Hopefully MacOS support for x86 won't just be 3-5 years from whenever the new ARM models come out.
I have invested quite a bit into the Mac/Apple ecosystem. A big part of that reason was the longevity of the hardware, along with good resale values.
I hope they do right by their existing Mac customers. As of right now I don't have a strong reason to switch away.
I also hope that Apple does not blow this transition from a quality perspective. Their design choices and attention to detail have left a quite a few things to be desired in the past few generations of hardware.
My suspicion is that new macOS releases will continue to support Intel-based Macs for at least three years after the last Intel-based Mac ships. New OS X releases only supported PowerPC for about two years after the last PowerPC Mac shipped, which is shorter than I'd expected, but Apple under Tim Cook has been a little less aggressive about ending support for old hardware, despite what people often seem to think. MacOS Big Sur supports hardware going back to 2013, and iOS 14 supports hardware back to 2015's iPhone 6s. (And iOS versions keep getting updates for a year after their replacements ship, while macOS versions tend to be updated for two.)
As for the quality, reply hazy, ask again later? The whole butterfly keyboard of laptops turned out to be a fiasco, and Apple's long-held tendency to push their industrial design right to the edge of thermal and material tolerances got kind of crazy-making in the last few years. Yet so far, I'm really liking my MacBook Air 2020, and the only thing I'd absolutely change about it if I were given a magic wand would be to add a third USB-C port on the right-hand side. I appreciated much of Jony Ive's design work, but I'm hopeful that with him gone, the drive to prioritize minimalism over functionality will be at least toned down.
> My suspicion is that new macOS releases will continue to support Intel-based Macs for at least three years after the last Intel-based Mac ships. New OS X releases only supported PowerPC for about two years after the last PowerPC Mac shipped, which is shorter than I'd expected
I agree with this. There's a big difference between Intel -> ARM and PPC -> Intel too: With PPC -> Intel, they were moving from their own special architecture towards the mainstream architecture that everybody else was using. In this case they're leaving an architecture that is likely to remain highly relevant outside of the Apple bubble for a long time to come.
I can't imagine how people who dropped serious cash for the 7,1 pro machines feel. I've used my 6,1 for 7 years, and I will use it until it is no longer receiving updates. So hopefully 10 years.
> I have invested quite a bit into the Mac/Apple ecosystem. A big part of that reason was the longevity of the hardware, along with good resale values.
Well, given that demand for x86 probably won't go away in 3-5 years and that Apple generally makes it impossible to downgrade OSX on new machines, dropping x86 support might actually increase the resale value of existing hardware.
I have invested quite a bit into the Mac/Apple ecosystem. A big part of that reason was the longevity of the hardware, along with good resale values.
I hope they do right by their existing Mac customers. As of right now I don't have a strong reason to switch away.
I also hope that Apple does not blow this transition from a quality perspective. Their design choices and attention to detail have left a quite a few things to be desired in the past few generations of hardware.