Apple silicon Macs are awesome.
I own several and love using them.
But let's not deny
that there are a couple of issues with them,
even now more than a year since their launch.
So let's not waste any time and get straight into it.
So this is perhaps my biggest issue with Apple right now,
and that is the fact that they solder the SSDs
onto the logic board of Apple silicon Macs.
Now, Apple started doing this a few years ago
when they were still using Intel CPUs,
but it's much more widespread at this point,
especially with Apple silicon Macs.
Also, I can't think of any good reason for this practice
other than planned obsolescence
and controlling your right to repair.
Sure, the SSDs inside Apple silicon Macs are super fast
but so are the SSDs on Windows PCs
especially the ones with PCIe 4.0.
Now the problem with SSDs is they are a consumable product,
which means they have a finite lifespan.
At some point in the future, every SSD will die.
And if yours dies, your only option,
if you're outside of warranty,
is paying Apple an exorbitant amount of money to repair it.
Now, I did make a video a while ago,
going into detail on just how long the SSD
in your Mac will last.
Luckily, it's more than likely going
to last a pretty long time
but make sure you check out that video for more information.
I'll link it down below.
Now, even though the SSD inside my Mac
is still probably going to last a really long time,
I still prefer what basically every Windows laptop does
and that is have a removable and fully upgradeable SSD.
My Lenovo Legion 7 even has two SSD slots
but what I can't wrap my head around
is Apple deciding to use soldered SSDs on desktop Macs
such as the M1 iMac and the M1 Mac mini.
Now, there's plenty of room inside their chassis,
and they don't need to be super small
or portable like a laptop.
Desktops also don't have a built-in battery
or get thrown around as much as a laptop would,
so, on average, they can often last a lot longer
before finally dying or becoming obsolete.
To Apple's credit here,
they've loosened their repair restrictions
likely due to the Right to Repair movement
gaining a lot of traction.
Hopefully we see them reverse their decision
to solder SSDs in the future,
but at this point, it's not looking very likely.
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Okay, let's have a quick chat about software.
Now, over the last year,
we've seen a massive increase in software support
and optimization for Apple silicon Macs,
and that has been really, really awesome to see.
Apps like DaVinci Resolve, Chrome,
the Microsoft Office suite, and Adobe apps, for example,
now work really well.
But if you've ever needed to use less popular applications,
you've probably run into issues.
For me, personally, just the other day
I was trying to calibrate a new monitor
to improve color accuracy for media production.
The calibration software I would usually use
for this just didn't work at all.
It would open but wouldn't detect the monitor
and wouldn't load certain functions.
Luckily, I had a Windows laptop nearby
that worked perfectly fine.
Now, if you've had any issues with your Apple silicon Mac,
make sure you leave a comment down below
and let me know what it is
'cause I've heard a lot of really weird stories
from you guys over the last couple of months.
Honestly, I don't blame Apple fully for this
because there's not much they can do
if a company just can't be bothered
to update their own software to be Apple silicon compatible.
But unfortunately, that leaves us, the users,
at a big disadvantage,
especially if your workflow includes these less popular
or legacy applications
with limited support outside of Windows.
Okay, so what about Boot Camp?
Is this something that's going to solve these issues?
Well, as you probably already know,
there's no Boot Camp option for Apple silicon Macs.
Also, the ARM version of Windows is not even available
for Apple silicon Macs.
Microsoft actually made a secret exclusivity deal
with Qualcomm to only provide Windows ARM
to devices with a Qualcomm SOC.
Now, this deal is supposed to expire soon,
but I wouldn't count on it.
So that leaves us with virtualization of Windows
through software such as Parallels.
Now Parallels does work well.
I personally use it on my MacBook,
and I will link Parallels down below,
but it's just nowhere near as good
as running Windows on your Mac natively.
You also run into issues
with many 64-bit applications on Parallels
because many of them are not fully supported yet
in the preview version of Windows ARM,
which is the only one that works on Parallels.
So a ton of applications and also games,
like Valorant, for example, just don't work.
Okay, let's talk about price to performance next.
Now, with Apple silicon Macs,
specifically the 14 and 16-inch MacBook Pros,
they are really, really good devices.
Almost zero fan noise, great battery life,
incredible build quality,
and the overall package is just awesome.
But you are paying a premium for it.
I made a video a while back
where I compared a previous gen Windows laptop
with a Ryzen 5900HX and RTX 3080 GPU
with a top-of-the-line 16-inch M1 Max MacBook Pro.
I'll also link this video in the description.
I only wanted to focus on performance in that video,
so I didn't take battery life, fan noise,
or build quality, for example, into consideration.
All of which, in my opinion, the MacBook does better.
The MacBook kept up with the RTX 3080 laptop quite well,
even outperforming it in some areas,
mainly video production,
where the M1 Max could take advantage of its video encoders.
Also, it was able to match the RTX 3080's gaming performance
but only in a synthetic benchmark
and only when using Metal,
which is Apple's own 3D API.
Most games use either OpenGL or Vulkan,
frustratingly, neither of which Apple supports.
Although they did previously support OpenGL
but dropped it a while ago.
Now apart from these few specific scenarios,
in most other areas the Windows laptop
was noticeably more powerful.
And if we look at pricing, the M1 Max sells for $3,500 US
and the Legion 7 was just on sale for $2,500.
That's a $1,000 difference.
Now, depending on your needs,
that additional cost might be worth it
for all the awesome features of the MacBook,
like battery life, screen,
and much better speakers, for example,
but for performance, it's not.
And don't forget, the Windows laptop I used
in that video is now technically outdated.
The newest Windows laptops feature Intel 12th gen CPUs,
which far outperform Apple silicon
when looking at just performance.
And this leads me to my final point.
There's just a lot of workflows
that are just worse on Apple silicon.
Taking a look at Blender, for example,
which is a popular 3D design application,
an RTX 3080 laptop absolutely smokes the M1 Max MacBook Pro
in cycles rendering because Blender is able to use Optix,
which takes advantage
of the ray tracing cores within the RTX GPU.
And as of yet, no Apple device can compete
with this kind of optimized performance
from dedicated hardware and software working together.
And don't forget, not only was the Blender performance
on the RTX 3080 laptop four times better
than the M1 Max MacBook Pro,
the RTX 3080 laptop was also $1,000 cheaper.
And this is after Blender just got a massive update
in version 3.1 that allowed Apple silicon Macs
to increase cycle's render performance
by a factor of almost five.
Now, Apple's engineers are currently working with Blender
to improve performance and compatibility,
but for the foreseeable future, a lot of workflows,
for example, Cinema 4D, Blender, some CAD software,
or certain development-specific programs
are just so much better on anything but Apple silicon Macs
due to compatibility and performance reasons.
Even for apps that are Apple silicon optimized,
many of the add-ons or plug-ins,
for example, music production software, are not,
and must be run on Rosetta 2
if they can even run at all.
I have no doubt
that these things will be resolved with time,
but the problem is no one knows when.
And people need this stuff to work now,
not 6 or 12 or 18 months in the future.
Now this video might sound a little bit doom and gloom,
but at the end of the day, despite these issues,
Apple silicon Macs are still a really, really good product.
And with a little time and support,
hopefully in the near future,
this entire video will be redundant and I can delete it.
But apart from that, hopefully you guys enjoyed watching,
and I will catch you in the next one.