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Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control

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

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store Of course there are things that suggest this, such as, that is how iphones and ipads work, and its become increasingly difficult over time to do it on a mac.

As in what, having to RMB -> Open ? In what way was it made "more difficult" than that? What exactly suggests it is "becoming (even?) more difficult"?

You used to be able to open any application directly. Simple and easy.

Then they introduced Gatekeeper, but you had the option to disable the Gatekeeper check for all applications.

Then they removed the option to disable the check for all applications. You now only have the options "App Store" and "App Store and identified developers".

They have definitely made the whole thing harder and harder during these past 10 years. Now if you don't want to pay Apple for a developer license, or you're just otherwise ousted by Apple (like Epic Games), you need to teach your users on how they can circumvent Apple's restrictions.

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

#182
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having worked as a mobile app developer primarily on iOS, I quickly learned that many Android fans has an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder. My Android developer co-worker has to use every opportunity given to rant about how superior Android was and how terrible iPhone was. Not to mention how downright evil Apple was.

I've noticed the same thing. I admittedly do have an obsession with ranting about Android, but I find that there are fewer reasons to rant than five years ago. So I rant less. As the Android platform has improved over the years, I find that the main reason I don't want people around me to use Android is the ridiculously short product lifecycle of many Android phones, and the risk of non-techies using unpatched device…

This to me is perhaps the primary reason I view Android as simply irresponsible as an ecosystem.

The average lifespan of their phones is kind of sad. Most people keep their iPhones for many, many years. But if you try to do that on the Android side you're putting up with a lot of hardware pains or putting yourself at risk using a device that's no longer getting security patches.

Totally understand that people have different cosmetic preferences in operating system, or even philosophically just prefer the Android approach. But it's this fundamental disposability of Android that seems so wrong in comparison to how Apple dutifully designs their phones for long haul support.

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

#183
post #18

I also think the marketing was genius. NOT labeling that graph they showed did exactly what they wanted. It was impressing the non tech people and the tech people ALL kept talking and talking about it - because it wasn't labeled. Apple's marketing is brilliant. It really gets the kind of people who think they are too smart to be marketed to AND the normies, all in one message.

I was wondering why Gamer Nexus (a very rigorous YouTube review channel) didn't sent a M1 device, while those Apple fanboy channels got it. Probably the dude would've torn the M1 performance claims apart.

Gamers Nexus audience is very niche - PC enthusiasts. Apple has a much larger demo that they are targeting.

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

#184
post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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

It also has another name: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience

UX can guide the user toward what it thinks to be the best option, or it can forbid the user from choosing anything else.

The former helps grandma get her tasks done and lets the power user go the extra mile.

The latter helps grandma get her tasks done, tells the power user he's not worth supporting and blames grandma for it.

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

#185
post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Possibly naive question but does anyone know if CUDA is supported on the new M1 macs? I think I heard on a podcast last week that eGPUs would no longer be supported, but I can't find a reference.

Well, Nvidia (outside of some really, really old hardware) isn’t supported on Mac so I’d imagine effectively M1 doesn’t support CUDA. I would hope they didn’t kill off eGPUing Radeon cards, but I haven’t kept track of the new hardware other than M1 being really good.

They didn't. But there are no driver available for Radeon cards on M1, so for now it is effectively dead.

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

#186
post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's totally up to them. If Microsoft wanted to, they could say tomorrow that Windows 11 will no longer maintain backwards compatibility with X, Y, and Z ancient technologies.

This would anger some of their corporate customers. Possibly even enough that they could get together and fund some kind of Windows Legacy effort. But realistically, if Microsoft decided to stop being backwards-compatible, where are their customers who are stuck with ancient Windows software going to go? Macs? Linux? Neither of those will have the kind of guarantees their purchasing departments require for compatibility.

Maybe, just maybe, if Microsoft stopped supporting everything ever written for one of their OSes, some of the godawful legacy cruft would actually have to be replaced by new software, and some poor corporate IT people's lives would improve immensely...

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

#187
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That issue is actually quite interesting. It's because if the GPU is reverse engineered enough, you can simulate an Apple GPU on another machine _and_ run other OSes with a proper GPU stack on those macs.

The little I’ve heard about the M1 makes it sound radically different in one respect: the system RAM is unified with the video RAM and shared, rather than partitioned the way it usually is on integrated video.

Now I don’t know anything about GPU stacks, but I could imagine that one change essentially requiring a rewrite of the entire stack if certain assumptions were baked into the old one.

The new model would seem to allow the developer to allocate a buffer full of stuff and rapidly alternate between CPU and GPU instructions on that buffer, without copying. If so, that’s a pretty huge win for performance.

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

#188

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…

It always seems like some sort of deflection tactic. Shouting how bad apple is, while using a device practically owned by google.

Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. I don't know how Google "practically owns" your device considering Apple asserts a much more complete control over your device.

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

#189

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…

Agreed. Apple could be lying, but they (top executives) have stated multiple times that the mac is not an iDevice. They have also stated they have no plans to only allow installs from app store, and they understand the value of tools like brew etc...They are what makes the mac popular with developers. This could all change, but until it does articles like this feel a lot like FUD. Additionally, completely dismissing…

If Apple changed on this the press and customer sentiment would be terrible. Oh so terrible. I'm sure they are aware of that.

Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you're most vocal work of mouth folks turn than this would be bad for sales.

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

#190
post #25

Never owned an Apple product and generally don't have too great of an opinion of this ecosystem. But the M1 MacBook Air is perhaps the first Apple product that really caught my attention. A fan-less (without overheating issues) ultrabook with crazy batter life outperforming every comparable offering out there for $1,000. Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it. Which in my cas…

People who don’t use Macs keep saying it is completely locked down but that has never been my experience. Windows feels far more locked down to me. It is much easier to use Unix software on Mac than on Windows. File formats tend to be easy to read. On Windows there tends to be a lot more binary formats aimed at keeping the competition out.

Mac software is usually easy to install. In PC there is all sorts of authentication and verification. Digging up a long license key for the OS is not a thing on Mac.

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