Intel to Apple Silicon Transition for Mac Was Announced Five Years Ago

[avro707]

. That native box can be the Mac in the Intel days! It was also easy to recommend Macs to PC people back then because there's the alternative of running Windows full time on a Mac so there's no need to take a loss in case they end up not liking Mac OS

And a few of those Intel Macs were damn good units.

The last 27” 5K iMacs with 128GB ram and powerful GPUs, or indeed the 2019 Mac Pro when specified at a high level as mine are.

My two 7,1s will be hard to replace. Running native windows has been very useful. You have separate SSD for Windows which makes it very easy.

Those machines also make it simple to have huge amounts of internal storage.

Back to your normal programming.

 

[platinumaqua]

I guess my own experience of switching colours my thoughts on this. From my perspective, ditching Intel has been nothing but positive, a huge win for Apple. When I switched, I started with a G4 Power Mac, so it was never going to run Windows, and it was the inherent advantages of OS X that me want to move. I always saw the Intel era as a bit of a disappointing necessity that diluted a little bit of what made Apple great, and Apple restored that with the M1.

I’m not trying to invalidate your opinion, I’m just adding my experience which illustrates the other side of the coin.

I liked Macs since iMac G3, so I get your perspective. I had the same feeling you had initially when Apple announced the Intel transition, but I changed my mind after owning an Intel Mac.

I still think the ARM chip they came up with is a marvel, but I'm less enthusiastic about the design decisions around it (like more locked down software/firmware, soldered storage, no third party (e)GPU support, USB/Thunderbolt compatibility bugs)

 

[Bungaree.Chubbins]

I liked Macs since iMac G3, so I get your perspective. I had the same feeling you had initially when Apple announced the Intel transition, but I changed my mind after owning an Intel Mac.

I still think the ARM chip they came up with is a marvel, but I'm less enthusiastic about the design decisions around it (like more locked down software/firmware, soldered storage, no third party (e)GPU support, USB/Thunderbolt compatibility bugs)

Nice. iMacs were cool back in the day.

While I do miss that ability to add RAM after the fact, the only one of these design decisions that actually bothers me is soldered SSDs. Having used Intel Macs from 2008-2024, rarely was I ever tempted to install Windows. I did once think about it in 2008 or 9, just because I could, but then thought what was the point? Blocking off a chunk of my HDD just so I can say I can dual boot, and never actually doing it, because already then I was over Windows and didn't want to go back.

 

[platinumaqua]

The reason dual-boot isn’t currently available on Apple Silicon is not Apple’s fault. Windows can run natively on Apple Silicon without any technical issue. The real blocker is Microsoft’s multi-year exclusivity agreement with Qualcomm, which has prevented Windows ARM from being freely distributed on third-party hardware—including Macs.

That agreement is expected to expire soon (and it must), especially with new players like NVIDIA and possibly Samsung (with Exynos, good luck) entering the ARM desktop space. Once it does, there will be nothing stopping Microsoft from releasing an official build for Apple Silicon. Boot Camp, which still exists within macOS but is hidden, will be able to return. All Apple Silicon Macs—from the very first M1—are already technically ready for dual-boot.

As for the suggestion that Apple should have switched to AMD… really? You think Apple should have abandoned their own proprietary chip architecture—custom-built for macOS, delivering exceptional performance per watt—just to keep native Windows support?

That would’ve been a massive step backward. Apple’s greatest strength is their vertical integration: they control the chip, the OS, the hardware, and the entire optimization stack. Giving that up just to accommodate a competing OS? That’s a massively absurd idea. 😅

Well, don't put words in my mouth. I'm not saying they should switch to AMD now; I was saying they could've ditched Intel for AMD back then long before the 2020's switch to ARM when it was apparent that Intel wasn't delivering on their power or performance promises.

Also, I said Intel Macs were the only one capable of *legally* booting all OSes. The reverse is booting macOS on PCs: technically possible but not legal per the software terms.

Even with the Qualcomm agreement expiring, I don't see ARM Windows natively booting on Macs ever because that will require to get Windows to boot with Apple's iBoot instead of UEFI and I doubt Apple is going to share details of that with another vendor to assist with booting their OS.

 

[avro707]

The reverse is booting macOS on PCs: technically possible but not legal per the software terms

And only possible in fairly specific scenarios with particular equipment. That time is also coming to an end.

 

[jlc1978]

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[Thehangmn]

Virtualizing is not the same as native booting. Plus specialized hardware would not have drivers for ARM Windows

We get it, you’ll never be happy that apple wont use intel chips anymore. It’s my opinion that you shouldn’t be angry at apple, be mad that windows on arm is such a mess.

 

[jlc1978]

We get it, you’ll never be happy that apple wont use intel chips anymore. It’s my opinion that you shouldn’t be angry at apple, be mad that windows on arm is such a mess.

It illustrates the challenges switching processors used by an OS and how well Apple has handled it. When you have a wide variety of chips running your OS as well as peripherals, many of which may have specialized drivers, it is difficult to transition the OS to a new architecture and keep compatibility.

I run WinARM in a VM and for my needs, primarily centered on checking Office and browser compatibility, it works fine; others mileage may vary.

Personally, I think much of the angst is simply loss aversion where the loss of something has a larger emotional impact than any gains. People simply hate to lose something, and thus overvalue the loss. I suspect, if Apple offered a dual boot Mac but charged X more for it people would complain it isn't worth X more even if they felt a Mac without it costs them a loss of X.