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Leaving Apple over ARM Based Macs discussion [merged]
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It's not a static situation however. Let's assume — just for the sake of the argument — that Apple really has the tech with superior perf/watt and that they can deliver a slim 13" laptop with a performance that matches a much bigger gaming laptop.
Of course, as @AndyMacAndMic is pointing out, Macs are a small portion of the market and AAA companies won't necessarily rush to port their games to it. But! A lot of games already work on Mac. There are plenty of high-profile titles that are less demanding in nature and utilize engine such as Unity to bring cross-platform gaming. Imagine these titles getting a huge speedup on ARM Macs — speedups that actually leave their Windows brethren a bit stunned. The perception changes. Mac gaming is suddenly not a joke anymore. Some people who were on the fence might be more likely to get a Mac. And so on... it might just create enough drive to change the situation.
I don't believe that Mac will become the "gamer's" choice in any near future, but having faster graphics and more mature tooling certainly won't hurt. And Apple really seems to invest more in this area, and they did mention that Unity already works on their ARM Mac. And Metal is a real pleasure to work with.
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They said they will "support" Intel for years to come. They also said that they have new Intel products in their pipeline. Above it all however, they said that the transition will be over in two years, which means that in two years Apple does not plan to see any Intel Macs whatsoever.
What I heard was that the "Apple Silicone" rollout to the whole Mac line would take two years. Which is presumably when Intel-based Mac sales would stop. But that support would continue for years to come. Which seems to present a more rapid Intel Mac cutoff to me.
Two years to full ARM, two more years of full OS updates and maybe a couple more years of security updates doesn't sound that great to me. I don't think Apple is going to be that interested in putting a lot of software resources into Intel Macs this time 2-3 years from now. And the Mac is such a small percentage of their overall revenue that they might not be afraid to lop off the Intels, minus the Mac Pro.
That said, I might still go ahead with the purchase of a current Mac Mini because I really need a new one now. Four pretty solid years on a $1,100 model probably beats PC life in any case.
"For years to come" reads like "for another 2 years". Two is still plural.
The thing is... if Apple still continues to sell both Intel and ARM Macs for longer than 2 years, that means...
1. They can't get ARM chips to perform on par with some of the top Intel chips.
2. That also means platform fragmentation because both Apple and their developers will have to support both x86 and ARM moving forward. That's not trivial effort.
3. It also means... Apple isn't very confident of their switch to ARM either. If they were, they'd go all-in.
And because of those 3 reasons, everyone is expecting Apple to go all-in sooner rather than later. Everyone who is rooting for this ARM transition is hoping that Apple can work magic and make ARM competitive against Intel. I'm of the camp that has seen ARM benchmark numbers over the years and... I am very highly skeptical of Apple being able to come out with high performance ARM chips by the end of this year. But let's just say... either side will have to wait and see.
The burning question then, is: let's say I just bought a $5999 cheese grater, when will software updates stop?
Actually, here's another burning question: why would I buy a $5999 cheese grater now, knowing Apple just literally announced that it's not the future of the company?
The question about support do cause one to pause. But if you are professional and make money with computers, they are tools. So you buy the $5999 system now and make $100,000/year with it. If you have to replace it in 2 years so be it. You got you $5999 tax deduction year one and made $200,000 with the system. Go buy something new, write it off, and keep the economy rolling.
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With an entire customer base on intel they can't show any signs of not fully supporting those devices. I have no doubt though that they are all-in. Once the ARM devices start arriving and work as expected then Apple will start the marketing to switch everyone away from intel using their ARM performance and benefits to question why you are even still using one of their devices with intel inside.
Right, I don't care that Apple doesn't care. However, I left all of Apple. My iPad, 5 iPhones, 6 Macbooks, Mac Mini, 3 Apple watches, and not to mention all of my older purchases. Now, I never buy computers new, but everything else I do. So with Apple losing me, they lost my family. They probably still won't care, but there are people (or families) leaving for various reasons. The reason I mentioned the Hackintosh is that it ended up being my main computer... So the transition to Windows was as easy as installing the OS.
On the contrary, this makes me wanna stay with Apple even more. I need Microsoft Office (mostly Word) professionally, and on top of the coming machines getting more efficient processors, they have even worked with MS to offer a version of Office that runs natively, which at this moment it does not do. Can't wait for Apple to make the transition.
Apple announcing their transition to ARM shouldn't render your existing gear obsolete, though. Apps + the web still work, and the performance should largely stay the same. Why does this change = dumping all of your Apple equipment? (I'm unfamiliar with the hackintosh scene)
A lot of people don't like the walled garden of Apple.
Their design decisions seem optimized to make your wallet lighter.
I understand that point.
I was looking at this from the perspective of someone that already spent the $ on the equipment. I have a couple MacBooks and I'm not worried about them not working because Apple starts using their own chips. This announcement about future unreleased hardware, in my opinion, shouldn't deeply impact anyone's current set up. But I understand people have different needs.
It's my perception of how Apple views its customers. In 5 years, Most of Apple will be with ARM except the Pro line, and I suspect they will obsolete these 5-year-old machines... maybe longer... Probably longer.
Apple will somehow convince the masses to buy the new ARM laptops with clever advertising and everyone will get rid of their not-so-old machines for the new-new machines. Apple turns small features into huge selling points to upgrade with all the time, so why not this? Especially because this is not a typical small feature.
Don't get me wrong, I am excited for the new changes, and I suspect my kids will want to keep their MacBooks and iPhones, but I will offer them Android upgrades and Chromebooks or Windows notebooks.
So, yeah. This will not immediately render my gear obsolete, but it will speed up the process. I am willing to bet that Apple wants the Intel days behind them ASAP. Additionally, I am frustrated with the repairability of the newer iPhones.
It doesn't bother me at all.
Modern IDEs allow multiple hardware/OS targets. You make a few settings and you get a new target. You still have to build, link, test and deploy but it's the same process.
In the discussion about games, I think you all are forgetting that this switch to ARM and Big Sur means that suddenly all iOS games will run on Macs natively. Thats a big deal since mobile gaming is a huge market already.
I personally am not excited about ARM. Yes Microsoft Office etc will work, but the statistical software I use stuff like RStudio, Stan etc is not made by big companies with budgets for this kind of thing. If they won't support ARM based Macs then I'm out straight away.
I personally am not excited about ARM. Yes Microsoft Office etc will work, but the statistical software I use stuff like RStudio, Stan etc is not made by big companies with budgets for this kind of thing. If they won't support ARM based Macs then I'm out straight away.
R works on ARM already. Stan should work too, since they generate and compile C code for models. RStudio will definitively adapt since folks who make it are Apple users.
Basically, if it compiles on current 64-bit Intel Mac and does not use platform-specific intrinsics, it should compile on ARM Mac as well. There are some tricky topics like memory ordering etc., but R is not very complicated software so I doubt that it or its packages will be affected.
Why do you think it requires a big budget to port software?
It's just a recompile, find and fix any porting issues, relink and repackage. I remember when Microsoft Developer Studio had 64-bit targets. You just hit a few checkboxes for it to produce a 64-bit executable. Or you changed something on the command line.
Didnt' know R already works on ARM 👍 I'm thinking more about Stan however - multiple issues arose when Catalina came out:
It requires a budget for testing. Basic stuff like having a Macs to test it on, someone to run the tests etc.
Intrinsics should port over as well. That's why you use Intrinsics instead of writing assembler or machine code. If the hardware doesn't support it, then you run a library routine or inline machine code to do the work.
Porting is part of software development. Apple has been talking about moving to ARM since around 2010 I think. Everyone should have had plenty of time to plan. I've done all kinds of ports back to the early 1980s and I have to support Windows, Linux, AIX, Solaris, ARM, HP-UX. I think that we had some 60+ different supported platforms at one point.
You get practice when you get a new version of your IDE. Or your languages or other tools change. It's just part of software development these days.
If Microsoft is serious about Windows on ARM, and the current Qualcomm processor in the Surface Pro X is quite weak compared to Apple's AX processors... one can't help wonder, could a future Surface Pro X host an Apple processor? Would Apple even be interested?I would find it hilarious if Apple replaced Intel and started to license their own CPUs for Windows 10 based machines
Apple replacing Intel and AMD? That would be interesting. That's something that Microsoft could make happen. If it did happen, it would solve the virtualization problem.
If not replace, supplement. It would give Microsoft more leverage over Intel, and more possibility of making a long-battery-life platform for Windows. It would give some leverage to Apple over Microsoft to make sure their apps continue to get supported on the Mac platform. Would give Apple another revenue stream to support processor R&D.
Apple’s new ARM-based Macs won’t support Windows through Boot Camp
Microsoft has the power to change ARM-based Macs running Windows 10 on ARM.
www.theverge.com
Apple is not an OEM. Never was, never will be. Case closed. Microsoft just indirectly confirmed that it won't happen.
So you guys can probably kiss Boot Camp goodbye now.
To be honest, though, I don't like Boot Camp on my Mac. It feels like an afterthought. Driver support is... sub par, and that's me being nice.
This also means no Windows 10 for Arm in a virtual machine, i.e. no Windows on Mac.
Apple’s new ARM-based Macs won’t support Windows through Boot Camp
Microsoft has the power to change ARM-based Macs running Windows 10 on ARM.
Apple is not an OEM. Never was, never will be. Case closed. Microsoft just indirectly confirmed that it won't happen.
So you guys can probably kiss Boot Camp goodbye now.
To be honest, though, I don't like Boot Camp on my Mac. It feels like an afterthought. Driver support is... sub par, and that's me being nice.
I’ve always found both bootcamp and parallels a meh experience. I think going forward I’ll be a two computer person, likely an ARM MacBook and possible a high end desktop.