Craig Federighi and Greg Joswiak Discuss Apple Silicon Transition, Lack of Boot Camp Support, and More

[Alan Wynn]

This is a joke, not usable at all.

Their new dictation stuff is quite good, just not for your specific application (Medical Dictation). It does work well fairly well for general dictation.

There is no way to implement a special, in our case medical, vocabulary.

There is a way to do it, it is jut not easy for an end user.

This "embeded" crap is, may be, good for a housemaid (nothing against housemaids), but not if you have to work with it as a professional

Have you tested it recently for general dictation? Not your speciality use? If not, how are you making generalizations about its usefulness for others.

Belief me, we use OsiriX MD (an OSX application) to review medical images and Dragon on a Parallels VM to dictat the reports in day to day work.

I am not surprised that it does not handle dictation for the specialized market of Radiology. I am curious if you have tried VoiceboxMD? It is dedicated medical dictation App that runs on Windows, macOS and iOS and seems to be about half the price of Nuance’s offering. Radiology is one of the specialties they specify.

Also, do you know if Nuance’s Medical One will run on Windows on ARM? It seems from their specs that it can run on 32-bit Windows systems, that might mean that it would run on Windows on ARM (that might run virtualized on a Mac).

We will replace OsiriX MD with a Windows app when the next of our Macs is going to hell.
As we did it with several of our Macs / the XServe in the past.

I would hope you would look at the options that are available for you at the time, rather than making a decision now with incomplete information. However, it is certainly possible that your needs will no longer be met by the platform in the future. It is also possible that support for the new Neural Engine might make it much easier for someone to do a medical dictation app that runs native (and does not require a cloud connection). Unless your systems are about to die, why worry about it now?

 

[nylonsteel]

too bad...
it was nice to at least have that option
ive always considered using boot camp or parallels but never did
however probably wont matter since i never have and have win and mac and ios machines

 

[Alan Wynn]

The Scarlett Solo 2i2 is one of the most common digital interfaces (I use one myself) although I've also heard good things about the MOTU M2.

I would recommend the Sound Devices MixPre Mark II series (3, 6 and 10), for streaming use. I would also consider the Blackmagic Design ATEM-Mini Pro, switcher/recorder.

I would imagine that Apple is running the show, using broadcast level equipment, here and Gruber is the guest on the remote location, rather than the other way around.

From a technical standpoint, I would bet you are right. From talking to some film industry friends who are shooting for Apple’s WWDC sessions, they are using Arri Alexa cameras (some Alexa LFs, some LF minis, some other Alexas).

A bit overkill, but amazing cameras. If one was looking for less expensive cameras that were still high quality, consider the Blackmagic Micro Studio, their Pocket 4K and their Pocket 6K. Great gear and very reasonably priced (for their specs, they are not really cheap).

 

[Velli]

We have 4-5 students here at the EAE department who are doing their dev work on Macs. No kidding... It's possible but just not commonplace.

So, somewhere between “not zero” and “not commonplace”.

Clearly everyone else‘s performance should be held back to avoid pissing 3% of the users off.

So far, I’ve only seen edge cases as examples of people who will actually be bothered by this. Even if you argue gamers: How long before the fastest benchmarks on a top-tier game at, say, 2000 dollars, happens on a mac? Hardcore gamers don’t give a s... about backwards compatible, or which OS to use. They care about framerates. Once an ARM Mac is top of that list, Windows is dead to gamers. Will it ever happen? Given the current development in Apple ARM cpu speed vs Intel, I wouldn’t rule it out. We haven’t even seen what their desktop-class CPU will do. What will it do three years later?

 

[Alan Wynn]

So, somewhere between “not zero” and “not commonplace”.

Clearly everyone else‘s performance should be held back to avoid pissing 3% of the users off.

This has been my argument about so many of the changes including dropping 32-bit support. If an application you use has not been updated to support current technology in three years, it is dead and you might want to look for alternatives.

So far, I’ve only seen edge cases as examples of people who will actually be bothered by this.

To be fair, some of these users are buying expensive systems, so they might add a bit more value than their numbers indicate. However, I will point out that just as the increase in sales brought about by the last transition encouraged many companies to develop native macOS versions, the likely price/performance ratio improvement coupled with absolute performance increases may further increase sales and bring another wave of apps being ported.

Even if you argue gamers: How long before the fastest benchmarks on a top-tier game at, say, 2000 dollars, happens on a mac? Hardcore gamers don’t give a s... about backwards compatible, or which OS to use. They care about framerates. Once an ARM Mac is top of that list, Windows is dead to gamers. Will it ever happen? Given the current development in Apple ARM cpu speed vs Intel, I wouldn’t rule it out. We haven’t even seen what their desktop-class CPU will do. What will it do three years later?

This one is harder. There are groups among PC gamers who really like to tweak their machines, and upgrade them as they can afford it, one piece at a time. In addition, AAA game development studios are big and have a lot of moving parts. It is not just CPU speed that matters, but GPU speed, availability of game engines and dev tools, that would be required.

However, as I have said before, it would be an interesting strategy for Apple to release a version of the AppleTV that was competitive with the PS4 and pay for ports of previous generation AAA titles to that platform (especially if that also gets them onto the iPad/iPad Pro and the Mac. Make that a great experience and you have an interesting Trojan horse.

 

[smulji]

However, as I have said before, it would be an interesting strategy for Apple to release a version of the AppleTV that was competitive with the PS4 and pay for ports of previous generation AAA titles to that platform (especially if that also gets them onto the iPad/iPad Pro and the Mac. Make that a great experience and you have an interesting Trojan horse.

Agreed.

 

[radus]

There is a way to do it, it is jut not easy for an end user.

Good to know about it - where could we find a howto ?

Have you tested it recently for general dictation?

From time to time we test some other solutions - but it is by far not as good as Dragon.

We have been using Dragon since 1999. At the beginning with a Lightbox and a PC, later with Power PC Macs and PCs - 2 keyboards and 2 mouses - not very convenient.
But OsiriX, at that time freeware, was better than our 25 000 € PC Software "Radworks". Now there are better Dicom Reader for Windows available.
Intel Macs with Parallels and Dragon were a godsend for us.

I am curious if you have tried VoiceboxMD?

I have never heard about VoiceboxMD.
We live and work in Germany. As far as I could find out, there is no German version of VoiceboxMD available.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Good to know about it - where could we find a howto ?

There are several WWDC sessions about working with Natural Language and CoreML training sets. I will have to see if I can find the other relevant material - an open source training set for medical vocabulary that I played with last fall.

From time to time we test some other solutions - but it is by far not as good as Dragon.

Nuance does very well in specialized vocabulary speech to text for several areas.

But OsiriX, at that time freeware

I have used it to review CT scans, PET scans and x-rays for personal use.

I have never heard about VoiceboxMD.
We live and work in Germany. As far as I could find out, there is no German version of VoiceboxMD available.

I have never tried it, just found it when I went searching for Medical Dictation.

 

[AZREOSpecialist]

Don't blame creators for supporting their work. They can’t generate enough revenue off YouTube ads, and most people won’t pay for all the web content they consume.

Maybe they should get real jobs, then.

 

[techwhiz]

I agree - I bet this will see a push on the server market at some point as well - if these ARM chips can gain traction and prove better performance density - I can see the worlds of AWS and Microsoft deploying these across their clouds to help create the next generation of compute.

At the end of the day, x86 is an instruction set - just like ARM - and what Apple has proven so far is that the ARM instruction set on the device isn't a limiting factor for what people want and need to do on a daily basis as both cover the majority of use cases that are needed, and for those use cases that are not covered those are the areas of innovation.

Amazon already does their own processors. -> https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/
Ampere makes ARM server chips.
Broadcomm and Samsung killed their ARM server divisions.

Currently none of the chip development tools I use run on ARM.
They are all x86. So the VMs I run for development will not be useful on ARM.
Yes, I need x86 because the probability of Synopsys, Cadence and the chip development companies porting to ARM is not likely unless there is a wholesale switch to ARM in the chip development industry. Not likely to happen until you can buy off the shelf compute servers with ARM CPUs. Not even close to gaining traction.
That means when I replace the two MacPro machines and my MacBook Pro, I will look somewhere else for my compute needs.
I may still by a MacBook Air but my days of buying "Pro" anything computer related from Apple are gone.

 

[cmaier]

Amazon already does their own processors. -> https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/graviton/
Ampere makes ARM server chips.
Broadcomm and Samsung killed their ARM server divisions.

Currently none of the chip development tools I use run on ARM.
They are all x86. So the VMs I run for development will not be useful on ARM.
Yes, I need x86 because the probability of Synopsys, Cadence and the chip development companies porting to ARM is not likely unless there is a wholesale switch to ARM in the chip development industry. Not likely to happen until you can buy off the shelf compute servers with ARM CPUs. Not even close to gaining traction.
That means when I replace the two MacPro machines and my MacBook Pro, I will look somewhere else for my compute needs.
I may still by a MacBook Air but my days of buying "Pro" anything computer related from Apple are gone.

You running cadence/synopsys on your desktop and not just using xwindows or vnc from a server?

 

[31 Flavas]

I don't think the CS6 suite, Left 4 Dead 2, Unreal 2004, or any of the software that controls my scanners and printers are going to be updated by developers anytime soon.

So, uh... maintain your own status quo and just continue to not upgrade and ignore what Apple is doing? If your business or personal interests are so completely dependent on abandoned software - then you're going to need to curate relic hardware circa the era of that software that can run it.

 

[kirbyrun]

Maybe they should get real jobs, then.

Who decides what qualifies as a "real job?" I'm waiting with bated breath.

 

[31 Flavas]

Tell that to PowerPC owners who can barely even get on the internet anymore. That was hardly a great transition for people who purchased an expensive PowerMac G5. Mac Pro buyers today spending over $6000 will be warily watching what Apple does. Apple risks losing the pro market forever if they do this wrong.

A PowerMac G5 is nearly 20 years old at this point... Pardon me for not getting the vapors and fainting over it having a difficult time getting on the internet today.

As far as Apple "losing XYZ customer or market" - Exactly what market does Apple have left since they've forever been mistreating and abusing *all* their customers constantly whipping them around, changing things left and right, as well as selling them hardware that is fundamentally flawed and overheats? Oh, and "planned" to be obsolete.

Edit: (Even though, that was kinda thrown out the window with iOS 12 'removing' "planned obsolescence". With Apple then deciding that the oldest hardware, or those that would be most likely to be influenced by it, being 'locked' to iOS12 prohibiting their upgrade to iOS13)

 

[ipponrg]

However, as I have said before, it would be an interesting strategy for Apple to release a version of the AppleTV that was competitive with the PS4 and pay for ports of previous generation AAA titles to that platform (especially if that also gets them onto the iPad/iPad Pro and the Mac. Make that a great experience and you have an interesting Trojan horse.

Do realize that AppleTV's greatest achilles heel in AAA titles is not the hardware specs alone. Even if Apple paid for ports, the pay off for those developers wouldn't be worth it unless there was a significant change in target audience behavior and AppleTV branding.

 

[4jasontv]

Maybe they should get real jobs, then.

Might not be a traditional career but they don’t harm anyone. It’s not like they are trying to profit from making kids homeless.

 

[cmaier]

Exactly what market does Apple have left since they've forever been mistreating and abusing *all* their customers constantly whipping them around, changing things left and right, as well as selling them hardware that is fundamentally flawed and overheats? Oh, and "planned" to be obsolete.

10% of the PC market for Mac
20% worldwide mobile and 40% US with iphone
55% wearables market share with apple watch
28% tablet market share with ipad

 

[4jasontv]

A PowerMac G5 is nearly 20 years old at this point... Pardon me for not getting the vapors and fainting over it having a difficult time getting on the internet today.

At what point is it ok that someone’s stuff stops working? I have tools my great-grandfather used and they work as well for me as they did him. The company that made them went out of business and I can still sharpen them and get them repaired.

We should not develop a mentality that modern tools stop being functional after a short time. The Mac isn’t even 40 yet. Every one ever made that’s been taken care of should still be working.

 

[cmaier]

At what point is it ok that someone’s stuff stops working? I have tools my great-grandfather used and they work as well for me as they did him. The company that made them went out of business and I can still sharpen them and get them repaired.

We should not develop a mentality that modern tools stop being functional after a short time. The Mac isn’t even 40 yet. Every one ever made that’s been taken care of should still be working.

The tools your great-grandfather used were technology that didn’t become obsolete. Continuing to support their use doesn’t prevent technology from moving forward. Mechanical tools are very different than digital. To support old software you necessarily degrade the current experience and create vectors for bugs, security attacks, etc.

 

[4jasontv]

The tools your great-grandfather used were technology that didn’t become obsolete. Continuing to support their use doesn’t prevent technology from moving forward. Mechanical tools are very different than digital. To support old software you necessarily degrade the current experience and create vectors for bugs, security attacks, etc.

Thank you! That’s exactly the mentality we should be avoiding.

 

[Alan Wynn]

Do realize that AppleTV's greatest achilles heel in AAA titles is not the hardware specs alone.

I do not think the hardware specs are an issue at all, so I am pretty sure I realized this.

Even if Apple paid for ports, the pay off for those developers wouldn't be worth it unless there was a significant change in target audience behavior and AppleTV branding.

Two related questions: 1) If Apple paid for the ports (and they were done by porting houses, like most game ports), and these games ended up on the platform but sold no copies, how does the game studio lose? Especially given all the publicity they would get for the remastered version of the game. 2) Given that people buy consoles that cost $400-$700 to be able to play a single game, why do you believe that they would not pay $150-$200 in the same way?

Finally, what is it that you think draws people to a gaming platform (focus on consoles, but include PCs as well)? Is it hardware specs? Titles? Price?

 

[Unregistered 4U]

We should not develop a mentality that modern tools stop being functional after a short time.

So, you either take an old tool to pay to be sharpened OR you sharpen it yourself. Extending that to digital, either you pay someone to update your OS or you update it yourself.

Just because you don’t know how to hone your tool doesn’t mean it can’t be honed.

 

[Macbookprodude]

For christ sakes stop calling it apple silicon - ITS A ARM POWERPC V2 on steroids ! Silicon is lame.

No, stop calling it silicon.. its a RISC processor - a cousin to the Powerpc AND from my point of view its a PowerPC incarnate within ARM.. THINK DIFFERENT 2 !
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Not really. The ISA is ARM, but what makes it Apple Silicon is all the other parts of the chip that are not ARM (Neural Engine, GPU, hardware compression support, etc.).

Well to me, it is. I waited a long long time to see the UNCONDTIONAL defeat of Intel.. Now, we are seeing it. PowerPC won, ARM won.. it just took time. And hackintosh will be a fond memory.

 

[cmaier]

No, stop calling it silicon.. its a RISC processor - a cousin to the Powerpc AND from my point of view its a PowerPC incarnate within ARM.. THINK DIFFERENT 2 !
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Well to me, it is. I waited a long long time to see the UNCONDTIONAL defeat of Intel.. Now, we are seeing it. PowerPC won, ARM won.. it just took time. And hackintosh will be a fond memory.

PowerPC was a weirdly-IBM'ish design. They numbered the bits wrong, for starters.
ARM is much more normal. Not related at all. PowerPC lost. Arm won. (lower case "rm" by the way).

 

[forcenine]

I think the transition to ARM is positive in many ways, but it will affect Apple in certain markets, specifically the Engineering Professional market, Macs are not good as they are for my line of work and now they will be further from attractive. Unless Apple finds ways for Engineering software providers to easily migrate and recompile their years of work I see them just dropping support for the ecosystem entirely.

The same engineering software providers that still don’t have Mac apps today? Okay..