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Future ARM Mac owners who rely on Bootcamp/Intel VMs and kexts etc - what are you going to do?

mrcloaked said:
I really have no choice but to buy an XPS or Surface on the side, effectively doubling my expenses and my weight. It’s a bunch of horse crap honestly, but I’ll keep a small inkling of optimism for the future.
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If you buy a last-generation Intel laptop you’ll be good for 5-6 years. By then any new software will be available for ARM Windows and anything old will probably run faster emulated than it does native now. It’s a non-issue.

Calling what is a needed change for the vast majority of all users due to your particular edge case “horse crap” is a little weird.
 
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mrcloaked said:
I shouldn’t be answering forum questions directly asking for these edge cases.
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Of course you should if you that’s what you want to do. I interpreted your response that you considered the switch to ARM to be horse crap, and not a reasonable thing to do, which is the part I was reacting to. If you just meant that the situation is horse crap for you personally, I apologize.
 
I am using Windows mostly for gaming. I'l probably try one of these cloud gaming services (shadow looks nice).
 
evilzardoz said:
Hi all,

This ARM announcement has been a bit of a shock to the system. I hope to continue buying Intel Macs until they stop making them, so I've got a bit of time to figure this out - I hope.

I run bootcamp. I run Intel-based VMs. These are VMware virtual appliances, these are legacy apps running on older Windows versions, these are games which get bootcamped, specialised hardware with kexts that are no longer developed by the vendor etc (so there won't be ARM support).

There are some very attractive things we might see on the ARM portables. Video and photo editing is something I do all the time (Lightroom, Final Cut Pro X) so I would welcome performance boosts there. And something that doesn't thermal throttle would be nice, too.

Who else is in the same boat and what are you going to do? Switch back to Windows? Carry two laptops and a USB stick to transfer files between them? Host a server and connect to that via tethering?
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A computer is a tool.

If ARM doesn't end up meeting my needs, I'll switch to a Windows computer.

In any case, I think it will be awhile before I have to make a decision.
 
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evilzardoz said:
Who else is in the same boat and what are you going to do? Switch back to Windows? Carry two laptops and a USB stick to transfer files between them? Host a server and connect to that via tethering?
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I'm in this boat (use Parallels for Windows for development work). Not sure what I'm going to do at this point -- plan to run an Intel-based Mac for at least a year or two to see how things pan out. I may switch to hosted Windows VM, which actually may have some advantages. I may also get a beefy Windows desktop and remote into it. Don't really want to deal with yet another computer system, though. I'm hoping there might be a performant enough emulation of Windows, or Windows ARM might mature and run. I definitely hope the "Apple Silicon" approach provides some real advantages, because losing Windows VM is a definite negative for me.
 
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x86 emulators were a thing on PowerPC Macs. Granted, they were very slow, but that was a lifetime ago. We don't know that there won't be some emulation/virtualization solution. Given the speed of these Apple chips, Parallels/VMware (even Apple itself) may have solutions available by the time Intel Macs are no longer a thing that make this a complete non-issue.
 
can anyone tell me if my current Mac OS X micrsoft suite will run on the Silicon Mac when it comes out? This really is the deciding factor if I but a new Macbook Pro this week or wait for the new ARM system.
 
mrcloaked said:
I also want to believe the most positive outcome always happens in life, but that never seems to occur. It’s always closer to the worst.

So with that said, I don’t believe playing x86 games on Windows will ever happen at any high level of compatibility or playability on ARM Macs. Apps, maybe, but they won’t run that great. Better just say goodbye to 40 years of games and software.
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That's probably a bit pessimistic. Yeah, I don't see any way Windows games are going to be usable at all. But if you wanted a gaming rig, even Intel Macs were never that. Apps is a different story. Even the crusty old Windows emulators on PPC were nothing approaching awesome, but they were usable for basic apps. Tech is much better now, so I don't think the floor is even that low any more and there's a company (Parallels) that's built most of their business on Mac emulation/virtualization, and has done some pretty remarkable things with the Intel machines. I suspect this is going to work out fine. Maybe not on Day 1, but eventually.
 
ARM Macs with Big Sur is the start of the real iOS-ificaion of macOS. I'm exiting at this point as x86 is the one and only system I buy. My current Intel Macs will have to do until Apple stops supporting them but then I'll install Linux or Windows 10 on them. I might buy another Mac in the 2030s when the transition back to x86 occurs.
 
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VPRunner said:
can anyone tell me if my current Mac OS X micrsoft suite will run on the Silicon Mac when it comes out? This really is the deciding factor if I but a new Macbook Pro this week or wait for the new ARM system.
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People have mentioned Apple supplying an emulator of sorts for this. but those are large complicated programs. You will not know for certain until someone tests them.
 
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VPRunner said:
can anyone tell me if my current Mac OS X micrsoft suite will run on the Silicon Mac when it comes out? This really is the deciding factor if I but a new Macbook Pro this week or wait for the new ARM system.
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Same with me, I rely heavily on Word, Outlook and (to a lesser degree) Excel.

Was very relieved when they told on WWDC that MS Office would run natively on Apple Silicon.
 
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dogslobber said:
ARM Macs with Big Sur is the start of the real iOS-ificaion of macOS. I'm exiting at this point as x86 is the one and only system I buy. My current Intel Macs will have to do until Apple stops supporting them but then I'll install Linux or Windows 10 on them. I might buy another Mac in the 2030s when the transition back to x86 occurs.
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That's totally your choice.

My point is some people think of what "better" is within their predefined box of posibilities. Faster, more powerful but still fundamentally the same is what most people want. Every so often better will be something that will be completely different. Way outside the box.
Also Bug Sur is not the iOS-ification on MaOS. Apple Silicon is the iPhone/iPad - ificaton of the Mac on a hardware level. This is a very good thing though as the iOS devices have great hardware features that really need to come to the Mac.
 
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dogslobber said:
I'm exiting at this point as x86 is the one and only system I buy.
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Really? A processor instruction set is more important to you than your user experience? Why?

Personally, I am happy to see Apple return all-in on RISC, although I do understand the need to spend a few years on the dark side for performance reasons.
 
the8thark said:
My point is some people think of what "better" is within their predefined box of posibilities. Faster, more powerful but still fundamentally the same is what most people want. Every so often better will be something that will be completely different. Way outside the box.
Also Bug Sur is not the iOS-ification on MaOS. Apple Silicon is the iPhone/iPad - ificaton of the Mac on a hardware level. This is a very good thnig though as the iOS devices have hreat hardware features that really need to come to the Mac.
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If an Arm iBook turns out to be 10x faster than the fastest Intel then that's what gets your attention. I simply don't think any parallel move like this is going to bring great utility to most users in the first years. FWIW, I disagree about the HW being the iOS-ification lever. It's all about the SW which is where the user's experience is 100%.
 
I already use both PC and Mac.
So no issue for me.

Mac will never beat a PC in pc gaming world, cost/performance and versatility&upgradability.
Mac owns in Eco system.

I use both to enjoy all :D
 
dogslobber said:
FWIW, I disagree about the HW being the iOS-ification lever. It's all about the SW which is where the user's experience is 100%.
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We can agree to disagree and that's totally ok.

My takeway from the WWCD2020 presentations was Apple is making huge efforts to ensure the prosumer and pro users still have all their features in MacOS while on a hardware level the AS Macs will be getting all the hardware features the iOS devices have. Features that are either impossible to do in intel Macs or require special co-processors to do on intel Macs.
 
Honestly as long as they get HomeBrew going I'll keep VMs either in Cloud or on my desktop and I'll just Remote Desktop to it and problem fixed.

I just need Homebrew working on ARM or via Rosseta.
 
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