Apple's Shifting Differentiation

Software is the key for me. I am by no means a power user but I really am loathe to give up even more of my software library to swap to Apple Silicon after Catalina cratered my gaming library in Steam and some older apps from companies long gone.

I don't expect I am alone in this observation but the number of software companies they highlighted during the M1 debut was very slim and to be honest I have not heard of half of them until then and don't remember them now.

So to me it matters not how much faster AS is, what matters is if I can run want I want to run. I am not going to own two separate machines to do what I want to do. If AS machines cannot do all I need I will keep my current Mac till support runs out and look again

Rosetta 2 allows you to run your x86 mac apps on Apple silicon. It's like the PPC->Intel switch again; your software keeps working regardless of the hardware underneath.

Counterpoint: Try to run PPC software on a current mac.

“Keeps working regardless” is a great promise Apple has continued to make, but they only hold that up as long as it takes you to get the latest thing.

More recent counterpoint: 32-bit x86 on a current MacOS.