Drawbacks of the Apple M1 is there, but there’s a few at this point. For most people, it’s not really that important, but for some, it’s a deal breaker.
It’s a first gen product. This will be the slowest, least powerful M-series chip that Apple is going to make. Things will get a lot faster when they optimize the chip and the software exclusively to Apple Silicon. Right now, Apple needs to maintain two separate build for its software: Intel and Apple Silicon
There will be teething problems. Since it’s a first gen product and a major architectural change, all things might not run smoothly. Some software that you depend on might not be available on the M-series or ever. Companies with complex software like Microsoft and Adobe will take a few months or even years to get their software to M-series. Apple might missed a few features and will only added to later generations, such as the T1 and T2.
They only change the chip, everything else is the same. Since this is a transition exercise, don’t expect any new capabilities on the Mac for sometime until they complete the transition. They wanted to ensure there as few as possible issues during transitioning and introducing new style of hard may introduce unforeseen issues. So all Macs will be as-is for the next 2 years.
Booting into Windows and Linux might will not be available. Apple decided it will treat its Mac like their iOS devices, locked down. Apple has announced it will drop support for Boot Camp so you can’t dual boot Windows anymore. Linus Torvalds has announced that Linux won’t come to Mac machines unless Apple helps, and so far no signs that Apple help will ever come. So if dual booting is important to you, the new M-series will disappoint you. The only way out is through virtualization that Apple will support. There are hacky way to get Macs to dual boot but they will encounter the same problem: driver support since the new Mac will likely be custom everything.
You will be deeper in Apple walled garden. The ultimate goal of the M-series is for Apple to be completely vertically integrated in making their computers. Now Apple has designed everything on the computer which includes the CPU itself. This kind of vertical integration ensures that everything that the machine does will work well, but the drawback is you can only play by Apple rules. Most people are ok with this because Apple does what it needs, but if freedom to customize every aspect of the computer is important to you, then the M-series is not for you.
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