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You're not alone. my m1 mac mini is better, but i still see random beach balls, though the duration is less than on the intel mbp. For anyone saying "I never

You're not alone. my m1 mac mini is better, but i still see random beach balls, though the duration is less than on the intel mbp. For anyone saying "I never see this" or "something's wrong with your system" - I've seen these sorts of problems, in some capacity or another, over ... 12 years, multiple macbooks and imacs, multiple OS versions, multiple internet providers, from various parts of the world. I think the folks saying "never affects me" simply do not notice this stuff. I don't know how/why you can't notice stuff like this, but I've been present where I've noticed people getting beach balls, I've pointed it out, and was told "oh, didn't see that". Not saying every single person is missing every single instance 100%, but I've no doubt this interrupts peoples' flow different from mine. If I've paid $4k for a laptop and click a button, I don't expect to wait for... 1-2 seconds, then see a beach ball, then wait.... then wait some more... before a button click is recognized. It's better today than last year, and the year before, but... wtf... it's still there.

bserge 5y ago
Isn't that just... normal? Windows and Linux also have weird delays sometimes. It will happen on any hardware. And if you're paying more than 3k for a laptop, you're either rich or an idiot. Anything over that price is just brands price gouging for minimal to zero functional return.
mdavis6890 5y ago
Hardware used to get faster more quickly than software got slower, so you could make forward progress by upgrading hardware. Then it seemed about the same, so following a hardware upgrade things would be about as fast as they had been when my previous hardware was new several years prior. Now we seem to be at a point where the software is getting slower more quickly than the hardware is getting faster, so that following a hardware upgrade everything is a bit slower than it was following the prior upgrade. Software sucks, and hardware is amazing.
nouveaux 5y ago
"If I've paid $4k for a laptop and click a button, I don't expect to wait for... 1-2 seconds, then see a beach ball," Is this even possible? I don't think a 50k computer can guarantee no wait on software. How would any hardware prevent excessive software utilization?
- howinteresting 5y ago
  Apple's entire USP is vertical integration. The fact that Linux is significantly more responsive than Mac on the same hardware is an embarrassment to Apple.
handrous 5y ago
Frequent random beachballs made me switch from FF to Chrome ~10 years ago. Somewhat-less-frequent random beachballs made me switch to Safari. Not that I never see them, but that cut them to under 5% the rate I'd been seeing them. Xcode still does it pretty reliably, but luckily I don't work in that much. Now if I see them it's usually because WhatsApp or Slack have gone insane, which they do every few weeks. Or some web app. Point is, there's usually one thing going nuts that causes it, it's not just a constant feature of my desktop even under light-ish load. Some heavier stuff, like Android Studio with the Emulator running, might still beachball quite a bit. Dunno, been out of Android development for quite a while. I'm sure there are some workflows that still have the problem. The browser thing kept them from being a common feature of my personal experience, though.

bserge 5y ago

Isn't that just... normal? Windows and Linux also have weird delays sometimes. It will happen on any hardware. And if you're paying more than 3k for a laptop, you're either rich or an idiot. Anything over that price is just brands price gouging for minimal to zero functional return.

mdavis6890 5y ago

Hardware used to get faster more quickly than software got slower, so you could make forward progress by upgrading hardware. Then it seemed about the same, so following a hardware upgrade things would be about as fast as they had been when my previous hardware was new several years prior. Now we seem to be at a point where the software is getting slower more quickly than the hardware is getting faster, so that following a hardware upgrade everything is a bit slower than it was following the prior upgrade. Software sucks, and hardware is amazing.

nouveaux 5y ago

"If I've paid $4k for a laptop and click a button, I don't expect to wait for... 1-2 seconds, then see a beach ball," Is this even possible? I don't think a 50k computer can guarantee no wait on software. How would any hardware prevent excessive software utilization?

howinteresting 5y ago
Apple's entire USP is vertical integration. The fact that Linux is significantly more responsive than Mac on the same hardware is an embarrassment to Apple.

handrous 5y ago

Frequent random beachballs made me switch from FF to Chrome ~10 years ago. Somewhat-less-frequent random beachballs made me switch to Safari. Not that I never see them, but that cut them to under 5% the rate I'd been seeing them. Xcode still does it pretty reliably, but luckily I don't work in that much. Now if I see them it's usually because WhatsApp or Slack have gone insane, which they do every few weeks. Or some web app. Point is, there's usually one thing going nuts that causes it, it's not just a constant feature of my desktop even under light-ish load. Some heavier stuff, like Android Studio with the Emulator running, might still beachball quite a bit. Dunno, been out of Android development for quite a while. I'm sure there are some workflows that still have the problem. The browser thing kept them from being a common feature of my personal experience, though.