Processor and GPU

With the addition of pro-level chips to the M1 family, Apple provides a wide range of options for different categories of users’ computational, production, and battery-life needs. Here’s the current lineup with the cores listed as (CPU/GPU) in parentheses:

• MacBook Air: M1 (8/7), M2 (8/8), and M2 (8/10)

• Mac mini: M1 (8/8)

• 24-inch iMac: M1 (8/7) and M1 (8/8)

• 13-inch MacBook Pro: M2 (8/8)

• 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro: M1 Pro (8/14) or M1 Pro (10/16).

• 14-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max: M1 Max (10/24)

• 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Pro: M1 Pro (10/16)

• 16-inch MacBook Pro with M1 Max: M1 Max (10/32)

• Mac Studio with M1 Max: M1 Max (10/24)

• Mac Studio with M1 Ultra: M1 Ultra (20/48)

Display Limits

The base M1 and M2 allow only one additional display beyond the built-in display on a laptop or iMac, and two displays total on a Mac mini. All the M1 Pro, M1 Max, and M1 Ultra models can support two or more external displays.

All M-series Macs share the follow specs for video support:

• Refresh rate: All ports allow refresh rates up to 60 hertz (Hz).

• USB-C up to 6K: Any USB-C port with USB 3/Thunderbolt 4 (M1, M2) or USB4/Thunderbolt 4 (M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra) can manage up to a 6K display at over a billion colors.

• HDMI 2.0: The HDMI port on an M1 Mac mini, 14-inch MacBook Pro, 16-inch MacBook Pro, or Mac Studio supports up to 4K (2160 pixels).

With that in mind, here’s how many displays you can attach to each current model:

• M1 or M2 MacBook Air, 13-inch M2 MacBook Pro, and 24-inch iMac: One external display up to 6K

• M1 Mac mini: One external display up to 6K and one external display up to 4K

• M1 Pro 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro: Two external displays up to 6K (both via USB-C ports); or one up to 6K via USB-C and one up to 4K via HDMI

• M1 Max 14-inch or 16-inch MacBook Pro: Three external displays up to 6K (via USB-C ports) plus one up to 4K (via HDMI)

• M1 Max or Pro Mac Studio: Four external displays up to 6K (via USB-C ports) plus one up to 4K (via HDMI)

The monitor limitations on M1, M2, and M1 Pro Macs may be showstoppers for some people—you might need to pick an M1 Max or M1 Ultra to meet your needs, particularly if you want to use your laptop as both a machine on the go and “dock” it on a desk with high-resolution external monitors. But you should consider DisplayLink as another option, especially for M1 laptops; it’s discussed immediately below.

Peripheral Ports

M1 Macs are the first to support the combination of Thunderbolt 3 and USB4 using USB-C; the M1 Pro/M1 Max MacBook Pros bump that up to the fully converged USB4/Thunderbolt 4, which is also the case with the new M2.

Memory and Storage

As I noted earlier, an M-series Mac has its memory built into the SoC, not just soldered onto a circuit board. Many recent Intel Macs couldn’t have their memory upgraded, either; that’s also true of these new models—just in a different way!

Thus it is just as vitally important to figure out whether you can live with 8 GB for your term of ownership of, say, an M2 MacBook Air, or if 64 GB is required to future-proof a 16-inch MacBook Pro with an M1 Max. I always argue towards more memory, though the incredible efficiency of memory use in M-series processors means it’s less import to max out RAM than ever in the history of Macs.

You can opt for:

• 8 GB or 16 GB with an M1 Mac

• 8, 16, or 24 GB with an M2 Mac

• 16 GB or 32 GB with an M1 Pro MacBook Pro

• 32 GB or 64 GB with an M1 Max

• 64 GB or 128 GB with an M1 Ultra

Bumping up memory is plus $200 from 8 GB to 16 GB or 16 GB to 24 GB, plus $400 from 16 GB to 32 GB, plus $400 from 32 GB to 64 GB, and plus $800 for 64 GB to 128 GB.

Apple offers more flexibility in the SSD storage available on Macs with Apple silicon:

• M1 and M2 Macs: Pick among 256 GB, 512 GB, 1 TB, or 2 TB. Some base models start with 512 GB.

• M1 Pro (MacBook Pros, Mac Studio): Configurations begin at 512 GB or 1 TB; Apple offers upgrades to 1, 2, 4, and 8 TB.

• M1 Max (MacBook Pros, Mac Studio): The lowest-end models include a 1 TB SSD; you can bump that to 2, 4, or 8 TB.

Charging Speed on Laptops

The 2021 MacBook Pros with M1 Pro and M1 Max processors and 2022 M2 MacBook Air offer an option Apple calls “fast charging”: it fills a battery from empty to 50% within 30 minutes. This feature doesn’t fully rely on the return of MagSafe, except when it does!

When configuring your Mac, you may have to consider whether fast charging is something you want as an available feature.

With a 16-inch MacBook Pro, all models include a 140-watt charger and an appropriate MagSafe 3 to USB-C cable that works with fast charging. As long as you have that cable, fast charging is available.

However, with the entry-level models of the 14-inch MacBook Pro and M2 MacBook Air, Apple includes lower-wattage chargers: 67 watts for the former and 30 watts for the later.

In both cases, you can upgrade to a fast-charging adapter for $20: that’s 96 watts for the 14-inch MacBook Pro and 67 watts for the M2 MacBook Air.

Both Macs can use fast charging either with a MagSafe 3 to USB-C or a USB-C to USB-C cable connected to a charger of at least 96 watts or 67 watts, respectively.

Front-Facing Cameras

The M1-based MacBook Air, 13-inch MacBook Pro, and iMac all feature upgraded cameras, though the laptops’ cameras might seem like the same old thing: they still have “720p” cameras. However, Apple passes the video through an integral image-signal processor (ISP) to reduce noise, produce a greater dynamic range, and improve automatic white balancing. This ISP helps the 720p camera quite a lot, making it appear far better than the Intel 720p camera.

The M1 iMacs, M2 MacBook Air, and the 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pros have a true upgrade, featuring 1080p cameras, but they’re also enhanced by the ISP. If higher camera resolution is a requirement for you, that can help you with a purchase decision.

Apple says the ISP also engages face detection using machine learning, which allows the camera to focus in the right place and the ISP to tweak the video stream to improve where it things faces are.

What Is Emulation?

An emulator is a program that fools an app into thinking it’s running on a different operating system, or fools an entire operating system into the belief it’s running on a different processor than the one it really is. Software that runs within the emulator is a “brain in a jar”: to it, its world appears normal, and it doesn’t know that it’s running in a sort of Matrix-like simulation on another system than the kind on which it was designed to run.

An emulator is distinct from a virtual machine, which doesn’t require emulation to operate. A virtual machine is like a computational partition: it lets something run natively on the processor that is operating the primary computer—no emulation involved—but it’s partitioned off from the primary operating system running on that computer. A virtual machine provides an environment, sometimes called a “box,” which allows the speed and simplicity of native code execution instead of processor-based code emulation. Virtualization can encompass an entire operating system running within a virtual machine app, or it can be designed to run one or more specific pieces of software designed for one operating system seamlessly within another.

For instance, if you want to run an older version of macOS on an Intel Mac, you can turn to virtualization software like Parallels Desktop, VMware Fusion, and VirtualBox, all of which give you an operating system inside an app. In those same apps on an Intel Mac, you can also launch an Intel-based version of Windows, as well as Linux, older versions of macOS, and more exotic operating systems.

An emulator can also be designed to run limited subsets of software or just a portion of an operating system, but it always has to transform instruction from one process to another. Apple has offered four different transition tools—three emulators and one virtual machine—across their history that allow a newer Mac or operating system to run apps intended for older CPUs or versions of macOS.

Starting with the M1 processor, Apple offered up Rosetta 2, providing emulation for 64-bit Intel apps. When an Intel app runs with the help of Rosetta, Rosetta translates its Intel-based code on the fly to M1-series ARM instructions.

Rosetta doesn’t have to handle every feature and operation on an Intel processor; it only needs to carry out the tasks that Mac software executes within macOS. Apple controls the entire environment in which Mac software is designed and compiled, and thus the company had to build Rosetta to emulate just what it allows developers to do within that structure.

How Emulation Works on an M-Series Mac

Rosetta isn’t necessarily installed automatically; rather, the first time you launch a 64-bit Intel app, macOS prompts you that it can download and install Rosetta (Figure 6).

Apple calls this technology simply Rosetta in the dialog above—and I will through the rest of this book—but more accurately refers to it as Rosetta 2 in their online support.

Once Rosetta is installed, 64-bit Intel apps simply run without any additional presentation or steps. When you first launch an app that’s compiled for an Intel Mac, macOS runs a translation process that converts all the Intel code to the ARM equivalent. It then runs the translation. On subsequent launches, the translated version is cached and runs instead, making a second launch much faster than the first.

Whenever you update an Intel Mac app, the next time it’s launched, Rosetta 2 has to perform its translation again.

Translated apps operate as fast as they are capable in emulation, which can be mighty fast, particularly if you’ve upgraded from even a slightly older Mac. Before Adobe had released an ARM-native version of Photoshop for macOS, I could run the Intel version under Rosetta on my M1 MacBook Air alongside a 2017 four-code iMac with 64 GB of RAM—and Photoshop on the M1 beat the iMac hands down. The native version was even more striking.

You can tell ahead of time whether Rosetta is required to run a given piece of software by selecting the app in the Finder and choosing File > Get Info. In the Get Info dialog, the Kind item will show one of three labels after Application (Figure 7):

• Intel: Requires Rosetta

• Universal: Contains Intel and Apple silicon code, and this single binary can run natively on either platform

• Apple Silicon: Can only run on an M-series Mac, whether a native macOS app or a compatible iOS/iPadOS app (see Launch iOS and iPadOS Apps on Your Mac)

For Universal apps, you can force the use of Intel code by checking “Open using Rosetta,” highlighted in Figure 7. This might be desirable in limited cases. Some apps allow for plugins and extensions, and developers of those add-ons might not have produced ARM-ready code yet. As a result, you want to force Rosetta to run to use the app along with the extensions.

In other cases, the Intel version may still lack features or be less erratic than the Apple silicon flavor. It took Adobe move than a year to migrate some Photoshop features to their native M-series version. Only three minor ones remain absent, while some still run in emulation—and Adobe is removing Photoshop’s 3D features instead of making them native. (They’re moving 3D features to a new app.)

Nearly all app developers have extended their Intel apps to be Universal rather than releasing separate Intel and Apple silicon software. There are a few exceptions. I’ve found some apps that you install directly—instead of copy from a download disk image—will opt to install an Apple silicon-only version instead of a Universal one.

If you want to look comprehensively through your installed apps, you can hold down Option and choose Apple  > System Information, click the Applications link in the sidebar, and browse details. The Kind field offers several labels instead of the three above:

• 32-bit (Unsupported): A 32-bit Intel app that can run only in macOS Mojave and earlier

• Apple Silicon: M-series native apps only

• Intel: 64-bit Intel apps

• iOS: iOS and iPadOS native apps

• Other: This category seems to include 32-bit Intel apps that are ancient enough to not even launch in Mojave

• Universal: Contains both Intel and ARM code in one package

Emulation Has Its Limits

Given the incredible performance of the first Apple silicon chip, you might wonder how versions of macOS before Big Sur as well as Windows 10 and other Windows releases might run on it. Keep wondering! Because, so far, you can’t run Intel-based operating systems on an M-series Mac, just 64-bit Intel Mac apps.

As I noted above, Rosetta is designed to provide a translation for a subset of Intel features that Apple developers rely on in coding their apps. It doesn’t pretend to be an entire Intel processor.

Virtual machines on Intel Macs don’t have to pretend to be a CPU. They act more as a mediator between the actual Intel CPU and the operating system and software they’re running in their little box. The Intel CPU directly executes the commands.

In order to emulate versions of macOS prior to Big Sur, any Intel version of Windows, and other operating systems designed to run on x86 chips, one or more people, open-source projects, or companies will have to build out a processor emulator that’s resilient and complete.

They may have to worry that Intel would try to shut them down, too. The function of a processor can be protected under various intellectual property laws that vary by country. Emulating a CPU could violate patent rights of a processor’s manufacturer if created without a license. Intel threatened Microsoft and Qualcomm over processor emulation in 2017. However, that didn’t seem to go anywhere. That same year, Microsoft released 32-bit emulation of Windows Intel apps in its Windows for ARM release, and in December 2020, extended that to 64-bit Intel apps in the preview release I discuss in Install and Use Windows.

For now, if you need an Intel-only operating system, you have to keep Intel hardware running, which might include virtualization software for operating systems that aren’t the native one you boot into.