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Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

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Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#171

Post by spurgu »

dingaling wrote: post #155
colinmhayes wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone literally changed everyone's life. History books will differentiae between the pre and post smartphone eras. This is nowhere close to a lifechanging product, although it's definitely a big leap.

> The iPhone literally changed everyone's life. I thought about this for a moment and realised it is probably correct, but not in a good way Previously we used durable, work-orientated smartphones with productive keyboard input. Then the iPhone arrived and popularised a flashy but fragile and less efficient form factor that became dominant. Every time I type in a touchscreen phone I regret that change. It was a trium…

> It was a triumph of a consumption mindset over usability.

Touché. At the time the iPhone launched I had a Nokia N91. I later got an N95 and finally a N900, after which I've only used non-productive touchscreen devices.

Speaking of which, I've been following and drooling a bit after the Gemini PDA and its successors (Cosmo Communicator) but now with their latest Astro Slide I'm actually considering biting the bullet and getting one, thanks to the new keyboard mechanism which doesn't require you to open the device to see the screen: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-slide-5g-transforme...

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#172

Post by spurgu »

neogodless wrote: post #170
alwillis wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. I haven't seen a review where it has underperformed any other comparable device. I've seen a lot of talk about how the Threadripper from AMD is faster… duh. Of course a 32- or 64-core processor that costs 2x-3x than a Mac mini…

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... In some of the benchmarks, the 15W Ryzen 7 4800U outperforms the Apple Silicon M1. There, now you have seen a review where the M1 underperformed a comparable device. (This is not to take away from the fact that the M1 is impressive, and is incredibly efficient, and much better for battery life. It's just a reminder that there are actual, real, worthwhile…

Underperforms on some metrics.

Summary of article:

> Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#173

Post by GeekyBear »

carlmr wrote: post #145
wait_a_minute wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The bootloader is not locked.

There is already a crowdfunded attempt to port Linux to M1 led by a guy who previously ported Linux to jailbroken PS4 hardware.

https://appleinsider.com/articles/20/12/01/new-patreon-proje...

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#174

Post by tonyedgecombe »

jbirer wrote: post #148

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?

Worrying about the system becoming locked down is a fringe concern. You might be passionate about it but the majority don't care.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#175

Post by neogodless »

spurgu wrote: post #172
neogodless wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/16252/mac-mini-apple-m1-teste... In some of the benchmarks, the 15W Ryzen 7 4800U outperforms the Apple Silicon M1. There, now you have seen a review where the M1 underperformed a comparable device. (This is not to take away from the fact that the M1 is impressive, and is incredibly efficient, and much better for battery life. It's just a reminder that there are actual, real, worthwhile…

Underperforms on some metrics. Summary of article: > Overall, Apple doesn’t just deliver a viable silicon alternative to AMD and Intel, but actually something that’s well outperforms them both in absolute performance as well as power efficiency.

Just to be clear, we want to ignore the benchmarks where AMD outperforms Apple, and then go on the wording of the summary to misconstrue reality.

Yes, in some benchmarks, the M1 outperforms... in absolute performance but if you only look at that wording, you miss all the cases where the M1 competitors outperform it... in absolute performance. That's important, only because there seems to be a new commonly held belief by the faithful that "no CPUs compete with the M1 in any sense of the word." That's an inaccurate belief.

Remember the original statement I responded to:

> I haven't seen a review where it has underperformed any other comparable device.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#176

Post by gumby »

thekyle wrote: post #71
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.

I don't think it will be remembered like the iPhone. Probably more like the original Macbook Air. The original Air created the class of ultrabooks which made the bulky Windows laptops at the time obsolete for average users. The new M1 Air has created a class of laptops with ultrabook bodies, but remains cool to the touch under load without sacrificing much in performance and having 16+ hours of battery life. Like the…

> Like the original Air the new one has basically made every ~$1,000 Windows laptop obsolete.

This price qualification is important and insightful, and has been ignored by all the breathless prose about how it will replace all (or no) PCs.

The real historic lesson that applies here: Apple by and large aims to serve the highest margin segments and are happy to ignore other segments, even higher revenue ones.*

M1 will help them dominate a couple of other segments; everyone else will fight over the scraps.

By contrast, a Dell or LG tries to serve all but a tiny sliver of the market, which is more expensive and difficult.

* sometimes they have halo product like the Mac Pro that might better be thought of as part of the marketing budget, though I’m sure they’re pretty high margin too.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#177

Post by derbOac »

gabereiser wrote: post #80
bee_rider wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone was a basically new form factor that over the course of the next 13 years (after trickling out to the lower priced Android phones), became the primary way that billions of people interact with technology. The M1 is a really good new processor. We've been doing really good new processors for the last couple decades. It's great to have more competition in the CPU space, which was seeming to stagnate, but not…

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…

So, as some context, I use Apple, Windows, and Linux systems all in good measure for work, but mostly Apple and Linux. I'm excited to see the M1 Air for all sorts of reasons. I'm excited to see ARM providing hard competition in this space, and excited to see the Air/ultrabook form factor get attention again. I'm also frustrated because I'm tired of seeing these sorts of developments be leveraged to push all sorts of problems with DRM and privacy. Ideally I'd like to see this same thing be offered but with linux or BSD, or at least under owner control.

Having said all that, anything pertaining to battery life I'm skeptical of. In the products I've used, the battery life always declines over time, and in my experience Apple products have been the worst. I love my Macbook Air, but similar dramatic improvements in battery life were touted at the time I bought mine, and I've not been impressed over the years. Sure, at first, the battery life was amazing, but then not too long after I obtained it (a few months or so) the battery life dramatically declined. My Dells, in contrast, started out with less impressive battery use, but declined much less, so after about a year, the battery life was about the same: the Apples just started out great and declined dramatically, and the Dells started out less great and declined less.

There's reasons to think this might be different, but so far the devices haven't been around enough to really speak to me about the long-term battery life patterns. I'm hopeful and open-minded but also skeptical.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#178

Post by Pet_Ant »

chii wrote: post #127
copascetic wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 review of the 13" M1 MacBook Pro as an end-user device. Moorhead's review literally contains this sentence: > The new M1 processor is impressive, but far from perfect- it has many warts, that nearly nobody is discussing. He then proceeds to describe not war…

> rather warts of the 3rd party software ecosystem. which is the result of the change in processor. There is, of course, an undertone of bias in the review against the M1. It's like someone reviewing a tesla car and complain that it's difficult to charge because there's not enough chargers in the road networks and gas stations don't cater for electric vehicles. A valid complaint about the tesla car, but not caused di…

Yeah, the question is always for whom is this review? For my mom that distinction is irrelevant and can be ignored. For myself, it's crucial. I hate seeing CPU benchmarks where they don't compile the compiler for that u-arch first then the run it on Firefox, and then test the resulting because that tells you the actually capabilities of the chip not just how it performs for existing binaries that will be updated within 6 months most likely.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#179

Post by totalZero »

copascetic wrote: post #67
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…

> 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 review of the 13" M1 MacBook Pro as an end-user device. Moorhead's review literally contains this sentence: > The new M1 processor is impressive, but far from perfect- it has many warts, that nearly nobody is discussing. He then proceeds to describe not war…

A reviewer cannot in good faith separate M1 silicon from its end-user product experience, because it is not a standalone product. M1 is not available off the shelf. It is only available in a couple of small laptops and the Mac Mini.

Re: Apple Silicon M1 Disruption

#180

Post by diffeomorphism »

gabereiser wrote: post #80
bee_rider wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iPhone was a basically new form factor that over the course of the next 13 years (after trickling out to the lower priced Android phones), became the primary way that billions of people interact with technology. The M1 is a really good new processor. We've been doing really good new processors for the last couple decades. It's great to have more competition in the CPU space, which was seeming to stagnate, but not…

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…

If the battery life is the main point, why were thinkpads with slice batteries and powerbridge ("up to 30 hours" in 2018) not more successful?

I think it is more about the fact that apple successfully makes things "mainstream". For instance, the air form factor had been done before by Sony (and those even had hires screens), but only got popular after the air.

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