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

#801

Post by tetha » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:33 AM UTC

ggg9990 wrote: post #539

deathanatos wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yeah, at my last place, the deal was: First we have to find 5 - 10 devs who want to switch to linux (there were 50 - 100 in total). Then we get a PXE boot image to install linux and, well, DHCP. We get to try it for a couple of month, while producing documentation on how linux works with the infrastructure.

That feels like a fair solution.

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

#802

Post by uiri » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:37 AM UTC

zarkov99 wrote: post #702

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…

I was with you until the "I preferred Windows" part. Windows right now is the most infuriating piece of software I can imagine for a developer. Forced upgrades? Forced advertisement? Gigantic, expensive SDKs with incomprehensible versioning and install times measured in hours, no standard library installation facilities, no standard build facilities, a default compiler that is markedly inferior to the alternatives, i…

Developers really should be using Windows Server for Windows development, particularly if the software is going to be running on Windows Server in production. That solves at least some of the issues you mentioned.

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

#803

Post by sitkack » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:39 AM UTC

wintercharm wrote: post #790

wbl wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? A lot of these parts are commodetized. Are they really getting that much better battery life from their own stuff?

Apple claims the W2 chip is 50% more power efficient than existing Bluetooth/Wifi chips on the market, and is 85% faster than the W1 chip for data throughput.

Existing Bluetooth hardware has so many hardware and software bugs that it would [hyperbole] a [large thing]. Apple should absolutely control the BT hardware/software stack, there is no other way they can offer the Apple Experience without it.

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

#804

Post by danappelxx » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 5:43 AM UTC

philliphaydon wrote: post #800

heartbreak wrote: post #707

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nice thing on windows is I can open the command line type >bash and I've got vim, ssh, sftp, bash whatever immediately. Yes, macOS has a terminal emulator as well. > I never found out how to be productive in OSX vs what I can do in Windows. Open Spotlight, type in "Terminal" and hit return.

Unsure how that magically makes OS X productive. Stuff is just easier and faster on windows or linux. And I’m tired of OS X randomly crashing or freezing. It’s like windows 98 now.

Then how does opening the command line in windows magically make it productive? They're just citing a counterpoint.

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

#805

Post by nunez » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:01 AM UTC

stiGGG wrote: post #496

deathanatos wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

In my second to last company (a web development shop), they had originally the policy that a new developers can choose if he want either a mac, linux or windows machine. When i arrived there it was 75% mac and the rest used linux, not even one had made the choice for windows. After a while some new guys get hired and one of them wanted to use windows. We found out immediately, that this caused a lot of problems, beca…

I would have been pretty upset with that. Unless you're writing machine-native code, development environments should work on anything, especially if they run on VMs deployed by Vagrant.

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

#806

Post by Dunedan » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:04 AM UTC

scarface74 wrote: post #654

I've read through a lot of the comments, but no one asked the question - why would Apple invest the R&D resources to create and support ARM based Macs when Macs are such a small part of their revenue and profits? Would they make more money by selling ARM based Macs? Why not just add capabilities to iOS and make an iOS laptop? The only thing I see missing is true multi-user support (not the hack they do in the educati…

> why would Apple invest the R&D resources to create and support ARM based Macs when Macs are such a small part of their revenue and profits?

They already invest a lot in the development of their ARM-based processors for iOS. I don't think the additional investment for making them ready for Macs would be that high. Take the 12" MacBook for example. I can even imagine they could simply stick the current A11 processor into it and it'd be fine.

> Would they make more money by selling ARM based Macs?

Yes. Profit margin would be much higher.

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

#807

Post by nunez » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:05 AM UTC

npunt wrote: post #455

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…

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...

I don't trust that for two reasons:

1) There is a lot of cargo-culting around the MacBook because hurr durr Windows is terribad (though, to be fair, Docker does work better natively with OS X than Windows, even under WSL), and

2) Most companies give their developers the choice of a MacBook or the shittiest Windows machines known to man (because of irresistable volume deals from Windows OEMs). I bet the spread would be more even if companies were willing to offer the Surface Book as an option. This laptop is nice.

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

#808

Post by Dunedan » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:06 AM UTC

SCAQTony wrote: post #688

danappelxx wrote: post #669

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t they manufacture chips for their iOS line of products?

I can find no evidence that Apple manufactures chips of any kind.

Neither does it plan to do so.

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

#809

Post by nunez » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:13 AM 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…

Couldn't agree more.

Finder is garbage compared to Windows Explorer. OS hotkey navigation is much better on Windows and GNOME/KDE/Fluxbox/xmonad. (I actually miss using xmonad; it was soooo good at this.) Office applications (still very real in a lot of environments) are mostly awful on the Mac. iTerm2 is fine, but I prefer PuTTY. Starting applications by their binary name with WIN + R is better (for me) than trying to find them within Spotlight. There are other little enhancements that I prefer Windows over to OS X, but I'm not remembering them right now.

I also hate the new MacBook keyboards. They take "getting used to," i.e. typing "lighter" than I'm accustomed to. Also, not having USB-A ports and requiring a 90W USB-C to USB-C power brick (i.e. not being able to charge the thing from common chargers, the most lucrative reason for using USB-C, for me) is garbage.

The one thing I like about OS X is that it's a BSD with GNU utilities built in. The thing that I don't like is that it's not a Linux and many of the dev environments I've worked in run on Linux, especially now in the age of Docker. While that's good news in that it forces me to do almost everything within Docker, it's bad whenever I need to maintain parity for whatever reason.

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

#810

Post by Dunedan » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 6:24 AM UTC

Arbalest wrote: post #717

pixel_fcker wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m using Ubuntu 16.04 LTS on a MBP and I cannot get the trackpad to work properly (right-click in the corner). I have to hand-edit confit files, the settings involved are undocumented, and it doesn’t work and I don’t know why. Even regular movement just feels janky compared to macOS.

MBPs have gotten worse with linux compatibility over the past few years. It usually takes at least a year to even get usable. It's just not worth getting a Mac to run linux. Mac has successfully made sure that macs are only for MacOS. That being said, many laptops which were originally for windows have issues like this too. Desktops are usually fine because they tend to use highly standardised components. Laptops, no…

> MBPs have gotten worse with linux compatibility over the past few years. It usually takes at least a year to even get usable.

I don't see a trend there. Some things always worked, while others didn't. Same for the current MBP's. It's the usual problem for hardware where the vendor doesn't provide Linux drivers: you need somebody to write these drivers in their spare time and only a few people are willing to do so. I maintain an overview of the Linux compatibility of the MBP's >=2016 (https://github.com/Dunedan/mbp-2016-linux/) and it's absolutely astonishing what a few people can achieve, even without documentation of the hardware. Given, the hardware support isn't that good yet in Linux, but if there would be 10 instead of 2-3 people working in their spare time on the drivers, first class support would be there pretty soon. So if you care about Linux compatibility of Macs: Get your hands dirty and do something about it!

> It's just not worth getting a Mac to run linux.

For me it's worth it, because it feels like somebody thought really hard about getting things right, which results in really, really nice hardware (except for the latest keyboards and the Touch Bar of course).