[jdlshore]

> For the past decade Apple’s product lineup has pretty much remained the same

You seem to have forgotten the M1 Mac, which was released in 2020. It was followed by the complete overhaul and revitalization of the Mac lineup, all to critical and popular acclaim.

[vbezhenar]

I'd prefer them to keep using Intel, if you ask me. M1 brings to me nothing but issues with different architecture. So much that I had to switch to Linux because can't take it anymore.

Don't really feel it faster than Intel, TBH. May be better regarding battery, but who cares, definitely not me, working from AC outlet 24/7.

[wyldberry]

Seems like the thousands of people who bought it care, myself included. My role has significant on-call responsibility. It's nice to be able to take it charged anywhere I could need it and know that for several hours it can handle anything I will throw at it, reliably.

From a security perspective, I prefer the separation from the x86 architecture if for no other reason than it imposes extra cost for exploit development.

[pjmlp]

It is only a matter of time.

https://www.darkreading.com/application-security/patchless-a...

[wyldberry]

That wasn't the point. On a long enough timeline, the security of all systems drops to zero. If the entire world is running x86, then the threat model for attackers revolves around abusing x86. If things are homogeneous, it raises the bar and resourcing required to make attacks.

As always with security, everything is a tradeoff.

[namaria]

Your argument is basically security by obscurity. You're better off in an ecosystem where a lot of attention is paid to exploits and patches then in another where it might be a long time before a zero day becomes known and fixes are issued.

[wyldberry]

None of what i said is security by obscurity (which is also can be an effective tactic,but obviously not the only tactic).

There are only so many human hours and minds interested or allocated to exploitation and offensive security. If everyone used the same architecture for everything, the economies of scale on the offensive side (due to state funded actors) would blow everyone else out of the water.

From a software perspective, Windows has an incredible amount of skilled eyes on each patch release, but we still see new exploits. Same for Linux. Likely same for MacOS.

All i'm advocating for is that having separate hardware architectures is good because it raises the barrier to entry, even if it's only the next marginal step.

[justsomehnguy]

> My role has significant on-call responsibility. It's nice to be able to take it charged anywhere I could need it and know that for several hours it can handle anything I will throw at it, reliably.

You could do that for years with an extended battery in ThinkPads (and Dell I think, never used them). More so, you could just bring additional charged batteries with you, in case you really needed.

But yes, it took a little more space and weight than M1.

So M1 didn't allowed people on-call to be able "to throw anything at it for several hours", the tech was already there. The only thing M1 did bring is a small savings in the weight and space for the people who needs a glorified terminal with them.

Hint: ultrabooks were a thing long before M1.

[kaba0]

The M-serious brought an absolutely insanely big jump on the performance-energy efficiency graph, and that’s without doubt. Nothing came even remotely close to that before.

Those ultrabooks were insanely expensive and had like 3 hours of battery life.

[justsomehnguy]

If you are on-call then you diagnose and repair some remote system. You don't need the performance for it.

> Those ultrabooks were insanely expensive and had like 3 hours of battery life.

Ah, yes M1 for $300 is surely better!

And no, they didn't had 3 hours of the battery life.

I had 4 hours+ just a couple of days ago on a totally not tuned ASUS TM420 with a 3-cell battery.

> Nothing came even remotely close to that before

Except you needed to adapt your whole workflow for it, but as usual this part is ignored.

Sure, today you can do that way more easily because most (read: webdev, lol) things are done, but...

[kaba0]

Ok, 4 hours vs 10. It is still the difference between not powering off between bringing it from one power source to another and an actually portable use-case.

[snapcaster]

This is such a weird comment, the m1 macbook was so obviously superior in every way to my 2019 intel macbook i was blown away

[FabHK]

The M1 MacBook Air is way snappier than an Intel MacBook Pro. It's night and day. Much better machines.

[leptons]

That's great if all you do with a computer is browse facebook (or hacker news). Pros of all kinds have specific platform/software requirements and Apple chucked a lot of that out the window (again) with a move to a new platform - and it isn't optional, intel Macs will be extinct soon and so will software support for them. They don't care about pros, they care about money and the money is in selling to people who only browse facebook.

[lelandfe]

I respect the surliness of “(again)” despite the first example happening in 2006

[leptons]

> despite the first example happening in 2006

Apple Macintosh started on Motorola processors. Then they moved to PowerPC processors. Then they moved to Intel processors. And now they've moved to ARM processors. It's happened 4 times in the same product line.

https://jacobbartlett.substack.com/p/through-the-ages-apple-...

[wtallis]

2006 wasn't the first such transition Apple did, just the previous one. Their transitions from 68k to PPC and from classic MacOS to OS X were similar to the PPC to x86 and x86 to ARM transitions from an application compatibility standpoint.

[jmkni]

Do you have examles of 'pro' software which no longer works on Apple Silicon?

[theshrike79]

Can I ask what issues did you have after the initial hassle of people recompiling for the M-series?

For me the insane battery life/computing power ratio massively outweighs any possible advantages for staying with Intel

[vbezhenar]

For example I can't run Windows XP in a VM with acceptable performance.

[drawfloat]

I can run Black mesa at 60FPS inside a Windows 11 VM on my Macbook M2. That suggests performance is not actually that bad?

[vbezhenar]

Probably because your Windows 11 VM runs ARM version of Windows and I need x86 version of Windows.

[INGSOCIALITE]

i was in the same situation with the switch to silicon. I have some obscure industry software that i use on a rare basis that only runs on x86 - i just bought a cheap thinkpad (x220 i think) and have XP on there.

silicon (m2) is worth its weight in gold to me for the battery life and functionality.

[shepherdjerred]

You're an outlier. Nobody is going to come up with a product that satisfies everyone.

I've found Apple Silicon to be incredibly fast. There were issues with the different architectures, but for 99% of people those are solved.

[Apocryphon]

Not sure how credible Snazzy Lab's claims are, but supposedly Apple Silicon might be hitting diminishing returns, at least for now-

Apple's Silicon Magic Is Over: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOlXmv9EiPo

[kingkongjaffa]

They still power the best and most battery efficient laptops on the market, despite diminishing returns.

[arvinsim]

Whoever is in that market is already served by the current offerings.

I doubt anyone would be scrambling to get the M4 if that it is just mote of the same.

[shepherdjerred]

Intel made due with "more of the same" for years.

Though, I do hope that Apple continues to make improvements.

[archeantus]

See “faster, lighter, etc” :D

[_heimdall]

I think that depends on how you're defining product lineup here. Apple doesn't sell the M1 chip itself, so really the product lineup remained unchanged other than shipping with a new processor.

The watch is the most recent new product I can think of from Apple and that was 9 years ago.

[nickburns]

if by "complete overhaul and revitalization of the Mac lineup" you mean took their own chip production in-house, i agree. most revolutionary thing Apple has done since the iPhone.

[yerwenber]

> And now they’re way behind.

I’d say “way” is a stretch, and the technologies that largely are making it such could be argued were popularized by ggml which was written originally for the M1 platform.

[asadotzler]

You seem to have forgotten that "Dodge swapped out the Chrysler engine for a Mitsubishi engine" isn't much of an innovation claim. Tim Cook is a bean counter. He's done nothing at Apple except add a couple of iPhone accessories and optimize the supply chain, which is all the M1 Mac was, a slightly optimized Steve Jobs creation.

[ffgjgf1]

> all to critical and popular acclaim.

Perhaps but after a spike in 2020-21 their Mac sales are about where they were back in the Intel days.

If you take into account the inflation since ~2017 M1 hasn’t really been that extraordinarily successful and their past couple of quarters were the worst in the last 10 years or so.

[pjmlp]

While true, we have seen this movie before with PowerPC and Intel.