Several macOS Monterey Features Unavailable on Intel-Based Macs

[thejadedmonkey]

I am afraid your reply denote a big lack of knowledge of nowadays programmation workflow. If you think that any issue or feature lacking is merely the result of lack of money, you have no idea what you’re talking about. There are so many other aspects playing here, and a lot of them are technical in nature, not commercial.

They're only technical in nature because that's how Apple makes them.

Consider the portrait mode in Facetime. There's no reason why you can't bring that to an Intel mac. Teams and Zoom will happily blur out the background on 4 year old Intel macs, no problem. Sure you can make it more efficient by only relying on the neural engine, but you can just as easily use the same sort of code on any GPU made in the past half decade to achieve the same results. Apple, just chose not to.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Consider the portrait mode in Facetime. There's no reason why you can't bring that to an Intel mac.

As I like to say, there IS a reason… and you actually mention it in your post, you just don’t LIKE the reason.

 

[MowgliWolf]

I am afraid your reply denote a big lack of knowledge of nowadays programmation workflow. Although M1 is a different platform, including some dedicated frameworks or libraries, it is now common to write one source code and compile to different architectures then, activating some functions where available. M1 is really powerful but not so much compared to a Ryzen sometimes, and this is still first generation of it. Moreover, it is obvious Apple is leaded by a pure mercantil spirit, privacy protection for instance is just one of its selling arguments. They are insanely wealthy and has enough resources to adapt some source code. It's not about resources, it's just about money. To get more and more, slow down previous devices, increase the grip on everything, like alternative cables and so on. That's a shame their products are pretty good given their spirit sucks.

I can’t say I fully agree even if I respect your perspective

Intel are good chipmakers generally speaking and the evidence is clear given their dominance since dual core, even if they rested on their laurels a bit too much in recent years.

The thing is, we can’t reasonably attack Apple for a valid business decision - making their own chips and architecture and pivoting away from 3rd party vendors.

Also important to bear in mind, excluding the last few MacBooks (16” Intel, 13” pro, and Air) that Intel architecture may only support these new features to a point if at all and the M1/pro/max are directly developed for these new features. We’d need some dev deep dives to really get an idea of what’s what

Even if there are some artificial limitations e.g. Apple choosing not to support these new features on Intel Mac, if they’ve spent astronomical amounts of money to develop M1 it makes sense that they’ll focus and market specifically to cater for them, the alternative seems like commercial suicide in the long run.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

As I like to say, there IS a reason… and you actually mention it in your post, you just don’t LIKE the reason.

Right, but I wasn't the one claiming that it's technical in nature. You are. And Teams and Zoom have proven that it's not technical.

If Apple chooses to write a blurring algorithm that only woks with the M1 instruction set, they've chosen to use a technical measure to artificially limit adoption, but the feature itself is in no way limited from a technical nature.

 

[Unregistered 4U]

Right, but I wasn't the one claiming that it's technical in nature.

I’m not claiming anything, you said there’s NO reason and usually when folks say there’s NO reason it’s because there IS a reason, they just don’t like it. And, it doesn’t matter what the reason is, they wouldn’t like it anyway.

 

[kc9hzn]

They're only technical in nature because that's how Apple makes them.

Consider the portrait mode in Facetime. There's no reason why you can't bring that to an Intel mac. Teams and Zoom will happily blur out the background on 4 year old Intel macs, no problem. Sure you can make it more efficient by only relying on the neural engine, but you can just as easily use the same sort of code on any GPU made in the past half decade to achieve the same results. Apple, just chose not to.

What you’re missing is that the implementation would probably be quite different. It’s similar to the difference between integrated graphics and a hardware graphics card or processor audio vs a sound card back in the 1990s. Yes, an Intel-based Mac could likely support it. But the implementation would be dramatically different without the M1’s built in photo processing features on an implementation level, and performance (especially battery life performance) would be dramatically different. Additionally, it increases the QA time to have two dramatically different implementations, especially when one implementation is for the legacy platform that is actively being phased out. It would be like Mac OS X Leopard adding 1080p video playback on G5 PPC Macs.

 

[oleg212]

I'm not sure they have to explain. By nature of the M1 architecture (Neural Engine, etc), the M1 chips have a more optimized architecture than x86, for how Apple writes these particular programs/features.

Ummm I'm using my 2013 intel MacBook pro Monterrey with open core patch and Live text works just fine.

 

[oleg212]

Give me an M Processor that supports 2 monitors.

M3 or M4 I'm waiting on those to be the best.

 

[jav6454]

M3 or M4 I'm waiting on those to be the best.

Perhaps the Mx CPUs won't due to market segmentation of the product lines.

 

[twistedpixel8]

Ummm I'm using my 2013 intel MacBook pro Monterrey with open core patch and Live text works just fine.

That’s very interesting. I had never heard of OpenCore until your comment. Have you discovered any other supposedly Apple-silicon-only features that work with your patched Intel Mac?

I may give OpenCore a go with my iMac as it’s a 2015 model specced to the max when I ordered it so I suspect it’s perfectly capable of running Ventura when it releases, despite Apple saying otherwise.