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Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

appleinsider.com

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Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#91

Post by jbverschoor »

strategarius wrote: post #60

I'm curious what Parallels going to do. Running Windows and Linux applications with almost native integration into OSX ecosystem worth a lot, especially with all benefits of hardware virtualization. In theory PC could be virtualized on ARM, however software virtualization only. Going to watch the process. In general, Windows and Linux support ARM as well, not sure if hardware virtualization for ARM exist though

Why wouldn’t they be able to provide on-chip x86 emulation, exposed via hypervisor Framework? They can use that for backward compatibility for non-recompiled apps while supporting parallels/VMware

Also, the move to Catalina helps to check how fast app developers and users switch to new hardware.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#92

Post by Flow »

_ph_ wrote: post #32

I am torn, whenever I hear the rumors about the ARM Macs. On the one side, I am terribly excited from a technology perspective. I grew up with homecomputers in the 80ies, and in the 90ies, all Unix-workstations had several different, non-x86 architectures. So any disruption of the x86-monoculture is interesting. Also, looking at the performance of the iPhone and iPad, I think Apple has the potential to create some gr…

For me, the interesting development right now is the drastic increase of CPU cores. ARM or Intel doesn't matter much except for gaming in Windows.

But of course, Apple does often surprise us all, maybe this could be something cool after all.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#93

Post by unlinked_dll »

scarface74 wrote: post #73
Hamuko wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> why not switch it to one that you control completely? So you don't have to kill all of the software currently running on your customers' machines.

It worked out well the previous two times. I bought a PPC Mac 9 months after they first made the switch. Most of my software was already native. Within the next year, all of the important software was native.

There's a lot of creative software that didn't survive the ppc switch. Back then the chasm between MacOS and Windows for certain workloads was a mile wide and despite all the software lost, which would never be recompiled, users stayed with it.

With recent changes to the OS, a decade of instability with every update every year, the recent hard deprecation of 32 bit binaries, and now moving to an unproven ISA for those particular workloads - all while Windows and Linux have closed the gap, mostly... the situation is a bit different.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#94

Post by scarface74 »

unlinked_dll wrote: post #93
scarface74 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It worked out well the previous two times. I bought a PPC Mac 9 months after they first made the switch. Most of my software was already native. Within the next year, all of the important software was native.

There's a lot of creative software that didn't survive the ppc switch. Back then the chasm between MacOS and Windows for certain workloads was a mile wide and despite all the software lost, which would never be recompiled, users stayed with it. With recent changes to the OS, a decade of instability with every update every year, the recent hard deprecation of 32 bit binaries, and now moving to an unproven ISA for thos…

This is not going to be the year of the Linux Desktop. What creative software got left behind during either transition? ARM is not an “unproven ISA”. Both Microsoft and Adobe already have ARM versions because of iPads. Besides, unlike the 68K transition, the amount of assembly code in most applications are small

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#95

Post by dylan604 »

Hamuko wrote: post #56
dylan604 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's time to make another CPU change, why not switch it to one that you control completely? Motorola->PPC->Intel->Apple. It just makes sense that's where they'd ultimately want to go.

> why not switch it to one that you control completely? So you don't have to kill all of the software currently running on your customers' machines.

Rumors were that from the first days of OS X, there was a skunk works level group at Apple ensuring Darwin compiled on Intel chips with an eye on being able to make the switch. I wouldn't place bets against the same thing being in place with ARM chips especially with Apple's ownership in the chips.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#96

Post by mikhailt »

Slartie wrote: post #80
mikhailt wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People have (Jonathan Morrison for an example) , the 4k exports from iMovie or other video/image editor has been proven to be vastly faster on iPad Pro than the fastest Macbook Pro. Intel CPUs are not customized by Apple for their own APIs, they're for general purpose use. yes, they have ISA extensions that Apple could use like QuickSync but it's not enough for Apple. Apple customize their A series with the same APIs…

> the 4k exports from iMovie or other video/image editor has been proven to be vastly faster on iPad Pro than the fastest Macbook Pro. I'd only be impressed if both used the exact same high-quality software encoder. Most likely the iPad uses the fast but less quality dedicated hardware encoder of the A-Series SoC and the MacBook uses a high quality but slow software-only one, which is what you typically use in any no…

That is true, I don't have any evidence to say that x86 isn't faster or equal against Apple's ARM CPUs or vis versa. They're hard to come by since they're both completely different arch.

For JS: https://twitter.com/codinghorror/status/1049082262854094848

It looks like it's not exclusive to Apple's CPU, it's the specific instruction features in ARM 8.3 ISA that makes JS faster.

Added here: https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=184023

> Any modern x86 CPU can do accelerated AES just as fast as any ARM with hardware crypto support.

Right but back then, Intel mobile chips weren't that fast. I had MBP with Filevault that took a massive hit and I had to turn it off to get back disk performance. I can't prove that T2 is the reason the encryption doesn't take any hit on T2 Macs, all I can see from my trial of rMBP 16, there was zero performance hit with it on or off.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#97

Post by wyre »

scarface74 wrote: post #67
wyre wrote: post #44

What does this mean for software companies whose consumer base is largely on OSX? Will Adobe, Sony, Avid, etc have to port their library of software over to Apple's new ARM architecture? Will this allow for greater freedom with ARM devices not running new OSX? It seems like Apple lately has very much internalized 'if you build it, they will come' even though it seems like it is heavily alienating their professional u…

You act as if this is the first time that Apple has done a transition or the first time that the aforementioned companies have made the transition. Each of them have made the transition from 68K -> PPC -> OS X -> x86.

I only know about the transition to x86 and from what I remember the benefit was the same architecture as Windows. Since them OSX has gained a lot of market share. Moving to ARM is definitely a step backwards in that regard. I don't know anything about the previous transitions.

I don't think transitioning to ARM is a bad choice given the benefits, but a lot of serious (and casual) users are going to be very unhappy their programs aren't going to work after dropping $1k+ on a new computer.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#98

Post by mikhailt »

jshaqaw wrote: post #83
mikhailt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, we should care. We are talking about losing the standard x86 platform support (which allows for Windows/Linux support if not total OOB support) to a custom Apple platform that may be more locked down to the point that Linux may not even care to add any support for it (T2-Macs have been difficult to add support in Linux). This drops the value a lot if you're not an exclusive macOS user. 1. We don't know wha…

Since Apple effectively stopped innovating OSX a decade ago (unless you really need each new iteration of emojis) just get a Windows machine if Windows software is essential to your workflow. I have used macs a long time but got a supplemental Windows machine for my office to not bother with fiddly virtualization issues. Windows has largely caught up with OSX as OSX has stagnated or outright decayed. It makes me sad…

I already have Windows PCs (SP4 + Desktop)and while W10 has come a long way, it's not as stable as macOS. Catalina is just as bad as Vista IMO.

However, macOS is still better IMO because I still have a lot of issues on Windows; all stemming from MS shipping bad updates. Two months ago, a Windows update broke my bluetooth completely and I had to wait a month for another Windows update/driver to fix it. Last year, a bad update forced me to reinstall Windows because it was freezing all the time and I couldn't restore a system point either.

As for macOS, I never had to do a reinstall (except one time that was entirely my fault) in more than a decade. W7/W10, I had to do it 5 or so times in last few years. Catalina however lost my respect for macOS, that was the worst update of all time.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#99

Post by dzhiurgis »

_ph_ wrote: post #32

I am torn, whenever I hear the rumors about the ARM Macs. On the one side, I am terribly excited from a technology perspective. I grew up with homecomputers in the 80ies, and in the 90ies, all Unix-workstations had several different, non-x86 architectures. So any disruption of the x86-monoculture is interesting. Also, looking at the performance of the iPhone and iPad, I think Apple has the potential to create some gr…

Apples biggest debt was developers who rely on vm’s and brew. They’ve already booted them about while producing laptops without a reliable keyboard for 4 years.

ARM macbooks will be for youtube influencers. Sure they’ll be able to edit 8K (and when uploaded to youtube they can’t even view it themselves). Devs need AMD.

Re: Apple to debut multiple ARM MacBook, desktop models in 2021

#100

Post by mikhailt »

scarface74 wrote: post #70
mikhailt wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course, we should care. We are talking about losing the standard x86 platform support (which allows for Windows/Linux support if not total OOB support) to a custom Apple platform that may be more locked down to the point that Linux may not even care to add any support for it (T2-Macs have been difficult to add support in Linux). This drops the value a lot if you're not an exclusive macOS user. 1. We don't know wha…

Porting iOS to Macs don’t require ARM. Almost every iOS app started life running on x86. The iOS simulator runs iOS software compiled for x86 linked to x86 versions of the iOS framework.

I didn't say it does, I'm just saying that it'll be easier. Instead of working on both x86/ARM frameworks, they'll just stop supporting x86 (freeze) and only update on the ARM framework from now on.

They did the same thing with PowerPC and x86-32. No reason to expect them to support x86-64 in 5-10 years if they switch all Macs to ARM.

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