Apple M1, three months later

Hello everyone. I’ve been using the Apple M1 for well over three months now and in my first article, I promised a follow-up so here I am! If you haven’t read it, it is located here.

Well, surprisingly, the MacBook Pro M1 held on its promises. Even after heavy daily use for now more than three months, the battery is still spectacular and the performance likewise.

The software side has received few updates (not that much in comparison to what I had when I ran Linux) but those broke nothing so far and were totally painless (macOS lets you reboot when you want to).

Even though I may use that laptop way more than what is probably expected of it (goodbye sleep, I love having weeks of uptime), it holds without a problem almost any work I can throw it at.

Since the last article, Docker has finally come out on this platform and now works flawlessly. The biggest problem I encountered so far with my job is when trying to build the front-end of an app that uses yarn packages, the build fails (probably due to an outdated package or something?) but I don’t give it much thought as front-end isn’t my job. What I also find frustrating on macOS is the fact you need to download Xcode packages to get basic stuff such as Git. Even though I don’t use it, Xcode is bloating my drive on this machine.

To sum up, the M1 stays a strong machine, even after months of intensive use. However, the price tag starting at 1.5k euros is very high, even for a machine like that. So unless your company pays for it, or you are rich, don’t buy one, keep your money to buy a ThinkPad (especially old ones) or any other laptop that may not have the same performance, but that will give you at least some degree of control over the software and the hardware of your machine. If macOS can be pleasant to use, it also has constant reminders of it being closed and restricted on everything.

That will be enough for today, and I’ll see you next time!