013a · HackerTrans

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Yes, unfortunately; the Chromecast audio is among my favorite products Google has ever made. I was happy to see Amazon produce something similar in the Echo Link, and I've thought about "migrating my Home" to Amazon/Echo just because of that, though I'm no happier about giving Amazon unfettered microphones around my home than I would be to give it to Google. One of the few reasons why I think the HomePod is such a fantastic, unique device; for all the wrong Apple does, at least they demonstrate a care for privacy.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Frankly, I've owned several in-ear products from various companies (Shure, Sony, Bose, UE), and none of them hit the sound quality of the Airpods Pro. None of them. Maybe once you get in to $400+ IEMs, but I'm not spending that much on IEMs.

Similarly, the HomePod. I have used a Nest Audio (returned), Nest Hub Max (returned), Echo Studio (returned), a Sony GTK-XB7 (really like this one for parties as it gets very loud), and a UE Hyperboom (also really like this one as it has a 24 hour battery). HomePod has the best audio quality. Are there speakers that are better? Oh hell yes; I have a pair of Mackie MR5s that blow the Homepod out of the water. But also, they're five times the size.

I would not put it past Apple to do something great with these. In my mind, they've established themselves as being a top-tier audio equipment manufacturer, alongside Sennheiser, Sony, Grado, Beyerdynamic, etc, and I really think the people who don't believe this just haven't been using their full scope of audio products.

I do think one needs to answer whether $500+ is something one is willing to spend on a piece of audio equipment. Its a ton of money, and audio naturally has a rate of exponential decay of return (you can get 95% of the audio quality of $1000+ headphones with a $100 pair of the right ones). That's a separate question from whether they deliver value previously only seen in $800+ devices. If they can do that, then these are worth it to some people.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Impossible to know until we get the hard numbers.

But, just looking at A14 performance and extrapolating its big/little 2/4 cores to M1's 4/4; In the shortest tldr possible; Yes.

M1 should have stronger single-core CPU performance than any Mac Apple currently sells, including the Mac Pro. I think Apple's statement that they've produced the "world's fastest CPU core" is overall a valid statement to make, just from the info we independent third-parties have, but only because AMD Zen 3 is so new. Essentially no third parties have Zen 3, Apple probably doesn't for comparison, but just going on the information we know about Zen 3 and M1, its very likely that Zen 3 will trade blows in single core perf with the Firestorm cores in A14/M1. Likely very workload dependent, and it'll be difficult to say who is faster; they're both real marvels of technology.

Multicore is harder to make any definitive conclusions about.

The real issue in comparison before we get M1 samples is that its a big/little 4/4. If we agree that Firestorm is god-powerful, then can say pretty accurately say that its faster than any other four-core CPU (there are no four-core Zen 3 CPUs yet). There's other tertiary factors of course, but I think its safe enough; so that covers the Intel MBP13. Apple has never had an issue cannibalizing their own sales, so I don't think they really care if Intel MBP13 sales drop.

But, the Intel MBP16 runs 6 & 8 core processors, and trying to theorycraft what performance the Icestorm cores in M1 will contribute gets difficult. My gut says that M1 w/ active cooling will outperform the six core i7 in every way, but will trade blows with the eight core i9. A major part of this is that the MBP16 still runs on 9th gen Intel chips. Another part is that cooling the i7/i9 has always been problematic, and those things hit a thermal limit under sustained load (then again, maybe the M1 will as well even with the fan, we'll see).

But, also to be clear: Apple is not putting the M1 in the MBP16. Most likely, they'll be revving it similar to how they do A14/A14x; think M1/M1x. This will probably come with more cores and a more powerful GPU, not to mention more memory, so I think the M1 and i9 comparisons, while interesting, are purely academic. They've got the thermal envelope to put more Firestorm cores inside this hypothetical M1x, and in that scenario, Intel has nothing that compares.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

M1 has 16MB of L2 cache; 12MB dedicated to the HP cores and 4MB dedicated to the LP cores.

Another important consideration is the on-SOC DRAM. This is really incomparable to anything else on the market, x86 or ARM, so its hard to say how this will impact performance, but it may help alleviate the need for a larger cache.

I think its pretty clear that Apple has something special here when we're quibbling about the cache and power draw per core differences of a 10 watt chip versus a 100 watt one; its missing the bigger picture that Apple did this at 10 watts. They're so far beyond their own class, and the next two above it, that we're frantically trying to explain it as anything except alien technology by drawing comparisons to chips which require power supplies the size of sixteen iPhones. Even if they were just short of mobile i9 performance (they're not), this would still be a massive feat of engineering worthy of an upgrade.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

My guess is that they'd still keep the efficiency cores around, but provide more performance cores. So likely a 12 or 16 core processor, with 4 or 6 of those dedicated to efficiency cores.

The M1 supposedly has a 10w TDP (at least in the MBA; it may be speced higher in the MBP13). If that's the case, there's a ton of power envelope headroom to scale to more cores, given the i9 9980HK in the current MBP16 is speced at 45 watts.

I'm very scared of this architecture once it gets up to Mac Pro levels of power envelope. If it doesn't scale, then it doesn't scale, but assuming it does this is so far beyond Xeon/Zen 3 performance it'd be unfair to even compare them.

This is the effect of focusing first on efficiency, not raw power. Intel and AMD never did this; its why they lost horribly in mobile. Their bread and butter is desktops and servers, where it doesn't matter. But, long term, it does; higher efficiency means you can pack more transistors into the same die without melting them. And its far easier to scale a 10 watt chip up to use 50 watts than it is to do the opposite.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

If you believe that, then you've either been accidentally ignoring Apple's chip R&D over the past three years, or intentionally spinning it against them out of some more general dislike of the company.

The most powerful Macbook Pro, with a Core i9-9980HK, posts a Geekbench 5 of 1096/6869. The A12z in the iPad Pro posts a 1120/4648. This is a relatively fair comparison because both of these chips were released in ~2018-2019; Apple was winning in single-core performance at least a year ago, at a lower TDP, with no fan.

The A14, released this year, posts a 1584/4181 @ 6 watts. This is, frankly, incomprehensible. The most powerful single core mark ever submitted to Geekbench is the brand-spanking-new Ryzen 9 5950X; a 1627/15427 @ 105 watts & $800. Apple is close to matching the best AMD has, on a DESKTOP, at 5% the power draw, and with passive cooling.

We need to wait for M1 benchmarks, but this is an architecture that the PC market needs to be scared of. There is no evidence that they aren't capable of scaling multicore performance when provided a higher power envelope, especially given how freakin low the A14's TDP is already. What of the power envelope of the 16" Macbook Pro? If they can put 8 cores in the MBA, will they do 16 in the MBP16? God forbid, 24? Zen 3 is the only other architecture that approaches A14 performance, and it demands 10x the power to do it.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

That's not what they said during the keynote.

They said the Macbook Air (specifically) is "3x faster than the best selling PC laptop in its class" and that its "faster than 98% of PC laptops sold in the last year".

There was no "in its class" designation on the 98% figure. If they're taken at their word, its among every PC laptop sold in the past year, period.

Frankly, given what we saw today, and the leaked A14x benchmarks a few days ago (which may be this M1 chip or a different, lower power chip for the upcoming iPad Pro, either way); there is almost no chance that the 16" MBPs still being sold with Intel chips will be able to match the 13". They probably could have released a 16" model today with the M1 and it would still be an upgrade. But, they're probably holding back and waiting for a better graphics solution in an upcoming M1x-like chip.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Apple has two hundred billion dollars in cash sitting in a bank account, a fitness ecosystem, and deep experience in fitness and video production. They've announced that the initial set of programs will include cycling, treadmill walk & run, yoga, core, strength, rowing, HIIT, and cooldown. They're planning to add new workouts every week, and have popular, properly licensed music (Peloton spent years illegally playing music, before switching to no-copyright music for a year. Today its in a better place).

I would not bet money on Apple losing on class quality, let alone variety.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

But, there's an argument to be made that they would be cross-shopping $500 Amazon-Prime-deliver-tomorrow bikes, to pair with the Apple ecosystem they already have.

I would be scared if I ran Peloton. Their entire MO is the ecosystem; you buy the bike, with the integrated tablet, and use their fitness program. Outside of the top 1% who could drop three grand on the Peloton system without blinking, Apple's whole "$500 dirt cheap bike + $300 brand new iPad (that you may already have) + $30/month Apple One Premier" system (that you may already subscribe to) is killer.

Yeah, you can BYOB to Peloton, but Fitness+ (especially as a part of Apple One now) is dirt cheap. At that point, Peloton (and competing products) basically just has to hope that the workout quality in Fitness+ sucks, which isn't likely (this is Apple we're talking about, they rarely half-ass things).

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Zero issues with the S20. It works great; not as great as TouchID on older iPhones, as if that were still an option, but barring super wet fingers or gloves, it unlocks every time while declining the fingerprints of my other fingers and the half-dozen other people who have tried mine.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Countries which I do not live in, and people whom I do not interact with.

It'll get there. But, right now, it works great for me.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

People definitely do.

The worst part is, an excellent upgrade exists. The RCS experience between Android users is pretty much as good as iMessage. Apple could support this; not to replace iMessage, but to upgrade SMS conversations. My tech-illiterate mom's Galaxy S negative 12 has it. Of my contacts, every single Android user I text (maybe a dozen) has RCS. Its standard.

When I put my iPhone XS and my S20 Plus side-by-side; chatting with Android users using rich text via RCS; animations at 120hz on a display so blindingly bright the brightness slider turns red at the end; so seamless with the device's edges its like looking through a portal; unlocking with a sonic sub-pixel fingerprint reader; swiping notifications away at a rate the iPhone can't approach; charging my computer keyboard, mouse, phone, laptop, and smartwatch with the same cable... I've religiously used both iPhone and Android, I switch every year, and the iPhone feels like its years behind Samsung right now. Its not close.

013a

il y a 6 ansdiscuss

Yet, they write articles that prescribe their operational model on the rest of the world.

013a

il y a 7 ansdiscuss

Benefit of the dobut Reasoning: Engineering determined that the cost of supporting a mobile site outweighs the benefit given they have a great mobile app. Then, someone decided to disable mobile access, because it better communicates that they don't support mobile web; cusutomers may still use the broken, unsupported experience, and then they'll complain about it to their support. Thus, raising the cost of maintenance while lowering customer experience.

Keeping mobile web but adding a banner that the experience isn't supported: Doesn't Work. Most people are total idiots when it comes to tech; this is 250% more true in the B2B space; this is a further 250% more true in a bottom-up corporate sales model like what Slack deploys. Unsurprisingly, but likely; many of their workspaces are shadow-IT operations created by some do-gooder who knows Excel and thus he's a "tech expert", on an isolated team within a large company who's IT department really wishes everyone would just use Teams and Sharepoint. This person is going to dodge the company's frontline IT support with any issues they run into. This person probably has a company-issued phone and thus doesn't want to, or can't, install the app.

013a

il y a 7 ansdiscuss

Its going to sell well, like every Tesla. I suspect that it won't sell well to people who buy trucks for their actual utility, but you're right that this thing will totally be a status symbol; just not among people who would utilize its capabilities.

Just look at the success of the G-Wagon among white LA uurbanite-types. No one cares about the utility. It just looks weird and gives off this vibe of "I work! Trust me! Look at my utilitarian car!" That's who this will sell to, and it will sell well.

013a

il y a 7 ansdiscuss

Prediction: These comments will be obscenely hostile toward the new device, yet the new device will rank among Apple's best selling computers to-date.

013a

il y a 7 ansdiscuss

I think its seriously such a hard problem to solve in tech. Its so easy and beneficial even for customers if one company does everything. Github can (and does!) offer the most open, accessible, and integrated APIs possible for CI/CD to plug into. But, when Github builds it, its just another tab in your PR, which is much more convenient.

We use Jira for ticketing and Github for code storage, like many companies. We've had SOC2 auditors tell us that they'd prefer to see us on Bitbucket just because the integration with Jira is more seamless; it guarantees a much deeper audit trail to go from RFC in Confluence -> Ticket in Jira -> Code in Bitbucket -> Deploy in whateverthefuck atlassian does for CI/CD. They didn't dock us, certainly.

But they're not wrong! I agree with them entirely! There's a part of me that hates that monopolization of our stack into one company, but there's another part of me that's like "that auditability and integration is so nice, and we literally will never see it if we're using ten different SaaS providers for each thing". How do you rectify those competing viewpoints? I don't know if you can.

013a

il y a 7 ansdiscuss

Those subscriptions would have been footnotes in a Google event; that's why Apple is different. When Google enters a market with a new product, most of the time it's a half-assed play by some middle manager to get a promotion. When Apple does something, they put Force behind it to make it successful. Generally.

Google Play Music wasn't a thing Google cared about, really. Same with Youtube Music. Neither of them achieved much success. Apple Music now has more US subscribers than Spotify. They care about it because they make it their business to care about it. Customers see that. They give Apple money. Its that simple.

013a

il y a 8 ansdiscuss

Github Actions is in private beta. From the little time I've spent with it, it could fundamentally change the way you interact with CI; its pretty different compared to normal CI products like Travis, Circle, etc.

Primarily, each pipeline stage can directly reference other public Github repos, with no additional code on your part. This taps in to that community that only exists on Github; for example, to build a project in Language-of-Choice, you just need to find a public implementation of the build pipeline stage for that language, then reference the URL in the action you build.

Its also very docker native, actually to the point of being totally unobvious that everything starts with a docker container. The documentation and hints about how to use it are still pretty sparse since its in beta.

Pricing still hasn't been announced. We'll see. But it feels very promising, especially if a community developers around it focused on providing pipeline stages.