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Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

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Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#641

Post by Klonoar »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #578
Klonoar wrote: post #562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I'm fairly certain I refuted it. The parent comment is incorrectly stating that each request to Apple is checking a binary, and it's not. This has been well documented both here on HN and across the web.

That's not the definition of refute. The distinction between a lazy-implied always and merely often is pedantic. The point is that it happens enough to reduce performance, while doing something no end-user asked for and is difficult, if not impossible to disable without reducing other security protections.

There is no measurable performance loss from that one time check - it's not something happening constantly.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#642

Post by Klonoar »

inDigiNeous wrote: post #617
Klonoar wrote: post #526

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're not wrong, but at the same time, if 99% of Electron applications are slow, then I have no problem calling Electron (as a movement, not a technology) slow. It is also pretty evident that default Chromium itself is a complete battery slog. You can make an Electron app not slow/a battery hog, but it requires working backwards from a state of "what on earth is going on under the hood here". This is the inverse of…

Yeah it's true. Of course native code will perform by default faster and be more battery friendly, but V8 is also very optimized and can perform easily like 80% of native speeds if given some thought. Yeah many people do not just have the time to look into this, and most companies don't really care, as we have so much RAM and CPU power these days, so I can see why for example many messaging apps just choose to write…

>can perform easily like 80%

This feels like... a trap.

I think there's a complexity in doing that which could be summarized as follows: it's possible, but the more complex your codebase, the more difficult it is to reason about how to get to or maintain that 80%.

Even if we assume that 80% is the maximum, if most products (or the notable ones that we all complain about, I suppose) are hitting 50%, then... well, that's a problem.

For full disclosure: I've defended Electron on the merits of "there is sadly no better way to ship cross-platform UI-based software". I criticize it with this in mind.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#643

Post by dillondoyle »

dijit wrote: post #357
dillondoyle wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My current almost 2 year old 16" has 64gm ram already. Is this new version faster despite lower amounts of storage?

It’s faster ram, and a faster CPU. Memory only really gives you “number of active things that the CPU can switch to” (meaning, open idle programs) and cache. If the nvme drive is fast enough, the filesystem cache is not as noticeably effective, and if you have aggressive “suspend” of processes (like iOS) then lack of RAM capacity does not really impact performance at all. But memory latency, speed and the CPU do.

very cool thank you!

for me video cache would be really helpful, but after effects and especially premiere right now seem absurdly slow.

premiere especially i can hit play on a non-edited clip in preview and it takes multiple seconds to start... maybe i have a wrong setting somewhere

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#644

Post by inDigiNeous »

Klonoar wrote: post #642
inDigiNeous wrote: post #617

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah it's true. Of course native code will perform by default faster and be more battery friendly, but V8 is also very optimized and can perform easily like 80% of native speeds if given some thought. Yeah many people do not just have the time to look into this, and most companies don't really care, as we have so much RAM and CPU power these days, so I can see why for example many messaging apps just choose to write…

>can perform easily like 80% This feels like... a trap. I think there's a complexity in doing that which could be summarized as follows: it's possible, but the more complex your codebase, the more difficult it is to reason about how to get to or maintain that 80%. Even if we assume that 80% is the maximum, if most products (or the notable ones that we all complain about, I suppose) are hitting 50%, then... well, that…

Yeah maybe 80% was over-estimated. Depends on the usecase, I've also seen 50% in more cases, but at least according to my experience 70-80% is realistic in some cases.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#645

Post by GeekyBear »

skinnymuch wrote: post #437
Bud wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean the business practices wherein Apple is 10x better on privacy than everyone else to the point that Facebook and Google are now being forced to be honest with users, disclose all the user data they are stealing and selling, and disclose all the privacy and security risks inherent in their business models? Sign me up for more of those kinds of "business practices", thank you very much.

Apple is reportedly beefing up their mobile ads business. Hard to say privacy is the reason when Apple immediately attempts to benefit directly financially and likely with some privacy hits.

Ad targeting doesn't have to be based on violating the privacy of everyone on the planet. Surveillance Capitalism is just the business model that was chosen by Facebook and Google.

Ad targeting can be based entirely on the content of the page where the ad appears.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#646

Post by reasonabl_human »

dcchambers wrote: post #583
reasonabl_human wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on the RAM. Went from an XPS with 64GB that used about 16-20GB in my day to day, still able to use the same workflows and memory is handled fine behind the scenes on my M1 Air with 16GB. Maybe get your hands on one from a friend and play around with it. Would imagine ram heavy tasks like rendering etc would choke but I just run many workflows / builds simultaneously which works fine.

16GB might be passable right now, but I am regularly using 20-25GB at a time on my work laptop, a 2019 15" MBP, occasionally bursting to ~30GB when I'm really pushing certain dev environments. I keep my personal laptops for a long time, and I don't want to be stuck with 16GB when it's getting close to not cutting it now based on what I do. I can't imagine being stuck with 16GB in 8-10 years. My current personal lapto…

All fair points, but the deal is these M1 MacBooks make more out of the ram they have. And I can’t imagine not upgrading a laptop in 8-10 years, still have a T430S but it can’t keep up with any reasonable workflow today

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#647

Post by 1123581321 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #638
1123581321 wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also 3) which is another sea change in computing, something that would lead to current device categories becoming irrelevant, and a currently overlooked company positioned to capitalize on it. To me, that seems more likely than 1 and 2, and due to the acceleration of the rates of consumer adoption, it should happen relatively soon.

Yes, that is a good point. It's also hard to know what this is. But for me, the end game of computing is just computing everywhere, reading the world and writing to our screens and our touches programming everything around us. Ultimately this is going to be an ecosystem, not a company. Maybe some better standards emerge that can tie everything together. But as far as devices go it seems to processors, network, storag…

Good thoughts. That’s along the lines of my hopes. Imagine if no one ever thought about buying a computing device or computing again because it was cheap and everywhere. There wouldn’t be any more consumer preference regarding how computers feel, how fun they are, how long they last while mobile, etc. All the preferences would shift to a different class of products that happened to be connected to computing in some way.

I see glimpses of this with some of the cheap commodity hardware available, but transportation and design costs are still too high.

Ability to break in would, I suppose, depend on that cost of design and adoption. The ability of large companies to efficiently acquire, though—-not sure what would change that situation.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#648

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #467
nexuist wrote: post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple isn't harnessing magic here. The opportunity for competition exists, but everyone else is just sitting on their asses while Apple's chip team puts in the work. If you want to beat Mx, you have to think outside the box, just like how Apple thought outside of x86. That being said, I do enjoy the shift to ARM as the dominant arch. x86 has far too many decades of cruft behind it. I don't think Apple will take over…

"The opportunity for competition exists" is the most true statement and response to everyone grumbling about Apple dominance. Somewhere, somehow, the ecosystem of competitors has failed to execute, got lazy, etc and now is looking to regulators to bail them out. It makes me a bit sick. Apple is nothing more than a computing stack wrapped in a portfolio of consumer products. They happen to see this future early, inves…

Yah, people saying the possibility of an apple dominated silicon industry is a bad thing must have forgotten what the Faustian nightmare that was the last 5-6 years of intel dominance. Competition is good. Intel and AMD will either adapt or wither. It’s not like apple is cornering the market through Broadcom-esque machinations or shady tactics. They put out a remarkably compelling processor that is both efficient, powerful, and relatively easy to get (yah, macs are expensive, but the Mac mini at 700$ comes with the same m1 you get in these new iMacs). I also really love how apple is only offering two almost identical models of the m1. It’s powerful enough for the vast majority of computing tasks and I am so relieved I don’t have to spend time figuring out what the fuck intel is doing with their cpu skus. No doubt an m1x or m2 will come for the bigger iMac, but it’s super refreshing.

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#649

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

enos_feedler wrote: post #511
dmix wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already multiple billion dollar companies trying to compete and get to where Apple's at. Apple has the lead now but they wont forever. They never do. I don't see what the big deal is here. Competition has brought us such great processors. We should be thankful for it.

In the consumer space there are only 2 paths for a viable competitor to emerge. 1) a coordinated ecosystem attack or 2) an individual company doubles down. There are things that lead me to believe 1) can't happen. Google ultimately acquiring Fitbit instead of ecosystem compatibility and integration. It seems like the giants are needing to acquire the pieces to build their own Apple, rather than partner with them. Als…

What do you mean by “doubling down”?

Re: Apple's follow-up to M1 chip goes into mass production for Mac

#650

Post by 9935c101ab17a66 »

sim_card_map wrote: post #513
dmix wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's already multiple billion dollar companies trying to compete and get to where Apple's at. Apple has the lead now but they wont forever. They never do. I don't see what the big deal is here. Competition has brought us such great processors. We should be thankful for it.

> they wont forever. They never do. retina imacs and macbook pros beg to differ 8,9 years later still no good alternative

I can’t disagree. I mean the new iMac has some design issues IMO (I hate the white bezel), but damn, the combination of good display (I’d LOVE to buy a 4.5k standalone 24” monitor, 27-28” 4K just isn’t good enough imo), goodish design and an incredibly powerful processor for $1299 is super compelling.
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