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Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

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Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#81

Post by _ph_ »

pjmlp wrote: post #80
_ph_ wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But developers using Macs for x86 Linux development is a common thing. Besides that they actually also might need the Mac part (Office, other software requirements), it certainly would be a hit to Apple, if those developers dropped the Macs. I am one developer using a MacBook Pro at work, but depend on the ability to run x86-Linux VMs. I could not use an ARM-Based Laptop for work.

Those developers would be better off supporting Linux OEMs. That is what I did with my Asus travel netbook (1215 B), which was sold with Ubuntu LTS pre-installed.

I can repeat what I wrote: people like me are dependant on MacOS and on Linux. Currently the Mac offers this ability. I would like to use a native Linux machine, but the only alternative for me would be Windows + VM.

And in any case, if the developers are happy with a non-Mac machine, Apple shouldn't be :). Unless they really want to continue their course of driving anyone who does not depend on a Mac for living and who doesn't have limitless funds away.

For private usage, I am about to switch to native Linux for my next laptop, unless Apple comes out with laptops with a reliable keyboard and realistic upgrade pricing again. Ironically, I would love an ARM-based laptop for private usage, if I can get one, I might just get the new Pinebook Pro.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#82

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

c256 wrote: post #78
wodenokoto wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the argument against building custom cpu for Mac Pro is pretty good, as this puts them in a situation that is different from past architecture changes.

The future of Pro machines is largely about VMs. Heck, the recent past of Pro machines is largely about VMs — that’s the reason I so often hear people complain about 16GB ram limits, for example. In that world, I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Mac Pro running a (few?) very high core-count cpus(s) underneath an Apple/ARM based software stack, even if the cpu comes from Intel or AMD. That would let a putative Mac Pro r…

You don't need a VM to run Photoshop. The whole point of the desktop Pro machines is high-performance computing for creative applications. VMs have no place in that. RAM is an issue because it's a limiting factor for many rendering and editing applications.

Laptop Pro is arguably different, but I suspect content creators still outnumber developers by a significant ratio.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#83

Post by Laforet »

tomsmeding wrote: post #59
Laforet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel T2 chip is just another cynical ploy to gradually kill off third party repairs by baking software functions into proprietary hardware that only the manufacturer have access to. It may be a sound security decision, but I have doubts whether it's worth it for the end user. It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures. On the other hand, do all t…

> It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures. Is this really already an industry trend? It feels more like some parties experimenting with the platform, not necessarily with intentions to move to it wholesale at any point in the future. But I'm probably missing stuff, since I'm not following that space well.

Western Digital has comitted to go 100% RISC-V in the near future, with Seagate and Samsung not far behind. As far as storage devices are concerned there is definitely a trend.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#84

Post by benj111 »

Laforet wrote: post #83
tomsmeding wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures. Is this really already an industry trend? It feels more like some parties experimenting with the platform, not necessarily with intentions to move to it wholesale at any point in the future. But I'm probably missing stuff, since I'm not following that space well.

Western Digital has comitted to go 100% RISC-V in the near future, with Seagate and Samsung not far behind. As far as storage devices are concerned there is definitely a trend.

"with Seagate and Samsung not far behind"

Reference? I can find one reference to Samsung using Risc v for an IoT thing, and nothing for seagate.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#85

Post by fluffything »

tomsmeding wrote: post #59
Laforet wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't help but feel T2 chip is just another cynical ploy to gradually kill off third party repairs by baking software functions into proprietary hardware that only the manufacturer have access to. It may be a sound security decision, but I have doubts whether it's worth it for the end user. It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures. On the other hand, do all t…

> It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures. Is this really already an industry trend? It feels more like some parties experimenting with the platform, not necessarily with intentions to move to it wholesale at any point in the future. But I'm probably missing stuff, since I'm not following that space well.

> Is this really already an industry trend?

Probably not, or not yet.

> It feels more like some parties experimenting with the platform, not necessarily with intentions to move to it wholesale at any point in the future.

Some big players are moving / have moved to it already. Western Digital is already replacing its ARM HDD controllers with RISC-V chips, nvidia is replacing some chips in their GPUs with RISC-V chips, etc. These are all shipping products.

If you need a chip to do something relatively simple and low cost, you are probably already better off with RISC-V today than you are with ARM mainly because its cheaper and has no licensing issues.

I don't know of any big player doing anything complex with RISC-V yet. There is no bit manipulation ISA, no vector ISA, no encryption ISA, ... and many other things that you would need for a general purpose SoC that's not only cheap but also competitive in performance and TDP with ARM.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#86

Post by fluffything »

Dunedan wrote: post #40
vermontdevil wrote: post #31

Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?

Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and royalty free. Both arguments aren't that relevant for Apple, as they got an architectural license from ARM which gives them full access to everything and allows them to design their own chips and because the royalty charges are vanishingly small compared to the prices Apple charges for it's products. Apple has also already invested so much effor…

> Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and royalty free

The other beauty is that you can extend the ISA with whatever proprietary instructions you want. Others develop 99% of the ISA for you, and you focus on the 1% that differentiates your product.

I'm not sure if the ARM licenses allows them to extend the ISA with "Apple-only" instructions, but RISC-V does and it allows Apple for more vendor lock-in. E.g. you can't use a Hackintosh anymore without buying a CPU directly from Apple.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#87

Post by GordonS »

eecc wrote: post #72

Frankly I’m surprised no one hasn’t built an external core/ram expansion docking station yet. With OS support for Numa and a broker to schedule tasks on Big/Little cores all the pieces are there. My guess is the halo effect around the cloud that put these devices back into the drawers; when you can sync files across two conventional independent devices, risk aversion wins. But people might become aware and weary of r…

> Frankly I’m surprised no one hasn’t built an external core/ram expansion docking station yet

I imagine that the distance and all the connectivity required between the CPU and RAM sitting in an external docking station would destroy performance.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#88

Post by ajconway »

mjg59 wrote: post #61
Moto7451 wrote: post #4

I don’t think the argument holds very well. Apple has made three processor architectural changes including one on the current OS. “Too complicated” doesn’t really align with the execution history Apple has. The fat binary support Apple has is a huge tool and the ability to add instructions and optimizations to their chips to help with x86 emulation is a big deal. I don’t know if Apple will ever actually do this, but…

Apple has made two transitions while retaining compatibility, in one case with emulation of the old architecture being around the speed of the previous (68k to PPC) and in the other with emulation being faster than the previous architecture (PPC to x86). There's no ARM that's fast enough to emulate an x86 in the same power envelope, so right now any transition would either require all performance sensitive apps to be…

Apple sells iPad Pros which they call “computers”. Those are powerful devices, but there is not much productivity software available, and UI is very different from traditional desktop interfaces. Apple could offer an Air-class machine powered by ARM with a familiar macOS, and most developers would be able to support it in a matter of weeks, if not days.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#89

Post by BerislavLopac »

I have realised a long ago that Apple has for a long time now been working towards steering the Macintosh way from its open, Unix-based foundation.

I used to work with the old MacOS, long before OSX, and it was just the way they wanted it: a closed platform with a nice (for the time) user interface and giving Apple full control over what is being developed on it and how.

Dropping this platform for NeXTSTEP-based OS X was the right choice at the time it was made, when they needed a more advanced platform, and they needed it immediately. But the side effect was that it opened the Mac as a development platform, and Apple has since been trying to close it back, without affecting the existing users too hard.

The success of mobile/tablet market allowed them to build a new, closed platform, with precisely the features described above. After MacBook Air was first released I expected them to soon release an OSX-based tablet, but I have soon realised that it is not going to happen: instead of pushing Mac to the tablets, they will more and more push iOS to the Mac, until they have one uniform platform that will make it nearly impossible to develop on except if sanctioned by Apple.

Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...

#90

Post by yoz-y »

vlozko wrote: post #62
sjwright wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore I predict that Apple won’t treat it like a transition, rather it will be a long term dual platform strategy. They’ll encourage developers to build fat binaries and have good x86 translation support in the interim. But it’ll be long term, at least five years. Standard iMacs and MacBooks will be moved over to ARM quickly, higher-end iMacs and possibly some MBP SKUs a few years later, pro devices will stay I…

There’s definitely some common threads with this and Apple’s push to have apps use bitcode. It would make this duality a lot easier from an app distribution perspective without the need to have an emulation layer. My only guess as to why Apple hasn’t required bitcode by now is the sheer number of 3rd party libraries out there that aren’t built with bitcode enabled.

Chris Lattner has stated several times that bitcode does not help with porting to other platforms though
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