Mac

This is just one of a river of iMac reviews that will go live today.

The upshot:

Sure, there are some other differences between this 24-inch iMac and the 21.5-inch model from 2019 that it’s replacing. There are better microphones and better speakers. There are fewer ports, and some of them have moved around. The screen is bigger and better. The keyboard now has TouchID. But the M1 is the star of the show.

Read on for the pros and the cons (a handful of cons, but no dealbreakers, just things to be aware of before you buy). And if the iMac form-factor is your jam, there are plenty of pros.

Nice, detailed writeup by Monica Chin.

Feels like I am stuck on an old-school Macintosh theme with this morning’s posts, but it’s purely coincidental.

This one uses an emulator to run classic MacOS on an iPad Pro. It looks amazing.

Om:

Photoshop was the solitary reason I owned an iMac Pro and a MacBook Pro. My models were packed with memory and top-of-the-line graphic processors, and as a result, I could breeze through my photo edits.

Lots of Intel-based Macs out there, similarly kitted out for Photoshop.

With Apple ready to switch to its silicon, I decided it was time to sell those machines. What made my decision easier was that Adobe’s Photoshop Beta was spectacularly fast.

Yup. So far, so good.

The application has garnered gushing reviews across the board. Many have been gobsmacked by the software’s performance on M1 machines. I am no different. I love the performance of M1-Photoshop.

Except for one small thing.

Here comes the kicker:

The M1-Photoshop is pretty useless for those — like me — who use third-party extensions as part of their editing workflow. For instance, I use some extensions that allow me to pursue highly granular masking via luminosity masks. Other extensions for color grading (including Adobe’s own Color Themes) and additional tune-ups are also part of my flow. And none of them work with the new Photoshop.

Read Om’s post for the details. Part of this is the low-level pains involved in moving to a brand new chip architecture. If you build an app using third party libraries, for example, until those libraries are ported to the new architecture, you might just be stuck, waiting for that port so you can fully take advantage of the M1 speeds.

Not quite what’s happening here, but the solution is likely the same. Until those critical path extensions are ported to the new architecture, Photoshop users like Om are stuck in emulation.

Adi Robertson, The Verge:

A judge has certified a class action suit against Apple for its fragile butterfly keyboard design. The suit covers anyone who purchased an Apple MacBook with a butterfly keyboard in seven states: California, New York, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, Washington, and Michigan. That includes people who bought a MacBook model dating between 2015 and 2017, a MacBook Pro model between 2016 and 2019, or a MacBook Air between 2018 and 2019.

What about people who bought an affected MacBook in other states? What if they bought the MacBook on-line, from California-based Apple?

The plaintiffs accuse Apple of violating several laws across the seven states mentioned above, including California’s Unfair Competition Law, the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and the Michigan Consumer Protection Act. They aren’t asking for a nationwide certification at this time, but the law firm behind the suit has invited any US buyer of an affected MacBook to complete a survey.

Here’s a link to that survey. Let your voice be heard.

By far, my favorite part of this whole thing:

This suit claims Apple knew for years that its butterfly switches were defective — and that its incremental changes weren’t fixing the core problem. It cites internal communications inside Apple, including an executive who wrote that “no matter how much lipstick you try to put on this pig [referring to the butterfly keyboard] . . . it’s still ugly.”

No matter how many times I run across stuff like this, always amazed what people will put in writing.

When I bought my new desktop display (I got this one, on sale), I started my research with the headline linked article from Michael Potuck.

Michael updated the article yesterday, so if you are in the market, this is an excellent place to start.

Start with this tweet from Austin Evans:

https://twitter.com/austinnotduncan/status/1369860384782348288

This happens to me a lot, on Intel and M1 Macs. And to be fair, this is Safari looking out for me, stopping a page from spinning into infinity, potentially wreaking memory havoc.

Can’t help but wonder if Safari might offer a preference here to limit that behavior, at least on the frontmost tab, a switch that says, if I’m using the tab, and there’s still enough memory left to keep running, let me know the problem, perhaps with a “reload” button in the interface, but in a non-modal way, so I can keep that page humming if I so choose.

Also, I’d wager the culprit here is more often than not the page creator or a plugin (think advertising), not a flaw in Safari.

PetaPixel:

In the charts below, you’ll see four computers listed: M1 Mac mini (Apple Silicon), M1 Mac mini (Rosetta 2), 13-inch MacBook Pro, and Dell XPS 17. The idea was to show how x86 Photoshop runs on Intel hardware (13-inch MBP and XPS 17), via Rosetta 2 emulation on the M1 Mac mini, and then compare those three scores against the Apple Silicon-optimized version running on the same Mac mini.

Perfect set to really get a sense of real world Photoshop performance, at least with a high demand test like Photomerge.

Follow the headline link, scroll down to the charts. As you might expect, the M1 loses when it comes to raw GPU performance (it’ll be interesting to see where Apple is going with GPU on the next generation of Apple Silicon, but no way for the M1 to compete with an external dedicated GPU, at least not yet).

But GPU aside:

None of the computers we’ve reviewed, not even the most expensive 16-inch MacBook Pro you can buy or the Razer Blade Studio Edition, has ever broken the 100 mark on the PugetBench Photo Merge test. Running optimized Photoshop, the M1 Mac mini hit 130+ in run after run after run.

And:

To see the scores jump this much, when Rosetta 2 was already doing such a great job with the x86 version of Photoshop, was frankly mind-blowing.

Yeah. The M1 is freaking fast.

Joe Rossignol, who scooped this, reporting for MacRumors:

Apple on late Friday evening added a “while supplies last” notice to its iMac Pro product page worldwide, and removed all upgrade options for the computer, leaving only the standard configuration available to order for now.

And:

We’ve since confirmed with Apple that when supplies run out, the iMac Pro will no longer be available whatsoever.

As I tweeted when I first read the news, the M1 is a hard reset on the Mac. The leap in performance from Intel to the M1 is just so great, with a massive improvement in battery life as well, the end-of-life of every Intel Mac is writing on the wall.

And if you have thoughts of selling your Intel based Mac, expect less, as a replacement that does more (at least for most models) is relatively inexpensive.

This is a fair amount of work, but I think it’s an excellent learning exercise and you’ll end up with some Terminal experience, an install of Homebrew (a package manager that comes up a lot if you want to install open source stuff), and some info on the health of your Mac’s SSD.

Robin Harris, ZDNet:

The impressive performance and battery life gains of the new M1 MacBooks have created a historic discontinuity in the normally placid resale market. Should you spend $800 for a one year old MacBook Air when for $200 more you could get a MacBook Air with several times the performance and 50 percent better battery life?

Can’t imagine the new M1 Macs aren’t cratering the used Mac market. That said, this is a once in a generation event. The M1 is a huge performance leap, one we haven’t seen in a long time, and the market shearing effect is the cost of that leap.

It all started with this tweet:

https://twitter.com/marcan42/status/1361151198921826308

Took about 10 days to reach critical mass, but then off to the races, with headlines like:

Apple M1 Macs appear to be chewing through their SSDs

And:

Apple M1 Mac users face severe SSD degradation

Back to the SSDs:

In a follow-on tweet in the same thread (also 10 days ago):

Just to be clear: This is definitely a bug. It’s software. It’s macOS behavior. It can be fixed.

Folks have reported encountering the problem on Intel Macs as well. So clearly not an M1-specific issue. To me, feels more like a Big Sur issue. And it might be an issue with the reporting system, not with the SSD. Big grain of salt required.

Worth surfacing, for sure. Hopefully, Apple can address this, offer up an explanation and a patch, if required.

Ben Lovejoy, 9to5Mac:

We today got a more detailed report about what to expect in terms of 2021 MacBook Pro ports, with noted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo saying we should expect both an HDMI port and an SD card slot. Coupled to his earlier report of a new MagSafe power port, that’s a pretty dramatic change to the current models, which have just USB-C ports and a headphone socket.

If Apple adds any/all of MagSafe, SD Card slot, HDMI to the rumored 2021 MacBook Pros, I can imagine they’ll sell more units (rumor mill says 25%-30% expected sales increase). And I can’t imagine someone turning away from the new MacBook Pros because they have too many ports.

Back to Ben:

But whether that’s an IO dream or nightmare depends on how Apple plans to implement the change.

Where’s the down side?

So one very real possibility, as raised by my colleague Benjamin Mayo earlier, is that the new ports come at the cost of reducing the number of USB-C ones. In which case I and others like me will be unhappy, as we’d be swapping out one or more multifunction ports – whose abilities include power and video connections – for single-function ones.

That’s a fair concern. But I think that ship has already sailed. I’ve been living with a 2020 MacBook Air with only two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports. While I would like more ports, I’ve gotten used to living with two. I’ve got a hub that adds more ports that I rarely touch (mostly comes up when I want a peek at an SD card or flash drive). When I plug in my external display, I use the display’s built-in ports instead of a hub.

I can live with two USB-C ports. As long as Apple doesn’t go lower than two, but adds in extra ports, I’ve got no complaints. Though that does add more places for spilled coffee to go where it shouldn’t, but that’s on me.

Would I pay more for four USB-C ports, plus the extra ports? Not sure. An embarrassment of riches, that.

Interesting to watch someone new to the Mac onboard. But there’s a fun twist about halfway through. Nice touch.

Howard Oakley:

One document every serious Mac user should read and refer to repeatedly is the Platform Security Guide, which Apple has just revised to give all the gory details of how M1 Macs start up. In the course of doing that, it reveals that these new models have a boot mode which doesn’t appear to be documented anywhere else, but which could prove a Mac-saver: Fallback Recovery OS.

Here’s a link to Apple’s Platform Security user guide.

More from Howard:

If you need your M1 Mac to enter 1 True Recovery (1TR), Recovery Mode, but that fails, there’s a second copy of the software required for 1TR “for resiliency”. To boot into that, instead of just holding the Power button until 1TR starts loading, you should “double-press and hold the power button”, according to the guide.

In practice, I’ve found this requires you to press the Power button twice in rapid succession, and on the second press, instead of releasing the button, hold it pressed until recovery options are reported as loading. This works reliably on an M1 MacBook Pro, but I’ve so far been unable to get it to work at all on my M1 Mac mini, but maybe I’m just not doing it right.

If you are responsible for the maintenance of an M1 Mac, this is worth a read and a bookmark.

Jason Snell:

One of its most colossal flops, the Power Mac G4 Cube, was famously put “on ice” rather than retired, in a press release that fantasized that it might eventually return.

And:

Considering that pride, what happens when the company decides that many of the decisions it made a few years earlier were mistakes, actually? What does it look like when Apple makes a strategic retreat?

It feels like we’re about to find out.

And:

So here we are in early 2021, with a strong possibility that Apple is about to undo most of the big changes it made to the MacBook. The Touch Bar is rumored to be a goner, MagSafe is reportedly returning, and Apple may be adding other I/O—HDMI? an SD card slot?—to the MacBook Pro as well.

A very interesting look at Apple’s history of handling product retreats. Will we see the return of MagSafe for Mac? Will non-USB-C ports return to the high-end MacBook line? Will a new generation of M1 make its debut at this year’s WWDC? Good times for the Mac.

Mr. Macintosh:

I’ve been trying to get a handle on this issue for over a month now. The first signs that this is becoming a larger issue came after the macOS Big Sur 11.2 update was made available. People would say that their Big Sur Upgrade failed and found no way to recover.

And:

If you installed the macOS Big Sur Upgrade and you are now stuck in boot loop ending with the error – An error occurred preparing the software update – you are affected by this issue.

Bottom line, make sure you have a good amount of free space on your Mac before you start the install. Personally, I’d make sure I had at least 50GB free. But follow the headline link and scroll to the section titled, How can I prevent this from happening to me?

One reason I am running a bit behind this morning is that I wanted to install macOS Big Sur 11.2, test the issues that have plagued my Mac since I first installed Big Sur. And…

…Huzzah!

All the iCloud/Handoff/Bluetooth/Pasteboard issues have been solved. Everything works again.

Mark Gurman:

The upcoming MacBook Pro is an example of Apple’s renewed focus on Mac loyalists. The company is planning to bring back an SD card slot for the next MacBook Pros so users can insert memory cards from digital cameras. That feature was removed in 2016, to the consternation of professional photographers and video creators, key segments of the MacBook Pro user base. The heavily criticized Touch Bar, the current model’s touchscreen function row, is also going.

The potential disappearance of Touch Bar and the rumored return of a specialized port have rampaged around Twitter this weekend.

I’d love to see lessons learned lead to an evolution of Touch Bar, perhaps into a smaller footprint scrub-bar or some other specialized hardware add-on that did not do away with the escape and function keys.

The return of the SD card slot is another matter altogether. I, for one, miss all the ports on my older MacBook Pro. It was a great mix, a Swiss Army Knife of ports I always had with me, no dongles required. The SD card slot is the most sorely missed, for sure, but the USB-A ports are certainly next.

I’d posit that if you own a modern USB-C Mac, you own at least one, if not multiple USB-A adapters, if not a complex hub with multiple USB-A ports. The universe continues to prioritize USB-A over USB-C for low cost devices.

And if you travel and forget one of your dongles, you either do without the functionality or head to an electronics store to buy another.

I’d love to see the return of the SD card, a bit of a fight back against the all the unified port regimentation.

All that said, I do appreciate the massive improvements we’re seeing in the Mac.

Joe Cieplinski, on Mac advancements:

M1, for starters. Thunderbolt 3/4, a massive leap forward in speed. Touch Bar (for me, though it should probably be optional.) Vastly superior battery life. Lighter weight. True Tone, P3 Display. Support for driving 6k displays.

Well said. These gains are massive, indeed, well worth carrying my baggie of dongles.

Zac Hall, 9to5Mac:

Ming-Chi Kuo, a reliable supply chain analyst for TF International Securities, predicts a bold new class of MacBook Pros this year with MagSafe charging and I/O ports that won’t require dongles. What Kuo doesn’t forecast is a future for the Touch Bar, the strip of touchscreen panel Apple added to the MacBook Pro in 2016. Love or hate the Touch Bar, that’s a bad thing.

What follows is some fascinating discussion of the Touch Bar, including this bit quoted from John Gruber:

You’ve got this little ARM computer running on your keyboard, and it communicates with the Intel side. One of the things that the iOS device on the Touch Bar doesn’t have is a GPU. So the Intel side does the GPU rendering and has to go back, but it’s all done securely and there’s a whole bunch of electrical engineering going on there and you’d never know it. It’s 60 FPS just like iOS and it’s instantaneous touch.

And:

To me, it’s example number one of whatever else is going on with the Macs, and some of the machines that have gone way too long without being updated, it’s clear that Apple is invested in the Mac. I really think that Touch Bar is proof of it

And back to Zac:

Now the Touch Bar appears to be dead, and the Mac couldn’t be more alive.

I’ve been living on my M1 MacBook Air for some time now, all without a Touch Bar. I don’t miss Touch Bar terribly, but I do miss it.

I suspect if I lived in an app that actually made extensive use of the Touch Bar, I’d miss it even more. But as is, I miss the autocorrect/emoji suggestions, and I miss the video scrub bar (which actually lets you scrub through YouTube ads).

I think the Touch Bar was an interesting concept, and I hope it will continue to appear, in some evolved, more customizable form, in future Macs.

Glenn Fleishman, Macworld:

In macOS 11.0 Big Sur, Apple added full-blown management and visualization, similar to what appears in iOS and iPadOS. The algorithm generally keeps the laptop charged to about 80 percent of capacity. Charging above 80 percent, and particularly to “full,” can put premature wear on a battery, as lithium-ion batteries run hotter the closer they are to their hardware-derived full charge.

However, one reader noted that their battery was always being charged to 100 percent, and wanted to set it to charge no more than 80 percent as a preventative measure. Owners of new M1-based Apple Silicon laptops have found battery life is so remarkably long that they may feel the same way: why risk wearing out the battery when 80 percent gives them more than a full day off the plug?

When I finally managed to get my M1 MacBook Air down to the point where it hit “charge or die”, I noticed that it only charged up to 80%. Glenn Fleishman’s article laid out the why of this.

Still not clear to me why charging sometimes stops at 80% and sometimes goes all the way to 100%. As Glenn mentions, with this exceptional battery life, 80% is plenty for most days, and an acceptable upper limit if it means an extended lifetime for my battery.