We have been discussing this and it is somewhat problematic, although it depends on how long the intel macs last. The Mac Pro Range are the most expensive things ever and owners will want to sweat them. It could be that security fixes will continue for longer than OS releases, which is the biggest concern. Failing that, my six month old maxed-out MBP 16 might be running Linux this time in 2026.
> It could be that security fixes will continue for longer than OS releases
There is no need for speculation here because we already know how Apple is treating Mac Pro owners. I have two of these machines (3.1), they are wonderful powerhorses with two Xeons and 64 GB of RAM, but for Apple they're not worth being supported. I need to use a popular hack in order to install a newer OS and get updates.
To the downvoters: as another person pointed out, the latest version of Windows would work perfectly on these machines - if I choose to install it, that is. But I prefer macOS and the apps I had bought. Unfortunately, Apple doesn't care.
After 5 years Apple can't get parts for your computer, so I don't think running the latest compatible software is the problem. For most laptops the battery or keyboard will be pretty reduced I would have thought.
So I don't think the situation materially changes enough to stop buying Macs, unless of course you already stopped buying macs for these reasons, so this article is in my opinion misleading.
It might help justify people who have left the Mac ecosystem feel better, judging by the target audience.
Dude, when they come out with a 20 hour battery life laptop that does everything macOS does now - who won’t buy one?
If you’re a student/professional that uses Lightroom/Photoshop, etc there’ll be no question that you’ll get the laptop with the better battery life for the same performance.
I'm actually thinking of getting a 2019 MacBook Pro. I like the butterfly keyboard and mostly believe the outrage was fake news like a lot of things nowadays with outrage culture. Not to mention it's 3rd gen, failure probability would be lower.
I'm also aware that at most I'd have 4-5 years, BUT if you take Windows into consideration, then you can definitely double that time. There's just no premium laptop manufacturer like Apple, all competition just looks like an attempt to be like them. I'd get a great trackpad, design, screen (most important to me) and somewhat both of OS worlds. Doesn't seem like a bad buy.
This is what I did, keyboard is fine, I like the short travel. Maxed out CPU and memory and saved nearly 40% while buying brand new old stock. Very happy overall upgrading from a maxed out late 2013 Macbook Pro 15”.
The author claims to know many people who happily run five year old machines. I guess I might know a few too, but I know many many more who jump on every new generation just as soon as they can. This is especially true in the Apple world, where in pre-COVID times people literally slept on the sidewalk to get in the store first on launch day. The number of people who actually care about Apple support for a five year old product is probably pretty small.
There are reasonably-debatable reasons why people should stop buying Macs. A shift to ARM is not one of them.
I’m very satisfied with a fully maxed-out 2012 Mac Mini (quad i7, 32GB RAM, 2x 1TB SATA SSDs). It’s plenty powerful for my needs (productivity, and occasional use of Mathematica) and at any rate over the past ten years or so I’ve migrated progressively towards using iPads (having been almost compulsive in my upgrading every single generation from the very first back in 2010 to the latest iPad Pro 2020).
When yesterday I saw the news of the new ARM mac, I thought “aha, OK, I want it”.
Keep in mind that at one point I had a quad-G5 PowerMac. I really like power, flexibility, and expandability. I’m not much of a laptop believer either.
But what I’m trying to say is that over the course of the past decade or so the Mac has been sufficiently stagnant that a 2012 Mac Mini, albeit one that is highly upgraded, is an entirely workable platform. I was thinking to myself last night (or this morning, depending on one’s perspective): “What will Apple’s Intel Epoch be known for?” and I had an instant answer for myself: “It will be remembered for stagnation. There was a switch and things were better for five years and then nothing really happened for a decade,.”
In my personal case, I keep my personal Mac for as long as it has AppleCare. When the three years are up, it's time to replace it. I short circuited it a little when the 16" MacBook Pro came out, but it was close enough to three years from late 2016 MacBook Pro.
I'm mainly just worried about how this will affect my development environment and ability to compile linux libraries and things like homebrew apps on the command line.
I can only imagine that changing the CPU architecture will mean pretty much every tool I use is going to break and have to be fixed (or abandoned) by random open source developers slowly over the coming years.
I expect this to be really painful initially, but longer term I look forward to this breaking the stranglehold that Intel currently has over our tooling as de facto standard for workstation processors.
I’m optimistic that we’ll start to see higher quality support for ARM on open source packages, which means we can deploy to RaspPis easier, ARM servers, etc.
I second this. Start focusing on improving battery life on Windows laptops already.
I'm sort of happy this is going to push processor manufacturers to get the best power efficient general computing out there, but developer productivity is key.
19 comments
[ 141 ms ] story [ 1172 ms ] threadThere is no need for speculation here because we already know how Apple is treating Mac Pro owners. I have two of these machines (3.1), they are wonderful powerhorses with two Xeons and 64 GB of RAM, but for Apple they're not worth being supported. I need to use a popular hack in order to install a newer OS and get updates.
So I don't think the situation materially changes enough to stop buying Macs, unless of course you already stopped buying macs for these reasons, so this article is in my opinion misleading.
It might help justify people who have left the Mac ecosystem feel better, judging by the target audience.
If you’re a student/professional that uses Lightroom/Photoshop, etc there’ll be no question that you’ll get the laptop with the better battery life for the same performance.
Personally this kind of vertical integration from a company that isn't shy about imposing it's opinion would be a worry.
I doubt I will want such a device unless it is very open and can run alternate OSs etc, even if I never will.
I'm also aware that at most I'd have 4-5 years, BUT if you take Windows into consideration, then you can definitely double that time. There's just no premium laptop manufacturer like Apple, all competition just looks like an attempt to be like them. I'd get a great trackpad, design, screen (most important to me) and somewhat both of OS worlds. Doesn't seem like a bad buy.
There are reasonably-debatable reasons why people should stop buying Macs. A shift to ARM is not one of them.
When yesterday I saw the news of the new ARM mac, I thought “aha, OK, I want it”.
Keep in mind that at one point I had a quad-G5 PowerMac. I really like power, flexibility, and expandability. I’m not much of a laptop believer either.
But what I’m trying to say is that over the course of the past decade or so the Mac has been sufficiently stagnant that a 2012 Mac Mini, albeit one that is highly upgraded, is an entirely workable platform. I was thinking to myself last night (or this morning, depending on one’s perspective): “What will Apple’s Intel Epoch be known for?” and I had an instant answer for myself: “It will be remembered for stagnation. There was a switch and things were better for five years and then nothing really happened for a decade,.”
In my personal case, I keep my personal Mac for as long as it has AppleCare. When the three years are up, it's time to replace it. I short circuited it a little when the 16" MacBook Pro came out, but it was close enough to three years from late 2016 MacBook Pro.
I can only imagine that changing the CPU architecture will mean pretty much every tool I use is going to break and have to be fixed (or abandoned) by random open source developers slowly over the coming years.
Or am I wrong? Will this all be seamless?
I’m optimistic that we’ll start to see higher quality support for ARM on open source packages, which means we can deploy to RaspPis easier, ARM servers, etc.
I'm sort of happy this is going to push processor manufacturers to get the best power efficient general computing out there, but developer productivity is key.