Spurred by M1 Performance, Apple Doubles Shipments of Mac Computers

[Raevenlord]

The M1 chip is usually found at a perception crossroads: fans of Apple tout its desktop CPU-level performance numbers in some workloads while comparatively sipping power (and even allowing for true fanless designs in the Apple Macbook Air), while non-fans are quick to point out that synthetic benchmarks aren't truly representative of performance. Whatever side of the fence you sit on (even if you straddle it by admitting that the M1 chip can actually outperform much more powerful and core-laden Ryzen CPUs in some specific workloads), the M1 has been a running success for the California-based company. So much so, in fact, that Apple more than doubled its shipments (a 111% increase) in 2021 compared to the previous year. The second manufacturer with the highest shipment growth is Acer, with 73% - and a slightly smaller overall shipment volume.

The success of Apple's M1 only served to increase Apple's confidence in its decision to abandon Intel, and the company is expected to announce the M1's successor sometime this year. Furthermore, a new version of MacOS further increases the divide to Intel-based Macs due to some features only working on their M1 counterparts. When you consider all of that, including the accelerating optimization of many applications for the platform (Capture One, Affinity, and most recently Adobe), the platform maturity that has been achieved in such a short while, and the announcement of even more powerful hardware for content creators, it may be the case that Apple actually keeps up its momentum and presents a rather competitive landscape to the Windows + x86 PC ecosystem (I won't use Wintel because that's, well, inaccurate and unfair to AMD). Apple is surely on the way to carve out more than its current 15,84% market share (which still places it in a second-place in the overall OS market).



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[Nanochip]

Apple may have struck gold by going with its own cpu architecture. Unlike AMD and intel, Apple is vertically interegrated, and its cpu division has only one customer: Apple.

Apple makes the OS, the kernel, the m1 SOC, and the final product: the mac/iPhone/iPad. It takes a lot of courage and talent to be vertically integrated, but it’s paying off as Apple can deeply integrate its OS and its cpu. I do hope AMD and Intel continue to innovate and bring even more performance increases to x86.

 

[QUANTUMPHYSICS]

More and more tech companies are probably going to move in the Apple Direction: in-house everything - in order to avoid the politics and uncertainty of other countries as much as possible.

As an Apple Shareholder, I agree!

 

[Frick]

More and more tech companies are probably going to move in the Apple Direction: in-house everything - in order to avoid the politics and uncertainty of other countries as much as possible.

As an Apple Shareholder, I agree!

Their stuff is still made in Taiwan and China.

 

[yotano211]

Their stuff is still made in Taiwan and China.

I dont care, their stock price is what I care about.

 

[Deleted member 50521]

Their stuff is still made in Taiwan and China.

Hahahahah, dont pop that bubble yet!

M1 is pretty impressive. Great for a versatile desktop while remain cool and quiet.

Would be nice to figure out the sensors or tuning for M1. Overclocking M1 would be fun

 

[dicktracy]

That means they will continue to take up TSMC's best of the best stuffs all for themselves. Even worse once they invade datacenters and have their inhouse GPUs. RIP everyone else.

 

[john_]

With Acer also scoring a 73% increase, this looks like an effect of the pandemic. If M1 is as Apple is saying, everything will be fine for Apple. If it is much slower than what synthetics show, Apple probably believes/hopes, that it's customers will never notice.

 

[neatfeatguy]

I haven't really followed Apple, so I could be mistaken....

I was under the impression that what made M1 look impressive is how Apple's OS and apps are designed to utilize M1 better over Intel's x86 CPUs they were using.

 

[Raevenlord]

I haven't really followed Apple, so I could be mistaken....

I was under the impression that what made M1 look impressive is how Apple's OS and apps are designed to utilize M1 better over Intel's x86 CPUs they were using.

That's part of it, obviously. What makes it impressive for me is how in some workloads, x86 apps running through Apple's Rosetta translator actually run faster than they natively do on Intel CPUs.

 

[Imsochobo]

Apple may have struck gold by going with its own cpu architecture. Unlike AMD and intel, Apple is vertically interegrated, and its cpu division has only one customer: Apple.

Apple makes the OS, the kernel, the m1 SOC, and the final product: the mac/iPhone/iPad. It takes a lot of courage and talent to be vertically integrated, but it’s paying off as Apple can deeply integrate its OS and its cpu. I do hope AMD and Intel continue to innovate and bring even more performance increases to x86.

While I think apple could accomplish the same with amd at this generation, but I think it's right for apple longer term, M1 is just the start.

 

[Frick]

I dont care, their stock price is what I care about.

Which is fair, but the idea that Apples total control of its ecosystem protects them from political stuff in Asia is ... weird.

 

[mechtech]

When it works with all hardware and software like windows and doesn’t have the Apple tax I’ll think about it.

 

[Frick]

That's part of it, obviously. What makes it impressive for me is how in some workloads, x86 apps running through Apple's Rosetta translator actually run faster than they natively do on Intel CPUs.

While passively cooled, which is the really impressive thing.

 

[lexluthermiester]

The M1 chip is usually found at a perception crossroads: fans of Apple tout its desktop CPU-level performance numbers in some workloads while comparatively sipping power (and even allowing for true fanless designs in the Apple Macbook Air), while non-fans are quick to point out that synthetic benchmarks aren't truly representative of performance.

I'm not a fan of Apple, but credit where it's due, the M1 is impressive! Apples got a winning SOC. This is not something that can be overlooked or easily discounted.

 

[Nanochip]

I'm not a fan of Apple, but credit where it's due, the M1 is impressive! Apples got a winning SOC. This is not something that can be overlooked or easily discounted.

And let’s not forget that apple also put the m1 into the iPad Pro. When’s the last time an intel or amd desktop chip could be placed inside of a tablet? Apple has its quirks as a company and I don’t like how they just drop support for perfectly working hardware (macOS Monterey will drop support for certain MacBooks that worked perfectly fine with Big Sur), but the m1 is impressive.

 

[TheEndIsNear]

As a pc person since inception I hate apple products. To be fair though I haven't used any in a really long time. I try and stay away from China stuff because of their human rights and "re-education" camps. Sometimes you can't help it but slave labor to build exotic products for us so everyone gets rich off their backs doesn't jive with me. I don't care about money. Money is less important than people to me. Some people don't care and that's their right.

 

[Vya Domus]

I try and stay away from China stuff because of their human rights and "re-education" camps. Sometimes you can't help it but slave labor to build exotic products for us so everyone gets rich off their backs doesn't jive with me. I don't care about money. Money is less important than people to me. Some people don't care and that's their right.

You do realize that probably >80% of the electronics you own are built in China, right ? Probably in the same factories side by side with other Apple products.

 

[lemonadesoda]

For all those that are interested in microprocessor heritage, the family tree as it were, then w00t for 6502!

 

[lexluthermiester]

For all those that are interested in microprocessor heritage, the family tree as it were, then w00t for 6502!

I'm familiar with the 6502 CPU. Not sure how it's related to the M1. The 6502 wasn't a RISC type CPU, and I believe the instruction sets were very different. Could be wrong about that...

 

[ADB1979]

OMG... so Apple now has 1% of new PC sales worldwide

 

[InVasMani]

That's part of it, obviously. What makes it impressive for me is how in some workloads, x86 apps running through Apple's Rosetta translator actually run faster than they natively do on Intel CPUs.

Who knew 14nm could get outclassed by TSMC's leading edge 5nm manufacturing in "some" workloads.

 

[Hardware Geek]

If their generational improvement continues at the pace of their phone architecture, which it's the same architecture, keeps up with their recent history, I'll definitely consider buying one. I want the ability to install an alternative OS though and I doubt Apple is going to allow that.

 

[trparky]

If their generational improvement continues at the pace of their phone architecture

You can pretty much guarantee you that that's going to continue.

 

[Nater]

So they sold TWO?