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Apple Dev Logs Point to Nine New M2-Powered Macs

posted by Fnord666 on Monday April 18 2022, @01:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the 9X2=18 dept.

zafiro17 writes:

https://go.theregister.com/feed/www.theregister.com/2022/04/16/apple_m2_chips/

Apple is seemingly testing four next-generation M2 processors on software developed by third-party app makers in at least nine Mac models that are likely to be upcoming laptops and desktops.

Two years ago, the iGiant debuted its homegrown Arm-compatible M1 processor to power computers and iPads; the shift marked a departure from using x86 Intel silicon for its PCs. Instead of purchasing off-the-shelf processors, Apple – which was already designing its own mobile system-on-chips – wanted a custom design for its macOS products.

Now it appears the M1's successor, the M2, is edging closer to launch, judging from developer logs leaked to Bloomberg that signal there is "widespread internal testing" of the chip family at Apple.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Monday April 18 2022, @04:08AM (1 child)

    by takyon (881) <{takyon} {at} {soylentnews.org}> on Monday April 18 2022, @04:08AM (#1237842) Journal

    I think most people will accept not being able to upgrade the CPU, (i)GPU, and memory. With the CPU and GPU, you get one today, it's probably sufficient for the next 5-10 years unless some crazy advancements in 3D packaging hit the market and demolish everything that came before it.

    With memory, you will definitely be ripped off due to the inability to add your own DIMMs. But memory requirements have plateaued (for normal folks at least). And we have to accept that the CPU and memory will eventually be completely merged in order to get the best performance. There can be a pool of memory beyond that, but it could become relegated to workstations.

    Storage and repairability in general [digitaltrends.com], yeah, that could be an issue:

    However, iFixit had more success here. The company noted the Mac Studio has a spare SSD slot in addition to its base storage slot, but couldn’t get the computer to boot with two drives installed at once. However, when the existing SSD was swapped for another drive of the same capacity, it worked.

    As explained by Ars Technica [arstechnica.com], this is probably due to the way Apple’s SSDs work, where the drive’s storage controller is actually included on the Mac’s system-on-a-chip, not the drive itself, which probably results in errors when SSDs are installed in unexpected ways. However, iFixit’s drive success hints that storage upgrades might be possible in the future.

    I can't speak to the software issues you mentioned, but I think I heard that Apple was shafting its musician/audio users. Maybe it was mentioned on a previous story.

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18 2022, @03:08PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 18 2022, @03:08PM (#1237914)

    Apple is thoroughly shafting video editors and audio users alike, and has been for over a decade by now. The RAM issue sounds like a sideshow until you realise that what they've actually done is to build a really large cache, and treat it as RAM. They could have had a little less, then add a really huge capacity for lower-speed RAM, and have had a much friendlier environment for complex editing (video as well as audio) tasks. This in addition to the incomparable shitshow that their general treatment of audio has been (which affects video editors as well, of course). It's been their idiotic security chips screwing up audio streams, it's been their inability to deal with really large orchestral libraries (sounds academic? Not for movie composition), it's been their crummy treatment of app developers meaning that where an Apple used to be a flagship environment, you now have a good chance of getting a newer version of your software on Windows...

    ... when will the hits stop coming? We'll only know when they decide. I wouldn't buy an Apple until I've seen five years of consistent good behaviour from them, because every time it seemed that they might have a clue they backslid immediately.