It's been a while since I felt like a wanted a Macintosh.
Maybe that's changed now with the Apple M1, it makes it look like Apple might change their focus back to performance at good prices.
I ordered the Macbook Pro 13" M1 16GB / 2TB to arrive here at the earliest on the 27th.
I need to make my audio apps and the rest of my daily use software work on MacOSX, essentially migrate everything over so I could replace my Windows PC in everyday use.
The M1 ships with MacOS 11(!) Big Sur, and I'll re-enable my Apple Store and personal developer status - and at least download the Xcode stack and all the tools I can find for recompiling from source that which has not yet been ported.
I'm watching several projects to see when their Beta is coming out like Parallels Desktop for Mac M1 Beta - so I can run Windows stuff that I can't get on MacOSX. Same for Mathematica, FCPx, Adobe Photoshop, etc.
So, did anyone else order one of the new M1's?
It will work. Just professionals will need to wait before their favorite programs become compatible and longer for optimization.
But for most people just using the Microsoft Suite, it will be perfect with long battery life.
The AMD Ryzen 5 at 15watts isn't much worse than the M1 10watts for those only using Microsoft Suite programs and students.
The real battery drain on a year 2020 non-gaming laptop is not the 10watt m1 or 15watt Ryzen 5, but it is the display.
Depending on your display technology and display brightness it can draw 60watts to more at max brightness.
The real upgrades for non-art and graphics professional users are Apple and Samsung (Book Flex model) using mini-LED/QLED displays that draw less power than a traditional LCD screen while still being bright.
The battery life is another big win for sure and given the high efficiency and cool running for most work the MBP 13" fan should stay off. I was watching an "amateur" Live test of the Air / MBP M1's - Mini in the wings waiting to get unwrapped - and the M1's are making a good showing with everything thrown at them including the fan in the MBP staying off for the most part.
The MBP is putting out better all core numbers, and for sustained work that should help with builds - that's why I got the MBP over the Air, for the fan to kick in during sustained workloads.
With the following configuration:
Apple M1 chip with 8‑core CPU, 8‑core GPU, and 16‑core Neural Engine
GRAPHICS 065-C96Q 8-core GPU
16GB unified memory
2TB SSD storage
13-inch Retina display with True Tone
Two Thunderbolt / USB 4 ports
Touch Bar and Touch ID
PRO APPS 065-C171 NONE
SW LOGIC PRO X 065-C172 NONE
Backlit Magic Keyboard - US English
Accessory Kit
Fedex keeps adjusting the delivery date - it's been that way during the pandemic - but usually the delivery date ends up being days earlier than originally expected
I've ordered a USB-C HyperDrive GEN2 6 port - with 4k HDMI 2.0 + UHS-II SDXC / microSDXC + USB PD 100w pass-through charging, the only thing it doesn't have is ethernet - but this is the smallest of the 3 Gen2 docks for portable use and later Android Phone / Tablet use.
The 3.5mm audio jack will come in use with the phone/tablet later.
I'm eyeing the HyperDrive GEN2 18 port for the 2 extra Audio ports - COAX SPDIF and Optical SPIDIF. But, I can't find any specs on the bit depth or sample rates supported, but I'm assuming 16 / 192, maybe 24/192, I'd even go for 16/96
2 x HDMI 4K60Hz HDR
DisplayPort 4K60Hz
2 x USB-A 10Gbps
2 x USB-A 2.0
USB-C PD 100W
Gigabit Ethernet
MicroSD UHS-II 300MB/s
SD UHS-II 300MB/s
3.5mm Audio Jack
They have Black Friday specials today, I also picked up a neat little add-on for the Apple 61w power dongle that passes through the power port and breaks out 2 USB-A ports, normally $39 for $9.99:
My M1 MPB has been so awesome.
Fan has never turned on.
Battery life close to 20hours with light/normal usage.
Been listening to music on it mainly. RIP my DAP.
These new Macbooks are amazing and I would have already purchased one if the SSD wasn't soldered to the system board. So ridiculous. Matter of fact all the system components are soldered to the system board. Better get that extended warranty because any sort of hardware failure will need the entire system board to be replaced. Which will cost well over $1000 even for the 256GB SSD integrated system board.
Also the battery is glued to the top case.....Apple REALLY hates people opening up their hardware...
These new Macbooks are amazing and I would have already purchased one if the SSD wasn't soldered to the system board. So ridiculous. Matter of fact all the system components are soldered to the system board. Better get that extended warranty because any sort of hardware failure will need the entire system board to be replaced. Which will cost well over $1000 even for the 256GB SSD integrated system board.
Also the battery is glued to the top case.....Apple REALLY hates people opening up their hardware...
The memory is on the M1 SoC, no one is "upgrading" memory it's a whole different M1 SoC for the 8GB model and 16GB model, there is no memory external to the M1 SOC, here is a 16GB M1 SoC, with the 2 8GB memory chips to the right of the M1 CPU:
An entire system. On a single chip.
"Until now, a Mac needed multiple chips to deliver all of its features — including the processor, I/O, security, and memory. With M1, these technologies are combined into a single system on a chip (SoC), delivering a new level of integration for more simplicity, more efficiency, and amazing performance. And with incredibly small transistors measured at an atomic scale, M1 is remarkably complex — packing the largest number of transistors we’ve ever put into a single chip. It’s also the first personal computer chip built using industry‑leading 5‑nanometer process technology."
I haven't seen the internals of a Macbook Pro M1 yet, so I can't identify the 2TB PCIE4 SSD format - maybe a 22110 without a socket? Knowing I can't upgrade it I customized the order to 2TB / 16GB.
It's all covered under AppleCare too, as with everything else as it's all Apple built, so all the upgrades are covered by AppleCare too
That's what some people forget when they DIY their own upgrades and they have a problem with the computer. When they have to restore the computer to the stock components to RMA it. A lot of people forget this and sell the original parts to help defer the costs, but then what do they do when the computer needs servicing with non-vendor parts in it?
The other nice thing is the Apple resale value on 100% Apple upgrades is much better than trying to recoup the cost of self-added DIY parts - some buyers won't even deal with a mix of Apple and non-Apple parts - they'll want you to pull them out and replace them with stock Apple parts so they can continue AppleCare.
My M1 MPB has been so awesome.
Fan has never turned on.
Battery life close to 20hours with light/normal usage.
Been listening to music on it mainly. RIP my DAP.
I've only just begun myself, but I have brought up my Apple library through AppleTV and hooked up a Hidizs s9 and watched a movie listening with my Beyerdynamic DT 880 600 ohm, sounds great! The Macbook Pro 3.5mm port was 100% maxed out, but usable with the DT 880 600 ohm. I've got some 2.5mm cabled IEM's set up for mobile use - I'm gonna try them out later.
I'm about to hook up the FiiO M15 next... then later the Topping D90 MQA / A90. Eventually, I'll get a TB3 Dock with Toslink / Coax to compare to USB.
For now, I am going slow. I bought the 16GB Upgrade to allow room to run Linux / Windows VM's, and it looks like someone is already running ARM Windows 10 in a VM:
I've since heard that Big Sur 11.1 (Update: Production / Consumer release, not Beta releases of 11.1) is supposed to patch this problem to fix the built-in MacOS Recovery partition/recovery utilities, unknown ETA.
Public Service Announcement!! - Don't use Apple's built-in MacOS Recovery to erase your hard drive and restore a fresh Big Sur install from the onboard MacOS Recovery partition!!
With the original Big Sur 11.0 MacOS installed out of the box the MacOS Recovery won't reinstall successfully.
To recover from a "bricked Mac" I followed Apple HT211983 and opened Terminal to recreate the mounted Volumes, download the Big Sur 11.01 installer, download the Big Sur 11.0.1 image, and then run the Big Sur 11.01 Installer from Terminal. It wasn't all that bad - it took about an hour overall.
That error message at around 50 minutes through the initial MacOS Recovery was not a "nice" surprise.
If you get a personalization error when reinstalling macOS on your Mac with Apple M1 chip
While reinstalling, you may get a message that an error occurred while preparing the update. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211983
"If you erased your Mac with Apple M1 chip, you might be unable to reinstall macOS from macOS Recovery. A message might say "An error occurred while preparing the update. Failed to personalize the software update. Please try again."
Use either of these solutions to reinstall macOS."
Or follow these steps
This procedure can take a while to perform. Before you start, make sure that you have plenty of time to complete the steps. Prepare your Mac
Turn on your Mac and continue to press and hold the power button until you see the startup options window. Select Options, then click Continue.
When you're asked to select a user you know the password for, select the user, click Next, then enter their administrator password.
When you see the utilities window (shown here), choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
Type resetpassword in Terminal, then press Return.
Click the Reset Password window to bring it to the front, then choose Recovery Assistant > Erase Mac from the menu bar.
Click Erase Mac in the window that opens, then click Erase Mac again to confirm. When done, your Mac restarts automatically.
Choose your language when prompted during startup.
If you see an alert that the version of macOS on the selected disk needs to be reinstalled, click macOS Utilities.
Your Mac will begin activating, which requires an internet connection. When your Mac is activated, click Exit to Recovery Utilities.
Perform steps 3 through 9 once more, then continue to the next section, below.
Then use one of these methods to reinstall macOS
Use any of the following methods to reinstall macOS. Use the Reinstall macOS Big Sur utility
If your Mac was using macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 before you erased it, select Reinstall macOS Big Sur in the utilities window, then follow the onscreen instructions. Or use a bootable installer
If you have another Mac and a suitable external flash drive or other storage device that you don't mind erasing, you can create and use a bootable installer for macOS Big Sur. Or use Terminal to reinstall
If neither of the above methods applies to your situation, or if you don't know which version of macOS Big Sur your Mac has, follow these steps:
Select Safari in the utilities window in macOS Recovery, then click Continue.
Select this block of text and copy it to the clipboard: cd '/Volumes/Untitled'
mkdir -p private/tmp
cp -R '/Install macOS Big Sur.app' private/tmp
cd 'private/tmp/Install macOS Big Sur.app'
mkdir Contents/SharedSupport
curl -L -o Contents/SharedSupport/SharedSupport.dmg http://swcdn.apple.com/content/down...yl7dh6cbuokn9deyfgsiqysn/InstallAssistant.pkg
Bring Recovery to the front by clicking outside of the Safari window.
Choose Utilities > Terminal from the menu bar.
Paste the block of text you copied in the previous step, then press Return.
Your Mac now begins downloading macOS Big Sur. When done, type this command and press Return:
./Contents/MacOS/InstallAssistant_springboard
The macOS Big Sur installer opens. Follow the onscreen instructions to reinstall macOS.
The nice side effect of re-installing from scratch from that downloaded image is that I have more space than with the out of the box install - no cruft - plus I had initially done a migration tool install from Windows - but none of the benefits I expected from a Windows to MacOS migration happened so I would rather get the space back.
Which was why I was erasing the volumes and reinstalling MacOS Big Sur in the first place - plus it's always good to test your recovery partition for success before getting into a position that requires it to work, and it doesn't, like now.
Here are a couple of youtube videos (not done by me) about this problem:
Besides that "little" glitch I've really been enjoying using the new M1. It's really much faster than the last Macbook 17" I owned long ago. And, although I've gotten it "warm" to the touch its not at all "hot" like previous Mac's I've used for work - after Apple stopped making the Macbook 17" I stopped buying Mac's.
It's nice to be exploring the M1 performance: my 2TB disk is hitting 3042kb Write and 2758 Read using Blackmagic Disk Speed Test.
I tried an HDMI = USB-C cable I use for Samsung Dex but the Mac kept dropping the connection. The cable works fine for the SS20 Ultra and S6 Tablet.
The HyperDrive 6 port hub is on it's way - Friday delivery, and HyperDrive 18-port Hub is ordered + it also has an optional 180w PS, and HyperDrive have yesterday released a new hub that is an 8K capable 16 port, so I am still weighing options - let's see how the 6-port / 18 port work first.
Was that the Big Sur 11.1 Beta 2 you tried? I don't think the release is due for a while. Apple probably still needs to fix the MacOS Recovery in 11.1 before the full production / consumer release.
Thanks for the heads up on the 11.1 Beta 2, good to know the 11.1 Beta 2 doesn't fix the MacOS Recovery problem, I might have tried that too.
The Macbook Pro M1 runs cool enough I'm happy I got a protective shell case to take the chill off of the bare aluminum. To my eye's the "Pink" one looks much closer to "Tan"... nice and warm on the skin and has a "wool" texture that keeps the "slippery" Macbook Pro M1 from sliding around:
And, I got a simple Incase jacket in "Brown" that looks "Purple-Red" to me in lower lighting, for further protection while carrying around the Macbook Pro M1:
BTW, the Uni USB-C to HDMI cable that works so well for DEX with Samsung phone/tablet isn't working with the Macbook Pro M1, it never lights up the monitor - on the Mac Display Settings the Arrange Monitors pops in and out and never settles down, I rechecked the Amazon listing which says it works with the 2020 Macbook Pro, so IDK what's up with that:
And, I decided on getting the Hyperdrive Thunderbolt 3 16 port hub as I was concerned the Hyperdrive 18 port USB-C hub wouldn't have enough bandwidth over USB-C (10gbit/sec) vs Thunderbolt 3 (40gbit/sec) when I was doing peak work transfers while listening to Music with a USB DAC and a DAC driven by the Optical out + Gigabit ethernet + uploading photos off the Sony 300MB/sec UHS-II cards + USB 10gbit external drive(s) + keyboard / mouse:
Hopefully, the 16 port+180w power supply (included with the 16-port) will be here next week, while the Hyperdrive 6 port USB-C Hub for simple/portable use is supposed to be here today. I'll set up to run an external Monitor via the 6-port, and get the FiiO M15 / Topping D90 connected via Optical out of the TB3 16-port Hub.
Update - 6-port arriving Tuesday via Fedex, 16-port arrival date pending.
I ordered this 2m TB3 40Gbit active cable from Adorama, at a great price of $65!:
I need to find a nice Toslink optical, digital coax, and 3.5mm audio cables for output from the TB3 hub next...and a 3.5 to RCA from the M15 to the A90 too.
And a wireless keyboard/trackpad (probably another Logitech K400r) to replace the full-sized Apple keyboard/mouse I'm using.
Am I forgetting anything? Any suggestions for interesting digital audio software? What is everyone else using?
Interesting tidbit, the new 2 port Thunderbolt Macbook's actually have the same number of Thunderbolt controllers as the 4 port Thunderbolt Macbook's.
The new M1 Mac's have the same Thunderbolt bandwidth, but provide 2 fewer ports, and the new Thunderbolt ports implement a Hub protocol that allows external port expansion.
OWC is coming out with a new Thunderbolt Hub this month, and they have an article talking about what Apple did to maintain the expansion capabilities while keeping the port count down on the Macbook body:
Fedex says the 6-port hub is being delivered today tomorrow... the 16-port hasn't shipped. The Adorama TB3 cable still not shipped - no ETA. The 2 slot stand and HDMI switch arrived yesterday.
A quick note about the Hyperdrvie 6-port 3.5mm audio port output. It sounds surprisingly good and drives my Beyerdynamic DT990 / DT880 600 ohm headphones to listening level - at Macintosh maximum volume - it sounds better - wider sound stage and with more dynamics than the native Macintosh Pro M1 port.
Then I tried my first MacOS native sound shaping / volume boost software and I am really happy with the results. I'm sure there are other such tools out there, this was my first find:
For movies the volume boost, 3D effect, and Bass Boost work great, they really make the sound stand out and fill the Beyerdynamic headphones with great sound presence and Bass. I will have more to say about it later, but does anyone have any comments about it or suggestions for other options?
I'm still setting up, so I haven't installed Tidal, Amazon HD Music, Spotify, or any audio software yet.
Later today the 16-port hub is supposed to arrive, and I'm going to focus on the 16-port Thunderbolt hub and the DisplayPort hookup from it.
The 6-port HDMI works fine, but there is a Macintosh Pro M1 limitation I've not seen before - remember it's been a long time since I have had a Macbook.
The Macbook Pro M1 won't support a 2m HDMI connection. First I tried a separate 2m USB-C to HDMI cable that works fine with my Samsung S20 Ultra and Samsung S6 Tablet, but the Macbook Pro M1 won't sync - it keeps losing sync with the monitor and the monitor never shows anything on the screen.
Then I tried a 2m HDMI-HDMI cable to the 6-port dock and the same no-sync problem with my monitor.
Finally, I tried a 1m HDMI-HDMI cable connected to the Hyperdrive 6-port dock and the monitor works fine. The Arrangement of the Displays and MacOS Menu bar work as expected. The color saturation, contrast, brightness, and picture sharpness are great as good as or better than the PC's 2070 Super DisplayPort output.
The only thing I haven't solved that I need to solve is the operation of the Macbook while closed so I can place the Macbook Pro M1 in the vertical dock in use. I've tried Amphetamineand that isn't keeping the Macbook Pro M1 running with the cover closed...
Does anyone have a good solution for running a Macbook Pro M1 with the lid closed?
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