M1 Mac mini overtakes entire Japanese desktop market in less than 2 weeks | Hacker News Reader

M1 Mac mini overtakes entire Japanese desktop market in less than 2 weeks

appleterm.com

87 pointsgumby64 comments

You can't look at a market as a 2 week window which corresponds to a new product release. Your results are going to be greatly skewed.

The Mac mini is cheap and has surprisingly good performance. It is the absolutely perfect gateway into Apple's next generation of computing. Someone at Apple should get a merit badge for including this in their initial launch because it was genius.

That there is a big initial spike in demand is completely unsurprising unless you were asleep at a wheel. Much much more interesting is going to be what these numbers look like after Apple burns through initial pent up demand. Won't see that for 6+ months.

Exactly. I've been holding off upgrading my parents Mac mini until the next generation ... this is it.

I don’t know how true this is for foreign companies operating in Japan, but weekly sales reports are fairly common out of the Japanese market.

The headline is a bit over the top. Apple outsold every other desktop in Japan for 2 weeks running. That is news enough and true. Saying they overtook the market suggests more than that to me.

And weekly sales reports will reflect that pent-up demand. It's not surprising that the Mac Mini outsold Lenovo's desktops for a couple of weeks right after it was introduced. It will be news if it keeps outselling them going forward.

it is not genius, it is logical

if you make a solicon switch, you should make sure your entire product line is following, otherwise it is going to be fragmented

your odd way of thinking reminds me exactly how a Microsoft guy would think about it

"it works = you must be a genius"

no, that's just logical

While their new hardware looks to be great: I will never forgive them for their shitty unusable (unless you put linux on it) $800 minis of the past

Apple left the mini (and the Pro!) to rot for quite a while. I figured nobody bought those unless they were truly desperate or wanted a CI solution.

I wanted one for a dedicated zoom gizmo, so I bought the base thing. It worked OK as long as I never needed to look at a Calendar application or slack, which, as it turned out, I did. Soldered memory stick meant no way to remedy the situation. Gave it away and used a 11 year old linux box and had a much better experience.

I bet it is far more than just M1. For the first time I launched an m6g (Gravition 2) instance of AWS Linux2. Ruby and node are working without a hitch. Bye bye x86.

sudo yum update

sudo yum install git

gpg2 --recv-keys 409B6B1796C275462A1703113804BB82D39DC0E3 7D2BAF1CF37B13E2069D6956105BD0E739499BDB

\curl -sSL https://get.rvm.io | bash -s stable --rails

sudo yum install zstd

curl -o- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nvm-sh/nvm/v0.37.2/install... | bash

source ~/.bashrc

nvm install v12.16.1 #From project I am working on

rvm install 2.5.1 #From project I am working on

Unrelated comment.

I've seen the M1 Mac Mini teardown, and this new model has retained the same footprint as its Intel predecessor despite it looking like much less space was needed. I really look forward to a much smaller mac mini version in the future.

I'd rather get the missing ports back and keep the footprint.

I’d rather they fix WiFi and Bluetooth so I get to actually use those ports.

> much smaller mac mini

Eh...why make it smaller when you can give it room for extra storage? In the 'old days' I'd have also mentioned giving it room for extra memory too. :(

Rather than extra storage, how about just more room for a larger cooling solution, whether there's a fan or not. With Apple Silicon, it seems like performance is going to be dictated by the ability to dissipate heat, so I'd rather have a larger Mac mini that can dissipate more heat and boost for longer than a smaller one.

Nowadays most computer CPU performance is constrained by heat, but M1 on Mac mini is exceptionally constrained by its SoC design thanks to its efficiency.

I don't need that much more space for storage (modern SSDs are teeny, and I don't need physical hard drives anymore for home computing).

Cooling though. Give me a bigass heatsink and a fan.

Why? So far the reviews I've read have found no evidence of thermal throttling. It is so power efficient it doesn't need a large heat sink to run at peak speed.

It also hasn't been put to a serious test yet since it's underpowered compared to mid range desktop CPUs I can put into a mini PC case.

Benchmarks for things I care about like large compiles haven't really come out yet, so I'm waiting for final judgment.

Half hour compile of Webkit. Seems like a pretty good test. Faster than an 8 core Intel laptop, much less energy usage. 20% slower than 12 core 48 GB Mac Pro. So, per core performance is better than a desktop with a ton of RAM.

https://twitter.com/panzer/status/1328700636926332928 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/17/yeah-apples-m1-macbook-pro...

Which CPUs were benched?

I don't see Apple giving users the option to upgrade their Mac Minis to third party storage solutions.

I hate non-upgradability as much as the next HN user, but it's worth noting that external USB SSDs (Samsung T7 and others) are now pushing 1GB/second at lower and lower prices. I recently got a 2TB model for $220 or so.

I say that not to excuse Apple, but perhaps some others are like me and are surprised at how fast the portable models have gotten.

That's possible and perhaps likely, alas.

So yeah, if we're in the universe where there's zero expandability, and their silicon is super powerful with low heat requirements, I guess they may as well make it smaller.

It has room physically, but there's no place to connect it.

Modern memory and storage are so small there's no reason to keep the size. Have you seen how much empty space there is?

The Mini in Mac Mini is no longer Mini. But it could be More Mini. Make it Mini.

Storage has been external for years now. None of the upgradable internals need a large footprint.

We don't really know what the needs of the other processors they are going to jam into here will look like. It's likely the next generation M series CPU will need significantly more cooling.

Also, I'd far rather they added an M.2 storage slot (or 2!) rather than making their already small device even smaller.

That said... a fanless, USB-C powered mini of any size would also be A+ as well.

(pure speculation)

or, maybe they've got a 'Mac Mini Pro' coming using whatever chip they're cooking up for the high-end Mac Book Pro and iMac Pro.. or maybe even more than one of those chips. So in that eventuality they want to maintain the bigger case footprint and much-bigger-than-needed power supply.

A Mini size of the AppleTV would be great.

I know this is highly improbable but I would love, love, love to see a Raspberry Pi with an M1 in it.

Might need a larger footprint for an upcoming version with more ports ect

Processors are complex. Architectures are over my head. Is there an intelligent layman's video or article series not just on architectures, but how, at a high level, ARM is supposedly so much better than x86 in the long term?

ARM vs. x86 is mostly irrelevant and far over-focused.

The main big factor in why the ARM-based M1 is able to have such great instructions per clock is due to the fixed-length instructions making it easier for Apple to have made a very wide CPU core front-end.

Think trying to apply a parallel map to an array vs. a linked-list. It's easier to spawn off 8 jobs in parallels if just getting the right data isn't dependent on previous work. x86's variable-length makes that front-end decoding in parallel more complex.

Then thanks to that high IPC, Apple can keep the clock speeds lower while hitting the performance target they are going for. By keeping the clocks low, power is then also low. Nothing all that special or unique there, the power draw at 3ghz on an M1 is right in line with what you'd expect an equivalent x86 CPU at around 3ghz as well.

Beyond that there's basically no major difference that really matters, and no "inherent" power efficiencies or advantages of any kind, either. If AMD or Intel manage to make an 8-wide x86 CPU core, then you'll see that power efficiency advantage of the M1 vanish overnight. Similarly, Apple is currently the only one making ARM CPU cores that are wider than the typical x86 core is, which is why nobody else has impressive ARM CPUs.

ARM has some advantages in that it just doesn't have the history & legacy that x86 does, but then that's also a disadvantage because legacy software also is very much a thing. What the future holds nobody really knows. At the end of the day what matter is how a CPU performs, not what instruction set it runs.

It’s not just (or even) ARM. It’s Apple.

For comparison, the A series chips on iOS devices are years ahead of their competitors on the Android side (largely Qualcomm and Samsung) despite all being on ARM.

That being said, it would indeed be good to hear from someone with expertise as to what Apple has accomplished and why others haven’t been able to.

This is true, and this is an Apple story. But I've seen this attitude on HN a while, including a comment here about AWS' Gravitron processors. It feels like ARM is similar to electric vehicles: Everyone here acts like "of course it's a better, more efficient design" but there are physical forces holding it back. That's just the feeling I get.

As far, I understand it, the M1 is just very fast with single core, multi core not so much. I guess Intel and AMD focused on multi core performance, and did not mind much about electric power. AMD also pushed primary multi core performance, even most people never need it. We never really heard from Intel, oh what a wonderful low power notebook processor. Also test magazines and youtubers made primary performance benchmarks. Finally the said .. yeah, maybe they need a bit much power, but this processor is super fast, so still 100 points .. nobody asked for a such processor until now.

It's not. There are fundamental differences in the hardware implementation of handling the instruction codes independent of actual instruction set. This in some senses is no different than AMD being better at x86 than Intel.

My high level understanding is that they integrated a number of components into the chip that typically are external and that they had a trick or two surrounding out of order execution that yielded benefits. Last, they have a more modern manufacturing process and all of this contributes to a significantly better, lower power chip.

I think the options on this are either a lot of hand waving that basically says "it's been done better this time because they didn't need to do it the old way" with more fancy sounding words or you could have some expert conversation that goes deep into the reasoning but doesn't really translate usefully for a layman. A bit like looking to understand an upper level math theory by looking for a video breaking down what the symbols are named - sure you know more about it now but you're not really any closer to understanding the theory than before.

For the "what the symbols are named" level explanation https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de... talks about the functional units and what's changed though.

Unless I suck at reading comprehension, 27 some percent is still less than 100 percent. It gained some share but this just seems like a cheap, no substance article riding on the Apple choo choo going around HN recently.

Pretty sure the point is that Apple is now the #1 desktop manufacturer in Japan, and they weren't before.

I think that's a fair use of the word "overtake", I'd use something else for grabbing the entire market. "obliterate" maybe?

I agree that it's kind of low in content and interest for HN, don't expect it to stay on the front page for long. I found it mildly interesting.

> Pretty sure the point is that Apple is now the #1 desktop manufacturer in Japan, and they weren't before.

Over a 2 week period.

It's pretty rare to see market share over a 2 week period because product launches skew the hell out of these numbers.

Overtake is when you go past something. Apple is moving faster than anybody else but hasn't caught up yet.

>I'd use something else for grabbing the entire market. "obliterate" maybe?

"monopolize" works well

Going from 14% to 27% in 2 weeks is a pretty extreme trend, especially in a market that's typically very slow moving, considering desktop upgrades occur at a far slower cadence than, say, mobile phones.

Pent up demand from stagnation on the desktop space for the last 5+ years?

This comment is mis-timed. Would have been true a few years ago, but Apple has a pretty solid line-up of desktops at the moment and has been keeping it somewhat fresh since the iMac Pro was launched.

There is a huge hole right smack in the middle of their desktop lineup, but that's different from stagnation.

iMacs are only an option if you want the monitor Apple happens to have paired with it, and that monitor addition isn't cheap, either. The Mini is still the only non-ridiculously priced "desktop" that Apple offers.

But I think the OP was referring to the stagnation of the general desktop space, not Apple's lineup specifically. As in, there's almost no reason to upgrade your 2015 iMac to a 2020 iMac. It'll have nearly the same CPU performance and nearly the same day-to-day experience. See also all the PC gamers who have been holding on to Intel CPUs from half a decade ago because there was just no point to upgrading. A 5 year old 6700K is still basically competitive with a "modern" 10600K.

> iMacs are only an option if you want the monitor Apple happens to have paired with it, and that monitor addition isn't cheap, either. The Mini is still the only non-ridiculously priced "desktop" that Apple offers.

I agree! (well mostly) That's why I said Apple has a giant hole in the middle of their desktop lineup!

For a machine that has a really good quality 5k display integrated, the iMac is a well priced system. If you don't want that 5k display, you fall into that giant hole I talked about.

IMO the big problem with Apple's lineup for some time isn't the price on the things they sell, it's the fairly big holes in between those products. So you end up

> But I think the OP was referring to the stagnation of the general desktop space

Looking back, it does make sense that way.

I expect this will shake things up a bit.

It's an ambiguously worded sentence.

What they mean is: if you take the entire Japanese desktop computer market (not some subset of it, like "low-power desktops", the "entire" desktop market), and you look at which individual computer manufacturer has the highest market share, Apple has just overtaken Lenovo Japan.

How I might've worded it: Apple now has a marketshare plurality in the Japanese desktop computer market after the introduction of their M1 Mac Mini.

Did the content of this article change since you posted? Because I'm not seeing anything referring to 100% of anything.

Maybe they meant 100% increase in market share

Which makes sense, but it was worded in a way to whip up attention and those cherished internet points, I think.

Overtakes, not takes over.

It has the lead...

This sound like a solid milestone actually. 27% of market share (since launching). Apple is now the desktop sales leader in that particular market. Went from 15% to 27% share of sales(sold quantities in a given time). Which means Apple is selling a lot of M1 Mac Minis in Japan.

> 27 some percent is still less than 100 percent

Of course 100% of the desktop sales are not going to be Apple's. 27% of the desktop sales in a market like Japan sounds very impressive to me.

Article is somewhat click bait, it refers to "market share" which I would usually assume to be be the installed base. Instead the Japanese source explicitly says (if I can trust google translate) that this figure refers to sales only. Hard to say the overtook the market, they took the crown for sales in a single month so far.

> Article is somewhat click bait, it refers to "market share" which I would usually assume to be be the installed base.

Pepsi and Coke have "Market Share"... it doesn't refer to the number of houses with Coke in their fridge. Market share is sales share over a period of time.

This particular sampling is pretty worthless though because measuring "Market Share" over a 2 week timeframe is questionable due to launch windows.

Pepsi and Coke don't have an install base either, as they are 1-day consumables.

That is exactly my point.

Install Base and Market Share are completely different concepts.

Market share is a simple measure of this year's sales. Install base is only relevant to things which are used over a period of years. Coke and Pepsi have market share but not an install base. Linux has an install base, but market share isn't a relevant metric.

I’ve never heard of anyone referring to installed base as market share in either tech, financial, or retail circles.

Market share always refers to sales in the “market” over a period of time.

Hence “market” share. It’s referring to trading activity. Not usage activity.

A closely related industry where you can see this phenomenon most clearly is video games, especially when a new generation is released.

Everyone talks about the new consoles’s market shares when they are released. If market share meant installed base, however, the numbers would look like 0.001% vs 0.000101% as opposed to the 40 vs 60% market share numbers people do use.

Looked at buying one recently, much longer ship times that even the new Macbooks.

Suspect this is developers snagging them since they're the cheaper option for getting their apps tested and all that. Also I hear MacMiniColo or whatever they're calling themselves these days ordered a ton of them.

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