Apple's M1 Macs are impressive but some may want to pass on them for now due to incompatibility or stability issues with apps like Matlab, Parallels, and Docker
I've read the first batch of Apple MacBook Pro 13" M1 reviews from the Apple-chosen first reviewers and you'd be hard to find anything negative about the new laptop.
ForbesPatrick Moorhead
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's M1 launch week was a rave-fest: the first reviews of the MacBook Pro with M1 and the Mac mini praised performance, battery life, and price while flagging hardware limits like the 16GB RAM cap. This Forbes piece is the counterweight, arguing that the software layer — Matlab, Parallels, Docker — wasn't ready for Apple silicon.
First-order effects
Developers and technical professionals who depend on Docker containers or Parallels virtualization hit broken or unstable workflows on day one, making the M1 a poor sole machine for them right now.
Buyers in those workflows split into two camps: hold purchases entirely, or run an Intel Mac alongside an M1 until ports arrive.
Second-order effects
Vendors like Docker and MathWorks face pressure to ship native ARM builds quickly, since early-adopter complaints land on their compatibility stacks rather than on Apple's hardware claims.
As one developer blog noted days later, most developer tools weren't ready yet for M1 Macs, which pushes pro buyers toward waiting for the next-generation 'Mx' machines rather than converting at launch.
Third-order effects
The pattern — hardware leaps ahead of the software ecosystem, then catches up — played out across the transition: by 2023 the M3 Max surpassed even the M1 Ultra, suggesting launch-cycle compatibility pain becomes a recurring cost of each architecture jump.
If Apple keeps the cadence, pro-software vendors structurally re-plan around Apple's silicon roadmap, making native-day-one support table stakes rather than a follow-up.
The trend: Apple's silicon transition is repeating a familiar arc where benchmark wins arrive before ecosystem readiness, leaving professional workloads as the last mile of each chip generation.
I appreciated @PatrickMoorhead's honest take on M1's imperfections here, based on real-world challenges he ran into trying to run software on Rosetta 2. https://www.forbes.com/...
Apple MacBook Pro 13" M1 Review- Why You Might Want To Pass - what happens when a non-Apple-sanctioned reviewer looks at a new M1-based Mac. A bit more, um, nuanced than what we've seen so far. https://www.forbes.com/...
Special thx to my critics, some who have gotten quite personal, for driving this review to become my most-read article ever since I started blogging 10 yrs ago. Your YouTube hits, nasty subtweets, and blog citations help spread its truth and popularity. I think I'll do more. 🤣 ht…
@thurrott “Non-Apple sanctioned”? — Hope I'm reading that wrong but it smells like a “fake news!” attack on the journalistic integrity of the same people who review Microsoft, Google, Samsung, and other products the exact same way. Which would be on-brand for 2020 but really sham…
An interesting article re the ARM journey being a little less rosy (and sounds honestly more realistic, room to improve rather than pure magic) https://www.forbes.com/...
„I think the new MacBook Pro 13" M1 will likely be fine for users who use 100% Apple software, stay primarily in Safari and don't need to connect it to a bunch of peripherals, and have a lot of money." Ouch. https://twitter.com/...
About time truthful/useful reviews emerged for @Apple's #M1 machines. No one who's been around computers a few years believed all that excess hype. As the author says, it's already a fine tech achievement; why spoil it by promising the moon? https://www.forbes.com/... #MacBookPro…
If you are considering buying a new Mac with Apple's M1 chip, read this article first. I might have to cancel my order, as I'm not in the mood of dealing with software incompatibility. https://twitter.com/...
Now I'm wondering should I pick up the MacBook M1 on Black Friday. Will my dev tools and npm packages work. @BorisMarkovich thanks for sharing https://www.forbes.com/...
+1 good review by @PatrickMoorhead. his use cases are likely more microsoft oriented than many folks, but no less relevant for it. a lot of developers are finding compatibility borked. apple + ecosystem will get through this but no chip architecture transition is ever painless. h…
This analyst, whose judgment I trust, reports some serious compatibility problems with third-party apps that haven't been rewritten for Apple Silicon. And he's definitely correct about the gratuitous unhelpfulness of only including two USB ports on a “Pro” computer. https://twitt…
Apple MacBook Pro 13" M1 Review- Why You Might Want To Pass @PatrickMoorhead has a less-than-stellar experience with an M1 MacBook Pro. Bleeding edge indeed. V.1 is V.1. https://www.forbes.com/...
@thurrott Hey Paul, I know you are not the biggest apple fan out there, but this review is very skewed. Revit doesn't exist on the Mac, not even Intel Mac. Software compat is getting better fast. Electron now supports M1 many others. @LinusTech tested OBS: working https://knowled…
This article is so inaccurate. You end up paying more than a Mac when you want all this: “In the Windows ecosystem, you can get lighter and more diverse designs, higher resolution displays, touch-displays, LTE and 5G, software and peripheral compatibility, and you'll pay less.” h…
@thurrott some of the issues the reviewer is seeing is due to changes in Big Sur (and not the laptop or cpu itself)... like removal of kernel extensions (that's why is xbox 360 controller won't work for instance)
Apple's new M1 chip might be the big change in raw computing power we all expected from Cupertino but there's a catch. This review by @Forbes explains all the problems with it. I don't think I'd be able to live with the incompatibility issues plaguing it. https://www.forbes.com/.…