Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#661

Post by alain94040 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:21 PM UTC

jonplackett wrote: post #642

bayindirh wrote: post #117

I know, this is a bit of a meaningless comment, but it's funny in a way. Feels like late 90s again: - Xiaomi: We have matched Apple in CPU performance. - Apple: *Meep Meep...*

I think it’s weird to say Apple is faster than Xiaomi when both are just using arm chips and using TSMC to build them, and this chip is only any faster because TSMC made a smaller node. I know Apple do some special hardware software integration magic too.

Apple is not "just using arm chips". They have been designing their own 100% custom cores for more than a decade.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#662

Post by icedchai » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:26 PM UTC

slowin wrote: post #655

websap wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mac OS has been hands down one of the best OS that I’ve used in a long long time. What problems are you running into?

I would say the artist formerly known as OS X has never been good. It literally started its life as a half-assed NeXT attempt and has only gone downhill from there. There's still a "Services" entry in the file menu. .DS_Store files are an abomination. Mac OS thinks it knows better than I do about which software I'd like to install. Plist insanity that makes the Windows registry look pristine. GUI inconsistencies acro…

In almost 20 years of using Mac OS I can count on one hand the time I've used the "Services" menu, and that was mostly by accident...

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#663

Post by holiveros » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:27 PM UTC

greenowl wrote: post #584

alluro2 wrote: post #527

I was blown away by M1 Pro, and used it for 4 years before it became a little sluggish, and replacing it with an Asus S16 running on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (an excellent laptop). One of the main reasons was missing my old Linux setup. I've briefly tested M5 Pro in an Apple store and was surprised by how quick it felt and did anything. A tangible and significant difference, and I really feel it would be good getting it, or…

Still rocking an M1 Air - 2020 build. 8GB ram. No slowdown or deterioration at all. Battery health reports the battery max capacity at 84%. Best computer I've ever owned, by far.

Same here, my M1 Max 64GB beats the s*t out of my work-provided M5 16GB :P

Best computer I've had in a long time.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#664

Post by NamlchakKhandro » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:28 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #566

prmph wrote: post #538

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, vote with your wallets. It’s about time Apple learned that excellent hardware alone would not make up for what macOS lacks and where it fails for development.

What would you want Apple to do to improve the developer experience?

Make installing Linux on it easy

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#665

Post by Huppie » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:31 PM UTC

hasteg wrote: post #116

paxys wrote: post #38

More validated by the day that my $450 M4 Mac Mini (16GB) was the best deal in computing for a long, long time.

I live right next to a micro center and remember when they started offering that deal... still so pissed at myself for not buying one. I ended up just buying a raspberry Pi for what I was doing, but seeing as where the prices are now, I messed that up a bit. Also my worst sin was not buying 64GB of DDR5 when I was doing my computer upgrades back in August last year.

I feel so incredibly lucky I chose to overdo it a bit on RAM when I upgraded last year... though I remember deliberating to go for 192GB (it's 96GB now) but motherboard support was somewhat more complicated and it felt like a waste of 300 euros...

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#666

Post by NamlchakKhandro » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:33 PM UTC

stasomatic wrote: post #653

bluecalm wrote: post #627

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am in the same boat. I would buy a Mac if I could run Linux on it. As it is I will pay more for X1 Carbon with a worse CPU just to run free OS on it.

But you aren't buying a Mac at that point, no? The hardware is 1/2 or 1/4. I'd get an X1 myself if it could run macOS, I like the looks and the aesthetic, don't much care about Linux besides my Proxmox / HA/ *arr setup on an old NUC. Why can't we have it all, eh? :)

LLMs and unified memory

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#667

Post by slowin » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:34 PM UTC

icedchai wrote: post #662

slowin wrote: post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say the artist formerly known as OS X has never been good. It literally started its life as a half-assed NeXT attempt and has only gone downhill from there. There's still a "Services" entry in the file menu. .DS_Store files are an abomination. Mac OS thinks it knows better than I do about which software I'd like to install. Plist insanity that makes the Windows registry look pristine. GUI inconsistencies acro…

In almost 20 years of using Mac OS I can count on one hand the time I've used the "Services" menu, and that was mostly by accident...

No one has ever used it.

It's one of those NeXTSTEP things that was copied over.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Services_menu

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#668

Post by jtbayly » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:35 PM UTC

gyomu wrote: post #605

greenowl wrote: post #584

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still rocking an M1 Air - 2020 build. 8GB ram. No slowdown or deterioration at all. Battery health reports the battery max capacity at 84%. Best computer I've ever owned, by far.

Same. It was borderline unusable on Tahoe to the point I had to downgrade it, but the Golden Gate beta brought it back to life. I’m only using it as a travel machine now, trying to hold on from upgrading it until I can get an Air with OLED display - hopefully coming in <24 months…

What makes Golden Gate usable?

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#669

Post by stasomatic » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:36 PM UTC

stuff4ben wrote: post #81

M5 Pro in a Mac Mini with 64GB RAM and 10Gbit Ethernet seems like the perfect Jellyfin server and Ollama test server. All for just over $3K (I specced with only 1TB local nvme).

Can't say about Ollama but my 2017 Intel NUC 32 GB runs all of the arr and fin stack while it's idling, swimmingly.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#670

Post by xp84 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 10:38 PM UTC

greenowl wrote: post #584

alluro2 wrote: post #527

I was blown away by M1 Pro, and used it for 4 years before it became a little sluggish, and replacing it with an Asus S16 running on Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 (an excellent laptop). One of the main reasons was missing my old Linux setup. I've briefly tested M5 Pro in an Apple store and was surprised by how quick it felt and did anything. A tangible and significant difference, and I really feel it would be good getting it, or…

Still rocking an M1 Air - 2020 build. 8GB ram. No slowdown or deterioration at all. Battery health reports the battery max capacity at 84%. Best computer I've ever owned, by far.

I splurged for the 16GB version of this. Originally bought it for my spouse, and then replaced it with a refurbed M2 with 1TB of storage for reasons. So I took the "old" M1 Air. So far, can't come up with a reason to want to replace it. Not updating to Tahoe helps with that too.