Dial ‘M1’ for Murder

Let’s start at the end. I’m sorry if I’m spoiling this for anyone, but it has been hours at this point and Twitter has probably spoiled it a thousand times for you already. John Hodgman made a triumphant return as ‘PC’ at the end of Apple’s event today. Defiant in a way not seen since Donald Trump lost the election, PC wondered what the big deal was?

He’s right, in a way. This wasn’t a big deal, it was a massive deal. If Apple can live up to the performance claims they made on stage today about their new ‘M1’ chip, it will fundamentally alter the laptop landscape. And it portends a shift in the entire personal computer game.

Apple’s third event in the past two months was concise — 45 minutes! — and direct. There was no opening act, it was simply all about the Mac. And the Mac proved worthy of that. Afterwards, I did something I haven’t done in quite some time: bought one of the new products immediately.

At the same time, it was made clear that the M1 was just a start in terms of what Apple has in store for their silicon plans for the Mac. That thought should send shudders down spines. That’s how good just this “first step” sounded today. Granted, a step without an X or Y axis on performance charts.

John Ternus, Apple’s VP of Hardware Engineering, the star of today’s show, noted that a “family of chips” were coming, and reiterated that this was just the first step in a transition that is going to take a couple of years. That implies either a different variant of the M1 or a different class of chip all together still yet to come...

I had previously speculated about how Apple might handle their Mac-bound silicon, perhaps making an ‘A14T’ for the Macs.¹ Call it what you want, it sure sounds like it’s based on the A14 5nm architecture of the latest iPhones and iPads. The more interesting question I pondered is if that first iteration would be bound for MacBook Pros and iMacs,² while another new chip would be for the desktop-class ‘Pro’ Mac models.

This is still very possible! But my thinking got thrown in a bit of a loop today when Apple announced the M1 was bound for not only the MacBook Pro, but the MacBook Air and Mac mini as well.³ So that’s Apple’s best-selling and cheapest portable, their best-selling professional portable, and their entry-level desktop machine. It’s a seemingly weird combination. Especially since they kicked off the M1 unveiling talking about how the chip was all about power efficiency and power-per-watt performance. That makes sense for the MacBook Air. It maybe makes sense for the MacBook Pro if these chips really are that fast. It seemingly makes less sense for the Mac mini, which, of course, is a plugged in device. But perhaps it has to do more with development for these new Macs and less for perfecting that particular system.

The M1 MacBook Pro makes even more sense if it’s just the new “entry-level” MBP. That is, if Apple plans another, more powerful MacBook Pro model which will use a theoretical new chip that say, the iMac or even iMac Pro uses. Or maybe the Mac Pro?!

Matthew Panzarino quipped on Twitter that this M1 MacBook Pro is the new MacBook. And that may actually be correct. When we think about the MacBook now, we think of my beloved super-svelte device which was recently laid to rest. But that wasn’t always the case. For much of its life, the MacBook was actually in between the MacBook Air and the MacBook Pro in terms of size, specs, and price. What if this is a move back in that direction? Certainly it makes more sense from a branding perspective! The Air should be the thinnest and certainly the lightest MacBook. Duh.

I’m still holding out hope for a return to the 12-inch form factor, but maybe that comes down the road as a MacBook ‘mini’ or ‘nano’ or some such. One can only dream at this point. But these chip capabilities certainly make it possible if not probable to go smaller than the 13-inch Air. Especially since the Air is so close in size and weight to the 13-inch Pro!

One other oddity which was only revealed when the pre-orders went live, Apple is differentiating SKUs based on not CPU cores, but GPU cores for the Air. And then on storage for the Pro and mini. One thing you’ll see absolutely no mention of: clock speed. While that has long been a part of small typeface for Apple’s Intel Macs, this is a new world. Much like the iPhone and iPad, Apple does not want you, the consumer, to care about such things. That’s undoubtedly because they will cycle up or down those speeds based on power needs, which is true of Intel chips too. Apple is just opting not to give a “max” speed, and they’re seemingly not varying that “max” speed based on device. Though I suspect they will with my theoretical more “Pro” machines above.

Have I mentioned the MacBook Air has no fan. Sorry, that undersells it. No fucking fan!⁴ It will be as silent as an iPhone and as cool as an iPad, well, presumably. Regardless, it’s an awesome milestone for a laptop (again, apparently) this powerful.⁵

And all that leads to my main event: 15–18 hours of battery life on the Air. And 17–20 hours on the Pro. 20 hours! Apple is usually pretty honest about such assessments, so if we can trust them here, this is incredible. And while the ability to fully control the stack and not have to put up with Intel’s always-delayed roadmap may be the main reasons to do their own silicon, this has to be the top side effect.

Again, we have to push the believe button with what Apple is selling right now. But we won’t for long as these machines are just days away. And if the claims hold up, it’s hard to see how the Windows-based ecosystem competes. Sure, the giant gaming rigs with discreet graphics aren’t scared. But the Windows-based laptops should be. How do you compete with this? As is always the case with Apple, it’s not just the hardware, it’s the software custom tailored to run on it. The only way to compete is to do the same thing. Does that mean Microsoft will need to start making their own chips for Surface machines? Well that seems a lot more likely than Intel getting into software…

But unless there have been skunkworks projects deep inside Redmond that are much farther along than the complete and utter lack of leaks would indicate, we’re years away from that being a reality. Maybe longer.

So yeah, the makers of PC laptops should be terrified by all of this. It’s like when Steve Jobs took the original MacBook Air out of the manilla envelope — except the inverse. The form factor there glossed over what was a fairly sub-par machine. Here, the form factor is dated because everyone copied it. But the performance is the showstopper.⁶ And it’s going to be a lot harder to copy. Microsoft should be rushing to acquire a chip maker. And Intel should be… hoping Microsoft calls.

¹ And wondering if Apple might use the iPad Pro chips as the MacBook Air chips. This was wrong, of course!

² No mention of iMacs today, of course.

³ Yes, it’s still lowercase ‘mini’ while ‘Pro’ and ‘Air’ are uppercase…

⁴ While my beloved MacBook also had a fan-less design that’s part of the reason why it was soooooo slow. It ran already weak Intel chips that were clearly underpowered so as not to overheat. That does not seem to be the case here — we’ll see soon enough!

⁵ I hope they don’t need to run Chrome, snicker.

⁶ If there’s any disappointment today (beyond no 12-inch machine as mentioned above), it’s that Apple still hasn’t figured out a way back to the glowing Apple logos for the MacBook.⁷ Seemingly everyone wants this, including Apple, as they continue to use those machines — which they no longer make — in sizzle reels. Even today! I know, I know, they’d have to make the lids bulkier again. But if that also meant being able to squeeze something better than a 720p camera into the lid… I think a lot of us would be all-in!

⁷ Also no 5G/LTE models of the MacBook today. This isn’t a huge surprise, but it’s another thing that a lot of us want. Maybe my mythical MacBook mini leads the way there too…