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Apple announces new flagship M2 processor
- winrid 4y agoFunny, I guess B&H were right: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31637122 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31637122
- jjcm 4y agoA nice bump in specs, but nothing groundbreaking like the initial ship. Somewhat disappointed that AV1 isn't supported in hardware, and Apple's continued push with HEVC gives me doubts they'll support the codec in the future.
- kirbyfan64sos 4y ago> Somewhat disappointed that AV1 isn't supported in hardware Given that the M2 is based on the A15, which doesn't have AV1, this was kind of expected. I'd imagine that, due to their general cycle, AV1 would come to iPhones first if/when it arrives.
- simonh 4y agoThey have a balancing act to perform. It will take time to engineer the high end versions of M2 and they can’t afford to eclipse the current high end M1 machines. Anyway it seems likely the engineering tradeoffs made in the overall M* architecture will be with us for several years to come at least, and the first few generations will be incremental improvements.
- barkingcat 4y agothe Apple chip development progression is well known - all apple M chips come from the corresponding iPhone chip that came before. It means that the M3 will follow from the next iPhone so you can easily tell what codecs will come. no need to be disappointed, you can just look to the iphone for the next macbook.
- Shikadi 4y agoThere are like two Apple M chips, is that something official or internally leaked?
- jeroenhd 4y agoApple has bought heavily into the HEVC ecosystem so they'll have to support it for at least a few generations just to make sure their hardware performs well combined with their previously released phones. And if you're already dumping money into the HEVC patent sinkhole, why bother also implementing a free codec?
- julianbuse 4y agoI wonder how this would stack up against my m1 pro equipped mbp 14.
- gnicholas 4y agoIt looks like it has more power efficiency, which will matter more for some people than others. They certainly didn't want to trash their previously-flagship laptop processors...
- EduardoBautista 4y agoI am waiting on an M1 Pro MBP 16 (I currently have the Intel MBP 16). Although right now I am thinking of cancelling that and ordering a MacBook Air and using that until the M2 Pro chips are released.
- rpastuszak 4y agoI switched to MacBook Air M1 from MBP 16 Intel a month ago, and a) it still feels weirdly faster then the MBP b) I can spend 6h outside working from the garden on one charge (running vitejs or react native + metro, plus slack, Spotify etc...) c) I'm still a bit pissed that I didn't wait a month for the 2nd gen
- dartdartdart 4y agoreturn it!
- moneywoes 4y agoAnything you miss from the 16?
- turtlebits 4y agoI have a M1 Pro 16 as a work machine and a personal M1 Air. The screen on the 16" is much better (higher refresh and brighter)
- 4y ago
- rdw 4y agoIt's fun to be back in the age where every few years you want to upgrade your computer because the new ones are so much faster, not because the old one is worn out. 20% faster isn't enough to make me regret my M1 purchase, but after one or two more 20% speed gains I'll feel like upgrading to the latest is going to be worth it.
- mekster 4y agoI think you got that wrong. Speed isn't a bottleneck anymore and you won't get much better experience. This is same as phones. Soon, they'll have to be more creative for people to consider buying every few years. I wish MBA started having ProMotion.
- zimpenfish 4y ago> Speed isn't a bottleneck anymore stares in Mojang's poorly optimised Java (Also, as other people have pointed out, it absolutely can be when compiling, using Photoshop, doing billions of Prolog inferences, etc.)
- microtonal 4y ago> I think you got that wrong. Speed isn't a bottleneck anymore and you won't get much better experience. This is same as phones. Well... I'm pretty sure that this is Hacker News. And for many developers, any performance improvement is great. I first got an M1 Air, which was fantastic. Faster than my 3700X workstation for building Rust projects, while it was passively cooled and portable. Despite the awesome performance of the M1 Air, I upgraded to an M1 Pro when it came out. Moving from 4 performance + 4 efficiency cores to 8 performance + 2 efficiency cores was yet another awesome upgrade, giving again much quicker builds. I work on machine learning stuff, so the AMX matrix co-processing unit in the M1 was really great for training small networks (sometimes convolution networks are still great for NLP + being able to train locally is nice for development). Then the M1 Pro/Max had double the AMX units, so it's again a great step forward. Getting 20% YoY improvements will definitely make me very happy (and I bet many other developers).
- adrr 4y ago
- dartdartdart 4y agoRegarding the Process–architecture–optimization model from intel, what do each of those upgrades mean to the user? I believe Process has the most to deal with energy efficiency due to the shrinkage, which is why M1 was so energy efficient when it was launched. M2 seems like an architecture/optimization change, seems like they are just able to cram more stuff which is why it's faster without increasing battery life. For those familiar with Intel, what does the consumer mainly gain out of optimization product launches?
- msbarnett 4y ago> I believe Process has the most to deal with energy efficiency due to the shrinkage, which is why M1 was so energy efficient when it was launched. Eh, that's part of it, but a lot of it has to do with the M1 having very very high IPC (much higher than comparable x86-64 parts), meaning they could run the chip at a much lower max clock speed (3.2 GHz versus boosting to 5 GHz for most competitive x86-64 CPUs) for similar overall performance. This makes a huge difference because power consumption increases exponentially with clock speed. edit: thinking about how it relates to Intel's process–architecture–optimization, it feels a bit tricky to compare. Apple's process seems to be something like: architecture(A-series chip for iPhones)-optimize-with-new-die-reusing-basic-cores-in-diff-arrangement-targetting-perf-in-small-thermal-envelope(M1 for iPad Pro and small Macbooks)-optimize-again-with-another-new-die-reusing-basic-cores-but-in-yet-another-arrangement-targetting-perf-in-a-wider-thermal-envelope(M1 Pro/Max/Ultra), and that all happens before you get to the next M-series increment, which begins with an A-series increment. So the M2 is less the optimization of the M1 than it is the re-use of the cores in the new A-series chip preceding it, which was an architectural change, plus optimizations and other SoC differences.
- rbanffy 4y agoI'm curious about what caused the 24GB limit. Does it have 3 memory buses limited to 8GB each? Also a bit disappointed the Mini didn't get a refresh or, at least, the option.
- joneholland 4y agoIsn’t all memory on the SOC? I don’t think it’s a bus issue as much as it’s just a space issue.
- kappuchino 4y agoForgive me my specific view: The M2 itself is marvelous. But the highly integraded path apple chose with all its hardware ruins it for me. For me, its enviromentally insane to buy such a device that is nearly unrepairable. In context, my Macbook air just died yesterday ... the one from 2014. Luckily, its the replaceble SSD that went dead. And due to OpenCore, it still runs the latest MacOS. If I would by the new M2 with the new MacBook Air: Same problem would doom the complete hardware. And I would have been stuck with the OS that Apple deems I can have. Maybe this comes with age, but I see buzzwords + glitz + speedups ... but little to none envirmental progress. Which is a shame.
- kansface 4y agoYou can't make that form factor and a repairable laptop, no?
- sam0x17 4y agoWell, the framework laptop is really going places for one. They just need to hit that slightly higher high end with an i9 and an OLED imo
- jeroenhd 4y agoI don't see why not. With M.2 SSDs and DIMM sticks you've got quite a thin minimum footprint. Apple has decided that soldering everything onto the PCB is worth the cost of making the device unrepairable, and that's their business decision (and yours if you decide to buy such devices). There are downsides to normal solutions (i.e. higher latency, needing to design places for screws to go) but it's not nearly as impossible as modern tech companies would like you to believe. Framework has designed a laptop with some excellent repairability and they're just a small team with extremely limited funds. Tech giants like Apple should have no trouble coming up with similar devices if they actually cared to do so.
- nojito 4y agoIdk where this idea of repairability = good for the environment came from. You’ll be hard pressed to find a laptop that is built with more recycled material than a MacBook.
- jmpman 4y agoIf Solidworks would run on this, I’d buy four of them tomorrow.
- t7s 4y agoHow do they get away with infringing on BMW trademarks? M2, M3, etc..
- cheeze 4y agoTwo completely different industries. Same reason that M3 medical imaging can.
- klempner 4y agoAnd while there is a concept of a "famous trademark" that can provide general protection across all industries against trademark dilution, it is extremely unlikely something as generic as a letter and a number would receive such protection.
- hitpointdrew 4y agoThat is not how Trademarks work. It isn't "We used it first, so no one else can". If you are in an unrelated industry, selling unrelated products you can use any name that might be trademarked in another industry/product space. > For instance, the name "MY GIRL" is a registered trademark owned by Enertec Enterprises for a line of dolls and accessories. However, there is a second trademark registration for the same name "MY GIRL" that is owned by Acushnet Company for a line of golf putters. The reason that these two different companies could register a trademark for the exact same name is that they operate in totally unrelated industries, and offer totally unrelated products. One company sells dolls, whereas the other company sells golf equipment. https://secureyourtrademark.com/can-you-trademark/trademark-a-name-already-in-use/ https://secureyourtrademark.com/can-you-trademark/trademark-... No one is going to confuse a Mac Book for a luxury car, or vice-versa.
- withinrafael 4y agoA trademark can be registered for one or more classes of goods/services [1]. The APPLE M1 mark [2], for example, is registered across multiple US classes (21, 23, 26, 36, and 38). I did not immediately find a registration for US M2-based marks by either BMW or Apple. Maybe that's coming soon. Or I didn't input the right incantation into TESS [3]. [1] https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-1400d1e1.html https://tmep.uspto.gov/RDMS/TMEP/current#/current/TMEP-1400d... [2] https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:q6aw48.5.1 https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=4806:q6... [3] https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/ https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/
- demouser345 4y agogreat. on top of yearly environment destruction via phones. now there are whole displays, batteries, keyboards and a ton of other special material just to fuel this greed carbon monster.
- wollsmoth 4y agoThey aren't the only ones making new computers every year.
- dwaite 4y agoA very small portion of the population upgrade yearly, and having older devices go into a drawer or landfill is the most expensive option (over trade in/resale or hand-me-down to family members)
- Applejinx 4y agoAs someone who recently traded back to Apple a whole pile of older machines, don't sleep on that option. I had some fancy stuff like an iMac Pro, and some stuff as far back as the first Retina iMac. I'd been sitting on them because 'I can use them for something' (and there was software I had perpetual license to that wasn't offering free update to Apple Silicon). Even the oldest stuff got me a couple hundred bucks from Apple in trade-in. The iMac Pro got me nearly three thousand dollars in trade-in. Don't sleep on the trade-in, you're feeding their 'refurbished' market and even if it goes to landfills it's not normal landfills, they're very interested in recycling some of the materials out of the machines. They wouldn't be offering that much in exchange if they weren't serious about it.
- Applejinx 4y agoLater follow-up: I tried to check what the value was on my very new Macbook Pro, and it was shockingly low compared to the older Intel iMac Pro etc. Which makes me wonder if they're intentionally trying to get the Intel machines out of circulation in order to help their transition to Apple Silicon. Mind you, I got a good amount for the 1st-gen M1 laptop… I suspect it all depends, but definitely see what you're offered if you have a powerful but Intel-based Mac. It seems like that was the sweet spot for their trade-in value.
- DSingularity 4y agoJust wait until docker and packages and everything is built for these beasts.
- andrewnicolalde 4y agoIf you’re referring to those pieces of software having support for Apple silicon, Docker already does (even without Rosetta installed) and I have yet to encounter a package on homebrew that isn’t natively built for ARM.
- Kab1r 4y agovalgrind on arm is one I've not found to work
- shepherdjerred 4y agoThe environment is already pretty good. When it came out last year I had a few woes with x86_64 software, but nowadays I think most things you'd want are built for ARM, or you can get a very good experience with Rosetta 2.
- tristor 4y agoI hope we see a refresh with the M2 based SoCs in other systems as well this year. I intend to upgrade my old MBP and also probably acquire a Mac Mini or Mac Studio as a workstation later this year, and while the M1 Max/Ultra is pretty great, I'd love to see these incremental improvements up front.
- shakermakr 4y agoThis is all great and everything but when will enterprise customers like me see it? I’ve still my M1 Max on back order since February because “Apple is experiencing supply issues and prioritises consumer and education ahead of enterprise” The M2 Max will be with us when my Mac finally ships…
- kirbyfan64sos 4y agoI ordered mine in February as well, and after being delayed so many times the estimates were landing in July...it actually shipped out, and it arrived around a week ago. Was debating just cancelling and getting something else, but after using it, I'm very glad I didn't.
- mths 4y agoI ordered mine in mid-March and got it a week or two ago. I hate to say it, but it pays to call them and bitch about the delays. Squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that. They said they'd put me on priority and it seems from these comments maybe they actually did.
- Melatonic 4y agoAnd yet the Mac Pro is still on Intel with no Nvidia option....... When they make a chip for that machine that competes then I might be interested
- spacexsucks 4y agoHeres a new black box. It looks like the last but is 20% better. Trust me. We didnt fix bugs in our crappy software. It was perfect the day you got it. So, the improvents could only be in this new black box. Sure we neeed to whip people to mine thse rocks and underpay them, but look at the shiny form over function. Also, just dump your old stuff every year, sine you dont want to be that uncool kid, doyou? All the coal melting, molding, glass, labor, CO2, is worthless now. And while youre here, it will be one kidney or a yearlong service for a low price of $50, which if you give us all your financial history you can get a 3% cashback on.