I bumped up against this with my M1 Mini. I could only run one display from a USB-C port. Ended up with one display on USB-C via DisplayPort adapter, and the other via HDMI, despite using a dual DisplayPort adapter.
Well, first generation, right? 
- Standard users will probably not care for a second, and Apple wants to sell their new shiny M3s in spring / summer.
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eGPUs aren’t supported with Apple Silicon on the initial M1 systems.
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It will in the next winter with M5 
My guess is one of the following options.
- This is intentional. Either to “test” this new chip in the real world, or… I see many here have bought one of current M1 machines solely for testing. Will then probably buy a “Pro” orientated machine when they’re available. So perhaps this is done to sell more units.
- There are serious limitations with SOC and Apple’s boffins haven’t yet figured out how to provide “Pro” level functionality when everything is on a single chip. 32GB or 64GB (or 128GB) of RAM, 16 + cores, NVIDIA level GPU and at least as much bandwidth as an Intel chip.
- The yield of “Pro” level chips simply isn’t sufficient to generate enough chips to be able to sell.
Even if asked, I wouldn’t expect Apple to tell you the real reason as to why they replaced their consumer grade hardware with their new chips first.
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Flood the low end market, then it will be easier to sold Pro machines to … the Pro people ?
Don’t forget that not long ago, this kind of processor was powering phones, which never need two displays.
I am convinced they will get there. But silicon is a tad more complex to develop than software.
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The “problem” here (spoiler: there really isn’t one 
) is that these “low end market” M1’s are more than suitable enough for most “pros”.
Most pros:
-
Don’t use more than one (large) display, and at most, the vast majority of the remainder would use two. A pro who’s going to be using a desktop display would “spend out” on whatever they like here (or use their existing display) and - with a laptop, keep its display secondary, or - with a Mac Mini, use 2 large displays. The display limitation is more for very specialized pros who’d like 3 displays or the ability to use 2 displays with a laptop and keep the laptop closed in clamshell mode. (Yes, that’s me. No, that’s not typical, and I can live with it).
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Don’t “have” to have 4 USB-C/TB ports. If two isn’t enough, buying a dock and plugging into one of them will provide all the additional breakouts needed, so this is an easy workaround. OR, using an external display that also functions as a USB-C hub will provide the missing USB-C ports at potentially no additional price.
-
Don’t “have” to have more than 16GB of RAM. Until recently (the past year or two), you couldn’t get a Mac laptop (pro or otherwise) with more than 16GB of RAM as that was the upper limit on Mac Intel laptops (how quickly this has been forgotten). Pros actually existed, prior to that, and were using those more expensive, and slower, Mac Intel laptops that maxed out at 16GB.
-
I think that basically covers all of the issues that are typically brought up with the M1s along the lines of “low end product restraints”.
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I doubt anyone will ever really “know”, but the simplest reason here is also the most logical.
They wanted to push out M1 systems that soundly beat out Intel systems, in the form factor that makes the most sense at first: 13" laptops, where battery life has significance, and the Mac Mini, where you can pack the new performance improvements into a physically small package. This is for a market that starts with the consumer and yet, these M1s are more than powerful enough for most “pros”, and at reduced cost vs. what people are used to paying for bulked up Mac Intel laptops.
They’ve done this without a physical redesign of the hardware. The only visible difference is losing the right side ports. The functional difference in performance, and battery life, from the M1 chip is massive in comparison. Not changing the hardware design (keyboard, display, trackpad, all the physical interaction) provides confidence that these first M1 systems aren’t going to be less-solid first generation hardware.
With that said, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise if the next out the door this year would be a similar change with the 16" Macbook Pro - keep it the hardware design from the current Intel version, and drop an M1"x" variant into it, with the difference being, support for additional external displays, more RAM, and possibly larger SSD options, as well as 4 ports. More “stuff” fits better in the larger “package” of the 16". (RAM and SSD, at least?) Plus even better battery life than the 13"s because: bigger battery probably more than offsets the increased power used by the 16" display. This would give the “super pros” the extras they want, and of course it would cost more than the 13" laptops, but if the pattern holds, it would be less expensive than the current 16" Mac Intel laptop it would be replacing.
I really think people are underselling the M1s. I have the M1 Mini with 16GB of RAM pushing 2x Samsung U28E590 4K displays, and right now have the following running:
- Parallels with Windows 10 ARM in an 8GB, 4 Core VM
- Terminal
- Safari with three tabs
- Firefox with three tabs
- Chrome with 12 tabs
- Xojo 2020R2.1 with a large project loaded
- Xojo 2019R3.2 with a large project loaded
- VSCode
- Sublime Text
- SourceTree
- VersionTracker (from @Tim_Parnell)
- App Wrapper 4 (from @Sam_Rowlands)
- Discord
- Microsoft Teams
- Spotify
- Ring
And that doesn’t count the MenuBar and other background apps that I use.
My previous workhorse has 64GB of RAM with an i9 and an RX580, so I didn’t expect this system to perform as well as it does. I am pleasantly surprised.
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Same here, I bought the smallest MBA but with the larger SSD. Plan was to have firstly an ARM test device, plus a “more mobile” device (well for post-corona visits of customers). That was 2 months ago. Now I’m working most of the time with my M1 only. I’m using my MBP 16"" only when I need more screen estate or for running my Win10 x86 in Parallels, which happens… well, very rarely.
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I keep thinking about getting rid of my 15" for the 13" but am worried I’ll miss the extra screen space.
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an external screen will help - but yes I hear you. It is the same for me, and the reason why I’m sometimes still switching to the 16". At least here in Germany there are rumours out that Apple might come with 14" MBP M1x in spring. The MBA seem not to change anytime soon again. 14" might be a good compromise for you.
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Don’t forget that you can change screen resolution if you want, make everything a bit tinier, and “gain” some extra “screen space” in the process. (You can effectively make the 13" behave like the 15" if your eyes can deal with the change
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Try
catch Err as FunIfOver50
MessageBox(“Wait for the new 16” MBP")
End Try
At least for me it is getting harder year by year …
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Yeah, not with my eyes !!
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I moved from a 13 retina to a 15.
And TBH, I hate the 15, mostly due to the huge area between me and the keys over the trackpad.
Always feel like Im typing at arms length.
I don’t find the ‘extra screen space’ (actually a bit bigger pixels) much help at all.
If I could get the 13 fixed at a reasonable price (screen issue - still works fine plugged into a monitor), I’d go back like a shot to 13in
M1 MBA looks tempting. Its only £400 more than a replacement screen…
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This and the touchbar are my two gripes about my '19 MBP. I’m consistently bringing up the brightness option when I hit the 0 key and hate the fact that the trackpad is taller than the keyboard.
I’m currently running with 2 M1 minis and waiting to find out what happens with the DTK returns. I’d love a MBA 
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I used a 15" MBP from 2012 to 2018, then bought a 13" MBP because some people told me it was so nice to travel with compared to the 15". And most of my use is docked in my office to a 40" 4K monitor.
But as a developer, I hate the 13" size when I am traveling and needing to do any IDE work as opposed to the kind of stuff casual users do. So I plan on getting a 16" one day, and got a M1 mini to use in the office ahead of that.
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15": 1400 x 900
13": 3360 x 2100
?
What I want to explain it the size in inches of the monitor is meaningless. The important values are the resolution.
My MacBook Pro (the one I actually use)have a Retina display set at 3360 px x 2100 px x 144 dpi.
Now, if your 15" have that resolution, wait for a 15" (or 16") with M1.