Will 2019 MacBook Pro work with Adobe CC apps?

macOS 26 Tahoe, scheduled for this fall, is confirmed to be the last version that Apple will support on Intel Macs. Only four Intel Macs are supported, and fortunately, one of them is the 2019 16-inch MacBook Pro. Going by recent history and Apple support policies, that means Apple is likely to provide updates and support for macOS 26 until probably autumn of 2028. After that, it will probably not be possible to update that Mac.

A major problem with that era of Intel Macs is that the Intel CPU used too much power, so it generated more heat than it should have, made the fans run louder, and drained the battery faster. (I have a 2018 MacBook Pro.) Practically everyone who owned one (including me) was so glad when Apple released the M1 and later, because the Apple Silicon processor is so much faster, ran cooler, and let our batteries last longer than the Intel processor. The GPU is better too.

I just saw a deal yesterday for a refurbished M1 MacBook Air for $519. It might only have 8GB of Unified Memory (yes, 16GB would be preferred), but based on what many users have said, I would rather take an M1 with 8GB than an Intel Mac with 16GB. This is partly based on how well Apple Silicon manages memory. Here’s the link to the deal:

https://shop.macworld.com/sales/apple-macbook-air-13-3-2020-m1-7-gpu-mgn63ll-a-8gb-ram-256gb-ssd-refurbished?utm_source=macworld.com

If you were able to stretch your budget a little more, what would be a lot nicer is this M2 MacBook Air with 16GB of Unified Memory for $709, refurbished by Apple themselves. I have personally found Apple-refurbished items to be indistinguishable from new, and the warranty Apple offers is the same as for new products (full 1 year warranty). Being an M2, it will get several more years of support than the 2019 Intel Mac, and it will definitely outperform the 2019 Intel Mac by quite a lot.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G15S3LL/A/refurbished-13-inch-macbook-air-apple-m2-chip-with-8%E2%80%91core-cpu-and-8%E2%80%91core-gpu-space-gray

The M1 Air should run InDesign well. If you were saying you wanted to edit big documents in Photoshop or edit video, then I would have steered you toward a newer model. But InDesign should be fine on an M1, it will probably feel a little smoother than on an 2018 Intel Mac. However, the newer M2 with 16GB will let the M2 option run other Adobe apps like Photoshop much better than an M1 with 8GB.

(Also, this note is to a moderator, technically this post should not be in the Video Hardware forum, it should be in the InDesign community because that’s the only software mentioned in the original post.)

That MBP should be able to run up to Sequoia so you should be fine for awhile. Whether it gets 3 years will depend on how technology grows. The next Mac OS is rumored right now to be M* chips only and will no longer support Intel. So if there's a possibility to grab a M1 vs. the Intel I would try to go for that to be a little more secure in case software vendors decide to follow Apple and drop latest version support for Intel. 

Looking at newer used Mac laptops I'm having a harder time finding inexpensive ones compared to new machines. For instance a M4 Macbook Air 13" is going for about $850 with 16gb and 256GB storage which would be faster than that Intel.