Resale value is bad compared to intel?

[TurboJobo]

Now that apple is releasing yearly apple silicon updates and making ram 16 gb standard do you think previous macs are loosing more value? I just saw at costco a brand new M2 air for 699. I also see them on my local marketplace and offer going for 450-600 for the base model. I see 16 gb and 24 gb not selling or people arent just paying for the extra ram.
I dont remember intel mac loosing value that fast until apple silicon came out. Just a thought I had.

 

[MayaUser]

Of course since on intel era the macs were updated sometimes once per 2-3 years

 

[AJB1971]

I think we’ve seen a gradual change over the years since Apple computers have become mass-market devices rather than niche products. There’s been a significant change since I bought my first Mac about 20 years ago.

Availability from other retailers has also improved significantly. Increased competition between those retailers and a disconnect between Apple’s suggested retail prices and what people are prepared to pay has led to more discounting. And that discounting is reflected in lower residual values.

In the case of the 8GB M2 Airs, I suspect Apple is offering incentives to shift the remaining inventory, and that’s why Costco is selling them for that price. The same thing will almost certainly happen with all of the 8GB Macs.

It’s also worth mentioning that the Apple Store never offers discounts, although they could shift stock through the refurbished store, but selling stock at lower prices through other retailers seems to be the preferred option. The UK Costco site continued to get new stock of M2 Pros long after the M3 versions had launched, which supports that theory.

The large discounts mainly apply to the base configurations, which will be the big sellers. Before yesterday’s spec increase, it was difficult to find 16GB Airs with the sort of discounts available on the 8GB versions.

So, I don’t personally attribute it to the shift from Intel to Apple Silicon, but more to market conditions.

 

[MajorFubar]

No real sign of that here in the UK. They remain niche-market products compared to PC laptops, and consequently are very expensive even used because there aren't many to choose from. Even used ones are £600+ just for 8GB/256GB

 

[TurboJobo]

Of course since on intel era the macs were updated sometimes once per 2-3 years

true i remember when intel or apple wouldn't update intel chips forever and used one didnt loose so much value as before

 

[EugW]

The 2020 Intel MacBook Air (March 2020) is worth much, much less than the 2020 M1 MacBook Air (November 2020) on the used market, despite there only being 8 months difference in age.

And people here on the forums say, even though the Intel unit is indeed much, much cheaper, you shouldn't buy it.

Intel Mac prices dropped like a rock after Apple Silicon came out. The hardest hit though was the 2019 Mac Pro.

 

[TurboJobo]

The 2020 Intel MacBook Air (March 2020) is worth much, much less than the 2020 M1 MacBook Air (November 2020) on the used market, despite there only being 8 months difference in age.

And people here on the forums say, even though the Intel unit is indeed much, much cheaper, you shouldn't buy it.

Intel Mac prices dropped like a rock after Apple Silicon came out. The hardest hit though was the 2019 Mac Pro.

yes after apple silicon intel drop really bad, but i dont remember intel loosing value as fast as silicon now with evert yearly update and now 16gb standard

 

[mysticmanix]

Yup definitely in Canada

 

[Admiral]

Now that apple is releasing yearly apple silicon updates and making ram 16 gb standard do you think previous macs are loosing more value? I just saw at costco a brand new M2 air for 699. I also see them on my local marketplace and offer going for 450-600 for the base model. I see 16 gb and 24 gb not selling or people arent just paying for the extra ram.
I dont remember intel mac loosing value that fast until apple silicon came out. Just a thought I had.

Macs are losing resale value because Apple is now able to increase performance ~15-20% per product cycle, and appears to be accelerating Mac product cycles to a year. This is not the worst "problem" to deal with.

 

[EugW]

I don't know about private sales but on eBay, the Apple Silicon MacBook Airs are retaining their value pretty well... which sucks for me since I wanted to pick up an inexpensive 16 GB M1 or M2 for cheap for my wife. But so far I have not seen very good deals. Intel models are cheap as borscht though.

So, I'm just going to wait until next year and buy a new M4 MacBook Air (or possibly M3 MacBook Air) instead.

 

[840quadra]

I haven't see a huge tank on price. Key for resale value is always in the details and what specification you get. If you intend to resell / upgrade, avoid a super base model and at least upgrade memory or Storage if you can.

Still impressed with what my M1 13" can get on Swappa and the likes (including recent sales). Even Apple is giving okay trade-in value for that laptop as I consider swapping it for a new Mini (For mobile computing I have an M3 Pro now).

 

[turbineseaplane]

Things have flipped completely with Apple.

It’s now essential to get a great deal upfront

 

[spaceballl]

Of course since on intel era the macs were updated sometimes once per 2-3 years

Oh man... bringing back memories... dark times...

 

[kindaichi81]

becos macbook/mac are getting cheaper even at apple's retail price, one can easily afford a new one, so why would one pay high price for 2nd hand one...

 

[MajorFubar]

becos macbook/mac are getting cheaper even at apple's retail price, one can easily afford a new one, so why would one pay high price for 2nd hand one...

Think you and the rest of us are in different worlds if you think the price of new Macbooks is 'cheap'.
We can argue forever about whether the price is worth it, but one thing none of them are is cheap.

 

[b0fh666]

how long we can expect the latest intel macbooks to be supported, realistically? 2030? or is that wishful thinking?

 

[EugW]

how long we can expect the latest intel macbooks to be supported, realistically? 2030? or is that wishful thinking?

2027 - 5 years of new OS versions, and 2 years of security updates. But after that, third party software typically supports the older OSes for another couple of years if you're lucky, and if you're willing to risk going without security updates.

 

[b0fh666]

yup... theres where I am now with my 2012 macs... stuck in catalina and old versions of vmware, office, etc. sucks.

 

[Populus]

2027 - 5 years of new OS versions, and 2 years of security updates. But after that, third party software typically supports the older OSes for another couple of years if you're lucky, and if you're willing to risk going without security updates.

Yeah, either macOS 15 or more probably macOS 16 will be the last mac operating system for x86. I’m really interested in knowing how are they going to fully optimize the system once it becomes 100% ARM.

By the way, once the software transition is fully completed, maybe they will deprecate Rosetta 2.0, and that will be a point where Intel Macs will lose even more value. I’m happy it is still there in macOS Sequoia, just in case I need it (not likely though).

 

[b0fh666]

is this roseta 2.0 even capable of running a windows/linux VM(ware) decently? does not have to be bleeding edge... but needs to be an intel-based VM (for portability).

 

[Jay Tee]

If you don't need a new computer, then don't buy a new computer.

 

[jdb8167]

is this roseta 2.0 even capable of running a windows/linux VM(ware) decently? does not have to be bleeding edge... but needs to be an intel-based VM (for portability).

You can’t run an x86-64 Linux VM in Rosetta but you can run an Aarch64 Linux VM natively and then run Intel applications in Linux with Rosetta.

 

[hovscorpion12]

If you don't need a new computer, then don't buy a new computer.

True. If everyone had that logic, roughly 5% of the entire tech/entertainment population would upgrade yearly. The rest would upgrade every 10 years.

 

[MajorFubar]

If you don't need a new computer, then don't buy a new computer.

Define 'need'.

Technically speaking my 2011 3.4gHz i7 iMac was the most powerful computer I would ever 'need'.
But they brickwalled it to High Sierra.
Which was fine for a while because I didn't 'need' the features in the new OS's.
But because I couldn't upgrade to newer OS's, eventually the only apps it could run were obsoleted, and newer versions of the apps were unsupported on my OS.
Then the security-updates stopped.
Then the version of Safari and other browsers it could run became incompatible with modern webpages.
And then it became a doorstop.

I still don't 'need' a computer newer or more powerful than my 2011 3.4gHz i7 iMac.
And yet, I do.

 

[Populus]

Technically speaking my 2011 3.4gHz i7 iMac was the most powerful computer I would ever 'need'.
But they brickwalled it to High Sierra. Which was fine for a while because I didn't 'need' the features in the new OS's.
But because I couldn't upgrade to newer OS's, eventually the only apps it could run were obsoleted, and newer versions of the apps were unsupported on my OS.
Then the security-updates stopped.
Then the version of Safari and other browsers it could run became incompatible with modern webpages.
And then it became a doorstop.

This is a key topic, honestly. For reference, I sold my 2010 MBP two years after it got stuck on High Sierra, and my current 2014 Mac mini has been stuck in Monterey for more than two years already but support for Monterey is still quite good (although some apps are already asking Sonoma as a base requirement, right @Bjango ?). And it is now after the two years of security patches and Safari updates, that I’m more decided than ever to get a new M4 Mac mini.

I understand the faster loss of support of Intel Macs, but I really, really hope macOS support on Apple Silicon to be longer and better. After all, all M1, M2, M3 and M4 share the same SoC design, with small differences such as the Neural Engine experiencing a notable boost on the M2 gen, including a new GPU architecture with Ray Tracing on the M3, and the M4 being based on the new ARM v9 I think.

Then, there’s the thing with base RAM. Jumping to 8GB as standard baseline RAM on the iPhone/iPad and 16GB as standard baseline RAM on the Mac, could have repercussions on OS support, I’m afraid.

But all in all, I really expect Apple to stretch the macOS support for Apple Silicon up to 8 years, plus the two usual years of security fixes and Safari updates. That would make a total of 10 years of support. Of course, dropping some features after 5 or 6 years like they do on iOS.

Sharing so many design similarities among all the SoC, from the A12 to the M4, I really think it is time to optimize Apple’s Operating Systems to take full advantage of their silicon.