With the arrival of the original iPhone there has been a shift in the computing paradigm. The ideas and innovations he introduced gradually made their way into the traditional laptop, albeit slowly. So much so that the last decade has hardly changed.
This changed with the M1 chip, the first Apple Silicon processor that we’ve seen and that brings new life to the MacBook Air. Thanks to this new heart, Apple has started a new stage on the path that involves the resurrection of the laptop in a world of smartphones, tablets and clothing.
Laptops have been scrambling for a decade
For everyday tasks both at home and at work, we have long had to choose: pulling a heavy brick with a noisy fan, a pixelated screen, a handful of hours of battery and a weak internet connection, or always pulling out a supercomputer. , always connected and full of apps from our pocket.
This is how Christpher Mims describes for the Wall Street Journal the everyday abyss we face in an article in which he chronicles how PCs turn into giant phones. Mims goes on to say that PC sales have fallen over the past decade. Just look at this Statista chart to see the trend:
While this fall was more pronounced between 2011 and 2014, seems to have bottomed out between 2018 and 2019. Since then, and probably boosted by the pandemic, sales have grown slightly. Of all, it is said that the ratio of desktops to laptops is 20/80, so it is very possible that laptops are the most affected by this stagnation.
Now that we are entering a new stage in computing, it’s easy to see from another perspective the progress made. And the truth is, they don’t know much about us. Compared to the contributions of the M1 chip, we can see to what extent computers, PCs and Macs, dragged their feet until now.
A decade of innovations in perspective
Looking back, it’s easy to see that innovation in the PC (and Mac) arena hasn’t exactly been at breakneck speed. Yes, in the last ten years we have had computers with SSDs, leave the hard drive bottleneck forever. In the Mac, they added improvements like Touch ID, T2 security chip, trackpad with Force Touch, improved sound, and other changes. On the software and services side, we have functions like Continuity, iCloud, AirDrop or Hey Siri.
All of these features are welcome, but they pale next to what the M1 and Apple Silicons have achieved. As we commented in the episodes of Las Tallas de Applesfera when we analyzed the [iMac 2021](https://www.applesfera.com/sobremesa/apple-imac-2021-analisis-caracteristicas-precio-especificaciones) and the M1 chip, we see how Apple Silicon broke the three traditional IT barriers:
- Long battery life.
- High CPU and GPU power.
- Minimal heat production.
In computers equipped with Intel, these three elements were combined in a way that could never be present at the same time. A good battery could not be in a powerful equipment. And the power was at odds with both the battery and the heat. A triangle of limitations that no longer exists with M1 equipment.
Right now, I’m writing these lines on a newly purchased 2020 MacBook Air M1. When setting up a few hours ago, the team remained cold, consuming little battery and without any type of slowing down. All this while performing very heavy tasks typical of the first use. Autonomy, power and heat dissipation in a computer without fan or noise.
The new age of the Mac begins now
Without a doubt, the advent of the M1 chip did not happen overnight. It is precisely during this “lost” decade when Apple developed its own processors. All the while, the company has learned from the iPhone, then the iPad and more recently the Apple Watch.
Therefore, we can say that the Apple Silicon M1 is the first processor that inherits all the good from the previous four platforms including the Mac. key areas for laptop and desktop: power, heat, autonomy.
The task was long and tedious, to the point where some of us came to believe that it would never materialize. It doesn’t matter anymore, because those chips are already there and there is no turning back. It reminds me of the first time I wore glasses to the movies: the experience is so superior that every time I forget them, I feel like I’m missing half of the things. And it makes me want to leave the room to go home to pick them up.
In the last few hours that I have been using my new computer, I have touched my iMac 2017 several times to quickly return to MacBook Air. the danger the point is that now i want an M1 on the iMac. And, for now, that will have to wait.
