34 ms·

Should I buy an Intel Mac today or wait to buy an Arm-based Mac?

124 points by jedimind 6y ago

Havoc 6y ago
Given that the future of mac software will clearly be arm I don't see the point of buying intel now. Unless you plan on replacing it before transition period...but even then the resell value will presumably be shocking by then
- ComputerGuru 6y ago
  Given that rMBPs from 2012 and 2013 command a huge premium right now... You'd basically have to believe that Apple is actually serious about it's non-iOS offerings and is actually committing to perftecting the hardware and software to a degree that we haven't seen in a decade. Remember when Apple "invented" the trashcan workstation that was going to revolutionize the world of desktop computers? People might prefer to have trusty tech that supports all the software written today and more or less just works instead of incredibly ambitious but half-baked and de facto abandoned tech from tomorrow. If you take into account that a lot of the impetus behind this transition is so they can reuse their hardware/software stack from the iOS world, you'll see that it is quite a leap of faith to take.
  - gre 6y ago
    I still use my 2012 rMBP daily and it's great. I'm holding out for an ARM MBP.
  - Havoc 6y ago
    >you'll see that it is quite a leap of faith to take. One that Apple is clearly willing to take. Do you really want to bet against that? Full disclosure though - iphone aside I'm not in the apple world so my opinion may not be particularly informed
- apple4ever 6y ago
  I can think of a couple reasons: 1. You use Bootcamp, Windows virtualized, or Linux Virtualized 2. You are worried about first gen hardware 3. You believe that a high end Intel iMac will be faster than an Apple Silicon iMac. 4. You believe that Intel Macs will be supported for at least 5 years. All four are why I'm buying a new Intel iMac when it comes out, and keeping it for 5 years (as has been my Mac cycle).
christiansakai 6y ago
Will this break VMs like Parallel?
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Yes, until they update for ARM support (they will not run Intel VMs anymore).
htk 6y ago
To most people I would say that it depends on what you want to do with your Mac. If you also want/need to run Windows I would pick an Intel one. If you think you’d be content to live exclusively in Apple’s World I would pick the Arm one as it has the upside of also running iOS apps natively.
- als0 6y ago
  > it has the upside of also running iOS apps natively I've been thinking about this lately, and I wonder who the audience is. For example, I've had a Chromebook that can run Android apps for a while now, but I've never wanted to run them when the desktop equivalent is available. Even if a desktop equivalent is not available, it has the downside of not fitting in well with the look-and-feel and ergonomics of the desktop. However, I think being able to run iOS apps natively is great for developers testing iOS/iPadOS apps.
  - minimaxir 6y ago
    Since it seems like Catalyst is not as popular as expected, I'd love to run streamlined native apps in their own window without having to open a browser tab of everything (e.g. for Reddit, using Apollo instead of the god-awful web UI) iOS apps on the Mac would give it a robust gaming library overnight.
    - toyg 6y ago
      > Catalyst is not as popular as expected Expected by whom, exactly? I don’t think anyone ever asked for Catalyst, it was just an ugly push from Apple. It’s unpopularity was actually fairly predictable. And on iOS gaming: iOS gaming and desktop gaming cater to different markets. Nobody ever bought a desktop or laptop to play something like Fruit Ninja.
      - als0 6y ago
        Indeed. I don't imagine games that are designed for two thumbs, like Fruit Ninja and Flappy Bird, are going to contribute significantly to the Mac's gaming experience.
ScottFree 6y ago
I'd buy an Intel mac from 2015. The modern ones all have their well-documented problems. The ARM based macs will almost certainly have a small period of instability and incompatibility when they first launch, just like the Intel macs did.
- valuearb 6y ago
  The current MacBooks (Air and Pro) are easily the best they’ve ever made, and have addressed all key complaints from the 2016 redesign.
  - als0 6y ago
    What do you think of the keyboard? I'm still lovingly holding on to my 2015 MBP which has keys that actually travel. For context, the last new Mac keyboard I tried was the butterfly variant.
    - valuearb 6y ago
      Lots of people actually liked the 2016 keyboards, less travel is fine for many people, including me. The real problem as the susceptibility to debris breaking keys, and not being easily fixable. So the new MacBook keyboards seemed to have the debris issue licked, and a little more travel. That’s all I need, but if you want more travel I can see it’s not there for you yet.
- btgeekboy 6y ago
  I agree about not getting an ARM Mac on launch day, for the reasons you’ve cited. But I have a 2015 Pro for work, and a 2020 Air for myself. The Air is a fantastic machine, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it again, even after the ARM announcement.
dasil003 6y ago
I'm pretty keen on buying one of the last Intel MBPs late this year or next year. First-generation Apple products are always buggier than the subsequent versions, so even as a consumer I'd want to wait for second gen. More importantly, as a developer, I'm still deploying everything to Linux on Intel, so I value the ability to virtualize Linux without emulation. That said, I'm excited about the potential for ARM over time with Apple's performance trajectory, and if Apple holds onto developer mindshare and doesn't totally nerf Mac OS in the name of iOS parity, then there could be a strong halo effect pushing ARM servers and cloud hosting forward. I just don't want to be on that bleeding edge of architecture transition pain.
- bdcravens 6y ago
  > More importantly, as a developer, I'm still deploying everything to Linux on Intel, so I value the ability to virtualize Linux without emulation. Then why not just develop on Linux?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - dasil003 6y ago
    I was strongly considering it, given the touchbar and keyboard nonsense, but then they at least brought back the escape key and inverted arrows which was enough to keep me onboard. Native docker would be a strong draw, but the thing that has stopped me so far is that I have refined workflows and a handful of killer apps (eg. OmniFocus) that I don't want to retool.
  - skwb 6y ago
    Some of us are not masochists at heart, and value the ability to switch between a GUI for my desktop things and a virtualized Linux image for development/testing.
    - freetime2 6y ago
      Of course you should use whatever works best for you, but I disagree with your characterization of Linux users as masochists at heart. I’m very much a person who values technology that “just works”. While my latest Ubuntu installation admittedly wasn’t quite as smooth as running macOS on Apple hardware, the gap has narrowed considerably. Especially for anyone who already possesses a fair amount of Linux experience from working with servers for work, and who sticks with known-compatible hardware, running a Linux desktop can be a delight.
minimaxir 6y ago
I do want to upgrade my 2016 MacBook to an iMac because although everything on the OS works fine, I'm beginning to do work that's hitting performance ceilings. If new Macs w/ Apple Silicon are being released this fall, I hope the 27/30-in iMacs w/ Apple Silicon rumored to launch next year count as the "second" revision in context of Apple's infamous first-gen issues.
- tmpz22 6y ago
  Just curious what kind of workload your 2016 MB is bottlenecking from? Have you considered an eGPU for graphical based workloads, or a pre-built desktop for workloads that would function equally well on Windows or WSL2?
  - minimaxir 6y ago
    Current-workload-wise, I do want to do a lot more work with virtualization (if Docker was not announced for Apple Silicon it would have been a nonstarter), plus the ability to play an occasional game or two via Metal. I actually bought a weaker 2016 MacBook Pro when it launched under the assumption that eGPUs would take off; unfortunately, the cost premium turned out to be not worth it, and the inability to use Nvidia GPUs without extreme hacking makes it a nonstarter. (I also planned to use it for training ML models; the massive cost drops in cloud computing make having a local GPU unnecessary) My place isn't big enough for a full-on Windows workstation, plus I'm invested enough in the Mac ecosystem that I get benefit from that synergy. EDIT: Another performance bottleneck in my work is video recording/livestreaming; currently on my Mac I get slowdown when I record HD video for complicated work, so I would prefer to mitigate that.
    - pvg 6y ago
      There are Intel NUCs these days that are tiny but run desktop (rather than mobile) CPUs. They're about a fifth the size of a typical eGPU box (or, slightly larger than a docked Nintendo Switch). This can work for the sort of filler needs you're describing - a bit more CPU or graphical oompf, a system to offload some tasks to (say, VMs, streaming/encoding) and putz around with Windows/games or a real local Linux install.
valuearb 6y ago
I would like to switch from my 2018 Mini to a 16 inch MBP, I miss being able to code anywhere in the house or being able to code elsewhere while waiting for kids. But it’s not a need yet, so trying to hold on till Q2 2021 when the 16 inch ARM MBP is due. Not worried about buying the first version, Apple has always nailed these transitions incredibly well in the past.
- dirtylowprofile 6y ago
  What is your Mac Mini specs right now if you don’t mind me asking
  - valuearb 6y ago
    I got the 6 core with a 500 Gb SSD, because the bigger the SSD the more writing lanes it would get. IIRC the 500 Gb writes almost as fast as the 1 Tb, and way faster than the 256 Gb. I started it with 16 Gb RAM to avoid Apple RAM tax, and just installed 32 Gb for only $180. Thought about spending $280 for 64 Gb, but cheaped out. Edit: Hindsight being 20-20, should have got a 8Gb/1 Tb and upgraded the ram right then. The Ram upgrade is a lot easier that it first appears but easily done in an hour being careful. I think ram upgrades were more expensive at the time and I was anxious to get using it.
- izacus 6y ago
  Why would you expect that Apple ARM is going to get close to i9 performance of 16" MBP? Nothing from benchmarks shows that. All the Apple ARM benchmarks I've seen is that they're competitive with MacBook Air class offerings and not the high performance CPUs.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    I thought the geekbench results for the A13 are already comparing favorably to a i9 and that is running on a phone. Imagine a version which has 10x the thermal headroom than the iPhone. Also, the ARM MB Pros are likely to run a variation of the A14 on the 5nm TSMC process. Beyond the raw CPU power, it has been quite overlooked how much performance Apple can get by putting additional compute units onto the chip, like their neural net accellerators. As they own the whole hard- and softwarestack, they can much more easily make the best use out of those additions.
sgt 6y ago
This is a question that comes up regardless of huge paradigm shifts like changing the CPU architecture. Don't worry so much - what you DO on the computer is much more important than having the latest spec. Intel Mac's will be relevant for almost 10 years, based on my experience with the PPC transition.
- seabrookmx 6y ago
  My experience with the PPC transition was definitely not that. A 2004 PowerMac G5 lost basically all software support and required community involvement (the likes of tenfourfox) to even get a competent browser by around 2010. Snow Leopard released in 2009 and didn't support PPC Macs. That said, I think the Intel transition will likely be slower. Apple has said they plan to keep releasing Intel Mac's and there's certain things (discrete GPU support?) that might motivate them to do so. That and upgrade cycles on desktops/laptops have also slowed quite a bit in the last 15 years.
  - acdha 6y ago
    Firefox didn’t drop support until 2012, Safari was supported until the last OS X release. https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-us/firefox/3.6.28/releasenotes/ https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_... 6 years from the last hardware sale is also probably a bit forced because PowerPC was never as well supported by compilers, libraries, etc., performance was well behind years before the switch, and Apple has migrated a lot of tasks which used to involve assembler to higher level libraries. This time around I don’t think you’ll have that pressure because it’s not like LLVM is going to stop supporting Intel and most projects are using the same compiler for each platform, so it’s not like you’re going to need to keep an old toolchain like Code Warrior in life support just to ship updates.
    - classichasclass 6y ago
      (TenFourFox dev here) Depends on what you want to call support. 3.6 (the last PowerPC and 10.4 compatible version) was indeed supported until the first Extended Support Release with Firefox 10, since 3.6 was effectively the first ESR in all but name. But 3.6 aged awfully fast, and even when 3.6 was current certain features never made it to PowerPC (like the JIT), so I think it's also fair to say the support it got was never the same as x86 Macs did when they emerged.
acdha 6y ago
It depends on what you’re buying for: if you’re a professional you buy what runs your software when you need it. If you’re looking to play older games under Windows, buy Intel and see how the transition goes to see whether you need to buy a PC next time.
tln 6y ago
As a developer who values running the same docker images as production, I'm out -- no more mac purchases for me. Gaming on a mac is already a challenge. None of my most valued software is Mac specific anymore. The trend of incredibly locked down software will only continue. The calculus may be different if I were heavily in the iOS ecosystem, or if the "exciting new Intel-based Macs" buck the trend and represent good value. If you're not an iOS developer, do you see things the same way?
- stunt 6y ago
  I don't understand how people use Docker on macOS. It's so slow and non of those tricks like UNISON and NFS really solve it. I do all my work on Linux powered XPS and all my personal stuff on macOS.
  - baddox 6y ago
    Absolutely. It’s broken. Given that Apple mentioned explicit support for or cooperation with Docker for the new ARM Macs, I think there’s a decent chance it will actually perform better.
  - m0xte 6y ago
    I do all my dev work in AWS or a Linux box in another room (where it can be as noisy as it likes). macOS is just a nice terminal environment with desktop luxuries and half decent integration with iPhone and iPad.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    I use Docker machine. I can switch between a local vm or one spawned on digital ocean at a moment’s notice. The local vm (backed by either xhyve, vbox, or fusion depending on the mood) runs circles around Docker’s own Docker for Mac version, which tries too hard to be magic for its own good.
- Fredej 6y ago
  Depending on what you consider production, there are definitely possibilities: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/
appleiigs 6y ago
I am guessing here and hoping some can correct me if i’m wrong: Existing Mac Intel applications need to transitioned to ARM applications and will be either: A) recompiled (buggy) or, B) emulated (slow). My options are: 1) ARM - which will be buggy or slow immediately or, 2) Intel - which will have problems 5-7 years when Intel apps no longer supported... and by that time I’ll be ready for a new computer anyway. So, Option 2) is the way to go??
- lunixbochs 6y ago
  They are recompiled by Rosetta at install time, leaked benchmarks indicate it’s not slow.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    And to add on, the recompiled code is thrown away when it does sketchy things like JIT or rewriting itself. So it should be able to avoid many of the bugs you might encounter in that area by just emulating complicated bits.
  - sfgweilr4f 6y ago
    This puzzles me. Why don't they just recompile the projects to ARM and go with fat binaries? Stop emulating things. It wastes power. Plus the compiler toolchain already exists.
    - NobodyNada 6y ago
      The recommended way to run apps is indeed to recompile to ARM using universal binaries [0]. Rosetta is just to support older apps that have not yet been updated for ARM. [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_universal_macos_binary https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_u...
    - acdha 6y ago
      That’s what they announced, and it’s trivial as you’d expect from a company which has at times supported 4 architectures (32/64-bit PowerPC and Intel). Rosetta 2 is for the apps which don’t do that.
stunt 6y ago
If you are building stuff on Apple ecosystem and you can wait, better to go for ARM. Otherwise, why do you want to wait? I don't think Apple is going to drop Intel support anytime soon.
jtchang 6y ago
Would it be possible to design a macbook that has both an intel x86 processor and an ARM one? Sort of like how we turn off the discrete GPU when not needed. Too expensive or too complex?
- netsharc 6y ago
  In 1995 they had a PowerPC and 486 in one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UclHrIIaYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UclHrIIaYA I guess, like the graphics cards, the "weaker" card is connected to the display, and just passes through information. So with a dual CPU it would really be like virtualization, and the input/output would be handled by the newer ARM cpu, but if they'd need to run an x86-64 program, they'd start up that CPU and whatever info it needs from the OS, there'd be a translation layer.
- abrowne 6y ago
  The T2 in the current MacBooks is an ARM chip, so it's possible, they just aren't using it to run the main OS.
- tus88 6y ago
  They will just emulate x86 which is the same result.
- valuearb 6y ago
  Actually existing Macs sort of have both, given they include the T2 chip which contains the same ARM cores that were in the iPhone 7. It's actually not the cost, though having two functional CPUs would cost more. How would it work? How much time and effort would go into building the hardware so they could interoperate and the OS to make it usable? Just a massive amount of complexity for very little gain. Apple's Rosetta2 will already run x86 code with very good performance on Apple Silicon, in MacOS as a MacOS app. Hundreds of dollars per Mac cheaper, and far less complex to integrate.
  - toast0 6y ago
    This could be fun to make work. Processes would have a flag for x86 or arm, and only be scheduled on the processors for that type of processor. Most likely pick one processor architecture as native for the kernel in, and the other one has just enough kernel to trap system calls and call into the native kernel, and switch tasks.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jhoechtl 6y ago
Buy a Ryzen today
- fierarul 6y ago
  +1 The Ryzen 4800h is the biggest leap in terms of CPU power for me since the Core Duo days. My 2015 MBP seems quite slow now. And the Lenovo Legion 5 was less that $1000!
Lammy 6y ago
Buy a used Intel Mac today and it will give you several more years of service while the ecosystem handles the ARM transition. You should never buy a first-gen Apple product, especially the first gen of such a radical change. I expect buyers of the first ARM-based Macs to end up like the buyers of the first Intel-based Macs who were saddled with Core Solo processors and 32-bit EFI.
- AprilArcus 6y ago
  I owned that machine - the original MacBook Pro from 2006, with a Core Duo - and it lasted five years and could have gone longer. I only replaced it after the aluminum bezel succumbed to mechanical fatigue. Of all the Macs I've ever owner, it was the most reliable and long-lived. The 32 bit ISA was never a problem in practice.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Perhaps, but Apple really hated it.
  - Lammy 6y ago
    If you held on to that machine for a few more years it would have been dropped by OS X Yosemite, but then hilariously still supported by essentially making the machine a Hackintosh! https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-yosemite.1740775/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-el-capitan.1890435/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2... A similar situation played out when macOS Sierra dropped support for 2008–2009 models that can be re-enabled in a patch: http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html http://netkas.org/forum/index.php?topic=852.0 http://netkas.org/forum/index.php?topic=852.0
    - yoz-y 6y ago
      DosDude's patches are the bomb! I've upgraded my 2009 MBP all the way up to Mojave (I could have went to Catalina but I've upgraded my machine after it came out so decided to stay there) The only real issues were that webcam no longer works (bummer) and that somewhere down the road Homebrew stopped supporting Penryn architecture with binary releases so I had to hack it to force it to compile stuff from source.
lowbloodsugar 6y ago
Seems like there is a pretty straightforward decision tree that one could create by rearranging these questions: Is this business or pleasure? Do you just run windows on it (as I've seen CEOs and COOs do)? Are you a developer? For binary linux builds (including docker)? For iOS? For Mac? Or Java? Do you have a build farm running on the various platforms and OS you support? Do you target just one specific platform and are you already cross-compiling or building on a remote machine? Do you need to debug binaries locally? Do you require a particular piece of software for your job? Is that software available for an ARM Mac? I think if a person isn't qualified to answer these questions for themselves, then that gives us enough information to recommend that they buy an ARM Mac. ARM is the future for Apple.
- ghaff 6y ago
  The main thing, based on what we know now, is that virtualized (or Bootcamp) Windows is a non-starter. That's not to say someone won't figure out how to do something hacky with a Surface Pro build or something, but basically no. Other than that I agree that if you need a system to write/debug MacOS apps that run on Windows, you probably need a MacOS system if you don't have access to one. Otherwise, if you need a new system, get an ARM and just deal with the migration pains.
fierarul 6y ago
Of course, the question is a false dichotomy. Now is the perfect time to switch to something else entirely. The Ryzen laptops with Linux are beasts and even Windows might be a good developer workstation with their Linux subsystem.
- qayxc 6y ago
  That time to switch depends entirely on the target demographic, though. It might be fine for your web developer type or casual user. Professionals, however, have a lot invested in certain platforms. Be it the ability to publish their work (e.g. Apple's Walled Garden requires you to use a Mac for publishing to their app stores), workflows established over years, or investment in hard- and software that are tied to the Mac ecosystem. Switching to something else entirely is of course always an option, but it's not always a realistic or sensible option...
  - fierarul 6y ago
    In my book a professional that marries a given platform so hard is no true professional. Although it might seem oh so sensible and realistic to give into even more strings to be attached. It should give these professionals pause if they are so utterly dependent on a system. There are also quite a lot of professionals that could easily switch with some minor inconveniences. PS: I find it jarring how you are associating the casual user with a web developer type.
    - _ph_ 6y ago
      A professional shouldn't be "married" to a platform, but most professionals have a clear understanding which platform gives them the best productivity and the environment they like to work in. There are quite a few things which keep me going with the Mac over a Windows machine, though WSL makes the latter more interesting than it had been in the past.
    - qayxc 6y ago
      > I find it jarring how you are associating the casual user with a web developer type. How so? Both don't require any special hard- or software environment and in principle only need an environment that provides access to a modern browser (and optionally some tools for office, graphic editing and the like). You can use cloud-based services like REPL.it to fulfil all your development needs in the browser. Backends are available in the cloud and all your source code lives there anyway. No need for beefy local hardware or any particular OS. It's the ultimate platform-agnostic development activity and thus your OS or hardware shouldn't matter - just like it shouldn't matter for casual users; every mainstream and even many niche OS these days are usable enough for everyday tasks and running modern browsers. If you think it's somehow degrading to say that modern web development doesn't require any more hard- or software than casually browsing the web, watching movies, or editing holiday pictures, then you completely missed the point. It's actually great that you don't need expensive workstation level hard- and software to do web development and that - in principle - an iPad with a keyboard will do.
satvikpendem 6y ago
I need Windows and macOS support, so it'll be Intel for me. I'm working on a Hackintosh right now, so hopefully either x86 is supported for a while, or we can get ARM-based Hackintoshes before the deprecation of x86 macOS.
m0zg 6y ago
I bypassed the whole decision entirely and after 15 years of using Macs of various flavors went back to Windows for stuff that doesn't run on Linux (Lightroom, Ableton). It works fine and I got used to it within a week. I think quite a few people will do the same thing, especially when it comes to laptops. MBP pricing in particular makes no sense when Lenovo X1 exists and has a vastly superior keyboard, more ports, and a higher density display. Importantly, it also looks great. Similar configs are literally $1K apart. It's time to give MS another chance, IMO.
protomyth 6y ago
For work, I expect we will buy some Intel Macs, but for myself, I'll probably go with the ARM since I do some Mac App programming. That whole need Boot Camp or x86 Windows is a powerful need. Question, can someone hang a x86 off the thunderbolt port to help with virtualization?
- na85 6y ago
  > hang a x86 off the thunderbolt port What does that mean?
  - vbezhenar 6y ago
    I guess something like Intel PC which would receive power over thunderbolt and use some protocol to communicate with "host" OS. I never heard anything like it, but that's an interesting idea.
    - protomyth 6y ago
      It happened a lot in the old days. The Z80 card for the Apple II, Acorn had a bus, Mac had an Apple II card, etc.
  - perardi 6y ago
    I think they're asking “can you hang an entire x86 system off of Thunderbolt like you can an eGPU, and then have x86 binaries execute there?” Which, no? Probably? If your goal is to run Windows, it’d be cheaper and easier to just buy a Windows box and then screenshare into it.
    - protomyth 6y ago
      I was more thinking of a Stick without the graphics or I/O. Kinda like the old coprocessor card in some of the early PCs.
ykevinator 6y ago
Is intel doomed? Apple and Amazon are making chips now
vbezhenar 6y ago
Apple discontinued the use of PowerPC processors in 2006. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard released at August 28, 2009 was the first version of OS X to be built exclusively for Intel Macs. So extrapolating on Mac history one can expect last Intel Mac to be supported for 3 years.
- re 6y ago
  > Apple discontinued the use of PowerPC processors in 2006 To be a little more specific, they actually both released the first Intel Mac and discontinued the last PPC Mac in 2006, over the course of 210 days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Intel_processors#2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Intel_proces...
- rovr138 6y ago
  > extrapolating With a sample size of 1,... We don’t know.
  - SahAssar 6y ago
    Similar for the 68k to PPC transition, 1996 was the last year for the powerbook 190s, the last 68k, and MacOS 8.5 (which required PPC) was released 1998 (to the month 2 years later). So going by history we can expect 2-3 years, with a sample size of 2.
jitendrac 6y ago
It highly depends on your use case, If your work require Mac extensively [iOs app dev??]and you also require mobility with device, I will suggest to buy 1-2 year old Mac laptop. else if mobility is not concern, try using Hackintosh based system. There are many known well working sets of hardware combination discussed among hackintosh community.
SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
> Apple has demoed Rosetta 2 with apps and games, and shown that there's no apparent difference between running an Intel app on an Intel machine versus an Apple Silicon machine. Everything works as you'd expect, but if performance is important to you it may take some time for all your software to be updated to support the new processors. Marketing fluff or what? Because if they are emulating x86 on ARM, doesn’t there have to be a performance issue? Unless they built their ARM chip with lots of suspiciously x86-looking functions?
- sroussey 6y ago
  It’s non emulation really. Emulation is like JIT. Only converting code as its running. So emulator and the code have to run at the same time. This time they are doing AOT — converting the entire app at once ahead of time. Slow to start the first time, but decent speed after. Without the source it is not optimized, but still faster than emulation.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It is both: AOT, and fall back to JIT when necessary.
  - SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
    AOT / recompile... Ok, that makes more sense than straight emulation all the time.
jbirer 6y ago
I would advise app and mobile developers to wait for the ARM Macs. They will have near native performance for iOS emulation (or even native if everything works out). The demand for people who can do ARM optimizations will also surge.
- ArgyleSound 6y ago
  Apple has already said they will natively run every iOS app on the App Store unless devs opt out so I expect this does indeed mean literally native performance.
  - jbirer 6y ago
    That sounds great for testing and performance. I expect that macOS and ipadOS will merge after sometime.
_ph_ 6y ago
It depends on how quickly you need to upgrade, how important smooth operations are, and of course, whether you depend on bootcamp/virtualisation. If you need to upgrade soon and are dependant on the machine "just working", get an Intel based Mac. Obviously the same, if you need virtualisation. You do get a machine, which works now and will do so easily for the next 5 years to come. The new ARM Macs are very tempting, but it might take up to 2 years until the device you want to refresh is avialable with an ARM processor, and there might be teething problems. In any case, it will take some time, till most software is avialable natively. On the other side, unless there are first-generation issues, with an ARM-Mac you are very forward-looking. So for me, the answer is easy. For my work, I am going to renew my MB Pro on Intel, but privately, I am going to try to stretch the life of my iMac out, until I can an ARM based one. The iMac is still running on Mojave for compatibility reasons, so if I upgrade, going to ARM shouldn't be less compatible (which probably was the reason for Catalina to be that incompatible).
catmistake 6y ago
Answer is simple, explanation is complex. Wait, unless you need to run virtual Windows. x86 always sucked. It was always a dog. Everything that ever competed with x86 was technically superior to x86, including 68k, PPC, and ARM will be no different. If you have some burning need to run WinVMs, then you need x86. Otherwise, even this first gen Apple ARM hardware will be better than the Intel Macs in performance, and this even in Rosetta2 emulation, and this has been proven by the developer kit using 2 year old processor competing with today's x86. When Apple releases their first ARM macs, they will be cutting edge, will see faster and far more efficient processing, thus expect battery life in ARM MacBooks that any x86 MacBook or AnyBook can not compete. As far as the "don't buy first gen Macs" folks are concerned, they are stuck in 1994. Apple is a different company now. Except for minor issues like avant garde butterfly keyboards that they're abandoning, the internal hardware has no competition, and you're going to pay for that, but it is not actually more expensive than any hardware comparatively configured. So save your money, get another year out of your x86 Mac, and get the ARM Mac. Otherwise, you'll have 2 gens of x86 Macs, and one will gather dust. Wait for the ARM, and you will continue to use your x86 Mac.
- spronkey 6y ago
  Yeah, the DTK hasn't exactly shown that Apple Silicon can outdo Intel, let alone AMD. I remain rather skeptical. I think this is a business win for Apple moreso than a technical win.
- rsecora 6y ago
  Osborne effect. The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely.
  - catmistake 6y ago
    > Osborne effect. Totally. Don't buy either, Apple is obviously going under. >< Thing about Macs is, they have this incredible lifetime, annoyingly (to those that like to save with buying older hw) hold high value in resale. Try pricing a Mac Mini from 2012, or Late 2014. Compare a similar compact WinDesk from those years. Though it is interesting to see a pattern, and moreso when it is famous enough to have a name, I do not think the Osborne effect applies here. Today's current Intel Mac will still be unaffordable NIB or used when the 3rd gen ARM Macs are released. I'm not really happy about that.
justnotworthit 6y ago
I'd say: If you have to ask, then don't early adopt, even if it's obviously the future. I advise against buying 1st-gen/Rev A. hardware to begin with. It's almost always quickly replaced by something much much better.
jlokier 6y ago
It's awkward. I have a 2013 rMBP which I'm very happy with. It was bought in part to start developing OSX/iOS software while also continuing to use Linux for the majority of my work, which I now do in a VM on the Mac. This setup works really well as an "all rounder" machine with excellent hardware. In a couple of years time, having an x86 Mac won't make sense for developing MacOS/iOS software. Apple talks of emulating x86 on ARM for MacOS, but not the other way around. But on the other hand, having an ARM Mac won't make sense for running x86 Linux and x86 Windows VMs. And my servers will probably still be x86. Neither choice is good.
klelatti 6y ago
The great unknown is of course how the Arm based Macs will perform vs Intel models. Thinking back to the PowerPC to Intel transition then the step up in performance per watt was enough to make the MacBook Pro a very, very clear winner - I don't think that many people were wishing they had bought a PowerPC laptop. There is clearly the potential for this to happen again. Apple clearly doesn't want to "Osborne" its existing range, but if the gains are only marginal then the justification for the change becomes quite weak. If you depend on x86 for Windows or for server development then buying a Intel Mac will give you what you need. For everyone else - especially buying a laptop - I would have thought that at least hanging on, if you can, would be a sensible option.
- rsecora 6y ago
  > I would have thought that at least hanging on. it happened the same to the Sega Saturn / Dreamcast, the MakerBot, and the Osborne Computer in the 80s. Customer delayed buys, because a new and disruptive product generation was coming. That effect is named as Osborne Effect since the 80s. Let's see what happens with the upcoming Macs.
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    It’s made all the more interesting by the current MacBook line. For the first time in a very long time it’s a good lineup and is close to the ‘good, better, best’ of the olden times.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
rsecora 6y ago
Maybe latent Osborne effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect
coldtea 6y ago
Shouldn't there be a leasing program for computers? So you can have the latest model every 3-4 years, give it back if it breaks down and get a new one pronto, and just pay monthly instalments (with some premium) instead of the whole upfront fee.
- viraptor 6y ago
  There are programs like that. For example https://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p=leasing https://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p...
- saagarjha 6y ago
  I hear you can lease one of the prototypes for a few months for $500 ;)
bpye 6y ago
The promise of ARM based Macs is delaying my next laptop purchase for a single reason - battery life. I want to see the battery life metrics of their new devices, depending on that I intend to decide.
gajjanag 6y ago
Does anyone here have a good source for how fast vector instructions (AVX2 and the like) will compute under Rosetta2 on the Arm-based Macs vs the current x86 Macs?
- Veedrac 6y ago
  Rosetta 2 doesn't support AVX.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jonplackett 6y ago
If you can wait, then wait. That should always be the motto when buying a mac anyway. But even more so now. You will either get the Arm, or get a fantastic deal on an Intel mac.
- rovr138 6y ago
  That should be the motto for everything. The odds something will have a newer/revised version in the future is higher.
  - jonplackett 6y ago
    Every now and then it’s extra true though
manicdee 6y ago
The list of things stopping me going to ARM-based macs: - OCR software for my scanner (admittedly becoming less and less relevant over time) - Fortinet VPN client which is intel-only - Steam library (still on Mojave because half my games won’t work on Catalina) I can resolve the Steam library issues by getting a dedicated computer to be my games computer, but then that it an extra thing to carry on long trips.
SomeHacker44 6y ago
Not fully responsive, but I would just buy a nice Windows 10 computer. Surface, Dell XPS, Thinkpad X1, plus numerous others from various manufacturers, are available. They can run WSL, Docker, various hypervisors and VM tools, and still be fully AMD/Intel compatible for deployment. Furthermore I doubt they will become as closed as macOS is becoming, and Windows will run on them for years and years to come. I am not looking back. Touchbar, crappy keyboards, regressive and user hostile macOS, and now custom CPUs? The walled garden has become a hellish prison and I am out. I wont miss Aperture, Logic and Final Cut that much. Everything else I use is ... Imagine this ... Fully cross platform! Adobe, Ableton, Native Instruments, JetBrains, etc. Anything I cannot do easily in Windows I have WSL or Cygwin. Thanks for 12 great years and 4 increasingly miserable years, Apple. I'm out, and once my current hardware dies it won't be replaced. I like my OnePlus phone and Surface Book and Go.
- sneak 6y ago
  Windows comes with a great deal more embedded spyware and adware than macOS, and has a lot more malware targeted at it in the wild. I think the security situation is far better on macOS.
  - tootie 6y ago
    Windows really doesn't, it's the OEMs. It's a pain, but I usually spend like 30 minutes cleaning up a new laptop and it never bothers me again. My last few machines have been Acers and they were pretty clean.
    - sneak 6y ago
      This is not an accurate statement. Windows 10 includes a huge amount of spyware out of the box direct from Microsoft.
      - spronkey 6y ago
        Have you looked at the network traffic coming out of macOS lately?
angry_octet 6y ago
I think it is really a very simple question: do you want to run the software you have now, at the fastest speed possible, with all the current defects? If so, get an Intel machine now. If you want to be able to do future, different things, wait for the ARM machine. Personally I would use something like an Apple Chromebook. Long long battery life, more secure (from hardware support like the trusted enclave, microarch stuff like tagged pointers, and the OS moving towards unpriviledged applications and code signing), better iOS integration. I think we're actually overdue for Apple to offer cloud offload processing, especially for iOS, but maybe offload to the edge (your macbook) becomes easier with ARM.
jimnotgym 6y ago
Sorry to be boring, but I am wondering about how Arm Macs are going to get on with Microsoft Office. With my mac users their most used applications are Outlook, Word and Excel. Somehow I can't set them getting the same level of support as Adobe is getting. I'm interested what other people think?
- angulardragon03 6y ago
  In the keynote they already demoed Office Suite running on ARM. There’s nothing to worry about on that front.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  Considering that they demoed Powerpoint and Excel in the keynote, I would assume, that Microsoft is going to offer Office natively from the start on.
Jemm 6y ago
I'll hold out until Apple decides the iPad format is good enough for MacOS
foxyv 6y ago
This reminds me of the decision to not support Adobe Flash on the original iPad. It was a huge inconvenience to early adopters but eventually changed the face of the internet. I wonder what effect ARM Macs will have on other x86 based environments like Windows and Linux. Will we start to see a migration from x86 to ARM or will we retain the split? Ubuntu and Arch have ARM distributions but I can't build a gaming rig out with ARM. It's mostly non-upgradable integrated systems. Will that change? As an iPad 1 early adopter I would hold off on getting an ARM Mac immediately. Within a year half of the apps in the app store wouldn't work for various reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens here.

124 points by jedimind 6y ago

Given that the future of mac software will clearly be arm I don't see the point of buying intel now. Unless you plan on replacing it before transition period...but even then the resell value will presumably be shocking by then

ComputerGuru 6y ago
Given that rMBPs from 2012 and 2013 command a huge premium right now... You'd basically have to believe that Apple is actually serious about it's non-iOS offerings and is actually committing to perftecting the hardware and software to a degree that we haven't seen in a decade. Remember when Apple "invented" the trashcan workstation that was going to revolutionize the world of desktop computers? People might prefer to have trusty tech that supports all the software written today and more or less just works instead of incredibly ambitious but half-baked and de facto abandoned tech from tomorrow. If you take into account that a lot of the impetus behind this transition is so they can reuse their hardware/software stack from the iOS world, you'll see that it is quite a leap of faith to take.
- gre 6y ago
  I still use my 2012 rMBP daily and it's great. I'm holding out for an ARM MBP.
- Havoc 6y ago
  >you'll see that it is quite a leap of faith to take. One that Apple is clearly willing to take. Do you really want to bet against that? Full disclosure though - iphone aside I'm not in the apple world so my opinion may not be particularly informed
apple4ever 6y ago
I can think of a couple reasons: 1. You use Bootcamp, Windows virtualized, or Linux Virtualized 2. You are worried about first gen hardware 3. You believe that a high end Intel iMac will be faster than an Apple Silicon iMac. 4. You believe that Intel Macs will be supported for at least 5 years. All four are why I'm buying a new Intel iMac when it comes out, and keeping it for 5 years (as has been my Mac cycle).

christiansakai 6y ago

Will this break VMs like Parallel?

saagarjha 6y ago
Yes, until they update for ARM support (they will not run Intel VMs anymore).

htk 6y ago

To most people I would say that it depends on what you want to do with your Mac. If you also want/need to run Windows I would pick an Intel one. If you think you’d be content to live exclusively in Apple’s World I would pick the Arm one as it has the upside of also running iOS apps natively.

als0 6y ago
> it has the upside of also running iOS apps natively I've been thinking about this lately, and I wonder who the audience is. For example, I've had a Chromebook that can run Android apps for a while now, but I've never wanted to run them when the desktop equivalent is available. Even if a desktop equivalent is not available, it has the downside of not fitting in well with the look-and-feel and ergonomics of the desktop. However, I think being able to run iOS apps natively is great for developers testing iOS/iPadOS apps.
- minimaxir 6y ago
  Since it seems like Catalyst is not as popular as expected, I'd love to run streamlined native apps in their own window without having to open a browser tab of everything (e.g. for Reddit, using Apollo instead of the god-awful web UI) iOS apps on the Mac would give it a robust gaming library overnight.
  - toyg 6y ago
    > Catalyst is not as popular as expected Expected by whom, exactly? I don’t think anyone ever asked for Catalyst, it was just an ugly push from Apple. It’s unpopularity was actually fairly predictable. And on iOS gaming: iOS gaming and desktop gaming cater to different markets. Nobody ever bought a desktop or laptop to play something like Fruit Ninja.
    - als0 6y ago
      Indeed. I don't imagine games that are designed for two thumbs, like Fruit Ninja and Flappy Bird, are going to contribute significantly to the Mac's gaming experience.

ScottFree 6y ago

I'd buy an Intel mac from 2015. The modern ones all have their well-documented problems. The ARM based macs will almost certainly have a small period of instability and incompatibility when they first launch, just like the Intel macs did.

valuearb 6y ago
The current MacBooks (Air and Pro) are easily the best they’ve ever made, and have addressed all key complaints from the 2016 redesign.
- als0 6y ago
  What do you think of the keyboard? I'm still lovingly holding on to my 2015 MBP which has keys that actually travel. For context, the last new Mac keyboard I tried was the butterfly variant.
  - valuearb 6y ago
    Lots of people actually liked the 2016 keyboards, less travel is fine for many people, including me. The real problem as the susceptibility to debris breaking keys, and not being easily fixable. So the new MacBook keyboards seemed to have the debris issue licked, and a little more travel. That’s all I need, but if you want more travel I can see it’s not there for you yet.
btgeekboy 6y ago
I agree about not getting an ARM Mac on launch day, for the reasons you’ve cited. But I have a 2015 Pro for work, and a 2020 Air for myself. The Air is a fantastic machine, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it again, even after the ARM announcement.

dasil003 6y ago

I'm pretty keen on buying one of the last Intel MBPs late this year or next year. First-generation Apple products are always buggier than the subsequent versions, so even as a consumer I'd want to wait for second gen. More importantly, as a developer, I'm still deploying everything to Linux on Intel, so I value the ability to virtualize Linux without emulation. That said, I'm excited about the potential for ARM over time with Apple's performance trajectory, and if Apple holds onto developer mindshare and doesn't totally nerf Mac OS in the name of iOS parity, then there could be a strong halo effect pushing ARM servers and cloud hosting forward. I just don't want to be on that bleeding edge of architecture transition pain.

bdcravens 6y ago
> More importantly, as a developer, I'm still deploying everything to Linux on Intel, so I value the ability to virtualize Linux without emulation. Then why not just develop on Linux?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dasil003 6y ago
  I was strongly considering it, given the touchbar and keyboard nonsense, but then they at least brought back the escape key and inverted arrows which was enough to keep me onboard. Native docker would be a strong draw, but the thing that has stopped me so far is that I have refined workflows and a handful of killer apps (eg. OmniFocus) that I don't want to retool.
- skwb 6y ago
  Some of us are not masochists at heart, and value the ability to switch between a GUI for my desktop things and a virtualized Linux image for development/testing.
  - freetime2 6y ago
    Of course you should use whatever works best for you, but I disagree with your characterization of Linux users as masochists at heart. I’m very much a person who values technology that “just works”. While my latest Ubuntu installation admittedly wasn’t quite as smooth as running macOS on Apple hardware, the gap has narrowed considerably. Especially for anyone who already possesses a fair amount of Linux experience from working with servers for work, and who sticks with known-compatible hardware, running a Linux desktop can be a delight.

minimaxir 6y ago

I do want to upgrade my 2016 MacBook to an iMac because although everything on the OS works fine, I'm beginning to do work that's hitting performance ceilings. If new Macs w/ Apple Silicon are being released this fall, I hope the 27/30-in iMacs w/ Apple Silicon rumored to launch next year count as the "second" revision in context of Apple's infamous first-gen issues.

tmpz22 6y ago
Just curious what kind of workload your 2016 MB is bottlenecking from? Have you considered an eGPU for graphical based workloads, or a pre-built desktop for workloads that would function equally well on Windows or WSL2?
- minimaxir 6y ago
  Current-workload-wise, I do want to do a lot more work with virtualization (if Docker was not announced for Apple Silicon it would have been a nonstarter), plus the ability to play an occasional game or two via Metal. I actually bought a weaker 2016 MacBook Pro when it launched under the assumption that eGPUs would take off; unfortunately, the cost premium turned out to be not worth it, and the inability to use Nvidia GPUs without extreme hacking makes it a nonstarter. (I also planned to use it for training ML models; the massive cost drops in cloud computing make having a local GPU unnecessary) My place isn't big enough for a full-on Windows workstation, plus I'm invested enough in the Mac ecosystem that I get benefit from that synergy. EDIT: Another performance bottleneck in my work is video recording/livestreaming; currently on my Mac I get slowdown when I record HD video for complicated work, so I would prefer to mitigate that.
  - pvg 6y ago
    There are Intel NUCs these days that are tiny but run desktop (rather than mobile) CPUs. They're about a fifth the size of a typical eGPU box (or, slightly larger than a docked Nintendo Switch). This can work for the sort of filler needs you're describing - a bit more CPU or graphical oompf, a system to offload some tasks to (say, VMs, streaming/encoding) and putz around with Windows/games or a real local Linux install.

valuearb 6y ago

I would like to switch from my 2018 Mini to a 16 inch MBP, I miss being able to code anywhere in the house or being able to code elsewhere while waiting for kids. But it’s not a need yet, so trying to hold on till Q2 2021 when the 16 inch ARM MBP is due. Not worried about buying the first version, Apple has always nailed these transitions incredibly well in the past.

dirtylowprofile 6y ago
What is your Mac Mini specs right now if you don’t mind me asking
- valuearb 6y ago
  I got the 6 core with a 500 Gb SSD, because the bigger the SSD the more writing lanes it would get. IIRC the 500 Gb writes almost as fast as the 1 Tb, and way faster than the 256 Gb. I started it with 16 Gb RAM to avoid Apple RAM tax, and just installed 32 Gb for only $180. Thought about spending $280 for 64 Gb, but cheaped out. Edit: Hindsight being 20-20, should have got a 8Gb/1 Tb and upgraded the ram right then. The Ram upgrade is a lot easier that it first appears but easily done in an hour being careful. I think ram upgrades were more expensive at the time and I was anxious to get using it.
izacus 6y ago
Why would you expect that Apple ARM is going to get close to i9 performance of 16" MBP? Nothing from benchmarks shows that. All the Apple ARM benchmarks I've seen is that they're competitive with MacBook Air class offerings and not the high performance CPUs.
- _ph_ 6y ago
  I thought the geekbench results for the A13 are already comparing favorably to a i9 and that is running on a phone. Imagine a version which has 10x the thermal headroom than the iPhone. Also, the ARM MB Pros are likely to run a variation of the A14 on the 5nm TSMC process. Beyond the raw CPU power, it has been quite overlooked how much performance Apple can get by putting additional compute units onto the chip, like their neural net accellerators. As they own the whole hard- and softwarestack, they can much more easily make the best use out of those additions.

sgt 6y ago

This is a question that comes up regardless of huge paradigm shifts like changing the CPU architecture. Don't worry so much - what you DO on the computer is much more important than having the latest spec. Intel Mac's will be relevant for almost 10 years, based on my experience with the PPC transition.

seabrookmx 6y ago
My experience with the PPC transition was definitely not that. A 2004 PowerMac G5 lost basically all software support and required community involvement (the likes of tenfourfox) to even get a competent browser by around 2010. Snow Leopard released in 2009 and didn't support PPC Macs. That said, I think the Intel transition will likely be slower. Apple has said they plan to keep releasing Intel Mac's and there's certain things (discrete GPU support?) that might motivate them to do so. That and upgrade cycles on desktops/laptops have also slowed quite a bit in the last 15 years.
- acdha 6y ago
  Firefox didn’t drop support until 2012, Safari was supported until the last OS X release. https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_releasenotes/en-us/firefox/3.6.28/releasenotes/ https://website-archive.mozilla.org/www.mozilla.org/firefox_... 6 years from the last hardware sale is also probably a bit forced because PowerPC was never as well supported by compilers, libraries, etc., performance was well behind years before the switch, and Apple has migrated a lot of tasks which used to involve assembler to higher level libraries. This time around I don’t think you’ll have that pressure because it’s not like LLVM is going to stop supporting Intel and most projects are using the same compiler for each platform, so it’s not like you’re going to need to keep an old toolchain like Code Warrior in life support just to ship updates.
  - classichasclass 6y ago
    (TenFourFox dev here) Depends on what you want to call support. 3.6 (the last PowerPC and 10.4 compatible version) was indeed supported until the first Extended Support Release with Firefox 10, since 3.6 was effectively the first ESR in all but name. But 3.6 aged awfully fast, and even when 3.6 was current certain features never made it to PowerPC (like the JIT), so I think it's also fair to say the support it got was never the same as x86 Macs did when they emerged.

acdha 6y ago

It depends on what you’re buying for: if you’re a professional you buy what runs your software when you need it. If you’re looking to play older games under Windows, buy Intel and see how the transition goes to see whether you need to buy a PC next time.

tln 6y ago

As a developer who values running the same docker images as production, I'm out -- no more mac purchases for me. Gaming on a mac is already a challenge. None of my most valued software is Mac specific anymore. The trend of incredibly locked down software will only continue. The calculus may be different if I were heavily in the iOS ecosystem, or if the "exciting new Intel-based Macs" buck the trend and represent good value. If you're not an iOS developer, do you see things the same way?

stunt 6y ago
I don't understand how people use Docker on macOS. It's so slow and non of those tricks like UNISON and NFS really solve it. I do all my work on Linux powered XPS and all my personal stuff on macOS.
- baddox 6y ago
  Absolutely. It’s broken. Given that Apple mentioned explicit support for or cooperation with Docker for the new ARM Macs, I think there’s a decent chance it will actually perform better.
- m0xte 6y ago
  I do all my dev work in AWS or a Linux box in another room (where it can be as noisy as it likes). macOS is just a nice terminal environment with desktop luxuries and half decent integration with iPhone and iPad.
- lloeki 6y ago
  I use Docker machine. I can switch between a local vm or one spawned on digital ocean at a moment’s notice. The local vm (backed by either xhyve, vbox, or fusion depending on the mood) runs circles around Docker’s own Docker for Mac version, which tries too hard to be magic for its own good.
Fredej 6y ago
Depending on what you consider production, there are definitely possibilities: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/ https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/

appleiigs 6y ago

I am guessing here and hoping some can correct me if i’m wrong: Existing Mac Intel applications need to transitioned to ARM applications and will be either: A) recompiled (buggy) or, B) emulated (slow). My options are: 1) ARM - which will be buggy or slow immediately or, 2) Intel - which will have problems 5-7 years when Intel apps no longer supported... and by that time I’ll be ready for a new computer anyway. So, Option 2) is the way to go??

lunixbochs 6y ago
They are recompiled by Rosetta at install time, leaked benchmarks indicate it’s not slow.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  And to add on, the recompiled code is thrown away when it does sketchy things like JIT or rewriting itself. So it should be able to avoid many of the bugs you might encounter in that area by just emulating complicated bits.
- sfgweilr4f 6y ago
  This puzzles me. Why don't they just recompile the projects to ARM and go with fat binaries? Stop emulating things. It wastes power. Plus the compiler toolchain already exists.
  - NobodyNada 6y ago
    The recommended way to run apps is indeed to recompile to ARM using universal binaries [0]. Rosetta is just to support older apps that have not yet been updated for ARM. [0]: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_universal_macos_binary https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/building_a_u...
  - acdha 6y ago
    That’s what they announced, and it’s trivial as you’d expect from a company which has at times supported 4 architectures (32/64-bit PowerPC and Intel). Rosetta 2 is for the apps which don’t do that.

stunt 6y ago

If you are building stuff on Apple ecosystem and you can wait, better to go for ARM. Otherwise, why do you want to wait? I don't think Apple is going to drop Intel support anytime soon.

jtchang 6y ago

Would it be possible to design a macbook that has both an intel x86 processor and an ARM one? Sort of like how we turn off the discrete GPU when not needed. Too expensive or too complex?

netsharc 6y ago
In 1995 they had a PowerPC and 486 in one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UclHrIIaYA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UclHrIIaYA I guess, like the graphics cards, the "weaker" card is connected to the display, and just passes through information. So with a dual CPU it would really be like virtualization, and the input/output would be handled by the newer ARM cpu, but if they'd need to run an x86-64 program, they'd start up that CPU and whatever info it needs from the OS, there'd be a translation layer.
abrowne 6y ago
The T2 in the current MacBooks is an ARM chip, so it's possible, they just aren't using it to run the main OS.
tus88 6y ago
They will just emulate x86 which is the same result.
valuearb 6y ago
Actually existing Macs sort of have both, given they include the T2 chip which contains the same ARM cores that were in the iPhone 7. It's actually not the cost, though having two functional CPUs would cost more. How would it work? How much time and effort would go into building the hardware so they could interoperate and the OS to make it usable? Just a massive amount of complexity for very little gain. Apple's Rosetta2 will already run x86 code with very good performance on Apple Silicon, in MacOS as a MacOS app. Hundreds of dollars per Mac cheaper, and far less complex to integrate.
- toast0 6y ago
  This could be fun to make work. Processes would have a flag for x86 or arm, and only be scheduled on the processors for that type of processor. Most likely pick one processor architecture as native for the kernel in, and the other one has just enough kernel to trap system calls and call into the native kernel, and switch tasks.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jhoechtl 6y ago

Buy a Ryzen today

fierarul 6y ago
+1 The Ryzen 4800h is the biggest leap in terms of CPU power for me since the Core Duo days. My 2015 MBP seems quite slow now. And the Lenovo Legion 5 was less that $1000!

Lammy 6y ago

Buy a used Intel Mac today and it will give you several more years of service while the ecosystem handles the ARM transition. You should never buy a first-gen Apple product, especially the first gen of such a radical change. I expect buyers of the first ARM-based Macs to end up like the buyers of the first Intel-based Macs who were saddled with Core Solo processors and 32-bit EFI.

AprilArcus 6y ago
I owned that machine - the original MacBook Pro from 2006, with a Core Duo - and it lasted five years and could have gone longer. I only replaced it after the aluminum bezel succumbed to mechanical fatigue. Of all the Macs I've ever owner, it was the most reliable and long-lived. The 32 bit ISA was never a problem in practice.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Perhaps, but Apple really hated it.
- Lammy 6y ago
  If you held on to that machine for a few more years it would have been dropped by OS X Yosemite, but then hilariously still supported by essentially making the machine a Hackintosh! https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-yosemite.1740775/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2... https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2-1-and-os-x-el-capitan.1890435/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/2006-2007-mac-pro-1-1-2... A similar situation played out when macOS Sierra dropped support for 2008–2009 models that can be re-enabled in a patch: http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html http://dosdude1.com/sierrapatch.html http://netkas.org/forum/index.php?topic=852.0 http://netkas.org/forum/index.php?topic=852.0
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    DosDude's patches are the bomb! I've upgraded my 2009 MBP all the way up to Mojave (I could have went to Catalina but I've upgraded my machine after it came out so decided to stay there) The only real issues were that webcam no longer works (bummer) and that somewhere down the road Homebrew stopped supporting Penryn architecture with binary releases so I had to hack it to force it to compile stuff from source.

lowbloodsugar 6y ago

Seems like there is a pretty straightforward decision tree that one could create by rearranging these questions: Is this business or pleasure? Do you just run windows on it (as I've seen CEOs and COOs do)? Are you a developer? For binary linux builds (including docker)? For iOS? For Mac? Or Java? Do you have a build farm running on the various platforms and OS you support? Do you target just one specific platform and are you already cross-compiling or building on a remote machine? Do you need to debug binaries locally? Do you require a particular piece of software for your job? Is that software available for an ARM Mac? I think if a person isn't qualified to answer these questions for themselves, then that gives us enough information to recommend that they buy an ARM Mac. ARM is the future for Apple.

ghaff 6y ago
The main thing, based on what we know now, is that virtualized (or Bootcamp) Windows is a non-starter. That's not to say someone won't figure out how to do something hacky with a Surface Pro build or something, but basically no. Other than that I agree that if you need a system to write/debug MacOS apps that run on Windows, you probably need a MacOS system if you don't have access to one. Otherwise, if you need a new system, get an ARM and just deal with the migration pains.

fierarul 6y ago

Of course, the question is a false dichotomy. Now is the perfect time to switch to something else entirely. The Ryzen laptops with Linux are beasts and even Windows might be a good developer workstation with their Linux subsystem.

qayxc 6y ago
That time to switch depends entirely on the target demographic, though. It might be fine for your web developer type or casual user. Professionals, however, have a lot invested in certain platforms. Be it the ability to publish their work (e.g. Apple's Walled Garden requires you to use a Mac for publishing to their app stores), workflows established over years, or investment in hard- and software that are tied to the Mac ecosystem. Switching to something else entirely is of course always an option, but it's not always a realistic or sensible option...
- fierarul 6y ago
  In my book a professional that marries a given platform so hard is no true professional. Although it might seem oh so sensible and realistic to give into even more strings to be attached. It should give these professionals pause if they are so utterly dependent on a system. There are also quite a lot of professionals that could easily switch with some minor inconveniences. PS: I find it jarring how you are associating the casual user with a web developer type.
  - _ph_ 6y ago
    A professional shouldn't be "married" to a platform, but most professionals have a clear understanding which platform gives them the best productivity and the environment they like to work in. There are quite a few things which keep me going with the Mac over a Windows machine, though WSL makes the latter more interesting than it had been in the past.
  - qayxc 6y ago
    > I find it jarring how you are associating the casual user with a web developer type. How so? Both don't require any special hard- or software environment and in principle only need an environment that provides access to a modern browser (and optionally some tools for office, graphic editing and the like). You can use cloud-based services like REPL.it to fulfil all your development needs in the browser. Backends are available in the cloud and all your source code lives there anyway. No need for beefy local hardware or any particular OS. It's the ultimate platform-agnostic development activity and thus your OS or hardware shouldn't matter - just like it shouldn't matter for casual users; every mainstream and even many niche OS these days are usable enough for everyday tasks and running modern browsers. If you think it's somehow degrading to say that modern web development doesn't require any more hard- or software than casually browsing the web, watching movies, or editing holiday pictures, then you completely missed the point. It's actually great that you don't need expensive workstation level hard- and software to do web development and that - in principle - an iPad with a keyboard will do.

satvikpendem 6y ago

I need Windows and macOS support, so it'll be Intel for me. I'm working on a Hackintosh right now, so hopefully either x86 is supported for a while, or we can get ARM-based Hackintoshes before the deprecation of x86 macOS.

m0zg 6y ago

I bypassed the whole decision entirely and after 15 years of using Macs of various flavors went back to Windows for stuff that doesn't run on Linux (Lightroom, Ableton). It works fine and I got used to it within a week. I think quite a few people will do the same thing, especially when it comes to laptops. MBP pricing in particular makes no sense when Lenovo X1 exists and has a vastly superior keyboard, more ports, and a higher density display. Importantly, it also looks great. Similar configs are literally $1K apart. It's time to give MS another chance, IMO.

protomyth 6y ago

For work, I expect we will buy some Intel Macs, but for myself, I'll probably go with the ARM since I do some Mac App programming. That whole need Boot Camp or x86 Windows is a powerful need. Question, can someone hang a x86 off the thunderbolt port to help with virtualization?

na85 6y ago
> hang a x86 off the thunderbolt port What does that mean?
- vbezhenar 6y ago
  I guess something like Intel PC which would receive power over thunderbolt and use some protocol to communicate with "host" OS. I never heard anything like it, but that's an interesting idea.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    It happened a lot in the old days. The Z80 card for the Apple II, Acorn had a bus, Mac had an Apple II card, etc.
- perardi 6y ago
  I think they're asking “can you hang an entire x86 system off of Thunderbolt like you can an eGPU, and then have x86 binaries execute there?” Which, no? Probably? If your goal is to run Windows, it’d be cheaper and easier to just buy a Windows box and then screenshare into it.
  - protomyth 6y ago
    I was more thinking of a Stick without the graphics or I/O. Kinda like the old coprocessor card in some of the early PCs.

ykevinator 6y ago

Is intel doomed? Apple and Amazon are making chips now

vbezhenar 6y ago

Apple discontinued the use of PowerPC processors in 2006. Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard released at August 28, 2009 was the first version of OS X to be built exclusively for Intel Macs. So extrapolating on Mac history one can expect last Intel Mac to be supported for 3 years.

re 6y ago
> Apple discontinued the use of PowerPC processors in 2006 To be a little more specific, they actually both released the first Intel Mac and discontinued the last PPC Mac in 2006, over the course of 210 days. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Intel_processors#2006 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Intel_proces...
rovr138 6y ago
> extrapolating With a sample size of 1,... We don’t know.
- SahAssar 6y ago
  Similar for the 68k to PPC transition, 1996 was the last year for the powerbook 190s, the last 68k, and MacOS 8.5 (which required PPC) was released 1998 (to the month 2 years later). So going by history we can expect 2-3 years, with a sample size of 2.

jitendrac 6y ago

It highly depends on your use case, If your work require Mac extensively [iOs app dev??]and you also require mobility with device, I will suggest to buy 1-2 year old Mac laptop. else if mobility is not concern, try using Hackintosh based system. There are many known well working sets of hardware combination discussed among hackintosh community.

SV_BubbleTime 6y ago

> Apple has demoed Rosetta 2 with apps and games, and shown that there's no apparent difference between running an Intel app on an Intel machine versus an Apple Silicon machine. Everything works as you'd expect, but if performance is important to you it may take some time for all your software to be updated to support the new processors. Marketing fluff or what? Because if they are emulating x86 on ARM, doesn’t there have to be a performance issue? Unless they built their ARM chip with lots of suspiciously x86-looking functions?

sroussey 6y ago
It’s non emulation really. Emulation is like JIT. Only converting code as its running. So emulator and the code have to run at the same time. This time they are doing AOT — converting the entire app at once ahead of time. Slow to start the first time, but decent speed after. Without the source it is not optimized, but still faster than emulation.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  It is both: AOT, and fall back to JIT when necessary.
- SV_BubbleTime 6y ago
  AOT / recompile... Ok, that makes more sense than straight emulation all the time.

jbirer 6y ago

I would advise app and mobile developers to wait for the ARM Macs. They will have near native performance for iOS emulation (or even native if everything works out). The demand for people who can do ARM optimizations will also surge.

ArgyleSound 6y ago
Apple has already said they will natively run every iOS app on the App Store unless devs opt out so I expect this does indeed mean literally native performance.
- jbirer 6y ago
  That sounds great for testing and performance. I expect that macOS and ipadOS will merge after sometime.

_ph_ 6y ago

It depends on how quickly you need to upgrade, how important smooth operations are, and of course, whether you depend on bootcamp/virtualisation. If you need to upgrade soon and are dependant on the machine "just working", get an Intel based Mac. Obviously the same, if you need virtualisation. You do get a machine, which works now and will do so easily for the next 5 years to come. The new ARM Macs are very tempting, but it might take up to 2 years until the device you want to refresh is avialable with an ARM processor, and there might be teething problems. In any case, it will take some time, till most software is avialable natively. On the other side, unless there are first-generation issues, with an ARM-Mac you are very forward-looking. So for me, the answer is easy. For my work, I am going to renew my MB Pro on Intel, but privately, I am going to try to stretch the life of my iMac out, until I can an ARM based one. The iMac is still running on Mojave for compatibility reasons, so if I upgrade, going to ARM shouldn't be less compatible (which probably was the reason for Catalina to be that incompatible).

catmistake 6y ago

Answer is simple, explanation is complex. Wait, unless you need to run virtual Windows. x86 always sucked. It was always a dog. Everything that ever competed with x86 was technically superior to x86, including 68k, PPC, and ARM will be no different. If you have some burning need to run WinVMs, then you need x86. Otherwise, even this first gen Apple ARM hardware will be better than the Intel Macs in performance, and this even in Rosetta2 emulation, and this has been proven by the developer kit using 2 year old processor competing with today's x86. When Apple releases their first ARM macs, they will be cutting edge, will see faster and far more efficient processing, thus expect battery life in ARM MacBooks that any x86 MacBook or AnyBook can not compete. As far as the "don't buy first gen Macs" folks are concerned, they are stuck in 1994. Apple is a different company now. Except for minor issues like avant garde butterfly keyboards that they're abandoning, the internal hardware has no competition, and you're going to pay for that, but it is not actually more expensive than any hardware comparatively configured. So save your money, get another year out of your x86 Mac, and get the ARM Mac. Otherwise, you'll have 2 gens of x86 Macs, and one will gather dust. Wait for the ARM, and you will continue to use your x86 Mac.

spronkey 6y ago
Yeah, the DTK hasn't exactly shown that Apple Silicon can outdo Intel, let alone AMD. I remain rather skeptical. I think this is a business win for Apple moreso than a technical win.
rsecora 6y ago
Osborne effect. The Osborne effect is a social phenomenon of customers canceling or deferring orders for the current soon-to-be-obsolete product as an unexpected drawback of a company's announcing a future product prematurely.
- catmistake 6y ago
  > Osborne effect. Totally. Don't buy either, Apple is obviously going under. >< Thing about Macs is, they have this incredible lifetime, annoyingly (to those that like to save with buying older hw) hold high value in resale. Try pricing a Mac Mini from 2012, or Late 2014. Compare a similar compact WinDesk from those years. Though it is interesting to see a pattern, and moreso when it is famous enough to have a name, I do not think the Osborne effect applies here. Today's current Intel Mac will still be unaffordable NIB or used when the 3rd gen ARM Macs are released. I'm not really happy about that.

justnotworthit 6y ago

I'd say: If you have to ask, then don't early adopt, even if it's obviously the future. I advise against buying 1st-gen/Rev A. hardware to begin with. It's almost always quickly replaced by something much much better.

jlokier 6y ago

It's awkward. I have a 2013 rMBP which I'm very happy with. It was bought in part to start developing OSX/iOS software while also continuing to use Linux for the majority of my work, which I now do in a VM on the Mac. This setup works really well as an "all rounder" machine with excellent hardware. In a couple of years time, having an x86 Mac won't make sense for developing MacOS/iOS software. Apple talks of emulating x86 on ARM for MacOS, but not the other way around. But on the other hand, having an ARM Mac won't make sense for running x86 Linux and x86 Windows VMs. And my servers will probably still be x86. Neither choice is good.

klelatti 6y ago

The great unknown is of course how the Arm based Macs will perform vs Intel models. Thinking back to the PowerPC to Intel transition then the step up in performance per watt was enough to make the MacBook Pro a very, very clear winner - I don't think that many people were wishing they had bought a PowerPC laptop. There is clearly the potential for this to happen again. Apple clearly doesn't want to "Osborne" its existing range, but if the gains are only marginal then the justification for the change becomes quite weak. If you depend on x86 for Windows or for server development then buying a Intel Mac will give you what you need. For everyone else - especially buying a laptop - I would have thought that at least hanging on, if you can, would be a sensible option.

rsecora 6y ago
> I would have thought that at least hanging on. it happened the same to the Sega Saturn / Dreamcast, the MakerBot, and the Osborne Computer in the 80s. Customer delayed buys, because a new and disruptive product generation was coming. That effect is named as Osborne Effect since the 80s. Let's see what happens with the upcoming Macs.
- lostlogin 6y ago
  It’s made all the more interesting by the current MacBook line. For the first time in a very long time it’s a good lineup and is close to the ‘good, better, best’ of the olden times.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

rsecora 6y ago

Maybe latent Osborne effect? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect

coldtea 6y ago

Shouldn't there be a leasing program for computers? So you can have the latest model every 3-4 years, give it back if it breaks down and get a new one pronto, and just pay monthly instalments (with some premium) instead of the whole upfront fee.

viraptor 6y ago
There are programs like that. For example https://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p=leasing https://h20386.www2.hp.com/AustraliaStore/Merch/Offer.aspx?p...
saagarjha 6y ago
I hear you can lease one of the prototypes for a few months for $500 ;)

bpye 6y ago

The promise of ARM based Macs is delaying my next laptop purchase for a single reason - battery life. I want to see the battery life metrics of their new devices, depending on that I intend to decide.

gajjanag 6y ago

Does anyone here have a good source for how fast vector instructions (AVX2 and the like) will compute under Rosetta2 on the Arm-based Macs vs the current x86 Macs?

Veedrac 6y ago
Rosetta 2 doesn't support AVX.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jonplackett 6y ago

If you can wait, then wait. That should always be the motto when buying a mac anyway. But even more so now. You will either get the Arm, or get a fantastic deal on an Intel mac.

rovr138 6y ago
That should be the motto for everything. The odds something will have a newer/revised version in the future is higher.
- jonplackett 6y ago
  Every now and then it’s extra true though

manicdee 6y ago

The list of things stopping me going to ARM-based macs: - OCR software for my scanner (admittedly becoming less and less relevant over time) - Fortinet VPN client which is intel-only - Steam library (still on Mojave because half my games won’t work on Catalina) I can resolve the Steam library issues by getting a dedicated computer to be my games computer, but then that it an extra thing to carry on long trips.

SomeHacker44 6y ago

Not fully responsive, but I would just buy a nice Windows 10 computer. Surface, Dell XPS, Thinkpad X1, plus numerous others from various manufacturers, are available. They can run WSL, Docker, various hypervisors and VM tools, and still be fully AMD/Intel compatible for deployment. Furthermore I doubt they will become as closed as macOS is becoming, and Windows will run on them for years and years to come. I am not looking back. Touchbar, crappy keyboards, regressive and user hostile macOS, and now custom CPUs? The walled garden has become a hellish prison and I am out. I wont miss Aperture, Logic and Final Cut that much. Everything else I use is ... Imagine this ... Fully cross platform! Adobe, Ableton, Native Instruments, JetBrains, etc. Anything I cannot do easily in Windows I have WSL or Cygwin. Thanks for 12 great years and 4 increasingly miserable years, Apple. I'm out, and once my current hardware dies it won't be replaced. I like my OnePlus phone and Surface Book and Go.

sneak 6y ago
Windows comes with a great deal more embedded spyware and adware than macOS, and has a lot more malware targeted at it in the wild. I think the security situation is far better on macOS.
- tootie 6y ago
  Windows really doesn't, it's the OEMs. It's a pain, but I usually spend like 30 minutes cleaning up a new laptop and it never bothers me again. My last few machines have been Acers and they were pretty clean.
  - sneak 6y ago
    This is not an accurate statement. Windows 10 includes a huge amount of spyware out of the box direct from Microsoft.
    - spronkey 6y ago
      Have you looked at the network traffic coming out of macOS lately?

angry_octet 6y ago

I think it is really a very simple question: do you want to run the software you have now, at the fastest speed possible, with all the current defects? If so, get an Intel machine now. If you want to be able to do future, different things, wait for the ARM machine. Personally I would use something like an Apple Chromebook. Long long battery life, more secure (from hardware support like the trusted enclave, microarch stuff like tagged pointers, and the OS moving towards unpriviledged applications and code signing), better iOS integration. I think we're actually overdue for Apple to offer cloud offload processing, especially for iOS, but maybe offload to the edge (your macbook) becomes easier with ARM.

jimnotgym 6y ago

Sorry to be boring, but I am wondering about how Arm Macs are going to get on with Microsoft Office. With my mac users their most used applications are Outlook, Word and Excel. Somehow I can't set them getting the same level of support as Adobe is getting. I'm interested what other people think?

angulardragon03 6y ago
In the keynote they already demoed Office Suite running on ARM. There’s nothing to worry about on that front.
_ph_ 6y ago
Considering that they demoed Powerpoint and Excel in the keynote, I would assume, that Microsoft is going to offer Office natively from the start on.

Jemm 6y ago

I'll hold out until Apple decides the iPad format is good enough for MacOS

foxyv 6y ago

This reminds me of the decision to not support Adobe Flash on the original iPad. It was a huge inconvenience to early adopters but eventually changed the face of the internet. I wonder what effect ARM Macs will have on other x86 based environments like Windows and Linux. Will we start to see a migration from x86 to ARM or will we retain the split? Ubuntu and Arch have ARM distributions but I can't build a gaming rig out with ARM. It's mostly non-upgradable integrated systems. Will that change? As an iPad 1 early adopter I would hold off on getting an ARM Mac immediately. Within a year half of the apps in the app store wouldn't work for various reasons. I wouldn't be surprised if that happens here.