Apple has been firing on all cores this year! While Apple’s iPhone event left me unimpressed, I had lots of expectations for the One Last Thing event. Many pundits figured that Apple’s last event of the year would be focused on the Mac and Apple’s silicon, now called the M1 chip. Lo and behold, they were correct! Apple spent a tight 45-minute blowing my socks off with news about what is coming to the Mac!
For the first time in a long time, I’m excited about what’s coming to the Mac.
The M1 Chip
Apple kicked everything off talking about what the Apple Silicon chip will be capable of.
Before I jump into the M1, I want to touch on the processor in the iPad Air and iPhone 12, Apple’s latest A14. The A14 in the iPhone 12 benchmarks faster than most PC chips. What Apple has managed to do with its processors in the last few years blows away what most every other chip manufacturer has done. The M1 looks to be no different when it comes out next week. While Apple didn’t say that the M1 is based on the A14, I think we can assume it is in the same family.
If all Apple did was stick an A14 process inside a MacBook enclosure, it would probably be faster and have better battery life than most of the low end Macs. This being Apple though, they didn’t just do that. They built a processor for the Mac. it has more cores than the iPhone 12 or the new iPad Air and brings new tech to the Mac for the first time in a long time.
While we don’t have specs yet, and Apple only gave us numberless charts, Anandtech projects that Apple has had an almost 200% increase in processor performance in the last few years, while Intel and AMD are about 30% gains. And this is just the start. Apple started with the lowest level systems to start the transition after all. I’m sure in the future, we will see even bigger gains in the upper-level processors as well.
The chip itself looks amazing to me. It has 4-high efficiency cores and 4 high-performance cores within a much smaller form-factor than any Intel chip. In fact, many of the main parts of the processor are built closer together so that power and speed are maximized. RAM is built into the system on the chip. Apple claims that the M1 will make Macs 3-to-5 times faster than before with 5x better graphics as well.
Post event, we did find some limitations in the chip though. For me, it wasn’t enough to put the flames out though.
For starters, Macs using the M1 chip can not use more than 16 GB of RAM. This has some people worried, but I think after people get the hands-on time we might see that it works just as well. The iPad Pro from 2018 only has 4 GBs of RAM, and it still screams with speed.
The other drawback is the M1 only has 2 Thunderbolt 3 connectors. Of course, it does bring USB 4, which isn’t very widespread yet, it doesn’t support the next generation of faster connections. But none of the systems announced today has more than 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports. If you want more, you’ll have to wait or buy Intel.
Your usage might vary with RAM or connectors. For me, I don’t think there’s much holding me back in either of these spots. I haven’t needed that much RAM and I haven’t ever used Thunderbolt yet.
The M1 Brings iOS apps
As mentioned back at WWDC, since Apple is transitioning to an iPhone-like processor, iOS and iPadOS apps will run on the system natively. I’m a little disappointed that Apple didn’t really show this off during the event, but I don’t think that they wanted it to steal the thunder of the actual chips. This is a huge move and they know it. Developers will now be able to allow their iOS and iPadOS apps onto the Mac without any work. There’s no more Catalyst even needed. Of course, it might not create the best environment for apps since iOS is touch-first and Mac is no-touch. I’m excited to see how this works, especially with media apps like Netflix.
Developers can opt their iOS app for the Mac App Store too. It will be interesting to see how this develops. Will developers hold their apps back, will they improve them? It’s hard to say right now.
Either way, expanding the Mac ecosystem is going to be a huge boon to the system.
Emulation
Just like when Apple transitioned the Mac from PowerPC to Intel, Apple has implemented a translations software. Rosetta 2 will allow all the old software written for the Intel Mac to run on the new architecture still. Emulating older software is usually a slow process, the machines have to translate code for an old system, processes it, translate it to the new system, and then process it again. The M1 chip is so quick that most people won’t even notice the emulation happening. In fact, since some of the developer tools are coded into the system, if developers programmed those tools, things might even speed up.
For example, if a game has been coded using the Metal frameworks that Apple provides, the framework will have been updated for the new architecture so the developer wouldn’t even have to do anything to get the newer framework. That means that some games will call the newer version of Metal and will get the benefit from the processor even though it is running older code.
For most users, I don’t expect them to see much slow down. The chips look plenty fast and developers are able to re-encode their apps for Apple Silicon like the M1 chip quickly. Although larger apps like Adobe Photoshop will take a little longer than smaller indie apps.
M1 MacBook Air
All the M1 chip talk is great, but when will we see it? So, let’s get down to it!
Apple started off by angering me. I knew that it was coming, but I thought I would be able to resist the temptation of a new MacBook Air. In fact, in my review, I claimed that the early 2020 MacBook Air would be the last Mac that I buy, I was wrong. So I’m mad that I’m buying the same laptop over, and I have one for sale now if anyone is interested!
The all-new MacBook Air will use the M1 chip. On the outside, not much changed between this new M1 MacBook Air and the last Intel MacBook Air. The new model doesn’t get slimmer or new colors. Both models take up the same amount of space.
But the new M1 MacBook Air has eight processors and a seven or eight graphics core compared to the two to four core Intel processors. Apple showed off people coding and encoding video on a MacBook Air. You can see the video Apple made showing off users, including developers using the Air to code.
Now I didn’t buy my Air for power, I bought it as a computer on the go for when I write (although no one has really gone anywhere since I bought it). Still, I tried to run apps like Swift Playgrounds on my Air earlier this summer. The experience was awful. The app took forever to work and just forced me back to my iMac or iPad Pro, where Playgrounds ran buttery smooth.
Then Apple shows off this MacBook Air running xCode.
Smoothly.
I think this is a huge jump in processing power for the Air. In fact, it feels like the four high-efficiency cores on the M1 chip for the MacBook Air will be as fast as the four-core Intel chip (the model up from mine). That still leaves the 4 high-powered cores for when the Air needs it. It does all this and actually takes the fan out of the system.
In fact, the chip inside the M1 MacBook Air is the same chip that is now inside the 13-inch MacBook Pro. Of course, the M1 MacBook Air is not a fan-less system (I will get more into this later). My current machines boots the fan up just turning the machine on. When I moved a few months ago, I didn’t have internet for a few weeks. When it finally got installed, and I tried to use my MacBook Air, the computer became unresponsive for about an hour while it updated all the iCloud, OneDrive, and Dropbox files. The fan kicked on, spinning loudly, and the battery plummeted.
The M1 Air won’t be able to spin up a fan, but I don’t think it will even need to. The iPad Pro that has an older A12 chip runs circles around my Intel MacBook Air and it doesn’t have a fan either.
Of course, Apple has increased performance so the price should be much higher right?
NO! The price hasn’t changed at all, and that is crazy to me! Not only that, but it took the chance to also upgrade the screen to P3 color gambit. and it can support a 6K display as well now.
Oh yeah, and the battery will last about twice as long as well.
So I came home from work and put my Intel MacBook Air up for sale and ordered the new M1 MacBook Air. I can’t wait for it to get here next week to try it out and to really see just how much more power it gets.
Mac Mini
Then Apple dropped the Mac mini.
Just like the M1 MacBook Air, the new Mac Mini will sport the new M1 chip as well. It will get the same speed as the Air, but since there are fans inside, it can keep the speed at the top range for longer.
The mini doesn’t have a battery to worry about either, so I will be interested to see if the chip is more focused on ramping up speed since it doesn’t have to save battery life anywhere.
I think that those that are keen on the mini will love this new M1 Mac Mini. If they don’t, Apple still sells the Intel-based Mac Mini at the higher end. I would expect to see those phased out before this time next year though.
The M1 MacBook Pro
Then came the MacBook Pro. Just like the previous two Macs with M1 chip. This version of the MacBook Pro is just taking over the lower spot on the MacBook Pro page. Apple still offers the MacBook Pro with Intel chips and 4 Thunderbolt ports. My guess is that since this is just the first chip, and there are some limitations, Apple is waiting to update the higher-end models to an even better chip. Maybe an M1X or something.
But the chip inside the lower-end MacBook Pro is the same as in the M1 MacBook Air. The only difference really is that the MacBook Pro has a fan and a bigger battery. Like on the Mac Mini, the fan will help the chip run at top speeds for longer without having to turn down the speed. The M1 MacBook Pro also keeps the Touch Bar, so if that’s a factor for you, it could help you decide one way or the other.
The M1 MacBook Pro will also get the best battery life between the two laptop models. Apple claims 18 hours of web browsing! That’s insane!
The Future
I think, with this being the first step, the future for Apple Silicon is bright. I’m so excited about the speed difference in these chips I’m upgrading my laptop again… in the same year. I actually hate that I’m doing that too. I don’t want to be this way lol.
That doesn’t even mention how much better the machine learning will be on an M1 system, and what that can bring to the Mac.
It does leave me with questions about what’s next. Will these machines run smoothly with only 8 or 16 GBs of ram? iPadOS runs great on just 4 GBs, so should it even worry me?
None of these systems have a dedicated graphics card either. Will the graphics of the next Apple silicon models include one? Will it be an Apple-branded one? I can’t wait to see it.
I’m just glad that with all announced so far, I’m not trying to replace my 27-inch iMac yet.
Also, will FaceID come to the Mac? If it does, I hope Apple keeps the TouchID button as well. I don’t love the TouchID button, but it makes things easier.
Overall Impressions
Out of Apple’s three events in the last three months, this one impressed me the most. It was the most surprising. The iPhone is usually the one that gets me most excited, but the iPhone has grown slightly stale. It was nice to have something new to look forward to.
Since Apple announced in June that they would bring Apple Silicon to the Mac, anticipation has been high. While we don’t have the systems here to use, it feels like they have pulled off the first steps.
There is definitely more to come, and there will be refinements with these first machine probably quicker than I want. Hopefully, my M1 MacBook Air will serve me for years to come like 2016 MacBook Pro did.
What did you think of Apple’s latest event? Let me know on Twitter!