Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#531

Post by monocasa » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:26 PM UTC

Bud wrote: post #482

mlloyd wrote: post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given the amount of evidence you presented, how could anyone refute your opinion? OP raised a valid argument - Apple's QC has been crap lately and trending downwards. There's a lot of feedback out on the net to support that line of thinking.

There's been Apple-bashing "feedback out on the net" since Apple was founded. Most of it has been laughable. The stuff you're talking about is firmly within that laughable camp. If Apple's QC were "crap" you'd see that in customer satisfaction ratings for their #1 product: the iPhone. But guess what? You don't see that. And there is no downward trend.

Shipping Mac OS so that anyone can just YOLO login as root?

https://www.macworld.co.uk/how-to/mac-software/how-stop-some...

Storing the full disk encryption password in plaintext on the disk?

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208168

How do you explain these except for atrocious and trending downwards QC?

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#532

Post by obmelvin » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

bb88 wrote: post #516

npunt wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2/3s of all PR activity on Github is on a Mac, for what it's worth. Certainly the platform punches above its weight relative to market share. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/102/?time=2...

My only complaint is that if the mac were truly a developer-centric device, I wouldn't need homebrew to install software. It should just be in the apple store for me to download.

I could see an argument that Apple should make a tool like Homebrew themselves or official support Homebrew development (maybe they do, haven't looked), but including it in the app store would just be confusing. Plus, I can type 'brew install ' far faster than I could type into the search bar and make the necessary clicks to install.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#533

Post by adamsea » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

sreque wrote: post #433

mark_l_watson wrote: post #229

This might just be a bargaining move on Apple’s part, but I don’t think so. I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack. I wouldn’t be surprised to even see them make their own display screens. As an Apple customer, I like this idea also. For 20 years, I used to be a desktop Linux fanatic and later became a fan of Android. In the last few years, I have switched to using all…

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

It's sort of apples and oranges .... I'd thought the parent was talking about day-to-day consumer stuff (which even computer scientists and programmers do) like managing music, photos, various online accounts, and so on. Very different from all the stuff that software engineers specifically do. Of course there is some overlap but overall its two vastly different sets of user experiences.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#534

Post by rahoulb » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:28 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #253

egypturnash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Those changes were all to more powerful processors such that emulating the old architecture wouldn't be that bad. In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors and thus emulation at any reasonable level of performance wouldn't be that viable.

There are also fat binaries - a recompile for apps that don't do anything too esoteric and you've got both formats in one bundle.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#535

Post by nullvector » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:30 PM UTC

Tim Cook is fundamentally an operations person who drives cost out of the supply chain. During his time as CEO, Apple seems to be innovating in the supply chain instead of the products. At Apple's scale, building your own chips and iPhone screens makes sense but doesn't intrinsically add value to customers. I wish Apple would invest as much in their software as they do in reducing cost.

Fortune Magazine in 2008: Think of Cook’s contribution like this. There are two basic ways to get great profit margins: Charge high prices or reduce costs. Apple does both. The marketing and design drive consumers wild with desire—and make them willing to pay a premium; Cook’s operational savvy keeps costs under control. Thus Apple is a cash-generating machine. Cook has called the company a place that is “entrepreneurial in its nature but with the mother of all balance sheets.” At last count that meant $24.5 billion in cash and no debt.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#536

Post by astrodust » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

ratsimihah wrote: post #520

sreque wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t? I use both a Mac and an Arch Linux running i3/awesomewm, and to me macOS is like any Linux distro with a user-friendly desktop environment. I guess it doesn’t have an « official » package manager, but homebrew has most packages anyway?

You can run things like the Adobe Suite without any ridiculous overhead. Where Xcode is important you've also got that.

For a lot of people that don't care the differences are largely subjective and the difference between Ubuntu, for example, and macOS are largely academic and aesthetic.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#537

Post by astrodust » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

mlloyd wrote: post #407

abritinthebay wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Given software !== chips and their ARM chips are - hands down - the best on the market... yeah, I'd think people would trust them.

Given the amount of evidence you presented, how could anyone refute your opinion? OP raised a valid argument - Apple's QC has been crap lately and trending downwards. There's a lot of feedback out on the net to support that line of thinking.

Software, you could make a case, that's been a bit of a mess lately.

Hardware, though, you've got nothing. Where have they dropped the ball on their chips?

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#538

Post by maxharris » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:32 PM UTC

sreque wrote: post #433

mark_l_watson wrote: post #229

This might just be a bargaining move on Apple’s part, but I don’t think so. I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack. I wouldn’t be surprised to even see them make their own display screens. As an Apple customer, I like this idea also. For 20 years, I used to be a desktop Linux fanatic and later became a fan of Android. In the last few years, I have switched to using all…

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

This is contrary to my experience. I've been on various Macs for years, tried to switch to a Surface Pro (i7 model) + WSL. Nice machine, but it didn't work. I ended up running Ubuntu in a VM just to get `npm install` to work reliably. And that was horrible and slow, even with VMWare. Installing Linux on that thing looks like a lot of work (there's a whole SurfaceLinux subreddit...)

You know what I ended up doing after nine months of this crap? I switched back to my trusty old 15" MacBook Pro. The backlight is dying, but it works a lot better for me than Windows or Linux!

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#539

Post by ggg9990 » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:33 PM UTC

deathanatos wrote: post #461

npunt wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2/3s of all PR activity on Github is on a Mac, for what it's worth. Certainly the platform punches above its weight relative to market share. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2017/102/?time=2...

My last couple of jobs have given me no choice aside from a MBP and OS X. They do this because they don't want to manage multiple kinds of machines from an IT perspective. (I'm not sure I agree with this, but it is what it is.) Depending on how widespread this is, usage may not reflect actual user desire (though I would wager quite a large number of users either don't care what they're using, or care, but a MBP is ad…

The managing multiple kinds of machines issues is a real one, speaking from the other end. For uniquely talented software engineers I might let them use what they want but from managing an IT department you definitely want anyone who has no reason to be otherwise on the same exact hardware and software configuration.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#540

Post by wiiner » Mon, Apr 02, 2018, 10:34 PM UTC

ratsimihah wrote: post #520

sreque wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

What does Linux give you that macOS doesn’t? I use both a Mac and an Arch Linux running i3/awesomewm, and to me macOS is like any Linux distro with a user-friendly desktop environment. I guess it doesn’t have an « official » package manager, but homebrew has most packages anyway?

Uniform platform support for multiple architectures. I have Linux desktops on i686, x86_64, arm and aarch64. Same desktop environment, same programs, same easily mirrorable configuration, same firewall system, wireguard, same or fairly equivalent package management between systems.