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Will Apple ditch UEFI on Arm Macs?

DearthnVader

DearthnVader

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Dec 17, 2015
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Just thinking out loud, but I'm wondering what type of firmware Apple SoC Macs will have?

(U)EFI was made and pushed by Intel, I don't see any reason it could not be ported to Arm, I just don't know if Apple has something else they'd rather use, as I doubt the iOS devices use UEFI, it stands to reason that Apple has it's own firmware it may want to use.

I'm not sure the DTK Mini can tell us much, as with the Intel DTK used a Bios firmware, and shipping Intel Macs used EFI.
 
DearthnVader said:
Just thinking out loud, but I'm wondering what type of firmware Apple SoC Macs will have?

(U)EFI was made and pushed by Intel, I don't see any reason it could not be ported to Arm, I just don't know if Apple has something else they'd rather use, as I doubt the iOS devices use UEFI, it stands to reason that Apple has it's own firmware it may want to use.

I'm not sure the DTK Mini can tell us much, as with the Intel DTK used a Bios firmware, and shipping Intel Macs used EFI.
Click to expand...
Apple Silicon Macs will adopt iBoot, just like iOS devices use. UEFI is gone.
 
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chrfr said:
Apple Silicon Macs will adopt iBoot, just like iOS devices use. UEFI is gone.
Click to expand...

It would figure, Apple finally adopts industry standard UEFI, and ships Macs with upgradeable GOP graphics cards, only to ditch it in short order.

Likely won't matter for a few years anyway, as all the Apple SoC Macs will likely incorporate on die GPU's, and there is no guarantee that when Apple ships the Arm Mac Pro that it will have discreet graphics.
 
DearthnVader said:
Just thinking out loud, but I'm wondering what type of firmware Apple SoC Macs will have?

(U)EFI was made and pushed by Intel, I don't see any reason it could not be ported to Arm, I just don't know if Apple has something else they'd rather use, as I doubt the iOS devices use UEFI, it stands to reason that Apple has it's own firmware it may want to use.

I'm not sure the DTK Mini can tell us much, as with the Intel DTK used a Bios firmware, and shipping Intel Macs used EFI.
Click to expand...

I'm pretty sure it won't be UEFI, at least as it is known on current Intel Macs and other x86-64 PCs. It will certainly look similar (if the videos from WWDC are to be trusted as gospel). But I doubt it will fully conform to the UEFI spec; Apple is no longer having to use industry standard anything on an Apple Silicon Mac; they finally get to write their own rules from top to bottom!

Also, yes, UEFI was made and pushed by Intel, but, at least back in 2006, Apple could've totally used BIOS instead (like was done for the Intel DTK and every PC prior to the release of original Windows 8). It would've been gross beyond gross, but Apple did have that option.

chrfr said:
Apple Silicon Macs will adopt iBoot, just like iOS devices use. UEFI is gone.
Click to expand...

I agree that UEFI is most likely a gonner. But I've seen nothing to suggest that they're going to be using iBoot. Do you have sources?
 
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hobowankenobi said:
It is good that they have choices. Hopefully, they will pick the best (feature-rich, reliable, secure, etc.) platform. Possible they could create a new standard too.
Click to expand...

The long-press of the power-button replacing the start-up modifier keys from Intel, PowerPC, and earlier eras of Macintosh is such a refinement. However, I wouldn't hold my breath on them going with a standard for their firmware. They stand nothing to gain by doing that and by being proprietary, they can tout "Industry Leading Security".
 
hobowankenobi said:
It is good that they have choices. Hopefully, they will pick the best (feature-rich, reliable, secure, etc.) platform. Possible they could create a new standard too.
Click to expand...
When did Apple not have choice?

There is choice for Apple, and there is choice for end users.

I'd rather be able to add PCI-E cards that conform to PC standard parts than worry about conforming to some Apple only standard.
 
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Ritsuka said:
developer.apple.com

Explore the new system architecture of Apple silicon Macs - WWDC20 - Videos - Apple Developer

Discover how Macs with Apple silicon will deliver modern advantages using Apple's System-on-Chip (SoC) architecture. Leveraging a unified...
developer.apple.com developer.apple.com
Click to expand...


I've have watched that video a couple of times , but not with a notion that UEFI was being chucked.
That boot process isn't iBoot. Or isn't close to what iBoot is now.

You can boot external drives. If the Apple Silicon (AS) Mac has Thunderbolt that is a wide varient of stuff ( not just USB ). SATA drives , NVMe drives , etc etc. whatever has a supported PCI-e controller. It can't be solely what the iPhones do where external boot drives don't even exist as a concept. There is an "iPhone iOS / iPad OS like security" boot path but not quite the same.

Secondly, you can turn down the security to "reduced security". That isn't what iBoot does. Maybe it will be mBoot ( or iBoot+ ). There is a substantial amount of stuff added to cover the broader ecosystem.

Furthermore, iBoot was there in the current T2 bootchain. That didn't exclude UEFI.


iBoot comes before UEFI gets started. It could be the case that Apple is skipping UEFI and bouncing directly to a small macOS instance. Mentions around the 20:16 timestamp that the new login process is a booted macOS driven password screen. ( a bit odd that can boot macOS even with Filevault on. but T2 has multiple layers of keys so it could just go grab the crypt key with no authentication. )

If there is no UEFI though that would be problematical for a boot screen for a non Apple GPU. (laptops and iGPU only systems not a big deal but that isn't the whole Mac ecosystem). For the "reduced security" path it seems there would be lots of stuff that UEFI does that they'd have to add to get coverage. But that could be just the "mac boot" fork of the bootloader. If always jumps straight from "apple boot" straight to macOS then that would be a big permanent show stopper from booting other operating systems.

It is probably not classic UEFI. ( the BIOS compatibly stuff is undoubtedly going into the garbage can. Intel is suppose to be dropping that too for newest systems around this time. )
 
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DearthnVader said:
When did Apple not have choice?

There is choice for Apple, and there is choice for end users.

I'd rather be able to add PCI-E cards that conform to PC standard parts than worry about conforming to some Apple only standard.
Click to expand...

Running X86 CPUs and booting Win in bootcamp were the limiting factors. Both limiting factors will be removed, and they can use/create/mod whatever they want now....choice.
 
Tech198 said:
it would be useless anyway, as Bootcamp/Windows 10 is not there
Click to expand...

If UEFI was there it would be an "option" that could enable. ( e.g., use Microsoft and/or Apple keys to verify Windows to do UEFI SecureBoot ) With zero UEFI at all it isn't even an option. But Windows hardly the only high usage OS that boots off of UEFI.

Bootcamp didn't ship with the initial Intel Macs. Apple added it later after got the macOS settled on the platform and started to allocate resources to doing supplementary things.

if there is no UEFI from the start, then it will pretty likely be written in stone. The supplementary stuff might be better virtualization (.e.g., paravritualization on GPUs , ) far more than making big changes to the boot stack security. Lack of IOMMU mapped hardware to GPU (and supplemental networking in same cases ) is the major driver of folks wanting to put Windows on "bare metal" . Uncork that performance block and the remaining use cases probably aren't a big group for a system with a decent amount of RAM in it.

Not sure if Intel is still on track with this BIOS compatibility 'kill off'.
arstechnica.com

The PC BIOS will be killed off by 2020 as Intel plans move to pure UEFI

The ability to boot DOS and other legacy relics is going to disappear.
arstechnica.com arstechnica.com

but if the UEFI systems community is still dragging its feet on BIOS in 2020 ( EFI came out in early 2000's and UEFI was out in 2006. ). Now that Apple has gone a whole architecture generation (onto the next platform now) and the other folks are still clinging to pre-2006 standards, then that is exactly the type of standards morbidity that Apple routinely walks away from.


Apple is probably layering something on top of iBoot ( because iBoot doesn't do what the mac needs and there is little good reason to either stuff that Mac stuff into iOS devices or do a large fork from iBoot for Macs. )
 
hobowankenobi said:
Running X86 CPUs and booting Win in bootcamp were the limiting factors. Both limiting factors will be removed, and they can use/create/mod whatever they want now....choice.
Click to expand...

On Arm Linux is pragmatically bigger than iOS. ( layered under the Android framework, but the notion that "nobody" has put much work into Linux kernel optimizations for Arm is myopic. ) . The 64-bit OS usage for sever contexts has taken a long time to ramp up but it is on a high growth curve now. Raspberry Pi desktops have been shipping for years. Windows even has some Arm models that are shipping now.

Apple quite far from being in "first mover" status on Arm. It is more fragmented "ocean" than x86 was in 2005 with Windows being the major "800 lbs" gorilla of that market.

It is a constraint they need to factor in, hence the Debian VM demo in the WWDC presentation. Apple needs to track UEFI if only to support the emulation of it for VMs.
 
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