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New Macs

Ron Texas

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Blumlein 88

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The offering that looked the most tempting to me was the Mac Mini. It looks like as an entry level desktop or a home theater type use it once again has enough performance in a good form factor for a relatively good price to be what the original Mini was.

My old 2014 Macbook Pro still works fine, and I do not want the offerings with the flaky keyboards. So I might be a customer for the 13 inch Pro if the keyboard is the right one.

https://arstechnica.com/ has several articles about the various new offerings.
 

Blumlein 88

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The maximum of 16GB of RAM may limit applications for some.
I see a lot of people complain about that, but does it hurt for anything other than photo/video editing or audio editing with huge tracks?

I've recorded on my old 2014 macbook Pro up to 8 channels and while it can bog it down a bit, it is hardly un-usable. It is slower and only 8 gig. If I were making my living with it maybe it is an issue.

Of course I've thought for some time if there were an agreed upon format to just drop your phone down and have it connect to your desktop monitor and keyboard/mouse, most people would never need a full size or even mini computer anymore.
 

Berwhale

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I see a lot of people complain about that, but does it hurt for anything other than photo/video editing or audio editing with huge tracks?

I've recorded on my old 2014 macbook Pro up to 8 channels and while it can bog it down a bit, it is hardly un-usable. It is slower and only 8 gig. If I were making my living with it maybe it is an issue.

That's why I said 'for some'. Apple tend to market their products at 'creatives' and generally speaking, media creation applications like lots of RAM. Perhaps this is why the 16" MacBook Pro remains on Intel?

Full disclosure - I have hated Apple since being forced to provide desktop support for Mac Classics and their stupid 1 button mice in the early 90's. Having said that, I've also supported NeXTcubes running on trading floors which I regard quite highly, so Jobs wasn't all bad :)
 
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RickSanchez

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A couple additional upgrades for the Macbook Air (probably applies to the Pro as well):
  • "... with its new SSD getting a 2x bump in speed too"
  • "Another big upgrade is that the MacBook Air with M1 is also getting a new webcam that delivers better image quality with less grain in a smaller overall package."
Source: https://gizmodo.com/this-is-apples-new-fan-free-macbook-air-1845632756
 
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Ron Texas

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dwkdnvr

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The final graph on this page is a bit mindblowing https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-deep-dive/4. I was not aware how much their in house silicon has caught up. Anandtech's conclusion hints at the death of x86.
It will be very interesting to finally see an apples-apples comparison. It's been evident for a while that Apple devices were untouched in performance-per-watt, but it's pretty remarkable to see the suggestion that they may well be right on par in absolute performance with the cutting-edge Ryzen processors that were literally just released and represent a non-trivial step up over previous generations. Having just purchased a new R7 3700x desktop (which might actually become a server), I'm not sure I have any immediate interest in these machines - particularly given the 16GB limit. They may well represent a pretty disruptive entry into the market though, particularly since they aren't resulting in a price bump over Apples already premium pricing.
 
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Ron Texas

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Wes

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the big downside is throwing thousands of dollars worth of your software down the tubes
 

Doodski

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If a MAC has new silicon that competes with Ryzen and the performance all around is comparable then why is a MAC desirable over the competition. I've never owned a MAC so I'm not up to speed on them. Over the years I installed several versions of Linux for something to do and to compare the experience so I'm slightly familiar with that but not with the MAC.
 

sweetchaos

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Macbook Air (13.3") US$1000
Macbook Pro (13.3") US $1300

Pro has (that Air lacks):
- 2hr battery life for wireless web (11% more than Air)
-Touch bar
-100 nits brighter (25% more than Air)
-0.2lb heavier (7% more than Air)
-Slightly better "high dynamic range" speakers
-Slightly better "Studio-quality" microphones
-USB-C power port

Is that worth extra 30% (or extra US$300)? That's for you to decide.
 

Universal Cereal Bus

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If a MAC has new silicon that competes with Ryzen and the performance all around is comparable then why is a MAC desirable over the competition. I've never owned a MAC so I'm not up to speed on them. Over the years I installed several versions of Linux for something to do and to compare the experience so I'm slightly familiar with that but not with the MAC.
There are some creative software that are available exclusively on OSX or are better supported/optimized for OSX. That's not my world but I'm sure there others on here (particularly those involved in sound mixing and music production) who prefer or need to use Macs.

For non-professionals, I'd say the reasons (whether I personally agree or not) are: industrial design, Apple ecosystem (i.e., proprietary interoperability with iOS and other Apple products), grew up using Macs and never left, more expensive = more better.
 

Berwhale

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What were you planning on running that needs more than 16GB?

I'm not planning to run anything on a Mac, I was just pointing out that the 16GB limit may affect some users. I have 32GB in my PC, I don't really need it, but falling DRAM prices meant that the 2nd 16GB cost half as much as the 1st 16GB, so it seemed rude not to fill the slots.

BTW, I have nothing against ARM chips and welcome Apple's move to use them. I owned two Acorn computers as a child (Acorn Electron and BBC Master) and used the the first Acorn Risk Machine (i.e. ARM), the Archimedes at high school over 30 years ago.
 

JeffS7444

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Access to iOS apps is potentially huge, but I'll reserve judgement 'till I see how they make the transition from touchscreen to trackpad.

For no sensible reason save that it seemed really, really cool, I got a new camera which produces 240 megapixel pixel-shifted images and I already know that an 8 GB Mac won't handle raw files that big, but I should try it on my 16 GB Windows notebook. Have so far only tried it on a 32 GB system, and it works fine there. But I wonder what it'd be like to stitch several such images together into a panorama...
 

Blumlein 88

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Macbook Air (13.3") US$1000
Macbook Pro (13.3") US $1300

Pro has (that Air lacks):
- 2hr battery life for wireless web (11% more than Air)
-Touch bar
-100 nits brighter (25% more than Air)
-0.2lb heavier (7% more than Air)
-Slightly better "high dynamic range" speakers
-Slightly better "Studio-quality" microphones
-USB-C power port

Is that worth extra 30% (or extra US$300)? That's for you to decide.
The pro also could run at elevated clock rates better than the Air which normally runs at a slower speed.
 
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