Hi,
Whether M1 makes sense for you, right now, depends on a fair few things.
I upgraded from a Mac Pro 5,1 12 core to a MacBook Air M1.
That's a huge upgrade in single core performance, multicore performance, memory speeds, hard drive speeds, external bus speeds, and power consumption, and it's portable...and there's something like 20 hours battery life!?
It was also getting to the point where an upgrade was really needed as relying on 10 year old hardware doesn't feel good.
Get the re-sale value while it still has it.
That was a total no-brainer upgrade, for me.
However, if you're coming from, say, a 2015 or later mac that's perfectly capable and takes the latest OS..Does M1 make that much sense?
Probably not. The performance and power consumption are really hard to believe but if you're already on a capable system do you really need/want to buy into the 1st gen base-model run of Apple Silicon? As impressive as it is, it is the 'mk1', so to speak.
As Talisman points out compatibility is likely to cause problems for quite some time.
Apple implemented a Rosetta 2 layer which basically means any intel apps you had should still run just fine (and it's pretty incredible) but that doesn't account for kernel extensions (drivers) which would need to be compiled for Apple Silicon.
That means unless your interface is 100% class compliant or the manufacturer is explicitly stating that they've made and released M1 compatible drivers, it's not going to work.
The same is true for any software which requires the loading of .kexts/drivers. Virtual bus software, some interface control suites, etc.
I should say, there's no Apple Silicon "Mac Pro" yet.
It's Mac Mini, Macbook Pro, and MacBook Air - They all have the same hardware but the air has no fan.
It still runs nice and cool for regular work but it's not ideal for long term stressful work, like daily video renders for example.
I've been using it for 2 months for audio duties and it's flawless.
Anyway - Come back with more info or questions if you have them.
In short I'd go M1 over intel if you're coming up from very dated hardware and really need to move, and a portable or mini works for you.
If there's no pressure to upgrade, I'd just wait a year and see what happens.
Second gen is almost certainly just around the corner and most likely going to be seen in larger Macbook Pros and iMacs.