On November 10, 2020 Apple announced new small MacBooks and a Mac Mini based on Apple Silicon M1, an Apple designed ARM system on a chip similar to those in iPad and iPhone but tweaked for larger computers. So what’s different and how should it affect your purchase plans?
Anyone spending time on YouTube and various fan sites has noticed the vast amount of click bait on the subject of the new M1 Macs. Most of it is some version of the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt video). We are trying hard not to add to it or to get out over our skis here at Dismal Manor.
Apple has done something great. It will get greater as software shops revise their products to best use the new hardware and Mac OS Big Sur. Present Day Production advises continuing with your current computational environment until your software suppliers have sorted their products for the new OS and hardware. But the M1 Mini and Big Sur are working well enough to purchase and begin exploration and migration planning. What they are finding is that the core product works but individual audio or video plugins may be fussy. Fussy is not good for shop margins or delivery commitments so they are holding short of the runway until their suppliers say they’re good to go on the M1.
Apple released its most popular computers first, the individual laptops and the workhorse Mac Mini. They held off on iMac, the larger MacBooks targeted to knowledge workers, and the custom machines used in the graphic arts and software development in the large.
These machines look familiar on the outside but are completely different inside. The processor architecture is different, the graphics subsystem architecture is different, and the memory is on the processor die. So why upset the world like this? The Cold Fusion video introduces the core ideas underlying the Apple Silicon product line.