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This transition will be much quicker than anyone can imagine. I bet Apple will:

In this fall (i.e. October event):
1. Replace current 13" MBP with ARM and increase size to 14" this fall
2. Introduce 24" ARM iMac

Spring 2021 (i.e. March event):
1. Introduce 27" ARM iMac with redesign (slimmer bezels) and with increased screen size (probs to 29"-32")

Spring - Fall 2021:
1. Move most of the other Mac lineup to ARM (i.e. MBA, MBP 16" etc)

This means Apple will have transitioned most of the entire lineup to ARM in just 1 year (by WWDC 21)

Mac Pro will then follow and be last to complete the transition, as it will take more processing power to replace Intel Xeon, and this expensive machine has just undergone a signficant redesign in 2019.
That's it.
They left 2019 Mac Pro after just one year?...So Mac Os intel will be just for rich ?
 
That's it.
They left 2019 Mac Pro after just one year?...So Mac Os intel will be just for rich ?

Apple stated they will be supporting intel chips for at least two years after ARM is introduced. I don't understand your rich comment.
 
The most applicable product to look at is the first generation of Intel Macbooks. The first gen. Intel Macbook (not pro) was my very first Mac, and I had no problems with it in 2006. "Supporting Windows" was the feature that got me to switch, but I (personally) realized I didn't need Windows and 99% of what I needed was available in the Mac ecosystem.
FWIW, a former co-worker has mentioned this story a few times. He bought the very 1st Intel Mac laptop (likely the 1st MacBook Pro). He said it was a piece of garbage and the worst Mac he's ever had. My work is a Mac shop and he may have even been an Apple employee at the time he got it.

For personal use, I'd be steering clear of the 1st ARM-based Macs. Heck, I don't even have a personal Mac at home. I'm a PC guy.

For work, I use a Mac but I don't need an ARM-based Mac as my group doesn't write any software for Macs. My group writes for iOS. So... until I need a new work laptop for some reason (e.g. too slow, current one lost or broken) I won't be jumping to ARM nor will I jump to ARM if the performance is no better.

I've seen some pretty amusing wildly optimistic expectations from some people. I bet battery life will be better and/or Apple will be able to maker lighter/thinner Macs (by including less battery) but I'm not as optimistic about perf, at least esp. compared to the desktop-class or server-class Intel chips.

I also wouldn't be surprised if Apple Silicon GPU perf falls way short of the best from AMD and/or Nvidia.
"Where Have I Heard of Arm Before?"

Remarkable that the author neglected to mention that the original Apple Newton sported an ARM processor, 27 years ago.
I wonder if the author wasn't born yet or was a child when the Newton came out. I most definitely remembered it and I had someone who reported to me at a former workplace w/Newtons (he worked in the former Newton group at Apple before it got canned) besides seeing a few in college.
 
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Ok peeps,

help me out please, I am desperate.

My partner is on a 10-year old SONY laptop with a Core2Duo 2.2 GHz and 4GB RAM.

We both have iPhones, iPads, we love the ease of Apple products, but we are by far no substantial tech geeks or heavy users.

Work on the Laptop includes: MS Office, especially Word and Excel as well as PowerPoint, remoting into a Windows-based Desktop PC, running stats programs and just stuff like that. No gaming, no music production, no video/picture editing.


We were determined to get a MacBook Air 2020 with i5 and maybe 16GB RAM to feel at ease for future proofing.
We waited desperately for the back to school and now this whole ARM-Intel-thingy is causing headaches.


I tried reading about it and understand what the actual consequences are for us, as the user, but I seem to lack a bigger understanding of it.


1) Buy the MBA now
-> get lowest entry to only keep it short term for not more than 3 years to move to ARM / because no support anymore / etc.

OR

-> get i5/16GB RAM and just keep it as long as possible and don’t worry.



2) DO NOT buy Intel-MBA and wait till ARM
-> risk 1st-Gen hiccups, maybe wait even longer then?


I guess in the end there is no one “right or wrong“, but I’ve noticed the more you start to think about it and make it science the more confused and indecisive you are.


Any help appreciated,
stay safe
Thx!
 
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Work on the Laptop includes: MS Office, especially Word and Excel as well as PowerPoint, remoting into a Windows-based Desktop PC, running stats programs and just stuff like that. No gaming, no music production, no video/picture editing.

For these tasks the entry level MBA will be more than powerful enough, but then again so is the 10 year old sony laptop
: )

For the tasks you describe the ARM laptops main advantage will be in battery life. As in, it could be something nuts, like 16+ hours. If the current MBA's battery life is sufficient for you and time is of the essence, I say find a great deal on the current models and go for that.
 
Mine will be also in 2025, this will give Apple a good 5 years to work out all the processor design hurdles and OS 11 hurdles. I will be fine with my 2019 MacBook Pro until that date. This is why if you need a new MacBook Pro it is a great time to buy, because, by then all the screaming on Macrumors about processor performance, OS 11 compatibility issues will be all cleared and that system will be rock solid. It is like right now trying to compare a iPhone 1 with a iPhone 6s huge changes between those times. That is why most people were getting a new iPhone every year to keep up :)

I also think that if people want to have certainty that they will run all the apps they need + Windows, they should buy Intel Macs while they are still available. I bet those will be rare even 5 years down the line and will have good resale value.
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Ok peeps,

help me out please, I am desperate.

My partner is on a 10-year old SONY laptop with a Core2Duo 2.2 GHz and 4GB RAM.

We both have iPhones, iPads, we love the ease of Apple products, but we are by far no substantial tech geeks or heavy users.

Work on the Laptop includes: MS Office, especially Word and Excel as well as PowerPoint, remoting into a Windows-based Desktop PC, running stats programs and just stuff like that. No gaming, no music production, no video/picture editing.


We were determined to get a MacBook Air 2020 with i5 and maybe 16GB RAM to feel at ease for future proofing.
We waited desperately for the back to school and now this whole ARM-Intel-thingy is causing headaches.


I tried reading about it and understand what the actual consequences are for us, as the user, but I seem to lack a bigger understanding of it.


1) Buy the MBA now
-> get lowest entry to only keep it short term for not more than 3 years to move to ARM / because no support anymore / etc.

OR

-> get i5/16GB RAM and just keep it as long as possible and don’t worry.



2) DO NOT buy Intel-MBA and wait till ARM
-> risk 1st-Gen hiccups, maybe wait even longer then?


I guess in the end there is no one “right or wrong“, but I’ve noticed the more you start to think about it and make it science the more confused and indecisive you are.


Any help appreciated,
stay safe
Thx!

If he needs it, then buy now the i5 version. If not, you can wait. But the question is if MBA is worth buying if it has only passive cooling. Is there big difference moneywise betwen MBA with i5 and entry level MBP?
 
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A common refrain in this thread is that "first gen. Apple products suck". But looking back at their releases over the last decade, does the history of these product support that belief? Sure, Butterfly Keyboards were a miss. But:
  • Apple Watch Gen 1 (2015) was great! Was Gen 2 better? Sure, but it was an incremental improvement vs. a redesign.
  • Same with Apple Pencil (2015)
  • Same with Airpods (2016)
  • Magic Trackpad (2010), amazing product! I still use mine today. Was Trackpad 2 five years later better? Absolutely! That's how product cycles work...
  • Magic Mouse (2009)
  • iPad (2009)
  • You basically have to go back to the OG Apple TV (2007) to find a true first gen. flop outside of the Butterfly Keyboard.
  • Sure, the OG iPhone (2007) was 2G, and didn't have an app store, but gained that with software in 2008.

The most applicable product to look at is the first generation of Intel Macbooks. The first gen. Intel Macbook (not pro) was my very first Mac, and I had no problems with it in 2006. "Supporting Windows" was the feature that got me to switch, but I (personally) realized I didn't need Windows and 99% of what I needed was available in the Mac ecosystem.

I'm not saying that this transition may not have its problems, but it feels a little unfair to call all first gen. Apple products skippable... Especially when it's not as if these Macs are true "first gen." products. Apple has been making desktops since 1979, and laptops since 1989/1991...

The first Apple Watch did suck, the 'Gen 0'. Flooding in showers, backs popping off, cases scratching, bezels scratching and cracking.
 
The question of long-term x86 support is pretty much the question of the future of the Mac Pro, IMHO. If I were interested in a MacBook or iMac, I think I'd wait until the second generation ARM Macs unless it was an immediate need. Apple may be suggesting that x86 Macs are supported for the life of the product, but are you happy with Apple's definition of "product life?" A company motivated to sell you as many products in as short a time as possible?

So watch the Mac Pro. I don't believe Apple will have the volume to make a high-end Xeon-class ARM processor rather than an SOC, nor will they have GPUs anywhere near the high end AMD or nVidia one uses in a workstation. Much less multiple GPUs per machine. If Apple wants to keep the Mac Pro viable, expect x86 support for 10+ years. If the Mac Pro goes away, they have far less motivation.
 
The question of long-term x86 support is pretty much the question of the future of the Mac Pro, IMHO. If I were interested in a MacBook or iMac, I think I'd wait until the second generation ARM Macs unless it was an immediate need. Apple may be suggesting that x86 Macs are supported for the life of the product, but are you happy with Apple's definition of "product life?" A company motivated to sell you as many products in as short a time as possible?

So watch the Mac Pro. I don't believe Apple will have the volume to make a high-end Xeon-class ARM processor rather than an SOC, nor will they have GPUs anywhere near the high end AMD or nVidia one uses in a workstation. Much less multiple GPUs per machine. If Apple wants to keep the Mac Pro viable, expect x86 support for 10+ years. If the Mac Pro goes away, they have far less motivation.

I was struck by that too. Dumping Intel after coming out with the obscenely priced New New New Mac Pro. It didn't make much sense. Either they want to sell more of them, or they want to poop their bed, and doom the machine. OR... They want to split the market and have a 'pro market' with Intel processors and a special 'Pro OS', and an ARM based 'Un-Pro' market with a separate OS, based, likely, on the iPhone UI. It seems crazy, but I wonder if that is what will happen. I don't imagine people that have already been burned with the 'trash can' New New Mac Pro, will be ecstatic over being screwed over yet again on the New New New Mac Pro with the $700 wheels.:oops:
 
This is a sincere question (and sorry if it was posted already, I made it through most of the comments but not all), but what sort of issues do first fen apple computers tend to have? Did the 2016 MacBook Pro change have issues? I usually follow when I am in the market for something new, and not as much other times.
Yeah, I'll certainly wait out the 1st-gen ARM Macs because

  1. First-gen Apple products tend to have lots of issues
  2. I'm going to want to see how they actually perform (people seem to think they're gonna scream, but I'm not going to take that on faith)
  3. I want to see how bumpy the shift is when it comes to porting the applications I rely on
  4. I'm a bit concerned Apple may take this opportunity to lock them down the way they lock down iOS/iPadOS devices
 
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"How Much Faster Will ‌Apple Silicon‌ Macs Be?"

The iPhone 11 uses at max. 5.5W. If we account all of that to a single core, and then look at Intel's laptop cores (15W), we can see we could use 3x as much power. With 3x as much power you can roughly double the clock rate. If we look at AMD, which also uses TSMC, we can see they were already at 4.7GHz last year. 2.65 * 2 = 5.3 GHz (+12.7%) might be possible this year.

In conclusion, we might have Apple Silicon MacBook Pro cores that are about twice as fast as Intel cores.
 
"How Much Faster Will ‌Apple Silicon‌ Macs Be?"

The iPhone 11 uses at max. 5.5W. If we account all of that to a single core, and then look at Intel's laptop cores (15W), we can see we could use 3x as much power. With 3x as much power you can roughly double the clock rate. If we look at AMD, which also uses TSMC, we can see they were already at 4.7GHz last year. 2.65 * 2 = 5.3 GHz (+12.7%) might be possible this year.

In conclusion, we might have Apple Silicon MacBook Pro cores that are about twice as fast as Intel cores.

I am optimistic about the performance of the new ARM Macs. However with 3x power you never get anywhere close to 2x clock frequency if you already starting at 2.66GHz and close to 1V. The "higher performance" mostly is coming from more cores and much less from higher clocks.
 
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My entire business is based on Macs and my software does not appear likely to updated anytime soon.

Does your software work on Catalina? If so, there is a good chance that porting will be easy, and you should be fine. Out of curiosity, what software do you use that you think will not be updated?
 
There is a key difference this time. Apple has been working on this transition for nearly ten years.

The first ARM Macs will be better than you think.

I really really hope so.

However, they had been working on the iPad for MANY years, even before the iPhone I believe, and look at the GIANT jump between iPad 1 and 2.

Will it launch on Day 1 with a touchsceen? So many seems to be expecting this now.
 
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I'm a video editor working on a PBS documentary right now, using a version of Avid from 2018. The software like this that I have to use for work will take a while to support Apple Silicon and newer OSes.

The day after the keynote I picked up a sweet deal on an 8-core Macbook Pro 15" 2019 with 32GB of RAM, the last model that supports Mojave (the latest reliable Mac OS.) Was the last one anybody online had in stock. This will replace my 4-core 16GB MBP 2016, will put up on Craigslist before the Applecare runs out. This should last me for the next 3 years while everybody works out the kinks with this transition.

You never want to buy the first version of any major new Apple product anyway. The very first Intel MacBook Pro 15" were pretty weird, it was the unibody design when they really started getting good.

Have fun on the bleeding edge everyone!
 
Well, I would not expect much in the way of improved performance or battery life, especially if you're running half your apps in emulation. Intel and AMD have built too many RISC features into their products. ARM makes sense in a set top box or a phone. It just doesn't wash in a larger form factor. Surface RT failed. Surface Pro X not selling. Neither saw much advantage in battery life or performance.

And it'll take 2-3 years to clean out the bugs, at which point folks may be asking them to go back to x86 for bootcamp, windows and other benefits.

Apple is simply looking to replace a $300 cpu with their own in house $50/cost cpu and still charging the same or more, increasing their profit margin. That's the only benefit here.

So...wait.
 
I'm a video editor working on a PBS documentary right now, using a version of Avid from 2018. The software like this that I have to use for work will take a while to support Apple Silicon and newer OSes.

I will be curious about this. I expect that Avid will have Media Composer and ProTools running on Apple Silicon very quickly (as they are important to Apple and that will get them help). I would be shocked if we did not see Blackmagic Design's DaVinci Resolve running on launch day and pretty close to that for Adobe's Premiere/After Effects. However, I would guess that even if everything shipped at launch, you would not switch in the middle of a project, just as you probably lock versions during a project, right?

The day after the keynote I picked up a sweet deal on an 8-core Macbook Pro 15" 2019 with 32GB of RAM, the last model that supports Mojave (the latest reliable Mac OS.)

I misread this as you bought at 2015 MBP and I was thinking "WTF?". :) The 32GB of RAM will be a big deal for you, I bet. My BF also edits, mostly using DaVinci Resolve these days (although some Premiere and Avid projects still) and he has found that the extra RAM on his new Mac Pro made a big difference.

This should last me for the next 3 years while everybody works out the kinks with this transition.

I expect this transition will be much faster/smoother, as Apple has been working on it since their first A-series processor. However, from my experience in production, most people lag releases anyway so I expect the same for hardware.

You never want to buy the first version of any major new Apple product anyway.

While people love to say this, it is not really true. It really depends on what the product is and how one needs to use it. The Apple Watch is a great example. People on both sides of the "no first gen" debate use it as an example and I think that is fitting.

I had been using an other fitness tracking watch from Basis Science (a company acquired by Intel for $100 million and then killed a year or two later issuing everyone full refunds on old products). I acquired a Series 0 Apple Watch and was very happy with it until I switched to my Series 3 (and then Series 4). While those who argue against first gen products say that it was too slow, the battery life was too short and it did not have GPS, those who bought it had a very functional product for a full year before a better version came out. The benefits I got from using it for that period greatly outweighed those detriments.

Given how long they have been working on their own designs and how important they think this transition is to them, I expect better results from their first gen Apple Silicon machines than other people on here do.
 
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(2005: Should I buy a new 64 bit dual core/quad core PowerMac G5 or wait to get an 32 bit Intel Mac?)
Remembering the sting from Apple abandoning us with OS X after making the right decision. Well at least they are still running as servers, got our monies worth.
Of course those of you who went with the Mac Pro 1,1 got thrown under the bus just as fast.

I wonder if it's different this time? Backin in 2006, they went from announcing the transition to replacing all their products in a single year. The new models of everything were x86 based - so there wasn't a choice of which to buy other than to scramble and get existing PowerPC inventory of the prior model before it sold out. This time, with a 2 year span, it seems like Apple might actually release new models of the x86 Macs one more time before their ARM counterparts are available. I'm hoping this means Apple will maintain a much longer world of OS support for x86, but you never know.

Just be ready for some staggering depreciation on selling those older x86 Macs once it's all ARM. :)

I wonder if this could create a sizable portion of people using the "final x86 MacOS" after it's out of support? At work, x86 compatibility is really useful, although it's not critical - I can still do local development on my Mac for functional correctness and then access an x86 Linux server for assessing the x86 kernels...
 
I bought the 2019 16" because I depend on running OVA images, that we use for demo and testing. Hence, I depend on Fusion, and 64GB allows me to build an entire portable lab to bring to conferences and customers.
 
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This is a sincere question (and sorry if it was posted already, I made it through most of the comments but not all), but what sort of issues do first fen apple computers tend to have? Did the 2016 MacBook Pro change have issues? I usually follow when I am in the market for something new, and not as much other times.

The 2016 MacBooks big change was the keyboard, which you may have read about :D:D - and those issues actually persisted through subsequent models. But speaking more generally, there are a couple reasons for this "avoid the first generation" advice.

First is, historically Apple has tended to push against engineering design limits more than other manufacturers. The engineering is harder, which can mean that problems arise more frequently - especially when they significantly change something. I discovered this first hand back when I bought the first-gen 15" Aluminum Powerbook in 2003. It was a great computer overall, but suffered from the infamous "white spot" display issue - Apple replaced my screen three different times. There was the heating/cracking problem with "the Cube". And so on, and so on...

But the other reason is that Apple often leaves stuff out of the first major revision. They seem to see a significant design change - or a completely new product introduction - as enough of an incentive that they want to save something for the next year (Apple's not the only manufacturer to do this, obviously).
 
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