Tech.pinions

As the year winds down, I’ve been thinking a lot about the big product announcements and technology shifts we’ve seen inside this tumultuous year. While we’re all hoping 2021 will at some point bring our lives back toward something more like normal, the impact of COVID on the technology markets will carry on throughout the year. What follows is not so much a list of predictions but a list of PC-focused topics worth continuing to watch closely in the new year.

Sustained PC Growth
As we entered 2020, the conventional wisdom pointed to a flat to modestly down year for traditional PCs, which had just seen the final commercial laggards make the move from Windows 7/8 to Windows 10. Early in the year, as China faced the first pandemic-forced shutdowns that would impact the supply of PCs (for the world) and demand for the products inside the country, it looked as if the pandemic might have a broadly negative impact on the PC Market. We know now that wasn’t the case, and as consumers, businesses, and schools around the world moved to live, work, and learn from home, demand for especially notebook PCs skyrocketed. Throughout the year and into December, we’ve seen demand far outstrip supply, and as we head into 2021, a great deal of that demand is still waiting to be filled.

Expect the first half of 2021 to drive very good PC volumes. At present, the second half is less clear, but assuming the supply chain can finally catch up with existing demand, we are likely to see volumes drop off some by then. The real question: Once we’ve widely distributed vaccines, and the world returns to whatever the next normal looks like, will the PC retain its newly reestablished important role? Or will it slide into the background again as people shift back toward greater mobility, putting down their notebooks and picking up their smartphones again? We’ll be watching closely to determine if 20/21 sets a new, lasting TAM for PCs or if the market quickly reverts to its pre-2020 rhythms and market totals.

Expanded Silicon Diversity
One genie that’s not going back into the bottle is the industry-wide shift toward great silicon diversity in PCs. For a very long time, Intel ruled the PC space, with AMD playing the foil to its total market dominance. After several years of process challenges, missed deadlines, and product shortages, Intel finds itself in a dramatic battle with a newly resurgent AMD that not only has highly competitive products but the institutional patience to grow its share at a deliberate, sustainable pace. Of course, in the past, Intel has often done its best work when under challenge. With its first 11th Gen Core products shipping now to consumers, a new Evo platform story to tell, and the Vpro-branded commercial products set to hit in 2021, Intel is ready for battle.

Beyond X86, we’ve got smartphone silicon behemoth Qualcomm continuing to iterate on its PC-focused Snapdragon chips, too. While it has yet to have a breakout hit in the space, product wins with vendors including Microsoft, Samsung, Lenovo, and others suggest there is market viability if it keeps iterating.

Finally, this quarter Apple began shipping its first Apple Silicon-based products in new Macbook Airs, Macbook Pros, and Mac Minis. Many were disappointed Apple didn’t target a lower price point with these new products. Still, I expect they will do just that at some point in the future, as the company shifts toward a model comparable to their iPhone lineup that sees the current lineup shift downward in price but stay in the market, as the next generation of products launch. In the meantime, Apple seems to be driving substantial performance gains from its new chips, although there will be heated discussions about the veracity of those claims and the benchmarks that drive them well into the new year. All told, 2021 should see some fascinating movements in silicon.

5G PC Attach Rate
Another silicon-based area to closely monitor in the new year is the growth in cellular-connected PCs. This has long been a favorite topic of mine, as in the “before days,” I traveled extensively and had little use for a PC without an LTE connection. While few of us are traveling at present, an unexpected side benefit of an always-connected PC has been the ability to use the LTE (or in some cases now, 5G) modem instead of connecting to an overcapacity home broadband network. While your partner, children, relatives, and others fight over limited throughput on the router for Zoom calls, Youtube streams, and the like, a user with a connected PC can collaborate with relative ease.

I don’t expect a radical shift toward LTE/5G enabled PCs for employees working at home. Still, I expect many companies to look at this option as they continue to figure out where their workforce will sit in the future and how they will pay for connectivity. As more organizations shift toward smaller office setting designed to facilitate meetings versus housing the entire staff every day, connected PCs make even more sense from an infrastructure built-out perspective. One thing is clear: The PC vendors need to build better relationships with the powerhouse carriers in all regions to make these types of technology shifts possible.

Accessories Bonanza
PCs have seen the most headlines, but accessories are a category that has also enjoyed a banner year in 2020. With so many people outfitting home offices, or kitchen tables, with all the pieces necessary to drive productivity, we’ve seen huge growth in monitors, webcams, microphones, keyboards, mice, and headsets. For a time, midyear, it was literally impossible to buy a brand-name webcam anywhere.

I expect these categories to continue to see substantial volumes through much of 2020 as consumers, companies, and schools continue to adapt to what will likely be a mix of in-person and from-home activities throughout this year. Hastily purchased accessories will get replaced by better quality ones. And in many situations, we may see people looking to procure one set of accessories for use at home and another for us at work. Products that help users efficiently shift between smartphone and PC, PC and tablet, and tablet and smartphone will be in demand. Expect growth in the ear-worn wearables category to continue to grow by leaps and bounds.

Here Comes DaaS
Finally, to close out, I return to Device as a Service (DaaS), one of my favorite topics. All signs point to the pandemic as a driving force in many company’s broader digital transformation efforts, of which DaaS can be a crucial part. For many, shifting from a traditional model of procuring, deploying, and managing devices themselves to one where they pay an OEM or MSP to do this work offers clear advantages in terms of efficiency and workload. Based on my conversations with players in this space, COVID has accelerated many companies’ interest in DaaS, especially as they look toward the future of their distributed workforce and how they equip them to drive productivity. Expect to hear a great deal more about DaaS in 2021 as companies of all sizes take a closer look at the benefits it offers.
This has been a very challenging year, and like most people, I’m eager to close out 2020 with an eye toward a challenging but hopeful 2021. Many thanks to all who read me here at Techpinions. Happy Holidays and I look forward to seeing you all in 2021.

For the past few weeks, I have been using the M1 power Mac mini as my primary day to day computer. I have not lived through as many Apple processor transitions as others who have been sharing their thoughts, but I vividly remember Apple’s transition to Intel. Ever since the late ’90s, Mac’s have been my primary computers. I have fond memories of bringing my Mac into meetings with PC OEMs and Intel in the early 2000s and always taking flack for not using Windows and Intel or what some would call a real work computer. Which is why I found it ironic after Apple switched to Intel how many Macs I saw floating around Intel when I was there for meetings. That’s another story.

During the Intel transition, the first Macs running Intel Silicon had a somewhat rocky beginning with many apps not optimized for x86. Rosetta handled the translation of code from Apple’s PowerPC architecture to Intel’s x86. The main thing about that transition that was burned into my mind was endless bouncing icons (the action an icon performs in the dock while it is opening on macOS) and how many times the app either never opened, requiring me to force quit or did not open requiring a total restart. Once apps were open, I recall the experience being mostly solid, with the exception of some frequent crashes. Still, those minutes wasted opening an app as Rosetta translated is burned into my memory.

Rosetta 1’s translation abilities were dependent on the code and Intel’s processing power back at that time, which is not what it is today as the x86 architecture is far more sophisticated and powerful. Given the underlying technology at the time during Apple’s transition from PowerPC to x86, some of these hiccups are understandable in retrospect. Still, many of us early users remember the pain of that transition.

Fast forward to today, and the current experience I’ve had with the M1 powered Mac mini, and it is night and day. After a smooth migration to the Mac mini M1 from my 16″ MacBook Pro, I started instantly picking up some work where I left off on the MacBook. I had a little flashback anxiety as I first launched Superhuman, the email client I run for Gmail, which is fairly lightweight. The Superhuman icon started bouncing in the dock and did so for 20 seconds or more. I briefly had Rosetta 1 deja vu. I immediately quit the app to try again to see what would happen, and it opened instantly. I quit again and opened several times, and each time, it opened instantly, to my relief. I then went on to open nearly all my other applications, which I knew were not M1 native-like Office apps, Zoom, Slack, some audio apps I use for editing audio. All of them took 20-30 seconds at first open but then opened each time instantly after.

What makes Rosetta 2 unique this time around is Apple is translating more like an ahead of time compiler (AOT) than a just in time compiler (JIT). Upon first open, Rosetta 2 is essentially translating all the x86 application code into native M1 instructions, which it will then run at each new open. This is the key experience that led many reviewers to remark on how well x86 apps performed on the M1 and how it felt like a native app. That’s because it basically was a native app after Rosetta 2 translation was performed. This is a huge advantage to Apple being the designer of the Mac CPU. Rosetta could, for the first time, be optimized and co-designed with the M1 and have unique knowledge of each other. This was not a luxury Apple has had in past silicon platform transitions.

I timed each non-native app’s translation process upon first open, and the average time was 26.7 seconds. That’s basically the time it took for the M1 to translate an x86 app to native M1 code. This is pretty impressive when you consider all that is going on under the hood.

Once the translation process was complete, all my non-M1 native apps performed just like I was used to on my Intel-based MacBook Pro. To have a reference, I timed how long it took the same apps to launch on both the M1 and my Intel-based MacBook Pro (2.4 GHz 8 Core i-9 processor). The table below shows the average time to launch, in seconds, and be usable of each app on each system. I timed each app five times and then averaged each out.

As you can see, each system had comparable app times. What was surprising was how none of my work-flows were interrupted as I moved from the Intel MacBook Pro to the M1 Mac mini. Literally zero disruption.

In terms of speed and performance, while I’m not a benchmarker, I did try and tax the M1 system in various ways I could with the software I have. Below was the CPU performance while I opened a native x86 app to run Rosetta 2 translation, scrubbed a 4k video in real-time, while on a Microsoft Teams video call (Teams not optimized for M1). I know it is a weird workflow to test, but it was the most CPU intense software at my fingertips.

As you can see, the spike was caused by the Rosetta 2 translation but never during this 1-2 min span did I see the system become sluggish, unresponsive, or have the spinning rainbow of death known on macOS.

What I found most intriguing about this CPU chart is the M1 has four performance cores and four low-power cores. This CPU chart shows that even the four low-power cores kick in, to a degree, during CPU intensive applications and are not just primarily there for lower-performance tasks.

Suffice it to say, the M1 has gone beyond my expectations right out of the gate, and from the reviews, it looks like I’m not alone. And any localized issues experienced by anyone with some non-optimized apps will be a thing in the past by the end of next year when nearly all, probably all, macOS apps will be optimized for the M1.

The M1 and the future of Macs
I wanted to conclude with a few thoughts on the role the M1 will play for the future of the Mac and Apple Silicon. I’ve long been bullish on Apple’s ambitions with custom silicon since Apple has helped establish the trend of specific purpose silicon away from the old world of general-purpose silicon. We also know Apple’s growing team of in-house silicon designers in-house, which gives them a huge advantage in custom silicon. What is exciting about Apple now challenging their silicon team with setting a new bar for high-performance computing is how those efforts will benefit Apple as a whole, not just with M1 Macs.

The work the team puts in to push the limits of performance-per-watt in high-performance applications will, likely, trickle down to things like iPhone, iPad, future augmented or virtual reality, and more. Meaning, this effort will yield fruit across Apple silicon, not just for Mac hardware.

Having experienced some of the latest processors from Intel and AMD, I am convinced Apple will set a new bar not just in notebooks but desktop and workstations as the M1 scales up to those classes of machines. And this leads me to the last point I want to make.

Apple making processors for Macs is extremely good for semiconductor competition. Not to say that AMD and Intel have been standing still, but both those companies have been focusing on competing with each other and largely competing in the datacenter when it came to pushing performance and high-performance design and applications. Apple has now created a new dynamic where both these companies are now competing with Apple to bring its PC customers a solution that will compete with M1 Macs. If they don’t, Apple could run away with the high-end of the PC market, which would have a drastic impact on the PC category, one I’m not sure Intel, AMD, and the PC OEMs have fully realized yet.

Apple’s event this week brought a few surprises (three new Apple-Silicon based Macs, not just one) as well as some frustrating nonsurprises (no touchscreens, no LTE or 5G, and no new entry-level starting prices for notebooks). Based on Apple’s deliberately vague testing proclamations, the M1 system on a chip (SoC) certainly appears to be a powerful performer that will also offer substantial battery life improvements. We will know more about both in the coming days as reviewers begin the process of benchmarking and real-world testing. What is clear, however, is that the M1 has already caused Apple to radically rethink the role the processor plays in differentiating products in its lineup. Just as important, I believe it will give Apple significantly more freedom to iterate around its Mac form factors, features, and, eventually, prices.

Three New Macs
I won’t go into too much detail about the new Macs, as Carolina covered those details in her excellent day-two column. Like her, I wasn’t surprised that Apple chose to effectively hold the line on its pricing (with the exception of the $100 drop on the Mac Mini) because it needed to establish out of the gate that the M1 isn’t a low-cost alternative to Intel, but a powerful custom-designed replacement that merits like-for-like pricing.

What’s truly remarkable about this product launch is that by using the same chip across a new Mac Mini, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro, Apple effectively eliminated one of the key ways the PC industry (and Apple itself) has traditionally segmented its products. Processor performance level and branding have always been a primary differentiator in the market. With the M1, Apple says the quiet part out loud by acknowledging that a single chip, placed into three different thermal envelopes, will drive three different performance levels.

That last part is going to fry a lot of people’s noodles, especially those who have traditionally made buying decisions based on the often small but highly marketed speeds and core count of one system’s processor over another. You can see it now as buyers wrestle with a decision between buying a fanless MacBook Air or a MacBook Pro that offers improved performance predicated entirely on the fact that it has a fan that lets the M1 processor run faster, longer than the one in the Air. Ultimately, I expect that the M1 and Apple’s subsequent Mac processors will lead an increasing percentage of their customers to think less about the processor and what its esoteric speeds and feeds mean to them. But this transition will take time, and it will cause some hand-wringing along the way.

One of the early issues with the shift to the M1 is RAM limitations. All the new Macs offer a standard starting RAM allotment of 8GB and a maximum of 16GB. For years it has been notoriously hard—if not impossible—to add aftermarket RAM to a Mac, but with the M1, it is simply not possible because the memory is part of the SOC. This 16GB limit likely isn’t a dealbreaker for most MackBook Air buyers. Still, it has caused a small but vocal minority of Mac diehards to pump the brakes on new MacBook Pro and Mac Mini purchase because they are unwilling to buy a system with less than 32GB of RAM. Here’s the thing: Conventional wisdom (and experience) may dictate that power users need 32GBs, but that may not be the case with the M1’s Unified Memory Architecture. We will have to wait for the benchmarks and real-world testing to know for sure.

Another notable thing about the new M1-based Macs is that they all support just two Thunderbolt/USB 4 ports, whereas some previous versions of both the Mac Mini and MacBook Pro offered up to four. It is unclear if this is an M1 limitation or an Apple design decision. However, this too may be a dealbreaker for some users, who—in the case of the Mac Mini or MacBook Pro—will then need to look back at the legacy Intel-based products still on offer or wait for subsequent product launches.

No Touch, No LTE, and No New Form Factors…Yet
I was not surprised that Apple opted to go with its existing chassis for these product announcements. Particularly in the Tim Cook era, Apple tends to be quite deliberate when it comes to new product designs, so it made sense that the new products look just like the old products. It was also not shocking that Apple did not add a touchscreen to the Mac and did not roll out an LTE or 5G option for the MacBook Air or MacBook Pro. And to many people’s disappointment, the company did not introduce a new lower-priced notebook. However, the fact that Apple did not do any of this week doesn’t mean that it won’t in the future.
In fact, I see that as one of the great benefits of the move to Apple Silicon. While the company decided the shift to the M1 was enough change for 2020, the flexibility inherent in rolling its own silicon—and knowing the ramifications of a future chip in terms of battery life, performance, heat, I/O, and cost—uniquely positions the company to iterate on the Mac in ways it has never done before.

Obviously, there will be new designs, likely in the service of Apple’s obsessive drive to make everything thinner and lighter. With its own silicon on board, Apple will be free to make design changes without waiting on a partner or making concessions for features it deems unnecessary for the Mac. I’m less convinced Apple will add a touchscreen to the Mac, even though many of us have pushed for it for years. However, the support for iOS apps, enabled by the M1, could mean Apple rethinks this position in the future. There is a slightly better chance that Apple eventually rolls out a Mac with cellular connectivity. This would require a fundamental redesign of its notebook chassis, and if it were to happen, it would likely occur using a 5G radio. There is a great deal of interest in connected PCs today due to the massive shift to work from home, but it’s clear Apple won’t be moving quickly to try to catch that wave.

Finally, I expect Apple to eventually roll out more affordably priced Mac notebooks (note I didn’t say low-end). It is instructive to look at how Cook has approached this in his other categories. Traditionally, it was with waterfalled products—last year’s iPhone drops in price, the previous year’s product also decreases in price, and Apple keeps selling them to reach a wider audience. More recently, the company has launched purpose-built products designed to appeal to more value-oriented buyers, such as the second-generation iPhone SE and the Apple Watch SE. I suspect Apple will begin the process here by waterfalling M1-based products into lower price points as it announces new products with next-generation M-Series processors.
By shifting its lineup away from Intel, Apple will no longer have to deal with people always pointing out that it sells products with years-old chips that look dated versus the other PC players. Yes, Dell, HP, Lenovo, and others will always ship products with the latest Intel processor. But, Apple will argue, this two-year-old M Series processor is still competitive because it is custom-designed to run this product.

I’m eager to see the first benchmarks and to test out one of the new Macs myself. If the new M1 performs as well as Apple suggests, then this silicon transition is likely to have a much more significant impact on Apple (and its competitors in the market) than any previous transitions. This has been a resurgent year for the PC category, and things just got a whole lot more interesting.

I recently started testing the new Oculus Quest 2 virtual reality (VR) headset from Facebook, and it’s a very good product. As I noted back in September, it’s an evolutionary step up from the original headset, with a handful of technical improvements, delivered at a substantially lower starting price ($299). I expect the Quest 2 to sell very well, bringing quality VR to a much wider audience than ever before.

Smooth Setup Experience
The Quest 2 is slightly lighter and smaller than its predecessor, and I found these decreases made it noticeably more comfortable to wear. Some reviewers have complained about the Quest 2 head strap, which is all fabric versus the plastic one on Quest, but I didn’t have any trouble adjusting the fit to my head. That said, it’s clear the new head strap was an area where Facebook shaved cost, and the company offers several after-market versions (starting at $49) for those who want something more robust. The other area where Facebook saved some money is the inter-pupillary distance adjustment. While the original Quest had a slider that allowed for precise adjustments, the new Quest has just three settings. I used the default middle setting, so this also wasn’t an issue for me.

After completing the physical adjustments, running through a setup tutorial, and installing a system update, I was off to the races. I don’t remember much about setting up the original Quest, but with the Quest 2, Facebook has created a smooth and mostly frictionless experience that should be straightforward for even a VR novice.

Notably Better Display and Next-Gen Silicon
One of the significant changes with the Quest 2 is the shift from dual OLEDs to a single, fast-switching LCD that offers 1832 x 1920 resolution per eye. The display supports a 72Hz refresh rate at launch, and a future software update should enable a faster 90Hz refresh rate. In a word, the display looks fantastic. I found the new screen to be even more immersive than the Quest, although when you’re fully engaged in a great game or app, you stop paying too much attention to the pixels. After spending about 30 minutes in the Quest 2, I put on the original Quest, and at this point, the screen enhancements were much more noticeable. Perhaps the most significant improvement on the new headset is the much less perceptible screen door effect.

The Quest 2 also includes a faster processor, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon XR2, and more RAM than the original Quest. I didn’t notice better performance with my existing apps, but I suspect that we’ll see more software take advantage of the better silicon over time. I also expect the new processor to help drive a better PC-tethered experience through the Oculus Link. I haven’t yet acquired the right USB Type C cable to test this feature, but I look forward to doing so soon (and playing Half-Life: Alyx).

The other update to the Quest 2 is to the touch controllers. The new version has a slightly wider, rounder surface area where you place your thumbs. I don’t find them to be noticeably better than the original versions, although I do wish they were plug-in rechargeable versus a standard AA battery. One thing worth noting is that since the launch of the original Quest, Facebook has rolled out hand-tracking capabilities, and I was able to set this feature up in the Quest 2. At present, the apps I’m using require controllers, so I used hand tracking primarily for navigation. But I’m excited to see more apps use hand tracking, as it has the potential to increase the feeling of immersion inside VR dramatically.

Ready for Prime Time?
All told, I’m very impressed by the Quest 2, and the product should sell very well for Facebook this holiday season. In fact, in many countries—including the United States—we are still dealing with a pandemic where the infection rates are going up instead of down, which means smart people will be spending more time at home in the coming months. Throughout much of 2020 VR headsets and the Quest, in particular, have been nearly impossible to buy as demand radically outpaced supply. Our view into the supply chain suggests Facebook has placed massive orders for the Quest. Even so, the headset initially sold out (it’s available again now). However, accessories for the device, including the previously mentioned headstrap, are pretty hard to come by.

So I think the Quest 2 will sell very well through the end of 2020 and into 2021, even as it faces stiff competition from the launch of new consoles from both Microsoft and Sony shipping this month. The Quest 2 should please existing VR users looking for an upgrade, and it will delight anyone who has never used VR or whose only VR experience was in an early smartphone-based product. The Quest 2 is also poised to help drive the continued robust adoption of VR in business.

Is the Quest 2, and VR more broadly, ready for a move into the mainstream? That’s still unlikely. But with each iteration, the hardware gets better and less costly, and the experience more immersive and enjoyable. What the market needs now is more mainstream content. To date, gaming remains the primary consumer driver, and while it is obviously a lucrative market, it’s not going to win over everyone. To date, there’s still no killer app that would make the average consumer buy into VR. Facebook has long suggested that social could be that use case, and there’s no doubt that games with a social aspect have legs in VR. When Facebook launches its upcoming Horizon social platform (currently available as an invite-only beta), we’ll get a chance to see if that is what VR needs to win over the masses.