APPLE SILICON
Ready or Not Here Come the M4 Macs
But do we need them?
The Apple rumor mill seems to have reached a consensus that M4 updates to the iMac, MacBook Pro, and Mac mini will be announced before the end of October with availability on November 1st. I wrote a story two months ago (The M4 Macs Are Coming and You Shouldn’t Buy One) that argued most Mac owners should sit out this upgrade cycle. Since then my day job has been outsourced to India so I will be switching from developing for Apple platforms as a hobby to being a full-time independent Apple developer. So what impact does that have on my thoughts about upgrading to an M4 Mac?
In my previous story, I mentioned Accidental Tech Podcast’s Marco Arment’s mindset “I’m a computer professional. This is my computer. That’s it” leads to making unjustifiable computer purchases. I’ve been down this road before. When I launched my first software startup thirty-five years ago I could have adopted Arment’s attitude and purchased a top-of-the-line development system. Back then, it would have been something like ALR’s 20-MHz 386/2 Model 130 with a starting retail price of $7,299 (over $20,000 today). But that would have been ridiculous. I chose a lower-tier system sufficient to get the job done, an AST Premium/286 Model 80, saving over $5,000.
