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That Mac Shift To ARM...

repairedCheese said:
Not really sure what running Xcode on an iPad has to do with that, though, unless you think they're going to be running iOS on these new Macs.
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iOS is just a cut-down macOS, when all's said and done. It is less about the OS and more about the hardware. The Mac Mini persisted because Apple needed developers for its iPhone/iPad cash cows but they weren't suddenly going to ditch their PCs for very spendy Mac Pros so Apple needed an affordable entry point. What the developers did ask at the time was why it wasn't possible to at least code on the i-devices. Nothing has changed since, except that prices have shot up both on the i-devices and the Mac Minis.
 
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eyoungren said:
My understanding is that while it is ARM, these are Apple produced chips. I believe then that we will eventually see the final construction of the Apple walled garden.

Apple has been tracking this way lately with SIP and their focus on preventing changes to MacOS. I foresee a day when the Mac you purchase is just like your iPhone. To use it in the way you wish you will need to jailbreak it - if that's even still a thing by then. I don't like where this is going.

That said, I'm about ten years or so behind Apple's leading products. It's a shame, but that new (old) MP I just bought may be my last Mac purchase. I'm willing to jailbreak my iDevices, but not so much my computers (I shouldn't have to).

Be interesting to see where all this goes. It'd be nice if I was wrong.
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Second that. Look at iOS, then you will see where MacOS X will end. The last Mac I bought is from 2009.

Using Windows is like to use a computer with a long cuff.
Using MacOS X is like using a computer with a short cuff.
Using iOS is like using a computer with chopped legs and hands.

If you want to be free, use Linux/ BSD.
 
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ctrlzone said:
2) i think we won't see Bootcamp on ARM mac's
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Why not? Bootcamp provides for a way to "emulate" a PC compatible BIOS. Now we live in a time where Windows as well as Linux are available for ARM SoCs (Raspi, Surface Pro X) - why shouldn't there be a BootCamp equivalent for booting ARM Windows and ARM Linux on ARM "MacBooks"?
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Macbookprodude said:
Because ARM is like PowerPC - its a RISC processor and also its spirit in part of ARM. This means that PowerPC won and Intel lost because even I predicted back then that Apple would drop Intel for someone better. Maybe think different will make a come back and a Mac will feel like a Mac again. I am not knocking Intel, just hate that company with all its faults and false lies and promises. Yes, PowerPC also had some issues, but not like Intel.
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In the contrary, PowerPC at the time had much bigger issues than Intel has now, at least Intel somehow maintains a development cycle and still offers mobile chips. Yes, Intel again has problems similar to their experience with NetBurst, but they can still adapt the big.LITTLE concept or add more cores, to name two.

Also, it's not about winning.... what makes the POWER ISA so attractive in your eyes? Is it really the architecture? Have you written programs targeted at POWER ISA? Or is it more likely about the design choices Apple took after abandoning the PPC world and it's users?
 
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Because it's not mainstream. I would also go for SPARC, MIPS or Alpha (RIP). ARM is still ridiculous. It's a telephone CPU.
To flip the whole thing. If PowerPC were standard, then maybe I would choose Intel.
 
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I wonder if they'll end up dumping Intel software support as quick as they did with PowerPC. When they announced the switch to Intel Jobs implied that PowerPC support would go many years into the future. Then they released 1 more OS for it, and that was it. Even though they did security updates for Leopard PowerPC until 2009, the support really ended the day Leopard was released.

Also, there were Leopard security updates in 2012 that were Intel only. They simply couldn't be bothered to make those same updates for PowerPC systems running the same OS.
 
amagichnich said:
Why not? Bootcamp provides for a way to "emulate" a PC compatible BIOS. Now we live in a time where Windows as well as Linux are available for ARM SoCs (Raspi, Surface Pro X) - why shouldn't there be a BootCamp equivalent for booting ARM Windows and ARM Linux on ARM "MacBooks"?
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good points!

at this point i'm just wildly speculating, probably wrong and really it is just a gut Feeling, that Apple wants to go all in and ditch the Rest.
you know, Courage! 😀🙈
 
Apple will never do the following, but if I were Apple I would offer Macs with all possible CPUs. Then Apple would reach users that they might not otherwise reach.

The slogan would then have to be: We believe in choice.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Oh I'm sure it would run like total cr@p. It would still be fun tho 😀
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Care to elaborate?
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What was that Intel issue where there was a security flaw.. Many other things such as overheating in some instances. I am not saying the PPC wasnt without fault, but it had far less faults than Intel.
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amagichnich said:
Why not? Bootcamp provides for a way to "emulate" a PC compatible BIOS. Now we live in a time where Windows as well as Linux are available for ARM SoCs (Raspi, Surface Pro X) - why shouldn't there be a BootCamp equivalent for booting ARM Windows and ARM Linux on ARM "MacBooks"?
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In the contrary, PowerPC at the time had much bigger issues than Intel has now, at least Intel somehow maintains a development cycle and still offers mobile chips. Yes, Intel again has problems similar to their experience with NetBurst, but they can still adapt the big.LITTLE concept or add more cores, to name two.

Also, it's not about winning.... what makes the POWER ISA so attractive in your eyes? Is it really the architecture? Have you written programs targeted at POWER ISA? Or is it more likely about the design choices Apple took after abandoning the PPC world and it's users?
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The design choices primarily. Plus, PowerPC felt different, unlike a PC - I was a PC tech for compusa in 2000-2001 and that is when I went on board with Mac. Yes, I liked the designs and the computers, and yes I liked and still do like OS 9 - it just felt different. Programming ? I wish.. I was not good at c++ in college, though I wish I was so I could help the PPC community in a greater way. So, yes it was because of the choice of machines and also the architecture.. It just felt different. Right now, I am typing this on my G4 Titanium PowerBook 1ghz which meets my basic needs and light internet usage. Sure, I don't have javascript enabled and stuff, but it still works fine for my needs.
 
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I also would like to add something else. All computers, regardless if PPC, ARM, Intel, SPARC - doesn't matter have good and bad with each. Coming from PC most of my life and building PC's from the days of 80286 to Pentium II and Pentium III - and having a career as a computer A+ tech in PC, I kinda gave that all up for Mac and I saw first hand at my local CompUSA how Apple was being bashed.. employees would make customers buy PC's and talk crap about the Mac. One sales rep there often times told customers looking at the iMac to not consider it because its a piece of crap and sell them a PC. I remember we had G3 PowerBooks Pismo and Lombard of which I really liked, but could not afford the 3999.99 price tag then. I made the move by buying my first G4 at the time, which was a sawtooth model(back then I didn't know what its codename was), but by that time I bought a G4 350 Sawtooth with OS 9 retail in the box plus Virtual PC 3.0 for running windows. I spent like 1799.99 for everything. I liked it a lot. I have grown from the Power Mac G4 350 to a Digital Audio 733, from that a G4 MDD 1.25 2MB L3 cache, got also the copper heatsink with a 1.42. Early in mid 2000's around 2009, I traded that up for a G5 Quad. From the Quad I went to a Mac Pro 1,1.

Today, my line up consists of the following macs:

G4 Titanium 1GHZ
G4 Pismo(was G3 500).
formally, had a PowerBook G4 1.67 which in my anger over a stuck cd/dvd destroyed - planning to get another one, but not right now.

Intel Macs:

Mac Pro 5,1
Macbook Pro 2011 which I am retiring due to it being slow and the battery is bad - battery is long gone, but I heard the machine is slow without a battery.
Macbook Pro 2012 which needs new 16GB memory. Catalina won't install due to the bad memory, but Mavericks installed nicely. Its got a Samsung EVO 860 512GB SSD.
Finally, a MacBook Pro 2015 dual graphics with 16GB memory retina screen.

So, I love all my macs, but PPC will love much more because this is where it all started for me. I am sure ARM will be just as good once I make that move.
 
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what are the chances ARM macs could have touch screens/support?
the narrative was that macOS is not designed for Touch, and an implementation would be half a55 at best.
apple is still dominating with the iPad, touch was a revolution, sidecar is neat but i think more/native is a must for the Future.
is Apple really going to adapt macOS instead of doing something completely new? AppleOS ?
 
ctrlzone said:
the narrative was that macOS is not designed for Touch
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The rationale is that a desktop monitor setup was never designed for touch. That is still true in the overwhelming majority of use cases and nothing has changed since. It would be desirable for kiosks, for example, but having to lift your arm up from your desk to stretch to your screen is not exactly a wonderful user experience. It's not even always that great on a phone where my kack-handed aim almost invariably hits the wrong key on the keyboard or the wrong URL link etc.

Microsoft didn't do too much to adapt Windows to touch screens. Widgets are still far too small on FHD screens, particularly compact ones, to make it a more efficient way to navigate your way around a screen with a finger than with a mouse. It reminds me of Windows CE where you really needed that thin pointy stylus to hit the tiny X close button to quit an application.
 
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Amethyst1 said:
Hopefully zero. Touchscreen on desktops == total cr@p.
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yes thats why i want proper support, atm i use multiple iPads but its not enough, and not native.

something like this is the best we got so far, and windows isn't really better, especially with multiple touchscreens
 
eyoungren said:
My understanding is that while it is ARM, these are Apple produced chips. I believe then that we will eventually see the final construction of the Apple walled garden.

Apple has been tracking this way lately with SIP and their focus on preventing changes to MacOS. I foresee a day when the Mac you purchase is just like your iPhone. To use it in the way you wish you will need to jailbreak it - if that's even still a thing by then. I don't like where this is going.

That said, I'm about ten years or so behind Apple's leading products. It's a shame, but that new (old) MP I just bought may be my last Mac purchase. I'm willing to jailbreak my iDevices, but not so much my computers (I shouldn't have to).

Be interesting to see where all this goes. It'd be nice if I was wrong.
Click to expand...

I'm less worried about the iOS-style "no jailbreaking" type thing as typically I just want to get my work done and do the things I want to do. I just have mostly a vanilla install so on this front I'm not massively bothered. As long as I'm not hassled to deal for upgrade notifications and such.

Having been through 3 architecture changes with Apple though I'm simply tired of it. I no longer care to go with them through another. These changes are expensive. Even if you're on a subscription you still end up paying for it as developers are doing and optimising for these changes rather than doing anything new with their software. Having not chased software updates for Mojave and Catalina I'm already in a zone where the software costs are as much as the computer costs. No way I'm prepared to eat those costs yet again.

I may meet Apple at the other end of this transition. Maybe, maybe not. But the path to get these they'll be doing it without me this time around.
 
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ctrlzone said:
what are the chances ARM macs could have touch screens/support?
the narrative was that macOS is not designed for Touch, and an implementation would be half a55 at best.
apple is still dominating with the iPad, touch was a revolution, sidecar is neat but i think more/native is a must for the Future.
is Apple really going to adapt macOS instead of doing something completely new? AppleOS ?
Click to expand...

I have seen this suggested elsewhere and I don't understand it. Just because ARM CPUs are used in phones does not mean everything with an ARM CPU has to have a touchscreen. It's the same with the people who keep worrying about performance. There's no reason they have to be ultra low power just because that's what a phone demands.
 
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556fmjoe said:
I have seen this suggested elsewhere and I don't understand it. Just because ARM CPUs are used in phones does not mean everything with an ARM CPU has to have a touchscreen. It's the same with the people who keep worrying about performance. There's no reason they have to be ultra low power just because that's what a phone demands.
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i'm not saying it has to have touch because it's arm, that would make no sense.
i would welcome it.

i'm not in the group that worry's about Performance, i am actually convinced arm will perform better in every aspect.
 
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