Introducing the next generation of Mac

How are companies still releasing hardware with 8GB RAM? My MacBook Air from ~2016 has 8GB of RAM.<p>My first PC which had 8GB of RAM was built in ~2010 if I remember correctly. My current machine has 32GB. In all honesty, 32GB is not even much, considering my motherboard can take 128GB (in the old days, if your motherboard could take max 8GB RAM, people would fill all the slots to capacity). Also, I have a Lenovo machine that I paid $200 for that has 8GB RAM.<p>WHY any power user would buy a MacBook is beyond me. They&#x27;ve become devices that only my mother would use, not to get work done.<p>Apple should&#x27;ve made the baseline 32GB with 128GB as max spec. It would&#x27;ve forced the whole industry to give us more RAM. So for the next two years RAM will still be stagnant, all other manufacturers that copies Apple will indeed keep shipping 8GB without blinking.

I don&#x27;t understand the pricing of the MacBook Air vs the 13&quot; Pro.<p>The Air ($1249) vs 13&quot; Pro ($1299), you get:<p>- same CPU<p>- same GPU<p>- same Neural chip<p>- same RAM (8gb)<p>- More storage for the Air (512gb vs 256gb with 13&quot; Pro)<p>- You get Touch Bar with 13&quot; Pro<p>So if you don&#x27;t care about the Touch Bar, you actually get with the Air:<p>- better specs<p>- smaller device footprint<p>- and $50 cheaper.<p>Am I missing something?

Apple mentioned in the event that these Macs will have hardware verified secure boot. Since I’m not very knowledgeable in this area, can someone explain (or even try to guess) what this would&#x2F;could mean for running Linux on these? I use Macs way beyond Apple’s support timeframe with OS X&#x2F;macOS, and Linux is the one that runs on some of the older Macs and provides adequate security and security related software updates.

I&#x27;ll be sticking with my 2015 Macbook Pro Retina 13&quot;. Great machine, not too thin, heavy enough, no stupid touch screen, usb ports, great keyboard. Everything apple has done since hasn&#x27;t compared.

Did I miss something, or are they, once again, not upgrading the camera? The low light performance of the current version is real bad. Since we&#x27;re all using these cameras way more, I really thought there would a hardware bump. You can only squeeze so much detail out of an under-exposed, noisy image with software.

Super interesting how they kept the touchbar on the Macbook Pro keyboard but not on the Air. As a software developer, I&#x27;m going to be more likely to buy an Air just due to the keyboard.

Surprisingly, the dealbreaker for me on this current generation is 2x TB3 ports on one side. I really like being able to charge from either side.

The 16GB RAM limit is unfortunate.<p>Five years later and I still can&#x27;t buy a new 13&quot; laptop from Apple with more RAM than my 2015 MBP.<p>Edit: Apparently you <i>can</i> configure a (Early 2020) Intel-based 13&quot; MBP with 32GB of RAM - I was not aware of that. Hope they bring that option to the ARM versions ASAP, especially if the performance gains are as good as Apple claims.

The new Air looks good. The new mbp 13” not so much. If they’re going to lower the max ram they should at least provide an explanation why 16g in the new architecture is comparable to 32 in the previous, if that’s indeed the case.

Apple officially has dropped mentioning the CPU <i>frequency</i> for these new Macs (just like they don&#x27;t mentioned it with iOS devices)

What I can&#x27;t find is how many external monitors can be supported on the M1 chip? I don&#x27;t see any detailed specs. Al they say about the M1 specs are:<p>&quot;The Apple M1 chip is the first system on a chip (SoC) for Mac. Packed with an astonishing 16 billion transistors, it integrates the CPU, GPU, I&#x2F;O, and every other significant component and controller onto a single tiny chip. Designed by Apple, M1 brings incredible performance, custom technologies, and unparalleled power efficiency to the Mac.<p>With an 8‑core CPU and 8‑core GPU, M1 on MacBook Pro delivers up to 2.8x faster CPU performance¹ and up to 5x faster graphics² than the previous generation.&quot;

I backed a game a while ago on Kickstarter with native support for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Several weeks ago they sent us a message saying they were ditching the MacOS version due the architecture change.<p>I wonder how it&#x27;ll affect the whole ecosystem. I think it&#x27;ll end being like an iOS on steroids.

Looks like the Mac mini no longer has the ability to have a 10GBe Ethernet port. So, we could get 64GB of RAM and 10GBe in the last generation, and now this.

Straw poll: I need a new development machine, price is not an object but it has to be a Mac. Should I buy this new M1 or go with the Intel 16 inch MBP?<p>My gut says there’s going to be a year or two of cross-compilation nightmares. I do a lot of Docker-based development. Wondering what everyone else thinks?

I&#x27;m interested to see the benchmarks vs. comparable AMD systems. Some of the claims, like 2x performance increase on the MBP are impressive, but intel laptops have been absolutely trounced by AMD 4000-series laptops of late.<p>Also will be interested to see the benchmarks of the integrated GPU vs. discreet GPU performance.

Up to 20 hours of battery life on the MacBook Pro. If anything, I believe the increased battery life will be what most people will notice.

Only up to 16gb of memory on the M1 MacBook Pro?!?! The intel one is configurable to 32gb. Choosing between memory and CPU. So torn, so disappointed.<p>P.S. I’m a developer, like many here.<p>(Edit: specify the M1, not the existing Intel.)

I wonder, is the 8GB vs. 16GB &quot;unified memory&quot; the kind of thing where all of the hardware actually has 16GB, but they disable half of it to sell the lower price version? Like Tesla&#x27;s Model S 40 kwh?

How was this not called AppleCore™

I don&#x27;t see people mentioning it here, but the Pro machine only supports one external display. People have called the sales rep to confirm and this is indeed the case.<p>This is kind of bad news for the Pro machine.

Watching this event was definitely an interesting look at the top rungs of Apple. Their own corporate self-perception has certainly evolved in the last few years. I think many commentators have noted the way that Apple has tried to take its &quot;decisive-break-with-the-past&quot; marketing of prior years and prior hardware generations and make it something that can keep selling into the long term. Making their own chips seems like yet another salvo in that effort. For anyone interested in questions about the corporate structure of Apple behind-the-scenes, you might like this article: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theorg.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;the-minds-behind-apples-revolutionary-new-generation-of-macs" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;theorg.com&#x2F;insights&#x2F;the-minds-behind-apples-revoluti...</a>

Two <i>fewer</i> Thunderbolt ports on the MacBook Pro. That’s not an upgrade...?

Excuse me, but why does the pro version even exist? It feels like paying 300$ for the novelty of a ... fan?

Lots I&#x27;m impressed with but... it&#x27;s a shame to see they&#x27;ve cut the storage capacity in half!<p>Finally with the last update of Macbook Pro they ditched the ridiculous 256gb SSD and went 512&#x2F;1tb in the 2 pre-built models.<p>Now we&#x27;re back to 256&#x2F;512. The impressively low starting price is hiding behind this and the halving of default RAM too.

Interestingly, the Air and the Pro now are almost identical in specs: same SoC, same display, same connectors, same RAM, same SSDs.<p>On the plus side I only see the larger battery for the Pro. On the minus side it&#x27;s more heavy and a bit more bulky. And it&#x27;s got the TouchBar (I&#x27;d count that as a negative...).<p>Honestly, why spend the $300 extra? I&#x27;d take the Air any day.

I missed something — will older apps still work or must all your apps be new versions, recompiled for M1?

Url changed from <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;mac&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;mac&#x2F;</a> to the press release with more info. If there&#x27;s a more accurate and neutral third-party article, let me know and we can change it again.

Have they said anything about hyperkit on the new platform? And being able to run stuff like Docker for Mac?<p>I&#x27;ve seen lots said about the lack of Bootcamp support but I&#x27;ve actually never even used Bootcamp, Linux VMS are much more relevant for me and I imagine many other developers.

Anyone else wonder if these new apps will allow installing software from outside the App store - I was worried when they were talking about Secure Enclave.

Surprised that they didn’t take the opportunity to update the industrial design, especially of the MacBook Air which retains its wedge-shaped heft.

It&#x27;s interesting that all the chips are branded as the M1 - I wonder if there are any clock, memory or cache differences between the devices?

This is going to be awkward and then it&#x27;ll eventually become pretty good. From Apple&#x27;s perspective, they&#x27;re making the right move to their own CPU design. Apple has always been about controlling the user experience and by bringing it all in-house it takes things that were out of their control (Intel) and allows them to increase their vertical integration, unifying their product lines, and increasing market differentiation.<p>It&#x27;s been clear for a while that ARM processors have hit near desktop performance and it took the megacompany of Apple to push it over the edge.<p>I&#x27;m a dedicated non-Mac user at home, but at work I always chose the MBP option over the craptastic Dell PoS that&#x27;ll start turning into broken plastic pieces within a year or the latest Microsoft offering which seems to suffer from endless software and driver struggles.<p>The software story will take a while to work out, but Apple has made this transition TWO times before, which is astonishing. Nobody else has done this successfully. Part of the reason is there is simply less of a need among Mac users to maintain backwards compatibility and simply far less software to carry forward. Even then, it appears that Apple has done some kind of magic to allow older software to work on the new architecture without too much fuss -- I&#x27;m awaiting some benchmarks!<p>(This will hopefully push more of the industry to look at desktop ARM systems)

Lots of comments from people complaining about the lack of 32GB of RAM. Can someone explain to me the need for 32GB of RAM as a developer? Is it the IDE or your particular application area? As for me, I do all my professional development (C++17&#x2F;Linux, Vim, EDA industry) on a five year old T450s with 12GB of RAM. For me the limiting factor is CPU power for sure. I only run out of RAM running some of the larger customer tests for which I have to go to a beefy machine in our network, but that happens rarely.

Eehm. What is the actual difference between the MBA M1 and the MBP 13 M1? (except the latter is thicker?) Checked the compareison and didn‘t find anything substantial...

Optimistically: I suspect the reason they didn&#x27;t upgrade the 16&quot; pro is because of the RAM story. In other words: no 16&quot; w&#x2F; the M1 is an acknowledgment that configurations with 32gb (and hopefully 64gb) of RAM are not ready, and it would be unreasonable to release the highest end MBP without those options available.<p>Hopefully we&#x27;ll see the 13&quot; and 16&quot; MBPs with M1+ and more RAM next Spring.

&gt; M1 delivers up to 3.5x faster CPU, up to 6x faster GPU, up to 15x faster machine learning (ML) capabilities, and battery life up to 2x longer than before<p>If they can release ARM machines that are such degree better, how terrible is Apple software on Intel? Is this due to Apple software engineers? Is there any reason to use Intel for anything?<p>These are serious questions. I find the multipliers very surprising.

The peak of the mac mini was the 2012 Mac Mini Server where you could add an extra HDD and had easy access to the memory. That was the Apple I respected.<p>I&#x27;m not sure I understand why the current Mac Mini&#x27;s needed to be a unibody design, since it just sits on your desk.<p>While I am excited for the M1 chip and the future of ARM, I&#x27;m absolutely disgusted by the price gouging in the name of memory and HDD space.

Any new security implications to having memory shared by everything on the chip?

I&#x27;m already ordering a Thinkpad.

Something I haven’t seen commented on (it could certainly be here, just buried): all these models, in their previous Intel incarnation, only had integrated GPUs. It seems to me that at least one reason for why <i>these particular</i> models were released today is that Apple isn’t quite ready to release models with a discrete GPU (on ARM).

One random thing: one of the photos in the announcement has a Chinese (I think) keyboard layout <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;images&#x2F;product&#x2F;mac&#x2F;standard&#x2F;Apple_new-macbookair-wallpaper-screen_11102020_big.jpg.large_2x.jpg" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;newsroom&#x2F;images&#x2F;product&#x2F;mac&#x2F;standard&#x2F;A...</a><p>matches <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;shop&#x2F;product&#x2F;MLA22LC&#x2F;A&#x2F;magic-keyboard-chinese-pinyin" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.apple.com&#x2F;shop&#x2F;product&#x2F;MLA22LC&#x2F;A&#x2F;magic-keyboard-...</a>

It&#x27;s so weird that the cheaper Air is down a single GPU core - 7 instead of 8

Performance gains are probably welcome aside from the ram limitation, though I was at 16gb anyway. For those mentioning USB ports on the pro, it seems like 4 are available on the highest spec version. I&#x27;m also excited for Big Sur, let&#x27;s hope it isn&#x27;t a catastrophe like Catalina was.<p>Otherwise I&#x27;m disappointed that there wasn&#x27;t a physical design iteration. I was really hoping for <i></i>something<i></i>. MicroLED screen, faster refresh rate, different colours of unibody, smaller bezels, more durable anti-reflective coating, more dent resistance, but nothing AFAICT.

I&#x27;ll be honest, I was really hoping they&#x27;d pull a DeX-like thing out of their pocket at the end of that presentation. &quot;Oh, those iPhones you all have? Especially the new ones with MagSafe chargers? Yeah, plug it into&#x2F;set it on this lapdock&#x2F;stationary dock and it&#x27;s running macOS.&quot;<p>Yeah, I know they&#x27;d never do it. It&#x27;s not their style. But they&#x27;re in the best position to do that well out of any of the major phone manufacturers.<p>In the meantime I&#x27;ll be waiting for some of these Linux phones to mature a little...

This is galling. I bought a new top spec Air earlier in the year to replace the one I&#x27;d owned since 2013. I hate it. The fan comes on about every 30 seconds (doing things on the new machine that were fine on the 2013 one). Literally no at Apple seems to care and I&#x27;m not the only one complaining.<p>It&#x27;s taken then less than 6 months to refresh the entire line? What an absolute kick in the teeth - especially on the back of a machine I really dislike. Super shitty move from Apple.

The performance improvements here are astounding. I can’t even remember when we last saw a 2x improvement in CPU perf, much less 3-5x and with better battery life to boot!

The macmini can be a superior ‘apple tv’ replacement for a TV. It fits nicely, can support USB controllers for emulating SNES&#x2F;MAME&#x2F;etc. supports airdrop etc.

When I was an active software developer, I always had the biggest and beefiest machine possible, plus a MBP for when I was on the move.<p>Now, off in another career field, I&#x27;m really wondering why I would choose a MPB over an iPad Air or Pro. By the time you add a keyboard to the iPad, it kinda feels like the only real difference is whether you want to run Xcode. Other than that, is there really anything you can do on a MBP that you can&#x27;t do on an iPad?

Huh, the Macbook Pro only has the same two thunderbolt&#x2F;USB ports as the Air? (One of which will be in use by a power adapter if you are plugged in, so you really only have one port).<p>I was imagining upgrading to the Pro to get more USB ports, but if that&#x27;s not an option... I can&#x27;t see why I&#x27;d ever pay for a Pro.<p>I like having more than one USB port so I can copy things from one external HD to another. I guess I&#x27;d need a dock for that.

Very interested to see some actual benchmarks...

Just ordered a Mac Mini. It finally has the performance config I can justify. Can&#x27;t wait to take this thing for spin.

I know that this transition will benefit the real apple users, managers, influencers and cool kids. Obviously I will keep and refurbish my 2013 macbook pro for Linux, will run offline Windows for design (thanks to Affinity) and have fun with Logic on some apple device&#x2F;computer. Future computing will be fragmented..

I guess they will also never bring back normal USB-3.1 ports.<p>Guess I will have to keep my $5000 camera plugged into my Ryzen-based PC, it has 6x USB-3.1 ports. Oh and my studio microphone is also &quot;old&quot; usb. And my keyboard&#x2F;mouse. And my phone cable. And my expensive Corsair flashdrive. And my Seagate external hdd. And my memory card reader (I have 7 memory cards for different cameras). I can go on.<p>I&#x27;m not going to daisy-chain stuff. I&#x27;m not going to buy a dock (just another thing on my desk and take up another power socket, and more LED&#x27;s burning nonstop). I&#x27;m not going to buy dongles to convert from one spec to another.<p>And no, I&#x27;m not going to convert everything to wireless. I have 1gbps fibre where I live, with a Asus router&#x2F;modem sitting ontop of my PC, hooked up with 1gbps Ethernet cable. The 5GHz wifi is unstable if you don&#x27;t sit in clear line of sight. I have a USB-3 to Ethernet dongle for my laptops but the fastest one achieves 800mbps and chows about 10% cpu when downloading something. ~2016 MacBook air gets 600mpbs with the same dongle.<p>Apple could&#x27;ve fix their port&#x2F;dongle&#x2F;dock mess this time around but chose not to.

Is the macpro worth the cost? I want to keep 300+ browser tabs opens, 6+ chrome user sessions, and many other programs running. My PC usually gets sluggish after a day of this. I don&#x27;t do graphics design or gaming, but rather need to keep a lot of tabs and sessions open on chrome and to a lesser extent on Firefox.

I bought macbook pro 13 inch 2017 edition but I regret it forever due to its screen issue. Apple asks like 800$ repair for around 1100$ laptop atm. They placed tcon board near heatsink and congratulation if ur cpu gets heated your screen will suddenly stop working.<p>So please buy after checking how much it can be repaired :&#x2F;

Am I the only person here disappointed that they did not announce a new MacBook? MacBook is my favorite form factor: OK for a slow typist like me, big enough screen when I have a large USB-C monitor on my desk, and I especially like the light weight and small size.

What also stood out for me is how few big names they had for companies moving to Apple Silicon. I really did not recognize most of the companies they did highlight.<p>I had been hoping for a web page dedicated to showing all companies on board with products coming or expected in the next year

The new Mac Mini is €50 cheaper than what the previous one was 2 days ago.<p>I&#x27;m positively impressed here.

Apple has been getting trashed lately by developers for how hot and loud their macbooks get. You can tell how much focus they put on cooling in this presentation. The macbook air literally doesn&#x27;t even have a fan!

No FaceID, interesting.<p>I&#x27;ve said this in another thread and thought they might use FaceID as a &quot;Pro&quot; only feature like they do on the iPads but nope, they also released an updated 13&quot; MacBook Pro without FaceID.

By the way, does anyone have info &#x2F; advice on whether to stay away from the very first release of brand new hardware from a buggy point of view? Or manufacturing kinks still being worked out?

When I was a kid I worked with my father building custom cars. We customized a car for the guy who owned a famous brand of liquor. He had a vanity license plate on one of his cars that said something like &quot;3 Stars&quot; on it and I asked him what that stood for. He said it was less expensive brand of the liquor he sold and then he went on to say &quot;it&#x27;s the same as the expensive stuff and if you tell anyone that they&#x27;ll call you a liar, but take it from me, it&#x27;s the same stuff&quot;. And he was right. I did tell people and those who purchased his expensive brand flat out insisted I was wrong.<p>Apple can charge more because they always have and people will buy it because they believe it&#x27;s better.

Quick question - if it&#x27;s so super duper gfx 4X speed .... why still ship the new macbook pro with a radeon mobile chip?<p>It basically means your M1 won&#x27;t get close to a radeon mobile chip...

Can&#x27;t wait for the Rossmann rants about them.

Still only 720p FaceTime cam. Too bad it&#x27;s only TB on one side, and too bad it&#x27;s not a 14&quot; design. Apart form that - excellent!

I&#x27;m surprised the dropped Intel so fast.<p>I would have thought they would have allowed people to buy both ARM and Intel models for a period of time.<p>I guess not.

- 16GB RAM<p>- 1TB SSD<p>- 2.8 GHz Intel Core i7<p>- 2 Thunderbolt<p>- 2 USB B<p>- Headphone jack<p>- MagSafe power<p>- HDMI<p>- SD Card Reader<p>- Physical function keys row<p>MacBook design peaked in 2015.

I hope these new Macs will respect the openness we&#x27;ve had on the PC platform for the past 30 years and allow you to run any operating system you like without being beholden to the manufacturer (like they do on the iPhone). I&#x27;m really worried that Apple is gaining too much power over the platform and they are going to make it difficult (or near impossible) to boot other operating systems (e.g. Linux)

I was hoping for a re-introduction of the 12&quot; Macbook, I guess we&#x27;ll have to wait a little bit longer

How easy is it to replace the keyboard and fans - ie the moving parts that are most likely to break?

If the heat&#x2F;cooling story is here for the Mini, that thing is exactly what I need

My expectation for the #AppleEvent was actually a MacBook Pro without the Touch Bar.

iOS and MacOS are clearly starting to converge here, this current gen of Macs are even able to run iOS apps. I wonder if we&#x27;ll ever see macs with touchscreens, or if iPads will become macs before macs become iPads

This M1 chip is really interesting, but they seem to be hard limited in RAM to 16GB. That will surely limit the interest there is in the initial batch amongst the HN crowd. It makes sense maybe for the MacBook Air, but not that much for the Mac Mini or MacBook Pro 13&quot;.

Will Python, NodeJS, Java support new mbp on Day 1?

Is this the first time they call their laptops &quot;notebooks&quot;?

disappointed with the design refresh or lack thereof. also disappointed with the subpar camera, 8gb ram as base spec. so thanks but i will pass

No multiple displays. Less RAM than an Intel. Lame.

Mac Mini? <i>sigh</i><p>edit: No wait... here comes the pro!

It seems that I will love that hardware and I want to put Linux in it.<p>Is this even possible?<p>Will they have a locked loader?

No 32GB RAM on the 13”

Touchscreen, right?

No touchscreen?

That PC ending was cringe.<p>Silly Apple.

s

Arm based Chromebook with a worse kernel, lack of 32gb is a no go. Trying to squeeze some sales right into the end of the year seems like.

Apple would love to kill laptops because consumers expect them to be general purpose computers. That&#x27;s not really apple&#x27;s business model, though.