If Apple had two product lines..

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

I had a similar issue.. and realized that I don’t need my Windows apps any longer.., which was the only reason why I was running a windows VM. I haven’t upgraded to ARM yet because I can’t afford it and I don’t really need it - my 2014 and 2015 machines still meet my minimal needs. I have a windows laptop for work and a legacy windows laptop I could convert if needed.. but I don’t need it. For me right now the bigger decision is do I plunk down $3500 and $1500 respectively for new MBP and Mini when Linux is becoming a viable alternative.

 

[GMShadow]

Of course, I got a Lenovo laptop at work. But having two laptops is just tiring. Always the most important document will be on the second one, which of course stayed at work.

Have you considered cloud storage...or a VPN?

 

[jdimatteo]

Use VirtualBox to run x86 Windows on Mac M1/M2

1. Go to https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads
2. Click the “Developer preview for macOS / Arm64 (M1/M2) hosts” link

*Edit*

This uses emulation to run x86 Windows on M1/M2, not necessarily ARM Windows. It is slow but free and published by Oracle so maybe worth a try.

 

[ApplesAreSweet&Sour]

There is no thing in the world that is the best of everything. ARM has its advantages, Intel has its own. The desire of every manufacturer is to sell as many of their products as possible. There will be customers for ARM, just like there will be for Intel. On the car market, the same manufacturers offered diesel and petrol engines. What matters is the client, not ideology.

Moving Macs away from Intel and having them largely rely on the same tried-and-true tech that iPhones rely on is how Apple is conquering the mainstream.

The only way to force developers to do ARM versions of the apps you need is by gaining market shares and not compromising by doing Macs with Intel chips.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

Yeah, but running Windows doesn’t mean that the application software will work on ARM. I ran into that already. I had to re-buy a slightly different version of an old package ($100) because it would not work on ARM. Actually, I didn’t pay for the whole thing, I think I spilt it with my in-laws. It’s a genealogy program that has the family history back to the 1600’s… if not earlier.

 

[TracerAnalog]

Hi,

would you buy a brand new Macbook (Air/Pro) with an Intel processor today? I'm not talking about laptops before changing the processor to M1. The question is: if Apple had two lines of computers/laptops in its offer: one with M1/M2/Mx processors and the other with Intel processors, which processor would you choose? I'm asking because for me M1/M2 processors mean the need to use a laptop from 2018, which, as everyone knows, is Apple's biggest failure in the last decade. It has had two matrix replacements and I know that in two years at most I will have to repair it again. But for professional reasons, I must have on my laptop at least a virtual machine with Windows (version for Intel processors), so Apple has no offer for me. The day my laptop finally fails will be the first time since 1986 that I will buy a laptop from a company other than Apple. It's a bit of a pity, but I have no other choice. And I don't really feel like using two separate laptops. Plus, it's bad for the environment.

If you NEED an x86 windows machine, it is simple: get one. I would investigate however if you really need x86 Windows. You can do a lot with MS apps on MacOS these days, and ARM Windows is surprisingly useful.

 

[tubuliferous]

I need Windows on my laptop for three years. Since the introduction of a document workflow management in the company I work for, which runs only on Windows...

The Parallels Windows virtualization is so good (and WAY more convenient than using Bootcamp) that for most people it will suffice.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Hi,

Hello

would you buy a brand new Macbook (Air/Pro) with an Intel processor today? I'm not talking about laptops before changing the processor to M1.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! No.

I switched to Mac because of Apple Silicon. Under Intel the Mac has been an overpriced underpowered joke compared to other PCs. But on ARM, it's now become the best laptop on the market.

The question is: if Apple had two lines of computers/laptops in its offer: one with M1/M2/Mx processors and the other with Intel processors, which processor would you choose?

Still the M Series SoCs because again: Intel Macs sucked and that's a time I do not wanna go back to. The Mac is actually good again thanks to moving to Apple Silicon. If we had Intel Macbook Airs nowadays then the Air wouldn't be fanless and couldn't get smaller. If we still had Intel Macs the Intel Macs would cost more due to having to pay Intel royalties versus Apple Silicon that Apple makes themselves which in turn made the Mac cheaper than the competition.

I'm asking because for me M1/M2 processors mean the need to use a laptop from 2018, which, as everyone knows, is Apple's biggest failure in the last decade.

If you need an x86 computer get a gaming PC or a laptop from Lenovo or ASUS, not an Intel Mac. Otherwise if you need a Mac, just take the plunge into Apple Silicon already.

It has had two matrix replacements and I know that in two years at most I will have to repair it again. But for professional reasons, I must have on my laptop at least a virtual machine with Windows (version for Intel processors), so Apple has no offer for me.

Uhh...you do know Windows 10/11 virtual machines are available for the Apple Silicon Macs now, right?

The day my laptop finally fails will be the first time since 1986 that I will buy a laptop from a company other than Apple. It's a bit of a pity, but I have no other choice. And I don't really feel like using two separate laptops. Plus, it's bad for the environment.

Okay I know I keep saying the ARM Macbooks are the only laptop worth buying nowadays (and the market agrees since for the last 8 quarters the M1/M2 Macs have outsold every other OEM on the market) but again: Lenovo and ASUS laptops are good. There's also the Framework laptops which also kick ass and are upgradable.

You can get a non-Mac if you need one for work reasons. It's not scary like you think it is. Take it from a former Mac hater like me.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

The Parallels Windows virtualization is so good (and WAY more convenient than using Bootcamp) that for most people it will suffice.

Unless the app doesn’t work

 

[hagjohn]

Of course, I got a Lenovo laptop at work. But having two laptops is just tiring. Always the most important document will be on the second one, which of course stayed at work.

I have 3 computers. M1 Mini, work laptop and a gaming desktop. I have a dedicated workstations for all 3. It is just something you have to do these days. Being "tired" is irrelevant.

 

[KaliYoni]

I must have on my laptop at least a virtual machine with Windows

(Cześć!)
Have you looked into any of these?
CrossOver
Parallels
VMware Fusion

That would be marketing suicide

In the world of marketing if you tout how superior ARM is over Intel and then release an Intel computer. You're shooting yourself in the foot. You cannot market how great one platform is over another and then try sell both.

There is a long history in marketing strategy of companies successfully using line extensions, flanker brands, and differently featured versions of products to acquire new buyers or to hold on to current buyers who don't want change in existing products. While this is most common with consumer packaged goods (think Procter & Gamble and laundry detergents or Unilever and ice creams), Apple does it too. For example, eMac, iPhone 5c, Mac Performa, and, currently, iPad, Watch Hermès, and iPhone SE.

As well, a well-established brand backed by a company with huge financial resources can survive major missteps. New Coke and the Tylenol product tampering crisis are classic examples. And again, Apple itself has committed plenty of marketing and product mistakes in the past and, surely, will make more in the future. So, if Apple did decide to offer Intel processors in some of its Macs, I don't think it would be "suicide" if the product and marketing strategies and tactics were formulated and executed skillfully.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

I have 3 computers. M1 Mini, work laptop and a gaming desktop. I have a dedicated workstations for all 3. It is just something you have to do these days. Being "tired" is irrelevant.

Nah.. I can kind of see his bitching. But there are easy solitons like Dropbox, or even Microsoft’s own cloud storage which is accessible from the Mac or just an NFS share.. but you’ll need a VPN.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Hi,

would you buy a brand new Macbook (Air/Pro) with an Intel processor today?

Yes, two offices full of them, because professional design software only runs on Intel, so we’re already on the hook for buying powerful Intel machines. …which largely makes the super cool Mx Apple computers redundant & admin-only computers, which, honestly that lightweight work can be done on an iPad now, so there’s no real point to an Apple notebook anymore.

Personally I’m not ruling Mx out or anything. I’ll sell off my room full of older Apple stuff soon, & just keep one of each generation of Intel MacBook Pros, bc they each do something unique and valuable to me. The 2009 17 is an incredible Swiss Army knife of features & holds 8TB of SSD storage & is operatable by infrared remote control as a media jukebox driving the big 30” Apple Cinema Display. The 2015 15” has all the modern features, plenty of power (thx to thermal mod) to accomplish heavy tasks, can swap between native-running OS’s as fast as swapping SSD’s of whatever size you choose, useful ports, & is easily serviceable, while the 2019 16” has 4x the horsepower (though it needed to be heavily modded w/copper to use that power), but is a soldiered-together disposable throwaway computer just like the new Mx MBPs, so I’ll continue to use it to run Solidworks & Catia til it burns up & that’ll be that.

When the m3 chips hit the MacBook Airs I’ll have to decide if it’s worth getting one to do little video edits while relaxing on the couch (which the old Intel macs can also do already, so eh), or just get the portability & added functionality of a Surface Pro again.The power of drawing in CAD with a stylus > power of a really fast chip that isn’t compatible with anything.

I’m less inclined to spend my thousands on computers intentionally designed to be thrown in the trash when the SSD’s that wear out after a thousand writes are permanently soldiered into the board. Because of this, my ancient 2015 MBP will ultimately outlast every other computer I have.

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

I have 3 computers. M1 Mini, work laptop and a gaming desktop. I have a dedicated workstations for all 3. It is just something you have to do these days. Being "tired" is irrelevant.

I got 5. 14 inch M1 Pro Macbook Pro, a HP Elitebook x360 as my work computer, an HP Omen Obelisk 875 as my gaming PC (HP seriously make this computer again it kicked ass the current Omens suck so much,) an old MSI Apache Pro I use as a Linux box now, and a Steam Deck

My Mac is used for daily driving. The HP Omen Obelisk is for games and games only, same with the Steam Deck. The Elitebook is just for work since it's government issued. The MSI is for Linux homelabbing because I gotta go gremlin mode every now and again.



Point is, while it sucks sometimes we can't have a be all end all computer (Like I would kill to replace my Omen Obelisk with a Mac Studio if the Mac could play the same games my PC and Steam Deck can because I AM SICK OF WINDOWS) but that's not how life works. Sometimes you need different tools for the job

 

[Spaceboi Scaphandre]

Nah.. I can kind of see his bitching. But there are easy solitons like Dropbox, or even Microsoft’s own cloud storage which is accessible from the Mac or just an NFS share.. but you’ll need a VPN.

Or you can just make a home network drive. There's cheap NAS devices you can setup and use as a cheap, light, low profile home network drive you can store all your media and files on.

 

[ignatius345]

The question is: if Apple had two lines of computers/laptops in its offer: one with M1/M2/Mx processors and the other with Intel processors, which processor would you choose?

I had the last Intel MacBook Air, immediately followed by the M1 Air. So, very much a direct apples-to-apples comparison. The M1 gives me double to triple the battery life, zero fan noise, and a massive increase in speed and responsiveness.

Sorry you need to run Windows.

 

[Dr_Charles_Forbin]

I had the last Intel MacBook Air, immediately followed by the M1 Air. So, very much a direct apples-to-apples comparison. The M1 gives me double to triple the battery life, zero fan noise, and a massive increase in speed and responsiveness.

Sorry you need to run Windows.

I wish the MBA had more than 8GB RAM and had a larger footprint. It meets my needs otherwise and it's substantially cheaper than an MBP.

 

[ignatius345]

I wish the MBA had more than 8GB RAM and had a larger footprint. It meets my needs otherwise and it's substantially cheaper than an MBP.

?? It can be configured with more RAM. I run it with 8GB, which actually is totally fine for most everything I do. The only time it really bogs down is if I'm running multiple user accounts.

 

[ignatius345]

Yes, two offices full of them, because professional design software only runs on Intel, so we’re already on the hook for buying powerful Intel machines. …

Haha, what "professional design software" are you talking about? I run Illustrator and InDesign on M1 Macs all day long in a fast paced production setting. It all works brilliantly.

which largely makes the super cool Mx Apple computers redundant & admin-only computers, which, honestly that lightweight work can be done on an iPad now, so there’s no real point to an Apple notebook anymore.

It sounds like you're working off completely false information. Good luck!

 

[ignatius345]

Of course, I got a Lenovo laptop at work. But having two laptops is just tiring. Always the most important document will be on the second one, which of course stayed at work.

That was maybe true 10 years ago, but if you're managing your stuff right it isn't anymore. I keep everything important in iCloud Drive (can also sub for that Dropbox, Google, etc). In a pinch I can access files on my phone if I need to, or even a web browser. Not hard to do unless, I guess, you're dealing with gigantic video editing files or something.

 

[tubuliferous]

Unless the app doesn’t work

True, but I'm betting that for most cases (likely including the document workflow management software cited) that Parallels will work great. Ironically, for those cases where mission-critical Windows software will not run in Parallels, the issue may be with the emulation layer in the ARM version of Windows.

It's pretty amazing that so much software works so well through Parallels on Apple Silicon considering that there isn't a lot of native software for ARM Windows, and much of that software must be emulated through Microsoft's x86 emulation and then through Parallels virtualization.

 

[MallardDuck]

Hi,

would you buy a brand new Macbook (Air/Pro) with an Intel processor today? I'm not talking about laptops before changing the processor to M1. The question is: if Apple had two lines of computers/laptops in its offer: one with M1/M2/Mx processors and the other with Intel processors, which processor would you choose? I'm asking because for me M1/M2 processors mean the need to use a laptop from 2018, which, as everyone knows, is Apple's biggest failure in the last decade. It has had two matrix replacements and I know that in two years at most I will have to repair it again. But for professional reasons, I must have on my laptop at least a virtual machine with Windows (version for Intel processors), so Apple has no offer for me. The day my laptop finally fails will be the first time since 1986 that I will buy a laptop from a company other than Apple. It's a bit of a pity, but I have no other choice. And I don't really feel like using two separate laptops. Plus, it's bad for the environment.

You can get an intel laptop from 2019, which were great machines. However, intel OS support is going to go away in a few years, at which point you'll either run insecure or have a very nice linux machine.

Depending on your windows workload, check out Windows 11 ARM - it runs very well in a virtual machine, and has an x86/64 emulation layer like rosetta that's good enough for everything but games and heavy GPU programs.

I've moved my intel windows workload to a cloud VM, which works better than a local one (since it has a real GPU), so that might be another option too.

 

[ThunderSkunk]

Haha, what "professional design software" are you talking about? I run Illustrator and InDesign on M1 Macs all day long in a fast paced production setting. It all works brilliantly.


It sounds like you're working off completely false information. Good luck!

Solidworks, Catia, Inventor. Look around you. See all the physical objects? They are designed by designers and engineered by engineers, and it all happens in those programs, every stage of development, the entire PLM side, the procurement, the materials, the processing, the distribution, disposal & reuse, environmental, safety & trade regulations & standards compliance, of all of it is built into those enormous product & industrial design applications you’ve apparently never heard of, and all of of it runs on Intel. Illustrator is an app for making cute graphics.

Given your complete ignorance about product design & snarky attitude, I’m not sure why I’m going to dignify this with a response, but there you go. Familiarize yourself.

 

[v0lume4]

I would be extremely interested in an x86 Mac today. Preferably not Intel, but AMD. But let’s say it’s Intel for the sake of this discussion because that’s what the OP said.

My previous laptop was a mid-2010 MBP. I used it as my daily for twelve years. Poor thing couldn’t even play 60FPS YouTube videos due to no hardware video deciding. I loved that laptop. I still love that laptop. Matter of fact, I briefly whipped it out the other day to use CoconutBattery for an iPhone.

That laptop had an Intel AND a dedicated nVidia GPU. When I needed to do my everyday tasks, I’d use macOS. When I needed an obscure Windows/only app, I’d boot into Windows. When I wanted to play games, I’d boot into Windows and play games. That laptop could do absolutely everything. And, as mentioned, it still works (thanks to user upgradeable parts but that’s a different discussion). I don’t believe I’ll ever own a laptop that good again, period.

That brings us to today. The MacBooks today, due to ARM, allow me to do LESS with my computer than my previous MacBook did. In a matter of speaking, it would be a downgrade compared to my previous MacBook. I want one device that can do it all, and the ARM-based MacBooks do not offer me that solution. For that reason (and some others), my current laptop is a Windows machine and I’m very happy with it.

I’d be very interested in an Intel MacBook. A true do-it-all machine, like my previous MacBook.

 

[v0lume4]

Apple cannot tout the superiority of their ARM processor and then turn around and release an intel based laptop. That would be marketing suicide and Apple's competitors would jump on them for flip/flopping so quickly.

Also consider that the rosetta 2 is a temporary solution, if Apple introduced intel based computers again, developers would stop converting their apps from intel to ARM. There would be no reason since Apple would be supporting intel compatibility permanently.

I often enjoy your posts in the “Alternatives” board, so I’d like to ask for your take on this.

Intel and AMD’s recent mobile offerings are incredibly impressive. On synthetic benchmarks, Intel’s CPUs are literally double their performance of the M2 Pro/Max chips. DOUBLE. This comes at the expense of efficiency — the power consumption of the Intel chips are just stupid. It’s kind of a joke.

Now, I know synthetic benchmarks are not the end-all. And power consumption is a huge consideration with laptops. Apple cannot be beat in that regard. But the point is, those Intel numbers are incredible.

What do you think will happen if and Intel and AMD continue to pull away at this rate? They’ve been making CPU’s for decades longer than Apple. If the divide between Apple Silicon performance and the competitors becomes too great, we’ll start to have a PowerPC/Intel situation again, no?