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MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

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Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#431
post #34

It's worrying that they are shying away from specifying generational improvements or at least comparing to it's competitors. The "fastest Intel MacBook" is not really the competitor for an M2 MacBook Pro, it's a predecessor. But I'd rather hear about generational improvements from M1, especially because both Intel and AMD seem to be making great strides in the low power space lately.

I didn't buy an M1 because I didn't want the "first" Apple processor. Maybe it's just my bias from seeing lots of Intel competitors come-and-go? I don't really care about specific improvements, I just want all the minor things that the engineers didn't get to finish the first time around. In my case, living in the US, we all do our taxes in the first three-ish months of the year. Last year Turbo Tax told me they woul…

To state the obvious, Turbo Taxes website works on any device. No idea what an app would be needed for.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The hardware is indeed great. The software experience is getting worse imo, particularly when upgrading. It used to be rock solid for me. The m1 worked without any issues for 2 months. I upgraded yesterday to macOS Ventura: * Upgrade finished but laptop froze. Hard reset. * On first boot, the new System Settings failed to load icons, then froze. Trying to quit it froze the OS. Hard reset. * I left the laptop plugged…

For both iOS and Macos (and Windows for that matter) it's a good idea to backup everything and reinstall the OS from scratch for each major version. Yes it's a headache but it will prevent 10x more headaches that result from upgrading from a previous major version. Many of the problems people have with Apple OS upgrades are issues that happen during the process of converting configurations from one version to the nex…

I do a full macOS reinstall approx 1.5 years, depending on external factors, mostly to be able to clean up obsolete apps/packages/etc (after the reinstall I move everything into a "Old machine" folder and only move back what I need. only drawback is winding up with an "Oldmac" folder inside the "Oldmac" folder inside the "Oldmac..." well one day I'll clear those up)

But I've never felt like needing to do that with iOS - the only 'reinstall' occurs when I upgrade devices (and then I restore from iCloud backup). What problems did you run into that were resolved by a clean reinstall of iOS?

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#433

The biggest issue I have with macbooks is that they are ridiculously expensive. They are intended to be portable devices but bringing them anywhere outside my apartment or office is just a huge risk.

Dunno, I dropped mine pretty hard at airport security, skidded across the floor, left a very small dent. My wife had hers placed on a lectern and someone bumped into to and it fell off stage, bigger dent but the show went on. And our kid has sat on or stepped on both multiple times. They hold up well enough.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#434
post #14

It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. I have the first gen MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro (ok maybe they’re not winning the naming game), and it’s a perfect computer. Battery life is literally all day, every single action is instant, I have zero regard for many apps or tabs I have open. It’s just perfect. I have literally traveled with just a 30 watt anker brick for my phone…

Enjoy it as long as you can. As soon as this kind of hardware is close to becoming commodity, software will get as slow as it is currently on commodity hardware.

It's part of Wirth's law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wirth%27s_law

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#435

There's also a new Mac Mini, which I found A LOT MORE interesting, given that its keyboard or batteries won't break: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2023/01/apple-introduces-new-...

The lack of dedicated DisplayPort ports is fairly disappointing to me since their implementation is just "native DisplayPort output over USB‑C" and it doesn't support MST, so you can only do one displayport signal per port, even with a thunderbolt 4 hub with some bidirectional USB-C Displayport cables.

USB4 supports DP 1.4a tunneling and DP 2.0 in DP "alternate mode". Agree with you, but I fear dedicated DP ports are dying.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#436
post #14

It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. I have the first gen MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro (ok maybe they’re not winning the naming game), and it’s a perfect computer. Battery life is literally all day, every single action is instant, I have zero regard for many apps or tabs I have open. It’s just perfect. I have literally traveled with just a 30 watt anker brick for my phone…

> It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. Sure, but developing with Java up-to-16 is much slower with M1/M2 due to ports not being available, and Rosetta having to emulate. Datapoint: We develop plugins for Confluence and it’s about 1 minute to load each page. I don’t think developing Java 11 is a corner case of using a Mac.

ARM builds have been available for a while now even for Java 11.

* AWS Corretto: https://docs.aws.amazon.com/corretto/latest/corretto-11-ug/d...

* Eclipse Temurin: https://adoptium.net/temurin/releases/?version=11

* IBM Semeru: https://developer.ibm.com/languages/java/semeru-runtimes/dow...

* Oracle GraalVM: https://github.com/graalvm/graalvm-ce-builds/releases/tag/vm...

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#437
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From TA: “With M2 Pro on MacBook Pro: Rendering titles and animations in Motion is up to 80 percent faster1 than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and up to 20 percent faster5 than the previous generation. Compiling in Xcode is up to 2.5x faster1 than the fastest Intel-based MacBook Pro and nearly 25 percent faster5 than the previous generation. Image processing in Adobe Photoshop is up to 80 percent faster1 than t…

In other words, they're absolutely using the Intel machine to bury the lede. Apple is now facing the same struggle as AMD and Intel. They have a generational processor product that relies on new silicon to get faster, and they can't get new silicon fast enough. The M2 was basically just a wattage-bump of the M1, and looking at the performance increase/processor count, I'm inclined to call the Pro/Max the same thing.…

I just got an M1 Pro MBP for work last week, so I was kicking myself a little when I saw this. Then I was less disappointed when I saw the only difference is a 20% speed increase for some apps, no changes to things I would actually care about, like adding a couple USB-A ports, or if the speed increase was > 50%.

I do all compiling and heavy testing on servers, so the laptop is just for SSH, analysis software, and regular desktop stuff, for which it is fast enough.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#438

What is up with the gigantic notch? Deal-killer for me, personally. My Intel MBP works just fine so long as I disable Intel TurboBoost.

The only thing that's in there is a very low quality webcam and an ambient light sensor so as far as I can tell it's 90% empty black space.

Re: MacBook Pro featuring M2 Pro and M2 Max

#440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s crazy how far ahead Apple is getting in the laptop game with these new chips. For people who don't mind an ultra-brittle screen or who don't mind paying an extra 20% Apple tax to get their screen replaced when it breaks. Had a M1 Mac. Screen broke overnight. Meanwhile my LG Gram feels way more sturdy and hasn't let me down in years. M1 Mac lasted about 13 months. Not happy at all with Apple asking 680 EUR to r…

... Huh. That is one Apple complaint I've never heard. Had various Mac laptops since 2004 and never seen a screen crack (on my own one; for what it's worth, I do know two separate people whose Apple laptop's screen cracked because their _cat bit it_, but I assume that can happen for any laptop with a sufficiently weird cat). And, really, a screen is a screen is a screen; any laptop screen is likely to be about as fra…

The problem isn't that the screen breaks; the problem are their ridiculous repair prices.

The repair prices are artificially inflated because there is no competition and they don't sell spares, and I think they keep them high on purpose to push their insurance product Apple Care. (Which is a great business for Apple, because the repairs are much cheaper for them than what they charge uninsured customers)

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