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Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

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331–340 of 351 posts

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#331
post #36

40 cores? This thing will be dazzling.

Adding a bunch of tiny cores to an SOC is easy. What’s much harder is writing the software to make use of them.

Rust makes writing multithreaded code stupid-easy. The compiler itself will saturate every core of your machine. Rust development on a threadripper is such a joy for this reason, and even the M1 is quite pleasant, so I'm looking forward to these higher core counts.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#332
Haha. Too little, too late. Screw Apple and their total wholesale abandonment of the professional user. It turns out they didn't care a bit for the loyal users that made them what they are. I don't want to spend thousands on a laptop only to have to spend hundreds more on a horrendous undesired pile of adapters just to do professional things. I don't want to spend absurd amounts to get non-upgradable RAM at the relative price your competitors offered it for years ago. I don't intend to buy all my accessories from your dinky expensive store. I don't want to have to get Bluetooth headphones with a special Apple sanctioned chip just to get them to work. You can keep zeroing in on the fun loving, family picture obsessed, Candy Crush users with all your vanishing ports. You've turned my decades of unfortunate, as it turns out, Apple loyalty into genuine internet research into my alternatives. And now that the blinders are off I have found laptops with 64GB of upgradable RAM for a fraction of your cost. Laptops with professional connectivity for professional users. Features that aren't, obviously, where the money is for you. Well, as you see it, anyway. Because I think you've seriously undervalued the impact of tens of thousands of young music fans seeing their favorite artist on stage with the apple logo on their laptop lid. Those artists are ditching your lame and arrogantly priced machines and swapping them for far, far more powerful machines at a fraction of the cost. The top names are hanging in because they can, but tomorrow's stars are starting their game with intelligence. The tide turns quickly with young people. And while Apple has apparent changed tact (and we'll see if that's actually true) a seismic shift has already occurred in the younger population.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#333

So does it mean I should wait for the newer mac to come out As I was thinking to buy M1 mac

Genuinely consider looking at your non-Apple options. Seriously. I've had many, many macs, but recently they forced me into looking at other options, and they are stunning. Especially in terms of price and ports.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#334
post #252
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had MacBooks since 2005, and I'm an amateur photographer. I really don't miss the ports or MagSafe at all. I actually like the USB charging better, as it allows you to connect the cord to either side, and it doesn't get accidentally knocked out if I use it on my lap. I've found that the cord being on other side is nearly as good as magsafe anyway, as it will be better positioned to pull out if it gets yanked. Ye…

As a musician with tons of peripherals, some of which are annoyingly sensitive and can't be used through hubs or anything but straight-through adapters (my turntable mixer's digital interface, for example), I welcome the return of the ports. Its not uncommon to have an audio interface, one or more midi controllers, the aforementioned mixer all connected for instance. And basically all of those things still use USB-B…

Apple no longer cares about providing computers to niche users like musicians.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#335

Haha. Too little, too late. Screw Apple and their total wholesale abandonment of the professional user. It turns out they didn't care a bit for the loyal users that made them what they are. I don't want to spend thousands on a laptop only to have to spend hundreds more on a horrendous undesired pile of adapters just to do professional things. I don't want to spend absurd amounts to get non-upgradable RAM at the relat…

Here come the downvotes, lol. I have spent literally tens of thousands on Apple, so I understand how deep the sunk-cost-fallacy fanboy thing runs.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#336

I've been waiting for a 16-inch M1 MacBook Pro to come out. I've been delaying my work upgrade for it. I'm curious what the I/O situation will be. Will it be able to output to two 4k screens or not. The 13-inch cannot, so I'm not holding my breath.

I'm curious why the 13" MBP can't drive two 4K monitors? Any insight into this limitation?

I think it was mentioned somewhere that it's a limitation of the M1 chip.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#338
post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

no professional would be using a TV as a monitor.

What kind of professional? I do programming and I work just fine with my 48 inch 4k LG OLED. Sure, it's big, but it's only $1.5k with features that monitors currently don't have, such as OLED with 120 hz.

I mean a graphics design professional or a video edit professional - the people who need or want 8k!

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-C would have been a great replacement... for DisplayPort/Thunderbolt ports. It's finally, years later, getting merely not infuriating to be stuck with only USB-C ports. Single port for display + charging is very nice, when it works. That iPhones and most iPads still don't use it is annoying. Having two kinds of charging cable around, years after Apple went all-in on USB-C for laptops, sucks. [EDIT] two kinds of c…

Apple uses lightning on their wireless keyboards and mice for chargring... I mean, what the fuck! They even came with lightning to USB-A cables, which won't plug into any USB-C Mac. Also it didn't come with a power brick presumably "to save the environment." I literally had no way to charge them. Totally asinine.

I am pretty sure they come with Lightning to USB-C now. At least the ones included with the new iMac do, and iPhones do so it would make sense for them all to.

Re: Apple Readies MacBook Pro, MacBook Air Revamps

#340
post #314
post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anything more than 16 GPU cores seems like it'd too big to fit on die 32 HP Core with 8 HE Core, 128 GPU Core give you ~650mm inclusive of L2 and SLC. Adding in I/O, NPU, ISP, VPU etc this chip should still be within the reticle limit of ~850mm2.

For some very loose comparison, the Fujitsu A64FX is a 60mm square package and has 48 ARM cores and 32Gb of memory, though no GPU cores. Block diagram over a die shot: https://3s81si1s5ygj3mzby34dq6qf-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-...

The A64FX has much smaller cores though using the similar design to the N1. Apple's HP Core are nearly double the die size ( Hence why it is faster, it is a trade off between transistor budget )
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