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Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

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11–20 of 228 posts

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#11
post #3

Great marketing. I wonder the sales difference if they were also selling Macs with current generation AMD Ryzen chips manufactured on a modern TSMC node.

I think they are so good at building CPUs that fit their designs why do they need to rely on AMD keeping pace with them? I bet you Apple increase performance 20%+ per year for a decade while at some point AMD will slow down their improvements. Never mind the whole issue with heat and battery life where AMD is miles behind.

> Never mind the whole issue with heat and battery life where AMD is miles behind.

That's just false. AMDs newer U models have TDP and performance per watt at the same level as the M1.

Apple has other advantages with the M1 (like running iOS programs, more optimised for their software and so on), so they still benefit from having their own chips. M1 is great, but it's not magic.

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#13
M1 is amazing and I bought my partner one and she loves it.

However, when it came to buying a new engineer on our team a laptop, we had to go with the last 2020 Intel model.

We still have some uncertainty over whether or not our development tools/environment will work on M1. Many python packages will take longer to install I imagine (if there are no wheels for the M1 mac, not sure if that's an issue) and I suspect some won't build at all. I also have some concerns over our Docker environment building.

Is there anyone doing python development and using Docker who can share their experience so far?

Edit: please also share non-python development experience, it's really interesting to hear

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#14
I see a myriad of comments that boil down to “duh”, but I think these comments are missing the point.

Consider an alternate possibility: “sales of Apple’s new ARM macs outpaced by older models”.

Had Apple not knocked M1 out of the park, this was a real possibility. Is it surprising that a well executed architecture change is now selling well? Not really.

But the more interesting point is that the rest of the market agrees with us early adopters and tech nerds.

This would be a very different headline if devs were struggling to port their software, or if Rosetta 2 didn’t live up to its promise.

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#15
post #9

Great marketing. I wonder the sales difference if they were also selling Macs with current generation AMD Ryzen chips manufactured on a modern TSMC node.

What is great marketing? That they successfully sold the merits of their new architecture? Or are you saying that talking about the difference in chip sales is a marketing tactic? What is the relevance of Ryzen here?

It seems highly likely given past performance; if they had put any half-reasonable Intel or Ryzen chip in their $999 Air then that chip would be their best selling CPU.

Saying the M1 "isn't just an upgrade, but a breakthrough," and supporting that with sales figures that don't really show anything is "great marketing".

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#17
post #14

I see a myriad of comments that boil down to “duh”, but I think these comments are missing the point. Consider an alternate possibility: “sales of Apple’s new ARM macs outpaced by older models”. Had Apple not knocked M1 out of the park, this was a real possibility. Is it surprising that a well executed architecture change is now selling well? Not really. But the more interesting point is that the rest of the market a…

See Surface Pro X as an example of that alternate possibility.

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#18
post #7

The $999 Macbook Air has long been Apple's best selling computer by a pretty wide margin. The Air being M1 now (and retina, and still $999!) has probably accomplished most of this.

It's lightweight and fanless. It's the perfect 'night' laptop if I want to work at night quietly on the couch.

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#19
post #13

M1 is amazing and I bought my partner one and she loves it. However, when it came to buying a new engineer on our team a laptop, we had to go with the last 2020 Intel model. We still have some uncertainty over whether or not our development tools/environment will work on M1. Many python packages will take longer to install I imagine (if there are no wheels for the M1 mac, not sure if that's an issue) and I suspect so…

I do a lot of Python on my M1 and now that NumPy compiles correctly, I have no complaints. Docker also works fine presuming your base image has a ARM version (I haven’t tried their x86 emulation, but presumptively it’s slow since it can’t use Apple’s Rosetta speedup).

It was bumpy until March or so, but now I really really like it for Python.

Re: Apple Now Selling More M1 Macs Than Intel-Based Models, Says Tim Cook

#20
I will miss the Intel Macbooks. I use a 2013 Macbook with Bootcamp for freelance work. It's close to perfect. I don't want to maintain 2 laptops for Mac/Windows work. If I could work on an ipad I could imagine having an ipad and a Windows machine but currently my next setup will be worse due to "progress". Am I using it wrong?
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