Apple announces M1 Pro and M1 Max

On a popular Mac forum that I'm a member of. The general consensus there is that in general, the gaming community is toxic and Apple does not want to get into that space and have their devices be associated with certain people/behavior.

I'm not sure if I buy that argument, but it sort of makes sense as with mobile gaming, toxic behavior can't really show itself like on PC.
 
Apple likes gaming on iOS because they get 15-30%. If they got that on MacOS, they'd be pushing Mac gaming. Since they don't, they do little to nothing for gaming on MacOS.
Oh, that's certainly part of it, but the company was also ambivalent about Mac gaming before then (and wasn't in a huge rush to push games on the Mac App Store). To some degree, computer gaming just isn't in Apple's DNA; it's not just that it's more complex, it's that the kind of PCs that make sense for gaming (big towers with a wide range of dedicated GPUs) are antithetical to Apple's focuses on ease of use and creativity. It's hard to make an "it just works" machine when someone can't get their obscure RTX 3060 card to run a game because of a driver headache.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had more interest in gaming now that in-house silicon makes it more competitive, but it definitely won't be the way Windows gamers expect... you'd have to be content buying relatively unexpandable computers with the desired performance baked into an SoC, and developers will have to support Metal (even if just through wrappers like MoltenVK) rather than wait for native Vulkan support. Mind you, that might not be as much of a problem if there's a high-end Mac mini (or, alternately, a "Mac Pro mini") that can handle demanding games.
 
Oh, that's certainly part of it, but the company was also ambivalent about Mac gaming before then (and wasn't in a huge rush to push games on the Mac App Store). To some degree, computer gaming just isn't in Apple's DNA; it's not just that it's more complex, it's that the kind of PCs that make sense for gaming (big towers with a wide range of dedicated GPUs) are antithetical to Apple's focuses on ease of use and creativity. It's hard to make an "it just works" machine when someone can't get their obscure RTX 3060 card to run a game because of a driver headache.

I wouldn't be surprised if Apple had more interest in gaming now that in-house silicon makes it more competitive, but it definitely won't be the way Windows gamers expect... you'd have to be content buying relatively unexpandable computers with the desired performance baked into an SoC, and developers will have to support Metal (even if just through wrappers like MoltenVK) rather than wait for native Vulkan support. Mind you, that might not be as much of a problem if there's a high-end Mac mini (or, alternately, a "Mac Pro mini") that can handle demanding games.
Metal is actually a very nice API, and I recall reading a while back that Kronos was working on a Meta-API that could program to that could seamlessly switch between Vulkan, Metal, and DX12. But I have no clue where that ended up or if it ever materialized into a thing or not. I don't see Apple really pushing gaming on their MBP's, but since they are pushing a unified architecture it would certainly be compatible. I really think that AppleTV's as gaming consoles could be a very easy thing for Apple to manage, BT controllers have that transition between TvOS, iOS, and macOS through the Apple Store and start putting out first-party titles, basically creating their own in house Nintendo. It wouldn't be hard to hire some decent story writers and crank out some passable RPG titles, there are lots of canned engines for them, development-wise they aren't super complicated until you start taking them to Larian levels of complexity. But some solid RPG titles, a few good puzzle platformers, a couple of side scrollers, and maybe an arcade-style fighting game or two, and assuming they don't botch them they basically have yet another money printing press.
 
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the notch blocks out selectable items in the top menu bar
HA, that's fucking hilarious ... I'm so used to it being in the way on the phone I completely looked past it. FML On a phone I can accept it, I can rotate it if the stupid notch is in the way but on a laptop that isn't really an option. So unless they update the UI to move elements past it to the other side that is just straight fucked up and they should feel bad.
 
I'm sure it'll be fixed. But you'd think it would have been the first thing they addressed designing it.
 
The notch is/was a mistake.

They did some good adding ports, bringing back magsafe, and of course M1.
 
This is literally the only reason for this. It's a developer problem, not an Apple one. I'm not a fan of the notch, but I'm even less of a fan of lazy developers.
Sooo just wondering, but how long do you think developers have had to adapt to this? Do you think Apple secretly shipped out these to every dev a year ago, they all kept it secret, and have had plenty of time to update their apps...

...or do you think this was dropped on them, with no warning, and now it is something new they need to code for?

Hint: It's the second one.
 
The notch is/was a mistake.

They did some good adding ports, bringing back magsafe, and of course M1.
Nah, it was the only way to get us more screen space, by giving us the notch, and moving the bar up into that area where it use to be black space. So that gives us extra space on the screen itself. Without the notch, we would have the menu bar blocking the whole top of the screen even if it was edge to edge with a crappy quality camera like the xps.
 
HA, that's fucking hilarious ... I'm so used to it being in the way on the phone I completely looked past it. FML On a phone I can accept it, I can rotate it if the stupid notch is in the way but on a laptop that isn't really an option. So unless they update the UI to move elements past it to the other side that is just straight fucked up and they should feel bad.
I dunno about iOS, but on Android, if your phone has a notch, stuff on the menu/status bar will move out of the way. Here's the original tweet so you can see the video of it not working that way. That seems like a major screwup.

https://twitter.com/SnazzyQ/status/1453143510111059968
 
Thing is they could do it without a notch and still maintain thin bezels because my XPS 9310 has both webcam and windows hello crammed in there!
It's almost like they want it there so people know it's a macbook. Even the "Macbook Pro" text has been removed from the front which it could have fit there.

In any case, this is why I ordered a maxed out 16"

 
That's a tray program not a full blown application. Their other twitter post shows an application where the bar wraps around the notch.

You can see how os menu bar behaves vs the application menu bar:

https://twitter.com/SnazzyQ/status/1453143798251339778
Not being a Mac user I'm not clear on the difference between a "tray program" and a real one. But it's nice to see in that video that the mouse makes an attempt not to use the dead space. The downside to that, of course, is losing your icons on the right, but you can't keep it all if you need more horizontal space than exists, so his last complaint is a bit disingenuous. Having said that, on Android, if that happens, you get a sort of a dot icon that indicates there's more stuff that's not visible.
 
I think "bezels too small to fit the webcam" is pretty much an own goal anyway, but I personally don't care about webcams so I don't mind not having one.
 
Thing is they could do it without a notch and still maintain thin bezels because my XPS 9310 has both webcam and windows hello crammed in there!
It's almost like they want it there so people know it's a macbook. Even the "Macbook Pro" text has been removed from the front which it could have fit there.

In any case, this is why I ordered a maxed out 16"




Yeah. Those are not super complicated timelines... but a laptop should not be winning that not even close. That is very GPU heavy. Maybe the its the shared RAM that is faster and its able to keep the project in RAM? Still a graded resolve timeline in 4K+ will make a lot of machines just cry.

I am super keen to see a fully flexing Apple Pro workstation with 2 chips or some shit. Damn.
 
Not being a Mac user I'm not clear on the difference between a "tray program" and a real one. But it's nice to see in that video that the mouse makes an attempt not to use the dead space. The downside to that, of course, is losing your icons on the right, but you can't keep it all if you need more horizontal space than exists, so his last complaint is a bit disingenuous. Having said that, on Android, if that happens, you get a sort of a dot icon that indicates there's more stuff that's not visible.
Think of tray programs like those apps that sit in Windows' system tray. Those small utilities that run in the background or provide quick access to common features.

My hunch is that Apple will address this with a software update at some point, and that it won't be a problem for most people in practice.
 
Think of tray programs like those apps that sit in Windows' system tray. Those small utilities that run in the background or provide quick access to common features.
Ok. In Windows, those wouldn't have different menus from regular applications, though, so it seems kinda weird.
 



I'm quite impressed, considering how garbage Macs have been for gaming for the last ... ever.
 
You know what really bothers me?

They aren't even that expensive for gaming machines in the current environment. They're expensive for sure, but Apple "premium" bullshit is almost being matched by PC gaming's insane inflation.

Insane.
I’m just impressed that AMD FSR is coming to Apple Silicon…. The GPU performs about where it was expected to based on the M1’s performance.

But build up a similar Alienware or other gaming laptop and Apple isn’t that far out.
 
I’m just impressed that AMD FSR is coming to Apple Silicon…. The GPU performs about where it was expected to based on the M1’s performance.

But build up a similar Alienware or other gaming laptop and Apple isn’t that far out.

The GPU scaled better than I thought it would.

Of course I'm a bitter, old cynic.
 
The GPU scaled better than I thought it would.

Of course I'm a bitter, old cynic.
I hear that, I was most pleased by the BG3 info. So looking forward to that one. If I play any more of the Pre Launch I am never going to end up playing it when it comes out.
 
Ok. In Windows, those wouldn't have different menus from regular applications, though, so it seems kinda weird.
Yeah on mac the top bar is the menu bar for the application and they've just always had them there rather than put them on the dock when that got added.
 
Thing is they could do it without a notch and still maintain thin bezels because my XPS 9310 has both webcam and windows hello crammed in there!
It's almost like they want it there so people know it's a macbook. Even the "Macbook Pro" text has been removed from the front which it could have fit there.

In any case, this is why I ordered a maxed out 16"


I believe I said this earlier. I own an xps 15 with the thin bezels and cam. The camera sucks ass. The worst camera I’ve seen. That is what you get for putting a tiny camera that will fit there. I rather have the notch with a good camera.
 
Couldn't tell you as the only thing I use is Windows Hello on it.
Most webcams are pretty bad. The worst fairly recent though would be the 12" macbook. It was 480p and BAD!
The earlier XPS models had it in the bottom bezel and everyone was complaining about the view was up your nose. LOL
Given the notch I was expecting FaceID this time around. It is convenient for sure.
 
I believe I said this earlier. I own an xps 15 with the thin bezels and cam. The camera sucks ass. The worst camera I’ve seen. That is what you get for putting a tiny camera that will fit there. I rather have the notch with a good camera.
Yeah the camera in the notch is 1080p. People have been complaining for years about Macbooks not having a 1080p camera and people also want more screen space.
 
Yeah the camera in the notch is 1080p. People have been complaining for years about Macbooks not having a 1080p camera and people also want more screen space.
Apple has massive IP in phone cameras and AI for them, they must have a bloody solid reason they don't want that tech in their laptops.

Mind you its like iPhone and Mac are separate universes. Like the laptops not using lightening instead of USB C. Absolutely gobsmacks my Mac friends when I can charge *my* phone with *their* laptop charger but they cannot.
 
Apple has massive IP in phone cameras and AI for them, they must have a bloody solid reason they don't want that tech in their laptops.

Mind you its like iPhone and Mac are separate universes. Like the laptops not using lightening instead of USB C. Absolutely gobsmacks my Mac friends when I can charge *my* phone with *their* laptop charger but they cannot.
That's because Apple loves to do things all the way to 90% and then call it a day. Look at the M1 iPad pro, there are so many almost great things there that wind up kind of stupid because Apple gotta be Apple.

I far prefer the physical lightning connector to USBC but lightning is old, slow, and low power. If Apple isn't going to keep Lightning up to date then it's time to take it out behind the shed. USBC isn't just a little bit better, it's lightyears better.
 
That's because Apple loves to do things all the way to 90% and then call it a day. Look at the M1 iPad pro, there are so many almost great things there that wind up kind of stupid because Apple gotta be Apple.

I far prefer the physical lightning connector to USBC but lightning is old, slow, and low power. If Apple isn't going to keep Lightning up to date then it's time to take it out behind the shed. USBC isn't just a little bit better, it's lightyears better.
iPhones really need to stop having lightning now.
 
Apple has massive IP in phone cameras and AI for them, they must have a bloody solid reason they don't want that tech in their laptops.

Mind you its like iPhone and Mac are separate universes. Like the laptops not using lightening instead of USB C. Absolutely gobsmacks my Mac friends when I can charge *my* phone with *their* laptop charger but they cannot.
That is one of the head-scratchers, and I'm deep into the Apple ecosystem. The company just introduced ProRes and Cinematic Mode recording formats that use gobs of storage, but you still have to use Lightning if you want to transfer them over a wired connection. It could easily be faster to AirDrop them instead. This should've been the USB-C refresh!
 
Apple has massive IP in phone cameras and AI for them, they must have a bloody solid reason they don't want that tech in their laptops.

Mind you its like iPhone and Mac are separate universes. Like the laptops not using lightening instead of USB C. Absolutely gobsmacks my Mac friends when I can charge *my* phone with *their* laptop charger but they cannot.
Requires a thicker bezel for the display. iPhones are twice as thick as that screen is, so no room to put that tech.
 
That is one of the head-scratchers, and I'm deep into the Apple ecosystem. The company just introduced ProRes and Cinematic Mode recording formats that use gobs of storage, but you still have to use Lightning if you want to transfer them over a wired connection. It could easily be faster to AirDrop them instead. This should've been the USB-C refresh!
Exactly! Even USB-C with TB4 support. Then the 1TB super fast storage could double as a thunderbolt drive mountable on a Mac with multi gigabyte per second speeds.
I use WiFi6 to transfer my footage and it's easily twice as fast as USB via lightning. Still needs to be faster and could be if they'd just abolish the lightning port.
Even worse yet, it's rumored that the upcoming iphone 14 will STILL use lightning!
 
Exactly! Even USB-C with TB4 support. Then the 1TB super fast storage could double as a thunderbolt drive mountable on a Mac with multi gigabyte per second speeds.
I use WiFi6 to transfer my footage and it's easily twice as fast as USB via lightning. Still needs to be faster and could be if they'd just abolish the lightning port.
Even worse yet, it's rumored that the upcoming iphone 14 will STILL use lightning!
Makes no sense for the Macs and the iPad Pros to have thunderbolt and the iPhones to still have lightning. It needs to die already.
 
That's because Apple loves to do things all the way to 90% and then call it a day. Look at the M1 iPad pro, there are so many almost great things there that wind up kind of stupid because Apple gotta be Apple.

I far prefer the physical lightning connector to USBC but lightning is old, slow, and low power. If Apple isn't going to keep Lightning up to date then it's time to take it out behind the shed. USBC isn't just a little bit better, it's lightyears better.
EU law says they have to convert the whole line of iPads and iPhones to USB-C for all models released after 2022. So when they passed that law Lightening died.
 
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