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Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

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Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#91

Post by snazz »

int_19h wrote: post #87
jws wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It kills every application whose developer doesn't issue an update in the next 12 months. If you buy an ARM based Mac and your favorite app doesn't work it was abandoned by the developer. As a developer there is a nuisance of one more damn thing to test, but compared to the nuisance iOS developers go through to make sure it looks nice on all the different sized devices, testing on an ARM before release isn't bad. Hav…

An app that isn't updated in 12 months isn't necessarily "abandoned". It can also be complete.

Yes, but recompiling it for a new processor architecture shouldn't be a huge energy expenditure. For better or worse, applications meant to run on "moving target" operating systems like macOS need to be updated.

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#93

Post by skissane »

the_duke wrote: post #40

This is just a rehash of Bloomberg reporting. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-06-09/apple-pla... older: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-23/apple-aim... --- Personally, I gave up on the Apple ecosystem years ago and moved to Linux. But I feel ambivalent about this. On one hand, the iPhone/Pad chips have impressive performance and power consumption, at least for the mobile use case. Some co…

> On the other hand: this seems like a golden opportunity for Apple continue the path of merging iOS and Mac OS, turning the desktop platform into an equally walled garden.

They can't turn macOS into a totally walled garden, without making it impossible to use as a development platform. If I can't compile and run my own software, or software I downloaded from others in source form, I can't use it as a development platform.

And Apple needs a development platform, for people to develop iOS/macOS apps on, and for its own OS developers to use in developing iOS/macOS.

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#94

Post by philwelch »

jws wrote: post #66
ccmcarey wrote: post #10

Interesting. I imagine they'll have to provide some sort of x86/amd64 compat layer as otherwise this kills every application available for macos right now. I hope they don't also continue to lock down macos (though I imagine they intend to) by restricting applications to only being available from the app store. That would set a terrible precedent for personal computing.

It kills every application whose developer doesn't issue an update in the next 12 months. If you buy an ARM based Mac and your favorite app doesn't work it was abandoned by the developer. As a developer there is a nuisance of one more damn thing to test, but compared to the nuisance iOS developers go through to make sure it looks nice on all the different sized devices, testing on an ARM before release isn't bad. Hav…

> It kills every application whose developer doesn't issue an update in the next 12 months. If you buy an ARM based Mac and your favorite app doesn't work it was abandoned by the developer.

Ah, so just like the Catalina 32-bit Armageddon.

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#95

Post by dan-robertson »

I feel like this would probably be a good thing for a lot of Apple customers. Especially is they started this with their cheaper models.

Switching to arm might improve power efficiency (though surely most power goes to the screen?) but it could have a bigger impact on cpu temperature and reducing thermal throttling.

Bloomberg suggests that other laptop makers might also switch to arm. I think this is a place where apple could have a key advantage because their arm chips seem to always be significantly better than the competition (at least for mobile).

Most people will do computing consisting of:

- browsing the web/using complicated web apps

- watching video

- word processors or similar programs

I think these days we should be less concerned about some traditionally compute-heavy tasks because they have been being encouraged to switch to gpu compute for performance gains for a while now. Most things that care about performance will have been ported to gpu already if possible.

I feel like programs like word processors are probably more memory than cpu constrained and a small potential drop in cpu performance would not matter so much to programs that were designed to run on much slower hardware.

Web browsers (well chrome and safari) have already been seriously optimised for running on atm chips.

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#96

Post by meatmanek »

cptskippy wrote: post #75
z9e wrote: post #13

I envision there being a lot of ARM support issues across apps that I rely on. We finally got over the keyboard drama, I don't have confidence this will go well either.

Well they've already figured out multi-targeting in XCode and gave done this once before so I would imagine for a lot of developers it will just be a recompile. I saw a really cheap MacBook Air deal the other day and was tempted until I saw they're i3 based. Assuming App support, I could see them replace that with an ARM based CPU without anyone noticing.

They've done this 2 to 5 times before, depending on whether you count the 32-bit to 64-bit conversions and iOS.

68k->PPC, PPC->PPC64, PPC->x86, x86->x86-66, arm->arm64

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#97

Post by skissane »

ponker wrote: post #81
pilsetnieks wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny how every regurgitation of the same article becomes more certain: "may" - "aims" - "plans" - "will". "According to people familiar with the matter."

A lot of reporting on every different type of topic is sourced like this, but from the quality outlets, the facts tend to be right more often than they're wrong, blunders notwithstanding.

A lot of the time it is because the information comes from insiders who actually do know what is going on, but they'll get in trouble if they are identified, since they were not authorised to talk to the media. (Or, more rarely, they actually are authorised to talk, but on a no-attribution basis only.)

Re: Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month

#100

Post by macintux »

jacquesm wrote: post #56
john_alan wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. The exec team have confirmed that including Schiller in recent interviews. macOS is for everything, including Dev. They need that for the ecosystem. Look at the new Mac Pro ffs. Can’t most apps just recompile to support new chip? We don’t need fat binaries right?

And they'll continue to say that right until the moment they yank the rug out from under you when all the pieces are in place.

The trop that your logic falls into is there's no way to disprove Apple will ever do this.

10 years from now, we'll probably be having the same argument, and people will be pointing to the latest release of macOS and complaining that surely this one means the end is nigh.

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