Apple Just Killed the MacBook as We Know It: ‘Don’t Buy a Mac’

This is pretty alarmist and overstated. As someone who just bought a Macbook, I'm definitely worried that it won't be supported well by future versions of MacOS. But there isn't an alternative. Even with the processor switch, Apple has fewer versions of different hardware to support than Windows or Linux. Processors aren't the only thing that affects performance and Apple has exactly the same incentives to support your Intel processor that Dell/AlienWare/whatever and/or Microsoft has to support your current processor, RAM, graphics card, or SSD. There's historical precedent for Apple not providing good support for their PowerPC machines, but there's also more recent historical precedent for Macs lasting a whole hell of a lot longer than PCs. I just retired an 11-year-old Macbook Air without ever reformatting or doing any hardware work on it, and the only thing really wrong with it was the battery, which could have been replaced for a fraction of the cost of a new laptop. There may exist Windows computers with that longevity, but they're the exception, not the rule. I won't speculate on what agenda Forbes is trying to push here, but it's certainly crap reporting.

The MacWorld article Forbes references gives much better advice:

> If you need a new Mac right now, by all means, get a new Mac. It’s a have-to-have, not a nice-to-have.

> But if you can wait until at least the end of the year to upgrade your laptop or desktop, you’d be crazy to buy a new Mac right now.

That's much more realistic. But even that I'd qualify by saying that it's not always great to be an early adopter after a big transition either. Any time you buy a Mac in the next few years is going to have some risks. But, as I said before, there isn't another platform which doesn't have the same risks.

I like macOS but I was badly hit by the whole butterfly keyboard debacle and now by the battery going down.

No macbook for me for the foreseeable future.

I believe they've committed to continuing support for at least seven years.

I'll also point out that for some workflows having an Intel Mac is critical, and as such buying additional machines to put on the shelf for future use is going to be a thing.

I don't even think Apple is going to transition all their lines over any time soon. They didn't give hard timelines for different product lines in the announcements. They could still be making Intel Macs for years.