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Ask HN: Should I buy Mac book Pro now or wait for ARM?

by esseti on 6/25/20, 8:04 AM with 115 comments

• by gregoriol on 6/25/20, 8:47 AM

  Considering that the 1st generation of each Apple device is a beta version (first Apple Watch, first iPhone, first iPad, ... but also first Mac Book Pro with Core Duo CPUs) and are abandonned quite quickly, the best bet would be to at least wait for the 2nd generation, so at best 2022. A regular mac can last 6 good years nowadays, and more depending on your use-cases, so if you can wait until 2022 you better wait. Otherwise renew now! (I'll likely renew my 2014 MBP this year)

• by floatingatoll on 6/25/20, 8:33 AM

  "Should I wait for and buy an arm64 Mac in 2020?"

  If you're developing for Mac, and macOS 11.0 will run on your 2015 Mac, then you should wait and buy an arm64 Mac in 2020. You'll need both your 2015 x86_64 and your 2020 arm64 for release testing.

  If you're developing for Mac, but macOS 11.0 will not run on your 2015 Mac, then you need to purchase both an x86_64 Mac and an arm64 Mac in 2020.

  If you're not developing for Mac, but you would like to help contribute to the Mac ecosystem by improving macOS/arm64 support for things, then you should wait and buy an arm64 Mac in 2020. You will be at the bleeding edge of Homebrew and CocoaPods and etc. and you will be required to make repairs to things that assume x86_64 or assume "stat DYLIB" or etc. You will be forced to use your old x86_64 device to get your actual task done sometimes, even though you'd like to use your new device. You will find bugs and issues with third-party toolkits that you depend on to get your job done. You will be expected to not only report issues but also to participate in fixing them.

  If none of the above apply, do not buy an arm64 Mac in 2020. Either now or later, buy either an x86_64 Mac or an x86_64 Windows. The Mac will be supported for several years. The Windows will be supported for however long PCs are supported.

  (Footnote: "in 2020" really should be translated to "within 3-6 months of whenever arm64 Macs are first sold to the public", not including the devkits.)

• by danielheath on 6/25/20, 9:08 AM

  If you don’t need the mobility, a linux desktop offers vastly, vastly improved performance for the money.

  For less money than a MacBook Pro, I got a 24-core threadripper, 64g ram, top speed ssd. Test suite for work went from 45m on a 2017 macbook pro to 9m.

• by rswskg on 6/25/20, 8:32 AM

  I severely doubt apples arm processor will trouble an i7/i9 for a while.

  Why buy a mac at all? Get a cheap ubuntu laptop and move back into mac once it's settled down.

  I did this debate recently and went with the mac, but only because work are paying for it. Otherwise, I wouldn't have bothered.

• by rvz on 6/25/20, 8:25 AM

  I would buy the latest Intel Macbook Pro and wait for ARM later. After two years they would have upgraded the ARM processor to something better by that time.

  Just don't buy the first version of any Apple product. It is the first to be obsolete like back in 2014, the first version of the Apple Watch for example, ran 32 bit and now 64 bit watches are here.

• by mebutnotme on 6/25/20, 8:30 AM

  It depends on your use, you say you develop and so you likely have a number of tools that you rely on for your day to day productivity. While the new Arm processor may well be faster then the Intel it is going to cause incompatibilities for a while.

  Going the Intel route now will give you a stable machine which still has a lot of performance (depending on what exactly you develop, web great, Linux kernel not so much ;o)

  Getting the first Arm will lead to you spending time dealing with first adopter bugs and learning new tooling due to your existing stack having incompatibilities.

• by teruakohatu on 6/25/20, 8:22 AM

  I am in the same boat. I think its time to finally make the switch to Windows and/or Linux. Lots of folks on HN recommend Thinkpads.

• by toyg on 6/25/20, 9:11 AM

  Ignoring the transition stuff, iMacs are due a revamp at the moment, so if you need one of those I would wait for September. Laptops are nearing the end of their cycle too but I suspect they will come next year.

  If you only care about the transition: Apple tends to support their hardware for about 10 years. Big Sur is the first OS to drop the 2012 models, and they support the previous OS version for 2 years from release of the new one, so a 2012 model will effectively stop getting security updates in 2022.

  When they made the previous arch transition, they announced the switch in 2006 and dropped support for the last OS to run on the old chips 5 years later. I suspect they will be gentler this time around, tbh, since the current arch is easier to support in concert with the new one than PPC was with amd64.

  That means anything you buy now will likely be "compatible" with MacOS for 5 years or so, probably more. Applications will likely be supported for longer (Rosetta was dropped 7 years from announcement).

  So I wouldn't worry too much. If you need a new one now, buy it regardless of architecture.

• by mnm1 on 6/25/20, 4:27 PM

  I just got a new 16" mbpro a few months ago and now am very glad since I'm not interested in being a beta tester for Apple or dealing with shit not working because of the new arch, which is absolutely inevitable as a developer, even as a web developer. That said, I only got this because Lenovo didn't ship me a Thinkpad 6 weeks after I had ordered it and at that point, 6 weeks in, they still didn't know when it would ship (their customer service is absolute shit). Dell has a refurbishing fee for returns and since I wanted to run Linux, those are the only major vendors of durable laptops that I see will be durable and run Linux smoothly (system 76 etc don't count as the hardware is shit). Linux does everything I need and is slightly cheaper (a few hundred dollars on a $4k machine). I did not pay for the laptop or Apple would not be a consideration at all. The only advantage it offers is stability at the expense of everything else (though for work that is a big deal).

  ARM macs will not be a consideration at all unless there is heavy adoption of ARM in the industry and all the tools currently available get ported. That will take quite some time, I imagine, if it's even doable at all. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple starts locking down their OS and only allowing apps they approve. They've been doing it for years, tightening the restrictions every year. I'm just waiting for the 'allow apps to run from anywhere option' to be completely removed. It gets reset to 'allow apps from app store and certified developers' now as far as I can see on a constant basis, not even just upon OS upgrades.

  Frankly, what it boils down to, is that the future of Apple laptops as general purpose computing devices is questionable (and has been for years) given the iOSization of the OS. And I'll be damned if I pay thousands of dollars to only run what Apple approves. But if others are paying, why not?

• by acqq on 6/25/20, 8:21 AM

  > should I wait

  When somebody asks the question like that I always answer: wait.

  If somebody even asks something like this, it means to me that he/she doesn't need that at the moment. Otherwise he/she wouldn't even doubt, the need would be completely obvious.

  So it's straightforward: once you need it, you'll know it and will not even have to ask.

• by pavlov on 6/25/20, 9:18 AM

  It depends on what exactly you develop.

  If you develop macOS apps, wait to buy the ARM model because you'll have to test on both platforms anyway.

  If you develop iOS apps, also wait to buy the ARM model because your apps will become available to macOS-on-ARM users through the App Store, and you want to be able to test on that platform in case users have issues.

  However if you develop anything else cross-platform (web, Unix, open source whatever) — buy an Intel Mac (or switch platforms). x86-64 is the architecture that everybody else uses on both clients and servers. ARM hasn't been a priority in the development of any of your current software stack. Why spend your money to be a beta tester on the bleeding edge? There's no advantage to you in being the unlucky one to discover obscure only-on-ARM bugs in some open source tool. Let someone else sort out Apple's v1.

• by christkv on 6/25/20, 8:18 AM

  Get the Intel one. At least then you can switch to Linux or even windows if they make a mess of the Intel support.

• by ceceron on 6/25/20, 11:17 AM

  I would buy the ARM one only if I was developing native apps for macOS. I don't believe there is any other scenario I would advice doing that.

  As for the switching to Windows/Linux, I am in similar position (developing on Mac Pro for 8 years) and my next hardware will be definitely not made by Apple. I don't find new models/macOS changes really "pro"-friendly. The most positive thing that happened recently was that they restored a working keyboard (just wow). Otherwise it just gets worse with every generation (both hardware and software).

• by rbanffy on 6/25/20, 8:45 AM

  If you develop apps for the Apple ecosystem, I'd suggest you wait a bit for some extra clarity. The next Apple event is in September, right? IIRC the first product will be an ARM 13 inch MBP.

  Otherwise, I'd suggest you get a Mac beefy enough to carry you for a couple years. 32 GB of RAM should be enough for a while (remember you'll want to have space for emulators) and Apple will support Intel for a while. Remember they kept the 13 inch with optical drive selling for a good couple years after the first Retinas were launched.

• by dave84 on 6/25/20, 8:39 AM

  If your keep your next Macbook also for 5 years, I don't see a significant change in the ecosystem in this time due to the amount of existing Intel macs.

  I'm guessing you're not a Mac-only developer if you're contemplating switching to Linux, so deploying to ARM is not enough of a concern that would necessitate an ARM Mac at launch.

  The resale value after 5 years may be less than your current one due to people being less interested in Intel macs by then.

• by hellweaver666 on 6/25/20, 8:43 AM

  I bought a 16" MBP a couple of months back and I'm confident that it will continue to do it's job for many years to come. Apple computers generally have excellent longevity on the software side. My last laptop was a 2010 Macbook Pro and that only stopped getting updates last year (and still functions perfectly today, sitting on a shelf above my desk with a big HD attached functioning as a server of sorts).

• by dividedbyzero on 6/25/20, 9:33 AM

  I'm in the same boat (but with an ancient late-'13 13" MBP), and I'm going to purchase a new Macbook Pro in the coming weeks.

  It's going to a better-specced model (32gb/i7 13") so it should allow me to ride out the ARM transition until the kinks are ironed out. I guess if there are compelling arguments to upgrade earlier, it should still have ok-ish resale value (there'll always be people who need to stick with Intel for a while longer, and there won't be any Intel big refreshes anymore, I guess...)

  I'm not confident Apple will keep selling Intel Macs for long once they have an ARM replacement for a model; will there still be a 32GB Intel 13" once they have a 32/64GB ARM 13"? Or will they just keep offering the base models? Or none? Anyone's guess and not something I want to depend on.

  Switching to Linux is not an option for me. "Linux is only free if your time has no value", as someone on this site recently put it, and I've found that to be true, plus, even in the best case, the "minor issues" that still remain are dealbreakers for me.

  Switching to Windows is something I've looked at, but I just don't "get" Windows, and even with WSL2, while there now is a happy path to work with Linux that is quite comfortable, anything outside that happy path quickly gets painful. It's just nowhere near as versatile as macOS with its UNIX underpinnings or native Linux, maybe it'll get there eventually.

  And besides, I'd hate to lose muscle memory and a ton of apps and workflows that I'd have to relearn and rebuild and that's quite an investment. I like the new keyboard a lot, so my main gripe with Apple laptops has disappeared.

• by mrzool on 6/25/20, 1:53 PM

  I recently decided for a refurbished MacBook Pro 2015. Fast, great display, great keyboard, lots of ports, and relatively affordable. I'm really happy with it. I'd wait for at least one iteration to invest a lot of money into an ARM machine… just to be sure.

• by t312227 on 6/25/20, 2:45 PM

  hi,

  i think this article sums it up quite good:

  https://www.pcworld.com/article/3563892/why-apples-move-from...

  * don't buy a new/arm one - you will be some kind of a "beta-tester" for many years, lots of errors, low performance due to emulation etc. but with the steep apple pricetag attached to it...

  * don't buy an old/intel one - you will loose software-maintenance (security!) faster than you are able to spell out the company-name ... :/

  imho.

  * keep your old system as long as possible

  * if you need a new one, go hackintosh 8)

  * buy something else - linux, winX, ...

• by diroussel on 6/25/20, 1:21 PM

  My advise would be; if you have the funds and the need now, then get it now. You've been going 5 years on 8GB RAM, and so for dev purposes you'll notice a good improvement going to a machine with 16 or 32GB RAM. If you can, get more RAM and make the machine last. I'm quite excited about ARM Macs, and I suspect they will be excellent in many ways, but there is always new hardware on the horizon. If you keep waiting for the next promise, you'll be suffering in the mean time. Get a decent Mac now, and get another one in 5 or 6 years time.

• by newbie578 on 6/25/20, 9:02 AM

  I also have a question if someone could help me please, althought it might be a little off topic.

  Currently I am developing mobile apps (or at least trying to) in Flutter, and I am using a Lenovo running Windows, and I love it, I cannot stand Linux or MacOS. The problem is, while I can make 1 codebase for Android and iOS on Windows, I still need XCode to deploy and test my app.

  So does anyone have any recommendations or advice on what to do? I would like to avoid paying $2000 for a Mac which I will only use to use emulator and deploy. Thanks

• by esseti on 6/26/20, 7:41 AM

  Thanks all for the answers, to summarize a bit:

  - I don't develop for mac/ios: so there's no need of arm for me - Switching to windows/linux is an option that I consider. In the company there are some XPS that are fairly good. The thing that stops me are the tool and the habit i developed with mac, and the fact that i've part of the file made with keynote/pages.

  In the end I'll make my mind of buying a XPS (or thinkpad) or go with the today's MBP

• by kojeovo on 6/25/20, 9:24 PM

  I would wait a good few years to buy an ARM model. So I don't think you should wait to upgrade, the new keyboards are sweet and 8GB is super limiting (for me anyways).

• by klelatti on 6/25/20, 2:14 PM

  Wait until the first ARM Macs in the form factor that you want (which might be less than a year). At that point you can see if the features of the new models convince you that they are worth it. If not you should still be able to buy a nearly new Intel model for a good price.

  That way you'll have no regret at possibly missing out on new features and have the maximum choice of options.

• by bhaavan on 6/25/20, 8:47 AM

  My guess is only the lower end macs will move to ARM till atleast the Apple 14z or most likely Apple A15z. Macbook Pro will be as is for a while. This is about 2 years too far out.

  Also intel should be supported for a couple of years once the new ARMs are out, and you wouldn't be obsolete till the lifetime of your laptop. At the end, you may even end up with a Apple memorabilia.

• by jcasian on 6/25/20, 3:09 PM

  I feel like right now is a good time to buy a new one, because you would still get the intel processors. I believe that Apple will do a great job with their ARM but usually the first versions of any product are not that good.

  I would wait a few models before making the change so that most of the bugs are solved.

• by mixmixmix on 6/25/20, 8:26 AM

  I got a 2015 Air with 8 gigs of ram. I'm wondering whether to pull the trigger on the 16" or endure more pain for the next several months to see what else comes out.

  Has anyone upgraded from an older Air to a 16"? Is the increase in performance more like a "OMG" or "Not bad"?

• by robsun on 6/26/20, 7:02 PM

  I have mid 2012 MacBook Pro and I am about to change my workstation. I stopped looking at MacBooks - in my opinion nothing justifies such high price. In mid July new Thinkpads with Ryzens 4000 will be available, I'm going to get one.

• by HackerLars on 6/25/20, 1:36 PM

  All depends on your disk tolerance. Several have mentioned first gen with signifigant new tech can be brittle.

  I bought a new 16" MBP in January; it's FAST, does a much better job with heat dissipation than the previous version, and finally has a decent keyboard again.

• by helij on 6/25/20, 11:04 PM

  There's always something new next year. If you feel you need a new laptop buy it now. Not sure about moving to other system. Personally, I find them all ok and work with Linux, Apple and Windows machines equaly both for dev and business apps.

• by ojhughes on 6/25/20, 8:32 AM

  The Macbook Pro 16 is a fantastic machine, I would buy it again in a heartbeat

• by OakNinja on 6/25/20, 8:24 AM

  Keep in mind Apple will most certainly sell Intel based Macs for at least two years. The transition to ARM will take time. It’s really not a different decision then it was last week - buy one if you need one.

• by stevage on 6/25/20, 8:19 AM

  This is the place to find out: https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro_16

• by cpach on 6/25/20, 8:29 AM

  I have decided to get a second-hand Macbook Air. Hopefully it will last for 2-3 years, and by that time I can probably replace it with an ARM-powered Macbook of some kind.

• by nix23 on 6/25/20, 8:58 AM

  Yes please move.

  And even when i say take Linux or FreeBSD, you should probably consider Windows with WSL2.

  If you had no contact with windows for a longer time here you can test it out (virtual machine)

  https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/downloads/virt...

  EDIT: The downvote shows that apple really is a fanboy-company and not the revolutionary Macintosh/Jobs era stuff anymore

• by hartator on 6/25/20, 8:19 AM

  > Thus, should I wait 1 year and get a new mac with ARM

  I bet on a Macbook 12" with ARM processor at the Iphone event. (September/October 2020)

  I would say wait for it if you can. It will be a game changer.

• by 3xa on 6/25/20, 8:28 AM

  I´m in the same position right now. But I think I will get the last Intel version. I´m not so confident about the 1st gen of the ARM version. Even the 2nd gen of the "butterfly" keyboard was a fail. On the other hand, Apple could do a lot better with their own silicon and have much better performance than the last Intel version.

  TL;DR => Now to be safe and have a working Mac for the next 5+ years => Later to have the newest "thing" but maybe with 1st gen problems