Daniel Eran Dilger
New Mac models powered by M1 Apple Silicon are not just fast in the conventional sense. They're also much more sophisticated, right down to making settings to their display resolution happen instantly.
Thanks to a host of interrelated architectural changes in both hardware and software, the new crop of Macs using Apple Silicon sport a variety of enhancements that make them look and feel more modern, sophisticated, and refined.
Of particular note is their new graphics pipeline. The machine's native use of Apple's custom GPU optimized for Metal 2— as well as the same Unified Memory Architecture used to deliver ultra-fast, low power mobile devices from iPhone to iPad Pros— results in instantaneous, flicker-free changes to video settings.
Changing the scaled display resolution on the new #AppleM1 MacBook (left) is absolutely instantaneous compared to the delay and screen blanking required by the Intel graphics on the 16 inch MacBook Pro (right) pic.twitter.com/YybbPF09TF
— Daniel Eran Dilger (@DanielEran) November 20, 2020
In the video above, a conventional Intel-based 16 inch MacBook Pro can switch between scaled graphics resolutions with only a momentary blacking out of the screen.
However, the new M1-based MacBook Pro shows off the results of lots of work behind the scenes to enhance this with instantaneous switching between graphics modes. The screen doesn't blank or flicker at all.
The result of many such subtle enhancements makes the new M1 Macs feel luxuriously dialed-in and less "PC." Apple has long worked to make its computers more refined and less "techy" in an industry that has largely ignored the importance of such refinements to instead focus on megabits and gigahertz.
Going forward, Apple's efforts to increasingly take over more of the engineering work that makes up its desktop Mac computers will spread the difference between its Macs and generic PCs with a commonly licensed OS.
Fifteen years ago, it seemed like moving the macOS to essentially commodity Intel hardware based on a standard architecture was Apple's best move, but as the development of years of custom iOS mobile devices— and wearable products like Apple Watch— have demonstrated, the company can blend away the boundary between hardware and software to create more desirable, demonstrably better products that are nicer to use.
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37 Comments
Wow. I have 6 external displays for work via daisy-chained USB-C docks. Whenever I reboot it will occasionally swap them around putting the top on the bottom and swapping left and right. If you mouse to the screen on the right it ends up on the left. That little display changing flicker is worse than you think. There's also the app resize refresh that takes several seconds to work through before finally the buttons on the arrangement tab adjust. If you try to move a screen arrangement before it's done it will immediately cut off your mouse drag and put the screen right back inducing another round of the flicker. It took me a while to figure out the timing of the refresh and the visual changes to know when it's safe to try a screen move. Before that it was an excruciating exercise in try try try again.
I am getting the feeling that Apple just pulled a few years ahead of the competition. These Macs are beasts and they will only get better. 2021 should be an interesting year.
Crazy how far we’ve come. I still remember a time when changing resolution settings required a reboot.