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Osborning the Mac, or not

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Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#171

Post by slantyyz »

scarface74 wrote: post #130
slantyyz wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn't say there were not any tradeoffs made to support those users with legacy systems. What do you define as a low end Surface line on x86? I have a Surface Pro 1 that I still use to this day. I also have a GPD Win handheld that's running an Atom processor that is surprisingly good for what it is. I also have some older Atom based stick PCs that are pretty bad (only 2GB RAM), but those are designed for signage an…

I see you are ignoring the low cost Surface computers that are meant to compete on price with the $329 10.2 inch iPad or even the $499 iPad Air. The iPads can actually run well with 2GB of RAM. Microsoft Office is a much better experience on an iPad without a keyboard than any hardware that Apple sells.

The Atom-based Surfaces with the Atom x7-8700 - that's the same processor I have in my GPD-Win. It's more than usable for light users. Heck, its built-in GPU outperforms the one in my Surface Pro.

While x86 Surface (not-pro) might have been "meant" to compete on price with iPads, I don't think that's how it worked out. I tend to think most of the people who will buy a low end x86 Surface want/need Windows in the first place. It's not a substitute for an iPad.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#172

Post by toyg »

scarface74 wrote: post #125
Steltek wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You may have missed GP's point. Microsoft is casts a very wide net, running on a huge array of hardware and trying to do everything from mobile to console gaming to datacenter servers. The dev experience is equally diverse: you don't even need a Windows box to develop for Windows. Apple jettisoned all of that diversity to refine a few precious use cases to earn that "quality" aura. I think this move to ARM is signali…

How is that “wide net” working out? - Microsoft is a non starter in mobile - trying to run Windows on low end Surfaces is painful - Windows is horrible as a touch first interface. - even with Azure there are more Linux VMs than Windows. -it takes literally years and multiple failures every time that MS tries to release a new version of Windows. - They finally through in the towel when it came to IE and was forced to…

MS was on mobile before mobile was mobile (pun intended), and part of the issue was probably that they got in the game so early that, by the time tech was actually mature, they were out of gas. Ballmer thought he'd seen it all, and he had not; when he realized, they panicked and reacted like headless chickens. It's a cautionary tale for the ages, but it could have easily gone the other way around.

On the other hand, they entered the game-console game very late but still had a pretty good run. They entered the cloud game similarly late but they're now killing it. They won the Browser War I and would have likely done it again in BWII, were they not forced to behave by authorities.

So it's not like they cannot execute, or like they are fundamentally impeded by their fundamental structure. They can smash it with the best of them, when the lead is focused.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#173

Post by vetinari »

saagarjha wrote: post #114
vetinari wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's why in 2006 they introduced Macbook Pros which were 32-bit only? If you want to switch to 64-bit, you don't introduce machines that cannot do that, that need their 32-bit ABI and have to be supported for years to follow.

Apple didn’t really have a choice. The choice required a fairly decent amount of legacy support for the next decade or so; I doubt they really wanted to commit to that if they didn’t have to.

Of course, they did have a choice:

1. Wait a few months, Core 2 Duo was on it's way. Previous Nehalem generation did support 64-bit, so obviously, the next Core Duo SKUs with 64-bit support were on the way. This way, they could skip x86 ABI entirely.

It's not like Apple doesn't have long periods without updates of specific models.

2. If they really had to release a model that introduces 32-bit ABI, they could support it properly.

So by doing it the way they did it, I have to agree with Jasper_. The only difference with his conclusion is, that in my opinion they just took the option 2.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#174

Post by slantyyz »

unicornfinder wrote: post #140
slantyyz wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> their last few transitions being fairly successful. Their last transition is specifically what brought me to the Mac after having been away for a decade. I switched to Mac exactly because they were going x86, because I knew I'd be able to virtualize Windows (although it took a year to happen), which was a win-win for me. I'm guessing a lot of people who used Windows at work plus developers on Linux wanting a nice…

Honestly, I don't think that many will. Back then Mac software support wasn't nearly as good as it is now - I think Apple is in a much better position to drop x86 support.

> Back then Mac software support wasn't nearly as good as it is now

It might be a chicken and egg thing though. With the influx of people who wanted Macs on x86 and the halo effect of them spreading the word, the app support got much better.

Also, because the machines were x86 compatible, I'm sure a lot of enterprise buyers like IBM started to allow their users to get Macs instead of Windows laptops.

I obviously have no idea what will happen, but as someone who switched back to Windows a few years ago, I am definitely curious to see how it plays out.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#175

Post by sjwright »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #170
sjwright wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My prediction of Apple’s moves here are far less dire. These are just predictions mind you, but the point is Apple could do this without ruining the platform for enthusiasts. 1. They’re going to have some kind of breakthrough with x86 emulation where the Apple ARM CPU has a translator, or an accelerator, or a co-processor, or something that will make x86 run at decent speeds. 2. Apple will move to a long term two-CPU…

> 2. Apple will move to a long term two-CPU strategy with ARM on economy and low power SKUs, and Intel chips for the “Pro” SKUs. How is this going to work for developers or Apple? For how many years will everyone need to test and ship universal binaries?

I see no issue with developers shipping universal binaries indefinitely. I don’t see what the issue would be with that, for most devs it’s just part of the Xcode build process. I suppose it would double the compile time for release builds.

Testing is a legitimate concern but I don’t think it’s as consequential as you imply. (For most developers.)

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#176

Post by todd8 »

To me, moving the Macs to ARM or perhaps just the laptop models to ARM could be a win for Apple. Thinner, lighter, lower-power and better software integration with the iPhone/iPad could result in happier consumers and more reluctance of users to jump to Windows based machines.

The risk is that there will be enough difference between the ARM machines and the previous ones that consumers will be reluctant to buy the new machines. I know that the keyboard problems on recent laptop models caused me to buy some windows laptops for the rest of my family.

There is a way for Apple to facilitate this move to ARM. Make the ARM machines noticeably less expensive than Apple's previous Macs. I've been disappointed during the last few years by the cost of Apple's Macs, the mini, the iMac Pro, the Mac Pro, and high end configurations of the laptops seem overpriced now. Perhaps this is is a longer term strategy for Apple. Maybe they have priced the recent machines higher so that adoption of ARM based machines can, in comparison to previous models, look more attractive. Apple could also lower the margins on the new ARM machines, at least until there is enough buy-in by consumers to raise the margins back to be comparable with Apples pre-ARM products. My prediction is that the new ARM machines will be priced very competitively when they are announced. In a few years, their prices will rise.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#177

Post by toyg »

sys_64738 wrote: post #56

Does the underlying CPU platform matter anymore for most people? If they have some non-standard proprietary apps then for sure that's a big issue. But if most OS apps are recompiled, then you have iCloud apps too, the bigger hitters being onboard is key (Microsoft, Adobe). If you pretty much hit those key points then it begins to look like it'll be relatively straightforward. ARM Macs will increase Apple's profit per…

It's unlikely Adobe will be on board. Porting their apps to ARM, even with a virtualization layer, is going to be hell. They dragged their feet last time around, I bet they will do that 1000x now.

MS might decide that "the web is good enough" and just drop native Mac apps for the time being.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#178

Post by mrkstu »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #154
jmpman wrote: post #148

I buy iMacs for my personal use, as they spend the majority of the time running Windows 10 for gaming. Sure I could build/buy a dedicated gaming machine, but I like the hardware (Great monitor, quiet, sleek, mostly trouble-free) and my iMac can play any game at 1080p. Without bootcamp support, I’m going to abandon the Mac hardware for personal, and then for business use. There’s no way an ARM processor is going to be…

A theoretical possibility: Apple could make Bootcamp support Windows on ARM. I don't know that they'll do it, but they could and it would be interesting. The choice will also say something about how Apple views these ARM Macs: Are they iPhone-esque devices made exclusively for Apple software, or are they (relatively) open-ended computing platforms capable of booting alternate operating systems?

The problem is that Apple has moved to a home-grown stack for it graphics and deprecated OpenGL and moved wholly to Metal.

There is no way Apple would create a Windows driver for that custom silicon- it has always relied on AMD or Nvidia for those drivers in the past, it has no in house code base or expertise to write the requisite code in Windows and none of the silicon has been optimized for it.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#179

Post by unicornfinder »

goatinaboat wrote: post #163
jedberg wrote: post #19

Everyone here is very positive that the transition will go smoothly based on their last few transitions being fairly successful. I'm a bit more skeptical. Back then, their desktop/laptop business line was much more important to them. They needed it to go well. They were also a niche player and couldn't afford to lose more market share to PCs/Windows. But now, they barely care about their desktop/laptop revenue (being…

But now, they barely care about their desktop/laptop revenue (being only 10% of their revenue) and they don't seem to care much about their marketshare either because they don't seem to be doing much to expand it. They care a lot more about their iDevices now. The selling point of iDevices is that so much content/code works perfectly on them, and that is because it is created on the OSX platform originally. If Apple…

Can confirm a lot of developers seem to be going to WSL lately, including myself.

Re: Osborning the Mac, or not

#180

Post by slantyyz »

scarface74 wrote: post #128
xnyan wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re sort of picking the worst example, the alternate is the fact that Windows has maintained a gargantuan desktop OS market share for decades in large part because of their dedication to application compatibility.

Having an overwhelmingly market share in a declining low profit margin business is the definition of a Pyrrhic victory. No one cares about PCs as a business anymore.

>> No one cares about PCs as a business anymore.

Is that true? While I get that this isn't scientific proof, there seem to be a lot of Youtubers out there making a decent living off videos of building and reviewing PCs and Macs.

Linus Tech Tips has >11M subscribers, Dave2D has 2.7M subscribers, etc.

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