Even that setup may start aging out. Our company switched to using Cisco Proximity and wireless connections to large-screen displays in each room. You just bring up the app and then project your screen onto the screen in the room (or screens for the larger rooms). Works with Mac or Windows. You can also do it with an iOS app though I’ve never tried that.
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M3 Die Shot suggests display engines take up nearly the same area as P-cores
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Agreed. I just didn't want to go too off topic. There's a lot of good wireless systems like ScreenBeam and ClickShare.
My organization switched to Polycom video bars for all rooms. They are all connected to a Crestron AirMedia box. You just download the app and punch in the IP and passcode shown on the TV. It works with Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
Back to the power situation, I've never heard of a room with a projector that doesn't have a power receptacle on the table, floor, podium, or somewhere near the presenter's zone.
Nah, it's not all by a long shot. But many do, or will offer employees the option.
I was bemused several years ago when I met several Nvidia engineers and they all brought 15" Intel MBPs to the meeting, despite the fact that all of these Macs had AMD graphics due to the well-known rift between Apple and Nvidia.
All issue Macs by standard. Some will give you a PC if you ask or if you need.
It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a technical person who isn’t using a Mac here.
The few times I do see technical engineers walk into a meeting and they have like a Surface Laptop Studio, or a Surface Pro, the comments after the meeting when the Customer has left are along the lines of “he can’t be that technical if he bought his own Surface for work”.
I don’t mean to be rude but for the past 5 years Macs have been standard builds for anyone on the technical side. Sales guys typically have HP’s, Dell’s, and occasionally Lenovo.
For 5 years, I’ve seen more PC’s running Linux within engineering orgs than I have PC’s running Windows.
I know that some Corporate small to mid size have started using the Surface line for specific groups, but I haven’t really seen it in any technical or engineering side of the house.
Keep in mind I’ve been in Pre-Sales for 12 years, and worked with Start-Ups (defining MVPs to get things rolling), SMB, Corporate, and Enterprise. I’m not coming to this from the perspective of a “fanboy”. I personally don’t care if someone is taking notes on a Palm Pilot or Apple Newton.
The one thing worth noting is within this same group, for many are in the technical/engineering side of the house I’d say 20-25% of these same people use Android for their phones. Much higher penetration compared to non-Apple computing device.
That's right.
In Silicon Valley/San Francisco, Windows laptop signals that you're in finance. Macs signal you're a designer, creative, or technical. Even sales people use Macs here.
In some rare cases, the ultra-technical nerds use Lenovos running Linux.
Yeah I just had the same thought thinking about this. One for internal and multiple smaller ones afterwards makes the most sense by far, as long as the power from the marginal ones isn’t too ridiculous to cause heat issues, who cares? It is good what they’ve done for the internal power consumption though. I wonder how much this hurts Intel and AMD during regular loads.
Would like to see a source on that re power draw. I don’t think it would be crazy high though no.
And yeah, say it is 1W that Apple saves, that’s significant but it also depends how often that’s running (IOW, idled screen or mild changes in scrolling aren’t going to stress a display controller over 30 minutes of web browsing like playing a video game would).
Yeah it’s dumb. The M3 display engine thing is really partially about the area but ultimately about artifical segmentation. If they wanted to add marginal, area cheap display engines they could.
Apple segments their lineup to where past a 4+4 chip, 24GB of memory and one external 4K display are all you’ll get — they limit the GPU too but that’s sort of *the* thing about the Pro/Max and isn’t artificial because it does cost area, they need bandwidth to fuel it more than anything else, and a MacBook Air doesn’t have the cooling capacity to handle more.
But the CPU cores, 4K display out limitation, and RAM cap at 24GB are real forces that push towards buying a more expensive Mx Pro/Max system. In fairness the 4+4 setup in Apple’s case is still *very* performant relative to Intel/AMD, but I’d wager a good part of the reason people buy Mx Pro/Max laptops is for a bit more CPU oomph over the baseline counterfactual, multiple 4K display capability, faster SSDs and more RAM options.
Intel/AMD couldn’t get away with this especially the display part even for a 128B bus baseline part and neither would/could Qualcomm.
LOL! I and several thousand of my coworkers at a major corporation beg to differ...
Still hoping they add an additional display controller to the base M3 die. If they end up putting OLED, 120hz and 2 monitor support it would be my dream laptop.
I love my M2 Pro but man I just wish I could have an Air due to the weight, I just don't have the need for an 'Pro' chip right now besides the 2-3 displays (With Sidecar on my iPad M1 12.9) basically.
I love my M2 Pro but man I just wish I could have an Air due to the weight, I just don't have the need for an 'Pro' chip right now besides the 2-3 displays (With Sidecar on my iPad M1 12.9) basically.
Going back on this comment it's absolutely true. At my company we recently bought a couple of M3 Macs and everyone were very surprise by the lack of 'native' support for the 2x DELL monitors we usually onboard people with. Therefore now for Mac users they are giving Ultrawide monitors lol... And you guess it at 3440x1440 resolution which makes it look pixelated.
In fact, Apple doesn't even need to add an additional display controller to the base chip. They could just allow the controller for the built-in display to instead be used to drive an external monitor.
Based on the specs of the M2 Mini (where they do essentally that, since there is no internal display), that would enable the Airs and base 14" MBP to support 6k@60 + 5k@60.
This could be implemented in a variety of ways, but my preference would be to to configure the laptop to automatically disable the internal display when two externals are attached.
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Then they could even release a software update for this? As long as they keep M4 in line with the rest of the lineup in terms of die.
I'm all in for saving die space on this as long dual monitors are supported with the existing display controller tbh
I’m not convinced this can be done all in software. The display engine may one physically be wired to the internal display
My guess would be no—that it would require a reconfiguration of the internal wiring.
I don't think internal wiring is a problem. Perhaps on M1, but M2 is definitely flexible enough. In the M2 Mac Mini you can drive two monitors through Thunderbolt ports, and that implies both display controllers have access to the routing matrix which allows sending display refresh data through either of the two Thunderbolt/USB-C ports. (We know this routing must exist because in laptops, you don't end up with one special USB/TB port that is the only one which can drive an external display.)
The issue is that there's a fundamental problem lurking. Say you have your laptop in clamshell mode driving two external displays. What happens when you open it up? Mac users expect the laptop's display to light up and start showing an image, without affecting what's happening on the external displays. But that's impossible, one of the three displays has to be off. Either the laptop's display stays dead, or one of the externals gets shut down to let it turn on. If so, which external display shuts down? And do any of these options seem like the kind of user experience Apple likes to build?
They don't to me, so I think that's why they haven't done it even though the hardware could technically support it.
The issue is that there's a fundamental problem lurking. Say you have your laptop in clamshell mode driving two external displays. What happens when you open it up? Mac users expect the laptop's display to light up and start showing an image, without affecting what's happening on the external displays. But that's impossible, one of the three displays has to be off. Either the laptop's display stays dead, or one of the externals gets shut down to let it turn on. If so, which external display shuts down? And do any of these options seem like the kind of user experience Apple likes to build?
They don't to me, so I think that's why they haven't done it even though the hardware could technically support it.
Yeah, this is quite the dilemma that can’t be neatly solved. Hopefully 2 external on laptops is a priority for M4.
Apple launches new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip, support for two external displays, faster Wi-Fi - 9to5Mac
Apple today announced its next-generation M3 MacBook Air range, in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes. The new models are available to...
9to5mac.com
Supports two external displays 🙂
Huh, I guess they're okay with the messiness of lid closed dual-display support. Need to look into how they handle opening the lid with 2 displays connected.
I am now convinced... I am not sure I've been proven 100% wrong this quickly before
Though actually, to my prior point. The MacBook Air may indeed be wired differently. It may not be that this is possible on the 14" MacBook Pro's display wiring. I hope it is; It's a bit funky for the Air to have better external display support than the Pro, but the wiring may still be different to support this even if the chip is the same
I promise I do not work for Apple at all lol... This is much better than existing M1/M2 support... But ehhh.. lid closed.. I mean I don't work with lid open but I have colleagues who do..Apple launches new 13-inch and 15-inch MacBook Air with M3 chip, support for two external displays, faster Wi-Fi - 9to5Mac
Apple today announced its next-generation M3 MacBook Air range, in 13-inch and 15-inch sizes. The new models are available to...
Supports two external displays 🙂