The Core i9 consumes too much power and runs hotter than lava, especially in a thin notebook chassis like a Mac Book Pro or a Dell XPS. The very high priced CPU throttles way down to very sub-par performance levels to save it from cooking itself to death. The 2020 versions of Dell's 15" and 17" XPS notebooks don't even have an i9 option available currently. Even the latest 8-core i7 CPUs generate a lot of heat and can have throttling issues.
This on one hand is the pro for ARM that I was thinking about, but it also has a con attached to it. The con is, when someone starts getting into the more power user situation, needing insane amount of resources, that power consumption versus resource used advantage that ARM has starts diving. Now, this may improve in the 2 yrs time to where it's a none issue, but right now it's still an issue to think about.
This move simplifies things for them. The move will probably improve their profit margins and/or allow them to sell Macs at more competitive prices.
It does simplify things and it should make them more profitable. I don't know about the other things though.
Who in their right mind would want to buy a pricey Mac notebook with an Intel-based CPU if Apple is going to stop supporting it in the future?
Only if their software needs trump their hardware needs at this specific point, but the writing is on the wall.
Ditching x86-based CPU architecture means no more ability to run a Windows partition and Windows-based apps natively on Apple hardware. That's going to force people who've been using Mac hardware to run PC apps into a tough choice. When they buy a new computer they'll either have to switch to an ARM-based Mac ecosystem or they'll have to ditch the Apple-branded hardware for something else that runs Windows natively.
Not quite, there is emulation (a lot of people think that emulation and virtualization are the same things, but there is one key difference, emulation can actually handle hardware needs via software, virtualization cannot, it uses what's available physically on the host). Now this does present the problem of resources. Emulation does a hhhhhuuuuuuuggggggeeeee hit to usage and resources compared to virtualization. It's huge. Depending on the specs of the host, it may make what would have been marginal good enough with virtualization to unusable via emulation. But it is an option, but the hardware needs would be significantly (which is where you get to the con of using ARM (at this time) as well mentioned above).
CorelDRAW is a more "mainstream" graphics application. The company has been struggling to get their current OSX variant up to snuff. Do they have the resources to develop ARM-based and Intel-based versions of CorelDRAW for OSX? Adobe is already at work porting their applications, but they're a big company with a lot of resources. Serif kind of has a head start since they have iPad versions of Affinity Designer and Photo.
Ironically, this is where having programs written in more portable scripting languages actually would help out. And even JS (most people don't think of compiling JS (although the browser has been doing this behind the scenes for a very long time), but it can be compiled and used in a binary form as well) can be compiled if the need of source protection is necessary. That way it wouldn't matter so much what arch is going on. There is a sacrifice on not using low level languages (speed, resource management etc), but this is a major plus as well as it doesn't tend to matter what arch it's on. This is also why the trend to more browser based software (for better or worse, it has it's pros and cons) is happening (that and the obvious higher profit for subscription based software as well).
