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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

#91

Post by socialdemocrat »

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.

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

#92

Post by soedirgo »

terramex wrote: post #52
akmarinov wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, that's a good thing, but that's also where you get a lot of the cruft that slows things down. For example Apple no longer has to support OpenGL and it can just cut out relevant hardware on the SoC level, leaving more room for other things. On the smartphone front, Qualcomm can't do that, since it sells its chips to a broad base that have variable requirements. I guess it's a tradeoff.

> Apple no longer has to support OpenGL and it can just cut out relevant hardware on the SoC level, leaving more room for other things. Just for everyone who is scared by this statement - macOS on Apple Silicon still supports OpenGL and OpenCL, but it is emulated on top of Metal now.

Can you give a source for this? Also, is it still stuck at 4.1/1.2?

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

#93

Post by my123 »

Tepix wrote: post #89
my123 wrote: post #37

Apple Silicon Macs aren't any more locked down than x86 ones. Hopefully, the GPU and such will be reverse engineered, that's a lot of one-time effort that might take a year or more the first time but will be easier for future gens.

Now that the T2 chip has been hacked, that statement is no longer true.

I'm part of the checkra1n team, and I can tell you that the difference doesn't really matter. We can do anything that we need on Apple Silicon macs, and will show something when we are ready.

* you don't need to hack the SEP for anything here (consider it as a glorified TPM), and the AP is can be unlocked officially.

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

#94

Post by newsclues »

romanoderoma wrote: post #84
socialdemocrat wrote: post #68

The truth is somewhere in the middle, so while this article has some good points it is too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking. I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan ho…

> 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

Does that not apply to the State and government?

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

#95

Post by jb1991 »

jmull wrote: post #90

What is it about Apple that makes people’s brains turn off? Apple silicon doesn’t change anything about Apple’s mac app store. Microsoft would need to release a native version of Windows, not Apple. He has a point with Rosetta 2, that it will very likely disappear (years from now), though that would affect software that isn’t being actively maintained (most of which failed to make the transition to x64 already). And…

It’s a general problem with the overall, wider polarization of modern culture. Whether it’s politics or tech, people really really really love to take sides in our world today, it it seems to have a blinding effect on perspectives and logic for many people on both sides of the argument.

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

#96

Post by nottorp »

Apple has been screwed by CPU manufacturers 3 times already, or do you think they changed architectures because they were having great fun doing that?

In the past 3 years I've seen more and more people asking not for an Arm Mac, but for an AMD Mac. Because AMD is again cheaper and faster than Intel.

But it appears Apple can now afford to build their own CPUs that are better and lower power than either AMD or Intel. Not to mention PowerPC, which is still around in some form at IBM :)

It's a no brainer for them. No one can screw them over now except themselves.

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

#97

Post by Tepix »

terramex wrote: post #43
formerly_proven wrote: post #12

In one of the older threads someone asked whether you'd eventually be able to run Linux on this, and someone responded that this would be annoying to do, since there aren't any docs. Is that actually true? The Apple A SoCs don't boot random kernels, so I would think the Apple M SoC does not, either, and requires bootloader/kernel to be signed by Apple, just like iPhone firmware.

Bootloader/kernel signing can be turned off, there is even GUI for that if you turn off SIP first. Is it just like a jailbroken iPhone/iPad, but straight from Apple and without losing warranty.

No, you cannot turn off the signed bootloader requirement just by using the GUI. You need to run csrutil in a terminal after booting into macOS recovery.

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

#98

Post by jb1991 »

akmarinov wrote: post #47
Tepix wrote: post #3

It will be interesting to see how long Rosetta-2 will be supported. macOS 10.15 took away 32bit apps, which was a sizeable chunk so clearly Apple is willing to alienate some of its users in the name of progress and slimlining.

At WWDC they said they're starting a transition period that'll last 2 years. So I expect them to drop support in 1.5 years

This is an in accurate reading of the word “transition“.

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

#99

Post by socialdemocrat »

swiley wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #40

> Don’t be duped by performance, Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control Yes. That's the biggest benefit, and another reason I'm buying it (on top of great performance for my NLE apps). I want the Mac to be it's own platform, and be under Apple's control and vision. If it's also made foul-proof and air-tight, so much the better. I don't want another lowest common denominator OS converging on the same point.…

Apple's walled gardens don't solve the maleware problem. People get code Apple doesn't approve of onto their platforms all the time. What these things do make more difficult is community maintained software, which is what made the platforms you feel nostalgic about so nice.

Yeah let us stop using Anti virus software on PC because it doesn’t stop every virus. It is never about elimination but minimization. Reality is that macOS and iOS both have much smaller malware problem than competing platforms.

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

#100

Post by my123 »

Someone wrote: post #78
my123 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can be configured to boot other operating systems, see https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma... .

From that page: “Review the following security options: Full Security: Ensures that only your current OS, or signed operating system software currently trusted by Apple, can run. This mode requires a network connection at software installation time. Reduced Security: Allows any version of signed operating system software ever trusted by Apple to run.” ⇒ it appears ‘other’ still requires OSes signed by Apple, but it a…

See this "option only appears when you run csrutil disable", which is the one that you need for third-party OSes, and doesn't impose any requirements on the OS that you boot.
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