Here’s everything Apple announced at the “One More Thing” event today

[OneMoreThing...]

Ready for more Apple news? Because it’s time for more Apple news.

This morning the company hosted its third event in as many months, where they finally detailed how and why they’ll be shifting Macs to chips designed and built by Apple and showed off the first Macs that’ll make the jump. New MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and Mac Mini!

Didn’t have time to catch it live? We get it. We’ve wrapped up everything announced this morning into one quick digest — find it below, and click through the links for more details on any topic that catches your eye.

Apple Silicon for Macs

Image Credits: Apple

Apple has been building its own chips for its iPads, iPhones, and Apple Watches for years. Now they’ll be doing the same for Macs, promising better performance with greater power efficiency.

Apple calls its first Mac chip the “M1”. Some of the specs they shared:

• 8-core CPU (4 high performance, 4 high efficiency)
• Up to 8-core GPU
• 16 billion transistors
• Apple’s Secure Enclave system built in
• Thunderbolt/USB 4 support

iOS Apps on Mac

As Apple touched upon back in June at WWDC, iOS apps will now be able to run on the Mac. Apple showed the HBO Max and Among Us iOS apps running in macOS as examples.

New MacBook Air

The first M1-powered Mac Apple announced was the new, fanless (!) MacBook Air.

Apple says the new MacBook Air is up to 3.5x faster than the previous generation and, thanks to the absence of any fans, runs fully silent. They’re promising up to 15 hours of battery life while browsing the web, or 18 hours while watching video. It’s got a 13.3″ display, SSD support up to 2TB, Touch ID, Thunderbolt/USB 4, WiFi 6. It’ll start at $999, or $899 for education customers.

New Mac Mini

The Mac Mini is also getting overhauled for the M1, and its base price is dropping $100 down to $699. It’ll support up to 2TB SSD and up to 16GB of memory. Port-wise, it’s got two USB-A ports, two USB-C ports (with Thunderbolt/USB 4 support), a 3.5mm headphone jack, HDMI 2.0, and gigabit ethernet.

New MacBook Pro

Next up: the MacBook Pro. Apple says the M1 chip bumps the MacBook Pro’s battery life up to 17 hours while browsing the web, or 20 hours of video playback. Like the Air, it’s got a 13.3″ display, and support SSDs up to 2TB and up to 16GB of memory. Its got TouchID, WiFi 6, support for Thunderbolt/USB4, and, perhaps to the disappointment of some, a TouchBar. It’ll start at $1299, or $1199 for education users.

Big Sur Coming Soon

The next major update to macOS — version 11.0, otherwise known as Big Sur — was first announced back in June at WWDC. Apple now says that it’ll ship this Thursday, November 12th.

Click here to view the article... (bad link removed)

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I hadn’t intended to be a first-gen buyer, but as it turns out I’m going to be needing a new MBA. I’m going to hold out for early reviews (and better yet, a deal on an open-box from Best Buy when available ?), but being fan-less and more battery efficient will make it hard to consider the outgoing 2020 model as the alternative.

 

[chscag]

Are you sure you want to take a chance on a first generation machine that so far is untested?

 

[krs]

I was initially a bit excited to see a Mini as part of the initial line-up, but that quickly changed to disappointment.
Only up to 16GB of RAM? That's what I have now in my old 2012 Mini.
Doesn't seem to be adequate moving forward.
I also have more ports plus a very handy SD card slot and a separate mike input.

I will have to bite the bullet eventually to replace the Mini, but it won't be in 2020

 

[chscag]

It's not just the Mini that's limited to 16GB of memory, it's also the MacBook Air. And.. I suspect that the memory is soldered rather than removable as it is now in the current Mini.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Are you sure you want to take a chance on a first generation machine that so far is untested?

I’d rather not, but I’m going to be in the market for one far sooner than expected and for what it brings to the plate, and given my relatively light needs in a laptop, I may as well. Pending what the reviews have to say, of course.Just think of me as the official Forum Guinea Pig. ?

 

[pm-r]

Thanks for the nice brief summary of the Apple "Just one more thing" spiel...


- Patrick
=======

 

[krs]

It's not just the Mini that's limited to 16GB of memory, it's also the MacBook Air. And.. I suspect that the memory is soldered rather than removable as it is now in the current Mini.

When I read the specs on the Apple site, it sounds as if the memory is actually part of the M1 chip.
That could explain why there is only an 8GB and 16GB option and why even the MacBook pro is limited to 16GB with the M1 chip.
The MBp with the Intel chip can be configured up to 32GB of RAM.
RAM takes up a lot of silicon real estate - I assume 16GB was all that would fit on the M1 chip, at least for this go around.

For a portable, the M1 chip brings a lot of benefits

 

[chscag]

I have a feeling that the memory limitation is going to turn some folks off. My iMac only has 16GB of memory installed but I can always increase that if I wish. (max is 64GB)

For me, the 16GB would be enough but there are a lot of folks who may need more.

 

[pm-r]

For me, the 16GB would be enough but there are a lot of folks who may need more.

I would suspect that even if the new Apple chip and OS uses memory much more efficiently, there is going to be the old general hang-on consensus that more memory is better and often necessary.

Actual usage may show a completely different scenario and performance.


- Patrick
=======

 

[krs]

The problem with the 16GB RAM limit that I see is that many people tend to keep their Macs a fairly long time, mine is now 8 years old and perfectly fine for my needs, and the question is: Is 16GB still adequate in 2028?
If I look back, there were Macs in 2012 and even later with 4GB of RAM soldered, ie not upgradable. I think those would struggle today with only that much RAM - lots of memory swapping.
I personally would feel much more comfortable with 32GB of RAM on a new Mac going forward.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Trigger pulled. Those early reviews are just overwhelmingly positive. I went with the base MacBook Air model and will pick it up this afternoon. I'll spend the evening in my spare time migrating my data over and giving it a whirl.

 

[pm-r]

The problem with the 16GB RAM limit that I see is that many people tend to keep their Macs a fairly long time,...

I think you will also find that users change their habits of use and do more and keep more applications running than they used to, and also do things that force the OS to use more memory even though Apple has made the OS much more efficient in its memory use.

But it is certainly is nice to have adequate memory installed for one's normal usage. I would think that 16GB RAM with a recent Mac OS version would be quite adequate for most users. Heavy use graphic/video users would probably be an exception.


- Patrick
=======

 

[chscag]

Trigger pulled. Those early reviews are just overwhelmingly positive. I went with the base MacBook Air model and will pick it up this afternoon. I'll spend the evening in my spare time migrating my data over and giving it a whirl.

When you and the new machine get settled in, please post a review in your spare time.

Thanks.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

When you and the new machine get settled in, please post a review in your spare time.

Still checking it out, but the experience is incredibly seamless. If I didn't know I was on the new M1 MacBook Air, I wouldn't KNOW that I was. I'm doing just great with 8 GB of RAM. While idle, and with a handful of tools like 1Password and AdGuard that load on startup but stay in the background otherwise, I have just under 5 GB of memory used with Safari the only app with an open window (well, that and Activity Monitor). And none of these apps that load on startup are universal binaries... they are all Intel-only. And they are working FLAWLESSLY! Even a small handful of games I have here that are Intel binaries... they run fine. Cuphead is probably the most resource-intensive one I have tried. I actually had to copy it back from my iMac because I stopped playing it on my 2019 MBA due to fan noise. Well, there is no fan on this new MBA, so that will never be a problem, but the limited amount of playing I did was buttery smooth. And I was still using less than 6 GB of RAM altogether with this running. I'll have to play it some more later to see how it holds up over, say, 20 minutes. But yeah.... believe the hype, folks, believe it.

 

[chscag]

Sounds good so far. Keep us informed as you go along.

Thanks.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

I tried one iPad game, Galcon 2, and it worked fine. The Mac version I had was never updated to 64-bit, so it's nice to see the iOS version works here. My only quibble so far is that I couldn't opt to go full screen with it. It would only run in a window, and I could only switch between a portrait and landscape oriented window at that.

I tried playing an older Windows game that previously was working just fine even in Catalina using Wineskin. It launched, but was very sluggish. I'm not sure if WINE just needs to be updated to improve on the performance hit I saw, or if the architecture change is going to be a limiting factor. I know Crossover from Codeweavers is ready for Apple Silicon, but I don't know if they are seeing a similar performance hit. Their blog suggests it will be better in Big Sur 11.1.

I tried running VMware Fusion for laughs. The app launched fine, but couldn't run the Windows VM due to the architecture change, as expected.

 

[chscag]

Check out the latest post over in the "Running Windows......" forum. I just posted it a few minutes ago. It's about the blog from Codeweavers.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

Check out the latest post over in the "Running Windows......" forum. I just posted it a few minutes ago. It's about the blog from Codeweavers.

Yeah, I had read a few weeks ago that they expected to be ready to go for Apple Silicon. If the huge performance drain I saw really was just a bug under Rosetta 2 and Big Sur 11.1 addresses that, this will be a big deal, at least for people who have limited needs for Windows apps that work fine under WINE/Crossover.

I played Cuphead for a good 20+ minutes last night and it was buttery smooth the whole time. No stuttering or performance issues of any kind that I could see. I did have issues with two games: Machinarium Collector's Edition and Pro Pinball (the remastered edition). Both of these may be problematic under Big Sur regardless of platform though. Pro Pinball has been neglected by the developers since shortly after release and was already buggy in the launch UI under Catalina, and Machinarium just gives me a white screen. That's another game with a history in past editions of bugginess.

I almost forgot about the battery life. I'm only spitballing here, but I must be seeing about 50% more life out of this versus my 2019 MacBook Air. By no means have I done a one-to-one comparison, but I can say absolutely that the battery life is much better.

I gotta say, unless one has a need to dual-boot Windows or use Windows in a VM, or otherwise has macOS apps that won't run under Big Sur, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to recommend going with Apple Silicon over the Intel counterparts. For myself, while I did use Windows in a VM from time to time, I can just use it as needed on my iMac for now. In the near future there will be solutions to run Windows in an emulated environment and heck, maybe even Microsoft will release an ARM-version of Windows that can run natively on these Macs. They apparently can't now due to some licensing agreement with Qualcomm, but that may well change one day.

 

[chscag]

I gotta say, unless one has a need to dual-boot Windows or use Windows in a VM, or otherwise has macOS apps that won't run under Big Sur, I wouldn't hesitate for a moment to recommend going with Apple Silicon over the Intel counterparts.

It certainly appears that Apple has struck another gold mine with these new M1 machines. Yours is not the only good review of what the new architecture can do. Lots of glowing reviews over in MacRumors.

I do not need a portable Mac or I would certainly give thought to buying one of the new M1 Macs. I'm going to hang on and see what Apple comes up with when they bring out an iMac powered by the new M1 or M2. Like you, I will hang on to my Intel iMac for running Windows apps or whatever won't run on the new chips.