[lapcat]

> The new M1/M2 machines have ever so slightly higher single core performance, comparable multi core performance, and when you run them full tilt, the battery doesn't last that long and they start thermal throttling. The only time their battery lasts long is when you use them like phones. Its a neat use case for sure, but nothing ground breaking.

As an owner of many Macs over the years, including both Intel and M1 MacBook Pros, I agree that Apple silicon is not ground breaking, but I disagree with the characterization and think it's missing the advantages of the M1, which I've seen firsthand.

The battery life is improved, because M1 is much more power efficient than Intel. And there's less need for thermal throttling in the first place, because M1 runs a lot cooler than Intel chips.

I've compiled large software projects using these machines, and the M1 Macs are definitely faster, significantly. I'd say the performance increase from Intel to M1 is comparable to that from the PPC to Intel switch. Maybe that is "ground breaking"? I don't know, depends on your standard.

[EDIT] I really think the comment about so-called "phone processors" is unfortunate because (as usual, sigh) the discussion under the top comment on HN is going way off on an irrelevant tangent, completely ignoring the linked article.

[horsawlarway]

Personally - I think it's interesting that the M1 chip might actually be better than the M2 stuff coming out now, given the thermal profiles of the M2 chips aren't as good.

I would take that as a bad sign for Apple - at a minimum, it seems like they're under-investing in chassis design to account for the heat output of the M2 chips, and it's a shame. As a worst case, it indicates that the design for these chips might have hit a local optima very quickly, and there isn't much space to push the envelope with future iterations.