morky

johnbear said:

Sad! grab an Intel Mac Pro while you can. ARM Macs will be inferior in performance. 

linuxplatform said:

razorpit said:

Agree with this. Don't think Intel is going anywhere soon, but if you have stock I think now is a good time to sell. Intel is vulnerable right now.

There's a lot of laziness and content out there right now. Apple Silicon is going to wake a few business units up at MS and Intel, at least it better for their sake.

This isn't true at all. It doesn't solve the main reason why PC users don't buy Macs.

1. Macs cost twice as much as Windows PCs with comparable specs. This means that ChromeOS - whose devices are cheaper than Windows ones - is a bigger threat, and ChromeOS already runs on both ARM and x86-64, even the Linux and Android apps.

2. Macs can't run a ton of software that Windows can, including a lot of specialty and enterprise software, with gaming being a particular example. When Macs switch to ARM, this is going to get worse, not better.

A lot of people seem to think that Apple's clout in mobile translates to PC. It doesn't. No one is going to run out and buy a MacBook that costs twice as much as a Dell and can't run the software that he needs for work or the video games that he wants to play just because it has the same processor in it that is in the iPhone and iPad (which most likely he may not own anyway because Android has an 65% market share in tablets and 80% market share overall). The people who believe this are Apple fans who own and use Apple products anyway and only deal with Windows and Android devices for review purposes. (Yes, this includes most "tech" writers, who regularly get basic stuff about non-Apple products wrong.)

And it isn't laziness. Real tech problems that Apple doesn't have to deal with because Apple only has to support one platform isn't laziness. Apple doesn't have to worry about backwards compatibility because Apple doesn't have an enterprise software unit. Microsoft does have an enterprise software unit, it is a massive part of its business, and Microsoft can't tell those customers that they aren't going to support business applications that their customers wrote in 1997 that will never be meaningfully updated because it will cost them tons of money without generating them a bit of revenue.

As for Intel, they make a wide range of processors - i3, i5, i7, i9, Xeon - that allows their OEMs to make devices at all price points that they need to update at the same time. It is a completely different challenge from Apple's only needing to work on a single Ax processor a year. That is the same with Qualcomm: they have multiple 2x, 4x, 6x and 7x processors a year as well as their flagship 8x. 

The hardware and software companies that support a range of devices, platforms and price points all have a harder job than Apple. They can't do what Apple does, but based on the issues that Apple has at times, Apple can't do what they do either.

j2fusion said:

I am worried that the transition will curtail or eliminate access to low level system functions. For example, iOS does not allow access to MAC addresses on the local network limiting the usability of network scanners. This is just one example that could limit the effectiveness of many utilities. We all don’t just want to run Word and Photoshop. I also hope companies like VMware see the worth in developing an emulator for Intel processors. 

karmadave said:

I remain skeptical. Not because I don't think Apple can pull this off. They've done it 2x before so clearly they can. Consumers probably won't notice any difference other than better battery life, etc. Will large corporations buy any laptop that doesn't have an x86 compatible processor? Clearly they buy lots of iPhones and iPads so perhaps. Fortunately for Apple the Mac is a small portion of their overall revenue so the risk is relatively small. Especially compared to their last major transition when Mac was the majority of their revenue. This is a multi-year adventure so it will be interesting to follow Apple's progress.