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Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

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Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#141

Post by spideymans »

walterbell wrote: post #111

The biggest innovation of the M1 ecosystem is the unification of software ecosystem, battery life and performance for phones, tablets, laptops and desktops. Many iOS apps can now be run on MacOS via IPA files, e.g. native Slack iOS client app instead of bloated and memory-hogging web/electron client. For the long-suffering power users of iPads, a Macbook Air offers most of the benefits, plus a proper terminal and too…

>Many iOS apps can now be run on MacOS via IPA files, e.g. native Slack iOS client app instead of bloated and memory-hogging web/electron client.

I expected iOS apps on the Mac to be absolute trash (and they are... at least by Mac standards), so there's really something to be said about the state of the web when the iOS variants of these apps (running on a Mac) still provide a better UX than the web variants.

I know when Twitter for Mac came out (another unoptimized iOS app running on the Mac), I installed it and never once looked back at their bloated web client. And I know that if I could get the apps for Gmail, Youtube, Netflix, Reddit and other popular websites on my Intel Mac, I'd likely never go back to their web versions either (seriously, Apollo for iOS is so much better than the Reddit website).

The open web is important. But until the web provides a UX of comparable quality to native clients, users will understandably flock to closed app sandboxes when given the opportunity. Great web apps do exist, but us haphazardly bolting on framework after framework is killing the performance and UX of the web. Sticking our heads in the sand about this isn't doing the open web any favours.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#142

Post by reader_mode »

QuarterReptile wrote: post #138
reader_mode wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this was just a new CPU option with a performance boost over Intel (and significantly better thermals) but a compatibility mess - I would agree. But MBP is 500$ price drop from the Intel variant. At these price points these laptops are a far better value proposition than the competition - Intel thermal performance and power consumption is just terrible, AMD is better but not present in anything premium - in terms…

AMD is in Surface laptop 3, and in Thinkpad T14 (supposedly, though the ship times are reputedly several months.) The T14 is premium in a certain class (high value placed on swapping parts.) I suspect there are a few more.

Surface Laptop and T14 are not premium ultraportables, Surface Pro and X1 are - and unfortunately those don't even have AMD CPUs in the upcoming leaks (I would buy one instantly if it came with 5xxx series AMD).

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#143

Post by gabereiser »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #120
gabereiser wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it’s not a new form factor. It doesn’t have that shiny “new thing” feeling. My Air looks like every other 2018+ air. What’s different is what you don’t see. Being able to code all day on battery and only using 18%. The CPU-core power to watt ratio is just unbelievable. I get it though, without the new form factor it lacks that defining moment. The moment came for me when I realized I wasn’t plugged in all day a…

Yeah, I push mine hard and it barely uses battery. I never hear the fan (I'm on the M1 MBP 13) and it remains cool to the touch. I was skeptical about it until I noticed that it stayed this way for...basically 13 hours when pushing it really hard and nearly the 20 hours they advertise when using it for browsing/email/videos. That convinced me for sure.

Yup, I've never experienced that before on any machine, Apple or otherwise. It's either you're tethered and burning your crotch or you're mobile and throttled. I haven't felt that yet with the M1 and my crotch stays cool.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#144

Post by alwillis »

jeffbee wrote: post #140
alwillis wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will force the x86 vendors to adopt the microarchitectural aspects of the M1 that make it fast in practice, instead of spending so much area/power budget chasing SPEC benchmarks. We will get better chips through competition. There's only so much you can do with a 40-year old instruction set. There's certain things neither ARM or Intel can do compared to the M1. Example: the max number of instruction decoders Intel…

It sounds like you are just regurgitating some blog post you found. I don't have any workloads that are decode starved on x86 so it wouldn't make any difference if Intel had 50 decoders. I do have tons of workloads that spend a lot of time on TLB misses. I have several that are cache fill limited.

It’s not about being starved for anything; it’s that Intel and AMD have legacy issues they can’t get around. They’ve pretty much out of bullets: more cores, higher clock frequencies, better manufacturing, etc.

The point they can’t process as many instructions per clock cycle and there’s nothing they can do about it. They can’t match the M1’s performance per watt.

And certainly there’s no Intel/AMD laptop processor with 8 or 16 Gb of RAM via a 128-bit memory bus on the same die. Same thing with a 16-core Neural Engine with an OS with the APIs to take advantage of them.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#145

Post by carlmr »

wait_a_minute wrote: post #120
gabereiser wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, it’s not a new form factor. It doesn’t have that shiny “new thing” feeling. My Air looks like every other 2018+ air. What’s different is what you don’t see. Being able to code all day on battery and only using 18%. The CPU-core power to watt ratio is just unbelievable. I get it though, without the new form factor it lacks that defining moment. The moment came for me when I realized I wasn’t plugged in all day a…

Yeah, I push mine hard and it barely uses battery. I never hear the fan (I'm on the M1 MBP 13) and it remains cool to the touch. I was skeptical about it until I noticed that it stayed this way for...basically 13 hours when pushing it really hard and nearly the 20 hours they advertise when using it for browsing/email/videos. That convinced me for sure.

I've been using Linux for a while, and I'm seriously considering jumping on the MBP M1 bandwagon.

I'm mostly afraid of all the Apple lock-in otherwise i might have bought in to the M1 already.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#146

Post by ksec »

Sigh.

>Later, with the A11, previously licensed PowerVR GPUs were also replaced with in-house designs.

They are, as of A14, and likely in A15 and A16, still licensed from IMG / PowerVR. [1] [2] Arguing the GPU is not from PowerVR because they have their own variation of design is like arguing Apple doesn't use ARM because they design their own CPU. They are still using tile based rendering, patented by IMG.

And for much of the M1 discussions, People want to trust what they want to trust, and believe what they want to believe. Even with science and tech.

[1] “London, UK; 2nd January 2020 – Imagination Technologies (“Imagination”) announces that it has replaced the multi-year, multi-use license agreement with Apple, first announced on February 6, 2014, with a new multi-year license agreement under which Apple has access to a wider range of Imagination’s intellectual property in exchange for license fees.”

https://www.imgtec.com/news/press-release/imagination-and-ap...

[2] In 2019 IMG's new CEO also went on record and said Apple has never not been a IMG client. Although Google results these days are generally littered with crap I can no longer find that pieces of information.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#147

Post by untog »

grecy wrote: post #64
untog wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Appreciating the iPhone is largely done in hindsight. I’m sorry but that’s definitely not true. Yes, there were a vocal minority of folks who said the iPhone was nothing special but the mass market response was huge and it was heralded as a huge deal by the vast majority. And to go back to my original point: there’s a difference between “this new invention allows you to do new things, but those things aren’t import…

Did you forget when the CEO of Microsoft laughed it off and said it was crap? [1] [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eywi0h_Y5_U

Like I said, there was a vocal minority. Did you forget that he was widely mocked for being so dismissive of an obviously very impressive product?

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#148

Post by jbirer »

People on Hacker News are too easily impressed with the performance and the shininess of a new architecture, looking over the severe issues of Apple locking down it's platform and allowing less control over the device by the user. What good is a fast machine with long battery if I can't do what I want on it?

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#149

Post by ksec »

faitswulff wrote: post #42
trynewideas wrote: post #26

Since these keep floating up, I'm already exhausted with this specific rebuttal to Morehead's review: > As pointed out in John Gruber’s hard takedown of Moorhead’s piece, most of the problems he encountered were software problems, not M1 hardware issues. Morehead's allegiances and work are relevant biases, as are Gruber's. But Morehead's review wasn't of the M1 processor or architecture as a technology. It was a revi…

I think the reason it keeps coming up is that it is the most prominent bad review, but due to Moorhead’s allegiances, poor calls in the past, and eclectic selection of software, his negative review comes across as being in bad faith.

Yes, but he was also the only one who had the guts to stand up against Apple in the Apple vs Qualcomm Trial. If I had believed everything the media and Tim Cook portrayed I would have been completely on Apple's side.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#150

Post by alwillis »

gamblor956 wrote: post #52
gizmodo59 wrote: post #3

I have seen so many articles on HN in front page about M1 over the past few weeks. Like a curious child I read all of them because somewhere in me I want to believe there exists a possibility of a giant leap for Desktop/Laptop. Having tried it myself, I should say this is going to be remembered just like the iPhone in 2007.

Benchmarks show that the M1 has better performance in only a few areas, and underperforms in others, and that's with Apple controlling literally every aspect of the hardware and software stack. It's great for an ARM system for a vertically oriented company, but it isn't sufficiently performative to be a significant threat to the competition. And that's before you consider all the non-technical crap Apple has thrown a…

And of course, the big issue is that in order to use the M1 you must switch your entire stack to Apple.

Not necessarily; the ARM version of Windows 10 is already running on the M1: https://hothardware.com/news/apple-silicon-m1-mac-windows-10...

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