At WWDC in June 2020, which was Apple's first virtual event thanks to the pandemic, Tim Cook announced a tectonic shift for the Mac. Apple was going to be transitioning away from Intel's processors which had been a staple of the Mac since the mid-2000s to semiconductors based on the ARM instruction set designed in-house by Apple's own team that had been making bold leaps in computing for mobile gadgets. Scepticism was ripe when Apple announced the transition. Many core features of the Mac were also rendered useless -- like the ability to load Microsoft's Windows operating system which was a much-loved aspect of the Mac ever since it started using Intel's chips. By 2012, there was a running joke that the MacBook Air was the best Windows notebook you could buy. But when Apple announced the first set of Macs with its new M1 chip in November, all this was going away. Yet, Apple's astounding claims with the new M1 chip had the industry and users in splits. It breathed new life in the Mac line which had been stumbling for years and had seen its star fade particularly in minds of creative professionals.
Earlier this month, Parallel's released a version of its virtualisation software Parallels Desktop optimised for the M1 processor allowing users to run Microsoft's Windows 10 operating system on these new Macs, giving them a significantly better performance than Windows PCs which cost approximately the same amount. Many had believed that software development wouldn't catch up to the new Apple silicon. Many believed developers wouldn't optimise their software for years to Apple's new chip which would dissuade users from buying these new computers. But that hasn't happened.
Raghav Goswamy, a photographer based in Mumbai was one of the early adopters of the new MacBook Air in December 2020. Goswamy was running a decade old 17-inch MacBook Pro which had been updated with 8GB of RAM. For a decade he didn't feel the need to upgrade because he was using Apple's apex notebook from 2011 and with some updates, his work was going fine. But that machine had started to show its age and his discomfort with Windows also meant that he needed a Mac, so he got the new M1 MacBook Air.
His overall experience hasn't been perfect but he has seen some massive gains in productivity. " The overall experience is good though I sometimes experience a slight lag while applying edits on Photoshop. I was using the last generation MacBook Pro 17-inch prior to this, that was slightly smoother I would say, " he said, though he also revealed that he ran a 2019 build of Adobe's software which wasn't optimised for the M1 chip.
But on a day to day productivity front, he loved its battery life. "The battery surely ( is the best feature) and the overall touch and feel of the machine," he added. He also was running older software which was running via Apple's translation layer called Rosetta 2. Yet, he had an experience that was mostly superior to his older machine which had gone through a stream of updates. Goswamy believes that he will have an even better experience when he updates Photoshop to the latest build which is updated for the M1 chip.
BLOT! aka Gaurav Malaker is amongst India's most well-known music producers, DJs and mixed media artists. He also upgraded to the 13-inch MacBook Pro topped up with 16GB RAM and 512GB storage earlier this year. Coming from an older generation 15-inch MacBook Pro and also a Microsoft Surface Pro 7, using the new M1 MacBook Pro, Malaker has found some impressive improvements in his workflow.
"At this price point I don't think one can get a better combination of speed and stability but most importantly the battery life is incredible despite using CPU heavy applications," he explains. "The M1 can go almost 2 days without charge using music and DJ software," he added.
Like most music producers, Malaker also depends on an assortment of apps like Ableton Live, Presonus Studio One 5, Setapp Suite, Adobe Creative cloud suite Logic Pro 10.6, though only a handful of apps like Apple's own Logic Pro and some apps in Adobe's creative cloud have been optimised for the new M1 chipset.
"Logic and a few of the Adobe apps are M1 optimised - given this the performance of these are miles ahead of the ones running via Rosetta (Ableton Live)," he said. In fact, despite all of these upgrades, Malaker's favourite aspect of the M1 Mac was the fact that it didn't heat up which has been a rampant issue with notebooks (including Apple's own MacBooks) that have been based on Intel silicon.
Like Malaker, Sanil Sudan, a DJ/ Producer who goes by the alias FILM and Tyrell Dub Corp, also had a similar experience with the new M1 Mac. He had been using a 2012 MacBook Pro, perhaps the most loved of all MacBooks considering it had support for legacy ports and was perhaps the last notebook with an Intel chip that didn't have performance issues before the semiconductor giant started running into manufacturing problems with its process and yield. Sudan bought the top of the line 16GB, 512GB configuration of the MacBook Pro, the same as Malaker.
He also uses older software which is translated via Rosetta -- in his case, his tools are Ableton 11, Filmora and OBS. "Far better performance than my old MacBook Pro (2012 Model)," he said of the experience running his new MacBook Pro despite his tools also running under the Rosetta translation layer. "Somehow my latency issues have completely disappeared on the M1, which is a huge advantage over the Intel chips," he added talking about the latency in producing music over a DAW and also broadcasting live streams using an open-source tool like OBS," Sudan explains.
Nishank who works at Pioneer DJ India is also upgrading to a new M1 Mac mini from his 2015 MacBook Pro. Sharma also moonlights as a DJ by the alias of MNKY and started a series of live streams called "A state of quarantine" (ASOQ) during the lockdown. His experience with his older MacBook started degrading especially when he started doing the ASOQ streams he had performance issues and now he's also making the switch to an M1 Mac.
"Come April 2021, I make a move to an Apple Mac Mini powered by an M1 chip, after hours and hours of research. The users who have uploaded their feedback on YouTube after months of their usage demonstrated FCP, Zoom calls, Chrome Browser with about 20 open tabs, and screen capture going on all at the same time with no hiccups - some even with 8GB RAM + M1 Mac Mini variant. This would have resulted in a barbecue of my MacBook Pro that was loyal to me for a good 3.5 years, but at last, I had to catch up with the times and welcome home Mac Mini M1 with 16GB RAM and 1TB storage," he revealed.
"Now that months have passed since the new architecture and Big Sur came out, almost every software I use is now compatible with the former. Rekordbox being my most used software for track analysis and export to external media — while it was already fast on my MacBook Pro, I'm just super excited to test the Performance mode and live stream together to make the best use of this upgrade," he added talking about how quickly software developers have adapted their programs for Apple's speedy new chip.
Despite all of this, there are some aspects of Apple's product development that aren't as well-liked. Universally, everyone is yearning for more ports and some more upgradability something that's not possible with these new Macs. Malaker, Nishank, Sudan and Goswamy all wished for more ports. But net, people are happier with these new M1 processors than anything on the market that's powered by Intel or AMD's chips.
All of this is happening right on cue, hours before an Apple event where the Cupertino-based giant is expected to launch new Pro iPads based on the same M1 processor and its legendary iMac with the very same or upgraded avatar of the chip. One thing is clear, the M1 processor is a hit and that's why Intel is so petrified that it has hired Justin Long, the actor who played the Mac guy in the iconic Mac Vs PC ads from the mid-2000s.
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