Experiences with M1 based Mac’s

Have two MacBook Pro 13” units, ordered in December and arrived late January right in time for kids lockdown / home schooling. They’ve had a good beating so far over the lockdown period, and my teenage son and daughter think they are great.

We had one with a sticky key issue but that was resolved with a visit to the Apple store and a pretty fast 48 hour turnaround. Otherwise they (and I’m) very impressed and looking forward to hopefully being able to replace my butterfly keyboard 2017 MBP when they eventually launch 14” and 16” versions. So glad they’ve gone back to the scissor keyboard too!!

How are other folks getting on with these new machines?

How well do these machine run older software produced for Intel Macs?

I am thinking of getting a Mac mini, maybe next year or before, depending how things go, but a lot of the software I will use is still for intel based macs, sure that may change by the time I get one, but it may not.
I also got to see if some of these companies will give me a discount if I buy the mac version.

I know you are looking to see how well other people have got on with theirs, but I doubt there are many people on here that have a Mac with a M1 chip.

My understanding is that the new silicon runs older (non native) software pretty darn well, even with the overhead of translation, at least from the accounts I’ve seen.

Most of the apps my kids are running is already native. As you’d probably suspect of teenagers they’re not got a huge back catalogue of older software. It’s all fairly mainstream and recent that has already been rewritten for the new silicon.

In case you are interested if your older software is supported or progress, there is a specific website Is Apple silicon ready where you can check.

The stats from that website look pretty good; 63% (486) already optimised for M1, 30% (234) Rosetta 2 (in built MacOS translation) only and around 6% (48) that aren’t supported.

They run Intel Mac apps so well that you wouldn't know they weren't native M1 apps.

If you have a few years old Intel Mac, the M1 will typically run the Intel apps as fast or faster than they do on your old Intel Mac (unless you have some top end specced out Intel Mac).

Waiting for the 16 inch M-series MBP to replace my “old” faithful 15 inch 2016/17 MBP. Hopefully landing in the autumn. Kids love their M1 based laptops. Apple appear to have really done well with their new silicon.

I picked a the most basic M1 Mac Mini from Apple's own refurb store which saved £120 on an already low price.

It is now my main PC and do not find either the 8Gb ram or 256Gb storage an issue at all.
I do not use any overly taxing software, I think iMovie is about the limit and have a decent NAS for storage.

It does everything I need quickly and silently.
My only minor issue is with my original Magic keyboard and trackpad which now eat batteries so may look to splash out on the new ones but at £280 for the pair is hard to swallow tbh but the money I saved by buying the basic mini will offset this.

As stock is really low and gets snapped up, I setup an RSS notifier using the feeds from https://refurb-tracker.com/

Edited by smouty (Tue 10-Aug-21 15:08:13)

The rumour mill is that Apple have pre launch 800,000 units currently in production, ready for a September to October launch of the M1X based 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro’s.

MagSafe looks like it’s coming back, and some more ports other than the minimalist only USBC/Thunderbolt on the current models.

Looks like the launch event of the new M1X (or M2?) MacBookPro models will be this Monday evening.

https://www.apple.com/uk/apple-events/

Edited by Pheasant (Sat 16-Oct-21 12:22:59)

MagSafe was one of the best things about the Mac range…I’m very pleased they appear to be bringing it back.
I’m still not sure I can justify replacing my 2015 13” MBP though…which is still working perfectly well, even after all these years.

Will be really interested to see performance improvements on their new silicon though.

Agreed on MagSafe, was great in the day.

For me as a returning feature in 2021/22 personally it would be desirable for it to be more than just a power connector. I’ve become used to having one cable (Thunderbolt) docking for video, power and data.

Otherwise the next step in M silicon is mouthwatering and some updated screen tech would be cool.