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> This is the buggiest thing I EVER had. Even the screenshot doesn't work properly. It reacts to(CmdShift-4) after ~2!!! second delay while on previous Mac it was instant.

That's not an issue I've experienced. Screenshot works instantly for me (both CmdShift-3 and CmdShift-4).

> "Very fast" some say? I still wish to see it, because so far it feels just like the one I had before or slower! I am not talking about benchmarks, I am talking about day to day experience.

What are you running? I'm comparing my M1 air to two a year and old MBP (which admittedly has half the RAM), and it flies in comparison; both in perceived and actual performance. The MBP has consistently latency in the UI animations, which makes using it a pain; and the fan constantly blares at the slightest hint of CPU activity.

> Goodness, can Apple make something that 'works' these days?

For most people, it seems to be working for them. So it looks like they can make something that 'works', but you've apparently run into an extreme edge case alongside some poor luck.

> you've apparently run into an extreme edge case alongside some poor luck.

'extreme edge case'? Like Running Garage Band and going to sound settings? Or reinstalling OS? Which of those is extreme?

May be it's not a 'poor luck' may be it's a poor design.

I think the parent is saying you’re having bad hardware luck manifesting as glitches in software. I just tried what you described with Settings+GarageBand and was not able to reproduce on my M1 MBA.

Try it with bluetooth speaker connected when Garage Band is playing recorded track ..

> you’re having bad hardware luck manifesting as glitches in software

This was precisely my experience back in December.

I purchased a stock M1 MacBook Pro as well as a customized M1 MacBook Pro, so I could set up the OS as I wanted and migrate Data and settings once the customized Device arrived.

The first device behaved as expected: fast performance, responsive UI, cool operating temperature.

The second device, however, had issues with UI latency, beachballing Finder operations, and inexplicable slow downs.

I tried installing and reinstalling and remigrating the OS, eventually discovering that one or both of my users would be unable to even login to the system. Further analysis revealed that the communication between the T2 chip and the hard drive (or some aspect of the trust a computer system) was not operating properly.

I'm not technical enough to detail the exact problem, but it was most certainly a hardware issue or a hardware issue related to the incomplete erasing and reformatting of the M1 MacBook Pro's hard drive.

I returned both devices, waited a couple of weeks, and purchased a single customized MacBook Air.

This MacBook Air in my experience actually outperforms both previous M1 MacBook Pros. I don't have benchmarks nor do I have the other devices to compare directly, but it seems that this MacBook Air is much more ready for prime time then my mid-December MacBook Pros.

>Further analysis revealed that the communication between the T2 chip and the hard drive (or some aspect of the trust a computer system) was not operating properly.

Well, there's no T2 chip on M1 macs...

> Well, there's no T2 chip on M1 macs...

Hm. I thought Touch ID was based on T2. [0]

Definitely expert-level knowledgeable about M1 security domain.

[0] Def not T2. Apple calls the Touch ID chip (?) “Secure Enclave” https://support.apple.com/guide/security/secure-enclave-sec5...

>Hm. I thought Touch ID was based on T2. [0]

It is, on Intel. Not on AS.

From my experience there is no point dealing with issue on brand new Macs. The best is to send it back if you’re within the 14 days return window, or take it to a store to get it fixed. It’s not as smooth as it used to be because there is so much in M1 devices that’s different from previous generations, and support people are not necessarily used to it yet. But customer support is consistently great, all things considered.

People seem to think that if they don’t experience a bug, it’s an “extreme edge case”, or that if they don’t experience it, it’s not an important bug.

The reverse is also true. People think if they experience a bug, then everyone experiences the bug and it's the most important bug ever.

Everyones setup and use case is unique. All the many interactions can lead to fairly unique bugs. Even if two people think they see the same bug, it could be two different bugs causing the same symptom.

Let's take the bugs around re-installing that have been popping up on HN lately. How many people buy a brand new machine and the first thing they do is wipe it and re-install? I don't personally know anyone who does that, it's certainly not something I've ever done with any of my Macs over the last 20 or so odd years. So while I think bugs around re-installing are important and need to get fixed, they are not something that a majority of users will run into this early in the m1's life.

In this case I doubt "two HN users doing daily development and production on a new Mac" are so unique as to be incomparable.

And arguing that certain users are in a minority such that they can be ignored - without hard proof mind you, and keeping in mind that knowledge work is squarely the demographic for people requiring high performance processors in the Apple space (or else they wouldn't push that angle so hard in their advertising) - when the functionality was stable on previous platforms much older than the so-called cutting edge, is justifying a regression in functionality by blaming user expectations. This is consumer hostile.

> In this case I doubt "two HN users doing daily development and production on a new Mac" are so unique as to be incomparable.

I would have argued the opposite. Every developer I know, myself included, tweaks every last aspect of their machine to their exact liking - even on a Mac.

And I didn't say they should be ignored, and said the opposite.

> So while I think bugs around re-installing are important and need to get fixed

The point is it's a bug impacting a subset of users and needs to get fixed. IMO, it's not one worthy of multiple HN front page posts, but here we are :)

Clearly it is important to the people posting the issues, and people upvoting. People, which are some of the main target audience of “pro” dubbed machines. The truth is, however, that there is nothing “pro” about Apple products anymore. Anything outside of the most mundane happy-path is often broken in strange ways. And the typical Apple drone response is: “Who does that anyway? I certainly don’t! So manage your expectations.”

Apple software is buggy and broken beyond belief. Hardware might be good, but that is increasingly beside the point, given how broken Apple software and UX are.

>The truth is, however, that there is nothing “pro” about Apple products anymore.

The truth this is a tired of chessnut that we've been hearing for 15+ years...

And yet, judging from their laptop choices at conferences, developer videos, and so on, over half of industry leading devs across many communities (from Node to Java, and from Go to Rust and whatever else) use those laptops.

>Apple software is buggy and broken beyond belief.

Not my experience. That said, you're free to use the non-broken Windows and/or Linux OSes!

I have not been saying that in the past. I am saying it now. I also use Windows increasingly more and more, and experience significantly less bugs, even in old Win32 APIs which still “just work”, unlike Apple’s many many frameworks (new and old) which are broken in different ways. Or its system software, which keeps getting rewritten in half-assed ways with missing feature, and then never revisited or fixed.

> The truth is, however, that there is nothing “pro” about Apple products anymore.

Anymore? I feel like a lot of people romanticize old Apple. For example, the first few versions of OS X were pretty bad. They did finally settle down, but then entered a yin/yang good/bad release schedule. There was time when installing a beta or even .0 version was almost guaranteed to lose data. Now, I tend to run betas pretty early on. There are some bugs, but they mostly work.

I don't see Apple products as any more or less 'pro' than they have always been. Once the software catches up, my m1 MBA doesn't seem anymore or less capable than my G4 Powerbook. TBH, the M1 MBA is already more capable because at the time software had already moved on to Intel while I still had my G4.

IMO, the biggest missteps that I would consider less pro on the portable side would be the 1 port MB, and the keyboard. Both of which Apple has moved on from, though the keyboard took way too long to address. I know people complain about ports, but I find usbc (unless there's only 1), the most pro thing about apple laptops because they can morph into anything a pro may need.

> How many people buy a brand new machine and the first thing they do is wipe it and re-install?

I do it on every brand new machine I buy; they come with Windows or Ubuntu, and I use another Linux distribution. And for Windows users, AFAIK for a long time the recommendation has also been to immediately wipe it and reinstall, to remove any shovelware which came with the machine.

Ah, but you are hastily justifying the validity of your experience, you see, so cannot be forwarding criticism that the OP will recognize.

Windows sure, b/c they tend to come preinstalled with a bunch of garbage, but we're talking about Macs.

How many people buy a brand new machine and the first thing they do is wipe it and re-install?

Well, everyone who would sell their machine could go through that process. And if this (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26204426) is correct then I would not call it an 'edge' case.

Besides It's a safety feature. You need it to work when nothing else works. It should be extremely reliable. And if it's not then the only 'reliable' feature of the Mac you have is DFU mode and booting from another Mac.

I don't personally know anyone who does that.

I personally don't know anyone who dealt with failing computers who doesn't do that. Besides you need partitions for multi boot configuration.

All your examples are not of people buying a brand new m1 and immediately re-installing. They are examples why it needs to get fixed, but right now likely has a low impact on the user base.

>The reverse is also true. People think if they experience a bug, then everyone experiences the bug and it's the most important bug ever.

The reverse is not always true, because some people have certain knowledge and if they experience some bug they could analyse it and make an educated guess about the quality of the product and importance of the bug.

I personally have seen many bugs in Disk Utility. On my previous Mac I couldn't make volume to be named as I wanted in certain conditions no matter how hard I tried with diff scenarios. Disk Utility was simply renaming it to something else. Something unrelated. It was obviously a bug and it was reproducible. And this was not the only one. Another one I've seen that Disk Utility simply cannot format the drive. I've seen more and it's getting worse and worse. After seeng those I was wondering do they test it at all? Does one who tests it knew how to do it?

> How many people buy a brand new machine and the first thing they do is wipe it and re-install?

I do. I’m not sure why, but it’s an old habit and I like to take care of the software myself. I won’t say it’s typical, though. So, as you say,

> they are not something that a majority of users will run into this early in the m1's life.

>People seem to think that if they don’t experience a bug, it’s an “extreme edge case”

And they're usually right. From millions of units sold, a small number usually has a bug, unless it's an OS bug independent of the hardware (and also not dependent on the use of a specific software setup, e.g. some ACE plugin or some app messing with some system).

1000 people having the problem and 100 reporting it and some news sites picking it up can make for a big fuss in blogs and posts, but it's still around 1 / 2000 people having the issue in a 2M production run.

I am mostly speaking about OS bugs, not hardware. The hardware side of Apple is still of high quality. It’s the software that is becoming increasing terrible.

1/2000 is still a big number, considering the Apple numbers. I doubt their hardware has so many issues.

> That's not an issue I've experienced. Screenshot works instantly for me (both CmdShift-3 and CmdShift-4).

I have seen it take a few seconds to appear on the Desktop, but I thought that was the new Mac OS thing: the little thumbnail of your screenshot appearing during that delay in the lower right of the screen, not a hardware-specific thing.

Oh is that what they meant? Yeah, it takes a few seconds to appear on the desktop. You can click the thumbnail to edit it first.

you can swipe the thumbnail to save without waiting

No, In my case I meant, pressing Cmd-Shift-4 takes ±1-2 secs for cross-cursor to appear before you actually take the screenshot. Now I've checked taking with screenshot of Cmd-Shift-3 and it 'Takes' it after some delay. Not instantly like before. It saves it with additional delay like you describe, but it's something else. Still dumb and annoying in my opinion but I believe you can turn it off somewhere in GUI or with the command in terminal.

The next screenshot you take can be faster. But not always. There is some loading happening I believe before the first one. Than it works fast but Then it unloads something sometimes and sometimes not. I do not think it's a hardware problem like some say.

For anybody wondering about the terminal command, you can disable the thumbnail and make it instantaneously save with: defaults write com.apple.screencapture show-thumbnail -bool false

I can't speak to the rest of the slowness. But that thumbnail sure is annoying.

> "Very fast" some say? I still wish to see it, because so far it feels just like the one I had before or slower! I am not talking about benchmarks, I am talking about day to day experience.

Really sounds like you had some hardware problem. For example, running a java app test suite runs 2x as fast on my M1 MBA than the 2017 MBP it replaced. Instant on from sleep, instant new Safari tabs, and terminal tabs/windows, are all examples of things that have greatly sped up my day to day experience. Add that all this in a machine with no fans, and not much bigger than my iPad Pro.

I do run into bugs here and there, but it's hard to tell if they are Big Sur bugs or M1 bugs. I wouldn't consider any of them showstoppers or occurring enough to be more than a minor annoyance.

>Really sounds like you had some hardware problem.

Apple Diagnostic reports: no issues.

When Apple ran diagnostics, did they also say nothing was wrong?

It's completely possible to have dud hardware that is not caught by software. I'm about to send an old MBP to get its battery replaced because it's bulging, yet the battery health tool says it's fine.

As far as your m1, something is definitely wrong. It's not just benchmarks have shown that it's fast, but in day to day usage of many common programs. Your m1 experience is the exception, which likely means a problem with your machine.

I don't understand why "instant on" after sleep is supposed to be new when my white iBook G3 already had that back in 2002.

Or is it even more instant now?

It's like an iPad or phone now where it doesn't seem like it ever actually shut off. So when you open the lid it's running. Small difference, but incrementally better.

From my experience, an instant is much longer under OS X. My older Macs under OS 9 did indeed wake up instantly, but since then I’ve been happy if it takes a couple of seconds.

I have noticed my M1 Mac Mini behaves a bit strangely when I have my external USB3 HDD plugged in. The mouse motion is stuttery, but unplug the drive and it is smooth as silk. There's evidently something low-level going on, probably USB error recovery.

Might be worth checking if you have any external hardware causing issues?

My main bug bear is my HP Z27 DisplayPort monitor disappears when it goes to sleep. Have to unplug/replug the cable to get it to come back.

>Might be worth checking if you have any external hardware causing issues?

I have no external drives at all. Well I do but , because they are usb and turns out for this brand new Mac that should be 'everything I ever need' apparently I need to buy a huge adapter sizing like 'half of this Mac' to make it work with peripherals.

It doesn't even have sd card reader, not even micro sd card reader. To 'save space' and for better comfort I believe.

Somehow raspberry Pi manages to boot from such device. I wish the Apple engineers knew about such amazing feature of micro sd card.

If they just could figure out how this hi-tech technology of booting from micro-sd cards works they could do amazing things like booting without a need for 'Another Mac'! ...

> I have noticed my M1 Mac Mini behaves a bit strangely when I have my external USB3 HDD plugged in. The mouse motion is stuttery, but unplug the drive and it is smooth as silk. There's evidently something low-level going on, probably USB error recovery.

I've had similar sounding issues with a keyboard, mouse, a couple of USB audio devices plugged in via a hub to USB 3 (nothing high bitrate like a USB drive). I need to unplug one of the USB sound devices to stop this if it happens. I think all these devices are USB 2.0 at best.

I've had that problem with the bluetooth mouse and an Intel Mac Mini. I've also had similar problems with a DisplayPort monitor. Perhaps it isn't M1 specific.

Is it a bluetooth mouse?

Many USB 3 devices cause interference in the same frequency bands that Bluetooth and Wifi also use.

USB 2 has lower bitrates so the interference is in a different band.

That’s an old issue (also had it with a 2012 Mac mini). It’s interference from your USB 3.0 device/cable on the 2.4 GHz ISM band.

Potential ways to fix the issue:

• use a short USB 2.0 extension cable (like this¹ 6″/15cm one) to force the USB connection down to USB 2.0 (not ideal, but guaranteed to solve the problem)

• move the USB 3.0 HDD further away from the Mac mini and mouse

• try swapping out the USB 3.0 cable for one with better shielding

For more information about the issue, see Intel’s white paper titled USB 3.0 Radio Frequency Interference Impact on 2.4GHz Wireless Devices here².

――――――

¹ — https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000E5CYW8/

² — https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/docs/io/uni...

> My main bug bear is my HP Z27 DisplayPort monitor disappears when it goes to sleep. Have to unplug/replug the cable to get it to come back.

I have some weird monitor issues on mine too, same thing, when it wakes up it loses a monitor.

Yes, they can. My M1 Mac just works. You got a dud. Return it.

If you open Garage Band, then record sound track then while your track is playing you would go to settings and you connect a bluetooth speaker. Then in Settings->Sound section you would click on tab: Input. It works?

Try to stop playing track and start to play it again. All Works?

Try to select bluetooth for input and play again. Works?

The simplest scenario is when BTSpeaker is already connected, you just run Garage Band. Open settins->sound>input and then press play in Garage Band. Works?

It sounds like you're frustrated, and it sucks being in that spot. I'm not going to spend my day verifying your bug.

You've got an issue with bootability, with screenshots, and with audio all in the same system. Send it back. Get a replacement Mac, or get a PC for all anyone cares.

Whatever you decide to do, your experience so far has been anamolous compared with lots and lots of other folks.

>I'm not going to spend my day verifying your bug.

It's not my bug. It's their bug.

>your experience so far has been anamolous compared with lots and lots of other folks

Or perhaps those "other folks" just didn't bother to check it properly? Just like you didn't bother? Looks like rarely some one cares too much about the quality these days. I do care. There should be some love in making product and some respect to those who use it.

If I thought this problem is specific to this machine only I would not bother to write about it here too much. I have some experience and knowledge for goodness sake . I've seen Disk Utility not functioning too many times already.

I expected intelligent people here to be able to listen and take note and realise that it's not some stupid machine that doesn't work. I've seen too many bugs already and this machine is just another example of it.

You say it's a "hardware bug"? Does it really makes any difference? Even if it is? I think it's about quality, in that case software quality and another machine would come if not with the same problems then with similar problems.

And what I and a lot of others are saying is that no, they are not experiencing similar problems.

You're showing up here expecting intelligent people able to listen, but you're not bothering to listen yourself.

>And what I and a lot of others are saying is that no, they are not experiencing similar problems.

Didn't you say before that you didn't try and not even intended to? How you can say after that that you do not experience it? I mean how would you know? It's pure guess. How would you know about others? You simply can't.

I didn't state anywhere here that _all_ are experiencing what I have , I only presented facts of my personal experience and suggested that this is worth checking because I sense tendency. Too many problems for one computer.

Instead of listening to the facts people are trying to downvote and avoid seeing the fact or inventing some stories about some mysterious hardware problem that I didn't observe. Apple diagnostics didn't observe it too.

I do listen, there is always a possibility of hardware problem but even if it's a hardware issue it's still an issue speaking about quality. One thing is to have such possibility in mind and another immediately jump into conclusion that there are no problems.

Modern software is full of bugs, many of them people usually do not notice, but they are still bugs and they are still there. It's such a surprise for anyone around here? I mean any developer with some experience aware that barely something works if it works at all.

I state observed facts and get downvoted even for that on the site that supposed to be respectful to the facts and reason. I do not understand should we listen to BS or Facts in 21th century?

No one have pointed out to one mistake or were I was incorrect in my statements. They just downvote and trying to ignore what have happened in reality. I would not suggest a hardware problem in such case, I would suggest a 'mind' problem of those who have managed to downvote perfectly checked facts and reasonable arguments.

I expect there is a hardware failure on your M1.

Why you expect it ? I ran apple diagnostics. No issues found. The bugs I have described have other reasonable explanations.

Apple diagnostics isn't perfect. My first Mac ever (17" powerbook) also passed diagnostics, but it still had a lot of "weird" issues that came down to a faulty mainboard. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I've had similar issues with Windows and had to resort to install media, so multiple redundancy on Apple is something I'd love to see make it to me as a non-Apple user.

> Goodness, my feeling is: Can Apple make at least something these days that 'just works' ?

This is absolutely true. And what do the "thought leaders" on Hacker News do when a person relates an earnest, first-hand experience? They down-vote it until it's barely visible.

Thank you. I it is really disappointing. I mean if this is happening on this site what we can expect from others. I see downvotes for even stating facts.

Dang! Can we stop bullying by downvoting for facts and leave just upvotes? I am really getting sick of it. Some topics became untouchable. You say something about free software and you get downvoted. Ok somebody doesn't like those ideas ok. But shutting up those who do is not the way. Or it shouldn't be the way isn't it?

I like to read opinions I do not like. At least I can consider that point of view. Make them gray ok, make them down ok, but let me read them at least! I'll go down to see the smartest people, it's fine, but can we stop deleting messages because of bullying?

I literally have to copy thread before reading, because I know some good points could be deleted. Or so hard to read because they are almost invisible.