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Ask HN: Should I buy an Intel MacBook now, or wait for an ARM version?

2 points by tsycho ↗ HN
I was about to buy a MacBook Pro 13" as my personal laptop, but I am confused after WWDC's announcements yesterday. I want to use this machine for ~5 years at least.

If I buy the Intel Mac, will it get obsolete after a year w.r.t. software? As in, will new software stop working on Intel machines within 1-2 years?

If I wait for the ARM Mac, I see 2 risks:

(a) Most software won't work (well) for a while unless Rosetta 2 works magically well (I am not optimistic).

(b) The first version of the hardware will probably be bad.

3 comments

[ 4.0 ms ] story [ 25.4 ms ] thread
noah-kun
On point "a", Rosetta 2 will work perfectly if Rosetta 1 is any indication.

On point "b", the "first version" of the hardware was over 10 years ago.

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(comment deleted)
Someone
I would think the overlap between Rosetta 1 and Rosetta 2 is effectively zero, even when including engineers who worked on both as “overlap”. It’s 16 years ago, and Apple bought significant parts of the original Rosetta from a third party that now is part of IBM (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QuickTransit)

So, I wouldn’t use the quality of Rosetta 1 as an indicator for the quality of Rosetta 2.