Apple to replace Intel and move to ARM - *** Confirmed as "Apple Silicon" ***

squerble said:
Problem is, you'll still spend close to that thanks to Apple charging £200 for every spec bump of RAM and storage. So if you wanted a more meaningful 16GB RAM and 1TB storage then it's up from £699 to £1,299, and that's before buying a new monitor etc (though you may, of course, already have one).
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Yeah that’s what I realised after posting haha. Even just bumping the specs up to 16GB ram and the 500GB ssd put it up considerably.
Thankfully I do have an amazing 27” Benq 4K display so a new one isn’t needed.
 
In a couple of years when they have got all the software issues ironed out and have released a 16" version of this the macbook pro will be an utter monster. If I could get 5-6 hours actual work use out of a portable computer that would be amazing.
 
Considering the 13" MBP, in a straight choice between the 2.0GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 and the new M1, what are the pros and cons?

I'm tempted to stick with Intel as it's a totally known entity and perfectly powerful. Use is very standard web, office, LaTeX, writing, Python etc. nothing too exotic. Why chose the M1, especially in it's first iteration?
 
I'd be going for the M1. Apps under Rosetta seem to be at least matching Intel for the same workloads.

I would only go with Intel unless you need Bootcamp, VMware Fusion to virtualise x86 VMs, more than 1 external monitor or an external GPU.
 
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clv101 said:
Considering the 13" MBP, in a straight choice between the 2.0GHz quad-core 10th-generation Intel Core i5 and the new M1, what are the pros and cons?

I'm tempted to stick with Intel as it's a totally known entity and perfectly powerful. Use is very standard web, office, LaTeX, writing, Python etc. nothing too exotic. Why chose the M1, especially in it's first iteration?
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M1 should be fine with those things. There's no good reason to get Intel if your use case is limited to these. If your python code uses libraries that have a C backend, make sure they are ARM-compatible.
 
fez said:
You mean the phones that are about 4x as thick from screen to (protruding) camera over the macbook screen. If they could do it, they would have done it. Its not a conspiracy. If they could fit a better performing webcam into the thickness of the screen why wouldn't they? I assume the only reason they haven't is because they don't want to make the screen thicker to accomodate it. I assume that to make a considerably better camera would require a compromise on screen thickness that they don't think is a good tradeoff.
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Apple are using the same 1.2MP eyesight camera from 2012. You can get OEM replacements for £8 off ebay. I don't believe it's not possible for the one of the richest and most technologically advanced companies to improve it in 8 odd years if they really wanted to.

They're obviously aware it's not good enough, otherwise they wouldn't have spouted that rubbish about improving it's quality with software in the keynote.

I'm sure everyone saying it's not possible because of the lid thickness will also be blown away when they finally magic out an upgrade in the next revision a year down the road because they've waited as long as possible without doing a revision ;)

It woudn't surprise me if they could do it now, but they're just holding it back for an next years upgrade, a long with potentially better screens with smaller bezels etc.

The M1 is a big enough upgrade in itself that these will fly off the shelves, so not point giving us too many upgrades all at once, that would just spoil us :p

ChrisD. said:
720p is perfectly fine
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"We've not bothered to upgrade our cameras yet again this year, they're not great, but perfectly fine. Anyway, it's in your best interest for you face to look a bit blurry on those business calls, no one really wants to look at that ugly mug"
- Tim Cook

:D
 
The resolution isn’t really the issue, you can stick a 4K sensor in the gap but it will still get the same rubbish performance. If anything it may be even worse as the pixels will be so small they’ll get less light and they would have to bump the ISO.

To fit a decent camera up there you need something as thick as your phone and why all laptop webcams suck the big one. There either in the lid so they are poor quality or they are in the hinge and looking right up your nose which is terrible and I’d rather just not see that.
 
I'm impressed with M1, performance is really good for what it is, I'm excited to see how well M1X/M2 performs when they're available.

I'm considering on upgrading to M1 MBA, my 2016 13" MBP is starting to show its age just a bit, though it does everything I need it to do just fine :p
 
InfiniteNoise said:
I'm impressed with M1, performance is really good for what it is, I'm excited to see how well M1X/M2 performs when they're available.

I'm considering on upgrading to M1 MBA, my 2016 13" MBP is starting to show its age just a bit, though it does everything I need it to do just fine :p
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In your case, as you have no pressing need for a new laptop - waiting 6-7 months for a potential complete redesign and 14" screen, would be well worth it.
 
Feek said:
Early days but this is rather interesting.
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It seems like Apple wants to wrap up this transition very quickly. 8-12 core M1 variants in early 2021, then refresh of these and 16-core variant of M2 for 2021 holiday season and probably 24 and 32 core variants early in 2022 and they're done. I don't think we'll see another Intel Mac refresh.
 
In all honesty I would wait for the next generation.

There's no doubt that this is an impressive chip, but you just have to look at the history of apple products to understand why waiting for 2nd gen is a good idea.

Ipad -> Ipad 2
Iphone 2g -> iphone 3g
apple watch -> apple watch 2.

First gen to 2nd gen has the potential for a huge increase in performance since I would imagine this is the transition where a lot of "lessons learned" will be implemented, considering this is their first desktop implementation of ARM.
 
I've gone low investment for the first gen. I needed a new machine so went with the base MBA using education discount, so £899. Within 12 months I will likely sell it and pick up a redesigned iMac.
 
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