linuxplatform said: 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.
Nah, just ignored.
this year i brought my macbook air 2010 into the apple store were i purchased the notebook, no one there cared. no one at apple cares about their older products, luckily others do, which is all that matters.
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.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
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.
Actually, it might come down to need versus want:
- How many people need MacOS?
- How many people need Windows?
If you need Windows, would it not make sense to invest in a Thinkpad that could last another 10 years? Or a Mac with an expected life of about half that?
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.
Actually, it might come down to need versus want:
- How many people need MacOS?
- How many people need Windows?
If you need Windows, would it not make sense to invest in a Thinkpad that could last another 10 years? Or a Mac with an expected life of about half that?
And it's not like Intel's offerings are suddenly going to suck the moment Apple launches their ARM laptops.
Something like the ThinkPad X1 Nano coming in H2 2020 looks to be a pretty solid option depending on your needs:
15 W Tiger Lake U with Xe graphics
16:10 QHD display
<1kg weight
Thunderbolt 4
5G
While it will still likely fall behind AMD's current Ryzen 4000U series chips in multicore CPU performance, the GPU looks to be better with Xe graphics.
Grab one with intel while you can before the Mac becomes an iOS device.
If you were honest, Apple hasn’t failed at CPUs before, their suppliers have.
Who designed and manufactured all the Motorola 68k and following generations? Motorola: Apple had no control of design/manufacture of them.
Who designed and manufactured the PPC processors? A combination of Motorola and IBM. Apple didn’t design or manufacture them.
Who designs and manufactures every Intel processor? Intel: pay attention, there’s a clear pattern here!
Since the Apple A4, who designed the CPUs (part of the SOC) in every non-Mac device since that time? Apple! What’s their performance been? Perpetually increasing in both power efficiency and CPU throughput. Apple has been able to improve them in every single generation at a schedule of their choosing, and they’re currently being manufactured on a process better than Intel’s and Intel is at least a couple process nodes away from being a match on that alone.
Now, will Apple eventually hit a limit? Will Intel/AMD hit a limit? There are data points from either side that says it could go either way and performance improvements stall. There’s nothing at all to say the most efficient ISA, given identical process nodes, are either of those at all: I’d wager there’s an architecture/ISA not yet on the market that can be pushed to more processing power at less power usage. If a clear winner for optimization becomes apparent, Apple at least has a lot less inertia in changing over to a completely new ISA because Apple (for better and worse, as Apple is a consumer electronics company) doesn’t come close to having the concern for backwards-compatibility that constrains Windows from faster change, but makes it well-suited to be the OS with the majority of the market, where Enterprise is a huge money-maker factor.
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.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
Unless I'm mistaken, that's major surgery. I think if I tried that myself I'd be more likely to destroy my iMac.
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.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
Unless I'm mistaken, that's major surgery. I think if I tried that myself I'd be more likely to destroy my iMac.
I recently did it in a 2017 MacBook Air upgrading from a 128Gb to a 512Gb. The hardest part was getting the right screw drivers. And too, I bought a used SSD that had come out of an equivalent machine. But, as I understand it, new third party drives would have also worked but may have minor issues with sleep mode and such.
But, there are computer shops who will do it for you.
Or, better yet, maybe keep it as an option if the fusion drive does indeed fail -- just be sure it's backed up. I hate disgarding an entire viable machine simply because a single, replaceable part died. We don't do that with cars and didn't used to do it with washing machines and dryers -- but increasingly we're doing it with computers.
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.
They might, but as far as I know there's no evidence as of now that Apple has any plans to offer a Boot Camp-style solution for installing other operating systems on an ASi Mac. If they don't then there may still be ways of doing it, but they won't be nearly as user friendly. So the average user may still be stuck with virtualisation.
linuxplatform said: 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.
Nah, just ignored.
this year i brought my macbook air 2010 into the apple store were i purchased the notebook, no one there cared. no one at apple cares about their older products, luckily others do, which is all that matters.
Not "older", but vintage products. Understandably.
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, no. Apple doesn’t spell out EVERYTHING at WWDC. It never has.
And it spelled out even less about Apple Silicon. As far as I can recall, Apple didn’t use the term ARM directly when referring to releasing products. Just “Apple Silicon”. Apple hasn’t licensed ARM designs for years now. Just the rights to use the ARM instruction set.
But anything that isn’t available to developers via API will not be disclosed by Apple until they’re ready. Did Apple tell anyone about NFC before iPhones shipped with it? No. And technically the feature wasn’t ‘nfc” so much as the few higher level things Apple had it doing. No, it wasn’t until release of the CoreNFC framework that NFC as NFC existed as part of iOS.
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.
You sure are projecting a lot, and making a lot of assumptions that nobody can claim are true at this point.
The jist of the article is, "ASi Macs will be great, so if you can wait, maybe wait" and "If you need an Intel Mac now, go ahead and buy one because they'll still be supported for a while" which is essentially what Apple said. This advice is completely logical and simple to understand. Telling someone to not buy an Intel Mac when they need to do work right now, and wait for a product which has not been announced, is silly. People aren't usually overly concerned about resale value when they need a tool to get their actual work done. If my MBP died right now, would I buy another Intel Mac? Of course. The reasons are obvious.
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?
Are you suggesting Intel Macs aren't compatible with Metal? Really? I'm not sure you know as much as you think you know on this subject.
linuxplatform said: 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.
Nah, just ignored.
this year i brought my macbook air 2010 into the apple store were i purchased the notebook, no one there cared. no one at apple cares about their older products, luckily others do, which is all that matters.
7 years of service after a product has been discontinued is pretty great. Who offers longer service on their computers, out of curiosity?
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.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
Unless I'm mistaken, that's major surgery. I think if I tried that myself I'd be more likely to destroy my iMac.
I recently did it in a 2017 MacBook Air upgrading from a 128Gb to a 512Gb. The hardest part was getting the right screw drivers. And too, I bought a used SSD that had come out of an equivalent machine. But, as I understand it, new third party drives would have also worked but may have minor issues with sleep mode and such.
Swapping a drive in a MacBook Air is absolutely nothing like cracking open and replacing a drive a Retina iMac, which is not a task to be taken lightly. I did a bunch of 2011 iMacs but those were far simpler to get into. I wouldn't do a 2014 iMac drive replacement myself unless I was super confident and had hours to spend on it – I would take it to a 3rd party repair place that will do it for you.
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, no. Apple doesn’t spell out EVERYTHING at WWDC. It never has.
And it spelled out even less about Apple Silicon. As far as I can recall, Apple didn’t use the term ARM directly when referring to releasing products. Just “Apple Silicon”. Apple hasn’t licensed ARM designs for years now. Just the rights to use the ARM instruction set.
But anything that isn’t available to developers via API will not be disclosed by Apple until they’re ready. Did Apple tell anyone about NFC before iPhones shipped with it? No. And technically the feature wasn’t ‘nfc” so much as the few higher level things Apple had it doing. No, it wasn’t until release of the CoreNFC framework that NFC as NFC existed as part of iOS.
I didn't say, "EVERYTHING", did I? There are slides that show all of the various technologies they're able to integrate into their SoCs that they couldn't with Intel, which is what I'm referring to specifically here.
They did use the term "ARM" directly in several places, if you go through some of the developer sessions. Not sure what that has to do with anything.
No idea what you're going on about with regard to NFC. ¯\(°_o)/¯
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.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
Unless I'm mistaken, that's major surgery. I think if I tried that myself I'd be more likely to destroy my iMac.
I recently did it in a 2017 MacBook Air upgrading from a 128Gb to a 512Gb. The hardest part was getting the right screw drivers. And too, I bought a used SSD that had come out of an equivalent machine. But, as I understand it, new third party drives would have also worked but may have minor issues with sleep mode and such.
Swapping a drive in a MacBook Air is absolutely nothing like cracking open and replacing a drive a Retina iMac, which is not a task to be taken lightly. I did a bunch of 2011 iMacs but those were far simpler to get into. I wouldn't do a 2014 iMac drive replacement myself unless I was super confident and had hours to spend on it – I would take it to a 3rd party repair place that will do it for you.
I think I recommended just that if he did not want to tackle it himself. If you had included my complete statement, it would have said:
"I recently did it in a 2017 MacBook Air upgrading from a 128Gb to a
512Gb. The hardest part was getting the right screw drivers. And
too, I bought a used SSD that had come out of an equivalent machine.
But, as I understand it, new third party drives would have also worked
but may have minor issues with sleep mode and such.
But, there are computer shops who will do it for you.
Or,
better yet, maybe keep it as an option if the fusion drive does indeed
fail -- just be sure it's backed up. I hate disgarding an entire viable
machine simply because a single, replaceable part died. We don't do
that with cars and didn't used to do it with washing machines and dryers
-- but increasingly we're doing it with computers.
I've been pondering replacing my 2015 15in MBP for about 6 months now. Ever since the 16in MBP was released I've been thinking about it. Then along came CV-19 and everything stopped dead.
There is some sense for me to wait for the ARM MBP in 2021/22 but my backup Macbook won't run Big Sur (AFAIK as it is a 2012 15in MBP)
I run Lightroom and Photoshop but these days my main apps are Scrivenor and Libre Office. I've written two novels this year (250K word) so a great keyboard is very important to me. The big unknown is what keyboard will Apple put on the next generation Mac's? We simply don't know.
(where is my crystal ball)
The jury is out and a decision is not imminent. I suspect that I'm not alone in that.
After the transition to Intel, it was still possible to buy PPC machines and the prices dropped when people realized they were obsolete machines. Intel machines have more residual value than PPC but it depends on what Apple brings out. If they bring out a 16" machine that has the same or faster CPU and GPU than the top-end ~$3400 MBP priced at $2000-2500, the price of that model will surely drop quickly too, especially if it does on Apple's refurb site. That's what happened to the Vega 20 model when the new 5300M/5500M GPUs came out, it lost about $600-800 in value because the new GPUs were much cheaper.
It's usually possible to buy full warranty Macs at least up to 12 months after a new model arrives. Apple refurbs go back 3 years. There is a rare chance that the Intel models would gain a higher asking price but I think the volume of people wanting to clear effectively obsolete inventory will counter it.
I think waiting until after the first Apple Silicon Macs arrive would be the safest bet at this point, even if it's just the Macbook Air first. Reviewers will put it through its paces and it will be clearer what is going to be gained and lost in the transition. If the improvements in performance-per-watt are too good to pass up, then it's the best time to buy. If there's too much compatibility lost in the short-term, it's a good time to get a deal on an Intel model. Should only be another 8-12 weeks before we find out.
I'm pretty sure the new models will use the Magic Keyboard (scissor). They are still lower profile than the 2012 keyboard but have similar comfort level. It'll be easier to make the decision after the new models arrive.
Where I use to work, The IT dept says 5 years and it's up for replacement. Everything must be new. So all the Mac Pros and Dells must be replaced. But if an application
will not run on new machines, it stays until the developers updates the apps. That's Government for you. Mac Pros are for Avid editing and the Dells are for email on another network.
seems to me that some people are selling their older 2012-13 MacBook pos this month online
to get a newer MacBook mainly because of the keyboard issue being solved. Unless the new keyboard that is glass is perfect and tested and tested with no hiccups
should not use another type of keyboard for their ARM besides the 2010-2017 and 2020 ones.
7 years of service after a product has been discontinued is pretty great. Who offers longer service on their computers, out of curiosity?
Thanks for the reply, the premise of my gripe was the apathy of the ecosystem
and perhaps society nowadays-they don't care over nostalgia.
i think 7 months is the norm for computer or any other company to service and 7 days to care about anything they make. 7 minutes of care on an airplane or tavern is the most their service people expend now.
I'm optimistic on the new MacBooks simple because we can run iPads app and store their data on a real computer soon.
Comments
Nah, just ignored.
this year i brought my macbook air 2010 into the apple store were i purchased the notebook, no one there cared.
no one at apple cares about their older products, luckily others do, which is all that matters.
Why not just replace the fusion drive with an SSD?
Actually, it might come down to need versus want:
Something like the ThinkPad X1 Nano coming in H2 2020 looks to be a pretty solid option depending on your needs:
While it will still likely fall behind AMD's current Ryzen 4000U series chips in multicore CPU performance, the GPU looks to be better with Xe graphics.
Who designed and manufactured all the Motorola 68k and following generations? Motorola: Apple had no control of design/manufacture of them.
Who designed and manufactured the PPC processors? A combination of Motorola and IBM. Apple didn’t design or manufacture them.
Who designs and manufactures every Intel processor? Intel: pay attention, there’s a clear pattern here!
Since the Apple A4, who designed the CPUs (part of the SOC) in every non-Mac device since that time? Apple! What’s their performance been? Perpetually increasing in both power efficiency and CPU throughput. Apple has been able to improve them in every single generation at a schedule of their choosing, and they’re currently being manufactured on a process better than Intel’s and Intel is at least a couple process nodes away from being a match on that alone.
Now, will Apple eventually hit a limit? Will Intel/AMD hit a limit? There are data points from either side that says it could go either way and performance improvements stall. There’s nothing at all to say the most efficient ISA, given identical process nodes, are either of those at all: I’d wager there’s an architecture/ISA not yet on the market that can be pushed to more processing power at less power usage. If a clear winner for optimization becomes apparent, Apple at least has a lot less inertia in changing over to a completely new ISA because Apple (for better and worse, as Apple is a consumer electronics company) doesn’t come close to having the concern for backwards-compatibility that constrains Windows from faster change, but makes it well-suited to be the OS with the majority of the market, where Enterprise is a huge money-maker factor.
You sure are projecting a lot, and making a lot of assumptions that nobody can claim are true at this point.
The jist of the article is, "ASi Macs will be great, so if you can wait, maybe wait" and "If you need an Intel Mac now, go ahead and buy one because they'll still be supported for a while" which is essentially what Apple said. This advice is completely logical and simple to understand. Telling someone to not buy an Intel Mac when they need to do work right now, and wait for a product which has not been announced, is silly. People aren't usually overly concerned about resale value when they need a tool to get their actual work done. If my MBP died right now, would I buy another Intel Mac? Of course. The reasons are obvious.
Are you suggesting Intel Macs aren't compatible with Metal? Really? I'm not sure you know as much as you think you know on this subject.
Swapping a drive in a MacBook Air is absolutely nothing like cracking open and replacing a drive a Retina iMac, which is not a task to be taken lightly. I did a bunch of 2011 iMacs but those were far simpler to get into. I wouldn't do a 2014 iMac drive replacement myself unless I was super confident and had hours to spend on it – I would take it to a 3rd party repair place that will do it for you.
I didn't say, "EVERYTHING", did I? There are slides that show all of the various technologies they're able to integrate into their SoCs that they couldn't with Intel, which is what I'm referring to specifically here.
They did use the term "ARM" directly in several places, if you go through some of the developer sessions. Not sure what that has to do with anything.
No idea what you're going on about with regard to NFC. ¯\(°_o)/¯
Unless the new keyboard that is glass is perfect and tested and tested with no hiccups
7 minutes of care on an airplane or tavern is the most their service people expend now.
I'm optimistic on the new MacBooks simple because we can run iPads app and store their data on a real computer soon.