| And now your platform is going to stop getting OS builds potentially as soon as next year because Apple switched to a new architecture. There’s a reason that system cost less than an iPad. Apple was basically begging Intel users to upgrade to Apple Silicon at the most recent keynote. I think Sonoma is the last Intel build. Apple drops a ton of technical baggage if they can stop supporting Intel. The machine you should have purchased is the M1 MacBook Air. You can find a used one in the $500-600 range or a new one in the $700’s and it will smoke the 2017 Intel system while returning double the battery life and making zero noise with its fanless design. It’s comfortable on a lap and doesn’t get hot. Look, it’s bad that technology is disposable, but if you buy a Mac you are getting ~8-10 years of feature updates and an additional ~2 years of extended support security updates. Maybe after that you’ve got OpenCore Legacy, but that won’t help you if Apple doesn’t release binaries on your processor architecture. If you buy a PC you’ve got a system that is better designed for alternative operating systems and long-term support. But when you buy a Mac that’s just part of the deal, you’re in the platform. I consider my Mac system to be more of a leased tool and I’ve accepted its limited lifespan as part of the compromise of that platform. If you buy Apple’s previous architecture you’re getting a much worse experience, and there’s history to back up that fact. What you did was equivalent to buying an iBook G4 in 2008. Your system is going to either be a brick or a jankier-than-average Linux box in 2-3 years (i.e., a ThinkPad makes a better Linux box than a MacBook). Finally, if you don’t even use iCloud or an Apple ID I’m not sure what the appeal of a Mac is in the first place, especially one that isn’t on a particularly unique or advantageous architecture. I’ve got a Mac because I prefer an iPhone and I’m kind of stuck with it if I want to send texts from my computer. If you’re not even using anything involving an Apple ID you might as well be on Linux or Windows. |