Apple 'Scary Fast' Mac event October 30th

[paradoxical]

You aren't going to get the exact same dimensions with the macbook because most aren't going with the same screen aspect ratio as apple. the 15" XPS lineup differs from the 14" macbook by 0.1", 0.2" and 1.2" and that sounds pretty comparable to me given you can find those kinds of discrepancies between different non apple manufacturers for the same size category. The real difference is weight, mainly because of cooling needs. As for ports, even apple cut back on the thunderbolt ports to offer more variety of built in ports. And I don't think they are wrong for doing that.

There's always trade offs. Like the apple trackpad is just the best track pad implementation out there and there's no arguing with that. You use it a lot and it is front and center. You WILL notice it. On the other hand, osx multi monitor support is a hot steaming pile aggravated by trying to turn basic functionality into a tiered option. If you are doing hoteling or hybrid work, you are going to notice that... a lot. Things will vary. I think a LOT of people will have a hard time finding the value proposition in $6k laptop.

I'm not sure what you are talking about with multi-monitor support in OSX, it's absolutely wonderful - and window management is a joy with tools like BetterSnapTool. I have three primary work locations: my desk on floor 2, my desk on floor 3, and my home office. At each desk I have identical setups:

Samsung G9 Neo 49in ultrawide on an ergotron arm
Alienware 34in OLED ultrawide on ergotron arm to the right of the G9 Neo (I regret these monitors BTW, text sucks)
iPad Pro front and center beneath the G9 NEO
Caldigit Thunderbolt 4 dock

The G9 Neo serves as my primary monitor. On the left side of the screen I have my company Notion with my to-do list. On the middle of the screen I have my main work browser/excel/Premiere/whatever window, which is wider than the side windows. On the right of the screen I have my inbox.
On the Alienware I have Slack, facebook messenger, and apple messenger which handles all of my comms. Then I have two browser windows with my ecommerce dashboards visible at all times.
The iPad Pro is a third monitor which works awesome with Apple's native integration and has my daily calendar view front and center.

This an incredibly productive workflow and all of this is connected to my MBP with a single thunderbolt 4 cable. I can seamlessly get up and walk to any of my desks, plug in, and all of my windows even snap right to their defined locations I set with BetterSnapTool.

Further, when I am traveling for work I bring the iPad Pro 12.9 with me and always have a second monitor wherever I am that seamlessly is integrated into my workflow. It's incredibly powerful, and nothing on Windows is as seamlessly integrated.

I don't know who would spend $6k on a MacBook Pro. The reality is that the M2 Max with 32GB of ram and the base 1TB is enough for like 99% of people unless you're that specific person in very specific industries where you basically need the 96GB of RAM for the GPU. If you need more storage upgrading the internal NVME doesn't make much sense anyways. You'll just have a thunderbolt drive, network storage, etc.

When you look at the price of basically the base M2 Max build it's actually pretty competitive compared to the PC market choices, and of course is far more portable and useable on battery.

Of course, if you do actually have the money to blow the max RAM/storage spec MacBook Pro offers a far more impressive package that is actually portable & useable on battery compared to anything on the PC laptop side. No PC laptop is going to have 96GB of RAM for the GPU, and be able to work at full-tilt for a reasonable period of time on only battery.

The reason I always go for the 8TB SSD is because that allows me to keep my entire company's Dropbox local on my machine and not on the cloud. The only thing I don't have locally is our 20TB of specialty engineering data. Having everything stored locally (all marketing videos, production media, photos, etc) allows me to be much more productive on airplanes or in hotels with shit internet.

 

[uOpt]

If you need more storage upgrading the internal NVME doesn't make much sense anyways. You'll just have a thunderbolt drive, network storage, etc.

On a laptop? I don't think the average user wants to fiddle with an external drive every time they open their laptop on their literal lap in the airport.

As for Macbook Pros being superior in some ways, don't forget the speakers. And the screen which is perfect DPI where most laptops require messing with scaling - assuming your favorite software does scaling in the first place.

And software. I know people who swear by Apple Mail as their email client.

 

[Mchart]

On a laptop? I don't think the average user wants to fiddle with an external drive every time they open their laptop on their literal lap in the airport.

As for Macbook Pros being superior in some ways, don't forget the speakers. And the screen which is perfect DPI where most laptops require messing with scaling - assuming your favorite software does scaling in the first place.

And software. I know people who swear by Apple Mail as their email client.

You wouldn’t really be doing that level of work at an airport. Even so, they would have drives with them if they had to.

 

[uOpt]

You wouldn’t really be doing that level of work at an airport. Even so, they would have drives with them if they had to.

But I do that level of work in airports.

And I think the people who do that would buy enough internal storage and not fiddle around with external drives while not even having a desk.

 

[Lakados]

People work where they gotta work, be it an Airport, passenger seat, or a 260 sq. Ft apartment with shit power in a 4’th floor walk up. Apple does a good job of finding those niche cases and building a machine that’s just about perfect for the edge use case the big OEM’s don’t want to bother with.
Then charging a “suitable fee” for the trouble of finding and tailoring a solution that seems perfect for you.
So you’re paying out the ass but at least you’re productive. Gotta spend that money to make that money.

Personally for like 4 years my office was the passenger seat of a ford escape and that solution was an Averatec laptop that could be powered from the 12v.

 

[Mchart]

But I do that level of work in airports.

And I think the people who do that would buy enough internal storage and not fiddle around with external drives while not even having a desk.

Fair enough. If I'm working with lots of video it's already on thunderbolt storage devices and so I just attach them. The internal drive on the laptop is just for smaller caches, etc.

 

[DukenukemX]

People work where they gotta work, be it an Airport, passenger seat, or a 260 sq. Ft apartment with shit power in a 4’th floor walk up.

If you find yourself working at an airport then either your job sucks or your airline sucks, but likely both. Who can stomach using a laptop in the passenger seat of a car? Also, why an apartment? Apple doesn't have any sort of advantage unless you truly believe their devices last 2x or even 3x longer than an AMD or Intel laptop? Because they haven't in a while.

Apple does a good job of finding those niche cases and building a machine that’s just about perfect for the edge use case the big OEM’s don’t want to bother with.

How in what way?

Then charging a “suitable fee” for the trouble of finding and tailoring a solution that seems perfect for you.
So you’re paying out the ass but at least you’re productive. Gotta spend that money to make that money.

Gotta wonder what's productive in situations like you described? Best I can think of is responding to emails, and that can be done on a phone.

Personally for like 4 years my office was the passenger seat of a ford escape and that solution was an Averatec laptop that could be powered from the 12v.

The hell were you doing in those 4 years in the passenger seat of a car?

 

[Aurelius]

If you find yourself working at an airport then either your job sucks or your airline sucks, but likely both. Who can stomach using a laptop in the passenger seat of a car? Also, why an apartment? Apple doesn't have any sort of advantage unless you truly believe their devices last 2x or even 3x longer than an AMD or Intel laptop? Because they haven't in a while.

Er, no. Sometimes it's simply because an urgent matter comes while you're waiting at your gate, because production snags happened that you couldn't handle on-site, or simply because you'd rather do the work before your flight than after. And you can't always choose where you work.

For that matter, many creators have to work on-site, or benefit from it. A photographer may have to review, organize and edit images in the studio. A video producer may have to deliver rough cuts (or even a fully completed project) on set or in their hotel room. A musician may need to work collaboratively or perform their music live with as much computational power as they had at home. In those cases, a powerful laptop can make all the difference.

 

[Lakados]

If you find yourself working at an airport then either your job sucks or your airline sucks, but likely both. Who can stomach using a laptop in the passenger seat of a car? Also, why an apartment? Apple doesn't have any sort of advantage unless you truly believe their devices last 2x or even 3x longer than an AMD or Intel laptop? Because they haven't in a while.

How in what way?

Gotta wonder what's productive in situations like you described? Best I can think of is responding to emails, and that can be done on a phone.

The hell were you doing in those 4 years in the passenger seat of a car?

Lots and lots of shitty jobs that keep you on the go living out of airports and hotels for months on end, been there done that, nearly cost me the wife and kids. But 6h delays on a flight aren't uncommon.

There are plenty of PC options when comparing PC, Ram, or Storage against the Apple lineup at base config that are cheaper, but when you add in 32+ GB ram, or need something with 100% RGB or DCI-P3 then you quickly reach cost parity for roughly the same performance they trade back and forth, and when the software suite you are running costs more than the platform you are running it on the cost of the hardware becomes secondary.

For years I would have been in some airport somewhere putting together summaries of hundred-plus-page reports for presentation to boards, directors, or whoever I was called to be in front of then double-checking them in the hotel before getting grilled by people speaking 3 different languages of which I spoke maybe 3/4 of one.

After leaving the traveling jobs, I took a job doing IT work for a mining corp that operated in the area so diagnostic tools and equipment went with me and most of the work was done either from the passenger seat where the laptop was mounted or from the back where I could use that as a "clean" workbench.

 

[uOpt]

I rather spend my money on Macbooks than on flights As a result I often have flights with either long planned layovers or with airlines that shuffle you around.

 

[socK]

That's interesting, sounds like bad PWM in some kind of weird zero offbeat mode.

I have a Yoga 9i UHD+ OLED here, it's 60Hz and looks perfect. My eyes are definitely sensitive to PWM dimming and I would have noticed this for sure. My biggest issue (besides bad battery life) with that laptop is 16GB ram soldered. Wish they offered in 32GB. Its build quality and overall portable "feel" and not to mention speaker sound quality are right next to a 13" Macbook air. The OLED is just icing on the cake. Cannot wait to see what Meteor Lake brings to the table as the iGPU is supposedly getting a well needed upgrade.

I could feel right out of the box and knew something was off before I even got through the Windows setup. At max brightness it was alright, but that's not really a solution. The screen looked amazing besides that.

I don't know who would spend $6k on a MacBook Pro. The reality is that the M2 Max with 32GB of ram and the base 1TB is enough for like 99% of people unless you're that specific person in very specific industries where you basically need the 96GB of RAM for the GPU. If you need more storage upgrading the internal NVME doesn't make much sense anyways. You'll just have a thunderbolt drive, network storage, etc.

When you look at the price of basically the base M2 Max build it's actually pretty competitive compared to the PC market choices, and of course is far more portable and useable on battery.

Of course, if you do actually have the money to blow the max RAM/storage spec MacBook Pro offers a far more impressive package that is actually portable & useable on battery compared to anything on the PC laptop side. No PC laptop is going to have 96GB of RAM for the GPU, and be able to work at full-tilt for a reasonable period of time on only battery.

I want 64gb but such a MacBook is like literally 2.5x the cost of the Thinkpad I bought with a 7840, 64gb, 1TB drive and an OLED at that point. I'd consider one if the cost wasn't so insane.

I hit 32gb pretty often. WSL is at like sub 10% CPU usage right now and is like 60% of my memory usage alone, and can still be higher without much issue.

With the browser and IDE open, I very commonly float at like 80-90% memory usage or higher. Things naturally run like shit if it starts thrashing swap.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I could feel right out of the box and knew something was off before I even got through the Windows setup. At max brightness it was alright, but that's not really a solution. The screen looked amazing besides that.



I want 64gb but such a MacBook is like literally 2.5x the cost of the Thinkpad I bought with a 7840, 64gb, 1TB drive and an OLED at that point. I'd consider one if the cost wasn't so insane.

I hit 32gb pretty often. WSL is at like sub 10% CPU usage right now and is like 60% of my memory usage alone, and can still be higher without much issue.

With the browser and IDE open, I very commonly float at like 80-90% memory usage or higher. Things naturally run like shit if it starts thrashing swap.

The crazy part about Apple moving to ARM, is that the price drops have been way more precipitous than on any other system. Intel machines held their value for far longer.
B&H (which though most PC heads don't know who they are, because they're primarily a camera vendor) sold M1 Pro/Max 14/16" machines for 50% off after the M2 Pro/Max machines dropped. It was possible to get a fully maxed out M1 machine even with something insane like 4TB SSD for $2800, new.

I recently bought a 14" M1 Max 64GB 32-core machine, with 1TB of SSD (so maxed out other than storage) second hand for $1920. This this smokes basically every work load I throw at it. And if I take care of it reasonably it will easily exceed the next 3 years of intended service I have for it.

So while it's not possible to do this direct from Apple, I expect that similar price drops will happen for the M2 Pro/Max machines after the M3 ones drop. And savvy buyers who are okay with living one gen behind can have a machine that decimates Windows laptops in certain productivity workloads for a fraction of the original cost.

 

[Lakados]

The crazy part about Apple moving to ARM, is that the price drops have been way more precipitous than on any other system. Intel machines held their value for far longer.
B&H (which though most PC heads don't know who they are, because they're primarily a camera vendor) sold M1 Pro/Max 14/16" machines for 50% off after the M2 Pro/Max machines dropped. It was possible to get a fully maxed out M1 machine even with something insane like 4TB SSD for $2800, new.

I recently bought a 14" M1 Max 64GB 32-core machine, with 1TB of SSD (so maxed out other than storage) second hand for $1920. This this smokes basically every work load I throw at it. And if I take care of it reasonably it will easily exceed the next 3 years of intended service I have for it.

So while it's not possible to do this direct from Apple, I expect that similar price drops will happen for the M2 Pro/Max machines after the M3 ones drop. And savvy buyers who are okay with living one gen behind can have a machine that decimates Windows laptops in certain productivity workloads for a fraction of the original cost.

The refurbished machines are also available in decent quantity at not unreasonable prices.
Apple has seen almost a doubling in MacOS usage since they released the M1 so it would stand to reason that there’s more of them out there now than before for the Intel based ones.

And yeah I know double of practically nothing is still laughably small but it’s still quite an achievement from a platform most were writing off as dead.

 

[paradoxical]

If you find yourself working at an airport then either your job sucks or your airline sucks, but likely both. Who can stomach using a laptop in the passenger seat of a car? Also, why an apartment? Apple doesn't have any sort of advantage unless you truly believe their devices last 2x or even 3x longer than an AMD or Intel laptop? Because they haven't in a while.

How in what way?

Gotta wonder what's productive in situations like you described? Best I can think of is responding to emails, and that can be done on a phone.

The hell were you doing in those 4 years in the passenger seat of a car?

This post dropped my intelligence so much I am going to buy a windows PC to work in a cubicle like this guy (from my loaded Macbook Pro in the Prague Emirates airport lounge after an Emirates biz-class lay-flat flight my company paid for).

 

[socK]

The crazy part about Apple moving to ARM, is that the price drops have been way more precipitous than on any other system. Intel machines held their value for far longer.
B&H (which though most PC heads don't know who they are, because they're primarily a camera vendor) sold M1 Pro/Max 14/16" machines for 50% off after the M2 Pro/Max machines dropped. It was possible to get a fully maxed out M1 machine even with something insane like 4TB SSD for $2800, new.

I recently bought a 14" M1 Max 64GB 32-core machine, with 1TB of SSD (so maxed out other than storage) second hand for $1920. This this smokes basically every work load I throw at it. And if I take care of it reasonably it will easily exceed the next 3 years of intended service I have for it.

So while it's not possible to do this direct from Apple, I expect that similar price drops will happen for the M2 Pro/Max machines after the M3 ones drop. And savvy buyers who are okay with living one gen behind can have a machine that decimates Windows laptops in certain productivity workloads for a fraction of the original cost.

Yeah that sounds much more reasonable to me. I would be tempted to bite on that machine for that price.

I'll keep an eye out once the M3 drop. My only concern is, how much does the Apple ecosystem get rammed down my throat? I've never owned any Apple device.

I just want to write code, build containers, and do some ML 64gb being visible to the GPU will probably make life easier, the unified memory is an interesting prospect there. So honestly if I can mostly ignore whatever Apple shit and just run VS Code and Docker, I'll be happy.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Yeah that sounds much more reasonable to me. I would be tempted to bite on that machine for that price.

I'll keep an eye out once the M3 drop. My only concern is, how much does the Apple ecosystem get rammed down my throat? I've never owned any Apple device.

I just want to write code, build containers, and do some ML 64gb being visible to the GPU will probably make life easier, the unified memory is an interesting prospect there. So honestly if I can mostly ignore whatever Apple shit and just run VS Code and Docker, I'll be happy.

We'll have to revisit this in March-June then. I don't expect we'll see the M3 Pro/Max machines drop any sooner than then.

 

[paradoxical]

Yeah that sounds much more reasonable to me. I would be tempted to bite on that machine for that price.

I'll keep an eye out once the M3 drop. My only concern is, how much does the Apple ecosystem get rammed down my throat? I've never owned any Apple device.

When you switch you will be shocked at what a breath of fresh air it is not to have ecosystems shoved down your throat. You don't even realize how bad Microsoft has gotten because they turned up the boiling water slowly. Things you won't have to deal with on MacOS:

• Default "save file" locations to iCloud like Microsoft does to One Drive
• Shoving iCloud storage into every possible file manager and app, like Microsoft does with OneDrive
• Tell you "Hey, did you know Safari is the fastest and most secure web browser in the world?" when you launch a competing browser, like Microsoft does with Edge
• Deliver advertisements to your screen savers and start menu
• Apple shoving Apple Arcade ads and apps in your face like Microsoft does with Xbox

 

[Lakados]

We'll have to revisit this in March-June then. I don't expect we'll see the M3 Pro/Max machines drop any sooner than then.

I recently heard some weird ass stuff about Apple releasing some Audiophile class hardware for hi-def lossless streaming.

The existing stuff out there is not adequate or a is PITA. So it would let you do Apple Music to a real stereo system but I’m not sure how much stock I put in that as it came at me from a weird ass place.

 

[sc5mu93]

Am I crazy, or do they usually do presser/announcements earlier in the day? Gonna be close to watching MNF before this launches...

 

[Mchart]

It’s a weird release for sure. The fact that they could be announcing m3 pro/max already as well and obsoleting the m2 pro parts this fast is already out of the norm. The late US time is odd as well almost like they’re targeting for the Japan market.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

I recently heard some weird ass stuff about Apple releasing some Audiophile class hardware for hi-def lossless streaming.

Currently the "new" AirPod Pro 2's (with a slightly higher hardware model revision) support lossless audio when coming from Apple Vision Pro, only. Which is obviously a disappointment to everyone that doesn't have that hardware combination (which is everyone). However to your point it does hint that perhaps Apple is likely going to implement hardware that allows for lossless audio streaming across whatever newer devices come out. To the dismay of course of everyone with a slightly older hardware revision.

The existing stuff out there is not adequate or a is PITA. So it would let you do Apple Music to a real stereo system but I’m not sure how much stock I put in that as it came at me from a weird ass place.

The short answer is: yes. Though I will admit that I personally don't need anything past a 256-bit VBR MP4 file. I used to have an audiophile "grade" set of headphones and headphone amp. One thing that that showed me as well is that even with a high end system if you're being honest it's hard to tell a difference between a well encoded compressed file and lossless. I was a hardcore FLAC user for years, from probably around 2004 or 05 to 2010 or so. And after I moved to macOS and went through nice audio hardware I realized I was being super zealous over something that only made a minute difference if any. Lossless for me is more for peace of mind than it is for objectively better audio.

It’s a weird release for sure. The fact that they could be announcing m3 pro/max already as well and obsoleting the m2 pro parts this fast is already out of the norm. The late US time is odd as well almost like they’re targeting for the Japan market.

I think if rumors-ville has told us anything this time around is that they can't be trusted. In that sense that in this thread Lakados mentioned that Apple intentionally disseminated conflicting release information to root out leakers. In the past I could with some degree of certainty say what was launching at least a month out. But this time I think it's crap shoot. I personally won't believe that Pro machines are coming out until and if Apple says they are.

As for "obsoleting", well, M2 Pro machines won't exactly be "slow" for 3-5 years.

 

[Lakados]

Currently the "new" AirPod Pro 2's (with a slightly higher hardware model revision) support lossless audio when coming from Apple Vision Pro, only. Which is obviously a disappointment to everyone that doesn't have that hardware combination (which is everyone). However to your point it does hint that perhaps Apple is likely going to implement hardware that allows for lossless audio streaming across whatever newer devices come out. To the dismay of course of everyone with a slightly older hardware revision.

Because of constraints on Bluetooth actual lossless is not possible as the transmission protocol itself introduces loss so most devices won’t enable lossless over BT because it’s not technically feasible over the medium and that’s just a false advertising class action in the waiting.
I heard rumblings of Apple essentially releasing some form of hard wired streamer that does proper lossless for integration with an amplifier or possibly an amplifier itself.

 

[Mchart]

Because of constraints on Bluetooth actual lossless is not possible as the transmission protocol itself introduces loss so most devices won’t enable lossless over BT because it’s not technically feasible over the medium and that’s just a false advertising class action in the waiting.
I heard rumblings of Apple essentially releasing some form of hard wired streamer that does proper lossless for integration with an amplifier or possibly an amplifier itself.

Apple could quite easily just use WIFI-6e on the latest iPhones and Mac's to use for lossless transmission for a new AirPods. No clue why they haven't already TBH.

 

[uOpt]

Am I crazy, or do they usually do presser/announcements earlier in the day? Gonna be close to watching MNF before this launches...

Engineering needs today afternoon to finish the M3 chip.

 

[Aurelius]

A few things dribbling out of the event:

Sure enough, Apple is introducing M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. Expected features like ray-traced graphics, 3nm architecture and overall faster performance. A nice touch: the GPU makes considerably better use of available memory. They even support up to 128GB of RAM! (On the M3 Max, of course.)

Another notable announcement so far: the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts with a regular M3, not the M3 Pro. Still waiting on price as I write this, but I'm guessing that means a lower starting price. Good as far as I'm concerned — that means you get the 120Hz display and better ports without (hopefully) paying a huge premium over the Air.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

A few things dribbling out of the event:

Sure enough, Apple is introducing M3, M3 Pro and M3 Max chips. Expected features like ray-traced graphics, 3nm architecture and overall faster performance. A nice touch: the GPU makes considerably better use of available memory. They even support up to 128GB of RAM! (On the M3 Max, of course.)

Another notable announcement so far: the 14-inch MacBook Pro starts with a regular M3, not the M3 Pro. Still waiting on price as I write this, but I'm guessing that means a lower starting price. Good as far as I'm concerned — that means you get the 120Hz display and better ports without (hopefully) paying a huge premium over the Air.

Does that mean the dreadful 13" Macbook Pro is finally axed?

Although I am sad to hear that these machines dropped. Probably could've saved even more money on my M1 Max system. I'm going to guess that these machines will have a far greater than 20% uplift vs M2, as they are finally shipping on 3nm.

EDIT: https://bgr.com/tech/apple-m3-mac-scary-fast-event-announcements/

And a quote:
M3: Up to 24GB of RAM, 8-core CPU (4 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, up to 35% faster than M1, and up to 20% faster than M2). It offers a 10-core GPU, up to 65% faster than M1 and up to 20% faster than M2.

M3 Pro: Up to 36GB of RAM, 12-core CPU (6 performance cores and 6 efficiency cores, up to 20% faster than M1 Pro). It offers an 18-core GPU, up to 40% faster than M1 Pro and up to 10% faster than M2 Pro.

M3 Max: Up to 128GB of RAM, 16-core CPU (12 performance cores and 4 efficiency cores, up to 80% faster than M1 Max and up to 50% faster than M2 Max). It has a 40-core GPU, up to 50% faster than M1 Max and 20% faster than M2 Max.

If that's true, this is a pretty insane swing in terms of performance.

EDIT 2: And yes, Apple has gotten rid of the 13" Macbook Pro.

 

[Mchart]

New better hardware - But the prices have absolutely gone up. The base M3 Max is $3200 now. Although the performance increase is enough that I think I could eat the extra $200 in price. The m2 max is already pretty damn fast for what it is, if the M3 Max is as fast as they say it is that is super impressive hardware.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

New better hardware - But the prices have absolutely gone up. The base M3 Max is $3200 now. Although the performance increase is enough that I think I could eat the extra $200 in price. The m2 max is already pretty damn fast for what it is, if the M3 Max is as fast as they say it is that is super impressive hardware.

I'm guessing that at least some of this is mis-matching in order to show the biggest performance swing. Highest level M3 Max vs lowest level M1 Max. Even with that though, it's looking like it will be a big leap. I'm most curious about what Ultra will bring to the table and also what these new machines will do in terms of RT.

 

[uOpt]

Hey I liked the 13" MBP. No bashing

 

[Centauri]

You've gotta hand it to Apple... There is nothing that can hold a candle to the black MBP with an M3 Max.

Insane amount of power and display quality for something so thin and light.

And I think this marks their first black laptop since the PowerBook G3. Almost a quarter century ago...

 

[Algrim]

Finally, the base M3 supports AV1 decode. That will make the eventual Air MacBooks and iPads have that support as well.

 

[Aurelius]

Hey I liked the 13" MBP. No bashing

It had its day, but the 13-inch model became superfluous in the Apple Silicon era. It was basically a MacBook Air with the Touch Bar and a fan. The 14-inch Pro with a base M3 is considerably better (although you really want to upgrade beyond the 8GB entry RAM if you can).

 

[UnknownSouljer]

Hey I liked the 13" MBP. No bashing

It has more or less been the bastard child on the line up as far back as the unibody way back in 2012.
It has never had top level specs and always been relegated to just "whatever" status. Still it had a place in the sense that it was a lower cost option that was at the time differentiated by power vs the Macbook Air.

When the M1's dropped instead of killing it then they decided to sell it alongside the M1 Air. And there was really no place for both an M1 Air and M1 13" Macbook Pro. It never made sense. Meanwhile both the Air and the 14" Pro got a bunch of advantages it never did and was basically using the same shell/ports as the Intel days.

You may hate to hear it, but honestly it should have never had an M1/M2 variant. And if you like the 13", you'll like the 14" even more anyways.

 

[uOpt]

With the 16-core M3 Max, how many cores are performance and efficiency, respectively?

 

[uOpt]

It had its day, but the 13-inch model became superfluous in the Apple Silicon era. It was basically a MacBook Air with the Touch Bar and a fan. The 14-inch Pro with a base M3 is considerably better (although you really want to upgrade beyond the 8GB/256GB base if you can).

Not quite. It also had better speakers and a bigger battery than the air. In fact it had the longest battery lifetime of any Mac model ever (before today).

The touchbar sucks of course but what you gonna do...

 

[Aurelius]

Not quite. It also had better speakers and a bigger battery than the air. In fact it had the longest battery lifetime of any Mac model ever (before today).

The touchbar sucks of course but what you gonna do...

True, but I can't imagine many people bought the 13-inch MBP just for those. Particularly not when you gave up MagSafe in the process.

 

[paradoxical]

I was hoping there would be more than 8TB SSD option. Not sure if I will upgrade from my loaded MBP 14.

 

[UnknownSouljer]

With the 16-core M3 Max, how many cores are performance and efficiency, respectively?

12 + 4. My post outlines the specs.

 

[cpufrost]

I was hoping there would be more than 8TB SSD option. Not sure if I will upgrade from my loaded MBP 14.

Probably going to be a while for that.
Their flash prices are crazy high considering the market has tanked!
Trade in values are lower too.

Scary $$$!

 

[Lakados]

I can already hear the sound of my Inbox being filled with sudden issues with the existing M1 fleet, not because anything is actually wrong or because of some supposed software update that made it slow. But simply because theirs is old.