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Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

forbes.com

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Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#11

Post by saagarjha »

eight_ender wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

It's more nuanced than that. Nvidia can write the drivers but releasing them without the blessing of Apple blows away any chance of them getting that sweet GPU contract back. Nvidia doesn't have much of a real world application outside of GPUs in enclosures to keep the drivers alive. The reason to keep drivers ready is the potential for a very large contract from Apple.

Does NVIDIA actually have a contract with Apple? I was under the impression that Apple silently tolerated them, and that they just released drivers on their website for eGPUs.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#14

Post by etaioinshrdlu »

eight_ender wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

It's more nuanced than that. Nvidia can write the drivers but releasing them without the blessing of Apple blows away any chance of them getting that sweet GPU contract back. Nvidia doesn't have much of a real world application outside of GPUs in enclosures to keep the drivers alive. The reason to keep drivers ready is the potential for a very large contract from Apple.

Word on the street is that Nvidia didn't get much value ($) out of working with Apple, so perhaps both parties aren't super interested.

Same story with Nvidia and gaming consoles - last few gens of consoles have not used Nvidia chips and Nvidia doesn't see it as a big loss. The margins must be too low.

Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardcore gaming.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#15

Post by AckSyn »

eight_ender wrote: post #6
saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

It's more nuanced than that. Nvidia can write the drivers but releasing them without the blessing of Apple blows away any chance of them getting that sweet GPU contract back. Nvidia doesn't have much of a real world application outside of GPUs in enclosures to keep the drivers alive. The reason to keep drivers ready is the potential for a very large contract from Apple.

There is no nuance. You can write drivers and get certificates for them with a developers license.

The user can also disable the driver signing "Security" just like they can on windows, which isn't an issue anyways.

Re: Apple Turns Its Back on Customers and Nvidia with MacOS Mojave

#17

Post by Yetanfou »

saagarjha wrote: post #4

> Apple fully controls drivers for Mac OS. How so? Can you just not write graphics drivers for macOS?

You can write them but you'll need to get them signed by Apple to be able to deploy them in a sensible way. As to whether Apple will sign drivers to run MacOS on non-Apple hardware remains to be seen.
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