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Apple M5 chip

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Re: Apple M5 chip

#481

Post by grincho »

jtbayly wrote: post #307
lelandfe wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a UI/UX nerd, it’s a coin flip on intentionality. I’ve been noticing so many rough edges to Apple’s software when it used to astound. iOS Settings search will flash “No Results” as you begin to type which is comically amateurish. The macOS menu bar control panels can’t be keyboard navigated... It’s just silly. I’ve been debating making a Tumblr-style blog, something like “dumbapple.com,” to catalogue all the dumb…

Please do this. Here are some examples to add to your list, leaving out the 26.0 bugs that I've come to expect running a .0 release. 1. I won't focus on a bunch of Siri items, but one example that always bugs me: I cannot ask Siri to give me directions to my next meeting. The latest OS introduces an answer for the first time, though. It tells me to open the calendar app on my Apple watch, and tap on the meeting, and…

I had that complaint about Mail too. Then I realized you can begin dragging an email (from the list view), switch apps with your other hand, and drop it into, say, a todo. Of course, this is less discoverable, so I agree a Share button would not go amiss.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#482

Post by 6SixTy »

samwillis wrote: post #114
toddmorey wrote: post #6

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

Software is very easy to bloat, expand scope, and grow to do more than really needed, or just to release apps that are then forgotten about. Hardware is naturally limited in scope due to manufacturing costs, and doesn't "grow" in the same way. You replace features and components rather than constantly add to them. Apple needs someone to come in and aggressively cut scope in the software, removing features and product…

macOS has like no features already, and they keep removing more.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#483

Post by random3 »

mumber_typhoon wrote: post #44

The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…

This needs benchmarks.

Sad if true. I feel my M1 max sluggish too lately. After bragging that this was the longest lived work machine I had and thinking I'm good to wait for M6. This is not good for business, but IMO you need more than raw power to justify upgrades even for professional use - form factor, screen quality, battery, etc.

I think they bet a lot of hardware money on AI capabilities, but failed to deliver the software, so there was no real reason to upgrade because of AI features in the chip (which is literally what they boast on the first line of the announcement - yet nobody cares about making more cute faces)

It's not 100% their fault. Everyone got onto the LLM bandwagon like it's "the thing" so even if they didn't believe it they sill needed something. Except an OS is not a chat interface, and LLMs do suck at stricter things.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#484

Post by ant6n »

cmcaleer wrote: post #461
thebitguru wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has also seemingly stopped caring about the quality and efficiency of their software. You can see this especially in the latest iOS/iPadOS/macOS 26 versions of their operating systems. They need their software leadership to match their hardware leadership, otherwise good hardware with bad software still leads to bad product, which is what we are seeing now.

It is frankly ridiculous how unintuitive it was to add an email account to Mail on iOS. This is possibly the most basic functionality I would expect an email client to have. One would expect that they go to their list of mailboxes and add a new account. No. You exit the mail app -> Go to settings -> apps -> scroll through a massive list (that you usually just use for notification settings btw) to go to mail -> mail a…

I think the most most basic integration w.r.t. email I want from Apple is that I want to set up another email program besides “Mail” as the default email program, but without having to set up Mail first.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#485

Post by staticfloat »

oskarkk wrote: post #351
gcr wrote: post #165

So how many hardware systems does Apple silicon have for doing matrix multiplies now? 1. CPU, via SIMD/NEON instructions (just dot products) 2. CPU, via AMX coprocessor (entire matrix multiplies, M1-M3) 3. CPU, via SME (M4) 4. GPU, via Metal (compute shaders + simdgroup-matrix + mps matrix kernels) 4. Neural Engine via CoreML (advisory) Apple also appears to be adding a “Neural Accelerator” to each core on the M5?

Would it be possible to use all of them at the same time? Not necessarily in a practical way, but just for fun? Could different ways of doing this on CPU be done in some extent by one core at the same time, given it's superscalar?

This is a very old answer about the M1, but yes what you’re saying is possible: https://stackoverflow.com/a/67590869/230778

Re: Apple M5 chip

#486

Post by lawlessone »

mumber_typhoon wrote: post #44

The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…

>The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers

a rant on my part, but a computer from 10 years ago would be fine for what most people do on their computer, only for software bloat..

Re: Apple M5 chip

#487

Post by tsunamifury »

kokada wrote: post #137
mumber_typhoon wrote: post #44

The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…

> Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same tasks ive been last couple of years. I have a work provided M2 Pro with 32GB of RAM. After the Tahoe upgrade it feels like one of the sluggish PCs at the house. It is the only one that I can see the mouse teleporting sometimes when I move it fast. This is after disabling transparency in Accessibility settings mind you, it was even worse before.

Transparency disabling ads anothe draw layer that is opaque on top making it even worse than when it’s on

Re: Apple M5 chip

#488

Post by nullbyte »

gcr wrote: post #165

So how many hardware systems does Apple silicon have for doing matrix multiplies now? 1. CPU, via SIMD/NEON instructions (just dot products) 2. CPU, via AMX coprocessor (entire matrix multiplies, M1-M3) 3. CPU, via SME (M4) 4. GPU, via Metal (compute shaders + simdgroup-matrix + mps matrix kernels) 4. Neural Engine via CoreML (advisory) Apple also appears to be adding a “Neural Accelerator” to each core on the M5?

Thankfully I think libraries like Pytorch abstract this stuff away. But it seems very convoluted if you're building something from the ground up.

Re: Apple M5 chip

#489

Post by potatolicious »

paxys wrote: post #392

M5 is 4-6x more powerful than M4, which was 5x more powerful than M3, which was 4x more powerful than M2, which was 4x more powerful than M1, which itself was 6x faster than an equivalent Intel processor. Great! Looking at my Macbook though, I can say with utmost certainty that it isn't 4000x faster than the Intel one I had 5 years ago. So, where is the disconnect here? Why is actual user experience not able to keep…

Because there's more to "actual user experience" than peak CPU/GPU/NPU workload.

Firstly, the M5 isn't 4-6x more powerful than M4 - the claim is only for GPU, only for one narrow workload, not overall performance uplift. Overall performance uplift looks like ~20% over M4, and probably +100% over M1 or so.

But there is absolutely a massive sea change in the MacBook since Intel 5 years ago: your peak workloads haven't changed much, but the hardware improvements give you radically different UX.

For one thing, the Intel laptops absolutely burned through the battery. Five years ago the notion of the all-day laptop was a fantasy. Even relatively light users were tethered to chargers most of the day. This is now almost fully a thing of the past. Unless your workloads are very heavy, it is now safe to charge the laptop once a day. I can go many hours in my workday without charging. I can go through a long flight without any battery anxiety. This is a massive change in how people use laptops.

Secondly is heat and comfort. The Intel Macs spun their fans up at even mild workloads, creating noise and heat - they were often very uncomfortably warm. Similar workloads are now completely silent with the device barely getting warmer than ambient temp.

Thirdly is allowing more advanced uses on lower-spec and less expensive machines. For example, the notion of rendering and editing video on a Intel MacBook Air was a total pipe dream. Now a base spec MacBook Air can do... a lot that once forced you into a much higher price point/size/weight.

A lot of these HN conversations feel like sports car fans complaining: "all this R&D and why doesn't my car go 500mph yet?" - there are other dimensions being optimized for!

Re: Apple M5 chip

#490

Post by JumpCrisscross »

mumber_typhoon wrote: post #44

The M5 MacBook Pro still gets the Broadcom WiFi chip but the M5 iPad Pros get the N1 and C1X (Sweet). All in all, apple is doing some incredible things with hardware. Software teams at apple really need to get their act together. The M1 itself is so powerful that nobody really needs to upgrade that for most things most people do on their computers. Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish doing the exact same task…

> Tahoe however makes my M1 Air feel sluggish

Counterpoint: my M1 Pro was a turtle for a few weeks and then stopped doing nonsense in the background and is back to its zippy self. (Still buggy. But that would be true on new hardware, too.)

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