Hot Dog on an Actuator

Marco Arment (0:00)

Alright, as you know, it is very important to me to never guess or BS about anything.

So I have some actual data this time.

It kind of bothered me last episode that I didn't have good performance numbers for the M6 Mac minis in my transcript machines. So now that I, well, the single Mac mini, the one of 48 is an M6, and I'm happy to report that now I have actual numbers. So in this role of being my transcript machine, the M6 over the M4 is about 20 to 30 percent faster. So I now have actual numbers to say that it hovered between those two. Now keep in mind, these are doing more than just transcription. They're also now, thanks to Claude, using two different transcription models. I'm now falling back to parakeet for languages that Apple's speech transcribers not support. So they're doing a lot more, but with that mixed workload over like 12 hours averages, depending on when I look, it's between 20% and 30% difference.

John Siracusa (1:08)

And now here's the question. How does that work out when you divide by price?

Marco Arment (1:14)

Oh.

John Siracusa (1:16)

In other words, is it still more economical to get more M4s?

Marco Arment (1:19)

Well, at the price I paid for them back in the day, yes.

John Siracusa (1:23)

But even today's prices, there's only you can get an M4 mini for cheaper than an M6, right?

Marco Arment (1:28)

I mean, probably, but the difference might not be as big as you think. Used Mac minis always cost more than you think they will, because there's always a market for used Mac minis, especially at the low end. Like if you're trying to sell a used Mac mini that's high specced, that cost you $2,000 when you bought it new, you're probably gonna lose some money on that. Whereas if you just are trying to sell a base model that you got a good price on, you're probably not gonna lose that much money.

Because it is so important to so many people to just have a Mac, and the Mac mini is usually in many ways the cheapest way to do that, although the Neo throws a wrench in that plan. But this is why used Mac minis, like when you go on eBay and stuff, they're never that much cheaper than the new ones, just because everybody wants them. So it's probably better for me to just buy M6s at this point, but it would probably be close. And if I compare it to what I was actually paying for these M4s a year and a half ago or a year ago, that was a very different situation. Because almost all of these, their list price was $600.

I don't think I paid that for a single one, but it was definitely around $500 for most of them, maybe $550 at the highest.

Casey Liss (2:41)

All right, for the final time for 2026, I am begging you to go to stjude.org/atp and send a little bit of money their way. So what are we talking about? So September is Childhood Cancer Awareness Month, and this month, September is running at least 32 days because a week from today, as we record this, I will be in Memphis, Tennessee on the St. Jude campus, and I will be recording our 12-hour podcast-a-thon that begins at noon Eastern and runs until midnight. And we are doing this in service of St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. Why St. Jude? Because they do whatever they can to make sure that no child dies in the dawn of life. They have done absolutely tremendous work. They are astonishingly good people who care. Everybody there cares. How do I know? Because I've been there many times, and I've spoken to many different employees in many different parts of the organization, and they care. It is astonishing how much everyone cares about their mission. It's really, really, really impressive. So here's the thing.

When St. Jude opened in 1962, childhood cancer was largely considered incurable. Since then, St. Jude has helped push the overall cancer survivor rate in the US at least from 20% to more than 80%.

And St. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer. Curing childhood cancer is an absolutely astonishing undertaking, and St. Jude needs our help to do it. That's you, the listener, you. Yes, in the headphones, you. The generosity of donors like you everywhere supports cutting-edge research that saves lives in terms of families never receive a bill from St. Jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food. Every child deserves a chance to live their best life and celebrate every moment. When you support St. Jude, you can help make cures possible for kids with cancer. And why wouldn't you want to do that?