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Comment by RcouF1uZ4gsC | Hacker News Reader

I wonder how much of Apple PC sales decline is because of anticipation of the M3.

From all the rumors it is going to be a beast, and anybody interested in Apple hardware may want to at least see how it compares. Even if they don’t go with it, M3 will push down the prices of M2 and M1

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For me it was just getting an M silicone. Now that I have one, I don't feel like I am going to be replacing it for a very long time.

Yeah, M1 here. Not even thinking about replacement, not because the M2 and (presumably M3) aren't great, but the M1 MBP is just running perfectly and fast and quiet, I don't really see a need to upgrade yet.

Silicone: boobs Silicon: sand

Aren't most people buying anything really buying things when there is an immediate need and they have money for it? Computer breaks, buy a new one. Computer is too slow, buy a new one. Most consumers do not track industry news. They have a need and cash so they go to a store and buy what's in it.

Yes, the days of buying new PCs every three years are long gone, despite OEMs hoping otherwise.

I'd be surprised if the mass-market apple hardware consumer was too worried about a potential incoming chipset change.

I doubt the average consumer cares much about any upcoming M3. My wife's last laptop was a 2013 Macbook Air, and during lockdown I guess she decided she needed a new laptop so we got an M1 Air. She can definitely afford to upgrade annually. I expect that to last her until 2030 unless someone steps on it. My current travel laptop I purchased a couple weeks before covid hit, and besides struggling with most new indie games coming out, probably won't upgrade it before 2025 and I used to consider myself a "power user".

As long as vscode and chrome continue to run a rock-solid 60fps in Linux, I don't have much incentive to upgrade. I used to need to upgrade every 2-3 years to stay on the curve but it's such a long tail now, it's usually a hardware failure that necessitates upgrade, rather than technology itself.

Yup, same as with phones and tablets.

The manufacturers (Apple and otherwise) need to keep iterating on technology to make sure their current line is competitive for those who do need to buy, but the sweeping "must upgrade" pressure only arrives when there's an especially disruptive shift.

I suspect that you and your wife will at least consider upgrading sooner once generative AI products and Apple hardware converge on some new "you can only do this revolutionary new thing with the latest Neural Engine chip" milestone, but until then, all three platforms of PC/Phone/Tablet are in a pretty mature and stable phase.

It's just a single case but I had an 2013 Intel Mac Mini that finally gave up the ghost that was mostly my wife's computer and thought seriously about replacing it with an M2 Mini that could possibly be used for Apple Vision development. But I had an old Alienware laptop that could be pressed into service for that job and figured some other hardware (used Hololens, Quest 2) would be a better investment towards developing that kind of software. Then I got serious about sports photography and any money that might go toward electronics has gone towards gear for that.

The iPhone 15 to me categorically proves m3 will be a pretty incremental improvement, and Apple doesn’t have any other huge changes in the pipeline anytime soon for its laptops. Nor do I think a chipset change will have a significant impact on the average users experience.

It’s either some sort of decline in high end computing generally or with Apple specifically.

As to why Apple specifically would decline, they have become quite a bit less competitive in terms of value for money compared to 3 years ago.

The M3 will likely be based on the A17, while the M2 was based on the A15. That will be a more significant jump compared to M1 to M2.

> The iPhone 15 to me categorically proves m3 will be a pretty incremental improvement

Unless you care about Mac GPU performance.

"Overall, Apple's claim of up to 20% better performance seems to be right on the money, as is normally the case with these things."

https://www.imore.com/iphone/iphone-15/the-iphone-15-pros-a1...

I agree. As things are it seems doubtful that Apple will be able to increase performance very significantly in the coming years unless they make some drastic change that would require a whole lot of new engineering.

Now they have chips that are low power but also not very competitive at any price point so it's not particularly exciting (batteries are cheap...).

On the higher end chips the power consumption advantage isn't as big of a deal as they make it out to be and doesn't matter that much in real world applications (if you run an M2 Max at full power, you gonna get less than 2h of battery life anyway). But they lose hard particularly in 3D (GPU) applications.

The hope with M3 is that they at least figure out how to make GPU somewhat competitive with similarly priced offerings from NVDIA. As is you can buy a mid range windows laptop and get better perf it doesn't look good...

>The iPhone 15 to me categorically proves m3 will be a pretty incremental improvement,

Um... It is far more likely M3 will be based on A18 rather than A17.

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