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Macbook pro 13in - Should I have waited?

malkovich87 said:
Any Mac bought now will be worth absolutely nothing in a year from now. I’d most definitely wait with any Mac purchase until the first apple silicon models are out
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I don't buy that for a second, and I also buy Macs to use them for a long while, so I'm not too concerned with resale value in the first place. I guess if you're one who buys a new Mac every 1-2 years, then it might be more important to you, but I think to claim a new Intel Mac will be worth "absolutely nothing" in a year, is a gross over-exaggeration, especially since Tim Cook said they're still working on new Intel Macs.
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Gbeer said:
Seems they can keep Intel up to date as well with the same binaries. So we shouldn't miss to much for a few years @usagora?
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That's my understanding.
 
usagora said:
I don't buy that for a second, and I also buy Macs to use them for a long while, so I'm not too concerned with resale value in the first place. I guess if you're one who buys a new Mac every 1-2 years, then it might be more important to you, but I think to claim a new Intel Mac will be worth "absolutely nothing" in a year, is a gross over-exaggeration, especially since Tim Cook said they're still working on new Intel Macs.
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That's my understanding.
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Could they just drop intel support in a year or two and leave us high and dry?
 
Gbeer said:
Could they just drop intel support in a year or two and leave us high and dry?
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Tim said "years to come." To me, that phrase implies an unspecified period of time but one that would be considered fairly lengthy (i.e. more than just 2 years).
 
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malkovich87 said:
Any Mac bought now will be worth absolutely nothing in a year from now. I’d most definitely wait with any Mac purchase until the first apple silicon models are out
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You won’t be laughing for much longer - PowePCs were worth nothing very quickly.
 
Gbeer said:
That is great to hear...not!
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My personal advice would be to take the proclamations and predictions of the "doom and gloom" crowd with a grain of salt. They are given to extremes. Heck, there are people freaking out just because the new macOS looks more like iOS even though all the macOS functionality is still there, just improved.
 
usagora said:
My personal advice would be to take the proclamations and predictions of the "doom and gloom" crowd with a grain of salt. They are given to extremes. Heck, there are people freaking out just because the new macOS looks more like iOS even though all the macOS functionality is still there, just improved.
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Probably a fair point. I've not really enjoyed my new mac with worrying about the ARM chips and should I have waited, will my mac be worthless etc. It was such a big purchase to last 3 years or so.
 
Gbeer said:
Probably a fair point. I've not really enjoyed my new mac with worrying about the ARM chips and should I have waited, will my mac be worthless etc. It was such a big purchase to last 3 years or so.
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I don’t know if you’re in your return window but I would return it unless you absolutely have no other machines. I now have over $7000+ of 2019 MBP 16 and 2020 MBP 13 I bought in the last 6 months that will quickly be obsolete and will not even come close to the longevity I got with my 2012 MBP 15 retina. I lived through the PPC-Intel transition and I was surprised how quickly PPC was abandoned to only bug fixes and latest apps were no longer optimized. I originally thought Apple would take 5 years to transition with low end machines like MBA or MB 12 getting updated first but today‘s announcements of top to bottom replacement in 2 years means I‘m probably going to cut my losses now and get rid of my MB 12 for sure, possibly my brand new MBP 13 also while it’s still worth something (COVID has not traveling anyway soon) and just use the MBP 16 until ARM is fully supported.
 
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I would rather have the final version of the old gen than the first version of a new gen. I learned this by not buying a 2015 mbp and waiting for a 2016 model that ended up being plagued with problems
 
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I just bought a 2020 MacBook Pro yesterday. I assumed that the new ARM Macs would be totally unable to run programs necessary to my workflow, namely virtual machines and containers. Well, they proved me wrong - not only will virtualization and containerization be supported, but Apple is working with Parallels and Docker to get it running right.

I am was rocking a 2015 MacBook Pro before this. I was hoping this 2020 MacBook Pro would last be another 5+ (and it probably will, but it won't be taking advantage exclusive Apple ARM features). After hearing the news today, I am honestly considering just returning my 2020 Mac, sticking in a larger SSD into my 2015, and wait for the upcoming ARM MBP later this year. I crave new tech, I don't really want to be sitting on a $2,000 machine that will be old news in less than a year.
 
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Once the first Apple Silicon macs release in a few months, there will not be much of a market for equivalent Intel mac hardware, and even though Apple commits to support Intel macs for years to come, third-party software support will evaporate faster.
 
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yanksrock100 said:
I just bought a 2020 MacBook Pro yesterday. I assumed that the new ARM Macs would be totally unable to run programs necessary to my workflow, namely virtual machines and containers. Well, they proved me wrong - not only will virtualization and containerization be supported, but Apple is working with Parallels and Docker to get it running right.

I am was rocking a 2015 MacBook Pro before this. I was hoping this 2020 MacBook Pro would last be another 5+ (and it probably will, but it won't be taking advantage exclusive Apple ARM features). After hearing the news today, I am honestly considering just returning my 2020 Mac, sticking in a larger SSD into my 2015, and wait for the upcoming ARM MBP later this year. I crave new tech, I don't really want to be sitting on a $2,000 machine that will be old news in less than a year.
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I think you should be fine doing this unless you need the power of the current MBP. IMHO your 2015 would do just fine until the end of this year/early next year. I´m definitely holding on to any purchase by this point after hearing these "promising news" and I will most likely just utilize the possibility of repairing my 13" MBP with little to no cost.
 
Gbeer said:
The question is, should I have waited?
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I use a MacBook Pro 13" mid 2010, rocking 8GB of upgraded ram and a 256GB SSD. Its battery lasts an hour, it's so slow at running windows that I've temporarily paid for a cloud desktop to run my windows apps. It really is at the end of its useful life for me.

Today, I decided to buy the off the shelf 10th gen intel MacBook Pro 13" 2020 model (i.e. the one with 4 ports). My thoughts are as follows:

All/most of the kinks of this design have been ironed out.

It will be lightning fast compared to my current model.

It's the 'base' edition of the 10th gen so I'm not buying something to last another 10 years for sure.

It runs Windows natively and fast with parallels - If Apple truly mess up with their transition I'll have a solid Windows laptop.

Apple and other devs will support these models as Intel will power the overwhelming majority of apple computers for years to come.

I'd look to upgrade again in maybe 3 or 4 years, once Apple have ironed out the kinks in their ARM computers.

The only change the ARM news made to my purchasing decision was that I was originally going to buy a max spec 16" for the long term, not another 10 years but certainly 5 to 8 years. Instead I've bought a mid range MacBook Pro 13" to last for the medium term; say 5 years max. I'm confident the machine will be well supported for this duration.
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jgorman said:
Once the first Apple Silicon macs release in a few months, there will not be much of a market for equivalent Intel mac hardware, and even though Apple commits to support Intel macs for years to come, third-party software support will evaporate faster.
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There are around 100 million active Apple Mac users.

They're not all going to upgrade overnight.

There will be strong support for these users for years to come for one simple reason: there's money to be made.
 
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Marbles1 said:
I use a MacBook Pro 13" mid 2010, rocking 8GB of upgraded ram and a 256GB SSD. Its battery lasts an hour, it's so slow at running windows that I've temporarily paid for a cloud desktop to run my windows apps. It really is at the end of its useful life for me.

Today, I decided to buy the off the shelf 10th gen intel MacBook Pro 13" 2020 model (i.e. the one with 4 ports). My thoughts are as follows:

All/most of the kinks of this design have been ironed out.

It will be lightning fast compared to my current model.

It's the 'base' edition of the 10th gen so I'm not buying something to last another 10 years for sure.

It runs Windows natively and fast with parallels - If Apple truly mess up with their transition I'll have a solid Windows laptop.

Apple and other devs will support these models as Intel will power the overwhelming majority of apple computers for years to come.

I'd look to upgrade again in maybe 3 or 4 years, once Apple have ironed out the kinks in their ARM computers.

The only change the ARM news made to my purchasing decision was that I was originally going to buy a max spec 16" for the long term, not another 10 years but certainly 5 to 8 years. Instead I've bought a mid range MacBook Pro 13" to last for the medium term; say 5 years max. I'm confident the machine will be well supported for this duration.
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There are around 100 million active Apple Mac users.

They're not all going to upgrade overnight.

There will be strong support for these users for years to come for one simple reason: there's money to be made.
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That makes a lot of sense and quite reassuring @Marbles1.
 
I guess small-time developers might be more of a wildcard, but do people honestly think that major developers like Microsoft or Adobe are going to just abandon Intel Macs in such a short time? That would be quite a stupid move on their part, as they have tons of subscriptions that would be cancelled by people who would not take kindly to be told "sorry, if you want to continue getting updates, you need to buy a new ARM Mac in addition to your monthly subscription." Or maybe I'm just crazy and all these people have piles of cash ready to do so. But I don't think we're going to see Intel Macs abandoned by major developers for a while (i.e. a good bit more than 2 years), at least those who have subscription-based models.
 
usagora said:
I guess small-time developers might be more of a wildcard, but do people honestly think that major developers like Microsoft or Adobe are going to just abandon Intel Macs in such a short time? That would be quite a stupid move on their part, as they have tons of subscriptions that would be cancelled by people who would not take kindly to be told "sorry, if you want to continue getting updates, you need to buy a new ARM Mac in addition to your monthly subscription." Or maybe I'm just crazy and all these people have piles of cash ready to do so. But I don't think we're going to see Intel Macs abandoned by major developers for a while (i.e. a good bit more than 2 years), at least those who have subscription-based models.
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I would hope it is much closer to 5-6 instead of a bit more than 2. Please tell me I am not crazy.
 
Since they said they have an Intel Mac in the works that means they don't want to simply abandon intel right away. That would be one hell of a move if they released new machines this year and killed support in 2-3. On top of that they want to finish the transition in 2 years time so that puts as at mid 2022 to potentially early 2023. In my opinion intel Macs will be getting support for at least 4-5 years after if not more.
If they decide to abandon dunno maybe 40-60 millions ( I think I am generous here) users that don't upgrade in the next 24 months people would go mental.
If you look at apple refurbished store they have $48K Mac pros in there. How many companies spends hundreds of thousands on those in the past few months and can't return them? Not to mention that apple is always offering trade in $$ and while it might not be the best deal it surely is something especially that some here say that intel Mac is now worth $0 lol.
 
@Grohowiak This is a good way to look at it and makes huge sense. If they are to release another line of Intel's as well then 4-5 years is realistic. I'm sure they said the binaries are the same, just seperate code compiles.
 
Gbeer said:
@Grohowiak This is a good way to look at it and makes huge sense. If they are to release another line of Intel's as well then 4-5 years is realistic. I'm sure they said the binaries are the same, just seperate code compiles.
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If it works like the PPC —> intel transition, it’s just a checkbox in Xcode in order to generate a universal binary.
 
PBG4 Dude said:
If it works like the PPC —> intel transition, it’s just a checkbox in Xcode in order to generate a universal binary.
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That is interesting to know. So supporting Intel and ARM together shouldn't be a big overhead, I'm guessing.
 
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