a steeper trajectory with in house silicon than Zen has been.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#373

Post by CyberDildonics »

cosmotic wrote: post #132
sedatk wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reference counting releases memory as soon as it gets dereferenced, while GC cleans up memory periodically, which means higher memory usage (more than what's actually in use at any moment).

with lots of tiny, short lived objects, reference counting can be hugely inefficient.

Lots of tiny memory allocations are inefficient no matter what. Slight deallocation refinements to poorly made software (the reference counting part is not 'hugely inefficient') is focusing on the wrong thing.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#374

Post by Razengan »

kyriakos wrote: post #298
zakki wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usual answer is: go buy other vendor product.

Judging from HN posts that's what a lot of people are doing

Judging from news about sales and profits that’s what a lot more people are not doing.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#375

Post by timothyduong »

hpb42 wrote: post #98

I'm curious about the Neural Engine cores. What software use this? Why would I want to buy a Neural Network coprocessor in my machine, instead of using that money for a better cpu/ram/ssd?

Apparently Pixelmator uses it: https://twitter.com/tldtoday/status/1328757085769658373

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#376

Post by zamadatix »

harpratap wrote: post #257
anigbrowl wrote: post #228

For those of us who just don't where MacOS is concerned, what are the prospects for Linux on an M1?

Maybe better to wait for good ARM chips on a PC. Now that there is a demand for it, I'm sure some ARM vendor will step up if not Qualcomm

Qualcomm has been at the Windows laptop market for a while and has yet to come out with anything nearly as performant. I'd like to see it but they've been behind for many years in the mobile space compared to Apple as well.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#377

Post by wmf »

ianai wrote: post #364
nemothekid wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not denying that Apple has better ARC performance. It’s that I don’t understand how an application would use less memory on ARM than x86. I’d expect the ARM code to run faster (as a result of being able to do atomic operations faster), but I don’t see how that translates to less memory usage

Read up on the performance overhead of GC across other languages. They’re messy and can lock up periodically. They take up significant ram and resources.

We're talking about non-GC apps on x86 vs. the same non-GC apps on Arm.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#378

Post by CyberDildonics »

jonny_eh wrote: post #24
supernova87a wrote: post #2

You know the thing I worry about next: how are apps going to inevitably bloat in inefficiency and claw back the improvements in CPU?

Are you suggesting that companies shouldn't make, and consumers buy, faster hardware?

Nothing they said indicated that in any way.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#379

Post by partiallypro »

fassssst wrote: post #12
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…

Seems pretty obvious that some future Macs will have touch screens or larger iPads will run MacOS. I’d buy a Surface Studio style iMac in a heartbeat.

I honestly feel like they won't do this for one simple reason: Why sell one devices when you can force consumers to buy two? Apple is keen on somehow making customers buy more things, more accessories, etc. They aren't the biggest company in the world for nothing.

They say it's some fridge and microwave whatever excuse, but the real reason is money. The M1 chip itself lowers their costs by almost $3B.

Re: Apple Silicon M1: Black Magic Fuckery

#380

Post by toast0 »

tobyjsullivan wrote: post #243
sooheon wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In Apple's defence, I've been exclusively a mac user (work and personal) for going-on eight years now and I had no idea about the Option-letter shortcut. I've always found keyboard nav within modal popups confusing. I consider myself lucky if hitting Space selects the primary button. Doesn't sound like the change is necessarily an improvement, though.

Apple never did a good job with this. Probably because their GUI machines always came with a mouse. Microsoft Windows was always mouse optional; the 'settings' panels are a lot harder to use with a keyboard than the 'control panel' settings were though.
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