Not really mad at myself - I bought what I needed at the time and have used that machine solidly for a year. I spent what I needed to, to get the spec I required.
Just feeling the pleasure of ownership somewhat deflated by the perceived reduction in value of a major investment resulting from technological advance, which is, of course, inevitable over time.
Apple made a huge leap in price/performance with the M1 - previous improvements have been much slower.
In the past, I found that there wasn't any point in upgrading a Mac for 3-5 years, because the performance improvements year-on-year were not very significant. After 5 years you could see a 50-80% improvement in performance, which was worth having, and for a 5-year-old machine, this wasn't a "painful" upgrade.
Apple has achieved this in one year, which naturally makes me now feel that my purchase last year doesn't represent great value...but only with hindsight. Had we known the M1 would be here a year later, I would have spent less on a stop-gap machine. But of course, no-one outside Apple knew this would happen.
I'm not complaining...the M1 is great, and my MBP16 is still a good computer. It's just fallen down the rankings more quickly than expected. It's technology...it happens...sometimes more quickly than we expect.
Just an observation, not a complaint
The things of yours that I've highlighted in bold are utter silliness; I'm sorry. The fact that the initial batch of M1 Macs are so fast and thermal efficient shouldn't make your 16" MacBook Pro, the pinnacle of portable Mac computing in the Intel era, seem like a poor value. It's still a FANTASTIC value. This is probably the last Mac portable with discrete graphics, in all likelihood. It will certainly be the last one to run x86 OSes natively or virtually without emulation. The fact that Apple Silicon's initial speed boosts are dramatic, shouldn't reduce "the pleasure of ownership" due to feeling like it is "deflated by the perceived reduction in value". If you find that to be the case, you can totally PM me and I'll give you my address and you can ship that machine to me, no problem!
I feel for the people who just bought the 2020 before the M1, that sucks IMO....
Looking at stores - Costco, Bestbuy....lots of great deals on these vintage (
) Intel Macs....
I don't. Either they were in the know about this, in which case it matters. Or they weren't, in which case they probably don't care. Or, they're like me and need to stick with Intel for a while because things on the Apple Silicon side don't have features still present on the Intel side.
Well...there were rumors but not facts I would have risked a purchase decision on. And I don't think anyone knew the timing....people have talked about ARM-based Macs being "just around the corner" for years. The iPad was a great indicator of possible performance, but running MacOS on these chips was a big unknown.
Ever since the transition was announced, there was talk of a MacBook Air and a 13" Pro running on Apple SoC's being released during the 2020 calendar year. With Big Sur being the first release compatible with Apple SoC's, that meant that the launch wouldn't be earlier than September. That right there was a 3 month window.
I didn't expect the performance to be as good as it has proven to be.
I still excited by new tech though, and it's a very positive thing overall. All of our gadgets are obsolescent the moment they are released; it's just a fact of life. Provided you get plenty of use out of them, it's all good.
Apple products aren't obsolete until they can no longer run the latest version of the OS (even then, Macs get another two years of being able to be patched on the version they're stuck at). Otherwise, they continue to function with new OSes until they stop getting security updates. That's when they're truly obsolete. Not at the point of discontinuation.
+1
I bought a 2019 8-core 27 inch iMac off the refurb store just this summer and have ZERO regrets.
Why? Because I have a large swath of software, from the latest version of Premiere Pro to older (even some 32-bit) stuff. I also have a good number of Windows programs and games that I love and use in bootcamp, or windows virtualization. On even the most demanding programs and games, the iMac runs smooth as butter, and stays cool and quiet.
So for me, compatibility and stability are way more important than a little more speed.
If my main use of my Mac was to run benchmarks, I suppose the M1 would be a good choice for me ?. But my main use is to run a wide swath of software, smoothly and without a hitch. So I have no interest in the M1 Macs for now, and probably won't for a good long while.
You do know that there are real-world tests being performed (not just benchmarks) where the M1 Macs are smoking even top end iMacs, right? Like, real world performance is there on most things. Proven fact. Not even up for debate anymore.
Not saying you should rush out and get one or feel like your 2019 8-core iMac is obsolete the way the OP feels about his 16" MacBook Pro right now. But, it's possible that a good deal of your things run fine in Rosetta 2 (which, on average, boasts speeds for most apps that still surpass native performance on Intel).
Again, sticking with Intel for compatibility concerns is sensible. Though, it is seeming like that's not as big of a concern as most would think.
+1
A computer is only as good the software you can run on it and as of today an Intel Mac is compatible with infinitely more software and hardware than a M1 Mac.
Hardware, I'll grant you. Software, not as much, unless you're counting 32-bit Intel apps (which won't even run on any 16" MacBook Pro or 2020 13" MacBook Pro [M1 or Intel]). Unless you're picky about whether or not Rosetta 2 is used, I'd say that the difference between software compatible with an Intel Mac and an Apple Silicon Mac is far from "Infinite".
appleinsider.com
) Intel Macs....