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The Mac Pro’s biggest problem is the MacBook

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 27 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Apple’s latest Mac Pro targets professionals with highly demanding computing workloads. But we talked to those professionals, and they don’t want it — because Apple’s other computers are just too good.

Apple’s latest Mac Pro was finally revealed at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference as a machine for the most power user of power users. The video discussed audio engineering, color grading, and video transcoding. Apple’s product page mentions code compiling, animation, compositing 8K scenes, 3D rendering, and “analyzing enormous datasets.” This isn’t just for pros, Apple seems to claim; it’s for capital-P Pros.

Exactly who these pros are and why the Mac Pro is the perfect device for them remains somewhat unclear to me, even after testing the new machine for a few days and speaking to various professionals that Apple is ostensibly targeting. That’s in part because Apple, on the same day it announced the Mac Pro, also announced a smaller, M2 Ultra Mac Studio with the exact same RAM, storage, and processor options. The former, nevertheless, costs at least $3,000 more and carries a towering starting price of $6,999.

I wanted to know whether Apple’s purported target demographic — people who spend their days animating, making visual effects, and doing various other tasks generally associated with big, powerful computers — were actually interested in purchasing this machine. So I asked a bunch of them, and the answer, basically across the board, was no. Not because the Mac Pro is bad but because Apple’s other computers, namely its laptops, have just gotten too good.

Zach Passero, who does editing, animation, and visual effects for films, has been a diehard Mac Pro user for over a decade. “I’m still a big champion of the old trash can,” he says, referring to the oft-maligned 2013 design. He was skeptical when the M1 Max chip was announced — he’d never envisioned that a laptop could handle his heavy workload. But he gave the 16-inch MacBook Pro a shot and was surprised — and a little bit sad — to find that it felt just as fast as his older desktop. “Video editing, even doing effects, compositing, animating — it has been a smooth and fluid process,” he says. “I’m like, ‘This might actually suffice for a while.’”

Passero still loves the Mac Pro, but he can’t justify buying the latest one when his laptop is so good. “There’s something about my experience using the M1 chip where I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I need the full Mac Pro,’” he says, with some disappointment in his voice.

Vikram Bodicherla, a staff privacy engineer at WhatsApp, previously owned two Intel-based Mac Pro models — one for home and one for work. The minute the M1 Max came out, he jettisoned both of them. Like Passero, Bodicherla now spends his day — he works on mobile apps for Android and iOS, as well as “server-side stuff” — on a MacBook Pro with the M1 Max. He can build much faster. He hasn’t even considered buying Apple’s new desktop. “I don’t really need any other computer,” he says.

Kevin Ford, who shoots and edits documentaries, has been using the Mac Pro for years. He’s owned both the tower models and the trash can. But he switched to the latest 16-inch MacBook Pro with the M2 Max a few weeks ago, and he’s not looking back — it can do everything he needs. He can cut 4K and 6K footage. He can color correct. He can even create graphics and titles. As a bonus, he can now do it all on the road; the last project he cut, which is now on Netflix, was done entirely in hotel rooms and airplanes.

“I’m very practical when I’m looking at a piece of equipment — what will allow me to do what I need to do for the best cost?” Ford says. “If the cheese grater was priced at a certain point, would that have been more attractive to me? Possibly.” But, he adds, his new MacBook is “working very well.”

We tested our machine with a Pro Display XDR.

But it’s not just that the MacBook has gotten better with the release of Apple’s M-series chips. The Mac Pro, with the release of the Mac Studio, has also gotten significantly more confusing.

The Pro I received to test vastly outperforms Intel models from 2019 — even those with Apple’s fancy Afterburner card that cost thousands of dollars more. But it’s a step backward from those other models in another way: modularity.

The 2019 Mac Pro was endlessly configurable, and ports could be swapped out and upgraded as users needed. Much has changed. Spec choice is now more limited (there are only two processor options, for example, and memory is now capped at 192GB where previously up to 1.5TB was available). The 2023 Mac Pro’s memory is not upgradeable after purchase for the first time in the model’s history.

And now, of course, the Mac Studio is here. And while the Pro delivers impressive performance, you can now get that same performance in a less expensive and much more compact chassis.

I had similarly specced models of the Pro and the Studio on hand to test. Both included Apple’s 24-core M2 Ultra processor with 76 GPU cores, as well as 128GB of unified memory. While the two look quite different, and the Mac Pro has a couple extra ports, I can confirm that their performance is close to the same.

It’s much bigger than the Studio, but the numbers are not far apart.

The primary advantage that the Mac Pro can claim over the Studio is the fact that the former has PCIe expansion slots — six full-length PCIe Gen 4 slots, specifically, as well as a half-length Gen 3. These, in theory, allow for some degree of modularity, where a user could slot in additional storage, IO, or other peripherals.

Except: that doesn’t include external GPUs, which mitigates the utility of these slots for graphic use cases significantly. The Mac hasn’t supported Nvidia cards for quite some time, and Apple’s own silicon doesn’t support AMD’s GPUs, either. Further muddling this matter is the fact that most PCI-E cards can now be used with Thunderbolt via an external enclosure — you specifically need to require the PCI-E 4 x16 speeds in order to gain a tangible benefit from those extra thousands of dollars.

The slots, with those caveats, didn’t blow anyone I spoke to out of the water. “Would it be nice to have? Yeah, totally… if it wasn’t a machine that started at $7,000,” said Evan Stone, a senior iOS engineer at the software development agency MartianCraft. (Stone also works on the MacBook Pro with M1 Max, and he’s a fan; he has one for work and another at home.)

Passero used to be a huge fan of the Mac Pro’s expandability, but his new MacBook performs so well that he doesn’t feel the need to add anything extra. “The new silicon chips and these built-in GPUs that they have, and the neural networks, I’m finding that most of my needs are met,” he says. “I’m like, ‘Do I just settle in and see how this goes?’”

Sadly, no SD slot..

The lack of support for external GPUs makes the feature particularly confounding for graphic professionals. “GPU support, that’s what we mostly use PCIe for,” said Tom Lindén, who runs a 3D animation agency. Other than a capture card, he says, “there are not that many expansion cards that would be useful.”

The only aspect of the Pro that Lindén finds particularly compelling for his studio is its double ethernet port. “We’re simulating huge simulations, so fast networking is really important,” Lindén says. “I don’t know how much we’d be able to utilize two slots — like if that would help the speed.” He thinks for a moment. “I guess it could, probably.”

Emilio Guarino, a music producer and engineer, thinks that feature is mostly useful for “edge case kind of scenarios” in his field. “If you’re doing game development, I’ve seen session files where the track count is like two or three thousand. You might need the added expansion for that,” he says. “But if I’m just doing commissions or just building virtual instruments and samples… I would probably just get the Mac Studio and be done.”

What about additional storage? People mostly shrugged. “I’ve never really hit that limit, and I have a very large chunk of the company’s code base on my computer,” WhatsApp’s Bodicherla says — companies as large as his, he explains, generally have processes in place that mean their engineers don’t need to hold unreasonable amounts of data on their personal machines. “If you’re doing a huge ML model, it might make sense to download everything. But even then, I feel like for running that one odd job, you could always go to, like, a server cluster,” he muses.

“I can’t justify paying double for a machine that has a couple of slots,” said Danny Nathan, founder and CEO of the product design and venture studio Apollo 21.

In general, the attitude among the professionals I spoke to was not skepticism so much as confusion.

“I don’t know why they made two different products,” said Vyacheslav Drofa, a UX director at Alty, which engineers mobile applications for banks, as he looked bemusedly at the Studio’s and Pro’s identical spec sheets.

“The offering across the board from Apple has gotten so powerful that, frankly, the Mac Pro feels a little unnecessary,” echoes Nathan, who has owned a number of Mac Pros throughout his career but is now very happy with his 14-inch MacBook. “I think we all appreciate it for what it is and what it demonstrates, but at no point has anyone said to me, ‘So when are we getting an office load of these?’”

Here’s where the ports live.

Many people across industries, who were confident that the Mac Pro wasn’t a good investment for them, spitballed about who it might be ideal for but weren’t exactly sure. Maybe architects need it, Stone suggested. “Really, really tough machine learning tasks,” posited Serhii Popov, a software engineer at Setapp. 3D rendering, Guarino proposed, but only if you’re doing a lot of it. DevOps, others said. But there was one use case that pretty much everyone suspected might tangibly benefit from the Mac Pro and its plethora of slots: VFX.

David Lebensfeld, founder and VFX supervisor at Ingenuity Studios, was dubious. “That doesn’t seem like something a VFX studio would use,” he said after I described the product. Nobody on Lebensfeld’s team has expressed interest in the Mac Pro — there has been “zero chatter” about the product, he says.

Lebensfeld’s company is all in on Windows and Linux, and that’s common for studios of Ingenuity’s size. Switching over to the Mac Pro, given its price point, would just be impractical. Lebensfeld gets better value out of Windows PCs, which support the latest GPUs from Nvidia and can be equipped with the exact parts and specs that each team needs. When a part breaks, they can grab another one off the shelf.

In fact, some of the VFX and animation professionals I contacted for this story declined to be interviewed because they simply don’t know much about Macs — they just aren’t widely used in that industry at this point. The reality is that these types of studios need to keep their hardware functional and up to date. Replacing a full Mac Pro system — let alone a fleet of them — regularly would be an absurd cost.

Lebensfeld speculated that the Mac Pro might be better for small businesses and independent artists who work with heavy graphics. But Lindén’s smaller studio is also fully a Windows shop, decked out with high-end Nvidia cards (which decisively outperform the M2 Ultra in programs like Blender), largely for the same reason. “We like to keep updating our machines with new hardware when we need to,” he says.

Deborah Wright, a digital sculptor, has the same hang-ups; she also uses a Windows PC. “I really, really love Mac… but it’s become prohibitively expensive,” she says. “Part of the attractiveness of a PC is my ability to customize the heck out of it,” she adds. “You buy a Mac, and you hold onto it for a few years. Buying a PC, you’re switching out your hardware pretty regularly.”

Wright suspects her next purchase might be a MacBook Pro, which, while not modular, is at least more affordable. “Their displays are just exquisite,” she says. “Velvet on the eyes.”

But the larger issue among the professionals I spoke to, and one that will likely take many more product cycles for Apple to truly fix, is one of trust. Apple, the business behemoth that it is, still has a reputation to build in the enterprise space. In order to become a go-to purchase for studios, Apple doesn’t just need to make the Mac Pro more competitive on price — it needs to reestablish itself as a brand that industries can rely on for years to come. And it needs to make some amends.

“Apple doesn’t really have a great history of servicing this market,” Lebensfeld said. “Do you want to hang millions of dollars of equipment purchases on a company where you know this isn’t their main focus?” He added, “It really feels like an afterthought. It feels like they’re gonna put this chip in every laptop and iPad that they can, and then later, they’re gonna fuse 20 of them together, and that’s the Pro.”

The middle handle is what you use to open the case and jam some PCI cards in.

And while Apple’s decision to overhaul Final Cut Pro was over a decade ago, studios still haven’t forgotten. Almost all of the video professionals I spoke to brought it up. “Every filmmaker in the world was using this,” Lebensfeld complained. “And they lost that whole market. They just don’t take it seriously.”

“They really did screw us over on that,” Ford, the documentarian, agreed. “I was really upset.”

I searched high and low and ended up connecting with over 20 professionals for this story in order to locate someone who enthusiastically wanted to buy the Mac Pro. I found exactly one: Drofa. He loves the cheese-grater design.

“The killer feature is when somebody comes and says, ‘Okay, you have a Mac Pro,’ and I say, ‘Yeah, I can make a cheesesteak,’” he explained. Asked about the Mac Studio, he replied, “I don’t trust that small thing.”

From A to Ultra: How the M2 Max and M2 Ultra stack up to every other Apple chip

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 07:30:00 +0000

Macworld

At the heart of every Apple device is an Apple processor. Apple has been using its own chips in its iPhones and iPads for some time, while the Mac lineup has finally completed its transition away from Intel chips. Every product Apple makes is powered by a home-grown chip.

What’s remarkable about Apple silicon is its performance and power efficiency. But all chips aren’t created equally. Understanding the performance differences between each chip will help with your buying decisions, especially when you’re deciding between iPhone 14 or MacBook models. Knowing how each chip performs gives you a better idea of what products to buy and whether or not it’s worth your money to step up to a higher model.

Let’s take a look at how the new processors compare with the rest of the processors in the iPhone, iPad, and Mac lineup and see how each performs and what that means to you. For the sake of consistency, we’ve used Geekbench 6.1 benchmarks. Here’s every chip and how the benchmarks compare with each other.

Updated 6/21/23 with Geekbench 6 scores and M2 Ultra score. To see these scores, click the pop-up menu under the title of each chart.

Every processor compared

Before we get into the individual processors, let’s let the chips fall where they may. We’ve only included chips in Apple devices that are still for sale and it’s a somewhat predictable chart, with the fastest Mac chips at the top, followed by a mix of iPads and iPhones. But there are still some fascinating results: owners of the iPad Pro can say their tablet is about as fast as a MacBook Air and that wouldn’t be much of a reach. And the difference between the $399 iPhone SE and the $899 iPhone 14 isn’t as huge as their price difference indicates.

Read about how Apple’s M1 and M2 processors compare to Intel in our Mac processor guide.

iPhone processors

Let’s take a look at the specifications so we can understand the differences between them.

Processor	Performance cores	Efficiency cores	Graphics cores	Neural Engine	Memory	Transistors	Thermal Design Power	Devices
A16 Bionic	2 at 3.46GHz	4 at 2.02GHz	5	16-core	8GB	16 billion	6W	iPhone 14 Pro
A15 Bionic	2 at 3.22GHz	4 at 1.82GHz	5	16-core	8GB	15 billion	6W	iPhone 14
A15 Bionic	2 at 3.22GHz	4 at 1.82GHz	4	16-core	8GB	15 billion	6W	iPhone 13, iPhone SE
A14 Bionic	2 at 3.1 GHz	4 at 1.8GHz	4	16-core	6GB	11.8 billion	6W	iPhone 12

Now let’s look at how each processor performs. Not surprisingly, the A16 Bionic in the iPhone 14 Pro is the fastest. The iPhone 14 and iPhone 13 both have an A15 Bionic processor, but the iPhone 13 has one fewer GPU core than the iPhone 13 Pro, which gives it better graphics performance.

Apple still sells the iPhone 12, which has an A14 Bionic. It’s slower than the iPhone 13’s A15 Bionic by about 23 percent, while only being $100 less. That extra $100 for the iPhone 13 not only gets you a faster chip, but also 128GB of storage, which is twice that of the iPhone 12.

This could be the last hurrah for the A14 Bionic since the iPhone 12 will be replaced by the 13 as the low-cost option with Apple’s next major iPhone rollout next fall, though it’s possible it makes its way into the next Apple TV revision.

iPad processors

The staggered release of Apple’s iPad lineup creates an odd-looking performance order of CPU and its device.

Processor	Performance cores	Efficiency cores	Graphics cores	Neural Engine	Memory	Transistors	Thermal Design Power	Devices
M2	4 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.06GHz	10	16-core	8GB	20 billion	15W	12.9″ & 11″ iPad Pro
M1	4 at 3.2GHz	4 at 2.06GHz	8	16-core	8GB	16 billion	14W	iPad Air
A15 Bionic	2 at 2.93GHz	4 at 1.82GHz	5	16-core	8GB	15 billion	6W	iPad mini
A14 Bionic	2 at 3.1GHz	4 at 1.8GHz	4	16-core	6GB	11.8 billion	6W	iPad (10th gen)
A13 Bionic	2 at 2.66GHz	4 at 1.6GHz	4	8-core	4GB	8.5 billion	6W	iPad (9th gen)

The M2-equipped iPad Pros are the fastest models, and the gap between them and the iPad and iPad mini is significant. Furthermore, the M2 is 15 percent faster than the M1 that it replaced in the previous iPad Pros and is in the current iPad Air.

The new 10th-gen iPad that was released in the fall of 2022 has an A14 Bionic, an upgrade from the A13 Bionic in the previous model. Apple says the new 10th-gen iPad offers a 20 percent CPU boost and a 10 percent graphics increase.

Mac processors

With Apple’s M-series of chips for the Mac, the company’s release schedule involves the base version in the MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, Mac mini, and iMac. Apple then modifies it to create higher-end versions.

The latest M-Series chip is the M2, which was released with the new 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air in the summer of 2022, right after WWDC. The M2 replaces the M1 in those Macs, but Apple keeps around a $999 M1 MacBook Air as a low-cost option. In January 2023, Apple released the M2 Pro in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro and Mac mini, and M2 Max in the 14- and 16-inch MacBook Pro along with an M2 Mac mini.

Processor	Performance cores	Efficiency cores	Graphics cores	Neural Engine	Base memory	Transistors	Thermal Design Power	Device
M2 Ultra	16 at 3.49GHz	8 at 2.4GHz	76	32-core	64GB	134 billion	60W	Mac Studio, Mac Pro
M2 Ultra	16 at 3.49GHz	8 at 2.4GHz	60	32-core	64GB	134 billion	60W	Mac Studio, Mac Pro
M2 Max	8 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	38	16-core	32GB	67 billion	30W	14″ & 16″ MacBook Pro, Mac Studio
M2 Max	8 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	30	16-core	32GB	67 billion	30W	14″ & 16″ MacBook Pro, Mac Studio
M2 Pro	8 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	19	16-core	16GB	40 billion	30W	14″ & 16″ MacBook Pro
M2 Pro	6 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	16	16-core	16GB	40 billion	30W	14″ MacBook Pro
M2	4 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	10	16-core	8GB	20 billion	15W	13″ MacBook Pro, 13″ & 15″ MacBook Air
M2	4 at 3.49GHz	4 at 2.4GHz	8	16-core	8GB	20 billion	15W	13″ MacBook Air
M1	4 at 3.2GHz	4 at 2.06GHz	8	16-core	8GB	16 billion	14W	iMac
M1	4 at 3.2GHz	4 at 2.06GHz	7	16-core	8GB	16 billion	14W	MacBook Air, iMac

The M2 Ultra is a beast of a chip, blazing in both CPU and GPU performance. The M2 Ultra is in the Mac Pro, which has PCIe expansion slots. If you don’t need such slots, you can opt for an M2 Ultra Mac Studio. The M2 Max Mac Studio offers a nice combination of price and performance.

Apple’s Max chips have the same CPU configuration as the Plus versions; the key difference is the GPU. The Max can have double the GPU cores as the Plus, so its graphics performance is much improved.

The chip that started it all, the good ol’ M1, may seem slow compared to Apple’s more current chips—but that’s not to undermine Apple’s original Mac processor. Remember, the M1 blows past the Intel processors it replaced, resulting in a significant price/performance value.

CPUs and Processors, iPad, iPhone, Mac

Apple’s machine learning head departs to run AI thinktank

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 20 Jun 2023 14:39:10 +0000

The Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, a non-profit aimed to furthering AI research, has named Apple machine learning chief Ali Farhadi as its new CEO.

Starting from July 31, Darhadi will become the CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2), the research institute explained on Tuesday. The move will have Farhadi overseeing the work of the non-profit, which performs AR research and engineering.An AI professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington, Farhadi joined AI2 in 2015 to work on its Computer Vision team. He went on to co-found Xnor.ai, a deep learning startup that was acquired by Apple in 2020 for $200 million.

How to copy your Photos library from one Mac to another

tigaman webdesign — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 09:00:00 +0000

Macworld

The Photos library used in macOS acts like a file when it’s actually a package, a special macOS container for holding many objects together. This prevents us from accidentally moving items out of it, renaming files that need to have fixed names, or modifying documents that shouldn’t be touched. It also makes the Photos library and similar libraries and app-associated file packages easier to move.

If you’re migrating from one Mac to another—or just want to move your Photos library from one to another—you can simply copy the file. On the new Mac, hold down the Option key while launching Photos and you can select the library you copied over. That’s the entire process.

It can be a little easier or a little more complicated if you use iCloud Photos. iCloud Photos lets you sync images and videos between your Mac and iCloud and from iCloud among your other devices. While iCloud always keeps the original resolution version of any media on its cloud servers, you can opt on each of your devices whether to store “optimized” media or full-resolution versions.

Photos lets you select whether to download the original images and video at full resolution to your Mac or just thumbnails.

IDG

With the optimized option, iOS, iPadOS, and macOS stores thumbnail previews. If you try to access the image or video to view it at full size or resolution, your device downloads the corresponding media from iCloud. Photos retains the cached full-resolution version indefinitely, deleting it only when it needs to free up space as storage gets tight. Those deletions happen automatically, leaving the thumbnail in place.

When you want to copy or move your Photos library from one Mac to another with iCloud Photos enabled, that presents you with two choices:

If you have optimized media enabled on your current Mac, you can simply use the same iCloud account on your new Mac and set Photos up for either optimized or full-resolution mode. Photos automatically performs all the downloads necessary. This can take a while and consume a lot of internet bandwidth.
If you set Photos to keep full-resolution downloads of all images on your current Mac, you can also enable Photos for iCloud syncing as in the previous point. But you can choose instead to copy your Photos library as if you weren’t using iCloud Photos at all.

That second option plus copying works because you have a full copy of all images present in your iCloud storage. It can be a better choice if you have a Photos library with tens of gigabytes of images or more paired with low-speed broadband (in the tens of megabits per second) or a monthly usage cap beyond which you pay overage fees or have your service throttled to a lower speed.

If you copy the Photos library in that scenario and then enable iCloud Photos on the new Mac, Photos will still appear to perform a synchronization operation. However, my analysis while testing is that only a comparison is performed instead of a full download or upload of images. Since the images will be identical in iCloud and in the Photos library, they should all match instead of requiring massive throughput consumption and bandwidth use.

One complicating factor for both kinds of copying has to do with referenced media: these are included in Photos as links to images or videos stored elsewhere on the Mac using Photos. These are not synced via iCloud Photos and won’t be copied with a non-synced Photos library, either. Read this article on working with referenced media.

This Mac 911 article is in response to a question submitted by Macworld reader Jack.

Ask Mac 911

We’ve compiled a list of the questions we get asked most frequently, along with answers and links to columns: read our super FAQ to see if your question is covered. If not, we’re always looking for new problems to solve! Email yours to mac911@macworld.com, including screen captures as appropriate and whether you want your full name used. Not every question will be answered, we don’t reply to email, and we cannot provide direct troubleshooting advice.

If your Photos library is too big for your Mac you might want to move it to an external drive, here’s how to do that: How to move your Photos library to an external drive. Alternatively, here’s How to save space by moving photos from a Mac to iCloud.

iCloud, Mac

Apple Mac Studio (2023) review: the M2 Ultra rips

tigaman webdesign — Fri, 16 Jun 2023 16:44:59 +0000

The Mac Studio remains the top choice for professionals who need a powerful but compact desktop computer.

There is a new Mac Studio. It looks almost exactly like last year’s Mac Studio — so similar, in fact, that I have had to put Post-it notes on the two units we have in our office in order to tell them apart.

It remains a remarkably compact, very Apple-looking pro-level workstation. It also remains effectively not upgradable at all, which means you need to be very careful about what you select at purchase. It has basically the same ports that the last one had: a pair of USB-C ports (Thunderbolt 4 on the Ultra) and an SDXC reader in the front, and four Thunderbolt 4, two USB-A, one HDMI, a 10GB Ethernet, a 3.5mm audio jack, and the big Mickey Mousey power cable thing in the back.

There are a couple other tweaks. This year’s Studio supports Bluetooth 5.3 while last year’s was 5.0; the M1 Ultra could accommodate up to four 6K displays and one 4K display, while the M2 Ultra can take eight 4K, six 6K, or three 8K thanks to an upgraded HDMI port. The biggest difference, though, is the processor inside.

Last year’s Studio was configurable with the M1 Max or the M1 Ultra, which is essentially two M1 Maxes stapled together. This year’s Studio has been upgraded to the M2 Max and the M2 Ultra, which is two M2 Maxes stapled together. You can probably tell that these are different because the number in their name has increased by one. I’ve been testing an M2 Ultra unit of the 2023 Mac Studio with a 24-core CPU, 76-core GPU, 128GB of memory, and 4TB of storage. And test I did.

The M2 Ultra units start at $3,999, and our specific system would cost — wait for it — $6,799, so this is already a machine only accessible to a fairly specific group of customers. (Apple will give you “up to $1,500” for your now-obsolete M1 Ultra Studio in trade-in credit, should you decide the upgrade is necessary. Thanks, Apple!) This is not outrageous pricing compared to the Mac Pro (or, say, a Threadripper PC), but it is still, objectively, a lot of money.

Nevertheless, this is my first look at Apple’s new M2 Ultra chip, and it’s in a chassis poised to show it off to its absolute fullest potential. So I ran a bunch of benchmarks to see how well it performs. Spoiler: the M2 Ultra is faster than its predecessor, and I’m honestly not sure how much that matters.

First off: what exactly has changed? Both the M1 Ultra and the M2 Ultra are 5nm chips; there were rumors that this chip would see an architectural shrink, but that didn’t pan out for this generation.

Still, Apple has made some design changes. The M2 Ultra features 20 billion more transistors than the M1 Ultra did and can be specced higher, supporting 192GB of unified memory where the M1 went up to 128GB. The M2 Ultra can also be configured with a 24-core GPU and 76-Core GPU, whereas the M1 was limited to a 20-core CPU and a 64-core GPU. That’s more relevant to this review since I received the absolute top-specced M2 Ultra chip that one can get; we’re essentially seeing, all else being equal, how much additional performance those extra cores really deliver.

Four Thunderbolt 4, one 10Gb Ethernet, one Mickey Mouse (sorry), two USB-A, one HDMI, one headphone jack.

The biggest increase is in graphic performance; those extra cores are putting in the work. The differences in Geekbench’s GPU benchmarks, using both Metal and Open CL, were between 20 and 50 percent higher across trials than they were on the M1 Ultra. While this isn’t a system you’d want to buy primarily to game (it’s not matching what we’d expect from an RTX 4090, for example), frame rates on Shadow of the Tomb Raider were also 10 to 30 percent higher across resolutions, run at the game’s highest settings. The M2 Ultra even broke the 60fps barrier at 4K resolution, which is fun and neat.

The M2 Ultra also showed an 18ish percent increase over the M1 Ultra on the Xcode Benchmark, which measures compilation time. That kind of saved time could certainly add up for busy developers.

In fact, PugetBench for Premiere Pro was the only result here where the M2 Ultra got a lower score. I have run this test many times on both of our units, and I cannot figure out what the issue is; I have tweaked every setting I can think of to no avail. The score I’m getting does seem to be in line with other M2 Ultra scores I’m seeing in Puget’s database, so there might just be something weird going on. Regardless, the M2 machine blew the M1 out of the water on actual exports in Premiere Pro, so my inclination is that PugetBench and the M2 Ultra just aren’t getting along for whatever reason (not unheard of for brand-new chips).

Ultra Studio models have a larger thermal module to accommodate the more powerful chip.

The M2 Ultra showed a correspondingly smaller but not-nothing increase in CPU performance in both single-core and (obviously, as it has more cores) multicore performance. It’s worth noting that both machines’ Cinebench scores went down between the 10-minute and the 30-minute loop, but the delta between the scores remained fairly constant. That means the Studio’s cooling system isn’t having more trouble keeping the M2 Ultra’s temps in check than it was with the M1 Ultra.

Speaking of cooling: I didn’t notice any major differences in fan noise or heat between these two units. The M1 Ultra Studio has always been shockingly quiet for me, even with my ear to the case, and I didn’t hear anything substantial from the M2 Ultra version, either. I know complaints about the M1 generation Studio’s noise can be found on the internet, so I guess it depends on the… ear? Or environment?

M2 Max models have two USB-C ports (up to 10Gb/s) on the front. M2 Ultra models get two Thunderbolt 4 (up to 40Gb/s). Both also get an SDXC card slot (UHS-II).

Regardless. Benchmarks (and quiet performance) are all well and good, but what ultimately matters is how well the device performs in day-to-day work. Alex Parkin, The Verge’s art director for video, is much more qualified to speak to this than I am since he generally uses an M1 Ultra Mac Studio as his daily work machine. He kindly used the M2 Ultra machine for a morning of work after I plonked it on his desk in our office, completing tasks in After Effects, Photoshop, and Premiere Pro.

I asked Alex whether the M2 Ultra felt faster than the M1 Ultra, and he kind of shrugged. “Like, yeah,” he said eventually, after some thought.

He was able to complete a Premiere export in 10 minutes that he estimated would’ve taken him 20 on his regular machine (which is not too far off the results I saw from my own export testing). Nevertheless, he didn’t view the increase as particularly life-changing. His evaluation of the M2 Ultra Studio this year was several degrees more subdued than the awestruck reactions I got from our creators who tried the M1 Ultra Studio last year (who were used to Intel Macs or Windows PCs); he’s perfectly happy with the computer he has. That’s not terribly surprising — the big leap from Intel to Apple’s M1 platform isn’t likely to be replicated here.

The sense I get from speaking to Alex and from other professionals who use Apple’s desktop hardware is that the M1 Ultra is so fast that speed is no longer a hang-up in their workflow. The biggest bottlenecks in Alex’s current workday tend to be glitches in Premiere and other software he has to use, which is something I hear from folks in video and graphic design all the time — in the age of the Ultra, raw power is just not a limitation for him. Those are problems that Apple ultimately can’t fix.

(Alex also did not hear any bothersome fan noise from the M2 Ultra model and doesn’t generally hear it from the M1 Ultra, either.)

Don’t get me wrong: more speed is good. This is an impressive technological achievement. It improves upon the M1 Ultra. And on face, this is a great, if expensive, computer. The increased graphical power, in particular, is nothing to sneeze at. It also largely seems like it will serve its target audience in the same way last year’s Studio did, providing a similar, but slightly faster, experience and a similar physical presence, without necessarily fixing major hang-ups that might currently exist in their workflows.

I love machines that make it easier for people to do their jobs. Upgrading to this machine could give busy professionals a good chunk of their day back (those halved export times will add up if you’re exporting all day, every day) and could potentially make business sense. Still, it’s quite a cost, and I ultimately see this machine less as a temptation for M1 Ultra owners (outside of the most deep-pocketed companies) and more for those who are still hanging on to old Mac Pro configurations. Those were a large investment, but every ounce of extra performance the Studio can provide may bring that crowd closer to jumping on Apple’s silicon train.

As I noted in my review of the MacBook Pro 16 with M2 Max, we’ve reached the point with Apple’s chips where we’re not expecting annual earth-shattering leaps in performance; Mac computers, as is also the case with other sorts of computers, are just getting decently faster each cycle. We expect that the vast majority of Mac users will (correctly) wait a few years before upgrading. And this Mac Studio, as much as it is a purchase consideration for power-hungry professionals, is a public showcase for Apple’s engineering.

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best but now it’s bigger

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 14:16:52 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Big, bright display
Decent speakers
Awesome battery life

Cons

Webcam isn’t as good as it should be
It still has an M2 processor

Our Verdict

Until the M3 arrives, the 15-inch MacBook Air is a fantastic option for anyone who wants a larger MacBook without spending thousands on a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

Last summer when I reviewed the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, I wrote, “For most of us, the new M2 MacBook Air is all the laptop we’ll ever need.” Well it’s a year later, and Apple has given those who prefer larger laptops what they want: the same thing, only bigger.

This could be a shamelessly short review. It would be entirely accurate to say this 15-inch MacBook Air is exactly like the 13-inch MacBook Air introduced last year, only with a bigger display (and thus chassis) and better speakers. That’s it! Review over!

But seriously, if you have some idea of the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air, you know what to expect here. The M2 is no longer brand new, but is still an absolutely excellent processor for everyday computing in a thin-and-light laptop. The display is bright sharp and colorful, but lacks ProMotion or HDR. The ports are the same. Battery life is excellent. Even the price is reasonable (for Apple), starting at $1,299/£1,399. (Our review configuration has 16GB of RAM and a 512GB SSD, which puts the price at $1,699/£1,799.)

Update 6/13: The 15-inch MacBook Air is now shipping from Apple.com and other retailers.

What’s different

It’s probably best, and easiest, to describe what’s different from the year-old 13-inch model I like so much. It’s a short list.

The display is now 15.3 inches, up from 13.6 inches. That means a higher pixel count (2880 x 1864), but the pixels per inch is about the same.

It weights 0.6 pounds more. Of course. However, it has the same thickness as the 13-inch model and doesn’t feel much heavier because the weight is distributed over a larger body. Also, the trackpad is larger, which fits well with the larger display.

Can you tell which one is the 15-inch model?

Foundry

The battery is bigger at 66.5 watt-hours. Our video rundown test, in which we played a downloaded movie on a loop with the display set to 150 nits, lasted about 8 percent longer–a total of almost exactly 19 hours. In practice, with the display a little brighter and mixed casual use, the extra battery more or less offsets the drain from the bigger display. That means battery life is the same as the 13-inch model, which is a good thing.

There’s a new six-speaker audio system (the 13-inch model has a four-speaker system). That’s two pairs of force-canceling woofers and one pair of tweets. It definitely sound better, and impressive for such a thin laptop, but there’s still a distinct lack of bass. This isn’t your new dorm room party sound system.

The price is higher, of course. It starts at $1,299, which seems like a $200 price premium over the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air (now starting at $1,099 after a price cut), but that’s not quite the case. The 13-inch entry level model has a version of the M2 with an 8-core GPU, and to get the full 10-core GPU is another $100. The 15-inch MacBook Air always has the 10-core GPU, so it’s really a $100 price difference. And under the old pricing, it costs the same as the comparable 13.6-inch model.

What’s the same

Everything else is just as it is on the 13-inch MacBook Air. The M2 delivers…well…M2-like performance. It’s not a brand-new chip anymore, and it performs about the same here as it does in the 13-inch model and the Mac mini. Small variations in performance can be attributed to slight changes in OS versions or testing software, but you’re not going to notice a couple of percent here or there.

It should be noted that the 256GB SSD option on the 13-inch M2 MacBook Air delivers half the storage performance as all other capacities due to its use of a single NAND chip. We were unable to test the 256GB option on the new 15-inch Air, but it stands to reason that it’s true with the 15-inch model as well.

The display looks the same. It’s just as bright (up to 500 nits), same P3 wide color, and we’re still disappointed that there’s no HDR or ProMotion, at least one of which belongs in a laptop costing this much in the year 2023.

The webcam, hiding behind a wide notch that we can’t help but feel is a big waste of space, is the same improved 1080p webcam introduced last year. It’s no longer an embarrassment, but not excellent. It should be excellent.

That’s an awfully big notch for just a webcam.

Foundry

Ports are still two Thunderbolt/USB-4 on the left, together with a separate MagSafe charging port. A long headphone jack sits on the right.

The keyboard is identical, with a full function row, no Touch Bar, and a nice big Touch ID sensor. The extra space isn’t enough for a full 10-key number pad, alas. Wireless features are the same: Wi-Fi 6 (not 6e) and Bluetooth 5.3.

It’s not exactly an expansive selection of ports, but two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports and a Thunderbolt port will serve you well.

Foundry

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

It’s great that Apple is offering a 15-inch option for the MacBook Air. Some people just love big laptops, and you shouldn’t have to spend $2,499 on a 16-inch MacBook Pro to get a big Mac laptop.

We can’t fault Apple for sticking to what works with this model, despite coming out a year after the 13-inch model. It’s the same laptop, with a bigger display. That’s not bad. The 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro is a great general-purpose laptop for most people.

But it’s a year later, and we can’t help but be anxious for more. Naturally we’re curious to see what an M3 has to offer, but there are other changes we’d make. At this price, the display should go above 60Hz or at the very least support variable refresh rates. Or, it should offer HDR. The webcam should be better. I can’t help but feel that the huge notch deserves a full FaceID setup behind it.

If you want a big Mac laptop, you finally have an option that won’t cost you anywhere close to the price of a 16-inch MacBook Pro. That’s great news. And the year-old M2 still holds its own in this thin-and-light, general-use category. Now, what’s next?

MacBook

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best but now it’s bigger

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 14:16:52 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Big, bright display
Decent speakers
Awesome battery life

Cons

Webcam isn’t as good as it should be
It still has an M2 processor

Our Verdict

Until the M3 arrives, the 15-inch MacBook Air is a fantastic option for anyone who wants a larger MacBook without spending thousands on a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

$1,449.99

View Deal

Update 6/13: The 15-inch MacBook Air is now shipping from Apple.com and other retailers.

What’s different

It’s probably best, and easiest, to describe what’s different from the year-old 13-inch model I like so much. It’s a short list.

The display is now 15.3 inches, up from 13.6 inches. That means a higher pixel count (2880 x 1864), but the pixels per inch is about the same.

Can you tell which one is the 15-inch model?

Foundry

What’s the same

That’s an awfully big notch for just a webcam.

Foundry

Ports are still two Thunderbolt/USB-4 on the left, together with a separate MagSafe charging port. A long headphone jack sits on the right.

It’s not exactly an expansive selection of ports, but two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports and a Thunderbolt port will serve you well.

Foundry

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

It’s great that Apple is offering a 15-inch option for the MacBook Air. Some people just love big laptops, and you shouldn’t have to spend $2,499 on a 16-inch MacBook Pro to get a big Mac laptop.

MacBook

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best, just bigger

tigaman webdesign — Tue, 13 Jun 2023 03:48:14 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Big, bright display
Decent speakers
Awesome battery life

Cons

Webcam isn’t as good as it should be
It still has an M2 processor

Our Verdict

Until the M3 arrives, the 15-inch MacBook Air is a fantastic option for anyone who wants a larger MacBook without spending thousands on a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

This could be a shamelessly short review. It would be entirely accurate to say this laptop is exactly like the 13-inch MacBook Air introduced last year, only with a bigger display (and thus chassis) and better speakers. That’s it! Review over!

What’s different

It’s probably best, and easiest, to describe what’s different from the year-old 13-inch model I like so much. It’s a short list.

The display is now 15.3 inches, up from 13.6 inches. That means a higher pixel count (2880 x 1864), but the pixels per inch is about the same.

Can you tell which one is the 15-inch model?

Foundry

What’s the same

That’s an awfully big notch for just a webcam.

Foundry

Ports are still two Thunderbolt/USB-4 on the left, together with a separate MagSafe charging port. A long headphone jack sits on the right.

It’s not exactly an expansive selection of ports, but two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports and a Thunderbolt port will serve you well.

Foundry

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

It’s great that Apple is offering a 15-inch option for the MacBook Air. Some people just love big laptops, and you shouldn’t have to spend $2,499 on a 16-inch MacBook Pro to get a big Mac laptop.

MacBook

2023 Mac Studio Reviews: Faster M2 Ultra Chip and 8K Display Support

tigaman webdesign — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 17:10:51 +0000

Apple’s updated Mac Studio with M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips will launch in stores and begin arriving to customers this Tuesday. Ahead of time, the first reviews of the desktop computer have been shared by select media outlets and YouTube channels.

The new Mac Studio features the same overall design as the 2022 model, but now features Apple’s latest M2 Max and M2 Ultra chips, faster Wi-Fi 6E and Bluetooth 5.3 connectivity, and support for high-impedance headphones. Pricing remains unchanged, with the M2 Max model starting at $1,999 and the M2 Ultra model starting at $3,999.

Apple has also updated the Mac Studio with an HDMI 2.1 port, enabling 8K external display support. Other ports remain unchanged.

Benchmarks

As expected, the M2 Ultra chip is a doubled-up M2 Max chip. It features a 24-core CPU, up to a 76-core GPU, a 32-core Neural Engine, and support for up to 192GB of unified memory. Apple says the M2 Ultra has a 20% faster CPU than the M1 Ultra, as confirmed by Geekbench 6 benchmark results that have already surfaced.

Jason Snell shared a wider set of benchmark results in his Mac Studio review at Six Colors:

Written Reviews

PCMag‘s Joe Osborne explained the Mac Studio’s expanded display support:

All of this helps widen the breadth of display support for the Mac Studio using M2 Ultra, increasing the maximum number of displays that can be connected at one time from five to eight—all at 4K resolution and a 60Hz refresh rate over DisplayPort via Thunderbolt 4. If you bring the display count down to six, then the panels can go up to 6K resolution at 60Hz. If you halve the connected displays from there, to three, they can all output up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.

If you need a faster refresh rate, you’ll need to use the included HDMI port, which can support up to 240Hz at 4K resolution. This connection also supports variable refresh rate, HDR, and multichannel audio.

Ars Technica‘s Andrew Cunningham said the Mac Studio remains silent:

I liked the Mac Studio a lot last year, and I still like it a lot. It performs well, it’s dead silent, it will fit just about anywhere, and it’s the rare Apple computer to put ports on the front, where they can actually be accessed. If you’re eyeing an upgrade from an Intel Mac, the M2 Max version is a great step (at least performance-wise) for anyone used to a 27-inch iMac’s performance level. The M2 Ultra can run circles around the Intel Mac Pro and should perfectly match the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, as it uses the same chip.

Engadget‘s Devindra Hardawar said the Mac Studio is the “ideal machine” for power users:

That leaves the $1,999 Mac Studio as the ideal machine for Apple power users. It’ll be enough for video editing work, and it also comes standard with 32GB of RAM (it could use more than 512GB of storage, though). Step up to the $3,999 model with an M2 Ultra chip, and you’ve got a system that can destroy just about any task you put in front of it. The few professional users who need PCIe expansion can now opt for the M2 Ultra-equipped Mac Pro, which starts at an eye-watering $6,999.

More reviews were shared by CNET, TechCrunch, Macworld, and others.

Video Reviews

Related Roundup: Mac Studio

Buyer’s Guide: Mac Studio (Buy Now)

Related Forum: Mac Studio

This article, "2023 Mac Studio Reviews: Faster M2 Ultra Chip and 8K Display Support" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

15-inch MacBook Air review: Apple’s best laptop, but bigger

tigaman webdesign — Mon, 12 Jun 2023 13:00:00 +0000

Macworld

At a glance

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Big, bright display
Decent speakers
Awesome battery life

Cons

Webcam isn’t as good as it should be
It still has an M2 processor

Our Verdict

Until the M3 arrives, the 15-inch MacBook Air is a fantastic option for anyone who wants a larger MacBook without spending thousands on a 16-inch MacBook Pro.

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

What’s different

It’s probably best, and easiest, to describe what’s different from the year-old 13-inch model I like so much. It’s a short list.

The display is now 15.3 inches, up from 13.6 inches. That means a higher pixel count (2880 x 1864), but the pixels per inch is about the same.

Can you tell which one is the 15-inch model?

Foundry

What’s the same

That’s an awfully big notch for just a webcam.

Foundry

Ports are still two Thunderbolt/USB-4 on the left, together with a separate MagSafe charging port. A long headphone jack sits on the right.

It’s not exactly an expansive selection of ports, but two Thunderbolt / USB-4 ports and a Thunderbolt port will serve you well.

Foundry

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

It’s great that Apple is offering a 15-inch option for the MacBook Air. Some people just love big laptops, and you shouldn’t have to spend $2,499 on a 16-inch MacBook Pro to get a big Mac laptop.

MacBook

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Apple Mac Studio (2023) review: the M2 Ultra rips

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best but now it’s bigger

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

What’s different

What’s the same

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best but now it’s bigger

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

What’s different

What’s the same

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

15-inch MacBook Air review: The best is still the best, just bigger

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

What’s different

What’s the same

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation

2023 Mac Studio Reviews: Faster M2 Ultra Chip and 8K Display Support

Benchmarks

Written Reviews

Video Reviews

15-inch MacBook Air review: Apple’s best laptop, but bigger

Expert’s Rating

Pros

Cons

Our Verdict

Best Prices Today: Apple 15-inch MacBook Air (M2, 512GB SSD, 2023)

What’s different

What’s the same

A nice option, but we’re ready for the next generation