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mactinkerlover

macrumors regular
Original poster
Sep 20, 2020
173
113
Alright, so title says it. How do you think the current m1 MacBook air, mac mini, and MacBook pro will be doing 5 years from now? Do you think they will still be supported and will still be usable devices? Also, how long do you think they will be supported. Also, anyone feel free to comeback around 2025-2026 and write how your 2020 m1 mac is doing.
 
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leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
They will be useable and most likely supported (they'd at least get security updates). But they will also be completely outclassed by their successors. First-generation Apple Silicon has a lot of limitations (monitor support, RAM speed etc.) that won't be present in later revisions.

Few things I'd reasonably expect already next year:

- Multiple external monitors
- LPDDR5 (50-60% faster than current LPDDR4)
- ARM Scalable Vector Extensions for improved number crunching
- Hardware GPU raytracing and faster half-precision GPU computation
 

AppleB

macrumors 65816
Oct 18, 2011
1,156
1,380
I have a mid 2011 iMac 27. Tops off at High Sierra but it can be upgraded with internal SSD.
Also have a 2014 MBA. Excellent condition. Don’t know if it will make the cut with the next OS.

I hope my M1 Mini will be viable in 2025/26. I hope I’ll be viable in 2025.
 

ManicMarc

macrumors 6502
Jul 1, 2012
487
149
They will be useable and most likely supported (they'd at least get security updates). But they will also be completely outclassed by their successors. First-generation Apple Silicon has a lot of limitations (monitor support, RAM speed etc.) that won't be present in later revisions.

Few things I'd reasonably expect already next year:

- Multiple external monitors
- LPDDR5 (50-60% faster than current LPDDR4)
- ARM Scalable Vector Extensions for improved number crunching
- Hardware GPU raytracing and faster half-precision GPU computation

I would say look at a 5 year old iPad and see how that performs. I imagine it will be the same. It's not first generation Apple Silicon, it's 14th generation.
 
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gogogo2

macrumors member
Feb 28, 2021
35
11
My mainly Mac is 2013 iMac, it still run fast in big sur, but Apple not allow install big sur on 2013 Mac,

so problem is how long Apple will support M1?
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
I would say look at a 5 year old iPad and see how that performs. I imagine it will be the same. It's not first generation Apple Silicon, it's 14th generation.

It’s first generation of desktop silicon and it comes right in the middle of multiple hardware and software transitions (unrelated to Apple). Things I have mentioned: DDR5, SVE, ray tracing are factors external to Apple and they will have a big impact in future versions of Apple Silicon.
 

ArPe

macrumors 65816
May 31, 2020
1,281
3,325
If an 8 years old i5 can run Catalina well today then an M1 will still be great in 5 years. The main shift in performance will be in memory and drive speed. I expect that in 5-10 years UMA will mean the storage and memory are all one big super fast NAND. You won’t have separate system memory and storage. This can become one big thing and you won’t need to choose memory size options. Customers will then simply choose the size of the total UMA and CPU/GPU cores.
 

Coheebuzz

macrumors 6502a
Oct 10, 2005
511
148
Nicosia, Cyprus
I expect close to 10 years based on how long my iMac with SSD lasted before showing issues, but if it makes it to 5 then i will still be impressed because it's running an industry-standard workflow that's above its weight-class in every metric but keeping up like a champ.
 

SlCKB0Y

macrumors 68040
Feb 25, 2012
3,431
557
Sydney, Australia
It’s first generation of desktop silicon and it comes right in the middle of multiple hardware and software transitions (unrelated to Apple). Things I have mentioned: DDR5, SVE, ray tracing are factors external to Apple and they will have a big impact in future versions of Apple Silicon.
Yes, but none of these things is likely to result in an artificially short life span for these Macs.
 

chabig

macrumors G4
Sep 6, 2002
11,450
9,321
It’s interesting to talk about support down the road, and while I believe that Apple Silicon Macs are the future and willl be around for decades it is more important to realize that they provide clear benefits to many TODAY. I wouldn’t concern myself with what might happen in five years. I replaced two Intel Macs with M1 machines and could not be happier. If Apple introduces new machines that are amazing, I will upgrade again.
 

leman

macrumors Core
Oct 14, 2008
19,521
19,678
Yes, but none of these things is likely to result in an artificially short life span for these Macs.

Of course not. What I mean is that the jump between first-gen and second-gen desktop AS is probably going to be bigger that betweem, say, second gen and third gen. So someone who suffers from spec envy and plans to keep their machine for a while probably should not get an M1 machine today. Regular users who don’t care about all these things will be happy with M1 for years to come.
 

Ethosik

Contributor
Oct 21, 2009
8,142
7,120
I think the Macbook Air will be good, but not the Macbook Pro and Mac mini. Those don't have the thermal constraints that the Air does and can easily scale up core count/ram/whatever since they have a fan.
 

James Gryphon

macrumors member
Aug 20, 2018
53
86
It’s interesting to talk about support down the road, and while I believe that Apple Silicon Macs are the future and willl be around for decades it is more important to realize that they provide clear benefits to many TODAY. I wouldn’t concern myself with what might happen in five years. I replaced two Intel Macs with M1 machines and could not be happier. If Apple introduces new machines that are amazing, I will upgrade again.
I think this hits the spot.

There almost never seems to be a point in time in technology, especially when it comes to Apple, where you wouldn't be able to do even better if you just waited a little bit longer. But you have to upgrade *sometime*. So if it's a great deal now, that's as good as you can hope for.

This is one area where Macs' unusually high resell value is a plus. If you decide you do want to upgrade to the new stuff when it comes out, the chances are that your 'old' machine can pay at least half your cost.
 
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Toutou

macrumors 65816
Jan 6, 2015
1,082
1,575
Prague, Czech Republic
I expect that in 5-10 years UMA will mean the storage and memory are all one big super fast NAND. You won’t have separate system memory and storage. This can become one big thing and you won’t need to choose memory size options.
That doesn't really make that much sense, unless we happen to stumble upon some kind of alien technology with zero latency and planck-length-level areal density.

As long as we are constrained by the laws of physics we are forced to manufacture different types of memory with different characteristics and use them accordingly -- our lowest latency memory as main memory, our sufficiently fast, non-volatile (!) and sufficiently dense memory as system storage and our most dense and durable memory for long term storage.
 

ArPe

macrumors 65816
May 31, 2020
1,281
3,325
That doesn't really make that much sense, unless we happen to stumble upon some kind of alien technology with zero latency and planck-length-level areal density.

As long as we are constrained by the laws of physics we are forced to manufacture different types of memory with different characteristics and use them accordingly -- our lowest latency memory as main memory, our sufficiently fast, non-volatile (!) and sufficiently dense memory as system storage and our most dense and durable memory for long term storage.

I was sitting on the toilet and invented diamond hard graphene memory from carbon nano something. It’s so fast and durable. 1 terabyte read and write according to benchmarks. The OS can partition off however much memory the system and apps need in real time. If you need 512GB of memory for an app and there is sufficient space then you can grab that in real time. It’s amazeballs. Much better than current virtual memory and swaps ??????
 

MBAir2010

macrumors 604
May 30, 2018
6,975
6,354
there
the way the hard drives are sponging up data, i say
the M1 macs will be doing a lot of full data absorbing 5 months from now

 

5425642

Cancelled
Jan 19, 2019
983
554
They will be useable and most likely supported (they'd at least get security updates). But they will also be completely outclassed by their successors. First-generation Apple Silicon has a lot of limitations (monitor support, RAM speed etc.) that won't be present in later revisions.

Few things I'd reasonably expect already next year:

- Multiple external monitors
- LPDDR5 (50-60% faster than current LPDDR4)
- ARM Scalable Vector Extensions for improved number crunching
- Hardware GPU raytracing and faster half-precision GPU computation
But the monitor support have apple promised to fix with sw update
 
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