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Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.
by jccalhoun 6y ago
Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.
- Mindwipe 6y agoThe last Macs that will support Boot Camp will be the best selling Macs for years. Much like the 2015 Macbook Pro I expect you'll be able sell it for more than you paid for it years later.
- rbanffy 6y agoRemember the MacBook Pro with a DVD drive lived on for years after all its siblings were discontinued. We can expect some x86 support to remain available for years after the last new ARM machine is launched.
- SyneRyder 6y agoI think that's the mid-2012 MBP? They were still selling them in 2015, I bought one of the last ones before it was pulled from sale. It remained in the lineup because it continued to be a best-seller. Apple was already grumpy about servicing it by 2018 or so though, even with AppleCare. (I've switched to Windows now.)
- rbanffy 6y agoI think it could be tied to large contracts and ensured availability. I suspect there will be an x86-based Mac available well past the two year transition that was announced.
- tjr 6y agoAnd I reckon those of us who just bought a shiny new Intel Mac in the past few months might be questioning our decision. Should have held on to that 2010 MBP one more year?
- robin_reala 6y agoI was thinking the same, but I always avoid gen1 Apple gear anyway, so it’d basically be another 2 years before it’d have been time to upgrade.
- macintux 6y agoNah, I'd have to wait until early next year to buy an ARM Mac, and mine will be fine for a long time to come. I am pleased I didn't splurge for the 32GB of RAM, however. I'll do that with my next one.
- jbverschoor 6y agoI was waiting to upgrade my 2013 16gb/512. I really see no point
- jbverschoor 6y agoAnd without upgradable parts, it really doesn’t make sense
- cupofsludge 6y agoTyping this on a 2010 MBP, bought a new MBP this weekend (was later canceled by the seller b/c of inventory issues) and thinking about waiting another year
- drawkbox 6y agoBuying a Mac right now, need to replace my EOL Mac Pro. I definitely won't be getting a Pro now. Probably just an iMac with more RAM and SSD instead of Fusion. I really wish I knew when they were updating their iMac and Mac Pro lines.
- kemiller2002 6y agoWhat is really sad is that I don't think the majority of Apple consumers really understand what this means for the Intel macs in the long run. I fear a number of people will buy them not realizing they have a very limited lifespan.
- inapis 6y agoIf those devices will have 4-5 years worth of use, then I think most people would be fine with the purchase. 4-5 years already does require upgrading for either performance or quality of life features.
- gerardnll 6y agoYes, I think they will support them for at least 5 years.
- adwww 6y agoYour comment made me look how old my current laptop is. "Mid-2014". It's still as powerful as any of the current Apple laptops - progress has been slow these last 6 years.
- unsignedchar 6y agoPart of the motivation for the transition is the hope that the progress will be much faster over the next 6. If that happens, those intel macs may age out sooner.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- foldr 6y agoThey won't, necessarily. Fat binaries worked ok the last time around. Sure, Apple could stop making updates available for Intel Macs, but they can stop making updates available for any older model of Mac if they want to.
- valuearb 6y ago
- ogre_codes 6y agoI wouldn't be so sure, there are a fair number of people who want a machine that will run x86 for various reasons. Windows support/ Linux support. Even considering how impressive x86 VMs looked in the demo, lots of people will prefer using intel silicon for guaranteed compatibility.
- nailer 6y agoLinux and Windows have both supported ARM for a while now.
- txcwpalpha 6y agoThe end goal isn't just using Windows for Windows sake, the reason people use Windows on mac hardware is to get access to apps that run on Windows. And most of those apps still run like garbage (if at all) on the ARM versions of Windows.
- ianai 6y agoThey showed Maya (x86 binary) running on their Chip. It has some ability to run intel binaries on Apple silicon through at least two options-emulation and something that sounds like “jit interpretations”-lack of a better word.
- txcwpalpha 6y agoI think that is a slightly different use case, though. That demo was an x86 binary running on ARM MacOS via a translation layer. So if there is a MacOS x86 version of the app you want to run, that might be an option. But I know a lot of people still run Windows because they want the Windows version of an app, either because it isn't available at all on Mac or just because the Windows version runs better (Excel was a classic example of this for a long time, might still be). In that case, I don't know if that same translation layer will have the same performance (if it can run at all outside of MacOS) when running an entirely different OS.
- unfunco 6y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
- jdhn 6y agoI'm in the market for a new laptop, and if I knew how long the Intel macs would be supported, I could see myself picking one up. Unfortunately, nothing was said about that so I guess I'm holding off.
- gerardnll 6y agoOnly ‘for years to come’
- toyg 6y agoThey said the transition should take 2 years. I wouldn't expect much more than that.
- macintux 6y agoDisagree. He said Intel Macs would be supported for "years to come" and that they had more in the pipeline. They'll be supported for significantly longer than 2 years.
- 95014_refugee 6y agoStandard Apple support is 7 years from last date of sale. 2 years for transition, so seems reasonable to expect support most of the way to 2030.
- seanalltogether 6y agoApple dropped macOS support for their powerpc architecture after only 3 years, so any claims of hardware support being 7 years is not very meaningful
- minimaxir 6y agoThose are the rumored "iPad Pro" aesthetic Macs which were initially rumored to be released today.
- jagger27 6y agoI was waiting for Craig to say that every Mac with a T-series chip could be used as a dev platform, since they're pretty strong on their own. Oh well. Maybe to smooth things over they'll ship an A-series co-processor with those Macs. Apple released a bunch of PPC Macs after they announced the switch to Intel, so this isn't unprecedented.
- saagarjha 6y agoThe T-series CPUs are a bit weak, to be honest…
- Androider 6y agoPersonally I'd rather grab one of those as my daily driver, and wait a few years for all the issues to get worked out during the transition.
- bhouston 6y agoIt was a backup plan if the Apple Silicon was delayed. Might as well still execute on it.
- djhworld 6y agoI wonder if these intel based ones are going to be on the high end of the Macbook Pro lineup or iMac.
- yannikyeo 6y agoIts total transition to Arm in 2 years. Likely they will build different SoCs performance/power for desktop and notebook.
- MangoCoffee 6y agoApple should just go with AMD 7nm cpu.
- xenospn 6y agoDo you think most people know who makes the CPU inside their Apple machine? Go into an Apple store and take a survey. I almost guarantee no one will know.
- jbverschoor 6y agoThat is so people don’t stop buying Macs into end of year
- scarface74 6y agoApple announced the Mac in 1984 and sold Apple // based computers until 1993. Apple announced the PPC in 1994 and sold new 68K Macs for 3 years at least.
- wiremine 6y agoIf the PowerPC to Intel transition was any indication, they'll do just fine. Most consumers won't care, or will want to wait until Apple works out the kinks. To put it a different way: the initial sales of the ARM-based chips won't be as strong as you think they might be, or as wide spread. Having both Intel and ARM based systems in the market will even out the sales. History is repeating itself, it's worth reviewing the previous transitions before making assumptions. - https://everymac.com/mac-answers/macintel-faq/why-did-apple-switch-to-intel.html https://everymac.com/mac-answers/macintel-faq/why-did-apple-... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_processors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_... - https://tedium.co/2020/06/16/apple-powerpc-intel-transition-history/ https://tedium.co/2020/06/16/apple-powerpc-intel-transition-... - https://mashable.com/2016/06/29/intel-macs-at-10/ https://mashable.com/2016/06/29/intel-macs-at-10/
- kllrnohj 6y agoWith the powerpc to x86 transition Apple was moving towards where everyone else already was. It was one less thing developers had to worry about when supporting Mac. With this migration it's the opposite, and MacOS is still a very small slice of the desktop/laptop market.
- wiremine 6y agoI agree, it is a very small part of the market, but I'm not sure I grok your point. I think Apple's has leapfrogged Intel in some ways?
- callalex 6y agoI’m pretty sure their point is that last time, the incentives/burden was more aligned between Apple and soptware producers, because it meant devs had one LESS architecture they had to care about. This time they will have one MORE, and it could very well be an architecture they have no familiarity with. And Apple isn’t exactly known for their technical documentation of new platforms.
- jmull 6y agoApple has a strong story for x64, going forward, which I think will ease fears. They aren’t rushing x64 out the door.
- Corrado 6y agoMaybe it depends on the pricing for the x86 vs. ARM macs. If the ARM machines are significantly cheaper the x86 sales will probably suffer quite a bit. As someone else in this thread said, most people have no idea what processor is in their computer. They just care that it's cheaper and runs all of their stuff (browsers, photos, messages, etc.)
- nojito 6y agoApple released new mac minis and powermacs when they announced the intel transition.
- lasagnaphil 6y agoThe Mac Pro (and possibly the iMac Pro) will still be Intel for a while. I expect the portable lineups to get the ARM treatment first (as they are the most similar with the iPhone/iPad in terms of power requirements), and then scale it up for actual high-power desktop CPUs.
- StillBored 6y agoApple could continue to ship arm/x86 machines in parallel for years if the fat binaries+emulation work well. If say the desktop mac pro maintains an edge somehow, or Intel comes back from their current slump in 5 years this could go on indefinitely. (that probably totally depends on whether Intel actually designs a desktop chip for the first time in nearly two decades, rather than continuing with their current sell server chips as poorly designed desktops path)
- peterkelly 6y agoOn the contrary, I'm tempted to buy the latest Intel Macbook Pro so I can stick with Intel for a few more years. Whether or not I'll end up doing so depends a lot on how good the new ARM-based laptops are in terms of performance (esp. wrt virtualizing x86/x64 VMs). But the current lineup, however imperfect, is mature and a known quantity, in contrast to the unknowns surrounding the first generation of machines with the new architecture.
- rvense 6y agoThey said the same with the Intel transition, and also projected a two year timeline. The transition was over much sooner than that and there weren't any new PPC products to speak of, as far as I remember. And of course, PPC Macs only got one more version of OS X before support for them was dropped. They're just trying not to Osbourne themselves too badly. They want you to keep buying Intel Macs, but who's to say how long they'll keep support.
- acdha 6y agoPPC was complicated by coming after years of failing to have decent chips actually ship. In this case, Intel and AMD are both still heavily invested in pushing x86 forward and Apple doesn’t have to do all of the work maintaining things like compilers or the JVM so it’d be a lot easier to keep that option alive if there was a good enough reason.