Gurman's WWDC announcement predictions.

[mr_roboto]

I saw that neon story last year and thought it was much ado about nothing.

The kernel of truth is that steel mills are one of the biggest consumers of liquid oxygen, and therefore often have a separation plant on site. Since they must process a huge volume of air to manufacture enough LOX for their own needs, steel mill separation plants are the ideal place to separate some of the less abundant elements like xenon or neon.

But that doesn't mean steel mill separation plants are the only places which can do it. There are so many industrial sites which already have the equipment installed and running for other purposes, and it would not be difficult for them to also distill out some noble gases. It might be more expensive; steel mill plants have the advantage of economy of scale. But it wouldn't be a long term disruption either.

I've long suspected that the fearmongering stories you see about this are just market manipulation.

 

[dada_dave]

Apple’s M3 processor delayed according to a Twitter user Macworld decided to take seriously. They failed to state why this person should be believed beyond a vague statement that this person had made other predictions “that panned out”. So yeah huge grain of salt.

Report claims Apple's M3 Mac chip is delayed until 2024

TSMC can't make enough of them yet.

www.macworld.com

 

[B01L]

I am sure Apple can make enough to get the ASi Mac Pro out the door, WWDC 2023 will be three years since the announcement of the two year transition & release of the ASi Mac mini DTK...

 

[Colstan]

More from Mark Gurman, this time about the M3 generation.

He claims to have access to Mac App Store developer logs concerning an M3-based machine, which he believes to be a prototype MacBook Pro, running an M3 Pro, based upon core counts. He said that it has 12 CPU cores, 18 GPU cores, and 36GB of system memory. (With six performance cores, and six efficiency cores within the CPU.)

He uses this comparison to the M1 and M2 generation to support his claim:

M1 Pro (released October 2021):

• Eight CPU cores (six high-performance cores/two power-efficient cores)
• 14 graphics cores
• 32GB of memory

M2 Pro (January 2023):

• 10 CPU cores (six high-performance cores/four power-efficient cores)
• 16 graphics cores
• 32GB of memory

M3 Pro (in testing):

• 12 CPU cores (six high-performance cores/six power-efficient cores)
• 18 graphics cores
• 36GB of memory

The most notable claimed feature is the 36GB of RAM, which would suggest that Apple is planning to use 6GB modules, if this rumor is true. He doesn't mention additional features, such as ray tracing support, nor performance benchmarks.

However, what I find most interesting isn't what Gurman is saying, but what he isn't saying. At this point in the M1 and M2 product cycles, he had the full specs of the entire Apple Silicon line, well before those generations were announced. This time, it's a rumor that he received from a developer log. As I have previously speculated, Gurman burned his best sources long ago, and is now running on fumes. I believe that is the reason for his decline in specificity; he has become more vague in his predictions, which I believe to be a result of him losing his best contacts within or close to Apple. He still has some sources, we continue to talk about Gurman because he's the best we've got, but his glory days are likely over. Hence, as many here have suggested, his accuracy moving forward may not be what it once was.

Mark Gurman expects M3-based Macs to ship either later this year or early 2024, which you don't need to be Svengali to predict. If that is correct, it still gives Apple some breathing room on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, assuming it uses an M2 variant, and doesn't get delayed, yet again, to the M3 generation.

 

[B01L]

Apple really needs to release the ASi Mac Pro with a M3 Ultra/Extreme/whatever (with hardware ray-tracing) chip ASAP...

 

[B01L]

• WWDC 2023
• ASi Mac Pro preview
• Shipping December 2023
• N3E process / A17-based cores
• Base M3 Ultra Tower - $6K
• Six PCIe slots (Gen4/Gen5)
• Rackmount conversion kit option
• M3 Ultra / M3 Extreme options
• Hardware ray-tracing
• Maximum 512GB LPDDR5X RAM
• Possible ASi (GP)GPU options
• Base M3 Extreme Cube - $8K
• 7.7" tall Mac Studio-style chassis

 

[ArgoDuck]

^ i need want it - when can i order it?!

 

[Citysnaps]

^ i need want it - when can i order it?!

I totally get it, seriously. But...today I settled for and bought a pair of Beats Studio Buds+. They will have to do.

 

[Aaronage]

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I don't expect anything M3 related at WWDC. It seems more likely that Apple will follow it's usual plan (A17 in September, followed by base M3 in November).

M3 potentially having more efficiency cores is interesting, though. I'm all for it! Apple's efficiency cores use so little power they almost disappear in the margin of error.

Tangent - I love how efficiency cores have transformed the Mac experience. The combination of extremely low power cores and the scheduling smarts of macOS is *chef's kiss*. They have totally solved the problem of heavy background tasks. Spotlight indexing, Xcode updates etc. just run silently in the background now with almost no impact on battery life, performance or heat.

 

[Cmaier]

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I don't expect anything M3 related at WWDC. It seems more likely that Apple will follow it's usual plan (A17 in September, followed by base M3 in November).

M3 potentially having more efficiency cores is interesting, though. I'm all for it! Apple's efficiency cores use so little power they almost disappear in the margin of error.

Tangent - I love how efficiency cores have transformed the Mac experience. The combination of extremely low power cores and the scheduling smarts of macOS is *chef's kiss*. They have totally solved the problem of heavy background tasks. Spotlight indexing, Xcode updates etc. just run silently in the background now with almost no impact on battery life, performance or heat.

Their efficiency cores are also much more performant than they have any right to be based on their power usage.

 

[Colstan]

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but I don't expect anything M3 related at WWDC. It seems more likely that Apple will follow it's usual plan (A17 in September, followed by base M3 in November).

This has been my thinking, as well. Nothing is set in stone, but Apple is a predictable company, for the most part. I've been planning to make a purchasing decision on a new computer for some time now. However, Apple's update schedule with the M-series seems to have slowed. I'm currently waiting on the Apple Silicon Mac Pro, so that I can see how capable Apple's high-end desktop GPU prowess is, which I think has been their weak spot. I'm also hoping for ray tracing hardware support in M3. As you say @Aaronage, there's a strong chance that we won't definitively know until October or November. For my own needs, I've waited long enough, and I'm putting a hard deadline on Black Friday to make a decision.

 

[Colstan]

I was going to wait until closer to the event, but since everyone is in the festive WWDC mood, here's the Mark Gurman bingo card for those who want to check his accuracy. (Also makes for a great drinking game.)

 

[Yoused]

I wonder about 15 inch "Air". Is there a reason they would call it that, and not just leave off the tag? What would be terrible about "15 inch MacBook"?

 

[throAU]

I know.

But some of the posters over at MacRumors aren't. Spend a few minutes in the Mac Pro section of their forum and you'll see that they are dead serious. There are posters who sincerely believe that if the Apple Silicon Mac Pro doesn't meet their fantasy requirements, the lowest volume product that Apple ships, then Apple is doomed and Tim Cook will have to be replaced. One dude became so unhinged about it that the mods had to put him on timeout. So, not only do I want to see the next Mac Pro for my own reasons, but to witness the reaction over in the twilight zone.

Ah the Macrumors Mac Pro users.

>Half of them are running 15 year old hardware that will be outperformed by a modern Mac mini yet somehow “need” some fantasy set of features or apple are doomed.

That said I think apple need to release an XR content generation workstation to go with their XR headset.

I expect at least some mention of the new Mac Pro at WWDC.

 

[Colstan]

Gurman's latest chicken bone reading, sourced from his scrying pool:

His "several new Macs" could mean anything from a handful of 15-inch MacBook Air models, to refreshing the entire line. Very helpful, I'm glad he's here to tell us these things.

 

[Joelist]

I thought Gurman's current secret method was consulting the entrails of a sheep.

 

[theorist9]

I wonder about 15 inch "Air". Is there a reason they would call it that, and not just leave off the tag? What would be terrible about "15 inch MacBook"?

My thoughts, FWIW:

Let's suppose it is, as expected, a scaled-up verison of the 13" Air. Then it makes perfect sense to call it an Air since that's what it actually is. Plus the Air name has a lot of marketing value (and a modestly high-end connotation). If you instead call it a MacBook, you give that up, while at the same time create unnecessary consumer confusion (not calling it an Air would incorrectly suggest it's qualitatively different from the 13"). Finally, you lose the nice simplification of having just two laptop product lines: The Airs and the MBP's.

The MacBook designation was last used for a smaller, lighter, less powerful machine than the Air. So I'd say save it for that—that name would be perfect for an 11" or 12" ultrabook powered by a low-binned Mn processor. [Yes, that would introduce a 3rd laptop product line, but here there would be a reason to do so.]

Now watch while Apple goes ahead and calls it the MacBook just to spite me .

 

[Nycturne]

Now watch while Apple goes ahead and calls it the MacBook just to spite me .

Considering the Air started as the smaller and lighter MacBook, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to swap things around again. Not suggesting they will, but it’s more one of those “who actually knows what the team at Apple is thinking?” things.

 

[Cmaier]

Considering the Air started as the smaller and lighter MacBook, I wouldn’t put it past Apple to swap things around again. Not suggesting they will, but it’s more one of those “who actually knows what the team at Apple is thinking?” things.

Same deal with iPads. I can‘t remember which are air’s and which are plain ipads. So i just buy pros.

 

[Yoused]

I can‘t remember which are air’s and which are plain ipads. So i just buy pros.

Pretty simple: iPad has a front TID-home button; Air has reduced top and bottom bezels for a larger screen, no home button and TID on the power button; the Pro 11 looks almost identical to Air but has 112,784 more pixels of screen and FID.