Live data from Hacker News

Apple M5 chip

apple.com

331–340 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple M5 chip

#331

It's surprising to me macs aren't a more popular target for games. They're extremely capable machines and they're console-like in that there isn't very much variation in hardware, as opposed to traditional PC gaming. I would think that it's easier to develop a game for a MacBook than a Windows machine where you never know what hardware setup the user will have.

It's easier to develop a game for a mac in some ways but you reach a tiny fraction of gamers that way.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#332

It's surprising to me macs aren't a more popular target for games. They're extremely capable machines and they're console-like in that there isn't very much variation in hardware, as opposed to traditional PC gaming. I would think that it's easier to develop a game for a MacBook than a Windows machine where you never know what hardware setup the user will have.

i think it depends on how easy it is for a dev to deploy to apple. M1 was great at running call of duty in a windows emulator. iPhone can run the newest resident evil. apple needs to do more to convince developers to deploy to mac

Re: Apple M5 chip

#333
post #251

The modern Apple feels like their hardware teams way outperforming the software teams.

Doing good job is rewarded. Apple's Hardware Chief, John Ternus, seems to be next in line for succession to Tim Cook's position.

Interesting, I thought the next in line was Craig Federighi

Re: Apple M5 chip

#334
post #5

Is it me or did they use to avoid calling it "AI"?

Yeah, they rebranded it "Apple Intelligence" but this press release appears to be mostly using AI in the same (vague) way that the rest of the industry does. Also just noticed this: "And now with M5, the new 14-inch MacBook Pro and iPad Pro benefit from dramatically accelerated processing for AI-driven workflows, such as running diffusion models in apps like Draw Things, or running large language models locally using…

> First time I've ever heard of webAI - I wonder how they got themselves that mention?

I wondered the same. Went into Crunchbase and found out Crunchbase are now fully paywalled (!), well saw that coming... Anyway, hit the webAI blog, apparently they were showcased at the M4 Macbook Air event in 2024 [1] [2]:

> During a demonstration, a 15-inch Air ran a webAI’s 22 billion parameter Companion large language model, rendered a 4K image using the Blender app, opened several productivity apps, and ran the game Wuthering Waves without any kind of slowdown.

My guess is this was the best LLM use-case Apple could dig-up for their local-first AI strategy. And Apple Silicon is the best hardware use-case webAI could dig-up for their local-first AI strategy. As for Apple, other examples would look too hacky, purely dev-oriented and depend on LLM behemoths from US or China. Ie "try your brand-new performant M5 chip with LM Studio loaded with China's Deepseek or Meta's Llama" is an Apple exec no-go.

1. https://www.webai.com/blog/why-apples-m4-macbook-air-is-a-mi...

2. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-updates-bestselling-mac...

Re: Apple M5 chip

#336

It's surprising to me macs aren't a more popular target for games. They're extremely capable machines and they're console-like in that there isn't very much variation in hardware, as opposed to traditional PC gaming. I would think that it's easier to develop a game for a MacBook than a Windows machine where you never know what hardware setup the user will have.

Mac dev sucks. You're forced to use macos and xcode (for the final build anyway). You're not able to virtualize the build machines.

Apple is actively hostile to how you would build for Linux or PC or console.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#337

It's surprising to me macs aren't a more popular target for games. They're extremely capable machines and they're console-like in that there isn't very much variation in hardware, as opposed to traditional PC gaming. I would think that it's easier to develop a game for a MacBook than a Windows machine where you never know what hardware setup the user will have.

- have to build using XCode on macOS

- have to pay Apple to have your executable signed

- poor Vulkan support

The hardware has never been an issue, it's Apple's walled garden ecosystem.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#338
post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their software is literally falling apart. ios26 was the biggest trash ive ever experienced from a company this big

How so? Seriously asking because it works fine for me.

Buggy. Random slowness in the UI going well below 120hz. Massive battery drain for no reason. UI elements just looking out of place, big print, random places.

The UI itself is supposed to be intense to render to some degree. That's crazy because most of the time it looks like an Android skin from 2012.

And on top of this all -- absolutely nobody asked for this. No one asked for some silly new UI that is transparent or whateveer.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#339
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Broadcom WiFi support 320Mhz while N1 is stuck with 160Mhz. There were report of N1 not supporting 4096 QAM as well but I didn't check.

> The Broadcom WiFi support 320Mhz while N1 is stuck with 160Mhz. I was at a Wi-Fi vendor presentation a while back and they said that 160 Mhz is pretty improbable unless you're leaving alone and no wireless networks around you. And 320 Mhz even less so. In real life probably the best you can get is 80 Mhz in a really good wireless environment.

For which band? I run 160/160 on 5/6ghz and it’s nice. They are short range enough to work. For 2.4 yeah 20mhz only

Re: Apple M5 chip

#340

It's surprising to me macs aren't a more popular target for games. They're extremely capable machines and they're console-like in that there isn't very much variation in hardware, as opposed to traditional PC gaming. I would think that it's easier to develop a game for a MacBook than a Windows machine where you never know what hardware setup the user will have.

As far as I’ve seen, Apple is to blame here as they usually make it harder to target their platform and don’t really try to cooperate with the rest of the industry.

As a game developer, I have to literally purchase Apple hardware to test rather than being able to conveniently download a VM

Post reply on HN