Another could be realtime video modification. People like to stream and facetime. They might like it even more if they could change their appearance more than they already can using realtime ML based image processing. We already have some of that in the various video conferencing / facetime apps but it's possible it could jump up in usage and needed compute power with the right application.

And if you regularly use local generative AI models the Pro model is the more reasonable choice. At that point you can forget battery life either way.

You only notice throttling on the MacBook Air when doing things like video renders that use max power for an extended period of time.

That Rossman guy, the internet-famous repairman, built his youtube channel on videos about Apple's inadequate thermal management. They're probably still archived on his channel.

Hell, I haven't owned a Mac post the year 2000 that didn't regularly hit temperatures above 90 celsius.

The Gods didn't deliver specs to Apple for Intel machines locking the company to placement/grades/design/brands/sizes of chassis, fans, logic board, paste etc. Apple, in the Intel years, just prioritized small form factor, at the expense of longevity.

And Apple's priorities are likely still the same.

My concern is that, given cooler-running chips, Apple will decrease form factor until even the cooler-running chips overheat. The question, in my mind, is only whether the team at Apple who design chips can improve them to a point where the chips run so coolly that the rest of Apple can't screw it up (ie: with inadequate thermal design).

If that has happened, then... fantastic, that's good for consumers.

100% Apple Silicon is that for computers. Very rarely do my fans whizz up. It’s noticeable when someone is using an x64 and you’re working with them because you will hear their computer’s fans on.

The work Apple has done to create a computer with good thermals is outrageous. Minimising distances for charges to be induced over.

I run Linux on my box. It’s great for what it does but these laptops are just the slickest computers I have ever used.

Never gets hot. Fans only come on during heavy compilation tasks or graphic intensive workloads.

Some of the choices Apple made after SJ's death left such an unpleasant taste in my mouth that I know have knee-jerk reactions to certain Apple announcements. One of those is that I experience nausea when Apple shrinks the form factor of a product. Hopefully that has clouded my judgement here, and in fact these Mac Minis have sufficient airflow to survive several years.

Like even with Intel chips that actually died early en masse (13th and 14th gen), the issue wasn't temperature.

Insufficient airflow from blowers... not good.

110 celsius heat... not good for lead-free solder... not good for computer.

This whole thread is starting to feel surreal to me. Pretty soon everyone will have me believing I dreamt up Apple's reputation for bad thermal management.

There's nothing in a comment thread so cringeworthy and boring as a person trumpeting their own expertise, so I'll refrain, and leave off here.

I've had an M1 Mac Mini inside a hot dresser drawer with a TV on top since 2020.

It doesn't do much other than act as a media server. But it's jammed pretty tight in there with an eero wifi router, an OTA ATSC DVR, a box that records HDMI, a 4K AppleTV, a couple of external drives, and a full power strip. That's why it's hot.

So far, no problems. Except for once when I moved, it's been completely hands-off. Software updates are done over VNC.

It only gets powered off only when there's a power outage or when I do an update.