Algunos de nosotros hemos estado esperando durante años el evento de que Apple terminó en menos de 50 minutos (y probablemente pasamos años preparándolo). Las Mac están migrando a Apple Silicon basado en ARM y, según lo ve la empresa, la transición debería ser mejor para todos.</p><h2>¿Qué es el chip M1?</h2><p>Apple fue bastante agresivo cuando presentó sus nuevos Apple Silicon Macs, que (como se esperaba) ofrecen un rendimiento asombroso, en parte gracias a los chips de 5 nanómetros (nm) que Apple desarrolló en ARM, y también gracias al trabajo de silicio. de la sociedad. equipos de diseño.
Some benchmarks:
- The new M1-powered MacBook Pro is now 3x faster than the best “in-class” Windows laptop. (It also has Wi-Fi 6 and Thunderbolt 4.0.)
- The Mac mini with M1 is 10 times faster than the best-selling desktop PC in its class.
- And the new MacBook Air with an M1 chip is faster than 98% of PC laptops sold last year, Apple boasted.
This is the Mac/PC discussion here. Apple knows it. He ended the event with a short version of his famous "Get A Mac" commercials with John Hodgman on PC. The point he made? Now that Apple has switched to its own chips, these PCs can no longer keep up.
The transition was not a surprise
We were all expecting Apple to introduce a new Mac chip based in one way or another on the A-series processors it uses in iPhones and iPads. Apple wasn't too specific about the relationship between these silicon siblings, but it did detail the following about the M1 chip it is installing in these new Macs:
- The chip has a 5nm design, just like the A14 processor used in iPhones, iPads; this is clearly a version of the layout made specifically for use on Mac rather than mobile devices. I see him as a stronger brother than the other chips.
- It is also the first personal computer built on a 5nm chip, Apple noted.
- M1 is a complete SoC design, with processor, graphics, security, and more, all on a powerful 8-core chip.
- M1 uses a unified memory architecture that combines high bandwidth and low latency memory into a single pool within a custom package. This means that all SoC technologies can access the same data without copying it between multiple memory pools, improving performance and efficiency.
- You get four high-performance cores and four high-efficiency cores. The former offers professional performance for single-core tasks and can be used together to improve multi-threaded performance.
- High-efficiency cores take care of all your daily tasks, such as web browsing and email. And all eight chips can work together when you need to run your Mac.
- Graphic? The GPU inside the M1 has its own eight cores and can run almost 25.000 simultaneous threads. That means smooth 4K video playback, complex 3D, and more. Basically you are seeing 2,6 teraflops of performance.
- It has a 16-core neural motor capable of handling 11 trillion operations per second. (I can't help but point out that this is the equivalent of 11 XServes on every Mac - think what that can do for machine learning.)
- The performance per watt the chip can deliver means that Apple Silicon's first MacBook Air is fanless, fulfilling a long-standing ambition of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs for a fanless Mac: a Mac that isn't compromised.
- Apple claims that the M1 chip can deliver up to 3,5 times faster CPU, up to 6 times faster GPU, up to 15 times faster machine learning capabilities, and twice the battery life of previous systems.
But wait, there's more: advanced power management, low-power video playback, HDR video and image processing, high-bandwidth caches, machine learning accelerators, high-quality image signal processor (ISP), audio high efficiency, fourth generation PCI express and NVMe storage.
What this means to you
The company has tried to contextualize these "speeds and flows" claims, pointing out real benefits, such as:
- Your Mac wakes up instantly.
- You get the buzzer again.
- It will create Xcode 2.8 times faster and render a complex 3D title in Final Cut Pro up to 5.9 times faster on MacBook Pro.
- Machine learning operations, such as image optimization, will be up to 15 times faster.
- Safari is twice as responsive and 1,5 times better at running JavaScript.
- All Apple software works natively on the chip, while existing applications that have not been transferred use Rosetta 2 to run.
- You can run iPhone and iPad applications, including applications specific to the company that you use to do business.
- On Mac mini, you can increase the resolution of an image in Pixelmator Pro up to 15 times faster.
Perhaps the most impressive statistic in terms of pure computing power (to me) was Apple's claim that the first M1-equipped MacBook Pro plays full-quality 8k ProRes video in DaVinci Resolve without data loss. 'image. Now connect your new business laptop to Apple's Pro Display XDR display and laugh when you consider the performance you expect from a laptop testing high-end video graphics as recently as early 2018.
The first M1-based Macs
The first Apple Silicon Macs included the €13 999-inch MacBook Air, MacBook Pro (from €1,299) and Mac mini. An Intel version of the 13-inch MacBook Pro remains available. Apple says it's in a two-year transition (in fact, "about two years") and is expected to unveil an Apple Silicon iMac in 2021 and a Mac Pro later. The price remains the same, with the exception of the Mac mini, which costs around €100 less. A slight price reduction was expected due to the savings achieved by using Apple chips instead of Intel chips. The battery life is amazing. One developer noted that his Mac's battery life now exceeds the time he "normally" spends between bedrooms. In more real terms, Apple claims to have the longest battery life on its laptop: 20 hours of video playback on the MacBook Pro and 18 hours on the Air. The Pro also includes studio-quality microphones and graphics that are five times faster than before. During its presentation, Apple also quietly noted that the M1's storage controller means you'll see SSD performance twice as fast as before. There's a lot more to these machines individually, but the fact that a Mac mini now runs an XDR display and can render a Final Cut Pro timeline up to six times faster means I'll be reading Geekbench performance data with great interest. the next few months. How high will these machines reach the network? Rest assured, I'll take a closer look at them when I get the chance. Do you want to see it for yourself? All three new Macs are available to order now for shipping next week.
It's Apple, but what about its developers?
Apple has gone through several transitions. Migrated from PowerPC to Intel and from Mac OS 9 to Big Sur. It even figured out how to deliver real computing experiences on iPhones. No wonder, the usual suspects found something to complain about just before the launch of the Apple Silicon Mac. You should ignore them. In the real world, those "big developers" who create the software we use to get things done seem to be having a good time with this particular Mac Intel to M1 migration. At least, that's what Apple's marketing told us. In a video, developers from Panic, mmhmm, Adobe, OmniGraffle, Shapr3D, Affinity Publisher and GOAT shared comments such as "Incredibly fast", "The transition took a day", "Almost unlimited interactivity" and boasts a seamless workflow on Apple devices. The biggest claim here, of course, is the speed and ease with which the transition to Apple Silicon can take place: "the transition took a day." Apple knows it needs developers, is working to attract them, and has told us that Adobe Photoshop will become an Apple Silicon Native app early next year. I'm relatively sure we can expect a few more announcements about key apps, although one thing we haven't heard a single word about is the future of Windows on Mac. This future could be a deal breaker for some business users, I suppose, although it could There is a bigger plan… The comeback seems to be that for some of the world's biggest apps, the process of migrating apps to Apple Silicon Native status is not too difficult. We'll have to wait for real-world feedback to see if this is the case, and how well Rosetta 2's transition-friendly layer (which allows Intel Mac apps to move happily and freely on Apple Silicon) fulfills its purpose. promise.
One more thing
The latest in this story is that Apple is not entirely unique in its migration to ARM processors. Microsoft, Qualcomm and others are heading in the same direction, coalescing around Snapdragon. Apple is years ahead in processor design, has invested heavily in this effort, and is already sitting in the cat's seat when it comes to making 5nm (and soon 3nm) iterations of these processors. CCS analyst Wayne Lam puts it this way: “Apple's metrics will help validate Arm-based chips for personal computing and even in the data center, meaning the entire Arm ecosystem will benefit. This, more than the loss of the Mac business, is Intel's long-term concern. "
Oh one more thing
Big Sur ships on Thursday. Follow me on Twitter or join me on the AppleHolic bar & grill and Apple discussion groups on MeWe.
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