New apple M1 chips - who's buying?
Discussion
NDA said:
I can't see me needing more than my M1 Pro.
I wonder how big the market is for even more powerful MacBooks/Airs? I would imagine the largest market is people like me - emails, browsing, bit of photography. Power-users who would genuinely use every drop of performance must be a small market?
No idea.
Think I said it at the time when I bought my newly released 15MBP M1 Max with 64GB RAM that I absolutely didn't need it for the day to day use I have for it. I'm a creative black hole, so there's no photo or video editing or music creation going on here! But... it replaced a 2012 rMBP with 16 GB and the top end processor. I'm happy to pay more for something that lasts the best part of a decade and there was no way, despite knowing you can't compare them, I was buying something with the same amount of RAM as I bought a decade ago. I fully expect this laptop to still be going strong in 8 years too. The only reasons for replacing the 2012 were battery was showing its age, despite looking good screen tech has moved on, it was no longer getting OS upgrades and shiny shiny.I wonder how big the market is for even more powerful MacBooks/Airs? I would imagine the largest market is people like me - emails, browsing, bit of photography. Power-users who would genuinely use every drop of performance must be a small market?
No idea.
It also got a bit of a reprieve when I bought an iPad Pro in November 2018. I read a comment today that said they accidentally made that too good and there's no real reason to upgrade it. I have to agree. Again the battery is starting to show signs of age, but not annoyingly so yet. No compelling reasons to upgrade though.
It's actually becoming a bit of a theme. Maybe I'm just getting older, but it feels like kit just lasts longer these days before becoming obsolete or there being something compellingly shiny to buy. I used to struggle to go a year before switching phones, now I'm wondering whether I'll bother upgrading my iPhone at 3 years old in September. MBP/MBA upgrades have slowed massively, as have iPads. I do seem to have developed a bit of an unhealthy liking of Garmin devices though (triathlon related).
Craikeybaby said:
I think as the pace of progress (arm chips notwithstanding) Apple could/should increase the length of time that they offer security updates.
It would be great if every manufacturer supported their products indefinitely, but at what age should Apple realistically stop providing security updates? 10 years? 20 years? 30 years?There's got to be a cut-off point somewhere, otherwise someone has to pay for the developers to maintain/test multiple, increasingly ageing OSes and on more & more ageing devices.
Now that memory/cpu increases are incremental year upon year imo the M1 should be supported by Apple for as long as the main silicon is using the same architecture as I can't see that the OS will be much more demanding on the hardware a few releases down the line.
I had the last iteration of the G4 powermac back in the day and when they moved over to intel I knew the days getting support would be numbered pretty sharpish so it won't be surprising if Apple remove intel support soon.
I had the last iteration of the G4 powermac back in the day and when they moved over to intel I knew the days getting support would be numbered pretty sharpish so it won't be surprising if Apple remove intel support soon.
untakenname said:
Now that memory/cpu increases are incremental year upon year imo the M1 should be supported by Apple for as long as the main silicon is using the same architecture as I can't see that the OS will be much more demanding on the hardware a few releases down the line.
I had the last iteration of the G4 powermac back in the day and when they moved over to intel I knew the days getting support would be numbered pretty sharpish so it won't be surprising if Apple remove intel support soon.
I've gone through most iterations of Mac/Apple/NeXT processor architectures (Motorola 680x0, PowerPC G1-G5, Intel Xeons, Intel Core Duo through to 2018 i7-8700, and now Apple Silicon), Core since about 1988 using System 6...and have lived with the terrible performance of non-native apps (especially the original PowerPC rosetta for the PowerPC to Intel swap).I had the last iteration of the G4 powermac back in the day and when they moved over to intel I knew the days getting support would be numbered pretty sharpish so it won't be surprising if Apple remove intel support soon.
By comparison, the latest Rosetta 2 translator/converter for Intel to Apple Silicon is almost invisible.
Can't remember what the support life on those older models was though, as we leased them and got new ones every year...and if anyone moans about 'subscription models' for current software packages, then they would have loved the lease costs for software packages back in the day (e.g. 3-6 month's of lease cost would have bough the package outright).
On my own machines, I used to go to the local Apple Reseller (no Apple Stores back then) and pick up the latest System / MacOS and install it from floppies/CDs/DVDs. Don't think I ever did anything directly with Apple (purchase, upgrades, support) until my 2008 MacPro days (which I still own, along with a 2006 white iMac, 2014 iMac 5k, i3 MacMini, and 2019 4K iMac for taking with me when I'm working abroad).
eyebeebe said:
It's actually becoming a bit of a theme. Maybe I'm just getting older, but it feels like kit just lasts longer these days before becoming obsolete or there being something compellingly shiny to buy. I used to struggle to go a year before switching phones, now I'm wondering whether I'll bother upgrading
I feel much the same to be honest - and I am a gadget magpie.I was only thinking this morning that I can't imagine needing to upgrade my 14 Pro - there's nothing more I could possibly want.
Apart from the new shiny thing.
How are people finding their M1 airs keeping up with day to day tasks? I ask because there's a 13" 8gb 256gb available for sale near me far cheap, but wondering if space and RAM is going to be enough to keep up with daily office tasks. There is the issue of the SSD being used as memory in the back of my head I can't ignore.
I sold my M1 Mac Mini 8/256 as the limited storage was a problem for what I do, which includes iOS development with device emulators which take a lot of space. Even with a 2TB external SSD, I was constantly freeing up internal SSD space. I’m now using a 16/512 MacBook M2 Pro and a 16/1TB MacBook M2 Air. I would say that 512GB storage is enough. 8GB RAM was never a problem (and I’m used to a 128GB RAM Mac Pro)
TotalControl said:
How are people finding their M1 airs keeping up with day to day tasks? I ask because there's a 13" 8gb 256gb available for sale near me far cheap, but wondering if space and RAM is going to be enough to keep up with daily office tasks. There is the issue of the SSD being used as memory in the back of my head I can't ignore.
I adore my 'base spec' MacBook Air M1. Let's face it - a base spec MacBook is still an incredibly capable laptop, which blows most Windows machines out of the water.I use my Air for general spreadsheet work / web browsing / emails etc... with a healthy dose of video editing and the editing of large image files. It doesn't really ever break a sweat - I have absolutely no reason to look at upgrading to anything else other than the smooth screens of the Pro series and oooooh shiny.
ArsE82 said:
Slightly off-topic, but where's the recommended marketplace to sell a used Macbook these days? I'm going to sell my M1 Air 16GB/256GB and get a new M2 I think, because shiny.
Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
I personally use https://macback.co.uk because I really CBA with all the potential grief with eBay etc, and I've found their prices pretty fair. Very easy. Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
Gweeds said:
ArsE82 said:
Slightly off-topic, but where's the recommended marketplace to sell a used Macbook these days? I'm going to sell my M1 Air 16GB/256GB and get a new M2 I think, because shiny.
Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
I personally use https://macback.co.uk because I really CBA with all the potential grief with eBay etc, and I've found their prices pretty fair. Very easy. Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
I might give Ebay a go.
ArsE82 said:
Slightly off-topic, but where's the recommended marketplace to sell a used Macbook these days? I'm going to sell my M1 Air 16GB/256GB and get a new M2 I think, because shiny.
Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
FB market place full of time wasters. Ebay, FB Marketplace?
I'd like to reduce any interaction with not-rights if possible.
Parents very pleased with their new M1 Pro (14inch 16mb 512gb), It's certainly a nicely designed bit of hardware, they definitely noticed the huge speed difference when scrubbing through videos/phots from their most recent holiday (bloody retired people 
).
Only downside is my mum's iPad is now looking a bit slow, so no doubt that's the next upgrade
).Only downside is my mum's iPad is now looking a bit slow, so no doubt that's the next upgrade
wsurfa said:
Parents very pleased with their new M1 Pro (14inch 16mb 512gb)
I have exactly this model (from which I type).It feels like a return to the bullet-proof and competent Mac's of old. A very solid bit of kit that should last - unlike my last Pro (with the illuminated function key things) that was a bit rubbish to be honest (got very hot and was flakey).
NDA said:
wsurfa said:
Parents very pleased with their new M1 Pro (14inch 16mb 512gb)
I have exactly this model (from which I type).It feels like a return to the bullet-proof and competent Mac's of old. A very solid bit of kit that should last - unlike my last Pro (with the illuminated function key things) that was a bit rubbish to be honest (got very hot and was flakey).
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