Yeah, no. I have an M2 Ultra and an M3 Max, both loaded, and the Ultra still smokes the M3 Max.
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M4 Macs Are Expected to Launch in This Order Starting Later This Year
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It's not like Apple is redesigning any computer, why are they spreading out the chip releases so far apart? They should all come out at once.
Maybe they're clearing inventory? But yes, either all at once, or base chip after the others would make sense, across all devices. Why sometimes the iMac or MacMini lag behind by many months is a peculiarity.
Those are all plausible rumours yes.
We can't know for sure what Apple feels.
We don't know at all if the M3 Max design we have seen is a cut down one with Ultra Fusion (unlikely, but certainly possible).
What I think we can assume is: Apple will never risk the iPhone's schedule so the Mac will and M* class chips will never be the priority.
Engineering is hard.
Fabs are expensive.
Releasing new hardware has overhead costs, and if the RoI is insufficient, why not wait longer?
A faster processor chip that the other chip makers are still playing catch up with, years after the M1 came out. Is that what you mean by "zero innovation" 😂?
From all the rumors, the idea is supposedly that the M4 will have more dedicated resources for on-device processing of some form of AI. Whether they'll deliver on either the hardware or software end remains to be seen. I, for one, would not bet against Apple here. There is a huge amount of attention on them for delivering on this. I think it's widely recognized that a 10-20% performance bump here or there isn't going to cut it, and the entire industry is falling all over itself trying to sell AI in various forms.
A reminder about this prediction from last year:
Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro
"I wouldn't anticipate the introduction of a Mac Studio in the near future. The upcoming Mac Pro is very similar in functionality to the Mac Studio -- and adds the M2 Ultra chip rather than the M1 Ultra. So it wouldn't make sense for Apple to offer an M2 Ultra Mac Studio and M2 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time." – Mark Gurman
I would find it surprising if the Mac mini and Mac Studio skip the M3 generation unless the M4 debuts at WWDC. The lack of an M3/M3 Pro Mac mini at this point is odd.
Apple May Not Launch Updated Mac Studio With M2 Ultra Chip Due to Similarity With Upcoming Mac Pro
"I wouldn't anticipate the introduction of a Mac Studio in the near future. The upcoming Mac Pro is very similar in functionality to the Mac Studio -- and adds the M2 Ultra chip rather than the M1 Ultra. So it wouldn't make sense for Apple to offer an M2 Ultra Mac Studio and M2 Ultra Mac Pro at the same time." – Mark Gurman
I would find it surprising if the Mac mini and Mac Studio skip the M3 generation unless the M4 debuts at WWDC. The lack of an M3/M3 Pro Mac mini at this point is odd.
You're right. It's quite likely that the speed gain from the NPU will be significant. However, let's remember that M chips have had NPU cores since their launch. Tell me, what feature required these cores that made you switch from your Intel processor? To this day, I haven't seen a single person switching computers because their processor's NPU cores were too slow. This indicates that, despite being available since 2020, there haven't been companies releasing features important enough for the NPU to become a benchmark for us. Now, the rumor is that Apple will release a computer prepared for a feature it hasn't even announced yet. And that's causing all this wave of anguish in people who've just bought their computers.
Samsung, despite being less meticulous than Apple, has already released its Galaxy S24 with those AI features. Have you seen them? Honestly, Apple has to present something at least 10 times better than that for me to consider the possibility of spending my money on new hardware.
The current marketplace for Apple being mostly dependent on iPhone and services is not that rosy. So this rumored waffling with M2 to M3 to M4 is not at all helpful. You can't have rumors claiming that M4 is right around the corner when several products are M2 based still. This coupled by the lack of announcements in 2023, and now continuing into middle of 2024.
iPhone sales are plunging. Here’s why | CNN Business
Apple’s smartphone sales tumbled 10% last quarter, according to market research firm IDC, as sales in China fell sharply.
I don’t think it an iMac vs MacBook Air issue, as much as a MacBook Pro vs MacBook Air issue. Apple wants to release the [more expensive, higher profit] MacBook Pro first to try grab any part of the market that is anxious for any new Apple notebook. Apple wants to avoid new MacBook Air sales eating into MacBook Pro sales.
The current iMac Has become very much a general consumer oriented product. As it result, I would guess it’s release date is driven more by trying to grab market share during the holiday Christmas season than concerns about competing with other Mac products. i’m not sure how any of the current iMacs compete with any type of notebook.
I'm not sure what you're expecting, but if you truly have an aging Mac, even the M1 series is faster overall.
I wouldn't expect another revolutionary change unless they change architectures again.
I don't know that normal consumers are experiencing "waves of anguish". That's more something you get in echo chambers like this one.
As for the rest, we're all just talking about rumors of expected hardware here. Apple has been telegraphing a lot about AI features in the OS, and it's not unreasonable to expect they'll be designing hardware that's more optimized for on-device processing. We'll just have to see what comes out at WWDC in June.
Someone will complain that it isn't enough for the 100+ browser tabs.
Underwhelming how? I pretty much guarantee an M3 iMac would blow the doors off your "aging Mac" and do it without you ever hearing the fan spin up. The only area I can imagine being underwhelmed is the size of the display, if you're used to something larger.
This is just the same Mark Gurman prediction with a different wrapper around itReacting to declining sales.
Apple Accelerates M4 Processor Releases In Response To Dropping Sales | Production Expert
Just 5 months ago, Apple released the first 3rd generation Apple silicon equipped computers, and we now learn that it is accelerating the release timetable for the M4 chips to try and turn around falling sales for Mac computers. It also may mean they won’t release M3 versions of some products. We hawww.production-expert.com
Yeah, but it’s from the perspective of a high end, Pro Tools focused audio production website. Those were the type of Mac Pro users who were over the moon about the 7.1, 28 cores and 1.5TB of memory. I’d be willing to bet the that music producers were significant proportion of fully kitted 7.1s. that Apple sold. Their reactions to the 14,8 can be summed up as stunned disbelief.
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Just noticed my iPad safari has 108 tabs open. Mac can’t even support 100 tabs. lol.
How many tabs are not active.
On a Mac one can launch 30 apps opening all at once, try that on a iPad.
I am in the same position, and am now inclined towards a pc desktop. AS chips are great! But when implemented directly on desktops, they offer no advantages over their laptop counterparts in terms of performance and pricing (unless one goes for Ultra, which also happens to be the most expensive and comes out later than all other chips). The design also lacks future upgradability, and any upgrade comes with a ridiculous price. These reasons make mac desktops very unattractive! I am not surprised when Apple decided not to release their individual mac sales anymore. If Apple were to drive up mac desktop sales, they need to do more than just designing desktop-specified AS chips. Let’s wait and see what Apple will announce during WWDC.
That's interesting. My mid-2012 MacBook Pro is still fine for much more than web browsing, and web browsing hasn't shown problems.
I remember when we had to be happy with one web page at a time, at 300 bps or 1200 bps, if we were lucky. Spyglass didn't have plug-ins. Once I got Netscape Navigator, I could have two web pages open, one on each browser.