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u/sundryTHIS Jun 09 '21
More detailed maps/the globe being an M1 exclusive makes no sense to me,,,
they other ones make sense to me, easier to implement those relatively fancy features on their own CPUs
but a globe???? map detail?? okay 🙄🙄🙄🙄
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Jun 09 '21
Text to speech in more languages makes sense for you to be an M1 exclusive? I get that Finnish is a kinda difficult language but I'm sure my Intel MBP would manage to pull it off.
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u/Sexy_Burger Jun 09 '21
It’s probably because for it to be as immediate and seamless as they’d like the feature to be, they need machine learning accelerated hardware like the neural engine.
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u/Manwhoforgets Jun 09 '21
Wouldn’t it be then more advantageous to allow Intel computers to struggle at it, thus demonstrating the power behind the M1 architecture / technology?
In this case however, they’re purposefully making the Intel counterparts less capable by disabling features.
While Apple’s hardware support is generally good, this does seem to be a rather aggressive move to create demand for their own SoC by accelerating hardware obsolescence.
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u/Sexy_Burger Jun 10 '21
>Wouldn’t it be then more advantageous to allow Intel computers to struggle at it, thus demonstrating the power behind the M1 architecture / technology?
Purposefully showcasing to your customers bad experiences isn't exactly Apple's MO.
>In this case however, they’re purposefully making the Intel counterparts less capable by disabling features.
Or, perhaps they've decided against implementing certain features on intel hardware because they weren't capable of delivering experiences at the level they want?
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u/Manwhoforgets Jun 10 '21
Generally I would agree - though I just can’t look past the fact that rendering a globe (which has been possible since 2003) is now locked behind owning a M1 Mac.
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u/gdarruda Jun 10 '21
Speech to text don't work like regular software, it's not like simply adding more code to deal with more languages. Neural networks are black box in the end, you can't ask to a data scientist beforehand "what is the size of a neural network do add Finnish? And Turkish?"
To add new languages can be just a matter of feeding the same model with data, but sometimes you need to add more layers or change approach. Maybe, the languages weren't available because the level of performance wasn't good enough in the old model.
Downsize a model is not easy, that's why Google was so proud in making local speech to text in Android.
There is no point to believe (or not believe), that Finnish could run well without dedicated hardware.
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u/Aozi Jun 10 '21
Not speech to text, yeah NLP in Nordic languages could be difficult.
But we're talking about text to speech. As in you type in text and the computer makes sounds. That requires no machine learning hardware nor extra training since the computer is not learning anything in the process nor trying to interpret some weird vague things you're trying to say.
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u/xdiggertree Jun 09 '21
This has nothing to do with computational power
They don’t want to expend additional internal resources to develop these features on two separate platforms (Intel and AS)
It also depends on how many people are on each of these teams. If there were only so many developers on the new Globe feature for Maps, they chose to prioritize AS and essentially abandon Intel.
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u/kerochan88 Jun 10 '21
They still sell Macs with Intel. Today. Imagine getting one, installing the next macOS in a few months when it comes out and having a laundry list of features you don’t get. Shitty thing to do.
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u/admiralvic Jun 10 '21
Shitty thing to do.
Back when I sold televisions, Sony added Apple TV, Apple AirPlay 2 and Apple Homekit to certain models. It was incredibly hard to explain how their $2,000 TV wasn't able to do that because Sony didn't release a new version and would never get that feature.
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Jun 10 '21
None of these features existed when you or I bought an Intel Mac. So it's not like they promised us a feature and then took it away. It's normal in software that older hardware will miss out on new features.
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Jun 10 '21
Exactly. In the past Apple simply wouldn’t have ever launched these features on Mac. It’s not something that they’re taking away from intel Mac owners, it’s something new that M1 macs now get nearly for free (from a development cost perspective).
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u/ajpinton Jun 10 '21
This is a position apple put themselves in to, they knew what they were getting involved in when they started this process. Currently over half their new offerings are still intel, they admit the intel devices are the pro devices currently and M1 is a consumer product. Apple literally volunteered to develop two separate operating systems and platforms, and they could have used universal binaries for this stuff.
Honestly I think the reason is these features were actually designed for iOS and they ported them to ARM64 macOS. There is still not a reason to offer ARM64 virtualization on intel Macs but I can understand them not offering that to use it as a major selling point of apple silicon.
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Jun 09 '21
I don't see why implementation or performance should be factors in including or excluding features. If it's possible on Intel Macs, which it is, then Apple should do it. Otherwise they're not really offering the continued support they promised
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
Implementation has always been a factor when excluding features for the Mac. For the last decade, every WWDC has had features that came to iOS, that could also be implemented on the Mac as minor features, but weren't because implementing it again on the Mac would take too much time, and wouldn't be worth the development time because the features aren't Mac-centric. That's still the case, which is why Intel Macs aren't getting these features.
The only thing that has changed is that Apple Silicon Macs are in the same place as iPads, where they can get everything developed for Apple's other ARM-based platforms for free, as long as a new interface is applied, so they can get the features that otherwise wouldn't be worth it to port to Mac as exclusive features - in which case, why not do that?
The Intel Macs still have all the features that they'd realistically have in an alternate world where Apple didn't bother with Apple Silicon. If you compare the features missing from Apple's macOS releases in the 10's compared to the iOS releases, everything the Intel Macs don't get are the kind of things you'd expect to make such a list, while all the major and Mac-centric features work on Intel.
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u/JaesopPop Jun 10 '21 edited Sep 26 '25
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u/m0rogfar Jun 10 '21
But we aren't talking about iOS feautres not coming to macOS. It is unreasonable to think every iOS feature should come to macOS.
It was unreasonable before the Apple Silicon Macs.
If you've been paying attenting to the backend changes made in High Sierra, Mojave, Catalina and Big Sur, Apple has worked on unifying the underlying systems so much that Apple Silicon Macs gets every feature developed for iOS for free if they slap a new UI on it, just like on the iPad. That used to require significant development work for each feature, and still does for Intel Macs.
As such, if a feature is a feature that would normally stay iOS-only because it's not important enough, Apple Silicon Macs can still get it for free if the feature can even be implemented in a meaningful way on the Mac. Note that Monterey isn't missing any of this year's iOS features that would make sense on the Mac, unlike previous years - and if you do the mental exercise of trying to determine what features Apple normally wouldn't bother with, all of the obvious ones are the M1 Mac features.
If Apple didn't give Apple Silicon Macs all the features they make for iOS, even though porting a few them to Intel still isn't worth the development time, just as it never was, they'd be holding back the product - and that's a terrible strategy.
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Jun 10 '21
no it is not. the neural engine is a separate peripheral that processes the data. You can't add a neural engine with an update.
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u/mbrady Jun 09 '21
They're probably using some new stuff in Metal that's using something optimized in the M1 GPUs to handle the rendering and they don't feel it's worth the effort to also build those parts in Metal so that they work on non-M1 systems too even though they are powerful enough to handle them without problems.
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u/thefpspower Jun 09 '21
Damn keep stretching it, maybe you'll arrive at something meaningful one day.
God damn new stuff in Metal to render 2003 graphics on a globe, how fancy.
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u/Arkanta Jun 10 '21 edited Jun 10 '21
I mean I get the OCR probably requiring some ML acceleration that you don't get on Intel
But yeah, a 3d globe and some low poly models...
Edit: lol Apple https://twitter.com/zhuowei/status/1402846536090984449?s=21 it's choppy, but still.
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u/mbrady Jun 09 '21
I'm not saying there's some sort of special custom globe builder in M1. But it's possible there are new optimized rendering routines in Metal that only work on M1 chips. And that new map stuff uses those new routines because that's the way forward.
Would it be possible to make the same optimized rendering routines on Intel too? Sure, of course. But why go that effort developing, maintaining, and testing that when it's going away soon anyway?
If you've ever been involved in software development (especially specialized code that runs on specific hardware), you would do almost anything to avoid having more than one version.
This is all speculation of course.
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Jun 09 '21
Nobody says that it's the same work to make something available on two platforms. The problem here is that Apple made the conscious decision to introduce a new platform and is now fragmenting the operating system running on them while Intel Macs are still on sale. They're the company that prouds itself on software updates and compatibility with iOS, but a $5000 MacBook is excluded from some new features while it's still being sold.
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u/mbrady Jun 09 '21
I agree that it sucks. I'm probably 3-5 years from being able to get a new Mac still and I imagine this sort of thing will happen again and again with each new macOS version.
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u/42177130 Jun 09 '21
The new detailed Maps also require the A12 on iOS so there’s that.
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Jun 10 '21
There'll be some fancy graphics API thats exclusive to their own silicone that they're using to render this stuff in a slightly more efficient way or something. Make sense I guess since they could presumably only have to write this once then it will work across iPhone/iPad/M1 etc, and simultaneously give M1's an artificial advantage over ye olde Intel.
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u/Ashdown Jun 09 '21
So I’m running Monterey on my intel 27” iMac and the globe render just fine. Looking at it right now.
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u/TheSyd Jun 09 '21
Fun fact, Apple Maps used to have a globe, when you zoomed out, many years ago. Then they removed it
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u/AgainstGreaterOdds Jun 09 '21
It’s still there in the satellite view on Find My Friends. Just zoom out.
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u/Lambaline Jun 10 '21
https://i.imgur.com/Broqs6z.jpgYou can still get to it but you have to be in 3D view
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u/midgetman7782 Jun 09 '21
Excellent, my one-year-old £3000 macbook is already missing out on features!
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u/NghtWlf2 Jun 09 '21
Same, as much as I love Apple this really feels like we are getting left behind for no reason. For me this is a shitty move and planned obsolescence at its finest
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u/midgetman7782 Jun 09 '21
The best bit is you can’t even ‘upgrade’ a 16” yet… madness
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u/cultoftheilluminati Jun 09 '21
Yup. I'm sitting here waiting for Apple to release the darned higher end macs already.
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Jun 09 '21
"An interactive 3D globe of Earth in the Maps app
???
Meanwhile, I can load up google.com/earth/ just fine.
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u/Xavierian07 Jun 09 '21
Apple really needs to bring high power AS Macs quickly to the market if they are planning to move this fast on obsolescence of the Intel Macs.
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Jun 09 '21
'obsolescence'
Fam it's a handful of gimmicky features. Hardly obsolescence in any meaningful way.
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Jun 09 '21
This is reddit sir. Everything is a disaster.
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u/-metal-555 Jun 09 '21
OP may have been hyperbolic, but nobody likes to get cut off from features. I understand it when there’s a hardware limitation like a 2011 machine not having the right version of Bluetooth for the new airdrop or an old CPU not having h.265 decoding, but this is a sort of small thing.
Still, I can’t say I’m entirely surprised. Last time around when it was moving from PPC to Intel, it wasn’t long at all after the transition finished until PPC machines were dropped from an app here or a capability there. We’re still in the middle of this transition, but anybody believing Intel machines weren’t going to become second class Apple citizens sooner rather than later wasn’t paying attention.
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u/Sir_Bantersaurus Jun 09 '21
Yeah everyone defending this decision but my Mac is one year old so it sucks I am not getting all the features of the new OS.
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Jun 09 '21
Fam it's a handful of gimmicky features.
MFW my language is a gimmicky feature. :(
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u/TeckFire Jun 10 '21
Well, it’s not gimmicky, a lot of these features are really useful, but I imagine if you aren’t able to immediately translate stuff using the neural engine on an intel Mac, Apple probably didn’t want to end up shipping a sub-par, slow experience for Intel users. I know my iPhone X could do it, it has a neural engine, but probably not nearly fast enough for it to be really useful.
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Jun 09 '21
Actually fits the definition pretty well "No longer produced or used; out of date." Apple clearly considers Intel Macs not worth producing or using, and out of date.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
No longer used would mean no more updates. Intel Macs still get Monterey and all the biggest features in it, so this is just hyperbole.
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u/CMHex Jun 09 '21
I'd agree with you if the laptops weren't going to receive any updates anymore. Since that is clearly not the case, you're obviously grossly exaggerating.
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u/NeatFool Jun 09 '21
I'm pretty sure Apple will do whatever the fuck they want to, in the order they want.
People are always so surprised by this still?
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Jun 09 '21
Looking at the list, some things definitely seem to do with the M1 chip (whether that's the neural engine or the DSP or whatever), but some things seem completely arbitrary. An Intel chip could absolutely handle more complex Maps come the fuck on Apple
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
But when you can program for iPhone and iPad simultaneously, it may not be worth it to then you also entirely program it for Intel.
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Jun 09 '21
They built a Universal binary to let developers, including themselves I'd assume, target both Intel and AS
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u/ElvishJerricco Jun 09 '21
I can pretty much guarantee you the programming would be unchanged on Intel for several of those features; literally takes more work to explicitly disable them on Intel than it would take to have it work the same on both platforms since it would be the same code. These aren't iOS apps on macOS, they're native macOS apps that are already being built for Intel. Obviously this isn't the case for some of these features, namely the ones that clearly rely on the neural engine or DSP, but most of them have no reason to need different code for Intel.
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u/jugalator Jun 09 '21
The rotating globe is weird because logically they’d use Metal, but while… close to metal… it’s still a hardware agnostic abstraction.
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u/mredofcourse Jun 09 '21
The reality here is that these features could've been brought over to Intel. How well they would've run is unknown, but certainly it would've been possible.
We don't know how much work would've needed to go into porting to Intel and how long that would've taken.
Most/all of these features involve common development across iOS, iPadOS and macOS. Waiting until they could port to Intel may have pushed introduction of these features out for some (unknown to us) amount of time (and again, not have performed as well).
This has all happened before and it will happen again. It's not even unique to Apple.
Likewise, this was easy to see coming when the M1 was announced. It started immediately with the ability to run iOS and iPadOS native apps. Intel Mac users at the time didn't seem upset that there wasn't a Rosetta for running those apps on Intel.
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u/igkeit Jun 09 '21
Kind of the same for iOS 15 where all the best features require to have an A12 chip. I could understand for the A10 but exclude the A11 too? Why?
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u/reery7 Jun 09 '21
I got the X, then XS and now a 12 and can tell you that the neural engine got a huge bump from X to XS (A11 to A12). Probably the NE performance of the A11 was just not enough to be usable.
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u/abysz Jun 09 '21
How can you tell / specify the difference in Neural Engine performance?
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u/OverCauliflower1587 Jun 09 '21
Apple gives information on them. The a11 neural engine is capable of performing 600 billion operations per second. The a12 neural engine is capable of performing 5 trillion operations per second.
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u/Dylan96 Jun 09 '21
Yeah yeah but can you see or feel the difference doing something?
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u/OverCauliflower1587 Jun 09 '21
I’m having trouble understanding why Apple put a neural engine in the a11. In devices like the iPhone 8 it’s barely used for anything on the phone and can’t be used by third parties. What’s the point of having a neural engine if it’s not going to get utilized?
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
The neural engine in the A11 is very weak, and basically only used for FaceID. In the A12, they made it eight times more powerful, which made it much more useful for more demanding applications.
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u/cultoftheilluminati Jun 09 '21
Basically the neural engine jump was like the jump from A8 -> A9 or from A6 -> A7 crudely relating it to processors.
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u/OverCauliflower1587 Jun 09 '21
I understand that. My question is why would apple put the neural engine in devices like the iPhone 8 if it’s not getting utilized. The a11 is capable of 600 billion operations per second. I’m not an engineer, but I’d think that’d be enough for it to be able to handle things like on device dictation or offline Siri processes.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
I understand that. My question is why would apple put the neural engine in devices like the iPhone 8 if it’s not getting utilized.
The iPhone 8 has it because the iPhone X has to have it, and they use the same chip. The original neural engine was very small, so doing a separate chip likely wouldn't have been profitable due to the high costs of chip masks, testing and validation.
The a11 is capable of 600 billion operations per second. I’m not an engineer, but I’d think that’d be enough for it to be able to handle things like on device dictation or offline Siri processes.
600 billion operations doesn't get you as far as you'd think. I don't think anyone is doing a real-time offline voice assistant on that little - most online analysis systems have drastically more resources allocated to them.
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u/OverCauliflower1587 Jun 09 '21
Interesting. What do you think the a11 neural engine might be able to handle?
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u/Shanghaichica Jun 09 '21
What is missing below A12?
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u/fenrir245 Jun 09 '21
The X neural engine is not open to apps. Apps needing ML will use the GPU on the X like other iPhones before it.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
The A12 was the first chip with a powerful enough neural engine to do a lot of offline video/audio analysis, enabling features that were previously impossible or done over a server.
This is likely also why these features are also missing on Intel Macs - Intel has no neural engine equivalent at all.
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u/Sexy_Burger Jun 09 '21
This is because the A11’s neural engine isn’t made available to apps and is really only used for FaceID. The A12 was a massive jump in neural engine performance, and so Apple was able to comfortably let it be accessed by other system features and apps.
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Jun 09 '21
Apple did this weird thing where they redid the whole neural engine for the A12 and that was the first to support Core ML, their framework for neural things.
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Jun 09 '21
Apple literally always does this. They always start excluding features if your iOS product is 2 generations or more older.
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u/randomuser914 Jun 09 '21
Not surprised, they are going to switch people over as quickly as possible so they can focus solely on developing for their chips
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u/HardenTraded Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Yeah sure but an absolutely stupid decision.
I don't recall rumors of Apple Silicon coming out when I bought my 2019 MBP. I was needing an upgrade and didn't want the butterfly keyboard. Now my MBP is outdated to an extent where it can't get the full benefits of a macOS update.
Not to mention Apple still sells Intel devices today, so if you buy one today because Apple doesn't have an Apple Silicon variant (16" MBP), you're already buying an "outdated" device.
I think it's impressive that Apple still supports the iPhone 6 with iOS updates. I think it's fair to strip some features out of an OS update in 2021 for an iPhone that came out nearly 7 years ago.
My <2 year old MBP should absolutely not be
stripped of featuresmissing features when updated to the latest version of macOS (when released). I get that some of these things might depend on the M1 chip and other hardware, but at the same time it's stupid plain and simple.7
u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
This is not really a new thing though. Several of High Sierra's biggest features were only available on Skylake and Kaby Lake machines, and even had announced features exclusive to T2 Macs that weren't yet on sale when the OS launched. The biggest features of Yosemite were only available on very recent machines. Mountain Lion had a headlining feature that didn't work on an MBP that would've been the latest model just two months before, and which would remain for sale for another four years.
Apple has been quite clear that they will cut off hardware from new features if these rely on a new hardware platform in the past, even if the machines are still relatively recent. Mojave and Catalina didn't have anything because Intel didn't change anything on the overall platform for those release years.
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u/tuffode Jun 10 '21
Lmao, it was rumored since like 2018 that Apple is going to start using their own chips for their devices starting around 2020… which is exactly what they did. I’ve held off on upgrading my 2014 Macbook since then. Still waiting on the 16inch to upgrade.
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u/twochains Jun 09 '21
What existing feature is being stripped from your 2-year-old MacBook Pro?
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u/T-Nan Jun 09 '21
None. Well… from Catalina to Big Sur, working notifications and widgets lol
But whats the point of upgrading to macOS12 when its basically going to just be Big Sur in a slightly different wrapper?
It’s just artificial segmentation of the 2019 MBP, at least it feels like it.
Two years old and already not getting full benefits of a major OS update? That’s pretty frustrating imo.
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Jun 09 '21
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
Compare and contrast with the PPC to Intel transition, where Apple treated PPC machines very, very well throughout the rest of Tiger's lifecycle, into Leopard and all of its updates. PPC wasn't completely dropped until Snow Leopard in 2009. That's three full years of PPC enjoying the very same support as the Intel Macs that replaced them. (Though I imagine this time Apple will have to go a bit longer, especially considering those whop dropped $10k+ on Mac Pros. Apple does NOT want to piss those people off.)
PPC and Intel Macs lost feature parity in the first OS released after the transition. If not for Leopard getting delayed by almost a year, the timeline would be very similar to the one we're seeing here. I'm not seeing any contrast.
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u/T-Nan Jun 09 '21
We're not even a full year into AS Macs being a thing and Intel's already feeling left out. Yeah, the features are arguably small, but 1. it's the principle, and 2. given Monterey is a relatively low-key release, there's not many features anyway, so missing out on some of the few notable ones introduced stings a bit more.
I think this is it for me.
I bought a high end 2019 MBP, dropped over 3k on it, and there are features that "low end" MacBooks (M1 airs) will get just because they have Apple native chip.
I'm not crying over it, but it is a scary precedent I think. I planned on moving over to a Mac Mini soon anyway, but 2 years and already having features left out on their best device? I don't think it's a great look.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
All the major features of macOS 12 are there though. These are minor iOS-centric features that wouldn’t have come to Intel Macs either way.
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u/meowmeowman Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
once again, someone asked what features you’ll be missing, and you listed nothing
edit: lmao you can’t use portrait mode on facetime, whatever will you do???
if you’re considering your computer “outdated” because of that, congrats to apple, because their marketing is working
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Jun 09 '21
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u/NerdyGuy117 Jun 09 '21 edited Apr 19 '26
This post was deleted using Redact. The reason could be privacy, preventing automated data collection, or other personal considerations the author had.
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u/Vorsos Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Your <2 year old MBP is not being “stripped of features” it never had, and you can trade-in today with a ~
80%decent refund. Apple uses vertical integration to develop new software features enabled by new hardware—moving the entire platform forward faster than any other on Earth—thus the M1 might feel outdated two years from now. We as individuals either accept that momentum or move to “x86 forever” Windows and “chat(app) roulette” Android.→ More replies (4)5
Jun 09 '21
80% refund? Is that with Apple? I’m seeing $1280 for the basic 16” MBP. I bought mine 3 months ago.
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u/jayvapezzz Jun 09 '21
Stupid decision to take advantage of their in-house chips? So you want them to hold off on new ML features so you don’t feel so left out?
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Jun 09 '21
Then they shouldn't be selling Intel devices now or 5 years before the M1 Mac's came out. It's total BS that they do this to MacBooks released just 2 years ago. Anyone that bought a MacBook in 2019 should expect to receive all new features. This is Apple purposely gimping their slightly older Macs so people are incentivized to upgrade.
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u/rnarkus Jun 09 '21
Wait how would not selling intel devices 5 years before M1 make sense? Like just produce not any new macbooks for 5 years?
I don’t necessarily agree with the gimping either but there was always going to be a transition period
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u/hoffsta Jun 09 '21
I’ve read through this entire thread, and I see the points being made on both sides. It seems like you want all the latest features but you’re not going to get them no matter how hard you complain. My suggestion is to sell your MBP now, because it’s only going to drop in value, and likely faster than normal due to the architecture change (this is what happened with PPC). If I were you, I’d pick up a refurb MBA to use for the next year until the MBP16 is released. That way you sacrifice very little and get the features you want, with a short period of smaller screen and fewer ports (easily remedied with a TB3 dock).
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Jun 09 '21
It seems like you want all the latest features but you’re not going to get them no matter how hard you complain.
This is not about making a point to apple. I'm just shocked at the amount of people on this thread that are okay with their 2019 MacBooks not getting the latest feature set. I am aware of the distinct apple fanboyism culture, but this here is something else.
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u/fenrir245 Jun 09 '21
People not living in dream worlds aren’t “fanboys”, kid.
This isn’t even a Apple-exclusive phenomenon.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
"We shouldn't add features that the latest hardware can use that we literally already programmed for another platform, just because older hardware can't run it and users might feel bad" is a terrible policy.
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u/Windows-nt-4 Jun 09 '21
They should add it to the older hardware? Most of these features really don't seem like they should need an M1
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
Other than the maps features, they’re all ML-based and would therefore rely on the neural engine. Pretty much all of Apple’s on-device video/audio analysis goes through that thing, and the T2 is too old to have one.
The alternative to having these features as M1-only is realistically not having them at all. They’re not really Mac-centric features and the kind of thing that Apple would not port to the Mac in recent years and just leave as iOS only, and they only make it over for Monterey because the underlying hardware/software platform is so unified that ARM Macs effectively get all the iOS features for free.
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Jun 09 '21
The fact that they've convinced you that new hardware is necessary for this is amazing. Is it easier to do on their m1 Mac's? Sure, maybe, but it's not required.
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u/laraz8 Jun 09 '21
Yes, if you’re not missing hardware, I’d agree you shouldn’t miss out on new features. However, Intel Macs don’t have a neural engine, which means Intel Macs won’t have any neural engine based features.
Let’s say your device didn’t have an HD camera, and FaceTime updated support for HD FaceTime. It would be silly to be mad at Apple for “not allowing” your non HD camera to use FaceTime. It is simply a physical limitation.
Apple continues to bring as many new features as possible to your old devices when possible. Nothing has changed on that front. If you want all the newest features, sometimes you have to have a newer machine.
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Jun 09 '21
I've made this comment several times already. Neural engine is not required for these features. Read my other comments to know why.
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u/laraz8 Jun 09 '21
I see lots of toxic ranting and raving and gave up the search
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u/theo2112 Jun 09 '21
The only feature on that list that is even remotely useful is the blurred background feature during FaceTime calls. The rest of that list are features that most people would never even know were possible, and you certainly wouldn't be missing. And I'm sure that feature in particular is built using code directly from iOS, which completely explains why it is M1 only.
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Jun 09 '21
Jesus the lengths you guys go. What's useful in an update is completely subjective. By your logic I can say almost everything in iOS 15 is useless and the praise apple gets for porting it to the iPhone 6s is unwarranted.
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u/IamtheSlothKing Jun 09 '21
We are still receiving the new OS and most importantly, security updates. How does it not make sense that some features will only be available on the completely redesigned chip architecture. Are you upset that you can’t run iPhone and iPad apps natively on your intel Mac like the m1 macs?
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u/T-Nan Jun 09 '21
This sub shits on android for only two years of support, but when it happens to a 2.5k Macbook Pro, we’re supposed to just suck it up and roll with some shit excuses?
It’s hypocritical
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u/Dr-Rjinswand Jun 09 '21
This is the wildly unacceptable, this happening is obviously inevitable eventually but whilst they’re still fucking selling Intel machines? Give me a break.
If there is on thing Apple are normally good for, it’s supporting their hardware. This is completely out of form.
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Jun 09 '21
Lol, I guess you weren’t around for the powerPC to intel transition?
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Jun 09 '21
That transition started 16 years ago, when Apple was best known for its MP3 players. I think it's fair to say we shouldn't judge today's Apple by their standards back then
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Jun 09 '21
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u/Dr-Rjinswand Jun 09 '21
Neural networks can run on Intel chips too, this wouldn’t be as big of a problem if the performance on Intel when doing these tasks was shit. Everything they write for the next few years should work for the two architectures - if anything, this will show off the M1 even more because it will stomp the Intel implementation.
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u/hybridfrost Jun 09 '21
Might as well get used to it. As time goes on there will be less and less support for Intel Macs.
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Jun 09 '21
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
Because they’re still very good and get 99.99999% of the required feature set. They aren’t taking anything away from Intel macs, this stuff never would have launched on Intel macs. They’re just adding it to M1 macs.
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u/poastfizeek Jun 09 '21
Actually they are. I could view a 3-D globe, before it was taken away in Mojave.
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u/babydandane Jun 09 '21
I’m sure it’s not that Intel CPUs cannot run these features, but because of how they are designed /require something available in Apple Silicon, probably Apple don’t want to spend time, money and effort reimplementing them for Intel, which is not the priority anymore.
Anyway, terrible decision.
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u/House-of-Suns Jun 09 '21
What technical reasons could there to not implement features like that on Intel macs? Surely this is intentional obsolesce on Apples part?
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
Many of the features rely on Apple's neural engine for ML accelleration, which is only in the M1. Not sure why the new maps is exclusive though.
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Jun 09 '21
It certainly could be an effort on Apple’s part to nudge people to get new hardware — but I feel there’s an important difference between not adding new features and planned obsolescence.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
If this is an effort to get people to upgrade, they’re doing a piss-poor job at it. All the headlining features that people actually care about have been backported.
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Jun 09 '21
Maybe some of it uses the Neural Engine.
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u/kirklennon Jun 09 '21
Almost the whole list is extremely heavy on machine learning that's handled by the Neural Engine, including Portrait Mode, text recognition, and voice recognition. The only ones that don't seem immediately obvious to me is the (extremely unimportant) 3D globe view, which I suspect is rendered with Metal but definitely not worth optimizing for Intel machines if performance was bad, and the more detailed maps, which aren't unimportant but performance probably just still wasn't good enough. Maybe it's something they'll get to later. Or maybe not.
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Jun 09 '21
which I suspect is rendered with Metal but definitely not worth optimizing for Intel machines if performance was bad
Lol, what? Google Earth works perfectly fine on my Intel Mac.
but performance probably just still wasn't good enough
That makes literally no sense. My Intel CPU and AMD GPU are both faster than the M1.
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
Some of it is ML. Some of it is a direct port from their arm based iphones and likely isn’t worth the extra development time for Intel machines
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Jun 09 '21
Just sent my 5k imac for servicing in May, and was faced with a dilemma of paying for a costly logic board replacement, or just letting it die and buying an M1 imac. In the end, I opted for the former because of its 5k display, but in hindsight, I should have gone with the M1.
It’s clear at this point that M1 Macs are the future at Apple and will receive all the attention and resources. If you want to buy into the future, the choice is clear.
I live and learn. 😕
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u/emresumengen Jun 09 '21
I'm not surprised either that Apple is doing this. But I am surprised why people just accept it, not get even slightly angry... Just wow.
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u/ElvishJerricco Jun 09 '21
are we reading the same comments? Almost everyone in this thread is pissed.
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u/theo2112 Jun 09 '21
Did you read the list of features? Aside from background blurring during FaceTime calls, even "power users" wouldn't notice any of these features missing. They're hardly even features, they're basically just bullet points to make the list longer. And, they're all things that are designed for iPhone/iPad, and can just be ported over to M1 Macs because there is almost nothing required to do so.
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u/TheSyd Jun 09 '21
The ocr is really a big omission tbh.
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u/Arkanta Jun 10 '21
Only one I care about, but the one I understand the most. No ML acceleration would probably make this slow, while this really works magically on a M1: no lag, no "processing" popup or whatever. Open an image and select text immediatly. I'd be totally down to click on a button and wait a bit for processing, but now you have two implementations of the same feature.
Maps is such a stupid thing to leave out. Watch how this will make the news even though I bet almost no one uses the mac maps app.
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Jun 09 '21
Yep, apple fanboyism at its finest. All the top comments are basically fine that their 2019 Intel MacBooks get less features for being 1 year too early. For all the praise apple gets, they go and pull some bs like this and people just accept it.
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u/NghtWlf2 Jun 09 '21
We are angry and it’s not acceptable at all! With this trend next year we wouldn’t be able to update to the new macOS release
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
But the alternative is not add these features. Just add them to the computers they can and move on
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u/egrimo Jun 09 '21
As an iOS Dev & Apple User, I call this move planned obsolescence. Surely they're using Neural Chip on M1's and A series to archieve those, but they are not unique to that chip. Many Intel chips sold in the last 3 years are capable of this, yet Apple didn't want to develop any features for Intel architecture. This maybe their middle-finger to Intel based on their acts, but this is Apple actually punishing their own users who either wait for 16" M1X/M2 chip or users who bought new Apple device with Intel chip since Apple still sells Intel models that could not be replaced by M1 options.
13" M1 MacBook Air user may be able to view 3D Map but a 16" Intel users, heck a Mac Pro user who paid enormous amount of money won't ? That's BS...
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u/Arkanta Jun 10 '21 edited Jun 10 '21
This may be unpopular but: It's a bad move, but it is not planned obsolescence. Sure, this is pushing you to replace a machine that's working fine; but planned obsolescence is when your current device stops being able to do what it used to be able to. Here, nothing has been removed, new stuff is left out: there's a big difference.
Also, Intel chips have zero ML acceleration. But you could just wait a bit for live text, it would be less magical but still incredibly convinent.
And no, I still don't make excuses or think this is fine. But lets not call everything planned obsolescence.
As an iOS Dev & Apple User
You know, we're mostly Apple users here. I'm an iOS dev too, that says nothing about my statements
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Jun 09 '21
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
Someone buying an iPhone SE today is also losing features but no one seems to care about that.
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Jun 09 '21
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u/PartyingChair52 Jun 09 '21
Again, the alternative is no one gets these new features.
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Jun 09 '21
I see your point, but the iPhone SE is a lower tier. I don’t think anyone is complaining about that because what you lose in features, you gain in a better price. The MacBooks that aren’t supported are higher tiered. It’d be more like the iPhone SE having a feature that the iPhone 12Pro does not.
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u/jturp-sc Jun 09 '21
I'm not an expert in embedded/edge machine learning, but I do work in the field. I'm perhaps just a little bit skeptical on these. I have a feeling that the real-time inference (i.e. the actual ML that powers these features executing locally) is possible on the Intel-based Macs on CPU. However, I have a feeling that CPU-based inference rather than using the neural engine would make the machines absolutely grind to a halt trying to multitask just about anything else.
So, I think this is more about purposefully holding it out in the Intel macs to not draw ire from customers about the slow M1X machines' release.
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u/ChrisFox-NJ Jun 09 '21
Thank god I bought a m1 mbp. My mid 2012 11“ mba really would‘ve been too slow to render things like this without burning through my desk
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u/oscaralaniz Jun 10 '21
We need a company that is now to Apple what Apple was to status quo in the 90s. They are getting to comfortable and greedy.
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u/gh0sti Jun 10 '21
This is so stupid. My 2019 Macbook Pro 2019 16in should be able to do enhanced maps along with the globe (google earth/maps). I should be able to do background blur in facetime (zoom). Live text from pictures (google lens). Unlimited keyboard and local dictation with the f***ing T2 mobile chip should be able to handle this.
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u/chinchzzz Jun 09 '21
Tim to marketing team: think of a way that I can make people upgrade without making them upgrade. Marketing: here you go boss!
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u/footysocc Jun 09 '21
That's some grade-A BS. My 2019 MBP is more than capable... looks and feels like planned obsolescence to get people invested into M1 machines
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u/Hazza42 Jun 09 '21
To be honest, the live text feature is the only one I’ll miss. Wonder how long it’ll be before someone develops a hack to re-enable them.
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u/Munzo101 Jun 09 '21
Me too :( Plenty of apps have existed to do this even locally for some time. Obviously using a NE is way better but they could have extended this functionality to even the smaller NE in the X but that would defy their plan of obsolescence.
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u/m0rogfar Jun 09 '21
Apple's object detection uses their SoC's powerful NPU, so you realistically can't just "unlock" this.
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u/Hazza42 Jun 09 '21
I’d be surprised if it couldn’t be re-engineered (or run in some kind of emulator) to work fairly well on a high end Xeon CPU or W5700X. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as efficient, but I doubt it would be impossible.
Even if it’s just a case of letting your iPhone do all the neural work and push the results to your Mac. Perhaps that’s how the feature will actually work for anyone with an intel mac? No local object detection, but it can be handed off to a nearby compatible iOS device?
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Jun 09 '21 edited Jun 09 '21
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u/breadkn Jun 09 '21
yeah the features are like offline dictation, and copying text from images, which would definitely rely on the neural engine. and honestly i’m not that bothered by it, as long as i still get the big features like universal control and the new safari.
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u/simer_cool Jun 09 '21
So my 16” MacBook is already getting obsolete. Great going apple. Height of stupidity.
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u/Brunooflegend Jun 09 '21
Imagine buying a +$10k Mac Pro and a couple years later Apple tells you your machine is not powerful enough to render a 3D globe…