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

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

#151

Post by scarface74 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #143
scarface74 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is Microsoft Office and Adobe has previewed full Photoshop on it. What other mainstream productivity software do most people need?

Visual Studio?

I did say “mainstream”. Despite the HN bubble, development is not in the “mainstream”. Besides, personally, I can’t stand developing on just a laptop screen. I need at least one external monitor and preferably two.

If I had to do a lot of development on the go, I would have invest in a portable USB monitor or use my iPad as a second display.

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

#152

Post by pjmlp »

BerislavLopac wrote: post #89

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…

The UNIX foundation of NeXTSTEP was there only to help bring software into the platform and having a foot on workstation market.

NeXTSTEP application development in Objective-C, or for that matter Mac OS X in Objective-C/Swift, has anything to do with its UNIX based foundation.

The fact that many have bought Apple devices just as convenience to not have to bother setting up X properly or dealing with power configuration on Linux laptops is no longer relevant for Apple sales department.

They care about the developers that buy Apple devices to actually target Apple devices with their software, none of which uses frameworks that depend on the OS being UNIX.

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

#153

Post by tpush »

coldtea wrote: post #118
ajconway wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> but there is not much productivity software available Huh? There is more productivity software available for iPad's than for a PC in 1995.

The iPad doesn't compete against PCs from 1995 though, and PCs from 1995 didn't compete with PCs from 2019.

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

#155

Post by tambourine_man »

twoodfin wrote: post #120
yoz-y wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

He’s said since that while that was true when he left Apple, they have clearly made strides in the direction of making bitcode platform-neutral. Notably the shift from 32-bit to 64-bit ARM on the Watch was totally transparent to developers; they didn’t even need to resubmit their apps. And that’s not a small architectural change.

Can’t you point me to this quote? Not doubting, just want to read more on the topic.

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

#156

Post by dang »

acollins1331 wrote: post #92
brantonb wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love my iPad with the keyboard case. When I hook it up to an external monitor and my Kinesis keyboard, it’s even better. I’m looking forward to mouse support in iOS 13. One of my favorite apps when it comes to the keyboard is Blink. It’s an SSH/Mosh client with a limited local shell. I use it to build a Jekyll site on an EC2 instance. Blink supports multi-monitor, so I can have different shells on different screens…

You literally just described a really shitty laptop from like 1995. Woah guys my PC is so cool and I love it! I can plug in another monitor and soon it will support a mouse . Have you ever tried a real computer, saying an iPad is more useful than anything else is just wrong.

Could you please not post in the flamewar style to HN? We're trying for something different than that here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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

#157

Post by dmz73 »

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 also obsoletes hardware without making any transition or major software or hardware changes. I can develop for latest android is on my 2009 macbook but not for latest Mac or iOS. I can probably install latest MacOS in virtual box on 2009 macbook but not on actual hardware...

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

#158

Post by twoodfin »

tambourine_man wrote: post #155
twoodfin wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He’s said since that while that was true when he left Apple, they have clearly made strides in the direction of making bitcode platform-neutral. Notably the shift from 32-bit to 64-bit ARM on the Watch was totally transparent to developers; they didn’t even need to resubmit their apps. And that’s not a small architectural change.

Can’t you point me to this quote? Not doubting, just want to read more on the topic.

https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/1091186386634326017

See also Lattner jumping into this thread referring to the tweet above:

https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/1129528261254377474

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

#159

Post by tambourine_man »

twoodfin wrote: post #158
tambourine_man wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t you point me to this quote? Not doubting, just want to read more on the topic.

https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/1091186386634326017 See also Lattner jumping into this thread referring to the tweet above: https://twitter.com/clattner_llvm/status/1129528261254377474

Thanks

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

#160

Post by ken »

ksec wrote: post #148
ken wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Mac Pro numbers certainly wouldn't pay for such a CPU development. Again, though, what exactly does "development" mean here? Apple is already fabless. TSMC makes 32-core chips for AMD, so that scale is not new to them.

You will need to buy different set of tools to work and design for TSMC 's node. And while it is still from TSMC, the node for Desktop ( High Performance ) will be different to Phone / Tablet ( Low Power ). The cost of designing and testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion. For iPhone that is spread out over 200M unit over its life time, or roughly $5 per chip excluding the actual cost of wafer. For Mac you are looki…

> the node for Desktop ( High Performance ) will be different to Phone / Tablet ( Low Power )

The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips. They've got incredible single-core performance, great memory bandwidth, and solid 64-bit and SIMD support. What specific feature of a "high performance" node would they require that they aren't using for iPhones now? They've been pushing the limits on allegedly "mobile"-oriented architectures for years.

Every time this comes up, I hear from the naysayers "Yes, Apple is great at mobile, but desktop is a different game", but then also "Apple's mobile chips are faster than many Intel desktop chips". The skeptics sound awfully similar to those who said "Apple is great at iPods but smartphones are a completely different game".

> The cost of designing and testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion.

AFAICT, nobody in the world has a production 5nm chip yet. How can you put a price on something that nobody has successfully produced yet?

If I were Apple and I were confident that just throwing $1B at it would solve all the engineering problems, I would absolutely do it. $40 per Mac for the best CPU (and independence from Intel) sounds like a steal.

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