Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#741

Post by macintux » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:12 AM UTC

nie wrote: post #478

macintux wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having those mobile/tablet apps expand automatically to desktop is the next logical conclusion. Thankfully Apple comprises vastly smarter people than me, but I've always thought this is a bad idea. The two interaction models are so dramatically different that I don't see how merging them makes sense. A finger is not a mouse.

I'm also surprised that no one (of significant voice) has voiced enough to pressure Apple to think about their developer user population. Everywhere I go I see devs using mac. I'm sure the reason behind this is 2 folds: supported hardware, x64 + Unix platform. So if they make the transition, say, in 2020, the dev world must be prepared by the end of 2019, I mean, from every toolchain to dev Apps. And this would seem…

It’s a good point, but I suspect the transition (if it happens) will be staged over time to make it easier.

If you look at the PPC->Intel timeline[1], Apple announced it 6 months in advance, although it went fairly quickly after that.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_...

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#742

Post by scraft » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:13 AM UTC

blacklight wrote: post #560

I personally hate close fences with no rooms for customization, and many computer scientists are on the same wavelength. Windows is an awful choice for software development, a job that usually requires a lot of interaction with Unix servers. Microsoft's recent crush for Linux and open source can't fix many years of closed standards, closed protocols, and Embrace-Extend-Exterminate evil culture. And MacOS, even though…

Just become a professional games developer, then you are forced to use Windows (for example to develop for Xbox One). The nice thing is: you can then say, 100%, Windows is the right tool for the job, and you can ignore the people claiming Linux or MacOS are better.

I have worked at three games development studios, some of the biggest in Europe and every single developer machine runs Windows.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#743

Post by leejoramo » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:15 AM UTC

egypturnash wrote: post #239

Stranger43 wrote: post #213

Have anyone checked with adobe and autodesk if this essentially kills the professional mac workstation as a viable product going forward? I have no doubt they can make it fast and usable enough for the naive consumer living inside the bubble of what relatively inexpensive(consumer grade) app-store apps can do and that microsoft will release something pretending to be MS office for a new ARM macbook line, but photosho…

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Don't forget Apple's NeXT heritage. NeXT supported and migrated between even more CPU platforms: 68k, x86, PA-RISC, and SPARC

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#744

Post by kevindong » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:20 AM UTC

israrkhan wrote: post #81

Apple has been preparing itself for independence from underlying CPU arachitecture for a while. In WWDC 2015[1], they announced bitcode. All App submissions to AppStore are compiled to to bitcode. This allows Apple to re-optimize/re-compile your app binary in the future for newer hardware without the need to submit new version of your app to the store. This allows Apple to switch to intel chip on iPhone, or switch to…

I just checked the app store on my Mac. I have just 1 application installed from the app store: Xcode. Even then that's just because Apple makes me have it installed to have command line tools such as git.

I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of applications (Microsoft Office, games, browsers, text editors, IDEs, etc.) installed on Macs are sourced from places other than the app store.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#745

Post by ploggingdev » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:22 AM UTC

powvans wrote: post #720

freehunter wrote: post #612

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's the problem with saying "this is better for computer scientists": It's the same argument every time someone says "the Macbook Pro is not a professional device". Not every computer scientist has the same needs. There are a lot of CS folks who will never need to recompile a kernel or even get into the OS internals. For those people, having to do that is a major downside to any computer. So the obvious choice is…

Couldn't agree with you more. Ubuntu was my daily driver from the start of 2007 through early 2014 when I finally gave in and bought a rMBP. Despite missing the "real" nix environment being available right under the GUI, I have been much much happier on the Mac. I fought software update and driver issues for years. I ran the most bog standard HP laptops that I could get, albeit w/ Nvidia GPUs. Every distribution upgr…

> I've been running Linux for 20 years and I'm not willing to put up with these problems on my workstation. It seems like it must be a very small minority that can.

What makes you think everyone faces the same issues as you? Maybe the problem is your specific hardware? I've been running linux based distros as my daily driver for over 10 years and literally never had any of the issues you described. Never had issues with power management, wifi always worked out of the box on all distros I've tried and suspend/resume always worked flawlessly. If you want a laptop that works well under linux, buy a thinkpad or a dell developer edition laptop.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#746

Post by 51Cards » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

jjoonathan wrote: post #667

freehunter wrote: post #651

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>they actually even replaced the SD slot Isn't this the same argument people used when the Mac ditched the floppy, and then again when they ditched the CD-ROM drive?

And PS2 ports and phone jacks and ethernet ports, yes

Ethernet ports are still a pain to not have for us. I have staff that travel to sites and need to test hard lines to see if they are live and most of them forget their dongle from time to time. Life was easier when they had built in ports. I do realize for the average user though this is a non-issue.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#747

Post by tyingq » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:28 AM UTC

metafunctor wrote: post #604

blacklight wrote: post #560

I personally hate close fences with no rooms for customization, and many computer scientists are on the same wavelength. Windows is an awful choice for software development, a job that usually requires a lot of interaction with Unix servers. Microsoft's recent crush for Linux and open source can't fix many years of closed standards, closed protocols, and Embrace-Extend-Exterminate evil culture. And MacOS, even though…

I, too, used to love tinkering with Linux. I would compile my own kernels, hack drivers and fix bugs to make it run better on the hardware I chose to buy. I wanted everything to be just so. Then, I realized that I have more money than time. I can choose Apple hardware, and run OS X (now macOS), trouble free. The only time I patched my Linux kernel was when some piece of hardware didn't work. Now, I simply choose hard…

Does it feel, though, like Apple is neglecting MacOS in favor of IOS recently? iPhones and iPads seem to be marching forward while desktops and laptops seem a bit stagnant.

They gave up the server line entirely, and the "pro" moniker seems to not mean what it meant in the past. Even the super popular Mac mini seems to be lacking investment.

It would be interesting to see an internal view of growth of investment dollars going into MacOS/desktop/laptop vs the tablets and phones. The recent bugs and vulnerabilities certainly seem to point at some neglect.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#748

Post by martin1975 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:33 AM UTC

Apple couldn't have started digging their own grave soon enough. Now all that's left to do is for Microsoft to play its end game - provide a bridge for NT/Win32 apps to run atop Linux, and spend the next couple of years bolting/porting/reinventing their new UI on a rock solid server OS - Linux, which will soon become a rock solid desktop OS.

Bye bye Apple. Nice to have known you. Game over-Linux wins, we all win. No more proprietary OS.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#749

Post by martin1975 » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

blacklight wrote: post #560

I personally hate close fences with no rooms for customization, and many computer scientists are on the same wavelength. Windows is an awful choice for software development, a job that usually requires a lot of interaction with Unix servers. Microsoft's recent crush for Linux and open source can't fix many years of closed standards, closed protocols, and Embrace-Extend-Exterminate evil culture. And MacOS, even though…

Can you spell/smell Microsoft Linux? Cause I can. :)

Apple is as good as dead if they actually carry this out.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#750

Post by quotemstr » Tue, Apr 03, 2018, 2:36 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #695

quotemstr wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why are you sticking with it? Go out and get a nice Linux machine. Expense it. If you're working at a company too square to approve that, install Linux on your Apple laptop. If you're working at a company that won't even allow that, well, you have my condolences. Things to ask before you sign, I guess.

This works, but only for simple environments. Given a work environment where you have a choice of: a) prepared environment with all application dependencies available and a tested-by-everyone, one-click-install/update on a bad system, or b) preferred system, but you have to do all of that from scratch yourself... Sometimes the reasonable answer is "a", even if you're allowed to do "b" (on your own time of course)

I've always been a b guy, and it's helped me understand how things work. One time, I joined a company, and two weeks after joining, poking around with a weird custom machine setup, I found that the machine was running a world-writable batch file as SYSTEM upon boot. Who knows how long this huge gaping security hole would have gone unnoticed if I hadn't felt compelled to poke around with Cygwin?