M1 Macs have perhaps had the most unfair testing of any recent models. Aimed at the lower end of the market, where 16 GB memory is ample, and few users do things like boot from an external disk, we’ve been putting them through paces more typical of higher-end Macs. In the next few weeks, Apple is expected to launch new Apple Silicon Macs which are aimed fairly and squarely at heavier use by those with greater expectations and demands. In this article, I suggest some points of improvement which need to be addressed in those new models.
Memory
The most obvious shortcoming of current M1 Macs is their limitation to a maximum of 16 GB memory. Although users have been impressed with how fast they remain when pushing that to its limit, many Mac users do need more than that, and this must be one of the main hardware features in future Apple Silicon Macs.
External displays
Some prospective purchasers of M1 Macs have held off because of their limited support for external displays, with their inability to drive two or more. A popular feature in many existing Intel models, even going back to better MacBook Pros from 2011 and before, it’s essential for many users who wouldn’t consider themselves in the least bit ‘pro’. Support for a single Pro Display XDR has made for some excellent demos, but only serves to emphasise the need to drive multiple external displays.
Bootable external disks
Booting M1 Macs from external disks has been a long and sorry saga in which Apple must have known early hardware limitations prior to macOS 11.2 but has stubbornly remained silent on their resolution, and most of all the changes brought about by Secure Boot’s new system of ownership. These remain undocumented except in Apple’s Platform Security Guide, which isn’t aimed at (or suitable for) users. Even now that it’s relatively straightforward to install and boot from a copy of macOS on an external disk, I’m unable to find any Apple support document which explains to users how this can be done, and guides them past its pitfalls and problems.
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