Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#81

Post by Tepix » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:50 PM UTC

hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #70

fredoralive wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick look at previous transitions shows... Classic Mac OS support (both 68k and PPC): OS X 10.0 was released March 2001, dropped with 10.5 released October 2007. So about 6 years, 8 months. PowerPC Mac OS X app support: First Intel Mac January 2006, support dropped with 10.7 in July 2011, so 5 years 5 months. 32 bit iOS app support: iPhone 5S with 64 bit CPU released October 2013, 32 bit app support removed in iOS…

Keep in mind that there is a much larger installed base of Intel machines than any of those other transitions. Apple is unlikely to want to alienate so many people. It will take several years for the percentage of Intel Mac users to fall under 50%. I see Intel support continuing for closer to 10 years.

I thought the same at first, but the fact that Apple dropped x86 32bit support means a lot of old unmaintained Intel binaries are already out of the equation.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#82

Post by hehetrthrthrjn » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

my123 wrote: post #23

throw0101a wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Intel there at least was AMD as an option: * https://amd-osx.com * https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-hackintosh-syste...

With Arm, maybe Hackintoshes that will be worth it (for VMs at least) will be possible in the future. If Windows 10 on Arm succeeds... to make that hardware widely available. SBCs do not count. (there's technically nothing preventing you of running macOS arm64 on non-Apple hardware in a VM)

Yes there is: the lack of third party graphics drivers. That single issue has the potential to nobble any useable ARM based Hackintosh, though someone might step forward and implement a graphics driver, but that's quite hard.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#83

Post by Bud » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

sgerenser wrote: post #72

Bud wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But there is something you can do about it. You're already doing it. You can run Mojave. You want the platform to be weighed down with cruft forever because of a 0.01% use case? Do you want 8-bit support in there too, for the 68000?

68000 Mac apps were never 8 bit, the CPU had a 24-bit address space!

I'm sorry. Thank you for the correction.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#84

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:51 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #68

The truth is somewhere in the middle, so while this article has some good points it is too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking. I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan ho…

> Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses.

I don't intend to sound dismissive, but this line of thinking has a name

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#85

Post by Tepix » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:52 PM UTC

akmarinov wrote: post #47

Tepix wrote: post #3

It will be interesting to see how long Rosetta-2 will be supported. macOS 10.15 took away 32bit apps, which was a sizeable chunk so clearly Apple is willing to alienate some of its users in the name of progress and slimlining.

At WWDC they said they're starting a transition period that'll last 2 years. So I expect them to drop support in 1.5 years

No way. Rosetta-2 was introduced as part of the transition, why would Apple sunset it so quickly?

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#86

Post by romanoderoma » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

holstvoogd wrote: post #75

Bud wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author clearly and obviously has no clue about M1. Calling its performance a "marginal improvement" is laughable. The entire article reads as a desperate attempt to distract people from the obvious advantages of the M1. I'd be desperate too if I were trying to pretend Android is a serious competitor performance-wise when the CPUs are 18-24 months behind and the gap is still widening.

They're just jealous and need to write 'apple bad' blog to validate to themselves why they are years behind ;-)

What if you're both right?

They're just jealous but Apple really is bad?

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#87

Post by Tepix » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:53 PM UTC

cinbun8 wrote: post #20

I don't understand why exerting better control over hardware + software would mean we are being duped. A more cohesive experience provided by Apple can only be a win for them and their customers.

One example is the right to repair that Apple is fighting.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#88

Post by eganist » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #64

Multicomp wrote: post #16

> At some point in the not too distant future, old x86 applications will cease to run on Macs, as emulation support won’t run forever One thing I can credit Android some, and Windows a lot (even 10 with all its manifold privacy and user-hostility problems) with is that they are backwards compatible. exceptions to every rule, etc., but I can run all old versions of Android apps on an Android 11 phone, same for Windows…

There is a cost to that though, the reality is Windows has become rather bloated because MS can't let anything go. It doesn't help that they have never been able to say no to anything and everything getting included.

> because MS can't let anything go.

To be clear, this isn't really up to them. It's what market forces have dictated.

Tons of old corp apps exist all over the place that necessitate this level of backwards compatibility.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#89

Post by Tepix » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

my123 wrote: post #37

Apple Silicon Macs aren't any more locked down than x86 ones. Hopefully, the GPU and such will be reverse engineered, that's a lot of one-time effort that might take a year or more the first time but will be easier for future gens.

Now that the T2 chip has been hacked, that statement is no longer true.

Re: Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

#90

Post by jmull » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 12:54 PM UTC

What is it about Apple that makes people’s brains turn off?

Apple silicon doesn’t change anything about Apple’s mac app store. Microsoft would need to release a native version of Windows, not Apple. He has a point with Rosetta 2, that it will very likely disappear (years from now), though that would affect software that isn’t being actively maintained (most of which failed to make the transition to x64 already). And suggesting a switch to AMD instead is just non-sense.

I guess writing stuff like this about Apple is cynical way to boost page views.