There’s a new release of macOS version 27, and I have to say it’s the first time my M1 Max MacBook Pro is starting to feel sluggish. (The latest Apple chip is the M6.) Adobe Lightroom importing doesn’t feel as snappy as before. More than one Google Chrome tab? Forget about it.
And that’s the problem with computer chips chasing after better performance year after year. The software running on those chips expand to fill the provided bandwidth. Hardware and software progresses symbiotically. With more power, comes more code to use that extra power.
Older hardware gets forsaken and disregarded. My M1 laptop fully supports macOS 27, but let’s be honest, macOS 27 is written for a newer and faster platform. Why wouldn’t Apple optimize their newest operating system to run maximally with their latest hardware? They then throttle down the performance to fit the smaller performance envelopes of the older stuff. Game developers aren’t using the less powerful XBOX Series S as the benchmark; they code for the Series X, then scale it back for the poverty XBOX.
Just as Series S does not run games as well as Series X, my M1 MacBook Pro isn’t running macOS 27 as smoothly as an M5 MacBook Pro. By design.
It didn’t feel this way at first, of course. Any current model year Mac computer feels completely speedy and snappy when first purchased. Even Intel-powered Macs, horrendously slow by today’s standards, was fully adequate when launched. It’s after the first year of ownership, and subsequent years later, when the OS upgrades accumulate, that the sluggishness creeps in. Until about five years later and you feel compelled to upgrade because it all just feels a bit slow.
I will not be buying a new computer this year. The ongoing war in Iran and the latent inflation to come (we haven’t yet seen the full results of the oil shock), it’s important to have reserves for the truly necessary. Because those necessities will and are costing more.
Egg party.