271–280 of 419 posts
This seems to be a lot of effort to rationalize the surprisingly small performance increase from M2 to M3. Initially the assumption was that M2 to M3 would be a bigger step than M1 to M2, not a smaller one. Perhaps TSMC 3nm is showing the limits of scaling?
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Intel/AMD chips don't approach the efficiency of what Apple makes.
I don't understand this pretence that the vast majority of the time laptops are plugged into the power anyway.
My job provided me with a Dell laptop with an i7 and it can keep my coffee warm just idling. Sometimes, when it’s decided it doesn’t want to sleep, I can hear the fans from the next room. While the screen is off, not being touched.
I could go on at length about just how shitty the Dell is compared to my MacBook Air (despite costing more and performing worse!), but Apple Silicon Macs are just so much nicer when it comes to the practicalities of using a portal computer.
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Not at all. As a single example - macos comes with an extremely outdated version of GNU bash (3.2) from 2007. And yes, this has consequences in that many modern bash scripts depend on bash 4+ (current latest GNU bash is 5.2+).
> Why? Why do I need to use 3rd party package managers, or manual installations from 3rd party sources to install common tools that aren't a decade+ outdated? There actually is a reason. It's not lack of maintenance. It's because Bash 3.2 is the last version licensed as GPLv2. Bash 4.0 and later changed license to GPLv3. Apple decided it's not safe for them to ship any software with GPLv3 with macOS, because of stron…
Apple could choose to be GPLv3 compliant tomorrow, if they wanted to.
Feels like we’ve gone from “it’s just better, it’s obviously better you can see with your eyes and feel it as you use it” when M1/2 dropped. To trying to justify why the M3 is 20% faster than the M1 and the M2 was also 20% faster than the M1 and weirdly Apple is only comparing it to their older processor. Like people, maybe it’s just an underwhelming update… no need to pretend it’s not.
1. I think you set your expectations too high. 2. I assume Apple compared the M3 to M1 because most of the customers they are targeting are still on the M1. M2 customers bought a computer less than a year ago and that pool of people is relatively small compared to the number on M1 today.
I feel like this is giving Apple the benefit of the doubt.
Most people here wouldn't say the same of Intel if they started comparing to 2 or 3 generations ago.
No, most likely they're comparing to M1 because it's the biggest difference that is still plausible to explain.
It’s ridiculous that the base and Pro only support 1 and 2 external displays, respectively. Want 3 monitors? Have to pay for the Max. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/02/m3-chip-still-supports-...
I’m not trying to justify Apple here, but this usage seems quite niche and it’s understandable to me to need a non-base setup. It doesn’t sound ridiculous at all. As a matter of fact, the vast majority of notebook users never even plug a single monitor in.
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I have this for my m1 pro: https://a.co/d/gD5q8G3 It uses the 6950 DisplayLink chip, which can do 4K@60Hz. It's 90 dollars and drives 2 screens. Software is less good. I had to enable Rosetta2 to get the pkg to install. Then you have to boot to recovery mode to allow signed 3rd party drivers. And you get a creepy notice that someone is watching your screen, which is how the display driver works. Performance is pretty…
Is that because the screen generation is software based? I noticed that when using display link and couldn’t bare the input lag or worse the compression from moving a window too rapidly. Switched to a monitor with thunderbolt output and my coworkers thought I was being a diva.
Unfortunately I don't think the M1 Air supports TB daisy chaining unless you're ok with mirrored displays. I still can't decide if I want to ask my job for a new computer, a new dock, or new displays lol.
It’s ridiculous that the base and Pro only support 1 and 2 external displays, respectively. Want 3 monitors? Have to pay for the Max. https://www.macrumors.com/2023/11/02/m3-chip-still-supports-...
Speaking of... Can I sidecar to two or more iPads with this yet? -- "Use an iPad as a second display for a Mac" https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210380
One I can understand as I used to travel with my iPad Pro and used it as a second screen. But two? I’ve switched to a much lighter and much nicer UHD HDR usb-c monitor that is amazing for the price and the weight difference.
You also don’t get the random disconnections when sidecar weirds out for no reason.
And yet the air can’t support more than one monitor. I know Apple is a small company with only a few engineers so it must have been too hard. Sarcasm obviously. As an Apple enthusiast it’s so annoying how they sniff farts.
Only 1-monitor support seems like a market segmentation decision, not a lack of capability. (Much like how the iPhone Pro has faster USB-C data transfer speeds vs base iPhone)
This guy is becoming too much of an apple apologist for me. I've seen him defending pretty bad decisions like John Gruber (who always was) so I've stopped following him like I have Gruber. Also, because I've disagreed so much with Apple's decisions in the past years I've abandoned their ecosystem altogether so I'm also much less invested in the topic. Though I still use a Mac for work as a "least bad" option. Too bad…
In 2004 I moved to Mac because it was a powerful and configurable Unix OS with the benefit of a consistent UI (nothing on Linux was there then, it was a mess) and major commercial apps like Office and Photoshop.
The latter are still true but the platform is so locked-in that most of its features are useless to me as a multi-OS person. And the hardware is quite locked down as well which simply doesn't work for me. A lot of the reasons for this are not user-centric but commercial.
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Give me a "pro" which is thinner than and without a fan. or Give me an "air" with two external monitors and 64GB ram. The pros are clunky and heavy. I'm on an air, and will stay there for a long time because if this
Aren't the pros and the airs very close to the same weight? the 15" air is 3.3 lbs and the MacBook 14" with the m3 is 3.4lbs. The heaviest 16" with the m3Max is 4.4.