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He is assuredly talking about consumer models that will be available for general sale in the Apple Store.

The Dev Kit is a Mac Mini as I thought might be the case. That model will not be available for general sale (though the consumer Mini will likely eventually move to the ARM architecture down the road).


Anyone can register to be a developer. So it's not any less available to the general public than a Kickstarter project.
 
Anyone who remembers that also has the ability to open the App Store and see a FAR greater selection of software than there ever was back then.


I've had a Mac since the IIsi. I never had problems with anything other than AAA games. There's more software now because computers can do more things, but there was never a shortage of Mac software, it was just a shortage of ported Windows software, which always seemed to be the complaint. You could say exactly the same thing about Linux.
 
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I've had a Mac since the IIsi. I never had problems with anything other than AAA games. There's more software now because computers can do more things, but there was never a shortage of Mac software, it was just a shortage of ported Windows software, which always seemed to be the complaint. You could say exactly the same thing about Linux.
There was always 1-2 specific programs you couldn’t get but there was always a Mac alternative. Its not like you were stuck with zero options. But yeah I don’t know why people think the Arm transition means a return to those days. Thats just silly
 
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Well that was wrong. The first ARM Mac is a Mac mini.
These aren’t even for sale. Apple owns them and you have to give them back. He wasn’t talking about that.
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Anyone can register to be a developer. So it's not any less available to the general public than a Kickstarter project.
You have to give it back, so yeah it is.
 
There was always 1-2 specific programs you couldn’t get but there was always a Mac alternative. Its not like you were stuck with zero options. But yeah I don’t know why people think the Arm transition means a return to those days. Thats just silly


No one is saying the same thing about Microsoft switching to ARM. As noted earlier in the thread, there's already and has been lots of Linux distros for ARM for a LOOOOOONG time now. Also, ARM Macs will run iOS apps unmodified (for most apps). So it immediately increases the app option by a CRAZY amount.
 
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Anyone can register to be a developer. So it's not any less available to the general public than a Kickstarter project.

True, but you have to give it back eventually so how many of the general public are going to spend $500 to rent a Mac where they can only use the apps integrated with the OS?

("YouTube Influencers" don't count. :D)
 
I really don't want to run docker or all sorts of other homebrew binaries over rosetta. That seems like a deal breaker. I would like to checkout a dev kit tho...

Why don't you want to? Why is it a deal breaker? What part of "transparent to the user" did you not get? And if your answer is "because it'll be slower" then what part of "these things are FAST" did you not get?


Do you complain that your BMW doesn't have a Toyota engine in it? I'm glad it doesn't because if it did it would suck. But here's the real point: Even though a BMW engine is arguably better than a Toyota one if you put the BMW engine in the Toyota, it would probably suck too.

I seriously don't understand these issues here. Get over the "technology". Use the product and the experience.


And on an A12Z, at that.

Think what it will be like on the 12-core A Series that is rumored to be the first shipping Mac ARM architecture SoC.

Exactly.

I am sorry but you're not quite correct. The x86 is literally what is setting them back in terms of power efficiency and performance. They can make them go faster but comes with expense of excessive power usage. With RISC (ARM), they are able to perform more with a lot less power.

ARM is the future. It's already in billions of devices. The x86 architecture needs to go. We have plenty of compilers that will seamlessly compile any code written for x86 for ARM.

And Exactly.


Well that was wrong. The first ARM Mac is a Mac mini.

What a stupid thing to say. He's talking about the first production Macs, not development transition kits.

The development kit Intel Mac was a pentium 4 in a glorified Power Mac G5 case. No one in the context of articles like this considers that the "first Intel Mac". The first Intel Macs were 15" MacBook Pro and iMac.
 
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Why don't you want to? Why is it a deal breaker? What part of "transparent to the user" did you not get? And if your answer is "because it'll be slower" then what part of "these things are FAST" did you not get?

Certainly not trying to upset you - but there's a history of emulated software taking a performance hit. I'm all for testing it on the DTK - let's see what happens. I remain a healthy skeptic. Apple should welcome that.
 
...but there's a history of emulated software taking a performance hit.

As I recall, within 12 months the PowerPC could emulate 68000-family code fast than any native 68K CPU and the Intel Core models soon enough could run PowerPC code faster than any G5. So here is hoping that Apple Silicon can do the same with x86 code - and what they did show looked impressive so far with a SoC that is weaker than what will ship in the first consumer ARM architecture Mac.
 
Certainly not trying to upset you - but there's a history of emulated software taking a performance hit. I'm all for testing it on the DTK - let's see what happens. I remain a healthy skeptic. Apple should welcome that.

Well... it's just your comment ("I don't want to run ... over rosetta... deal breaker") as with so many here, made a bunch of assumptions, and I'm just calling that out. Negativity is one thing. But negativity based on unsubstantiated assumptions looks an awful lot like just emotional Apple bashing. That said, thanks for your much more positive and constructive response.

Yes, there's a history of emulation causing a performance hit, but there's also a history of Apple doing stuff like this better than anyone else. When the first Intel Macs came out they were FAST. So much so that they emulated some PPC software faster than the same software ran natively on the PPC hardware. And what didn't run faster came pretty darn close. And then it just grew from there. From what I saw today, this is better than that.

And as someone said above, that's on today's A12Z. The R&D going into Apple's chips is enormous. The improvement in Apple's chips from generation to generation is dramatically more than Intel's incremental improvements. So if that A12Z did what we saw today, what are the upcoming A13/X/Z/whatever and A14... chips going to be able to do?

If Apple and Intel continue at the same rate of improvement each is going at now, how much MORE faster (yes I meant to say it that way) are Apple's chips going to be in 2-3 years than they already are now?

Last time, and this time, Apple said it'll be transparent. They delivered on that 15 years ago with Rosetta 1. I'll bet they've got it nailed even better with Rosetta 2 this time.
 
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But negativity based on unsubstantiated assumptions looks an awful lot like just emotional Apple bashing.

Well, the same thing goes for "positive unsubstantiated assumptions" :). I won't believe Apple's use of "Incredible Performance" until I see it in action/benchmarked. Apple keynotes do have history of using superlative adjectives.

Working with the DTK can help sort that out. Until I see more, I'm a healthy skeptic.
 
Logic will be compatible. Its an Apple app and the devs, many left over from the eMagic days have alway been very quick to support os and hardware changes.

The situation with your 3rd party apps, plugins, and audio hardware drivers is where things could get rocky. But larger developers should get them ported over eventually.
I appreciate the feedback....

Yea after reading more, that seems to be the main concern....will my AI and 3rd party plugins actually work.

I've already been waiting years to get back into making music and I don't think I could mentally wait until 2021...lol I need to make music now! :)

So I know most would think it maybe not a great buy, but I may just go with the current imac.

I'm wondering how much better the 2020 intel imac could be?

* 10 core CPU? I wonder what that would do for heat, since they seemed to fix the issue that the 2017, with the 2019 model.

** I have a gut feeling that making music in Logic Pro X with all apps up to date won't be a thing that makes sense until late 2021 or early 2022.
 
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Well, the same thing goes for "positive unsubstantiated assumptions" :). I won't believe Apple's use of "Incredible Performance" until I see it in action/benchmarked. Apple keynotes do have history of using superlative adjectives.

Working with the DTK can help sort that out. Until I see more, I'm a healthy skeptic.

Yes, their superlative adjectives are not necessarily trustworthy, but my positive ... shall we say enthusiasm, not assumptions... isn't unsubstantiated. The last two architecture changes showed they know what they're doing. And I saw evidence today of that repeating. And this is just the pre-production systems. Indeed it will be very interesting to see what the DTK can do.
 
If I had to guess, i would say they will show off their 13" ARM MBP next to an Intel 15" MPB to demonstrate how the lower end ARM is fatster than the higher end Intel version...betting they will handicap the Intel stuff going forward #cpugate

Paul
 
After much thought I am set some caveats for what I would like to see:

1) The ARM MBP needs to be able to mount any device without restrictions and allow for file system modifications. Right now the iPad Pro I own can't mount external hard drives for file transfer and I am unable to use iPadOS to modify files internally on the iPad Pro.

2) Thunderbolt 3 which is licensed by Intel needs a viable solution/replacement. The iPad Pro can't support an external graphics card and that was was key for a good laptop/desktop combination that I have been utilizing.

3) The ARM MBP needs to be able to support multiple monitors. So far my iPad Pro hasn't worked very well for external monitors. I am unable to scale my external display from my iPad Pro to fit the correct resolution and so far it looks very awkward.

4) Steam ARM support or some way to play those indy games from Steam. And not Arcade games please.

5) ARM MBP/Windows 10 compatibility. A lot of programs I use in Windows specifically like vector rendering and if Apple can solve this issue being able to run Windows 10 programs using either a Bootcamp substitute or some way to allow for virtualization at 95% or better performance then I will be happy.
 
After much thought I am set some caveats for what I would like to see:

1) The ARM MBP needs to be able to mount any device without restrictions and allow for file system modifications. Right now the iPad Pro I own can't mount external hard drives for file transfer and I am unable to use iPadOS to modify files internally on the iPad Pro.

2) Thunderbolt 3 which is licensed by Intel needs a viable solution/replacement. The iPad Pro can't support an external graphics card and that was was key for a good laptop/desktop combination that I have been utilizing.

3) The ARM MBP needs to be able to support multiple monitors. So far my iPad Pro hasn't worked very well for external monitors. I am unable to scale my external display from my iPad Pro to fit the correct resolution and so far it looks very awkward.

4) Steam ARM support or some way to play those indy games from Steam. And not Arcade games please.

5) ARM MBP/Windows 10 compatibility. A lot of programs I use in Windows specifically like vector rendering and if Apple can solve this issue being able to run Windows 10 programs using either a Bootcamp substitute or some way to allow for virtualization at 95% or better performance then I will be happy.

The arm macs will support (1).

Not clear whether arm macs will be TB3 or USB4. Guess we’ll see.

Arm macs will support (3).

(4) is not up to apple.

(5) is unlikely.
 
1) The ARM MBP needs to be able to mount any device without restrictions and allow for file system modifications. Right now the iPad Pro I own can't mount external hard drives for file transfer and I am unable to use iPadOS to modify files internally on the iPad Pro.

There is a Finder icon on the Dock, so fingers crossed.

2) Thunderbolt 3 which is licensed by Intel needs a viable solution/replacement. The iPad Pro can't support an external graphics card and that was was key for a good laptop/desktop combination that I have been utilizing.

Apple is a co-owner of Thunderbolt and Thunderbolt is now available for non-Intel platforms. So there is nothing preventing Apple from adding Thunderbolt support to a Mac running the ARM architecture.


3) The ARM MBP needs to be able to support multiple monitors. So far my iPad Pro hasn't worked very well for external monitors. I am unable to scale my external display from my iPad Pro to fit the correct resolution and so far it looks very awkward.

This should be a given.


4) Steam ARM support or some way to play those indy games from Steam. And not Arcade games please.

That is likely more on Steam than Apple.

5) ARM MBP/Windows 10 compatibility. A lot of programs I use in Windows specifically like vector rendering and if Apple can solve this issue being able to run Windows 10 programs using either a Bootcamp substitute or some way to allow for virtualization at 95% or better performance then I will be happy.

An ARM architecture version of Windows that works on Apple's SoCs is on Microsoft. It sounds like Rosetta 2 will be able to run the x86 version of Windows.
 
An ARM architecture version of Windows that works on Apple's SoCs is on Microsoft. It sounds like Rosetta 2 will be able to run the x86 version of Windows.

Rosetta 2 will be able to run x86 macOS binaries on ARM macOS machines. That’s all.

It is not a general-purpose x86 emulator and it is not an x86 virtual machine. There does not appear to be any way to run Windows 10 apps on ARM macOS machines or any viable path from here to there.
 
Anybody else put off by the 24" display? That's a big downgrade from my current 27" iMac display.
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The only games I play on my Mac are Tabletop Simulator on Steam. Steam support for the Mac is already suspect since they steadfastly refuse to do the trivial coding required to make Steam work properly on case-sensitive filesystems (which is basically the default now on Macs). Oddly, Steam works just fine on Linux, which defaults to a case-sensitive filesystem, so the work has already been done.
 
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I was hoping the Mini would be the first to go ARM. A small, unobtrusive appliance-like device would be a great way to exercise the ecosystem. Heck, if they had xcode on it it would become an easy developer entrypoint. Maybe that just makes too much sense.
Looks like you got your wish :)
 
Huh? Ipad os13 you can indeed mount external hard drives and there are alot of options to modify files.

Those are not default options in the OS. You have to use third party apps to achieve much of this functionality.
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Intel’s doing a fine job of handicapping it’s own stuff.

Yeah which is why I built my last three PC's using AMD stuff. Even graphics cards are AMD now because Nvidia sucks badly now.
 
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