>You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe
Just like they lost compatibility when they switched from PPC to Intel?
I think that's one thing that a lot of commenters in this thread are ignoring: Apple has done this before. They've switched from PPC to Intel when IBM wasn't committing to making the power efficiency gains that they were looking for, and they'll switch from Intel to their own homegrown ARM chips for essentially the same reason.
That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC).
I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other commenters ideas of making an 'iPad pro' and coming at it from that direction seems like a much better idea if you think any of this should be done.
Don't forget that Apple is up against Intel. They're called Fabzilla for a reason. Apple has a done an amazing job with their phones and tablets but when it comes to raw performance on the desktop I don't think they'd be able to keep up when Intel decided to start playing hardball.
They're having issues right now, but they'll pull back. We've been through this before. Look at how far Intel's chips have come from just the Core2 processors of a few years ago.
Either way, this is nothing compared to the mess of delays the G4 and G5 went though, especially on mobile. Compared to what Apple has seen before this is a tiny detour.
And of course since Intel is the market leader, Apple is (at worst) in the same boat as everyone else. With the G4/5 they were falling further and further behind each year.
Well it's certainly plausible that this is the case... They have no meaningful competition at the top end of performance, so clearly they're don't need to bother dumping as much money into R&D as if they did. If they've found that a basic level of incremental improvements maximises profit, then they'll do that. And at the moment they're held up by fabrication issues, sure, but die shrinkage is an important part of their 'tick tock' development model so it makes sense they'd be waiting for this, it's hardly an indication that they're struggling in the grand scheme of things, or that they will fail to deliver the same steady performance improvements moving forward.
Just like they lost compatibility when they switched from PPC to Intel?
I think that's one thing that a lot of commenters in this thread are ignoring: Apple has done this before. They've switched from PPC to Intel when IBM wasn't committing to making the power efficiency gains that they were looking for, and they'll switch from Intel to their own homegrown ARM chips for essentially the same reason.