Apple Hires ARM's Lead CPU Architect Amid Rumors of ARM-Based Macs as Early as 2020

[cppguy]

Microsoft is in a slightly better position, because most business software these days are .NET, and if it's compiled Machine Independent, then it runs natively on any CPU. They use software emulation for x86-32, but for some reason that doesn't work with x64. In the Windows world, most software are still 32-bit. I can't imagine it's efficient to emulate x86 from software. Z80 (ZX Spectrum) or Nintendo for sure, but x86 I don't think so. However, business applications aren't usually very demanding on the CPU in the first place. A business app with a dumb dialog box is easy to emulate from software. Try running Premier on x86-emulated ARM.

It is true that separate Intel and ARM MacBooks would require a lot of extra development and maintenance effort. I'm not sure they'd do it. It's more likely that they'll move a lot of services on ARM, while keeping the main system Intel. Encryption and video decoding have already been moved to ARM, but they could move more features there. Neural networks, JPEG compression, dozens of services could be moved to ARM. But that misses the whole point, because as long as the OS is running on Intel, you're not saving much power. You would only save power by going full ARM, and optimizing software for that CPU. Reduce the bloat, the decades of history.

The problem is companies can't rewrite everything just because it'd be nice to have a less bloated, more optimal solution. Especially the vertical market and custom projects, where time of development trumps money spent on hyper-optimizing the product. In professional software (legal, financial, investment, automotive, government custom projects, pharmaceutical), you must have something quick and dirty but reliable that functions for decades, as opposed to the latest and greatest tech. I don't see Intel disappearing anytime soon on the Windows side. Heck, many companies still use fax and even floppy drives, because their system is so custom it'd cost more to rewrite than to maintain.

 

[AxiomaticRubric]

If you rely on Bootcamp, you're already in big trouble. The MacBook Pro is optimized for macOS only, the Bootcamp drivers seriously overheat the hardware.

100% accurate. I had to evict Bootcamp from a 13” MacBook Pro for precisely this reason.

Bootcamp seems to be fine on desktop Macs though.

 

[star-affinity]

You want Unix or a Unix-like system on a PC? Install a Linux distribution, it's much faster than macOS, much better for software development or scientific use and generally more versatile in every aspect.

In another forum someone wrote:

Having developed software for Windows, Linux, and macOS, I do agree that Apple's development/debugging tools are better than every other free thing I've used.

 

[techwhiz]

You clearly have no idea where ARM performance is going. Look up the Fujitsu A64FX implementation of the ARM architecture: it is going to be used in the Post-K supercomputer, and also look up features like the SVE. There is no reason an ARM implementation cannot compete in performance with intel high end CPUs, it is only a matter of implementation. in fact, the architecture leads itself better to high performance, and because of this, nothing prevents it from matching intel's performance at lower power consumption. The only reason these chips haven't been built in the past is that the focus was on embedded. But Apple's implementations of the ARM architecture are already good for laptop and desktop applications (look at the benchmarks for the iPhone X CPUs).

The benchmark does not show things like multithreaded apps and multitasking because the iPad is not good at multitasking, or hasn't been.

Don't start throwing Fujitsu, Ampere and Cavium around as an example. The Ampere 32 Core is about $1K and the 16 Core is about $600.

Apple will still need to pay for die area.
When you start stuffing the right number of cores on that ARM processor along with the caches required and 32 to 64 lanes of Gen 4 PCIe along with 4-8 memory channels and other peripherals then you have a real chip.

The current iPad processor isn't even close to being a desktop processor.

 

[DeepIn2U]

Thing is, why wouldn't Apple, at the very least, be considering an ARM transition? Intel has dropped the ball again and again on offering 7nm chips and it's now looking like they won't have anything suitable until at 2021 at the earliest, based on their leaked roadmap.

Apple would be absolutely insane to not at least consider transitioning away from Intel.

Keep in mind that the poor thermal performance of the newer MacBooks is likely at least partially down to Apple developing them for lower TDP Intel chips that never materialised.

Transition should be incredibly fast if Apple kept to the original OSX Design mantra ... the kernel must be kept up to date and processor agnostic! That along with the basic type of cpu architecture ... BIG Endian (or was it little Endian) / RISC computing ... we should see something awesome very soon.

MBP with incredible performance / watt and NO FANS!

Imagine in 5yrs a Mac Pro (or Armed-Mac) with no fans or incredibly low fan spin. Maybe no fans and resurrect a Cube like design or cpu performance and no cooling that would be worthy of the Mac Pro trashcan design.
[doublepost=1561694376][/doublepost]

That's what I'm wondering. They're going to come out with a $4000+ 16" Intel Mac this fall then quickly follow it up with an ARM based Mac? What about the people who spend $12,000 on the Mac Pro?

Or is ARM only coming to the lower-end Macs?

Same transition timeline like the Power to Intel transition .. target 2yrs ... beat it by 4mths ... continue to support existing products for 6yrs.

What I'm curious about is that now Apple has 2 incredibly amazing Arm CPU architects ... Sriljou and the man from Manchaca ... is this going to cause Apple Sauce to heat up internally?

 

[cmaier]

Couldn't agree more. An ARM based notebook line-up would kill the whole idea of the Mac. ARM is not a good general purpose architecture. It's better than it was, If Apple seriously wants to get motivate intel, the best thing they could do is throw some business towards AMD. Competition between the two would do more to spark innovation than simply going with ARM.

“Arm is not a good general purpose architecture.”

That’s the dumbest thing I’ve read on here all week.

 

[Falhófnir]

But that is not a full performance suite.
That is but a single benchmark. Try to do the render and a blur in PhotoShop at the same time....
Try to spawn a process with 8 threads on the iPad.
That test is anything but a real world use test.

An iPad is cannot in any way, shape or form be a laptop replacement.
The processor isn't up to snuff, no matter what a single benchmark says.

It is doing the same work, rendering the same project file. It is doing it in a competitive timeframe. It is a passively cooled 7W chip with integrated graphics up against a 45W CPU and dedicated 35W GPU. Quibble all you want, that's superlative performance from such a chip. I doubt it's going to be a vanilla A12X that appears in MacBook Pros, but rather a custom design which won't have such limitations.

 

[Cyprusian]

The possibility of a move to ARM processors as early as 2020 confirms, for me, the sense in holding off from upgrading to a new Mac in the near future - see my post from June last year: macOS 10.14 Mojave Drops Support for Many Older Machines

 

[nacholibre]

Im a scientist, I run stuff which is often on old machines and operating systems from across the decades. Apple was a Swiss army knife where I could run anything. Now its becoming a turkey baster making a single dish look shinny and pretty.

You are 0.0001% of their target group, if you were Apple, what group will you prioritize 99% or 0.0001%? Ask someone not in the IT space does he knows what ARM/x86 CPU architectures are and does he cares?

And why do you think Virtual Machines won't work? If the Virtual Machine Software is compiled for ARM, you could run x86 on it I think, I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know if they'll do it. But if the market requires it, why not.

When USB-C Macbooks were introduced everyone were complaining, now I can see more and more adoption and I think we can agree all now that this is the future, and thanks to Apple for pushing it so hard we enjoy the faster adoption.

I can remember when they removed the optical drive in the first macbook air, the internet exploded, a lot of jokes were made, but now most of the laptops doesn't have optical drives. The same with Flash support for iPhone, Flash is basically dead now.

Introducing ARM CPUs in the Macbooks will be huge. Their ARM CPUs are the best in the world right now, more and more people start using iPads for video editing and they are pretty happy with the speed and the workflow.

 

[aero7]

Counting down the days till Apple computing irrelevancy. Sure you will have iPad, and a iPhone but for computers this will be a nail in the coffin for people who use computers for things other than facebook and MS word.

"Hey prosumer, have a look at our computer that costs at least TWICE AS MUCH as a similarly spec machine anywhere else. Whats that, you want compatibility? Well, we have all the IO you could want if all you want is USB-C. Oh you were talking about software compatibility? Well, we don't run windows anymore so if you have some mission critical software you will have to buy a dedicated windows machine. What about old Apple apps? Well we just retired 32bit apps, and we have a "rosetta 2.0' that we will support intel software long, long, LONG, into the future. Well 2 years at last. So it's compatible if all your stuff is up to date. But anyway. BUY OUR MAC!"

Yeah, no.

Your lack of imagination is baffling.

 

[D.H.]

Multiple reports have indicated that Apple plans to transition to its own ARM-based processors in Macs starting as early as 2020, and the company recently made a significant hire that lends credence to that objective.

Leave Intel processors and I leave the Mac after 26 years of Apple/Mac dedication.
Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, long and well-contemplated promise!

I had enough of Apple's proprietary BS during the late 90's which, almost bought them that final comp/OS farm in the sky! Steve Jobs couldn't have been more brilliant than when he stopped the PC/Mac wars, switched to Intel procs, and allowed Windows to run natively on Macs.

I'll say it once again, loud and clear, Apple (if you're even listening) --

"Leave Intel processors, and I leave the Mac after 26 years of serious Apple/Mac devotion and evangelism. Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, sad, disappointed, long and well-contemplated promise!"

 

[terpsbball2002]

What's worth noting is GB4 tests are easily skewed by memory speed and latency, with more emphasis on speed. You can see a swing of 1,000-6,000 points across the board on a HEDT setup going from basic, lowest possible memory speed to slightly tuned memory that doesn't require much more than enabling an XMP profile.


Cheaper in development, production, or end product to customer?

Every aspect, I think the ARM chip costs apple $30-35 per chip (I would imagine a desktop ARM chip wouldn't be far off), an Intel CPU can be in the $100s-$1000s. The point is, I doubt Apple would pass the savings on to the consumer, they would probably raise prices.

 

[cmaier]

Leave Intel processors and I leave the Mac after 26 years of Apple/Mac dedication.
Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, long and well-contemplated promise!

I had enough of Apple's proprietary BS during the late 90's which, almost bought them that final comp/OS farm in the sky! Steve Jobs couldn't have been more brilliant than when he stopped the PC/Mac wars, switched to Intel procs, and allowed Windows to run natively on Macs.

I'll say it once again, loud and clear, Apple (if you're even listening) --

"Leave Intel processors, and I leave the Mac after 26 years of serious Apple/Mac devotion and evangelism. Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, sad, disappointed, long and well-contemplated promise!"

Why would apple care?

If they can make equivalently fast machines, in more compelling form factors, and iterate on them much more quickly than Intel’s roadmap permits, Apple will pick up many more customers than they lose.

And I always love these “apple, if you do ___ I’m gone!” Posts. Such ego to even suggest facetiously that Apple should give a crap.

 

[firewood]

Leave Intel processors and I leave the Mac after 26 years of Apple/Mac dedication.
Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, long and well-contemplated promise!

Why should anyone care? Given Apple's growing user base, Apple gains new customers for everyone who leaves. I don't see a potential move to ARM processors changing this. There's nothing in the arm64 ISA that prevents it from being used for supercomputers, or advanced machine learning, etc.

And 26 years? Bah! I've used Macs for over 35 years. But a brand new (e.g. younger) Mac customer will likely outlive both of us, and thus bring in more total revenue to Apple services, and to 3rd party macOS software developers as well.

 

[0388631]

Every aspect, I think the ARM chip costs apple $30-35 per chip (I would imagine a desktop ARM chip wouldn't be far off), an Intel CPU can be in the $100s-$1000s. The point is, I doubt Apple would pass the savings on to the consumer, they would probably raise prices.

Not quite. OEM processors come in trays of a thousand. When you buy an OEM format processor, it's in a plain cardboard box with some protection. No warranty. Retail is, well, retail box and a warranty. OEM is what Apple uses. OEMs typically pay a lot less than the individual unit cost at that segment. In other words, say a 9900K costs $488 now. A tray of 1,000 OEM units may cost $450 each per processor, but big OEMs like Apple, Dell, HP, etc. can negotiate that way down to say $100 a processor... for a 9900K. No major OEM is paying near or even half MSRP list price.

Now this changes for niche work. Intel likely charges a full price or more than 3/4ths for niche processors. Jaketown Everest Xeons were built on Sandybridge's architecture and were unique to function as HFT units for Wallstreet. Amazon also orders special Xeons for certain parts of their operation.

The base Xeon in the new Mac Pro is $899, I believe, MSRP if you bought it yourself. Some company like Puget Systems may pay $600-700, but Apple or Dell could probably have them for $200 a pop or even less. HP offers single or dual 8180s in their advanced workstation platform. That chip retails for about $10,000 and HP probably pays anywhere from $800-2,000 per processor, and doesn't pass the savings on to the customer. If everything cost just 10% under Intel MSRP, these companies wouldn't make the margins they do.

Hell, I'd argue Apple's able to get a deal like "Buy 5,000 OEM processors, get 2,0000 at 1/10th the cost" or something to that effect.


Apple's costs per ARM chip comes down to how much they manufacture. Arguably, even if the did go the PC route, it'd cost much more. Apple moves more phones than other products combined. For each run, the costs go down. There's also the issue of x86 patents. Intel could allow licensing for old variants of x86, but I doubt they'd offer anything new like they do with AMD and vice versa. There's also the cost of licensing. There's a few ways to license ARM technology. Apple is one of few companies that license and do what they do with the research.

There are older libraries being used for Windows for ARM. But as I said there's other issues with a desktop ARM processor that can be used for professional workload. The A12 processor itself is fairly massive compared to AMD or Intel's processor, as in the actual chip under the metal shield. It's maybe twice to three times the size.

If you follow processor news, the new thing is chiplets. AMD has the lead right now in it. Intel plans on doing something similar but stacking their technology, but will run into heat dissipation issues. Grab 5 slips of paper and stack them on top of each other. Intel is trying to figure out how to dissipate heat from the lowest piece of paper to the highest and through a heatsink without adding much heat buildup to the other pieces of paper. This is on top of not having IPC or frequency regressions while bringing lower power consumption.

Intel measures TDP at idle, AMD measures a mixture of load and idle. In any case, the lower output, the lower your heat generation. Though keeping IPC and frequency from regressing is tough. Ideally, you want to increase IPC while regressing on frequency.


280 instructions per clock @ 4.8 Ghz

to

120 instructions per clock @ 4 Ghz is not good.



However


280 instructions per clock @ 4.8 Ghz


to

400 instructions per clock @ 3 Ghz is good.


The 400 instructions per clock @ 3 Ghz processor is good because they now have a far more efficient chip on a process that uses less energy and thus has a lower heat output, but also plenty of room to sell increased frequency processors. And as you raise the frequency, the instructions per clock goes up, too. Though, for this, you also want a processor that operates at the aforementioned IPC at frequency whilst using as little voltage as possible. As you increase frequency, you increase heat and voltage requirements, and the return on investment lessens more and more as you go up.

 

[CodeJoy]

And why do you think Virtual Machines won't work? If the Virtual Machine Software is compiled for ARM, you could run x86 on it I think, I'm sure it's possible, but I don't know if they'll do it. But if the market requires it, why not.

If you're thinking about VirtualBox type virtual machines, then that's not how they work. They don't do CPU emulation, they do virtualisation of a single CPU so it can act as if it were multiple of the same CPU. Or slight variations of that same CPU in some cases, but not a CPU of a completely different architecture.

CPU emulation is certainly possible, and technically you can call that a virtual machine too, it's just not what people typically mean these days with virtual machine. CPU emulation can be extremely fast, but it will still inevitably be a lot slower.

 

[CodeJoy]

In another forum someone wrote:

Having developed software for Windows, Linux, and macOS, I do agree that Apple's development/debugging tools are better than every other free thing I've used.

This is essentially why my primary platform for multi-platform software is macOS. I have development setups on Windows, Linux and macOS, and can easily pick whichever I prefer at any given moment. And I do. I've had a couple of days booting up in Linux now, but usually I end up doing development in macOS mostly because I'm more productive there. This mostly remains the same, regardless of whether the chip is x86, ARM, or whatever.

Point here though is, if I want just one single laptop to do development on, it needs to be a Mac. Sadly the new ones can't boot into native Linux, but they can still run VM's quite well. If/when Macs leave x86, this is no longer the case. I don't feel super strongly about it -- you can just have two machines, but the neat versatility of Macs as the only truly multi-platform device, that kinda disappears.

It's mostly just a preference and convenience thing though. In terms of code base, Linux and macOS share over 99% if you do it right. Windows is more trouble, but even there it's probably only just under 99%. Shared code base between x86 macOS and ARM macOS will be 100%, I can guarantee it.
[doublepost=1561746516][/doublepost]

Leave Intel processors and I leave the Mac after 26 years of Apple/Mac dedication.
Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, long and well-contemplated promise!

I had enough of Apple's proprietary BS during the late 90's which, almost bought them that final comp/OS farm in the sky! Steve Jobs couldn't have been more brilliant than when he stopped the PC/Mac wars, switched to Intel procs, and allowed Windows to run natively on Macs.

I'll say it once again, loud and clear, Apple (if you're even listening) --

"Leave Intel processors, and I leave the Mac after 26 years of serious Apple/Mac devotion and evangelism. Not a threat, simply a VERY sincere, sad, disappointed, long and well-contemplated promise!"

If it makes rational sense to leave, then leave. Otherwise stay. Any emotional response is up to you, and that's fine, but remember at the end of the day it's just machines and you pick the one that makes most sense to you at any given moment. Making most sense can be a rational or an emotional choice, either is fine imo. But make choices based on what makes sense NOW, not on what made sense 26 years ago.

 

[D.H.]

This is essentially why my primary platform for multi-platform software is macOS. I have development setups on Windows, Linux and macOS, and can easily pick whichever I prefer at any given moment. And I do. I've had a couple of days booting up in Linux now, but usually I end up doing development in macOS mostly because I'm more productive there. This mostly remains the same, regardless of whether the chip is x86, ARM, or whatever.

Point here though is, if I want just one single laptop to do development on, it needs to be a Mac. Sadly the new ones can't boot into native Linux, but they can still run VM's quite well. If/when Macs leave x86, this is no longer the case. I don't feel super strongly about it -- you can just have two machines, but the neat versatility of Macs as the only truly multi-platform device, that kinda disappears.

It's mostly just a preference and convenience thing though. In terms of code base, Linux and macOS share over 99% if you do it right. Windows is more trouble, but even there it's probably only just under 99%. Shared code base between x86 macOS and ARM macOS will be 100%, I can guarantee it.
[doublepost=1561746516][/doublepost]
If it makes rational sense to leave, then leave. Otherwise stay. Any emotional response is up to you, and that's fine, but remember at the end of the day it's just machines and you pick the one that makes most sense to you at any given moment. Making most sense can be a rational or an emotional choice, either is fine imo. But make choices based on what makes sense NOW, not on what made sense 26 years ago.

Has absolutely nothing to do with "emotion". However, if I leave it will be a move I do not really want to make. I love the Mac OS, I hate Apple hardware, period! I hate Windows in comparison, but will regretfully make the move if ARM process become the norm.

I'm probably old enough to [possibly] be the father or even grandfather of most who visit forums such as these... so there is little that makes me 'emotional" at this point in my life. The exception and becoming-more-frequent rule to that would be nonsensical decisions made by shallow, pandering politicians and politically-correct, touchy-feely CEO's who wish to push their personal agendas into their company's mix and who make, in my opinion, make irrational decisions.

So if my post made YOU "emotional", my apologies... there was no emotion in my statement. When one gets used to a certain item in their lives which aids in productivity and is a relative joy to use, and there arises a threat to that system, then it does in fact represent a huge change. Not lost sleep, or whining -- as many this day and time resort to in regards to what they don't like or when things do not go there way.

 

[D.H.]

Why should anyone care? Given Apple's growing user base, Apple gains new customers for everyone who leaves. I don't see a potential move to ARM processors changing this. There's nothing in the arm64 ISA that prevents it from being used for supercomputers, or advanced machine learning, etc.

And 26 years? Bah! I've used Macs for over 35 years. But a brand new (e.g. younger) Mac customer will likely outlive both of us, and thus bring in more total revenue to Apple services, and to 3rd party macOS software developers as well.

You're probably right. However, I see the potential for disaster nevertheless. If you've been using Macs for 35 years then you know what a near disaster the proprietary state of Apple brought them to in the 90's.

Simply put, I LOVE the Mac OS... i HATE Apple's over-priced, ridiculously slow-in-comparison [to PC's] hardware offerings. If they switch to ARM-based processors then running Windows natively on a Mac (Boot Camp) will most likely cease to exist, and we will, in my opinion, enter Apple's [before Steve Jobs' return} "proprietary hell" again... as most users I knew during that mid-to-late 90's period referred to it as.

Bottom line? LOVE the Mac OS... but will sadly move on if they isolate themselves in the world once again. It's actually alright if need be though... I can build a PC nearly two times faster and for half the cost of a Mac if/when the need should arise.

For now, I hope Apple leaving Intel procs turns out to be incorrect.

 

[09872738]

Has absolutely nothing to do with "emotion". However, if I leave it will be a move I do not really want to make. I love the Mac OS, I hate Apple hardware, period! I hate Windows in comparison, but will regretfully make the move if ARM process become the norm.

Hate, love ... you are aware its all about emotion? Besides, you wouldn't even notice the processor platform inside your Mac unless you need virtual machines.

So yes, you are nothing but emotional believing ARM is the end of the world while in fact you probably wouldn't notice if you didn't know.

In another forum someone wrote:

Having developed software for Windows, Linux, and macOS, I do agree that Apple's development/debugging tools are better than every other free thing I've used.

I kind of tend to agree, being a developer myself. That said, the only development platform I know of on the Mac that is not available on Linux is Xcode (which, btw, IS brilliant).

On the other hand, due to Apples fight with Nvidia recent Mac platforms are unavailable for CUDA development, so mentioned statement above is to be digested with a huge rock of salt.

 

[techwhiz]

It is doing the same work, rendering the same project file. It is doing it in a competitive timeframe. It is a passively cooled 7W chip with integrated graphics up against a 45W CPU and dedicated 35W GPU. Quibble all you want, that's superlative performance from such a chip. I doubt it's going to be a vanilla A12X that appears in MacBook Pros, but rather a custom design which won't have such limitations.

You completely miss the point.
I didn't say that ARM couldn't do what intel does.
My point was that the A12 or whatever it is will be a much different processor with a lot of extra stuff to make it a desktop processor. Currently the processor in iPads do not have 4 DDR channels, PCIe lanes, etc.
That low power core gains a lot f power because of the analog Phys needed for perhipherals.

Just to be clear look at Cavium, Ampere and AWS to see what an ARM class server chip for a MacPro would look like.

Also a move to ARM means I leave Apple.
I'm not going to re-buy thousands in software that runs fine now, but a switch in cpu architecture would mean it no longer runs.

Also I use VM's quite a bit to run Linux and it's x86 Linux because I use software that requires x86.
Emulation of X86 on ARM s not even thinkable at a reasonable speed. Vm's are currently fast because they virtualize the existing CPU and run native instruction sets. Anything Apple does to preserve compatibility will be slow.

 

[D.H.]

Why would apple care?

If they can make equivalently fast machines, in more compelling form factors, and iterate on them much more quickly than Intel’s roadmap permits, Apple will pick up many more customers than they lose.

And I always love these “apple, if you do ___ I’m gone!” Posts. Such ego to even suggest facetiously that Apple should give a crap.

Only sharing a "point of view", not ego. If it offends you, then please, get a backbone, friend! Let me cordially invite you to "think", not "feel" your way through issues, as so many seem to do these days. Perhaps a position in dumocrat party politics should be in your future? Lol!

Like I said, "not a threat, only a promise", and one I will personally lament, yet have no choice in making should the switch become reality. There's some emotion coming from your end regarding this matter?

As I've responded to others, I LOVE the Mac OS, and hate Apple's hardware offerings. Yet, for the sake of the Mac OS I've thus far reluctantly dealt with Apple's hardware ridiculousness.

I have no misconceptions about Apple giving a rat's behind what I or anyone else actually thinks. So I didn't say it, again, as a threat. You obviously like the idea... I hate it and think it's yet another bone-headed move on Apple's part, for what it's worth.

So in my opinion (which, in the grand scheme of things matters about as much as one grain of sand on a beach), from years of careful observation, Apple has it's share of that "scratch your head in flabbergasted amazement" mentality. If you do not agree, you'll no doubt blow it off as drivel. If you've been around for awhile and you do agree then you'll know exactly where I'm coming from.

By the way, my friend... reading comprehension is a wonderful thing!

All-in-all, I will, like others, do what is best for me in my life. But again... I will greatly miss the Mac OS should the change be needed!

Hate, love ... you are aware its all about emotion? Besides, you wouldn't even notice the processor platform inside your Mac unless you need virtual machines.

You flatter yourself with wrong assumptions!

Once again (and reading comprehension IS a wonderful thing), this is not emotional. However, I may not physically notice the ARM proc running inside of my iMac or Mac Pro (for one, I will never purchase one ), but I am not "consumer Joe" ignorant who is not aware of the hardware I am using, the thousands upon thousands of dollars in software I most likely will have to replace, and the probable deletion of Boot Camp from the Mac OS will present me with absolutely no choice except leaving the Mac OS.

And again, I love the Mac OS. Not emotion... just simple, OS enjoyment and convenience. The thought of using Windows as my main OS is not thrilling in comparison.

So leaving the platform, emotional? No! Financial and logical? Yes... VERY much so!

But, please, continue with your assumptive indulgences!

 

[mixel]

I wonder how emulation will work out if we do switch architectures again. I remember back in the G4 and G5 days I still ran windows in an emulator and it worked okay? Of course it wasn't able to do gaming and things, and that is one big advantage of sticking with Intel, but meh.. Anyone who wants to do gaming and doesn't have a dedicated non-mac machine for it is doing it wrong anyway. Think of the advantage Apple have if devs can easily compile their IOS games for osX, that's a biiiig pool of currently active developers.

Back in the Amiga days I used to emulate (technically virtualise) a Mac. It was a (accurate!) joke in the Amiga community how a Amiga running Shapeshifter was better at running Mac software than Macs were.. I played through Doom and Doom 2 for the first time emulating the MacOS classic version that way.

People worried about a architecture change - I can totally understand it, and in some cases it would be a huge problem, but the overwhelming majority of users it wouldn't make the slightest difference - especially if they do something like Rosetta again.

 

[firewood]

However, I see the potential for disaster nevertheless. If you've been using Macs for 35 years then you know what a near disaster the proprietary state of Apple brought them to in the 90's.

That earlier disaster was brought on because the tools, APIs, and money in software development were dominated by Microsoft. Thus almost no Mac (and Newton) developers. This is no longer true. The tools, APIs, and money these days are dominated by Android, iOS, and cloud services (including ML and mining). A lot of those developers use MacBooks for non-macOS development (you see tons even at Google IO, etc.). And most of the Android, Linux, cloud service and Windows 10 tools run on ARM systems (Surface, Chromebooks, and Raspberry Pi's, et.al.) just fine. So no missing developers.

 

[1146331]

It's almost as if Apple is going for a least useful computer for the most amount of money award.