New(ish) Apple Product – The Mac Studio

So I’m a little behind the times with this post, between trying and failing to restore the website (after a massive mistake on my part), working what feels like every hour of the day or getting ready to have a little one entering our lives I have to admit that I’ve not had much time to write and posts here. But hopefully, today will change that. Let’s Have a look a Apple’s Mac Studio.

I wanted to write about something that has cropped up on a number of occasions on my Twitter feeds and in product reviews. The Mac Studio. It’s Apple’s latest desktop computer that, as apple can’t help itself, comes in multiple flavours and I don’t just mean which CPU either. Since Steve Jobs Left the company Apple has kind of regressed back to when it used to make a few dozen different versions of each product. Take the iPhone for example there are 5 current models on the market. I really miss the days when Apple said this is our phone if you don’t like it though that’s all there is. Now if you want a Lidar feature (which I really do) then you need to shell out even more money. I once read a piece of advice that Jobs gave that kind of stuck with me. Make no more than 5 products and make sure that each of them is the best they can be (a bit of paraphrasing there) but It seems that Tim Cook has thrown that out of the window.

Anyway, let’s get back on topic. Not to be an apple fanboy, but the Mac Studio is by far the best Mac Apple has produced to date, The Studio display not so much but I’ll touch on that later. Not only are both M1 versions powerful but it also brings the cost down if you already have a monitor, keyboard and mouse you are happy with, just like the mac mini I’ve been using for years as home servers.

Whilst watching the Special Event Apple held to launch these new Macs I was hoping for a Pro model of the Mac Mini and that’s really what the Mac Studio really is when it comes down to it. The Hardware is mental from what I’ve heard, yeah it may not be as powerful as the gaming beast you may have but it’s not a gaming beast apple computers never really have been all that gaming focused. Yeah, you can play a bit of Minecraft, Tombriader and (Hopefully one day when Epic & Apple stop being dicks about the whole thing) Fortnite if you really wanted to but Macs just aren’t made for it. With the rise of the M1 chip, Apple is really showing that its focus has moved to the creative industries, each die has multiple video encoders and Machine Learning chips needed in a lot of video editing, photo editing and 3D modelling software these days.

Then we come to the price tag. With a UK starting Price of £1,999 for the M1 Max model and £3,999 for the M1 Ultra model Apple is already showing that these machines aren’t for Brenda who lives down the street and checks their email twice a day and plays candy crush. These machines are for users who actually need the power these particular M1 chips can offer. Don’t get me wrong I would like to get my hand on an M1 Ultra fully kitted out so I could move my Home server from my ageing i3 Mac mini. I’d imagine that it would run all of my Docker-based services with ease with plenty of headroom to spare to render out animations on the side when I felt like it. But on the whole, the mac mini just wasn’t designed for me.

Neither was the Studio Display. I don’t work in 4K or HDR for a start and I have a feeling that not too long from now I’ll be able to pick up one of the LG displays that some other mac user is replacing for quite the steal, and the only thing I’ll be loosing is the new speakers on the studio display, Center stage on the camera and Apple’s industrial design as the panel itself hasn’t changed in 10 years. The starting price is probably really good for someone that needs it (£1,499) but I don’t. If I want to watch 4K HDR content I really don’t want to be doing it sitting 3 feet from the screen.

So, do I think the Mac Studio is a great computer that is worth the money? Well, that depends on who you are. If you need the extra power then yeah buy one right now. But if you don’t need it then not really as it wasn’t designed for you. Maybe one day I’ll be able to pick a maxed out one up for a grand when apple is on to its M5 or M6 chips and It’ll still probably be more than I need at that point but I have to admit I’d still love one sat on my desk powering my home.