I think it's a stretch to call Apple's ARM transition "planned obsolescence". The M-series chips are very clear improvements on what came before and there is a clear rationale for that transition.
We're talking here about an OS that hasn't even come out yet, that will get years of security support, for computers that Apple hasn't been selling for several years now. Seems pretty reasonable.
I said "manufactured," not "planned." I don't think Apple intended to do this at the outset. Tim Cook wasn't leaned back in an office chair, twirling a moustache saying "yes, let's make every mac made before 2019 SUCK!"
If it was planned, Rosetta 2 would have never existed in the first place. It would have been a qemu fork haphazardly crammed into Xcode.
There was no "planning" here. Here's how I imagine it went: a developer whined about tech debt, management seized an opportunity to generate revenue, neither party considered, yknow, humans, and now we're here.
I have a MacBook from 2017 and and m3 air today.
For day to day tasks there is no difference.
I have a MacBook Pro from 2016 and an M4 Pro from last year. There is a night and day difference.
I think "M series chips are no better than ten year old Intel chips" is a take that would be somewhat difficult to sustain, given the data.
For messaging email and web browsing. Come on stop being a freakin nerd and consider the average user.
The average user cares about their fans going full-blast when running some garbage electron app and their battery life being shit. You're just being dense.
Try using it unplugged.
Eerily similar story here. My wife was using her 2017 MBP (the one they got sued over) and she adored it until Tahoe suddenly caused Chrome to run like hot garbage. I bought her an open-box M3 Air. She likes the color. It doesn't provide any more value to her life than her 2017 MBP did, and yet we're out $1000 because Apple said so.