"Should you wait?" Yes, of course. Never buy the version 1.0 of anything Apple. Version 2.0 will be so much better. See, e.g., OSX 10 vs 10.1, the first ipod touch vs the 2nd generation ipod touch, the first iphone vs iphone 3g, first apple watch ("what is this?") vs 2nd gen, 1st ipad vs 2nd gen (people still use these for certain purposes)... the list goes on. It's going to be 2-3 more WWDCs before the Apple-Silicon version of MacOS starts doing things that x86 doesn't; the transition will be that long and support for x86 will be 3-4 years after that. So anything new that you buy now will be ~6-7 years old before Apple stops supporting it.
FWIW, your list excludes the most relevant example: Apple's first Intel Mac. I bought MacBookPro1,1 and it ran for about twelve years before the Radeon X1600 gave up. Yes, I had to replace a fan (covered by Apple) and yes it burned the crap out of my legs if I let it touch my bare skin, but it was a great machine that served me for a lot of years.
Weirdly unmentioned is the use-case of Apple developers: if you remain developing for Intel-based Macs, you’ll certainly want to retain one for that for testing purposes. If you’re currently a Mac developer, unless your current machine is about to die or it can’t run Big Sur, odds are there’s more value in keeping the old machine than in buying a new Intel-based Mac.
If you’re currently any type of Apple developer (not just MacOS) there is a benefit to buying a new Apple Silicon Mac because then it will run the various apps for every Apple machine (except Intel-based Macs) natively, and you’ll get a more accurate result for how the application runs on the other Apple devices for any weird CPU-related quirks specific to each CPU, at least, keeping in context that an Apple Silicon Mac is almost certainly going to execute your apps faster than the other Apple devices will, and have more RAM available, and also the number of CPU cores available for the apps on the Mac will likely be greater.
All that being said, when push comes to shove, it’s either brave and/or stupid to not test applications you develop on actual hardware and OS it’s targeted for, so you still will be expected to have other than the development Mac to test on. Besides that, unless Apple adds a touchscreen to Apple Silicon Macs, there’s no way you can really manually verify the total user experience without a real target device.
so short-term, it doesn’t matter that much as a developer for other than Apple Silicon MacOS development if you buy a new Intel-based or Apple Silicon Mac, because you still need to test on targeted hardware before release, unless you really like to live dangerously.
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I guess you didn't read the part where Apple said Windows would run under virtual machines like Parallels. I guess you don't know that Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM.
The problem right now is, is that MS does not sell individual licenses for Windows on ARM. One can only get it pre-installed on a supported device like the Surface Pro X. You can't just go out and buy WoA like you can Windows 10 for x86.
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I guess you didn't read the part where Apple said Windows would run under virtual machines like Parallels. I guess you don't know that Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM.
Apple made no statements on running Windows in a VM. Go watch the videos again. Microsoft was also noncommittal when asked. They said they don’t license Windows ARM except to OEMs. I don’t think you can assume that Windows will run on Apple Silicon Macs.
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I have one MacBook Pro running Windows on Parallels to keep up. Runs great. Windows 10 is fine nowadays. A nice to have thing, not a need to have. I will upgrade my machines when I need to, and wave goodbye to Intel without any remorse.
Intel is trash and Apple Silicon Macs are going to be better in every way.
But ... go ahead and buy Intel Macs anyway because we don't want to see Mac sales nosedive.
Yeah ... sorry, no.
[ blah blah ]
So yeah, if I were a Mac guy I would definitely wait. Yes, the Intel MacBooks may be cheaper because of people waiting, but lesser expensive tech with an uncertain support future is what Windows and Android people buy, right?
You seem to have some fairly serious reading comprehension problems.
I dunno. “Reading comprehension” implies he’s actually done any reading to comprehend or otherwise.
Months ago, he nailed his flag to the “Look guys, Apple is never going to make its own processors” mast. Apple made him look stupid (well, he made himself look stupid), so everything we’re seeing here is residual butthurt. To save his own ego, he desperately needs this whole switch thing to fail.
I saw you quote his message about Apple not having the chops to make their own silicon. Is this guy going to pollute every thread to do with Apple Silicon with his shit? He's going into the block list.
I got a first gen Intel iMac, and regretted it, because the first round were 32-bit processors, so it only got OS updates to (iirc) Snow Leopard. I'll hold back for a year or two and see how this Apple Silicon thing evolves.
Perhaps a more useful article would be how to extend the life of your current Mac so you can wait it out. I've made some MacBook last a very long time a decade with the proper RAM upgrade, SSD upgrade, internal cable replacement and battery replacement. I've done it for friends too, all you need is a $2 screw driver and YouTube. Include proper care (external casing), keyboard cleaning, backups, etc.
I think for most users the specs needed are very pedestrian, I'm surprised that more don't buy from a reliable second hand source. If Linux can run on ancient CPUs then MacOS should not be that far off in CPU requirement.
For me the one thing that has forced me to upgrading is the screen. For example, Apple would still sell a very low resolution MacBook Air until recently, at a lower price that made it attractive to a buyer not asking the right questions. Low resolution doesn't work so well in a modern workflow. So cramped up that if you open two concurrent windows then you start needing to use virtual desktops. And that's if you don't need size-by-side visualization. Try to have a full textbook page on screen and wind up using an iPad instead. Likewise 13" is actually quite small when you start multitasking. If you need a better screen then you need to update, otherwise you most likely don't need anything unless you are a power user. And if I were a power user then I'd wait out the first generation of this new silicon. Let the kinks iron themselves out.
Also I'd wait out and see if Apple will actually run MacOS on iDevices. Then, for my needs, my next Mac would be a next gen iPod Touch I can carry in my pocket. Add a high bandwidth USB cable, plug in to a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Not sure Apple will allow it though, but I don't think it would be that hard to achieve from a technical standpoint (once MacOS runs on ARM).
I am sure a lot of people will have both types of machines. So buying Intel now doesn't preclude getting new Apple Silicon. It doesn't always have to be an either/or situation. Many of us don't use just one Mac nor part with them when getting newer versions. The older ones can be very useful.
It will be a good few years before I part with my current main machine, a new iMac 27" 5k i9 which has a second 27" 4K screen that it shares with my Gaming PC. In fact, that iMac can stay around until it dies and be my Intel fall-back device, e.g. for VMWare and legacy Intel applications, far into the future. An example of legacy use is I have to run VMWare with Sierra to utilize our Fujitsu Document Scanner as the drivers never got updated. It is an amazing scanner that is used every week for my wife's real estate work and it is a crime Fujitsu abandoned it.
I will donate my 2019 MBP to a son, daughter, or grandkid (depending who is nicest to me over the next few months lol) and get a new Apple Silicon version immediately just to play with one. I'd also go for a higher-end Apple Silicon machine to take over from the 5k iMac as my main machine too but I'll wait and see if it can trounce the 5K i9 first. That might mean waiting for generation 2, we'll see if I can manage to wait, probably not . Meanwhile, talking of staying around... my 2013 Mac Pro is still serving very well as a Logic Pro X set up with its dual 27" screens in my home music studio and is still more than powerful enough for that. It will be a good few more years before it joins my G3 Mac and Mac Plus SE in the basement cupboards!
Perhaps a more useful article would be how to extend the life of your current Mac so you can wait it out. I've made some MacBook last a very long time a decade with the proper RAM upgrade, SSD upgrade, internal cable replacement and battery replacement. I've done it for friends too, all you need is a $2 screw driver and YouTube. Include proper care (external casing), keyboard cleaning, backups, etc.
i enjoyed reading your post, we should get he most out of our MacBooks and iMacs and productively use them until lighting or coffee destroys them, not time. most forums forbid such DIY advice.
what i did this year was get parts for a MBA logic board i found in 2015 that cost under $40. i am currently using this setup (mountain lion OSX) for my freelance work only. My ideology is most people who use their laptops for work seem to hate using their laptops after work hours, so they grab an iPad, surface or phone to surf the web or do what every their laptop does.
i might get a MacBook pro with the chip just so i can use some iPad apps to replace adobe photoshop. My concern is having another laptop which would be the third and a half i need to upgrade, clean, back-up and make sure that works as good as possible.
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I guess you didn't read the part where Apple said Windows would run under virtual machines like Parallels. I guess you don't know that Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM.
The question may be: "How well does Windows run on ARM processors"?
The only real life experience I know of was on the Microsoft smart phone -- which didn't go well.
The modern version might be the Microsoft Surface line -- but there they chose to spurn ARM processors and stuck with Intel.
Frankly, I haven't heard much impartial information about how well Windows does on ARM processors. But so far, what I have heard has not been promising.
On the other hand, Microsoft has a lot of resources and they may be increasingly aware that ARM processors are only going to get bigger and they may devote the resources into making Windows run as well under ARM as it does under Intel processors.
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I guess you didn't read the part where Apple said Windows would run under virtual machines like Parallels. I guess you don't know that Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM.
A virtual machine is not the same a a dual boot system and having a version of windows running on an ARM processor doesn't mean they will have a version that runs on an ARM Mac. If you are dependent on this for your living it makes far more sense to get an intel Mac now and not have to worry about development lag for windows virtualization on the ARM Macs.
My 2014 iMac 5k is giving me reason to worry about the health of its Fusion drive, so if Apple comes out with a new 27" Intel iMac in the next couple of months, I'll probably buy it (assuming that it meets my pretty low expectations: lower price on an 8 core Intel CPU and an upgraded GPU)
But I will also be watching the ASi lineup as it rolls out. If they were to come out with a relatively low cost Mac Mini with the rumored 12 core (8 big/ 4 little) SOC, I might buy it (in addition to the Intel iMac) just to assess the performance of ASi for my work. For example, the entry level Mac Mini is an $800 quad core i3. If they were to keep the price and swap out the i3 for a 12 core ASi SOC, that might be too hard for me to pass up.
Intel is trash and Apple Silicon Macs are going to be better in every way.
But ... go ahead and buy Intel Macs anyway because we don't want to see Mac sales nosedive.
Yeah ... sorry, no.
[ blah blah ]
So yeah, if I were a Mac guy I would definitely wait. Yes, the Intel MacBooks may be cheaper because of people waiting, but lesser expensive tech with an uncertain support future is what Windows and Android people buy, right?
You seem to have some fairly serious reading comprehension problems.
The ways in which Apple Silicon Macs' will have advantages for Apple over Intel Macs has been pretty clearly spelled out at WWDC. It's silly to assume this is not going to be the case without any evidence to the contrary. It's increasingly clear you haven't spent any time watching any of the videos that explain all of this. They're freely available, you know.
The arguments for buying an Intel Mac right now were pretty clearly not anything to do with preventing sales from nosediving.
Gotta take a position and stick to it.
Yes, you seemingly do.
Yeah ... I am not going to adopt a position just because Apple - who has a financial interest in selling as many Macs as possible - and Apple fans/fan sites tell me to. I like to make my own decisions. One of the reason why I don't buy tech from a single company/platform in the first place. I have macOS, iOS, ChromeOS, Android, Ubuntu and Windows all running right now doing various things.
Here's the reality: in 2 years, Apple is going to stop selling Intel-based Macs. When that time comes, Apple's position will be that Apple Silicon is the best thing ever to happen in the history of computing and that Intel CPUs are the equivalent of fossil fuels. Intel-based Macs will be second-class citizens to be derided, mocked and laughed at. Yes, macOS updates will still arrive for Intel-based Macs but the best efforts with Apple's legendary full stack ownership optimizations are going to go to Apple Silicon. Intel-based Macs are going to get the "well I guess we have to create an Android port of our iOS app eventually" treatment.
It would be one thing if you had to wait 2 years for the Apple Silicon Macs. But you don't. Instead Apple Silicon Macs are going to be available in time for Christmas shopping season and a full range of Apple Silicon Macs for everthing but the i9 and Xeon Mac Pros and iMacs are going to be available by this time next year. So it is only a matter of deferring your purchase for a few months. Unless your MacBook is in such dire straits that it is barely functioning for the critical work that you need done and you have no spare or backup - and you are too poor to just go out and get a refurbished Mac Mini or a cheap Windows laptop during those few months to tide you over - there is no good reason to buy an Intel Mac and lots of bad ones.
This is not my sole opinion. Plenty of leading (pro Apple and Mac users) tech journalists have the same opinion. So do lots of leading Apple bloggers! Macalope has a dissenting opinion but I find his arguments in favor of buying a machine that will last 5-7 years that will be a second class citizen during nearly all that time AND have much lower resale value to be not particularly convincing.
Sorry. No one should sign up to be the ones stuck with the slower, hotter, less full stack integrated (Metal? forget about it!) Intel Macs. Are you going to? No. Of course not. Your next Mac is going to be an Apple Silicon Mac, probably as soon as you can get your hands on one after it is released. But it is easy to make decisions with someone else's money, right?
I'm not sure how many of us use our MBPs as dual-boot OS machines (Windows), but I do.
If you do too, I would buy a new (Intel-chip) MBP sooner rather than later.
I guess you didn't read the part where Apple said Windows would run under virtual machines like Parallels. I guess you don't know that Microsoft already has Windows running on ARM.
A virtual machine is not the same a a dual boot system and having a version of windows running on an ARM processor doesn't mean they will have a version that runs on an ARM Mac. If you are dependent on this for your living it makes far more sense to get an intel Mac now and not have to worry about development lag for windows virtualization on the ARM Macs.
Ah hey listen. As someone who has extensive experience with Android devices ... not all ARM CPUs are created equal or are even fundamentally compatible. For example, you need to pull different code branches or even compile from source if you want Android to run on Qualcomm versus Exynos versus MediaTek versus Kirin versus Amlogic.
All Windows for ARM is compiled and tested against the Qualcomm 87x line of processors. As there are HUGE differences between Qualcomm and Apple Ax in architecture and other stuff, there is NO EVIDENCE that Windows on ARM would even work on Apple Silicon. And that is the OS itself. What about drivers? The graphics stack?
Bootcamp only worked because Macs and Wintel machines were basically identical from a hardware perspective, with the only difference being some Apple Silicon. There was nothing stopping Dell, HP or Samsung from accessing a Mac's bill of materials, cloning it, putting Windows on it and calling it a WinBook Pro. But expecting Windows to run on a hardware stack that is entirely different from the Surface Pro X or the other Qualcomm-based Windows on ARM devices is VERY wishful thinking. And no, Windows is not going to put in the time and money necessary to get their OS running on a competitor's hardware. Especially since they would need extensive help from Apple to get it working, and Apple has no incentive to provide it.
Apple isn't even going to support Linux on bootcamp, and Linux has been running on ARM for ages. Instead, Apple states that virtualization will be necessary. The reason is that the ARM-based Linux servers, laptops etc. aren't running on Apple Silicon architecture, drivers and stack either. Windows on Apple hardware is dead. It is going to be replaced with iPadOS (and iOS) apps. Time to move on.
Intel is trash and Apple Silicon Macs are going to be better in every way.
But ... go ahead and buy Intel Macs anyway because we don't want to see Mac sales nosedive.
Yeah ... sorry, no.
[ blah blah ]
So yeah, if I were a Mac guy I would definitely wait. Yes, the Intel MacBooks may be cheaper because of people waiting, but lesser expensive tech with an uncertain support future is what Windows and Android people buy, right?
You seem to have some fairly serious reading comprehension problems.
The ways in which Apple Silicon Macs' will have advantages for Apple over Intel Macs has been pretty clearly spelled out at WWDC. It's silly to assume this is not going to be the case without any evidence to the contrary. It's increasingly clear you haven't spent any time watching any of the videos that explain all of this. They're freely available, you know.
The arguments for buying an Intel Mac right now were pretty clearly not anything to do with preventing sales from nosediving.
Gotta take a position and stick to it.
Yes, you seemingly do.
Yeah ... I am not going to adopt a position just because Apple - who has a financial interest in selling as many Macs as possible - and Apple fans/fan sites tell me to. I like to make my own decisions. One of the reason why I don't buy tech from a single company/platform in the first place. I have macOS, iOS, ChromeOS, Android, Ubuntu and Windows all running right now doing various things.
Here's the reality: in 2 years, Apple is going to stop selling Intel-based Macs. When that time comes, Apple's position will be that Apple Silicon is the best thing ever to happen in the history of computing and that Intel CPUs are the equivalent of fossil fuels. Intel-based Macs will be second-class citizens to be derided, mocked and laughed at. Yes, macOS updates will still arrive for Intel-based Macs but the best efforts with Apple's legendary full stack ownership optimizations are going to go to Apple Silicon. Intel-based Macs are going to get the "well I guess we have to create an Android port of our iOS app eventually" treatment.
It would be one thing if you had to wait 2 years for the Apple Silicon Macs. But you don't. Instead Apple Silicon Macs are going to be available in time for Christmas shopping season and a full range of Apple Silicon Macs for everthing but the i9 and Xeon Mac Pros and iMacs are going to be available by this time next year. So it is only a matter of deferring your purchase for a few months. Unless your MacBook is in such dire straits that it is barely functioning for the critical work that you need done and you have no spare or backup - and you are too poor to just go out and get a refurbished Mac Mini or a cheap Windows laptop during those few months to tide you over - there is no good reason to buy an Intel Mac and lots of bad ones.
This is not my sole opinion. Plenty of leading (pro Apple and Mac users) tech journalists have the same opinion. So do lots of leading Apple bloggers! Macalope has a dissenting opinion but I find his arguments in favor of buying a machine that will last 5-7 years that will be a second class citizen during nearly all that time AND have much lower resale value to be not particularly convincing.
Sorry. No one should sign up to be the ones stuck with the slower, hotter, less full stack integrated (Metal? forget about it!) Intel Macs. Are you going to? No. Of course not. Your next Mac is going to be an Apple Silicon Mac, probably as soon as you can get your hands on one after it is released. But it is easy to make decisions with someone else's money, right?
Given that Apple Silicon Macs will not be able to dual boot Windows x86/64, and probably won't even be able to virtualise it, then I'd say that is a pretty compelling reason for a lot of people to buy a new Intel Mac while they are still available. For many that'll probably be worth the downsides of being tied to technology that (according to Apple at least) will become obsolete. The current line up of Macs are still very capable machines, and Apple will support them for at least a few years of OS updates.
Ah hey listen. As someone who has extensive experience with Android devices ... not all ARM CPUs are created equal or are even fundamentally compatible. For example, you need to pull different code branches or even compile from source if you want Android to run on Qualcomm versus Exynos versus MediaTek versus Kirin versus Amlogic.
All Windows for ARM is compiled and tested against the Qualcomm 87x line of processors. As there are HUGE differences between Qualcomm and Apple Ax in architecture and other stuff, there is NO EVIDENCE that Windows on ARM would even work on Apple Silicon. And that is the OS itself. What about drivers? The graphics stack?
Bootcamp only worked because Macs and Wintel machines were basically identical from a hardware perspective, with the only difference being some Apple Silicon. There was nothing stopping Dell, HP or Samsung from accessing a Mac's bill of materials, cloning it, putting Windows on it and calling it a WinBook Pro. But expecting Windows to run on a hardware stack that is entirely different from the Surface Pro X or the other Qualcomm-based Windows on ARM devices is VERY wishful thinking. And no, Windows is not going to put in the time and money necessary to get their OS running on a competitor's hardware. Especially since they would need extensive help from Apple to get it working, and Apple has no incentive to provide it.
Apple isn't even going to support Linux on bootcamp, and Linux has been running on ARM for ages. Instead, Apple states that virtualization will be necessary. The reason is that the ARM-based Linux servers, laptops etc. aren't running on Apple Silicon architecture, drivers and stack either. Windows on Apple hardware is dead. It is going to be replaced with iPadOS (and iOS) apps. Time to move on.
I agree with most of this.
Just my belief that Microsoft WILL make an effort to recompile their Win-ARM for Apple Silicon. They sell licences.. as they do Office for Mac. It's profitable for them, and they are not sole hardware producer for their sw products. What do you mean by "Windows on Apple hardware is dead. It is going to be replaced with iPadOS (and iOS) apps" ? Are you talking about the OS, or Apps? I believe we are going to see many new fully native "AppleOS" hybrid apps.. along with many many iOS/iPad OS "ports". Also I'm curious what Mac do you have.. enjoying macOS? Did you said you have it? We all know it comes with hardware included ; )
Comments
If you’re currently any type of Apple developer (not just MacOS) there is a benefit to buying a new Apple Silicon Mac because then it will run the various apps for every Apple machine (except Intel-based Macs) natively, and you’ll get a more accurate result for how the application runs on the other Apple devices for any weird CPU-related quirks specific to each CPU, at least, keeping in context that an Apple Silicon Mac is almost certainly going to execute your apps faster than the other Apple devices will, and have more RAM available, and also the number of CPU cores available for the apps on the Mac will likely be greater.
All that being said, when push comes to shove, it’s either brave and/or stupid to not test applications you develop on actual hardware and OS it’s targeted for, so you still will be expected to have other than the development Mac to test on. Besides that, unless Apple adds a touchscreen to Apple Silicon Macs, there’s no way you can really manually verify the total user experience without a real target device.
so short-term, it doesn’t matter that much as a developer for other than Apple Silicon MacOS development if you buy a new Intel-based or Apple Silicon Mac, because you still need to test on targeted hardware before release, unless you really like to live dangerously.
I saw you quote his message about Apple not having the chops to make their own silicon.
Is this guy going to pollute every thread to do with Apple Silicon with his shit?
He's going into the block list.
Perhaps a more useful article would be how to extend the life of your current Mac so you can wait it out. I've made some MacBook last a very long time a decade with the proper RAM upgrade, SSD upgrade, internal cable replacement and battery replacement. I've done it for friends too, all you need is a $2 screw driver and YouTube. Include proper care (external casing), keyboard cleaning, backups, etc.
I think for most users the specs needed are very pedestrian, I'm surprised that more don't buy from a reliable second hand source. If Linux can run on ancient CPUs then MacOS should not be that far off in CPU requirement.
For me the one thing that has forced me to upgrading is the screen. For example, Apple would still sell a very low resolution MacBook Air until recently, at a lower price that made it attractive to a buyer not asking the right questions. Low resolution doesn't work so well in a modern workflow. So cramped up that if you open two concurrent windows then you start needing to use virtual desktops. And that's if you don't need size-by-side visualization. Try to have a full textbook page on screen and wind up using an iPad instead. Likewise 13" is actually quite small when you start multitasking. If you need a better screen then you need to update, otherwise you most likely don't need anything unless you are a power user. And if I were a power user then I'd wait out the first generation of this new silicon. Let the kinks iron themselves out.
Also I'd wait out and see if Apple will actually run MacOS on iDevices. Then, for my needs, my next Mac would be a next gen iPod Touch I can carry in my pocket. Add a high bandwidth USB cable, plug in to a keyboard, mouse and monitor. Not sure Apple will allow it though, but I don't think it would be that hard to achieve from a technical standpoint (once MacOS runs on ARM).
It will be a good few years before I part with my current main machine, a new iMac 27" 5k i9 which has a second 27" 4K screen that it shares with my Gaming PC. In fact, that iMac can stay around until it dies and be my Intel fall-back device, e.g. for VMWare and legacy Intel applications, far into the future. An example of legacy use is I have to run VMWare with Sierra to utilize our Fujitsu Document Scanner as the drivers never got updated. It is an amazing scanner that is used every week for my wife's real estate work and it is a crime Fujitsu abandoned it.
I will donate my 2019 MBP to a son, daughter, or grandkid (depending who is nicest to me over the next few months lol) and get a new Apple Silicon version immediately just to play with one. I'd also go for a higher-end Apple Silicon machine to take over from the 5k iMac as my main machine too but I'll wait and see if it can trounce the 5K i9 first. That might mean waiting for generation 2, we'll see if I can manage to wait, probably not
most forums forbid such DIY advice.
what i did this year was get parts for a MBA logic board i found in 2015 that cost under $40. i am currently using this setup (mountain lion OSX) for my freelance work only.
My ideology is most people who use their laptops for work seem to hate using their laptops after work hours, so they grab an iPad, surface or phone to surf the web or do what every their laptop does.
i might get a MacBook pro with the chip just so i can use some iPad apps to replace adobe photoshop. My concern is having another laptop which would be the third and a half i need to upgrade, clean, back-up and make sure that works as good as possible.
But I will also be watching the ASi lineup as it rolls out. If they were to come out with a relatively low cost Mac Mini with the rumored 12 core (8 big/ 4 little) SOC, I might buy it (in addition to the Intel iMac) just to assess the performance of ASi for my work. For example, the entry level Mac Mini is an $800 quad core i3. If they were to keep the price and swap out the i3 for a 12 core ASi SOC, that might be too hard for me to pass up.
Here's the reality: in 2 years, Apple is going to stop selling Intel-based Macs. When that time comes, Apple's position will be that Apple Silicon is the best thing ever to happen in the history of computing and that Intel CPUs are the equivalent of fossil fuels. Intel-based Macs will be second-class citizens to be derided, mocked and laughed at. Yes, macOS updates will still arrive for Intel-based Macs but the best efforts with Apple's legendary full stack ownership optimizations are going to go to Apple Silicon. Intel-based Macs are going to get the "well I guess we have to create an Android port of our iOS app eventually" treatment.
It would be one thing if you had to wait 2 years for the Apple Silicon Macs. But you don't. Instead Apple Silicon Macs are going to be available in time for Christmas shopping season and a full range of Apple Silicon Macs for everthing but the i9 and Xeon Mac Pros and iMacs are going to be available by this time next year. So it is only a matter of deferring your purchase for a few months. Unless your MacBook is in such dire straits that it is barely functioning for the critical work that you need done and you have no spare or backup - and you are too poor to just go out and get a refurbished Mac Mini or a cheap Windows laptop during those few months to tide you over - there is no good reason to buy an Intel Mac and lots of bad ones.
This is not my sole opinion. Plenty of leading (pro Apple and Mac users) tech journalists have the same opinion. So do lots of leading Apple bloggers! Macalope has a dissenting opinion but I find his arguments in favor of buying a machine that will last 5-7 years that will be a second class citizen during nearly all that time AND have much lower resale value to be not particularly convincing.
Sorry. No one should sign up to be the ones stuck with the slower, hotter, less full stack integrated (Metal? forget about it!) Intel Macs. Are you going to? No. Of course not. Your next Mac is going to be an Apple Silicon Mac, probably as soon as you can get your hands on one after it is released. But it is easy to make decisions with someone else's money, right?
All Windows for ARM is compiled and tested against the Qualcomm 87x line of processors. As there are HUGE differences between Qualcomm and Apple Ax in architecture and other stuff, there is NO EVIDENCE that Windows on ARM would even work on Apple Silicon. And that is the OS itself. What about drivers? The graphics stack?
Bootcamp only worked because Macs and Wintel machines were basically identical from a hardware perspective, with the only difference being some Apple Silicon. There was nothing stopping Dell, HP or Samsung from accessing a Mac's bill of materials, cloning it, putting Windows on it and calling it a WinBook Pro. But expecting Windows to run on a hardware stack that is entirely different from the Surface Pro X or the other Qualcomm-based Windows on ARM devices is VERY wishful thinking. And no, Windows is not going to put in the time and money necessary to get their OS running on a competitor's hardware. Especially since they would need extensive help from Apple to get it working, and Apple has no incentive to provide it.
Apple isn't even going to support Linux on bootcamp, and Linux has been running on ARM for ages. Instead, Apple states that virtualization will be necessary. The reason is that the ARM-based Linux servers, laptops etc. aren't running on Apple Silicon architecture, drivers and stack either. Windows on Apple hardware is dead. It is going to be replaced with iPadOS (and iOS) apps. Time to move on.
Just my belief that Microsoft WILL make an effort to recompile their Win-ARM for Apple Silicon. They sell licences.. as they do Office for Mac. It's profitable for them, and they are not sole hardware producer for their sw products.
What do you mean by "Windows on Apple hardware is dead. It is going to be replaced with iPadOS (and iOS) apps" ? Are you talking about the OS, or Apps? I believe we are going to see many new fully native "AppleOS" hybrid apps.. along with many many iOS/iPad OS "ports".
Also I'm curious what Mac do you have.. enjoying macOS? Did you said you have it? We all know it comes with hardware included ; )