TTG 1751 for Saturday 5 December 2020

Beep boop - this is a robot. A new show has been posted to TWiT…

What are your thoughts about today’s show? We’d love to hear from you!

I started listening to TWIT , all the shows/podcasts, about 2 years ago, and Ive loved it. Now I feel like Leo is pushing me away.

I thought we were done with the over the top love affair with the M1 chip. I thought we were down to some reality, and respectfulness of others.

It may be a game changer, but Leo’s gleeful rant about it today, was just plain disrespectful of others, with a total “i dont care who i offend” attitude.

Personally, Im using a 2011 macbookpro right now, and I really like it. I use it for my business and personal stuff. I want to “upgrade” to a 2014 macbookpro. It has what I want, and I dont have to learn a whole new computer again. I have a 2019 macbookpro with an 8 core intel corei9 for my studio, and its plenty fast (no bouncing beach balls) , the fan never comes on.
Leo just seems to think that whats good for him, is good for everyone. Are we up to the “I’m an old guy and im just gonna say what I want to and dont care anymore” portion of life.? It is possible to talk about the M1 chip, without being offensive

Im not an idiot. Im a tech user with some knowledge. But I dont get excited about whatever is the latest and greatest. I get excited when I can get my work done, without having to waste time learning why some new computer wont do what my old one would.
Im just disappointed cause I love Leo’s immitations, and noises, and I get every 1970 reference he’s ever made. I really like all the shows, but being “old guy offensive” really turns me off.
Thanks,
beth marshall
paso robles, ca

I understand your opinion but Leo’s end seems to be the consensus among press and the community even Linus Tech Tips which is a YT channel that focuses on Windows say that those are the computers to get.

Im not disagreeing with what Leo is saying, its just way he is delivering his message or thoughts comes off to me as so condescending. I dont think talking down at your listeners is very appropriate, or good for business(!) And then trying to walk away from what he said with “I’m just doing my job”.

Then…(paraphrasing) “I dont want to listen to peoples computer problems, I want to talk about how the M1 chip is going to change the world”. Well that might be a decent discussion for part of the TWIT show, but Leo just seems to have gotten obsessed with this, and it, IMHO, has become very tiresome at best.

Maybe Leo could explain to us why he is so excited because he thinks this is a major change in computing. None of his guests or regulars are this excited. What makes him different. Maybe theres an interesting (albeit personal) story there.

FWIW…in the late 1940’s, in the very back of Popular Science magazine, there was 1 column inch saying, as a small news item, that Bell Labs had invented the transistor. That’s my observation…the things that really change the world, are hardly noticed when they 1st happen.

beth marshall

I’m pretty sure that he had in a previous episode.

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That’s correct, he has explained it on TWiT, MBW, WW, iOS today etc! He’s been VERY clear about the incredible utility and usefulness of a technology (which no one else has been able to create to date) that gets incredible battery life, with terrific performance at very low power requirements and amazing memory management - but maybe I’ve actually been listening to what he’s been saying!!!:joy:

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My understanding of the M1 is very straightforward. It’s a marketing revolution for Apple. They’re the first on the “5nm process” from TSMC. They will NOT be the last. AMD is presumably already testing it for the Ryzen 6xxx CPUs that will come out next year. ARM is not new nor revolutionary, it comes from Acorn computer, which is approximately the same age as anything from Intel in the x86 line. Yay for Apple “making hay while the sun shines” because they arranged to be first to market with a new process, but it will be very interesting to see if they can stay ahead… my guess is they’ll be yawn worthy in very short order. (@Leo’s mileage certainly varies at this point.)

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The only ARM in Apple Silicon is the instruction set, the rest of M1 is all Apple, hence my assertion that it’s tech no one else has been able to create to date! Anyone who wants it has had access to Taiwan Semi’s 5nm process, but Apple has had engineers working there for a long time. About marketing at Apple, yup they are great marketers, and REALLY GREAT when they have a story that performs like M1 :grin: Speed, Battery, Low power requirements - my grandmother could market that :joy: :joy: :joy:

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What part of the show was that? I listened to the opening segment and didn’t hear that.

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That’s not true, simply because it is brand new… Apple is the first to use it. Someone had to go first, and the richest company can afford to spend the most money being first. Lucky for Apple that it had the money to spend to keep others at the back of the line.

Opening of show on saturday 12/5. Very beginning, when Leo usually talks before going to Kimmy and callers.

FWIW…the show was much better today. Lots of good callers.
I almost get the feeling that Leo is getting back at some ppl who gave him a hard time about being a Mac person over the years.
IDK if there’s a back story, Even if it is a big break thru in personal computing, Leo has just been over the top. Todays comment “I cant even use my other computers anymore”

I still really enjoy all his shows and podcasts, but i just cant get that excited about owning the worlds fastest personal laptop. There are other considerations for every person out there, and i wish Leo could acknowledge that.

And yet, Apple is so far ahead of everyone else with the M1 - so they actually had a chip ready for the 5nm process! The M1 is a tenth generation Apple Silicon chip AND once again, Speed, Battery, Low power requirements - unified memory architecture THOSE can’t be denied! It’s a game changer. Oh and Microsoft is one of the richest companies in the world, yet they had no chip available to go 5nm with along with their current partner Qualcomm

I guess that was before the recorded portion of the podcast. I can certainly empathize with feeling like a tech journalist or podcaster is talking down— I was a Windows Phone fan :stuck_out_tongue_closed_eyes:, and I currently use and prefer the new Edge over Chrome. It’s hard to begrudge Leo his excitement though. There’s little to be excited about these days in consumer tech; folding displays? AR/VR? Intel’s tick tock tock tock tock cadence? Web apps? Windows on ARM? What Apple’s done is an actual breakthrough.

Dude you apparently don’t understand, and your fanboi-ism is showing. Making a chip fab at any particular feature size (the 5nm) is super expensive… the R&D and then the equipment costs billions of dollars. TSMC presumably only has one fab up and running at this feature size, and Apple was first in line. It has NOTHING to with the ability of Apple’s designers, although considerable, and everything to do with the fact it takes time and lots of money to get a fab of that sort up and running, and when it had capacity, the deepest pockets (i.e. Apple’s) got to go first. Eventually Apple’s needs will be met on this fab, and someone else will get their go. And when they do, I’m sure the product that they produce in that feature size will also benefit from faster speeds, lower power consumption, etc… all of which are a NATURAL consequence of having a smaller feature size… as they have been since the beginning of Moore’s law.

Well, I refined my “fanboy-ism” over the past 32 years as an engineering manager at HP and Apple so there’s that…

And the reason Apple was first in line at TSMC is because they’ve had Engineers there helping design the process

and the whole reason Apple has been working for 10 years to design their own silicon is because no one else (hello Intel, AMD and Qualcomm) has been able to create chips with these kinds of specs, and this is even Qualcomm’s frikkin business!!!

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Isn’t it just the same old story. Apple makes a few machines and is in full control of hardware and software. They have copied good ideas in the past and still do. This time other companies will follow. Let’s face it your machine that did everything well pre M1 more than likely still does. But when eventually you need to buy another it hopefully be a lot better. Good tech reviewers are there to inform us of their opinions. We make the final decision to buy or not. And through their views we sometimes make better decisions and get entertained watching them examine large amounts of tech we couldn’t possibly. Remember, Leo is human. Please don’t push him into retirement. Because that will be a sad day for us all. I’m 60 next year and we do change as we age. But he’s still a bloody good ringmaster.