“The Apple just announced the fact that they are shifting away from Intel chips for their computers and replacing them with their own ARM chips that are in all the iPhones, iPads and Watches. So, am I going out to buy the new computers based on the ARM chips? My past experience says no. Here is why:

I have bought a new Apple laptop computer every 2-3 years since 1992. One of them was based on a PowerPC G4 chip. I bought it just before the G5 chip was announced which had tremendous problems, and the reason why Apple went to Intel. So, I waited till the first Intel based laptop came out and bought it immediately! It had a LARGE number of problems which were not solved for over a year. It was another year beyond that before Apple successfully married all of its hardware and software. I was also a beta user of the “new MacOS ten” when it arrived in 2010. It was also a couple years before it was stable.

Given my experience with new architecture, I am not going to run out and buy the new ARM based computers. Not if my current one is running fine. If my current one needs to be replaced, I will still wait till all the reviews of the new ones are in, and the applications I need to run are stable on the new platforms. In my mind, given my experience with Apple, that means 1-2 years after release of the new computers.”

Frank Croft