I think Apple will keep selling x86 Macs forever. For heavy-duty workstation workloads, M1 just doesn't cut it.
We are still only 6 months into that transition.
> This transition will also establish a common architecture across all Apple products, making it far easier for developers to write and optimize their apps for the entire ecosystem.
> Apple plans to ship the first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years. Apple will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-based Macs in development.
I would expect Intel-based Mac Pros to continue for as long as there's a market for them. Probably at least 2-4 years after the "transition" finishes. (The last spec bump in 1-2 years, and sales end 3-4 years from now...)
It's also worth pointing out that Apple supports its products roughly 7 years from when they're sold, which means Apple will likely continue supporting Intel-based MacOS for at least another decade, possibly as much as 13-15 years. That said, I wouldn't buy an Intel Mac after 2024 and expect the same experience even if Apple supports it until 2031 or later: In just a few years, I'd expect Apple would have created even more MacOS features uniquely suited to the ARM chips they're now making.
If you look at the PPC to x86 transition [0] it happened faster than predicted, and OS support only lasted 3 years after it was done.
IMO Microsoft is the company that heavily prioritizes backwards compatibility, while Apple is happy to drop support where necessary to move forward.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Intel_proces...
Now, until the M1, Intel Macs where pretty much mediocre, even against a (fully configured OFC) KDE [3-5] BSD/Linux setup. Even with their iThingie ecosystem integration.
Fact is, until they can get nVidia GTX compatibility or quality, there will be a significant market of 3D and gaming that does not want to switch.
And I say this as someone who very much likes my new M1 Macbook and wants to convince the rest of the family and friends to never again buy an x86-based laptop computer.
If Apple can add 3D and gaming chips equivalent to the GTX 3000 series with software support, all within 2 years? Amazing and that speeds up their switchover -- but Adobe, for one, has still not yet updated Adobe After Effects and likely won't for at least a year, even though they announced they would. I'll remind folks that Adobe said they would consider adding Metal support to After Effects almost five years ago and still hasn't. Other apps are in a similar state.
I don't doubt that Apple would like the transition to be quick as well as seamless, and I think most portable products will transition very quickly. But unless Apple wants to leave the Pro market they just entered by making things too unstable for Pros, they will tread carefully on eliminating sales and support for Intel. Especially because even now they are selling 16" MacBook Pros that run Intel, and Intel Mac Pros, and 27" iMacs (formerly Pros) and all three of these platforms should ideally be supported for five years, minimum, ideally six given we could count the last year as the "seventh" year of support.
This is not the last processor they will do. Have you been watching the massive year over year performance gains Apple has been making for several years? There will be an M2 and an M3, and ....
Given the performance AND energy beating they are putting on the market sector that they targeted with M1, why is there any reason to believe they won't kill the high-end workstation sector when they target that?
Apple could make one 16 core die and offer workstations with anywhere between one and four tiles for 16 to 64 cores.
As for the high end laptops and iMacs, I'm expecting Apple to launch a monolithic 8+4 chip.
That would be just 3 unique dies to cover Apples entire Mac lineup.
Apple immediately discontinued all Mac minis, almost all the Macbook Air and Pro line ups and the iMac's running Intel. The last form factor to transition is the Mac Pro.
> For heavy-duty workstation workloads, M1 just doesn't cut it.
Perhaps you are right on this one for now. The M1 doesn't cut it for 'Apple's standards' for now but when the time comes for the Mac Pro to transition, it won't use an M1 chip, but probably an M2 / M3 chip.
Apple Silicon is the start of it all and M1 is only the beginning and is certainly not the last. So its worth waiting to see how the M1X, M2 or M3 Macs improve over M1.
8 high performance 4 low performance cores? Yes please. Or maybe we’ll get 16-16
Not to mention that they've already been dominating mobile SOC performance for half a decade as well.
There's no indication that they couldn't take on the pro market. They've clearly got the talent in place. It's likely that the market size is a bigger factor than capability.