1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:10,520 Are my expectations too high? 2 00:00:10,520 --> 00:00:15,320 Has my view of Apple and their products shifted? 3 00:00:15,320 --> 00:00:21,360 Cause everyone's noticing something. 4 00:00:22,360 --> 00:00:26,360 I feel like he's gotten so much more cynical about Apple since he started working here. 5 00:00:26,360 --> 00:00:27,360 I really think so. 6 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:38,360 Have I changed? Or has Apple? 7 00:00:44,360 --> 00:00:49,360 Look at the settings page. It's just insane how small the buttons are. 8 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:57,280 People who sit near me at the office note that I moan a lot, sometimes about things 9 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,920 that are trivial and sometimes about things that are not. 10 00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:05,680 In my recent videos, I spent a lot of time complaining about the input cable placement 11 00:01:05,680 --> 00:01:11,020 on two otherwise beautifully designed displays, I've complained about the iPhone SE's aged 12 00:01:11,020 --> 00:01:17,360 form factor and increased price, and I've questioned why the latest iPads need an M1, 13 00:01:17,360 --> 00:01:20,360 though that's been answered in its own annoying way. 14 00:01:20,360 --> 00:01:23,360 Oh, and then there are all the policy choices. 15 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:30,360 The scrappy underdog days of Apple are long over, and what we're left with is such a big 16 00:01:30,360 --> 00:01:36,360 and powerful company. Decisions they make impact billions of people, and so with power that 17 00:01:36,360 --> 00:01:39,360 immense, they basically become a political institution. 18 00:01:39,360 --> 00:01:44,360 That means people are rightly frustrated about things like developer relations, repair restrictions, 19 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:46,360 heck, even updates. 20 00:01:47,360 --> 00:01:53,360 I don't view having a little bit of skepticism as a bad thing. In tech journalism, one has 21 00:01:53,360 --> 00:01:57,360 to be a curmudgeon. Wisbang marketers are very good at conjuring up excitement for their 22 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,360 latest products, and it's very easy to be swept up in it all. 23 00:02:02,360 --> 00:02:07,360 I know this, and I try very hard not to be. But I don't know, sometimes I worry that 24 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:12,360 my healthy skepticism might transform into malignant cynicism, and who wants to watch 25 00:02:12,360 --> 00:02:16,360 that guy? Wouldn't you rather watch someone who's ecstatic about what they're covering? 26 00:02:17,360 --> 00:02:23,360 And yet, here I am with a brand new, kitted out Mac Studio, yet I have more criticism 27 00:02:23,360 --> 00:02:27,360 than I was expecting, which is why I haven't done a video on it yet. 28 00:02:27,360 --> 00:02:32,360 We ordered a fully rammed up M1 Ultra model alongside a base M1 Macs model for Anthony 29 00:02:32,360 --> 00:02:36,360 to compare both sides of the performance spectrum, which you can check out over at LTT. 30 00:02:36,360 --> 00:02:41,360 That M1 Ultra model, however, because it was custom, took months to arrive. 31 00:02:43,360 --> 00:02:48,360 So, when I sat behind this M1 Macs model and did some of my own testing, I realized that 32 00:02:48,360 --> 00:02:51,360 it performs just as well as an equivalent MacBook Pro. 33 00:02:51,360 --> 00:02:56,360 The M1 Macs is amazing in a laptop, but on a desktop, the expectations are a little different. 34 00:02:56,360 --> 00:03:00,360 You're plugged into a wall, and the enclosure is bigger so you can cool more. 35 00:03:00,360 --> 00:03:02,360 Efficiency isn't as beneficial. 36 00:03:03,360 --> 00:03:07,360 I mean, I should concede that this hardware efficiency is actually really beneficial 37 00:03:07,360 --> 00:03:10,360 out here in the beach. I mean, we're running this off battery. 38 00:03:11,360 --> 00:03:16,360 So, it couldn't really wax poetic about the performance, so what else is there to talk about? 39 00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:20,360 The Mac Studio takes on the form of a much taller Mac Mini. 40 00:03:20,360 --> 00:03:26,360 It's a nice, if not dated design, and in a funny irony, Apple now has the hardware efficiency 41 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:29,360 to do the radical designs they did in the past. 42 00:03:29,360 --> 00:03:32,360 And yet, this is what we got. 43 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:37,360 Something based on a computer that was always meant to be cheap, which this is not. 44 00:03:38,360 --> 00:03:42,360 And then there's the framing that Apple launched the Mac Studio with. 45 00:03:42,360 --> 00:03:48,360 On the website and in the presentation, they compared the Mac Studio to a fully-specced iMac 46 00:03:48,360 --> 00:03:55,360 and a mid-range Mac Pro. And yes, when you price out an M1 Mac's Apple Studio with a display keyboard and mouse, 47 00:03:55,360 --> 00:04:02,360 it comes out to the exact same price as a fully-equipped 2020 iMac at $3,900. 48 00:04:03,360 --> 00:04:08,360 The M1 Ultra model, on the other hand, looks less like a Mac Pro and more like a successor 49 00:04:08,360 --> 00:04:14,360 to the long-discontinued iMac Pro because, look, both come out to $6,000. 50 00:04:14,360 --> 00:04:20,360 So where's the mid-range desktop? You can get an M1 in a Mac Mini, or iMac, 51 00:04:20,360 --> 00:04:24,360 or you can get an M1 Mac's, or Ultra for that matter, in this. 52 00:04:24,360 --> 00:04:28,360 The M1 Pro, which is a good balance, isn't available. 53 00:04:28,360 --> 00:04:33,360 If you need more CPU power, you have to jump up to the M1 Mac's then, 54 00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:36,360 and that might have more GPU power than you otherwise need 55 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:39,360 to say nothing of the jump to the M1 Ultra. 56 00:04:39,360 --> 00:04:44,360 So my response to the Mac Studio is that it's a decent but confused computer, 57 00:04:44,360 --> 00:04:48,360 offering only a smattering of value for a select group of professionals 58 00:04:48,360 --> 00:04:51,360 who are probably still better off waiting for the apps they rely on 59 00:04:51,360 --> 00:04:57,360 to better support Apple's new architecture. If you buy a fully-specced 2020 iMac, you don't have to feel bad. 60 00:04:58,360 --> 00:05:01,360 See, I really had high expectations for the Mac Studio, 61 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:05,360 and while others were really enthusiastic about it, I, for some reason, was unimpressed. 62 00:05:05,360 --> 00:05:09,360 I think they wanted to make a 27-inch iMac, but for some reason they couldn't. 63 00:05:09,360 --> 00:05:13,360 So we were left with these in their compromises. 64 00:05:13,360 --> 00:05:19,360 There's that cynicism again. I think I need to take some time to appreciate some of the great things Apple has done, 65 00:05:19,360 --> 00:05:24,360 much of which during the pandemic. I love that the iPhone 13 Mini exists. 66 00:05:24,360 --> 00:05:27,360 No one else makes a phone this capable and this small. 67 00:05:27,360 --> 00:05:32,360 I still love how personal and colorful the iMac is, making it a statement piece for the home. 68 00:05:32,360 --> 00:05:35,360 I love the silent performance of the MacBook Air. 69 00:05:35,360 --> 00:05:38,360 I love their trackpads. I love their overall build quality and reliability. 70 00:05:38,360 --> 00:05:42,360 I love seeing the return and inclusion of important I.O. 71 00:05:42,360 --> 00:05:45,360 And I do like that Apple listens. I'll be very stubbornly. 72 00:05:45,360 --> 00:05:48,360 I mean, we did get the Mac Pro in 2019. 73 00:05:48,360 --> 00:05:52,360 We avoided a bad user interface design in Safari last year, 74 00:05:52,360 --> 00:05:55,360 and we can now repair devices at home. 75 00:05:56,360 --> 00:05:59,360 I'm not gonna list the caveats. I'm not gonna list the caveats. 76 00:06:01,360 --> 00:06:10,360 I'm not gonna list the caveats. We are gonna begin the transition from the PowerPC to Intel processors. 77 00:06:10,360 --> 00:06:14,360 Architecture transitions are hard and really annoying. 78 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:18,360 Apple's going through their third. There's bound to be growing pains. 79 00:06:18,360 --> 00:06:22,360 In more powerful and demanding applications like the ones the Mac Studio is designed for, 80 00:06:22,360 --> 00:06:27,360 they are amplified and harder to fix. So criticism can sound and feel cynical. 81 00:06:30,360 --> 00:06:35,360 But I still have hope. As the hardware engineers slip into their iterative update cadence, 82 00:06:35,360 --> 00:06:40,360 the hard work they've put into chip efficiency will be taken advantage by developers. 83 00:06:40,360 --> 00:06:45,360 And the designers will be able to express themselves better. They've already done it with the iMac and the MacBook Pro. 84 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:52,360 We just need a little bit of patience. I also have hope that as real political institutions recognize the power Apple has, 85 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:56,360 they'll create binding policies that will help the tech industry flourish with innovation 86 00:06:56,360 --> 00:06:59,360 like it did in the more competitive days. 87 00:06:59,360 --> 00:07:02,360 Criticism and cynicism aren't the same thing, 88 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:05,360 but too much criticism can be a bad thing, 89 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:08,360 because you can forget to recognize really great accomplishments. 90 00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:14,360 I, at the very least, want to remain balanced, enthused and excited for what's to come. 91 00:07:14,360 --> 00:07:19,360 Now, on the other hand, I won't be changing my tune about Facebook or Uber. 92 00:07:19,360 --> 00:07:21,360 They don't even get me started on those. 93 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:26,360 Thanks for listening to this therapy, I mean, Mac Address. 94 00:07:26,360 --> 00:07:32,360 Now, if you like the Mac Studio, give this video a like. And if you're excited about what's to come, then you must subscribe. 95 00:07:32,360 --> 00:07:36,360 Now, I'm curious in the comments where the weirdest place you've set up a desktop computer is, 96 00:07:36,360 --> 00:07:38,360 because this is great.