Is this a good time or a bad time to buy a new Mac? Or what about switching to Windows?
It was bound to happen.
As soon as Apple officially announced that that the countdown had begun on a two-year shift from Intel chips to Apple Silicon, it injected a lot of uncertainty into Mac ownership.
Now, most buyers will be unaware or won't care about Apple's kicking to the curb of Intel silicon and replacing it with Apple Silicon. I'm sure that if you polled a hundred mac owners, most wouldn't know or care where their processor came from, and I'm sure a few would think that it was already made by Apple.
But for people in the know, and people who have a grasp of what the changes mean, it presents a dilemma.
Buy an Intel Mac now or wait for Apple Silicon Macs to drop?
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For people who use their Macs to get work done, Apple's messaging has been strong and clear. The tools you need from Microsoft, Adobe, and Parallels will work. For the folks who have subscriptions to the big software packages, this is good news, at least on the face of it.
There may be issues with some tools, and workflows might have to change, so some caution might be a good thing, but overall it seems that Apple is looking after the professionals, and the switch to Apple Silicon might be quite smooth.
But what about legacy Mac users? You know, those people who've been using a Mac for many moons, and move their install over to the new system when the old one goes to Silicon Heaven, and have a lot of old hardware?
The switch to Apple Silicon might mean that a lot more of your hardware and software ends up going to Silicon Heaven.
It might mean a lot of spending -- boring spending on bits of hardware and software.
For Mac owners that use Boot Camp to run Windows, Apple Silicon is the end of the line, and you're going to have to transition to a tool like Parallels Desktop.
Money. Money. Money.
I see this as a crossroads. If you want to embrace Apple Silicon, then I think you'll be able to do that over the next couple of years (caveat here is I'm still unclear as to what Apple will do with Xeon-powered Macs such as the iMac Pro and Mac Pro).
However, if you want to cling on to Intel Macs, then you need to thing about upgrading so you get the longest possible run on that platform possible.
Another possibility is switching to a Windows PC. Anyone considering that?
Basically, whether you want to shift to Apple Silicon or not, you're going to need to spend money on macs in the next couple of years.