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

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

#321

Post by Someone » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:33 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #221

matwood wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

“Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script”

So does any company that paid attention in marketing & sales 101. An established hardware company has to sell what it has, and shouldn’t try to sell what it doesn’t have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect is the classical example of why not to sell what you don’t have (yet))

(if you don’t have anything to sell yet, selling what you don’t have is fine. See Kickstarter and early Tesla)

I think the reason people think Apple is special at this is that Steve Jobs was very good at selling what he had and downplaying what he didn’t have.

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

#322

Post by swiley » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:34 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #163

swiley wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would disagree, GNU/Linux has less of a malware problem than OSX and at the end of the day they all run browsers which have their own issues. There's also a serious cost to the walled gardens. These things eliminate community maintained software which results in everything on your computer being controlled by a profit (often marketing) driven corporation. These always eventually die (taking your data with them) or…

> There's also a serious cost to the walled gardens. These things eliminate community maintained software So, what's Homebrew, MacPorts, or the tons of Mac-native foss UI apps?

Homebrew at least is outside the walled garden. There's no way a source based package manager would ever make it onto an Apple run app store.

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

#323

Post by segfaultbuserr » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 8:51 PM UTC

barbacoa wrote: post #312

segfaultbuserr wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> generally don't have too great of an opinion of this ecosystem. +1. > Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it. For example, if you try Linux or BSD, and you'll find none of the peripherals works, and the community reverse engineering efforts will take years before getting basic functionality, and even then, the battery will only last for 2 hours and nobody besides Apple know…

AMD was originally going to release a desktop ARM CPU along with the x86 ryzen. The crazy part was they were meant to be pin compatible. AMD abandoned the idea due to complications and to focus on ryzen instead. We were so close to ARM desktops, probably wont see one for another 8 years. https://www.extremetech.com/computing/181867-amds-project-sk...

Wow... I hasn't heard of the project before, knowing its failure makes me unhappier ;-(

BTW, In my dream, I hope there exists an ATX compatible motherboard and a standard specification for its CPU-board, so that you can fit an ARM machine inside an existing computer chassis, and allowing you to upgrade the chips by simply swapping CPU boards. On paper it looks possible, but in practice there are some potential problems (based on my limited electronics knowledge): signal integrity (PCI-E should be solvable, but DDR3 is extremely problematic) and heatsink. However, a compromise to put DRAM on the CPU board (soldered or socketed) should be fine, and heatsink is hopefully solvable if the CPU is power efficient. The HoneyComb LX2K workstation [0] is essentially designed based on this idea, it has a CPU board on top of a Mini-ITX board, and it doesn't need heatsink.

Still, without many high-performance ARM CPUs for selection, it's essentially only a big Raspberry Pi...

[0] https://www.solid-run.com/nxp-lx2160a-family/honeycomb-works...

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

#324

Post by rootusrootus » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 9:11 PM UTC

drieddust wrote: post #314

rootusrootus wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You were not clear, and your implication was that Apple would not help you unlock a locked phone. Not that you had a bricked phone because of activation lock. It is somewhat difficult to lock your own device so that you cannot factory reset it. You wouldn't just have to lose the passcode, you would also need to lose the credentials to your iCloud account as well as your purchase receipt for the phone. Then you become…

> It is somewhat difficult to lock your own device so that you cannot factory reset it.... Well this can happen to non tech savvy users like my wife who configured their device once and then just used it for couple of years until the day of the incident. > I am okay with Apple's choice on this, as I prefer the security and the theft deterrence. I keep several methods for recovering my iCloud account, and I keep the r…

> then just used it for couple of years

I have never managed to go anywhere near that long without being prompted for my iCloud password for one reason or another. And if you did lose the password, you could use password recovery to get it back.

It really seems like a contrived example.

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

#325

Post by a_imho » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #230

a_imho wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't Apple devices assembled in sweatshops? The comparison might be more accurate than intended.

No, Apple has a code of conduct all their contractors are required to adhere to,, and pays substantially more than market. Their jobs are so coveted potential hires wait in lines for days just for a chance at getting an Apple job.

I'm not sure whether this is irony or not.

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

#326

Post by coldtea » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 10:04 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #289

coldtea wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And what if you can't discuss protests or protest organization on any of the apps you are allowed to install on your device, as Apple has made the case already in Hong Kong? What about it? People had protests, and far more massive, at the era of Louis XVI or the Czar, or Pinochet, or whatever. Without IM apps and 10000 electronic alternatives, and with much worse repurcursions if caught... > In Apple's jurisdiction…

Wars are fought now primarily with information, not violence. I would like to keep it that way; extremely effective systems of state censorship of publishing and communications, such as implemented presently on iOS (remember when the US was about to ban TikTok?) is a good way to force large groups to revert to those bad, old ways if all other options are removed. I don't want the majority of the population to only ha…

>Wars are fought now primarily with information, not violence.

Only in the safe western countries, where wars have not been fought for 70+ years anyway.

In the rest of the world wars are still fought with violence, including violence by said western countries...

This idea is like the similar one that today's currency is ideas and information, not industry -- when the industrial production is bigger than ever and our dependency on it bigger than ever, it's just (similarly) hidden (outsourced) in China and the developing world.

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

#327

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 10:19 PM UTC

oarsinsync wrote: post #221

matwood wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Apple products are targeted at developers as well, to developers that care about Apple eco-system, not those that use macbooks to actually do work for GNU/Linux.

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

#328

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 10:20 PM UTC

jdsully wrote: post #291

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…

For a product not aimed at developers they spent a lot of time talking about how fast things compile during the M1 launch.

Nevermind, that is the trend in HN that equates developers with writing UNIX cli applications and daemons.

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

#329

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 10:23 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #286

evgen wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this 'I know the risks' approach is that it is often put out there by people who do know the risks but these people are massively outnumbered by the huge mass of people who have no idea about the risks but will gladly install from Bob's FlyByNight App Emporium if it means they will get a "can't lose" video poker app or a chance to win a free Fortnite skin and please be sure to click OK to all of thos…

I think the answer to this is painfully clear: because no one makes hardware anywhere near close to the quality of mac and iphone hardware in those verticals. We'd like to use the best available software, running on the best available hardware. Criticizing Apple's software censorship choices is thus the natural logical target. Otherwise, we have to use things like the PinePhone for the next 10-15 years until someone…

Alternatively one could contribute to making the competing hardware just as good.

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

#330

Post by pjmlp » Mon, Nov 23, 2020, 10:28 PM UTC

socialdemocrat wrote: post #79

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…

It is always a trade off. Prioritizing backwards compatibility does not come for free. One result I see from this is that MS keep creating new APIs whole old ones languish in obscurity. On Macs in contrast Cocoa is part of a lineage all the way back to the 1980s. I can still use Objective-C skills I learned even before macOS X was released. The same cannot be said for Windows. Nobody in their right mind writes Win16…

We surely do write Win32 applications, which is one of the reasons why UWP failed and now Project Reunion is bringing the best parts of UWP into Win32.

.NET 5 was also only released for Win32, Linux and macOS, UWP will get an update only later next year, if ever.