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M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

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Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#131

Post by ghaff »

SloopJon wrote: post #117
ghaff wrote: post #12

I'm not sure I see most of the disagreement here. As Gruber says, Moorhead is mostly complaining about software incompatibilities. But that's part of the total package--especially with Apple which is about selling the total experience. Personally I'll probably switch sooner rather than later especially given that I don't run a lot of native apps on my laptop. But it seems pretty reasonable to critique a new architect…

I read Gruber frequently even though he annoys me (he's sort of like John Dvorak that way), and this piece is kind of emblematic of why he does. To be clear, the ARM Macs are way more exciting than I expected, and I'll probably buy one at some point. I also do not think Moorhead's Fortune article was perfect, but Gruber's righteous indignation is grating. These statements are pitted against each other, even though th…

>How much of the M1's advantage is due to a trillion dollar company buying up every last bit of TSMC's 5nm production capacity?

Yes, it's very hard to separate process from architectural (and implementation) design. And, as an industry, we're probably sticking our fingers in our ears more than we should about what happens when process shrinks really truly stop happening. And they will. There are still a variety of options but there's very little evidence they have anything like the legs of CMOS process scaling even if we do dump a big part of the problem on developers who don't get to develop for a largely unified architecture any longer or lean as heavily on high-level abstractions.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#132

Post by neogodless »

nickelcitymario wrote: post #112
neogodless wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a "Mac user" you have to give up the software you prefer, and use the software Mac prefers you to use. And you don't get to be unhappy if the software you prefer doesn't run OK? I am so happy to not be a Mac user, even if I'm sad I won't be trying out the great M1 CPU any time soon.

How is this different than any other OS? My preferred software is Mac or *nix based, so by your logic: To be a "Windows user" you have to give up the software you prefer, and use the software Windows prefers you to use. And you don't get to be unhappy if the software you prefer doesn't run OK?

I can't tell but I think you're making my point. As a Windows user, I can absolutely be unhappy if software I prefer does not run. If someone comes around and says "but that software was originally for Mac... you aren't allowed to expect it to run well on Windows! A real Windows user wouldn't complain about that software."

And if the software I prefer runs better on macOS, I have a good reason to switch away from Windows. Just as if software you prefer runs better on Windows, you can complain about macOS (or in this case, incompatibility due to the ISA switch.)

My issue was with the comment using "mac user" as an excuse for software that isn't what the "true" mac user considers essential not working well.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#133

Post by s3cur3 »

simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

It's not just "ARM is fast," though—Apple's ARM chips in particular beat the pants off their ARM competitors. (See benchmarks of any iPhone compared to flagship Android devices.) I don't think you should expect similar levels of performance from a run-of-the-mill ARM chip on the desktop (though I'm happy to be shown benchmarks to the contrary).

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#134

Post by neogodless »

toddmorey wrote: post #102
neogodless wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be a "Mac user" you have to give up the software you prefer, and use the software Mac prefers you to use. And you don't get to be unhappy if the software you prefer doesn't run OK? I am so happy to not be a Mac user, even if I'm sad I won't be trying out the great M1 CPU any time soon.

But that goes equally across platforms. When I'm on a windows machine, I miss the hell out of Keynote and Bear, for example.

Exactly. So you either go back to using macOS, or you complain that Windows doesn't run the software you like. It's OK to do that for any OS you run. It's a valid reason to not like an OS, or in this case, an OS that is going through a transition to a new ISA. Until it runs the software you prefer, it isn't ideal.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#135

Post by alwillis »

nix23 wrote: post #119
simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

>Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. Not sure what shitty machine hes talking about, but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1.

but my threadripper's are not impressed with some 4 core M1

The M1 has 8 CPU cores, 8 GPU cores and 16 Neural Engine cores. It also runs at 10 watts and maxes out at 24 watts. A Threadripper starts at over 100 watts…

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#136

Post by spamizbad »

dhagz wrote: post #125
spamizbad wrote: post #103

I wish Gruber would just let modest criticisms like this stuff fly rather than pen an overwrought argument like this. I think it’s perfectly legitimate to raise concerns around Apple software because it’s one area where Apple has faced sustained criticism from its users and has done very little to remedy the situation. So if the software that runs on top of the M1 is shakey, it’s entirely realistic to expect these “w…

Eh, I get his coming down on criticisms this time. It doesn't make sense to criticize the hardware for software issues. I'm not going copy a binary compiled for x86 over to a RPi and complain about ARM chips being inadequate. If there are software issues, address them as such.

But when you purchase an Apple product you're not buying one or the other: You're buying the complete package. They are one.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#137

Post by aequitas »

ghaff wrote: post #97
aequitas wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't get your hopes up. My prediction is, that yes, there will be a slew of new ARM laptop's. And even though the technically run ARM chips, it will only be a marketing selling point for new. They might even cram Snapdragon's or other mobile device CPU's in there, just to be able to put a ARM sticker on a plastic frame with an folding LCD panel and keyboard. They will sell it as beter than Intel, because that is wha…

Ultimately, it's all about Windows. I know it's hard for many of us who basically hardly see anything other than Mac or Linux laptops to really grok, but something like 90% of the laptops out there run Windows (if you exclude Chromebooks which AFAIK are mostly used in education).

Indeed, this is why Apple is able to take this leap and the PC platform hasn't so far. They don't have to wait for as many partners to get along for the ride.

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#138

Post by cbhl »

simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

I think in the last year or so we hit an inflection point for ARM performance that makes it acceptable.

The Raspberry Pi 4 / Raspberry Pi 400 are halfway decent to use. The Lenovo Chromebook Duet is probably the first ARM-based Chromebook where I haven't felt constrained to keeping only three tabs open (and although it still struggles with some of the largest spreadsheets and dashboards at work, it is a delightful second-screen device).

But I think the M1 still has an edge because of the vertical integration between software and hardware -- if you previously wrote an app against Core Video or Metal, it should get hardware acceleration once you recompile it for the M1. Whereas if similar accelerators were exposed in Linux or Windows you'd probably have to write against a new custom API/library (such as nvenc).

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#139

Post by ceejayoz »

arn wrote: post #92
ceejayoz wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A browser isn't viable to me without ad blocking and 1Password. Firefox has issues currently on M1, as well - uBlock Origin won't load, for example. Thankfully, that particular issue is fixable by disabling javascript.options.wasm and javascript.options.wasm_trustedprincipals in about:config as a temporary solution. I fully expect these to be fixed, but it's clear it's gonna be a few weeks/months before everything ru…

As others have said, I was simply offering a suggestion to help debug, not passing judgement on adblockers. I have had Safari open for 23 hours on my M1 MBP, and it is using ~800mb of memory right now. Extensions are the most likely culprit.

Ultimately, my point is not "I need help fixing this" - I've gotten Firefox working fine with a few about:config tweaks. My point is "non-technical users are going to run into weird issues they can't necessarily fix right now".

Re: M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness

#140

Post by alwillis »

the_af wrote: post #120
simias wrote: post #100

I've never owned a Mac and don't intend to own one but I'm very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article: >M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants. I think it's…

> I want to believe. If we can end up with superfast, supercool ARM-based Linux laptops, that'd be a huge deal :)

If we can end up with superfast, supercool ARM-based Linux laptops, that'd be a huge deal :)

Apple showed Debian running in a VM on an M1 prototype Mac nearly 6 months ago.

I get that it won't be acceptable for some Linux diehards but the superfast, supercool ARM laptop running Linux will soon be an M1 MacBook Pro.

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