Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

apple.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

941–950 of 1001 posts

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#941

Post by tomaskafka »

alluro2 wrote: post #524

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…

> for 4 years before it became a little sluggish

Weird, I didn't know silicone degrades in this way. Perhaps it was rather the macOS and Mac apps that were getting progressively worse?

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#942

Post by WillAdams »

dainank wrote: post #887
xiphias2 wrote: post #97

Apple still has the best hardware so I moved to it for the last few years, but the closed software ecosystem is terrible for taking advantage of it. I wasn't able to debug network errors (restartin my Mac worked), Metal was missing low level disassembly / debugging tools (there is some hard to use UI), but the worst thing was the inflexible windowing system. Even getting all the window handles on all screens/desktops…

I think the worst is the lack of support for 'click-through' behavior on MacOS. This is that you have to select a window first with left-click before being able to select UI elements within that window with left-click. The amount of time lost with extra clicks is incredible. It is even more frustrating that this behavior is somewhat inconsistent, with some applications allowing this and others not (although it is mor…

The clickthrough behaviour used to be the default in NeXTstep (and it was one of the things which I misliked not having when switching from my Cube to my work Mac and ThinkPad portable ages ago).

The apps it works in are probably written in Cocoa née "Yellow Box" (allegedly so named because Bill Gates stated that rather than write apps for NeXT APIs he would instead....)

The way I fix it when using my Mac these days is to only use apps written using Objective-C and so forth.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#943

Post by jodrellblank »

teiferer wrote: post #791
alluro2 wrote: post #524

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…

> a little sluggish > surprised by how quick it felt Aren't these properties of the (G)UI rather than of the processor? I've been using systems 20 years ago that were super snappy. The same software would still be snappy today obviously. But the software has become bloated to the point that you need to run the latest generation of CPUs such that things are not sluggish. In principle you don't need 32-core GHz CPUs to…

> "the software has become bloated"

Casey Muratori has a 20 minute talk on YouTube called "Clean code, horrible performance"[1]. Using an oft-repeated example in C++ he rewrites it uncleanly and then benchmarks.

Removing Classes/subclasses/polymorphism: 1.5x faster. That overhead was like reducing an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 11 performance.

Replacing Encapsulation with a table-driven calculation: 10x faster. That overhead was like reverting an average desktop CPU from 2023 back to 2010 performance.

Adding basic SIMD: 20x faster.

His position is that the principles of Clean Code wiped out 15 - 20 years of hardware progress, for a subjective ideal of maintainability, and even if they deliver on that, the cost is too high. It shouldn't/cannot cost a decade of hardware performance to make programmer's lives easier.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tD5NrevFtbU

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#944

Post by topato »

teiferer wrote: post #938
Closi wrote: post #876

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In principle you don't need 32-core GHz CPUs to move a window around on a screen without it feeling sluggish I think the snappiness is less this, and more about the speed to open a file, how quickly chrome pops open when you open it etc. I assume this is a combination of hardware and how fast SSD->RAM is due to the SOC, but software will certinaly play a big part too.

> I assume this is a combination of hardware and how fast SSD->RAM is due to the SOC, but software will certinaly play a big part too. That is exactly what I'm talking about. Sorry, you are completely off. My machine 20 years ago was not an SOC and didn't have an SSD either. It was fast as lightning to open a window. What does this have to do with SSD? Or an SOC? It's all because the software is incredibly bloated, a…

“Old man yells at cloud” lol, but seriously, you’re definitely correct. Bloated binaries and unnecessary frameworks (electron and soon, tauri). Everything is built for the web, then forced into a broken and bloated mobile app and desktop binary. Zero platform optimization anymore.

I keep my chromium and chromium profile loaded into a ram drive, and it’s still slow and sluggish. Tech debt and a growing monorepo has damaged it beyond recovery. I really hope those two new browser engines reach a usable state soon. Chromium, WebKit, gecko have been doing for too long without a full foundational overhaul.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#945

Post by temporallobe »

alluro2 wrote: post #524

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…

This eventual sluggishness is due to inevitable OS rot. I bought a brand new MBP in 2017 and it was snappy as hell. Booted up instantly, breezed through complex tasks, and ran GarageBand and Logic Pro X very smoothly. Every OS update seemed to take it down a notch and eventually Logic Pro X - my main production tool - was unusable. I happed to be talking about this to a professional music producer friend of mine and he said that everyone in his industry NEVER updates their OS. Basically they install everything, disconnect from the internet, and don’t touch the OS ever again because it can break delicate plugin ecosystems and drivers. That’s essentially what I ended up doing. I installed a different DAW (UA Luna) and have not updated the OS for about 5 years now and it’s still chugging along. I don’t use that system for any other purpose however I do keep it connected to the internet for ease of access to icloud. One day the hardware will die, but my next audio production system will likely be a Mac Studio that I set up and don’t touch for 10 years.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#946

Post by temporallobe »

jodrellblank wrote: post #943
teiferer wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a little sluggish > surprised by how quick it felt Aren't these properties of the (G)UI rather than of the processor? I've been using systems 20 years ago that were super snappy. The same software would still be snappy today obviously. But the software has become bloated to the point that you need to run the latest generation of CPUs such that things are not sluggish. In principle you don't need 32-core GHz CPUs to…

> " the software has become bloated " Casey Muratori has a 20 minute talk on YouTube called "Clean code, horrible performance"[1]. Using an oft-repeated example in C++ he rewrites it uncleanly and then benchmarks. Removing Classes/subclasses/polymorphism: 1.5x faster. That overhead was like reducing an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 11 performance. Replacing Encapsulation with a table-driven calculation: 10x faster. That ove…

I have found these same principles to be true in my own projects. More modern, “cleaner” implementations usually end up with a larger code base but a noticeable reduction in performance. Bloat ruins everything.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#947

Post by douglee650 »

temporallobe wrote: post #945
alluro2 wrote: post #524

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…

This eventual sluggishness is due to inevitable OS rot. I bought a brand new MBP in 2017 and it was snappy as hell. Booted up instantly, breezed through complex tasks, and ran GarageBand and Logic Pro X very smoothly. Every OS update seemed to take it down a notch and eventually Logic Pro X - my main production tool - was unusable. I happed to be talking about this to a professional music producer friend of mine and…

Interesting -- seems to be a "Docker for music production" product in there somewhere

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#948

Post by the_sleaze_ »

jodrellblank wrote: post #943
teiferer wrote: post #791

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a little sluggish > surprised by how quick it felt Aren't these properties of the (G)UI rather than of the processor? I've been using systems 20 years ago that were super snappy. The same software would still be snappy today obviously. But the software has become bloated to the point that you need to run the latest generation of CPUs such that things are not sluggish. In principle you don't need 32-core GHz CPUs to…

> " the software has become bloated " Casey Muratori has a 20 minute talk on YouTube called "Clean code, horrible performance"[1]. Using an oft-repeated example in C++ he rewrites it uncleanly and then benchmarks. Removing Classes/subclasses/polymorphism: 1.5x faster. That overhead was like reducing an iPhone 14 to an iPhone 11 performance. Replacing Encapsulation with a table-driven calculation: 10x faster. That ove…

I write clean code with lots of encapsulation. Not C++ just an ecomm webapp but our business hinges heavily on time to load and we do great there.

Clean code or messy code the thing that all fast code has in common - including your example is this: YOU FOCUSED ON IT.

You measured it, then improved against the benchmark. You spent time and effort on it so it improved.

That's it. That's the secret.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#949

Post by rwyinuse »

s777 wrote: post #913
greenowl wrote: post #581

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.

My M1 Air died a week ago after 4 years of use. The Apple store told me it would get less than a year of updates and replacement part availability from now, and the logic board despite being most of the laptop would only be warrantied for 90 days. Not sure why so many people here praise Apple's "longevity" which is clearly not good.

The main problem with Apple's is the limited years of updates to MacOS, combined with less than ideal Linux support. I can easily install Linux on any Thinkpad, but I don't think it's yet easy for newer Macbooks.

With Linux, a device can stay snappy far longer than Apple provides updates to MacOS. That's why my personal computer is old Thinkpad, I can thankfully use work-issued Mac for anything that requires more power.

Re: Apple introduces M6 and M5 Ultra

#950

Post by thiht »

switchbak wrote: post #627
thiht wrote: post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

macOS is fine, you guys are just overreacting… Is it perfect? No. Is it usable? Clearly yes.

Maybe they have standards and preferences. "fine" and "overreacting" seem like your very subjective value judgements.

Ok, so they can migrate to an OS that fits their standards and preferences, no need to make it a militant stance with "vote with your wallet" or whatever. You like Linux or Windows better, go use it, Apple won't be mad
Post reply on HN