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