Last week Apple during its WWDC Keynote made the announcement that they were going to ditch Intel processors for their own chips which they are calling Apple Silicon. To be clear, these are going to be hopped up versions of the A series processors that are already present in the iPhone and iPad. Apple also said that they have a few new Intel based Macs that are yet to be released, and that Intel based Macs will be supported “for years to come”, but at the same time they said that the first Apple Silicon Mac will ship later this year.
Now I am sure that the reason Apple said that they have new Intel ready to go, and that they will be supported “for years to come” is that they don’t want Mac sales to fall off a cliff. But take it from me. Buying any Intel based Mac is a really, really bad idea. Why? Let me explain.
First of all, we’ve been here before. Apple back in 2005 announced that it was going to ditch IBM’s Power PC processors for Intel processors. By mid 2006, Apple had transitioned its entire lineup to Intel processors. And it took 210 days from start to finish. From there, macOS 10.7 (AKA Lion) was released in July 2011 which removed Power PC support from the operating system forever. That was six years after the announcement of the transition. While that sounds like a long time, it isn’t.
Here’s why.
With Apple having shipped Macs with A12z Bionic processors to developers, you can bet that developers are going to be spending way more time making the best performing apps that run on Apple Silicon than spending time on making Intel apps perform at their best. Which means that you as a Mac user would be better off getting an Apple Silicon based Mac because the apps that you want to run will run better on them. Oh by the way, when I say “developers” I include Apple. As it is a safe bet that Apple apps like Final Cut Pro and Logic are going to be so much better on Apple Silicon and not so much on Intel. And this will happen fast as Apple has made it really easy to transition apps from Intel to Apple Silicon. Something that wasn’t available to developers the last time Apple made a transition like this.
By the way, this isn’t a guess. I am making this assumption based on the fact that the move from Power PC to Intel played out in a similar manner. Though I expect it to be somewhat faster this time around.
So what does that mean for you?
It means that the best app experience will come from Apple Silicon based Macs running software made for Apple Silicon processors. It also means that if you were planning on buying an Intel based Mac, I wouldn’t. Intel based Macs are now a legacy product which you should avoid. Apple will have many, many better performing options powered by Apple Silicon available for you soon. And you should buy one of those Macs so that you have the best Mac experience possible with no regrets. Because now is a really, really bad time to buy an Intel Mac.