[dawnerd]

My 32gb m1 max was probably the best purchase I've made. Still plenty of headroom in performance left in this beast. Wonder what reason they'll use to end software support in the future. Bet it'll be some security hardware they make up for the sake of forcing upgrades.

[kobalsky]

my tinfoil hat theory is that they make small features depend on new hardware.

for example, let's say the new os depends on m5's exclusive thumbnail generator accelerator, and let's say it improves speed by a 20%.

now, your M1 notebook than on previous OSes uses standard gpu acceleration for thumbnails will not have this specialized hardware acceleration, it will have software fallback that will be 90% slower.

you won't notice it a first thought because it's stuff, fast, but it eats a bit of the processor.

multiply this by 1000 features and you have a slow machine.

I don't know how else to explain how an ipad pro cannot even scroll a menu without stuttering, it's insane how fast these things were on release

[coldtea]

>my tinfoil hat theory is that they make small features depend on new hardware.

The general case is hardly a "tinfoil hat theory". They openly do that, and the major reason is to tie to new hardware adoption.

That said, it doesn't usually work like you call it. It's not adding new features depending on HW optimization to slow older machines down (after all one could just not use those features in an older machine, or toggle them off).

It's rather: you want to get these shiny new features, which is all we advertise for iOS/macOS N+1, and the main new changes? The big ones will only work if you have a newer machine, even though we could trivially enable them on older machines (and some don't even need special hardware, as there are third-party hacks that unlock them and they work fine).

[darkstar_16]

I don't think it's even a broad strategy from PM or higher ups. I actually think it's engineers inside the company who want to play with the coolest hardware and the build features for the newest stuff. Features can be made to work with older hardware but that requires more time and optimization which they never get, so someone takes a call that x and y features only work on newer gen hardware.

[bionsystem]

In my new position (on a different product) I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the previous guy bullshitted the PO/PM with "that's not possible" of having some features / workflows enabled. Just because he didn't bother thinking through it or just didn't want to do it. Most of the stuff is a bit boring but just a few days of work and test. So yeah I entirely agree with you.

[coldtea]

>I don't have enough fingers to count how many times the previous guy bullshitted the PO/PM with "that's not possible" of having some features / workflows enabled. Just because he didn't bother thinking through it or just didn't want to do it.

Or just because if somebody who knows the code inside out doesn't shoot down most new stupid feature requests, the product would end up a slow overcomplicated mess of random features and technical debt.

[compounding_it]

yes pretty much this. make useless features use up resources and make basic scrolling slow.

the Liquid Glass for example probably is not so great when it comes to resources. Probably works better with latest metal and hardware blocks on the GPU in M5 as opposed to using GPU cores and unified memory on 8gb M1 making latest macOS work not so great. I have the M1 8gb air and it is really slow on Tahoe. It was snappy just a couple of years ago on a fresh install.

[OccamsMirror]

I'm so tempted to do this. But having to wipe my MBP is currently too much friction for me.

Liquid Glass is really killing my love for Apple products. I'll probably get a Framework and an Android phone for my next device purchases.

They really need to just admit it was a bad move and make like Sonic.

[neor]

For my work device I've disabled Liquid glass completely. The accessibility options to reduce transparency and increase contrast improve the readability of the system a lot.

Booting a 15 year old Mac a while ago had me surprised how clean the interface actually is. The Dock/Desktop look a lot better in the old versions, and the age is mostly showing in apps like Finder which do look a bit dated.

I really hope someone at Apple is going to make the call to drastically reduce the Liquid Glass design and start complying with their own UX guidelines again.

[seec]

The animations and layout of Liquid Glass aren't that bad, but it is really ugly in many ways.

They could have just made some layout improvements without trashing everything visually; that's sad, really.

The contour they put around the icon is really, really bad. How the fuck did they approve that?

[samat]

I downgraded today for the first time in my life. Sequoia is crazy fast in my MacBook Air m2 16gb

Not upgrading any of my Macs ever again. I was a fanboy looking for every new update like a present, for 13 years, not anymore. It took one Tahoe burn all that trust. Never upgrading major OS versions on hardware from Apple again.

[brucehoult]

Sequoia is 15. I still have my M1 Mini on Sonoma 14.5.

It keeps nagging me to update to Tahoe.

Oh ... I just checked, and I could update to 14.8.4. Maybe that's safe.

[vunderba]

Same. Been rocking Sonoma on my M1 Mac for years at this point and it’s been great. There’s been almost zero upsides to upgrading MacOS versions lately.

[JMiao]

Why not Sequoia?

[brucehoult]

None of the new features appeal to me.

[freefaler]

When they force developers to upgrade the SDK some of the apps will stop working and you'd be forced to upgrade.

I've been holding out as you do for as long as I can but in 1-2 years the apps just stop working (some of them).

[abustamam]

I think this could go equally for Windows as well, and many other software (not just OS). I purpose refrained from Tahoe because I didn't like the design but I wanted to know what the consensus was on it before upgrading. Apparently it's bad!

Win 11 is bad compared to Win 10 as well. I'm fairly new to Linux so I can't really form an opinion there.

[happymellon]

> I think this could go equally for Windows as well

Absolutely. Why are all the buttons centred on the task bar for Windows 11? Violation of so many design rules. Literally the worst part of MacOS they took there which contradicted other reasons for the design. Throwing the mouse to the corner for a start button no longer works. I could go on.

> I'm fairly new to Linux so I can't really form an opinion there.

Gnome is great if you want something that gets out of your way. Some folks lament that its not as UI feature rich as KDE, but for me thats a bonus. The minimal UI combined with concentrating on UI features such as better mixed monitor scaling, etc. Love it.

KDE is extremely flexible, and featureful. You don't like the Windows default look and feel, make it a dock. Make it similar to Windows 8. Go wild. Not my thing these days but I can completely understand the draw to not be beholden to other peoples design choices if they don't fit your style.

I haven't used XFCE for a long time, as it didn't keep up with my high resolution monitors. But it was fast and flexible, and I hear that they are addressing this stuff now.

i3 was great. I drifted away during the great Wayland migration when i had to upgrade my laptop, found a bunch of neat updates to Gnome for my hardware, and just haven't found the time to return.

But the main point is that you are not forced into any one person/corporate point of view.

[theodric]

> GNOME is great

For a different opinion, please see https://woltman.com/gnome-bad/

GNOME is extremely opinionated.

[jtokoph]

This makes Asahi Linux so valuable to me. I'll just move to linux on my M2 Max when MacOS drops support.

[duskdozer]

Oh, thanks for pointing this out. This could make me pick up a used mac one day.

[theodric]

A brand-new iMac G4 couldn't scroll smoothly in 2002. Apple has a long history of great-looking terrible performance.

That G4 was a dog in Mac OS X 10.1. I installed Yellow Dog, and it lit a rocket under its ass.

[danielxt]

It's not tinfoil, that's just how publicly traded companies work - increasing the share value

[subpixel]

I have a perfectly good 2015 Macbook that can't use Apple's own Password app, presumably hobbled intentionally to make me upgrade.

[hx8]

You're too far down the rabbit hole. Anytime they can make M1 incompatible with the latest version of macOS which would most people to upgrade.

[spockz]

Well then you can use CoreBoot (or OpenCore always forget which is which) to run newer versions on older hardware.

[saagarjha]

I don’t think that it supports Apple silicon at all.

[GeorgeOldfield]

my 64GB M1 pro max is still fast AF. faster than my regular M3 in practice

i wish the new mbp had 256GB of ram :(

[bluescrn]

Shame the keycaps wear so poorly. Just a cosmetic issue, but on a £3k machine that’s otherwise amazing, it’s annoying to have keycaps that look rather dirty/greasy as they wear and develop shiny patches.

(Can at least replace them via the self-service repair store. Fiddly job but worth it)

[debian3]

I was surprised to learn that they still replace the keyboard on m1 max when they service the battery. Probably you are due at this point. I just had mine done

[andy_ppp]

I use my machine daily for 5 years and the keyboard looks new, what are you doing to it? ;-)

[bluescrn]

https://osxdaily.com/2024/04/11/opinion-shiny-keys-on-macboo...

[lordnacho]

Mine still runs like the first day I had it. There's basically nothing that is limiting me with the machine as it is, everything is just me being slow to code.

I don't see why I need a new computer at the moment. In the past, I always got to a stage where the machine felt sluggish.

[chairmanwow1]

Yeah my M1 is still insanely snappy. Would be nice to have some extra legroom for things like compilation, but I'm far from feeling this device isn't sufficient for me.

[itake]

My work laptop is m4 and my personal is m1. I barely notice the difference.

[alexdbird]

My work laptop is M3 and it needs to be because the security crapware makes some things literally 10x slower. Meanwhile my personal M1 is more than adequate for normal work.

[vr46]

Agreed - I was just picking mine up from a repair at the Apple Store - they replaced the top case as the keyboard was borked, found a logic issue and replaced the board. It's as good as new, and its already lasted longer than any Mac I've ever owned. I want for nothing, although I wouldn't mind double the RAM and SSD. It's the perfect laptop.

[karolist]

Ditto, I don't see myself upgrading in the near future, the 64GB M1 Max I paid 2499 at the end of 2023 still feels like a new machine, nothing I do can slow it down. Apple kept OS updated for around 6 years in Intel times, I don't see how they can drop support for this one tbh. I'm still paying for apple care since I depend on it so much

[manmal]

Some of my M1 MBP Max keys are losing their coating, and the battery is at 74% capacity. At some point soon I'll need a service. But other than that, I have no real complaints. Even the case edge where my arms constantly rest doesn't look too bad.

My next MBP will have 128GB memory, but these prices just wanna make me wait longer.

[abustamam]

If you don't mind a bit of DIY, apple runs self service repair.

https://support.apple.com/self-service-repair

[LTL_FTC]

Those keys are easily replaced, my friend.

[duskdozer]

Do they need a reason? I see plenty that amounts to nothing more than "that's old"