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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

#261

Post by mrtksn »

eertami wrote: post #201
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.

>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. I open WhatsApp on an iPhone XR. It launches instantly. I open WhatsApp on a five year old Oneplus. It launches instantly. Honestly who cares unless you have some niche use case or play mobile games. Having a class leading CPU isn't an advantage if it…

The key is that it increases the size of the performance and energy budget. When you have a large budget, you can start doing interesting things.

A friend of mine got some Samsung flagship(don't remember which one but something new and expensive) from this year, she's into Instagram filters whan she showed me some fun ones she likes I noticed that these filters have significantly slow FPS on live preview - something I am not used to see on an iPhone. I tried the same filters on the lowest end iPhone I have access to, which is iPhone 6s, and that device gave much much better FPS on the live filters of Instagram.

This got me thinking, maybe the Andoid ecosystem is degrading the iPhone experience too? Probably Facebook is holding back on filter capabilities in the name of having the same features on all the platforms? If this Samsung flagship is not better than iPhone 6 in Instagramming, god knows what's the experience on lower end devices.

BTW, TikTok filters have superior face tracking in my experience with excellent iPhone 6s performance. I don't know what's the Andorid situation on TikTok.

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

#262

Post by rsynnott »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #233
rsynnott wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And in any case there's no reason they couldn't do that on Intel if they wanted to. IIRC there was some Windows variant back in the day that did this on Intel. Windows 10S, possibly?

They couldn't do that on intel because if they made it too draconian people would just install windows. Now people are locked in tight.

People can just install Linux here, via self-signed kernel, it appears.

Apple could, obviously, prevent people from installing Windows on Intel Macs if it wanted to.

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

#263

Post by tjpnz »

socialdemocrat wrote: post #91
spijdar wrote: post #22

> However, that marginal improvement hardly seems worth upsetting the entire Mac OS developer and consumer software ecosystem. Really? This entire article is really dismissive, but this line especially struck me. I'm not convinced the M1 chip is some strange alien tech bypassing the laws of physics, but it seems clearly superior at its specific niche (single processes with an emphasis on low power usage, using fewer…

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'm an Android user but also have an iPhone for work purposes. There's nothing I find particularly delightful about either platform and I can't fathom what would motivate someone to be an Android or Apple fanboy.

The reason I've stuck with Android has got very little to do with the software.

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

#264

Post by JKCalhoun »

pvg wrote: post #250
oarsinsync wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script. While the article is clearly biased, it would be foolish to believe that Apple is a company that doesn't change course, going as far as total U-turns on public statements, as long as it's in their interests to do so. > They are what makes the mac popular with developers Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it co…

What are some relevant, analogous examples from this history?

The first example I could think of actually counters the OP: when the iPhone launched and developers were told their only option on the platform would be via Web-apps.

Of course Apple did a 180 soon after and introduced the iOS SDK.

Not so sure if that was flipping the script when they were ready or that Apple had hoped to not have to open the OS but bent to the developer outcry (or saw that there might be some merit for growing the platform in opening it up).

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

#265

Post by rsynnott »

nottorp wrote: post #177
rsynnott wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple has been screwed by CPU manufacturers 3 times already Arguably 4. Motorola abandoned m68k (at least as a desktop route; variants lived on for a very, very long time as an embedded thing). Then Motorola largely abandoned PPC, leaving IBM as the only desktop-y manufacturer. Then, unsurprisingly, IBM fell behind with it. And now Intel.

Sounds right. I was counting PPC only once.

I suspect PPC definitely counts twice, at least in Apple's view. They treated G5/PPC970 as a major transition/new hope.

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

#266

Post by hehetrthrthrjn »

matwood wrote: post #165
hehetrthrthrjn wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> Keep in mind that there is a much larger installed base of Intel machines than any of those other transitions. The OP asked about Rosetta2 though. How many Intel macs are out there doesn't mean much when fat binaries can support both. This is all about software moving.

The two are connected. The more niche (or custom) software is the more resistant it is to porting. There's going to be a lot of Wintel based stuff which is a quick and dirty port from Windows with few Mac native elements. The years where Mac was Intel compatible made the platform more attractive to people who worked in a mostly Wintel environment. There is almost no incentive for those who ported software to the Mac because it was easy to now port to ARM.

So there are two sides to that: those people are going to hang on to their Intel machines longer and they'll want Intel compatibility when they finally buy ARM machines. This is important to Apple because it can shrink the pool of potential customers.

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

#267

Post by leoc »

EwanToo wrote: post #249
robotnikman wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think eGPUs require a thunderbolt connection, which IIRC is only supported by Intel processors

The new mac's ship with USB4/Thunderbolt ports - it's now a cross-platform port (USB4 is a merger of sorts between USB and Thunderbolt) https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-4-faq,38766.html

Apparently Thunderbolt is full of low-level x86 quirks, so getting existing devices working on ARM Macs is likely to be a punishingly heavy lift even for Apple, which seems to have barely started work. And of course Intel isn't likely to be all that co-operative. https://level1techs.com/video/can-apple-do-thoughts-armthund...

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

#268

Post by cma »

pvg wrote: post #250
oarsinsync wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script. While the article is clearly biased, it would be foolish to believe that Apple is a company that doesn't change course, going as far as total U-turns on public statements, as long as it's in their interests to do so. > They are what makes the mac popular with developers Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it co…

What are some relevant, analogous examples from this history?

They said OSX dev signatures were only for security, then invalidated one or threatened to based on an iOS business dispute (later backed down after a judge ordered them to).

Similar story with Apple Sign In (though no judge order there).

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

#269

Post by romanoderoma »

matwood wrote: post #142
romanoderoma wrote: post #84

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

Or pragmatism. At some point it's better and easier for users to offload some of these decisions to someone else. I don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison, the same way I don't want to have to deep dive into every app. And yes, I know the system is not perfect, but I'm talking about the general system here.

> don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison

I consider myself a pragmatic and I think that the only way to actually be sure there is no poison in your food is to literally produce it yourself.

Someone who's not even telling me the recipe is not a trusted source of premium food.

There is also no poison waiting outside of Apple ecosystem.

There is no offloading decision to someone else involved, you simply have the option or you don't, it doesn't mean you have to go full in one way or the other

You don't have to deep dive every app either, it's a straw man IMO

The argument is the same for picking mushrooms in the woods: you don't pick all of them, put them in the same basket, and then test them for venom one by one, you only pick those that you already know as safe, and you're absolutely sure about it.

Nobody in their right mind would do otherwise.

I'm ok with people trusting Apple more than their parents, what I find disturbing is the idea that if I trust my parents to use the same 3 apps that everybody else in the World uses (WhatsApp, FB and Google Maps) and are certified good, I'm putting them in danger.

It is not true.

It's a false premise.

Also the idea that people will go and install every app they see it's false.

They see a warning, they usually stop right there.

My father used to turn off the phone when he saw the red alert of a missing call, thinking of a malfunction.

There's no risk he's gonna install something by chance.

Also, if iOS is on 25% of the devices in Europe, while Android is on 3/4 of them does it mean that 75% of the 700 million European citizens are not pragmatic?

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

#270

Post by mrtksn »

ls65536 wrote: post #169
socialdemocrat wrote: post #91

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.

> many Android fans has an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder I've also found many Apple fans have an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder, but my anecdote is about as pointless as yours here. There are also plenty of people in both "camps" who just want a device to go about their business and, as is their choice, don't care much beyond "what costs less" (however they m…

Apple fans tend to be fanboys, Android fans tend to be hateboys too.

I find the hate part to be very unhealthy. Seriously annoying people, they wouldn't just defend their camp, they would just be evangelists of Andoroid, they are also on a quest to bring down anything else. They even branch between themselves and have fractions of purists, Samsungers, xiaomiens ands so on and they will constantly try to bring down each another too.

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