At this point we've been blasted
with wave upon a wave of new Apple silicon Macs.
Apple silicon.
It's phenomenal.
So much so that I've kind of lost interest.
Maybe you have as well,
or at least more than half of you have.
And it's not hard to see why either.
I mean, the most recent Macs have seemingly reverted back
to the original Intel upgrade cycle we're so used to.
Almost entirely the same product
with a little bit of an internal spec jump.
I know, boring, right?
I even purchased some of the new Macs
to create those really detailed comparison videos
you guys are used to, but I just can't be bothered.
I think they're still sitting in their packaging unopened.
So it got me thinking.
I mean, we've been so focused
on the latest and greatest Macs over the last few months,
why don't we zoom out and focus
on the entire Apple silicon timeline
over the last few years and talk about some things
that you maybe haven't thought of.
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Okay, so let's start off
with how the secondhand market has changed.
When the first Apple silicon Macs were released,
pretty much every single Intel Mac
dropped in value significantly.
Sure, there were some people out there
still interested in Intel Macs,
mainly those who needed an x86 platform
for software compatibility.
But in most cases it was just better
to buy a new M1 Mac instead due to the huge performance,
battery life and efficiency improvement.
And this introduced a massive gap in the secondhand market
between the Apple silicon and Intel platforms.
The price of used Intel Macs completely bottomed out,
but used Apples silicon Macs
were still quite new and expensive.
So there was kind of like this weird
gray area in the middle.
Fast forward to present day,
we're more than two years past the initial release
of Apple silicon Macs,
and I've noticed the secondhand market
is reaching an equilibrium now,
which is having a big impact on affordability.
Let's take the M1 MacBook Air for example.
Now, in 2020 and 2021, you had three options.
Option number one: Buy a brand new M1 MacBook Air.
Option number two: Buy a vastly inferior Intel MacBook Air.
Or option number three: Try to find a used M1 MacBook Air
on the secondhand market.
Now that third option could be quite difficult.
Not many people are selling a product
that's barely one year old on the secondhand market.
And if they were,
the price really wasn't that much different
to just simply buying it brand new in the first place.
Even when we got to 2022
when the M2 version of the Air was released,
there just wasn't that much secondhand stock
of the previous M1 generation available.
But slowly but surely, the available stock increased
and overall price of used Apple silicone
started to come down to the point
where now you can pick up a lightly used
M1 MacBook Air for about 550 bucks.
And I'm slowly seeing the same thing happen
to other Mac lineups, like the 14 and 16 inch MacBook Pros
and the Mac mini once they were refreshed with M2.
Now this is great because you don't have to buy
a brand new Mac now to get the benefit of Apple silicon.
You can now come in one or two generations behind
for a massive discount, like you could in the Intel days.
But this time
you'll still get really good performance and value.
Now, I think this will become even more distinguished
over time 'cause it seems like Apple
is fully committed to refreshing each product line
more frequently now that they're using their own silicon.
I mean, the most recent MacBook Pros
were updated just one year after they were released.
So, when the rumored M3 Apple silicon Macs come out,
they're not competing with crappy Intel Macs
like the early Apple silicon versions,
but the M2 and M1 that are only slightly less powerful,
which, to me, makes the overall Mac market
much more competitive.
Now, getting back to these refreshes.
I know a lot of people seemed disappointed
with the most recent M1 to M2 update,
particularly on the 16 and 14 inch MacBook Pros.
But what did we expect?
A massive improvement?
No, and, again, let's zoom out a little bit here.
This is my 2017 base model 13 inch MacBook Pro.
And here's my 2022 base model M2 MacBook Pro.
On paper the 2022 version of this MacBook
destroys the 2017 version to the point
where it's almost laughable.
And you'll see this massive difference
in real-life workflows the most.
Now, I have fond memories of using the 2017 MacBook
to try and edit screen recorded videos
for my work in a hotel room.
I'll throw up a picture if I still have one.
And the experience was just absolutely horrible.
It was only about a 10 or 15 minute screen recording
of my screen, I think I was showing a colleague
how to do something, and the fans were going crazy.
It was boiling hot, overheating.
And I think it failed the render like two or three times
and then when it finally did go through,
the render took probably like an hour and a half
for like a 10 minute video.
So it was a really, really bad experience.
Anyway, I really like this comparison
because a 2017 MacBook Pro is likely what a lot of you
are coming from when considering a new laptop right now.
Most people only buy a new laptop around every five years.
So let's try not to get hung up
on these minor generational bumps
and just focus on the bigger overall picture.
And don't forget, the improvement from M1 to M2,
although many may consider it minor,
is still better than whatever improvements we got
from previous Intel Mac updates,
which was usually like a 10% bump in just CPU performance.
And that brings me to my next point.
I've talked about the whole Mac versus PC debate before,
and now that I've mentioned that
there are going to be arguments in the comments section,
but if you'd told me five years ago
what it would look like right now,
I would have never believed you.
If you remember five years ago,
most people simply would have never considered a Mac
for serious, often relatively intensive workflows,
with the exception of the ludicrously expensive
Mac Pro of course.
I mean, I know I didn't.
I had a base model 13 inch MacBook Pro
for all my web browsing emails,
light usage and university at the time.
But anything else was always done on a beefier PC,
either a laptop or desktop.
And I'm really surprised at how this has changed today.
Sure, there are still many situations where a PC is superior
and a better choice compared to a Mac,
but nowhere near what it was five years ago.
The lines have become more blurred,
as I've outlined and showed in several videos.
And I think this is such a good thing, right?
Because it just gives us consumers more choice.
If you need more performance
than just emails and web browsing,
you're not necessarily locked
into a certain operating system or form factor now.
You just have more freedom.
And if this is what it's like right now,
I can only imagine five more years in the future.
I mean, we've already seen some
of the traditional PC bastions like gaming
begin to get disrupted, although that one in particular
will take a very long time to change if it changes at all.
Personally, I was really surprised
at how quickly the Adobe suite in particular
evolved to embrace Apple silicon.
Again, back in the day, it was just better on PC.
Now, I mean, some might say the experience
is equal or maybe even give the slight edge to a Mac.
The same applies to the other end of the spectrum,
the entry level and budget market.
Now, once again,
if you want an ultimate bang for buck performance,
a Mac just wasn't a good choice.
I mean, even the cheapest Macs, like the Mac mini
or MacBook Air were considered relatively premium.
But this is changing.
Yes, the entry level Apple MacBooks
still have a premium price tag,
but now they actually offer several big advantages
over laptops from competitors.
So, in addition to build quality and ecosystem,
you now also get great battery life and performance.
And this is particularly noticeable
with the new M2 Mac mini and it's $100 price discount.
I talked about this briefly in another video,
but you just really can't beat that
in terms of bang for buck right now.
Even if you build a custom PC
or buy a discounted bare bones PC NUC.
This was completely unheard of just a few years ago.
The Mac mini was essentially a metal potato
that was completely useless
for anything other than web browsing.
So, yeah, I hope this video kind of helps
add some perspective on what's happening
in the whole Apple silicone universe right now.
It's good to take a step back every once in a while
and not get too bogged down
in the latest minor generational jumps
that we've been so used to over the last decade.
But I'm just some guy
in a bedroom talking in front of a camera.
Let me know what you think in the comments down below.
Apart from that, I'll catch you in the next one.