What do you plan to do when the M2 (or whatever the next M chip is) launches?

[Yebubbleman]

I think a 4-5 year window makes sense for apple, but consider all the work in the background to get both platforms to work? it’s a daunting task to think about the work that would need to be done the further the M series processors pull ahead. The software inevitably suffers as considerations would have to be made on chips that just aren’t as fast/efficient.

4-5 seems long on the hardware side of things. Maybe if you're counting the time until 90% of the apps that are going to convert to either Universal Binary 2 or Apple Silicon only binaries. Then, I could see 4-5 years. But the hardware will do it in 2 years. Third party apps that were ever going to move over will do so in the next 5 years; Apple will give Intel Macs a buffer of a few more years thereafter, and then we'll get our first "Snow Leopard" type release where Intel code in the OS is dropped and macOS is officially Apple Silicon only.

For those who have Intel machines now - you at the very least have the fallback option to Windows and strong Linux support as well. Back in the PowerPC days those guys were in a much more vulnerable position due to the fact that not only were the processors slow, but it was an architecture that just never took off in the desktop computing world. Could apple have supported PowerPC maybe one or two more OS releases further? Maybe, but have you guys used an old PowerPC lately compared to first gen intel machines? The difference was night and day...it was better to move on when they did IMO.

Overall I trust Apple’s judgement, for the most part. There is always a case for planned obsolescence since this IS a business.

Yeah, Apple Silicon is similar to PowerPC in that, with the exception of one or two oddballs, macOS is the only thing you're going to run on it, for the most part. Intel Macs were and are truly wonderful for, even despite it being Apple designed (and even Apple Silicon creeping in early in the form of the T2 chip), being x86 PCs at the end of the day. Now we're back to a relatively closed platform, and I believe that will reduce the span of usefulness of your average Mac considerably. Whereas, even though it doesn't support Big Sur (and would therefore only be supported on Catalina for two more years before losing security patch support), I can run supported LTSC versions of Windows 10 Enterprise on my Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro until 2029 at the earliest. Who knows how long Windows 10 will keep supporting Ivy Bridge hardware with newer Windows 10 releases?

 

[kepler20b]

sell my imac

and go

13" topline MPB + xdr

 

[HEK]

I may be waiting for an M2 or just additional release of M1 machines. I'm holding out for the 16" MBP which I'm hoping comes out early next year. The M1 13" MBP looks great, and I'd snap it up in a heart beat if that was the screen size I wanted, but I prefer the greater real estate of the 16". 16GB memory and 1TB SSD are good. The M1 is good. It's all about the screen for me.

I felt same till I realized I can use my iPad Pro as second screen.

 

[aleni]

Gonna keep using my m1 air. It’s not suddenly become slow after m2 launched.

 

[ojfl]

Some ARM designs support a symmetrical multiprocessing architecture, but I doubt the M1 does. It would require a dedicated very high bandwidth interface for inter-processor communications, and a shared memory. I am not saying Apple wouldn’t be able to develop such designs - I am pretty sure they would - but it won’t be as simple as slapping two M1s on the same board.

Probably true given they put the memory inside the chip. But it can be done.

 

[moldy lunchbox]

Back in January 2020, I was just waiting for a new MBP that fixed the stupid butterfly keyboard.

Now in December 2020, I have a 13" MBP that has a single-core Geekbench score higher than any Intel Mac ever made. Insane! I'm more than happy for awhile.

 

[yanksrock100]

If there is a radically different design, I might be tempted to sell my M1 and get an M2 Mac. I'm sure it will still catch a pretty penny on eBay because not everybody will be happy with the new design (as always!).

 

[edhchoe]

My imac 2011 is due for upgrade.
i will keep m1 mba and get a m2 iMac

 

[0423MAC]

4-5 seems long on the hardware side of things. Maybe if you're counting the time until 90% of the apps that are going to convert to either Universal Binary 2 or Apple Silicon only binaries. Then, I could see 4-5 years. But the hardware will do it in 2 years. Third party apps that were ever going to move over will do so in the next 5 years; Apple will give Intel Macs a buffer of a few more years thereafter, and then we'll get our first "Snow Leopard" type release where Intel code in the OS is dropped and macOS is officially Apple Silicon only.


Yeah, Apple Silicon is similar to PowerPC in that, with the exception of one or two oddballs, macOS is the only thing you're going to run on it, for the most part. Intel Macs were and are truly wonderful for, even despite it being Apple designed (and even Apple Silicon creeping in early in the form of the T2 chip), being x86 PCs at the end of the day. Now we're back to a relatively closed platform, and I believe that will reduce the span of usefulness of your average Mac considerably. Whereas, even though it doesn't support Big Sur (and would therefore only be supported on Catalina for two more years before losing security patch support), I can run supported LTSC versions of Windows 10 Enterprise on my Late 2012 13" Retina MacBook Pro until 2029 at the earliest. Who knows how long Windows 10 will keep supporting Ivy Bridge hardware with newer Windows 10 releases?

Yeah 5 years in terms of feasible usability regarding browser security updates, apps, 3rd party virus software etc. All in, the Intel Macs will be useable for the foreseeable future. 2029? At that point it will likely be a Linux installation as the integrated graphics are usually what causes these old processors to lose support on macOS/Windows.

As far as Windows goes I think it’s inevitable that bootcamp will be available on M chip Macs for several reasons. Ironically, the Mac crowd will give Microsoft a ton of info as to what they need to do to to finally get Windows on ARM rolling. Their surface debacle left a bad taste in early adopters yet again...its as if they never learned from the RT nonsense many years ago at this point.

 

[Bonte]

Some ARM designs support a symmetrical multiprocessing architecture, but I doubt the M1 does. It would require a dedicated very high bandwidth interface for inter-processor communications, and a shared memory. I am not saying Apple wouldn’t be able to develop such designs - I am pretty sure they would - but it won’t be as simple as slapping two M1s on the same board.

Is it possible that apps could use several M1 chips in the same way as a render farm? With Apple providing the API to spilt the workload when necessary.

 

[mr_jomo]

Hmm, let's see:
- my base M1-MBA is essentially the perfect laptop for me in all aspects, but
- next hand-me-down opportunity is mid-2022, which, if rumors are somewhat correct, coincides with a new MBA design and revision.

So 2022 is timeframe for upgrade ?

 

[Argon_]

Is it possible that apps could use several M1 chips in the same way as a render farm? With Apple providing the API to spilt the workload when necessary.

Something like the Power Mac G5 with two CPUs?

 

[MCAsan]

Sell my Intel and AMD stock.

 

[Bonte]

Something like the Power Mac G5 with two CPUs?

Not really as the G5's don't have dedicated RAM and GPU per chip. More like treating the M1 chips like separate computers as in a render-farm that has a multitude of computers working at the same project.
It's also possible for several GPU's to work in tandem.

It would be very cost-effective if everything had the exact same chip and a desktop could house a multitude of them on a socket. A Mac Pro with 12 M1 chips would obliterate the fastest Intel machine i would think.

 

[Argon_]

Not really as the G5's don't have dedicated RAM and GPU per chip. More like treating the M1 chips like separate computers as in a render-farm that has a multitude of computers working at the same project.
It's also possible for several GPU's to work in tandem.

It would be very cost-effective if everything had the exact same chip and a desktop could house a multitude of them on a socket. A Mac Pro with 12 M1 chips would obliterate the fastest Intel machine i would think.

Better performance might be possible with four chips arranged around unified memory in a massive SoC, maybe four M1X units, for a total of 32 performance cores. Assuming a conservative single performance core yield of 1450 Cinebench points, the 32 cores would score 46,400, without the efficiency cores. On ~100 Watts of power.

 

[mr_jomo]

Better performance might be possible with four chips arranged around unified memory in a massive SoC, maybe four M1X units, for a total of 32 performance cores. Assuming a conservative single performance core yield of 1450 Cinebench points, the 32 cores would score 46,400, without the efficiency cores. On ~100 Watts of power.

Essentially using an Infinity Fabric approach like AMD did for EPYC - that makes sense.

 

[Brien]

If there's a long runway as far as increasing performance of Mx chips for the foreseeable future, maybe Apple users will want to upgrade more often when compared to the past where Intel's historical yearly gains weren't that great.

I now want a Macbook sized laptop that's more powerful than today's top of the line Mac Pro.

I think the days of yearly laptop/desktop upgrades have been long gone, but we’ll likely see a LOT of Intel upgraders, me included.

 

[Brien]

Like the phone, every other generation.

Do you already upgrade every other year? My point is I assume those who currently on X schedule are sticking with it

 

[BootLoxes]

Got the M1 Air as my first mac as I have been waiting for them to go arm for years before making this purchase. I knew rumors of a redesign were on the horizon but past history told me that the Air gets it a year or 2 after the pros do. So 2022 at the earliest and I wasn't willing to wait that long. Then Kuo said a few hours ago redesign for the Air in 2022 and I was like "yup called it"

I will probably stay with this Air until M4 or M5 at the earliest.

 

[kepler20b]

Sell my Intel and AMD stock.

I loaded up on TSMC a few months ago...

who do you think is gonna make all these arm chips?
and amd chips?

I think amd/tsmc is a great bet. there's nothing on intel's roadmap and amd has a huge headstart on 3d stacking and exascale,

and exascale APUs


TSMC won't be able to keep up with demand from apple/amd alone. now that amazon is getting into arm.

 

[Mr.PT]

64 GB RAM and superb GPU on 16in or else I'll keep my hackintosh

Also Hopping for 16” 64GB but dGPU and eGPu support please! and specially that Metal gets truly adopted by developers...otherwise will be a colossal waist of resources for me, as I’ll be sticking to Apple’s hardware (I know I missing a lot already).
If all the above applies could also opt for rumored 14” as long as there’s a 27” mini-LED Apple Display to couple with it.

 

[Mr.PT]

Is it possible that apps could use several M1 chips in the same way as a render farm? With Apple providing the API to spilt the workload when necessary.

I’d love that! A tower of stacked minis coupled with a 27”5K/32”6K mini-LED AppleDisplay would be perfect for me and I guess for a lot of folks running 3d rendering software even more with AR/VR going mainstream, but then who would buy MacPro?

 

[russell_314]

When Apple comes out with the high end four port 13" MacBook Pro I'm buying it regardless of what M1 Mac I happened to buy before. The only way I can see myself not buying it is if they do something totally stupid like make it touch screen ? ?

 

[drsox]

Hmm, let's see:
- my base M1-MBA is essentially the perfect laptop for me in all aspects, but
- next hand-me-down opportunity is mid-2022, which, if rumors are somewhat correct, coincides with a new MBA design and revision.

So 2022 is timeframe for upgrade ?

Just as 24 months interest free credit is completed - time for another one !

 

[drsox]

I’d love that! A tower of stacked minis coupled with a 27”5K/32”6K mini-LED AppleDisplay would be perfect for me and I guess for a lot of folks running 3d rendering software even more with AR/VR going mainstream, but then who would buy MacPro?

Never be afraid of competing within your own product line. If you don't, others will and learn how to do it better.