The success of Apple's new M1 processor in Mac, MacBook, and iMac computers sent shockwaves through the industry. Performance of the M1 is much better than most processors from Intel. Apple (and its fans) are gleeful; Intel (and its fans, if it has any) are glum.
We now have news that Apple is readying a successor processor. Pundits predict the name will either be 'M1X' or 'M2', depending on the increase in capabilities over the M1 processor.
An M1X processor will see a modest set of improvements: an increased number of cores, and some minor improvements overall.
An M2 processor, on the other hand, will see a significant number of improvements. Certainly more cores, and faster memory (DDR5?) and a better GPU.
My guess -- and this is a pure, wild guess -- is that an M2 processor will have a design flaw. I do not work with Apple or its suppliers. And, I could be wrong.
My guess is that if Apple releases an 'M2' processor (an M1 with lots of changes) then there will be some nontrivial problem that surfaces after its introduction. A problem that is not detected by Apple's quality assurance efforts, yet a problem that is not insignificant and renders the processor unusable.
The culprit here is the "second system effect" which occurs after the first system is a success. In brief, after its success with the M1 processor, Apple becomes overconfident -- or over-ambitious -- with the M2 processor, and misses a flaw in the design.
What that flaw will be I do not know. It could be insufficient heat dissipation, leading to overheating in some circumstances. It could be a flaw in floating-point arithmetic. It could be a problem in the security between different processes, allowing one process to see the data of a different process.
Should Apple release new computers with a new 'M2' processor, my advice is: Wait. Don't be the first to use them -- at least not for critical applications. Let others test them, for at least a few months.
If you want to try a few as a research project, go ahead. I'm okay with that. You may find that they perform well for you. Or you may find that they don't. Testing new equipment before committing to production is a reasonable and responsible activity.
I will say here that I am biased. I think Apple has stayed too long with the 1970s model of computing, with all computing being local and nothing in the cloud. I also think that it designs products for appearance and not function. (It's displays are designed to be touched and its keyboards are designed to be visually appealing, which in my mind is backwards.) I respect it's performance with ARM chips in iPhones, iPads, and Macintosh computers. But Apple is not infallible.
1 comment:
My biggest problem with Apple is durability. I fried (with liquid spills), accidentally dropped or banged irreparably and otherwise mangled so much apple hardware over the years it's quite unbelievable. Meanwhile I infamously left my Lenovo ThinkPad on the roof of my car one early morning and I saw it tumbling behind me while going 50 mph. Apart from a free scratches and nicks it worked fine. I'd thst had been a Mac it would have been in a thousand pieces.
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