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Gawd
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It was just delivered. Time to set it up.
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Probably buying base MacBook Pro 14"
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He seems very jaded lately. He doesn’t get excited about much anymore. There were some video editing projects that would choke on the M1 Max that are butter on the M2 Max (on my friend’s laptops). It was night and day. Marques doesn’t really do very much video editing himself anymore. He has a team for that. He said himself he does light video editing now. I don’t really think this laptop is for him and his comment about games was empty and pointless. He doesn’t even use the new features of the M3 and didn’t test them at all. As much as I’ve generally respected his thoughts on things, his review was one of the laziest and shortest I’ve ever seen from him.
UnknownSouljer
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You can find performance differences yes, but If you spent $4000 on an M1 Max, and then a year later can afford to spend another $4000 on an M2 Max and then another year later afford to spend another $4000 for M3 Max, you're in a class of buyer that Marques isn't trying to address anyway. And that person already knows who they are and they're going to buy regardless of the review.
Marques is addressing people who are on previous M chips or previous Intel Macs and saying "move to Apple silicon if you haven't yet, but if you have already you don't need to upgrade" is pretty fair advice. Just rewatch his conclusion from 7:47-8:55.
I'm sure there are. I'm on M1 Max and I'd have to say the only way I can get it to slow down so far is by trying to stack a bunch of effects and trying to play back in real time at native resolution (even doing a denoising + renoising pass plays back almost at native in 6k, which is double the resolution of 4k, pretty crazy). Or in transcoding specifically to 12-bit h.265 (in my case from PRR). Something like PRR to PR or h.256 whether long-gop or all-intra to any form of ProRes happens so absurdly quickly it almost feels SSD limited and not chip performance limited. It isn’t in actuality, but it’s fast enough to feel that way.
Sure. But he does edit his pieces on the road, which was when laptop editing for him was happening in the first place. VS his previous machine for travel which was a maxed out 2017 iMac Pro.
I think you're not paying attention to Apple's messaging then. Because to a certain degree he was "forced" to talk about that talking point.
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Gawd
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Okay, I had half a day of working/playing around with it. Setup and getting everything up and running was much easier this time since I already had the basics down. As mentioned earlier when I had the M2 Pro, Internet browsing is SUPER snappy on this thing. Completely destroys my desktop PC when it comes to Internet browsing speed and snappiness. This is with using Safari on macOS 14.1.1. My score on Speedometer 2.1 is 100 points higher (which is a massive difference for this benchmark) with the M3 Pro than with the M2 Pro. As I noticed with the 14" M2 Pro, the screen is simply awesome and blows away my 27" ASUS PQ279Q in picture/image quality. Overall, yes I am going to stick with it and sell my desktop PC (which is now going to be 12 years old this January). I don't game these days and I won't miss not really having the ability to game. In the worst case scenario, I could just get a PlayStation 5 later on if I do come across some game that I just must play or build a new desktop PC just for gaming.
Oh, and the Space Black color is awesome. I like how it changes hue depending on the lighting conditions and also when looking at it from different angles. Happy I got this over Silver.
Oh, and the Space Black color is awesome. I like how it changes hue depending on the lighting conditions and also when looking at it from different angles. Happy I got this over Silver.
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I'm glad you like it.
I went to go see the Space Black color in person before pulling the trigger. It definitely looks fantastic.
I'll hopefully be getting mine soon.
I just went with the base 16” Max with 36 GB RAM and 1 TB of storage.
Yes, the trackpads on Macs are in a class of their own. I still use a mouse at my desk, though.
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Gawd
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What mouse will you be using with it when at your desk?
I use the Logitech Pro X Superlight and the Logitech MX Keys Mini TKL (cuz it conveniently has keys for both Windows and macOS).
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Gawd
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UnknownSouljer, I just found out that IINA is just a macOS GUI for MPV. Not sure if it matters but just thought I would let you know.
I've been using IINA exclusively for a while now. It's very simple and fast. https://iina.io/
UnknownSouljer
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Yeah, we talked about it earlier in the thread when discussing media players. I'm relatively new to it, as I just stumbled on it while looking for players. And I'm very happy with it. Mostly because it's properly colour managed and deals with HDR properly as well as being very light weight and utilizing metal. I used VLC + QT for so long, I just hadn't looked for alternatives in a while. Quiz in his search also stumbled upon it independently as he was also looking for apps on his first macOS journey.
Another video player I really enjoy is Infuse: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/infuse-video-player/id1136220934
It's not free though. It's 10 dollars a year. It can handle huge libraries and it automatically pulls images/cover art and other data from online and lets you download missing subtitles and whatnot. It can also connect to things like seedboxes and cloud storage services.
UnknownSouljer
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Haha, I think we talked about that one too. I only play local stuff and don't have a huge database of video files so I'm happy with a "VLC like" player. If I ever get around to creating some sort of home media server, I'll take a look at this again. But for me, something light weight is what I'm happy with.
I mentioned a long time ago being an audio enthusiast and using Foobar2000 on PC as something I missed (it's on Mac now, but I thought it would never come). Anyway, say that to say that I liked Foobar all those years for it's wide format compatibility and light-weight. I just have never needed more. Certainly I don't mind paying $10 a year if the utility is good when the time comes.
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Gawd
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Do you guys remove leftover files (whether through the use of a third-party "cleaner" app or manually) after uninstalling/deleting an app or just let them be? I know UnknownSouljer said to not worry about it but I thought I'd still ask.
UnknownSouljer
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Look, if you want to do it, go ahead. You keep asking about it.
My suggestion was mainly based on two (sorta 3) things:
1.) Whether it matters from a practical perspective or not. They in and of themselves do not affect anything in terms of loading background tasks at boot and/or will not slow anything down as there is no registry etc.
2.) Whether eliminating the files would recoup enough drive space to be worth the effort or not. Each system file is generally speaking kilobytes in size. You'd have to install and then want to uninstall 100's if not 1000's of apps for them to add up to anything meaningful in terms of drive space. And even while experimenting, I highly doubt you'll get through more than 20 or so.
3.) (Sorta 3), I would just not install any app cleaning app on principle. They are almost always scams at best and could contain malware at worst. There may be some drive cleaning app out there that has been verified to not be that, but I don't think it is worth the effort to figure that out.
So, because they don't affect the OS and they're tiny, I personally feel like it's not worth getting neurotic over. If you want to be neurotic and track down every file for whatever reason you have, that's fine. Go ahead and do it. It's not as if you'll hurt the computer if you do.
Yes. I use the Find Any File app. And I'll occasionally run Onyx about once a month for maintenance.
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Gawd
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I've started to really love this MacBook Pro. My grasp of macOS improves everyday. I've been spending far more time on it than my desktop PC (which I put up for sale).
I bought my daughter an M Macbook Air this past week, I am very impressed by it too.. I might buy my own and dump my windows laptop..
One thing of concern around the interwebs is how much swap usage one may encounter.. especially for 8/256... but at the same time, I saw this thread and this single post which put to bed my concerns.. There are speculations that Apple must be using enterprise grade chips for their SSDs to handle such large write cycles.. thus a theoretical write limit of 1.6 petabyte per 256GB (not 150TB like normal consumer grade stuff)... As I said, this is speculation, but the SMART calculations seem to confirm.. If something does fail, it is likely the controller chip that provides voltage to the NANDs and when it goes out kills the NANDs with overvoltage (covered by Rossman). Still not a bad idea to monitor your write cycles periodically.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/ssd-swap-high-usage-of-terabytes-written.2284893/page-144
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UnknownSouljer
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I think the value propsition that Apple is bringing is far higher than a lot of hardcore PC enthusiasts want to admit. Especially in mobile. But even in desktop, if you're doing certain types of workloads.
I think it works reasonably in a pinch, but I think all of us would much rather keep our machines from having to swap constantly. If it has to "sometimes" that's fine, but for basic operations, that's sub-optimal. Even if realistically I'll never reach the max write cycles.
Depends on who you ask. Louis Rossman famously gets people's broken machines. I have personally never had this issue in a 2015 MBP, 2019 MBP, or now in my 2021 one. And in fairness to the ultra-hardcore right to repair folks, it does create the issue of un-repairability in the event of a faulty SSD. Not necessarily that it has come up to the end of its write cycles which theoretically will never happen in the useful lifespan of the device. But rather in the advent of a hardware failure, there is no recourse. Even a 1% defect rate means there are at least a few thousand people affected every year. While those folks will be made whole under Apple care, it does suck if it fails outside of the repair window. Either through Applecare or Applecare+.
I acknowledge all of these issues, but also at the same time recognize the amount of people affected are incredibly low. And in order for Apple to have a "user replaceable" SSD, there would have to be manufacturers that cater to them. The SSD controller is part of Apple's SOC (which is one of the reasons why swapping RAM to SSD and vice versa can happen so quickly and seamlessly), so arguing for NVME slots would only be useful for "expandable storage" and not the primary drive.
The 2017 iMac Pro and 2019 Mac Pro essentially had these "chips" as being user removable (I assume the 2023 Mac Pro as well), so Apple have done it in the past. However no one made after market drives (partially because Apple's security system doesn't allow it), so the systems only allowed for replacement and not even upgrades. The only move here then would be for Apple to have this on all machines and allow techs to replace the SSD's with aftermarket by resetting the authentication somehow.
I'd welcome that, but I also see why they don't. Mainly because they save in the order of 10's of millions by not having to have a separate PCB or another slot that has to be paid for vs soldering directly onto the mainboard PCB.
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Gawd
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How often do you guys shut down and/or restart your Mac? Would shutting down every night before going to bed and booting up in the morning be "harmful" in any way?
UnknownSouljer
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Rarely. I only shut down if I'm traveling and I won't be using the machine for the duration of the traveling part of the trip.
Only when necessary. And that is not very often. I find my self still doing things that are very x86 like, but ARM seems to be able to gain back all of its resources without needing a restart. So why do it? The only time I do is for software updates and to get weird of rare odd bugs.
Theoretically no.
The only times I ever restart are when there's an OS update, or I need to restart because a new app installation requires it, or in the extremely rare instance when something is being buggy. You can put your Mac to sleep 99% of the time. I only shut it down if I'm traveling or something. Back when Macs had more moving parts like hard drives, it did increase more wear and tear on the components, but that's not really an issue these days. Do whatever makes you comfortable.
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Gawd
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Optimized Battery Charging kicked in today (exactly 2 weeks after getting the laptop and using it plugged in all the time).
No, but my M1 Pro has issues actually starting on reboots and I have to power it off manually and turn it back on for it to boot up properly. I do use egnyte app though which has a kernel module maybe that causes the issue.
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Gawd
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Have a question regarding charge cycles and Optimized Battery Charging. I made the following post on another forum but wanted to post the question here as well:
Received my 14" M3 Pro on November 18 and have been using it plugged in all the time. However, I shut down every night and boot back up in the morning because I have to store the laptop somewhere else (for now) when not in use. Optimized Battery Charging kicked in on week 2 of using it and it started limiting the charge to 80%. However, since I would shut down the laptop and disconnect the charger every night, sometimes in the morning it would charge back up to 100%, realize it is still being used plugged in, then come back down to 80%. Basically, all my charge cycles were going from 100% to 80% to 100%. As a result, my battery has increase its charge cycles by 1 over the past 3 weeks of usage. Laptop came with 2 cycles on the battery and 100% health. Now it is 3 cycles with 100% health after 3 weeks of use.
I just want to know if this is okay till I can finally keep the laptop in one place, plugged in all the time, and powered on all the time which would probably result in limiting the charge 24/7?
Here is what happened today: I shut down on Thursday night with the battery charge limited to 80%. Powered on today (Saturday) with it plugged in. Started charging to 100% then back down to 80%.
I leave my work MacBook Pro plugged in continuously and only sleep it at night. It's typical for it to go to 100% occasionally and then back down to 80%, though one day it sat there at 79% for some odd reason. I've done this basically since I received it early last year.
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Gawd
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Thanks.
It's not a "hard lock" to 80%, it can go below that. Right now mine is sitting at 78%.
Does anyone charge their Macbooks, specifically the Max ones (M1, M2, M3) strictly off the USB-C port ONLY?
I have a maxed out M2 Max 16" with 40 cycles on the battery and health is at 90%. Seems kind of low. My M1 Max 16" was at 88% with 33 cycles! Both under a year old from manufacture.
I have a maxed out M2 Max 16" with 40 cycles on the battery and health is at 90%. Seems kind of low. My M1 Max 16" was at 88% with 33 cycles! Both under a year old from manufacture.
UnknownSouljer
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Battery has to discharge either way for battery health, which is why even though the machine will sit at 80% or whatever, it will fluctuate up and down.
Batteries have to be looked at as being an expendable product, regardless of what they're inside.
I get that they are consumables but Apple uses the 1% per 25 cycle rule and that falls well outside that.
Most of the time it sits at 100% being used on the desk staying topped off by the TB4 dock.
The cycles came from away from office/home use as a portable device. Only a few times did it discharge <15%.
Most of the time it sits at 100% being used on the desk staying topped off by the TB4 dock.
The cycles came from away from office/home use as a portable device. Only a few times did it discharge <15%.
UnknownSouljer
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To my knowledge, there is no such rule and it's purely based upon the health of the cells.
If it was, then Apple wouldn't bother trying to keep long plugged in machines at 80% and even without doing that the battery health should still stay at 100%. And obviously that isn't the case. Other factors like heat and cold can damage the cells.
Older machines required battery calibration in order to map cell health and condition after degrading and not having a full discharge cycle. Modern Apple battery monitoring tech no longer require this. But the point remains that battery health isn't simply tied to discharge cycles. There are numerous other factors that affect battery health and performance.
I'm going to go with: no answer will satisfy you because you don't like the answer. Mostly because you have a battery that you "don't think you did anything to" and it has more wear on it than you'd like. However I suppose you could just get an official response from the source. Either email about it, make a post on Apples Q&A boards, or go see an Apple Genius Tech. Fairly certain you're going to get some version of the above.
The 1% per 25 cycle rule comes from Apple themselves!
It's an average based upon number of cycles to reach service threshold which is ~80%.
I realize it's just a number and the alleged "health" figure isn't overall health but capacity vs. original design. This is why it's possible for it to be over 100 as well.
Getting back to the original question is I've never used the magsafe since its reincarnation on Apple Silicon Macs and electrically the charge rates are different.
It's an average based upon number of cycles to reach service threshold which is ~80%.
I realize it's just a number and the alleged "health" figure isn't overall health but capacity vs. original design. This is why it's possible for it to be over 100 as well.
Getting back to the original question is I've never used the magsafe since its reincarnation on Apple Silicon Macs and electrically the charge rates are different.
UnknownSouljer
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Would love to see that. But at best it would be a guideline really after everything else I've stated.
I could destroy a cellphone battery in just a few charge cycles by simply leaving it in 100+ degree direct sun all the time including when charging. Even more if I left it on top of a hot car for a few hours. This would wreck the chemistry in the battery, which even the phone turning itself off would not be able to stop. In other words this 25 discharges to 1% idea even coming from can easily be ignored as there are clearly way more factors that affect battery chemistry than charge cycles.
While the example I'm giving is extreme, the point is it's a guideline at best.
Charge rate is dependent on the wattage of the charger and the internal circuitry which dictates how much current it pulls. It's for the second reason why it doesn't really matter.
You can get a USB-C chargers in excess of 150 watts and use the Magsafe cable there (Magsafe is USB-C on one end and Magsafe on the other and Anker just as one example has GaN chargers like this). And you can do the exact same things literally using the charger I just mentioned over USB-C. But the charger doesn't get to dictate how much is pulled. And it should be obvious that the Macbook internal circuitry is designed to not damage the cells and also tapers off the closer to full charge the laptop gets. The laptop limits what it takes. If it didn't than the charger should 'force' the laptop to 100% all the time.
More to the point, as I mentioned, USB-C was the only choice to charge Macbooks from 2016-2020 (in other words, there was no Magsafe or any other charging option, USB-C only). High wattage USB-C charging is not an unknown for Apple. I personally used an eGPU exclusively at my desk on my 2019 Mac, which meant it was mostly always charged using Thunderbolt.
In case all of what I just said isn't clear: charging over USB-C has nothing to do with battery wear differently than Magsafe.
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Gawd
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Just thought I'd update this thread. I sold my desktop PC on December 5 and have been using my MacBook Pro as my only computer since. Honestly, I don't miss my desktop PC at all. I've gotten quite used to macOS now and I'm slowly beginning to appreciate its methods of doing things over Windows. One thing I've noticed with macOS is that I am far more interested or inclined to learn keyboard shortcuts than I ever was on Windows. Not sure why that is the case though.
By the way, I also bought a Magic Mouse and have been using it since December 6. I know quite a lot of people despise this mouse but I don't find it to be "bad" at all. One thing I've learned is that Apple devices work best with other Apple devices. Staying inside the ecosystem provides a certain level of "ease of use."
Also, I still can't get over how good the display looks. HDR brightness is so good on this thing along with the contrast. It has pretty much OLED level of blacks along with 1600 nits of peak brightness in HDR. I don't think I could go back to a lesser quality display now.
Lastly, the keyboard is awesome to type on. Feels really good and I think I prefer it to the keyboard I had on my desktop PC.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with my first true venture into the Mac world.
Edit: Forgot to point out that I also really love the way my MacBook, iPhone, and AirPods work together.
By the way, I also bought a Magic Mouse and have been using it since December 6. I know quite a lot of people despise this mouse but I don't find it to be "bad" at all. One thing I've learned is that Apple devices work best with other Apple devices. Staying inside the ecosystem provides a certain level of "ease of use."
Also, I still can't get over how good the display looks. HDR brightness is so good on this thing along with the contrast. It has pretty much OLED level of blacks along with 1600 nits of peak brightness in HDR. I don't think I could go back to a lesser quality display now.
Lastly, the keyboard is awesome to type on. Feels really good and I think I prefer it to the keyboard I had on my desktop PC.
Overall, I'm very satisfied with my first true venture into the Mac world.
Edit: Forgot to point out that I also really love the way my MacBook, iPhone, and AirPods work together.
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UnknownSouljer
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Cool.
Will be interesting to see how you feel about it in around 3 years. One thing that people are either okay with or just are not is the cost of maintenance and/or the cost of obsolescence.
Though we are kind of in unprecedented times and I'm personally hoping that Apple will choose to change its model. Currently it is 5 years of full OS support and then another 2 years of just patch updates on whatever machines final OS for 7 years total. Then it's considered obsolete and receives no updates. That 7 years "starts" at the end of "new" manufacture for whatever that model is. So, as an example, when the M3's just launched, that 7 year timer started on all the M2 machines.
Say all this to say, that with greater control over ARM and the fact that more or less a machine like an M1 Max won't become obsolete due to speed for far longer than 7 years, means they could support these machines for far longer. (Though it's crazy to say that M1 Max Macbook Pro's will have extended support until January 2030).
You'll either be "okay" with these costs of having to buy new machines or not. And at some point you will have to deal with Apple care and hardware support (if you use any machine long enough whether through odds of getting a defect or through wear) so seeing if you're okay or not with that will more or less determine your Mac future.
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Gawd
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Cost of maintenance? Are Macs less reliable than PCs? I've seen PCs last over 10 years regardless of whether or not they still get software updates. Cost of obsolescence is obvious with computers, but cost of maintenance?
UnknownSouljer
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There are no user serviceable parts on a Mac. And generally the cost of any repair will be higher than on a PC.