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Comment by hinkley | Hacker News Reader

I'm at the point where I need a new Macbook Pro and I can't help thinking I want the last generation of the x86_64 architecture, not the first generation of something new. Those have never paid off for me.

At work, Intel would clearly be better. We do a growing amount of Docker work destined for Intel machines. But at home it's fuzzier, since I've been playing with k3s on a cluster of Pi clones. It's going to come down to games, I think. Although I haven't had much time for them lately.

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If you require Docker, the Apple Silicon machines are not an option, and won't be for at least a little while.

https://www.docker.com/blog/apple-silicon-m1-chips-and-docke...

Interesting, although seems like they kind of buried the lede. Surely the go toolchain and Electron should already work find on Rosetta? Getting some new Mac Minis for CI should only take a week or two.

What's unclear from this is if the hypervisor even supports everything they need or if they're waiting on Apple for more features, and how much work it'll require on their end to support the new hypervisor. Since Docker for Mac is closed source I think we're just waiting on the company for it as well. I wonder if we're looking at a month, 6 months, or multiple years?

Didn’t they mention Docker specifically in the Apple Event? Obviously it won’t work properly for 6 months at least...

To be fair, a developer-worthy M1 machine is still going to be 'a little while'. But once that machine is out the previous model quickly ceases to be an option, so I have to sort it out based on speculation.

Sure, but that really seems like it will be a matter of weeks. But on the other hand I don't think VirtualBox is going to happen at all.

Is it just me or are the current offering of M1 chips not developer machines anyway?

They max at 16GB RAM. That's a huge limiting factor by itself. If they can work out Docker before 32GB memory MBP, then it seems fine.

It depends on your work. Since many developers are using cloud services for serious testing, an awful lot of people are just fine with 8GB for Docker + VSCode + Firefox/Chrome + Slack. There are people who need massive in-memory models or huge compilations but that’s far from universal.

I would like to know how many 8gb ram, 16gb ram and 32gb ram laptops sold apple, I suspect the 32gb market size is not as big as people seems to think. I user docker, virtual machines and a lot of chrome, and have plenty headspace with 16gb.

> It's going to come down to games, I think. Although I haven't had much time for them lately.

I've moved to consoles for games. Rarely I play a game on my Mac anymore. When you sit behind your desk all day for work. Playing games in that same environment and posture gets tiring. The console brings the games to the living room TV in a much more confortable setting.

Or you can build a pretty decent upgradeable game machine for a fraction of developer MBP :).

We've got a Windows 10 box at every TV. Aside from games, it's just so much faster and ad-free compared to using a Smart TV/Roku/Apple TV/etc. They're also easier to operate with a Logitech K400r keyboard and touchpad. Add an XBox controller and a decent GPU and it's just like using a console but with cheaper games.

You don't need to build an expensive gaming PC either. My 4 year old i5/GTX1070/16gb/SSD still plays all the games I want it to. I can even play at 4K. I expect this $900 machine to last me at least a couple more years.

If you just want to watch YouTube/Netflix/etc on your couch and do some very light gaming though, check out what you can get for ~$200 - https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07B8VX5HZ

I've done this a decent amount myself, but one thing I've been disappointed by is mod support.

Since PCs aren't locked down platforms, you can mod games whether they added support originally or not - But on Consoles, only a rare few games support it.

There are ways to jailbreak consoles and add external mod support, but the process is so esoteric and user-hostile that most console games will have few or any mods written.

Totally agree. Largely quitting PC gaming has been a productivity boon for me. I think somehow the activity being at the same machine I use for work drains my work energy, and for whatever reason the console experience is sufficiently different that it doesn't feel like the same activity.

Huh interesting, I feel very uncomfortable sitting on the couch and find it promotes unhealthy, hunched over posture as opposed to the ergonomic desktop chair.

Also with things like Paperspace and up coming game streaming services it really feels like it won't matter all that much for the times you want to play games on the Mac.

Also remember that with the M1 Macs you'll be getting some access to all the games released for iOS of which many are not the IAP types and are worth playing.

Upcoming gaming streaming services? Upcoming in a sense like net positive energy fusion is upcoming? :p

I don’t know what your work setup is, but if you like having dual screens you should either pick one of the Intel models up now or be ready to wait a year or two for support

Or get an ultrawide display!

Same here! If you don’t have a working Mac, buy a refurbished Mac, save money, and wait a couple cycles for the next Mac.

I plan on waiting a little bit to let the chips and MacOS’s arm ecosystem mature.

I'm unhappy with my MacBookPro16,1 I think it's slow, they keyboard is worse than that of my 2013 machine, the touchbar is useless and only produces heat. the fans are spinning 24/7 when an external monitor is connected. and a lot of the time the machine hangs.

my next machine won't be an macbook pro. 3000€ for a machine that can't handle my load is simply not worth it. especially since machines with more power and have linux/windows costing only around 2500€.

I was watching a LinusTechTips recently and he made some comment about heat pipes having an orientation that increases thermal transfer.

I’ve been wondering ever since if my laptop stand is making my heat situation worse or better.

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