No more chips for you, but let's not have another meltdown
April 3, 2018 5:58 AM Subscribe
Apple will reportedly ditch Intel chips in Macs as early as 2020. [SL The Verge]
You’ll still be able to run Windows software on new Macs the same way you do on current Macs: under emulation.
posted by chrchr at 6:10 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by chrchr at 6:10 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Not really surprised by this. Apple has been making their own chips for iOS devices for quite a while now, and I figured that it was a matter of time before they made the jump to making their own processors for Macs. I do wonder how this will affect the ability to run Windows VMs and to natively boot Windows via Boot Camp. Also, as someone who works in Adobe CC, I wonder if there will be any compatibility issues seen there. I’m sure they have smarter people than me thinking about this stuff, but Apple has to get this right or this could really cripple their Mac business.
posted by azpenguin at 6:13 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by azpenguin at 6:13 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
You’ll still be able to run Windows software on new Macs the same way you do on current Macs: under emulation.
That's not right; current Macs are x86-64 PCs capable of running Windows without emulation. It seems unlikely that any version of Windows would be made for ARM-based Macs, but if so it would be similar to the wildly unsuccessful Windows RT, which was unable to run many standard Windows programs designed for x86.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [24 favorites]
That's not right; current Macs are x86-64 PCs capable of running Windows without emulation. It seems unlikely that any version of Windows would be made for ARM-based Macs, but if so it would be similar to the wildly unsuccessful Windows RT, which was unable to run many standard Windows programs designed for x86.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [24 favorites]
So instead of being able to run Windows software, the new Macs will be able to run . . . iPhone software?
Except Windows on ARM can run x86 software. Sure.
This is all just rumor and conjecture at this point. It's far more likely they'll just shove an A whatever alongside an Intel chip like they've started doing with the iMac Pro and then exposing an iOS virtualizer to the A chip. People are jumping to conclusions. Nevertheless, even if they do switch lock, stock, and barrel to their own ARM kit the transition will most likely be pretty painless.
We'll probably know more at WWDC in June.
posted by Talez at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Except Windows on ARM can run x86 software. Sure.
This is all just rumor and conjecture at this point. It's far more likely they'll just shove an A whatever alongside an Intel chip like they've started doing with the iMac Pro and then exposing an iOS virtualizer to the A chip. People are jumping to conclusions. Nevertheless, even if they do switch lock, stock, and barrel to their own ARM kit the transition will most likely be pretty painless.
We'll probably know more at WWDC in June.
posted by Talez at 6:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
There was a period of time when the MacBook in one of its iterations was actually one of the best Windows laptops on the market. Bootcamp is very reliable, and Windows 7 ran very well on Mac hardware.
posted by explosion at 6:16 AM on April 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by explosion at 6:16 AM on April 3, 2018 [7 favorites]
Windows actually includes a whole Windows on Windows layer for the 32 to 64-bit transition. In that case it just involves switching from long mode to protected mode to run 32-bit code but the whole layer can be implemented as a full translation layer as is the case in Windows 10 Pro for ARM that's coming out on the Snapdragon 835 devices.
posted by Talez at 6:17 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by Talez at 6:17 AM on April 3, 2018
You’ll still be able to run Windows software on new Macs the same way you do on current Macs: under emulation.
So running it on Windows in other words, running on a VM that is running on the Mac.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:20 AM on April 3, 2018
So running it on Windows in other words, running on a VM that is running on the Mac.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 6:20 AM on April 3, 2018
So running it on Windows in other words, running on a VM that is running on the Mac.
ARM64 chips would have to make an impressive leap forward to make that not run like absolute crap. Apple have an impressive chip design department, but that is a very big ask (partially due to patents on various x86 bits).
posted by jaduncan at 6:24 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
ARM64 chips would have to make an impressive leap forward to make that not run like absolute crap. Apple have an impressive chip design department, but that is a very big ask (partially due to patents on various x86 bits).
posted by jaduncan at 6:24 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Everyone is assuming it will be ARM, but I don't see any reason that has to be the case. Apple could easily make its own x86 compatible processors too. The basic principles are well-known, the 3rd-party foundries are now just as good as Intel, and Apple easily has the budget to go ahead and do it.
posted by miyabo at 6:27 AM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by miyabo at 6:27 AM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Apple could easily make its own x86 compatible processors too.
It's hard to imagine Intel licensing them the IP no matter how much Apple offers.
posted by Slothrup at 6:29 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
It's hard to imagine Intel licensing them the IP no matter how much Apple offers.
posted by Slothrup at 6:29 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
So running it on Windows in other words, running on a VM that is running on the Mac.
Nope. It would be a full ARM64 release of Windows 10 Pro. All the kernel, core libraries, and drivers would be running 64-bit ARM native. Stuff downloaded from the store is in intermediate format and would be compiled to native ARM64, the rest can be translated or dynareced.
posted by Talez at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Nope. It would be a full ARM64 release of Windows 10 Pro. All the kernel, core libraries, and drivers would be running 64-bit ARM native. Stuff downloaded from the store is in intermediate format and would be compiled to native ARM64, the rest can be translated or dynareced.
posted by Talez at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
It's hard to imagine Intel licensing them the IP no matter how much Apple offers.
Yes. I would strongly imagine it would be cheaper long term to just buy or have a joint venture with AMD.
posted by jaduncan at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yes. I would strongly imagine it would be cheaper long term to just buy or have a joint venture with AMD.
posted by jaduncan at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
I'm not at all surprised. Intel has been struggling to meet their roadmap, and Apple's chip guys have been knocking it out of the park and delivering on single core performance. And all that while limited to a phone's meager power budget.
Apple has transparently emulated 680x0 on PowerPC and PowerPC on x86. They're not going to have any qualms about shipping a transparent x86 emulator for ARM. Meanwhile Microsoft themselves are pushing Windows on ARM, so Apple may just hope that Microsoft forces the issue with their developers and by 2020 they don't have to worry about Windows x86 apps, or else Microsoft has shipped their own transparent emulation to make the problem go away.
posted by wotsac at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Apple has transparently emulated 680x0 on PowerPC and PowerPC on x86. They're not going to have any qualms about shipping a transparent x86 emulator for ARM. Meanwhile Microsoft themselves are pushing Windows on ARM, so Apple may just hope that Microsoft forces the issue with their developers and by 2020 they don't have to worry about Windows x86 apps, or else Microsoft has shipped their own transparent emulation to make the problem go away.
posted by wotsac at 6:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
On a personal level, as someone who makes electronic music on a Mac, I'm dreading this; I just moved my music setup from 32-bit to 64-bit, to keep up with the latest Native Instruments plugins. The transition left behind a lot of softsynths they don't make in 64-bit variants (most egregiously, reFX's Vanguard and QuadraSID). I bought an adapter (32 Lives from SoundRadix), which transparently proxies them, but am aware that, when the macOS version 1-2 versions after High Sierra stops supporting 32-bit binaries altogether, that's almost certainly all going to die. I'm mostly resigning myself to not using those plugins for anything new, sampling the sounds I need, trying to replicate some on other instruments, and pickling an old MacBook running Sierra in case I need to open old projects (and while computers do get faster, the DRM on audio software makes it impossible to run in an emulator, otherwise I'd have my 1990s-vintage Cubase VST setup running under SheepShaver), and now I'm faced with losing everything that they don't port to ARM-based macOS a few years after that.
posted by acb at 6:33 AM on April 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by acb at 6:33 AM on April 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
Apple has a few solutions to this problem that nobody else has, or has executed on as well as they have. By owning the toolchain they can make recompiling for a new architecture as easy as clicking a checkbox. That was the experience for devs back at the PPC/x86 switchover, and I expect it will be the same here: people who want to rebuild for the new architecture have a very easy time of it, people who don't or can't will run in sandboxed emulator for a few years before going away.
Alternatively, the iOS model currently sends an intermediate bytecode representation to Apple for review, where it get packaged for iOS devices on their end. Apple gets a (substantial) cut, but they also handle hosting, distribution, upgrades, etc etc...
I'm only guessing here but I suspect they'll offer both options.
posted by mhoye at 6:35 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Alternatively, the iOS model currently sends an intermediate bytecode representation to Apple for review, where it get packaged for iOS devices on their end. Apple gets a (substantial) cut, but they also handle hosting, distribution, upgrades, etc etc...
I'm only guessing here but I suspect they'll offer both options.
posted by mhoye at 6:35 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
At this point, as an audio professional, my only attachment to Apple products is to the operating system. I've been running a Hackintosh for two years and couldn't be happier. I won't throw down for their overpriced, locked down hardware but I would pay $500 for a macOS license gladly.
All that to say, they've already lost me as a customer and it's not Intel's fault.
posted by Evstar at 6:36 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
All that to say, they've already lost me as a customer and it's not Intel's fault.
posted by Evstar at 6:36 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
I suspect that this has been in the pipeline for a while; there have been rumours of internal prototypes of ARM-based MacBooks running internal ARM-based macOS builds. And the writing was on the wall when Apple switched to App Store submissions being by default uploaded in Bitcode (i.e., LLVM intermediate representation, a processor-independent format for compiled code which can be translated to machine code for any arbitrary CPU there's a LLVM backend for) rather than machine code. Having all those apps in the App Store in CPU-independent format gives Apple a lot more room to switch architectures, should they need to, and presumably gave them a lot more bargaining power with Intel. Now it seems that Intel couldn't offer them anything that would make it worthwhile to stay, and it becomes a pivot to a new architecture (presumably, though not necessarily, based on ARM64).
posted by acb at 6:39 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by acb at 6:39 AM on April 3, 2018
I’m still pissed they ditched audio jacks on the new phones...
posted by darkstar at 6:41 AM on April 3, 2018 [11 favorites]
posted by darkstar at 6:41 AM on April 3, 2018 [11 favorites]
Cool, now bring back MacAddict.
PPC’s not dead!
posted by rodlymight at 6:44 AM on April 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
PPC’s not dead!
posted by rodlymight at 6:44 AM on April 3, 2018 [15 favorites]
Now it seems that Intel couldn't offer them anything that would make it worthwhile to stay, and it becomes a pivot to a new architecture (presumably, though not necessarily, based on ARM64).
ARM64 and Metal would mean that an awful lot of middleware would have an easier time porting any performance-driven lower level code (and Apple have the option of just directly supporting iOS APIs too).
posted by jaduncan at 6:44 AM on April 3, 2018
ARM64 and Metal would mean that an awful lot of middleware would have an easier time porting any performance-driven lower level code (and Apple have the option of just directly supporting iOS APIs too).
posted by jaduncan at 6:44 AM on April 3, 2018
my only attachment to Apple products is to the operating system. I've been running a Hackintosh by for two years and couldn't be happier
Ditto. Actually their move away from Intel might cause us problems; the last couple generations of Hackintosh are wildly easier to build than their predecessors because of the ubiquitous Intel hardware. If Apple goes back to bespoke chips, the reverse-engineering required for all those custom kexts and Clover configs gets a lot more difficult.
I wonder if software/Hackintosh figures into their thinking here.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ditto. Actually their move away from Intel might cause us problems; the last couple generations of Hackintosh are wildly easier to build than their predecessors because of the ubiquitous Intel hardware. If Apple goes back to bespoke chips, the reverse-engineering required for all those custom kexts and Clover configs gets a lot more difficult.
I wonder if software/Hackintosh figures into their thinking here.
posted by aspersioncast at 6:47 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ditto. Actually their move away from Intel might cause us problems; the last couple generations of Hackintosh are wildly easier to build than their predecessors because of the ubiquitous Intel hardware.
Apple also get to do a lot of new stuff here. They are easily big enough to do their own interconnect tech and skip around the PCIe bottlenecks...and also they can lock down their computers iOS style with exactly the same tech as is on the mobile side. But yeah, after they have no need to support Intel tech it's very hard to imagine that their x86 builds will become public after the transition period and legacy hardware support.
So you'd need to look up the end of support lifetime for their last Intel computer model, I guess.
posted by jaduncan at 6:54 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Apple also get to do a lot of new stuff here. They are easily big enough to do their own interconnect tech and skip around the PCIe bottlenecks...and also they can lock down their computers iOS style with exactly the same tech as is on the mobile side. But yeah, after they have no need to support Intel tech it's very hard to imagine that their x86 builds will become public after the transition period and legacy hardware support.
So you'd need to look up the end of support lifetime for their last Intel computer model, I guess.
posted by jaduncan at 6:54 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I wonder if software/Hackintosh figures into their thinking here.
The Hackintosh crowd is a vanishingly small, obscure group. I doubt it registers more than a momentary blip on Apple's radar.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:01 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
The Hackintosh crowd is a vanishingly small, obscure group. I doubt it registers more than a momentary blip on Apple's radar.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:01 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
Hackintosh also runs counter to Apple's "Vertically Integrate All The Things" philosophy. If anything I imagine they'd view breaking that as a marginal bonus.
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:06 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by Anticipation Of A New Lover's Arrival, The at 7:06 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
I hope this proves to be true, as I'm very interested in seeing how Apple competes in this particular arena.
I've been very interested in the past few years as to how they've managed to execute so very well in the mobile space. That they have a superlative design team is of course one explanation, but I'm reasonably confident that the Samsungs, Intels and Qualcomms of the world are similarly stocked with highly intelligent and motivated engineers. That they're not competing per chip but per device, and consequently have been able to create chips which would be excessively expensive (for example, by including extremely large caches) if sold per chip is another. I've been personally suspicious that they've been targeting benchmarks specifically in how they implement their logic, but really, that's just a guess.
I suppose this is all a long way of saying I'm looking forward to having machines on which we can, if we're lucky, execute equivalent application level benchmarks. Hopefully they won't only run an IOS style managed stack.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 7:07 AM on April 3, 2018
I've been very interested in the past few years as to how they've managed to execute so very well in the mobile space. That they have a superlative design team is of course one explanation, but I'm reasonably confident that the Samsungs, Intels and Qualcomms of the world are similarly stocked with highly intelligent and motivated engineers. That they're not competing per chip but per device, and consequently have been able to create chips which would be excessively expensive (for example, by including extremely large caches) if sold per chip is another. I've been personally suspicious that they've been targeting benchmarks specifically in how they implement their logic, but really, that's just a guess.
I suppose this is all a long way of saying I'm looking forward to having machines on which we can, if we're lucky, execute equivalent application level benchmarks. Hopefully they won't only run an IOS style managed stack.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 7:07 AM on April 3, 2018
So you'd need to look up the end of support lifetime for their last Intel computer model, I guess.
Sigh. Better test how flaky Logic Pro X runs in a VM/Darling.
Also maybe a good time to buy Qualcomm shares; they've been dropping like a rock.
[partial jinx]
posted by aspersioncast at 7:08 AM on April 3, 2018
Sigh. Better test how flaky Logic Pro X runs in a VM/Darling.
Also maybe a good time to buy Qualcomm shares; they've been dropping like a rock.
[partial jinx]
posted by aspersioncast at 7:08 AM on April 3, 2018
OS8 is back!
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:09 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Ghostride The Whip at 7:09 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
I'm with miyabo, just because Apple is doing their own desktop/laptop chips doesn't necessarily mean they're going to do ARM. (It doesn't not mean that, either.)
That said, if the transition is set to begin in 2020, that gives Apple enough time to get their chips to a level where they could emulate x86. There are Linux distros that run on ARM, so assuming the bootloader isn't super locked-down (I'm thinking along the lines of the iMac Pro where the bootloader _can_ be locked, but out-of-the-box it is not), then you should still be able to do Linux on the Mac. And Windows for ARM is a thing too.
posted by SansPoint at 7:09 AM on April 3, 2018
That said, if the transition is set to begin in 2020, that gives Apple enough time to get their chips to a level where they could emulate x86. There are Linux distros that run on ARM, so assuming the bootloader isn't super locked-down (I'm thinking along the lines of the iMac Pro where the bootloader _can_ be locked, but out-of-the-box it is not), then you should still be able to do Linux on the Mac. And Windows for ARM is a thing too.
posted by SansPoint at 7:09 AM on April 3, 2018
Microsoft has been flirting with non-Intel Windows for many, many years. Windows NT ran on ARM, also MIPS, DEC Alpha, PowerPC, Itanium, ... There have been previous rumors of MacOS supporting ARM as well. And of course Linux runs happily on many different processors, including ARM, although AFAIK very few datacenters are using anything other than Intel/AMD.
ARM seems like the likely choice to me. Apple has extensive expertise with it, both programming and manufacturing. And it's the obvious technology choice. Not sure what else you'd use.
The challenge in the past has been getting all the apps recompiled to run natively on the new processor. No one wants an emulator. But Apple has a significant leg up for doing this now. The official application environment has gotten so locked down that I imagine most apps are very easy to recompile to a new architecture. If your beloved Mac App doesn't have a Mac AppStore version now, you may want to consider whether you'll be able to run it in a couple of years. (Similar story with UWP apps and the Windows Store, but Microsoft is slower to the race of turning personal computers into jails.)
I'd love to know Bloomberg's sourcing on this story. It's very thin.
posted by Nelson at 7:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
ARM seems like the likely choice to me. Apple has extensive expertise with it, both programming and manufacturing. And it's the obvious technology choice. Not sure what else you'd use.
The challenge in the past has been getting all the apps recompiled to run natively on the new processor. No one wants an emulator. But Apple has a significant leg up for doing this now. The official application environment has gotten so locked down that I imagine most apps are very easy to recompile to a new architecture. If your beloved Mac App doesn't have a Mac AppStore version now, you may want to consider whether you'll be able to run it in a couple of years. (Similar story with UWP apps and the Windows Store, but Microsoft is slower to the race of turning personal computers into jails.)
I'd love to know Bloomberg's sourcing on this story. It's very thin.
posted by Nelson at 7:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Ooh, it could be RISCV! They'd save on licensing costs from ARM then too.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 7:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 7:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Gruber’s take on Daring Fireball that rings mostly true to me:
Hell of a scoop if it pans out. We’ve all been speculating about ARM-based Macs for years. In broad strokes it seems like a rather obvious idea:posted by mrbeefy at 7:12 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
- Apple seeks to control its own future. With Intel, Apple has often been stuck waiting for new Intel chips. The update schedule for new Mac hardware is often in Intel’s hands, not Apple’s.
- Apple’s internal chip team has been killing it. They’ve never had a bad year. I think you can argue that they’ve never had anything but a great year. iPhones and iPad Pros have been faster than most MacBooks for years now, and that just seems wrong.
Ooh, it could be RISCV! They'd save on licensing costs from ARM then too.
Or they could have secretly bought the remnants of SPARC from Oracle and have a team of engineers at a black site rebuilding it in Apple's own image as they did ARM's architecture. That's probably just as plausible.
posted by acb at 7:23 AM on April 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
Or they could have secretly bought the remnants of SPARC from Oracle and have a team of engineers at a black site rebuilding it in Apple's own image as they did ARM's architecture. That's probably just as plausible.
posted by acb at 7:23 AM on April 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
Somewhat related interesting tweet from Cloudflare's CEO over the weekend-- "Why we’re switching to ARM-based servers in one image. Both servers running the same workload at the same performance." [Image shows Intel Xeon running 230W and Centriq running 150W]
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:25 AM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Static Vagabond at 7:25 AM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Assuming the transition really does happen in 2020, this timing stinks for me. I don't think I can get two+ more years out of my 2011 iMac. Although maybe with an SSD... but still probably not.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:35 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by uncleozzy at 7:35 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Burn: RISC architecture is going to change everything.
Cool: Yeah, RISC is good.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:38 AM on April 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
Cool: Yeah, RISC is good.
posted by Annika Cicada at 7:38 AM on April 3, 2018 [6 favorites]
I'm keen for this. Intel's a shit company selling a shit product coasting on three decades of nigh-monopoly, creeping ahead only when their legally hamstrung competition finally start to catch up. I will be very happy to never buy another Intel processor. Crossing fingers this ca2012 RMBP keeps on chugging at speed for another 2-3 years.
What Apple's been able to do in terms of raw compute -- especially in terms of mips/watt -- in less than five years is nothing short of astonishing. Their GPU work is also spectacular.
As a consumer, I don't like some of their simplifying assumptions, especially with regard to edge-case power users, but one thing thing they do get right is a base level of functionality that Just Works for most people's use cases. They're in the business of building high end, attractive appliances, and as someone who has become completely fed-up with computers and software as Rube Goldberg contraptions that needs to be fucked with when they refuse to do a seemingly obvious thing, or clatter to a stop when doing something they've done a thousand times before, I'm in 100%.
I'm also broke as shit so it would be nice also if this results in a few hundred bucks off the laptop prices in future.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:40 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
What Apple's been able to do in terms of raw compute -- especially in terms of mips/watt -- in less than five years is nothing short of astonishing. Their GPU work is also spectacular.
As a consumer, I don't like some of their simplifying assumptions, especially with regard to edge-case power users, but one thing thing they do get right is a base level of functionality that Just Works for most people's use cases. They're in the business of building high end, attractive appliances, and as someone who has become completely fed-up with computers and software as Rube Goldberg contraptions that needs to be fucked with when they refuse to do a seemingly obvious thing, or clatter to a stop when doing something they've done a thousand times before, I'm in 100%.
I'm also broke as shit so it would be nice also if this results in a few hundred bucks off the laptop prices in future.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:40 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
Not sure what else you'd use.
Well, POWER still exists.
posted by fifthrider at 7:45 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well, POWER still exists.
posted by fifthrider at 7:45 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Uncleozzy if you're not running with an SSD, make the change for sure. I got another couple years out of one of the first aluminum MBs with an SSD. It's an amazing difference.
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:47 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by seanmpuckett at 7:47 AM on April 3, 2018
Or they could have secretly bought the remnants of SPARC from Oracle and have a team of engineers at a black site rebuilding it in Apple's own image as they did ARM's architecture. That's probably just as plausible.
I'm curious; what makes RISC-V a particularly implausible choice?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:48 AM on April 3, 2018
I'm curious; what makes RISC-V a particularly implausible choice?
posted by a snickering nuthatch at 7:48 AM on April 3, 2018
> mhoye:
"Apple has a few solutions to this problem that nobody else has, or has executed on as well as they have. By owning the toolchain they can make recompiling for a new architecture as easy as clicking a checkbox. That was the experience for devs back at the PPC/x86 switchover, and I expect it will be the same here: people who want to rebuild for the new architecture have a very easy time of it, people who don't or can't will run in sandboxed emulator for a few years before going away.
Alternatively, the iOS model currently sends an intermediate bytecode representation to Apple for review, where it get packaged for iOS devices on their end. Apple gets a (substantial) cut, but they also handle hosting, distribution, upgrades, etc etc...
I'm only guessing here but I suspect they'll offer both options."
Right. That's why some many devs kept publishing PPC versions of their software to keep PPC users up to date. Seriously, I think this is an upgraded version of Apple's forced obsolescence ecosystem. They learned that people were so willing to keep swapping through iPhones, they just decided it was time to up the ante and profits a bit.
posted by Samizdata at 7:48 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
"Apple has a few solutions to this problem that nobody else has, or has executed on as well as they have. By owning the toolchain they can make recompiling for a new architecture as easy as clicking a checkbox. That was the experience for devs back at the PPC/x86 switchover, and I expect it will be the same here: people who want to rebuild for the new architecture have a very easy time of it, people who don't or can't will run in sandboxed emulator for a few years before going away.
Alternatively, the iOS model currently sends an intermediate bytecode representation to Apple for review, where it get packaged for iOS devices on their end. Apple gets a (substantial) cut, but they also handle hosting, distribution, upgrades, etc etc...
I'm only guessing here but I suspect they'll offer both options."
Right. That's why some many devs kept publishing PPC versions of their software to keep PPC users up to date. Seriously, I think this is an upgraded version of Apple's forced obsolescence ecosystem. They learned that people were so willing to keep swapping through iPhones, they just decided it was time to up the ante and profits a bit.
posted by Samizdata at 7:48 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Uncleozzy if you're not running with an SSD, make the change for sure.
Yeah, I've been meaning to, but I really don't want to take the glass off the iMac in my dusty, catty house, which means finding a reputable shop to do it.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:54 AM on April 3, 2018
Yeah, I've been meaning to, but I really don't want to take the glass off the iMac in my dusty, catty house, which means finding a reputable shop to do it.
posted by uncleozzy at 7:54 AM on April 3, 2018
I'm wondering what this hardware singularity will look like, with iPads, ipHoNes, and MaCBoOks all running the same chips, and all of them having touch screens. With the melding of iOS and OsX, it may prove to be a seamless computing environment. If you add VR goggles to your Iphone, however, will you even need a Macbook at that point? And at some point will they standardize capitalization across all products?
The Related Posts below offer a quaint snapshot of computing history.
posted by mecran01 at 7:56 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
The Related Posts below offer a quaint snapshot of computing history.
posted by mecran01 at 7:56 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
My 2009 27" iMac had a drive failure last year. The shop said they were unable to install a hybrid drive so I opted for a firecuda, not as fast as an SSD perhaps but fast enough and a lot cheaper.
posted by epo at 7:59 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by epo at 7:59 AM on April 3, 2018
mecran01: I really don't think the Mac is going to get a touchscreen. Ever. macOS is not optimized for touch in any way, shape, or form.
What I think will happen is that iOS will become gradually more of a desktop OS, until such time as it can replace macOS for most users. Imagine just being able to drop a tablet on your desk, have it wirelessly connect to big external display, a keyboard, and a mouse, so you can use it as a "desktop" and then pick it up and use it as a tablet, with functional UIs for both.
posted by SansPoint at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
What I think will happen is that iOS will become gradually more of a desktop OS, until such time as it can replace macOS for most users. Imagine just being able to drop a tablet on your desk, have it wirelessly connect to big external display, a keyboard, and a mouse, so you can use it as a "desktop" and then pick it up and use it as a tablet, with functional UIs for both.
posted by SansPoint at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I'm curious; what makes RISC-V a particularly implausible choice?
Doesn't it have some way to go before it can compete with ARM on power/efficiency? Apple could certainly pick it up and build their own proprietary high-performance extensions around it, as they have done with other open-source products, though they already own a high-performance ARM architecture which is ahead of it, and if that doesn't suffice, something tested at the high end like SPARC would be a more likely alternative than a new RISC architecture whose main claim to fame is being open/free to use.
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2018
Doesn't it have some way to go before it can compete with ARM on power/efficiency? Apple could certainly pick it up and build their own proprietary high-performance extensions around it, as they have done with other open-source products, though they already own a high-performance ARM architecture which is ahead of it, and if that doesn't suffice, something tested at the high end like SPARC would be a more likely alternative than a new RISC architecture whose main claim to fame is being open/free to use.
posted by acb at 8:01 AM on April 3, 2018
Specifically regarding ARM vs RISCV, I don't disagree with acb that RISCV is extremely unlikely to be their choice. I imagine there would be a great deal of work to be done to polish compilers sufficiently for it to be competitive in a high performance environment, and they would be unable to leverage any other precompiled software. Plus who knows, maybe it's missing something
On the plus side, they would save on the ISA license and RISCV is quite modular, so it would be easy for them to add whatever instructions they felt they might need. Plus it could be another marketing point, I suppose.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 8:07 AM on April 3, 2018
On the plus side, they would save on the ISA license and RISCV is quite modular, so it would be easy for them to add whatever instructions they felt they might need. Plus it could be another marketing point, I suppose.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 8:07 AM on April 3, 2018
Would adding proprietary/platform-specific instructions to the main CPU's machine code be that much of a win, though? I think that as far as such optimisations go, most of the action would be in coprocessors such as GPUs, signal processors, tensor/machine-learning coprocessors and device-specific chips such as the motion-sensing cores added to iPhones and Apple Watches.
posted by acb at 8:13 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by acb at 8:13 AM on April 3, 2018
They could just... buy ARM. Using the contents of Tim Cook's couch.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 8:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
acb: With regards to the Apple Watch, it's my understanding that the S chip in the Watch is an ARM CPU _and_ all the ancillary co-processors/etc, in one package/chip.
posted by SansPoint at 8:17 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 8:17 AM on April 3, 2018
Things like AES-NI can be pretty handy (an x86 set of instructions which do compute heavy cryptographic operations in hardware). One could imagine they similarly might find that their OS is constantly doing something and want to execute it with a single instruction, like say compute HEIF blocks or something.
I'm just making this up, but it's fun to contemplate.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm just making this up, but it's fun to contemplate.
posted by Kikujiro's Summer at 8:22 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
They could just... buy ARM. Using the contents of Tim Cook's couch.
Too late by a year or two: Softbank beat them to it. And Softbank are huge.
posted by acb at 8:23 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
Too late by a year or two: Softbank beat them to it. And Softbank are huge.
posted by acb at 8:23 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
EMRJKC: Some couch, ARM was bought by Japan's SoftBank in 2016 for about $32Bn. (Rats, the previous reply wasn't there when I started typing)
posted by epo at 8:24 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by epo at 8:24 AM on April 3, 2018
> They could just... buy ARM.iirc, they actually owned a good part of ARM way back when and sold it.
posted by farlukar at 8:26 AM on April 3, 2018
With regards to the Apple Watch, it's my understanding that the S chip in the Watch is an ARM CPU _and_ all the ancillary co-processors/etc, in one package/chip.
In one physical package, but as separate blocks on the silicon: there's a CPU core (an ARM), and various coprocessors, which communicate with it on internal busses, but are distinct from the core. Apple haven't, for example, added special-purpose opcodes for processing accelerometer readings to the ARM core.
posted by acb at 8:26 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
In one physical package, but as separate blocks on the silicon: there's a CPU core (an ARM), and various coprocessors, which communicate with it on internal busses, but are distinct from the core. Apple haven't, for example, added special-purpose opcodes for processing accelerometer readings to the ARM core.
posted by acb at 8:26 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yeah, I've been meaning to, but I really don't want to take the glass off the iMac in my dusty, catty house
uncleozzy, not to be a creeper, but this shop resurrected my partner's failing MBP a few years back with a new SSD and new battery; they're honest, affordable, and know what they're doing, if you need someone.
posted by halation at 8:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
uncleozzy, not to be a creeper, but this shop resurrected my partner's failing MBP a few years back with a new SSD and new battery; they're honest, affordable, and know what they're doing, if you need someone.
posted by halation at 8:30 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm reasonably confident that the Samsungs, Intels and Qualcomms of the world are similarly stocked with highly intelligent and motivated engineers.
I have it on good authority from a Samsung insider that the software arm of Samsung, at least, is stocked with a large enough population of obedient unreflective corporate drones to keep such highly intelligent and motivated engineers as they also have well and truly in check.
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
I have it on good authority from a Samsung insider that the software arm of Samsung, at least, is stocked with a large enough population of obedient unreflective corporate drones to keep such highly intelligent and motivated engineers as they also have well and truly in check.
posted by flabdablet at 8:32 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Don't be silly. Why would Apple make pizza boxes?
posted by loquacious at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by loquacious at 8:40 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
The interesting question to me is what happens to the Macbook Pro? The A series can likely go into the Macbooks without too many problems, but they don't yet have an i7/ryzen level processor. How is that going to work? Is the next MBP going to be delayed? Or will the Pro line be depreciated and Apple focus more on the lower end of the market?
ARMs also have issues with some of the PC buses (PCIe). Does this mean a new Apple bus architecture? There's a lot of upside for Apple there. Does that, in turn, mean going to GPUs too? There's definitely an argument to be made for them there as well.
posted by bonehead at 8:41 AM on April 3, 2018
ARMs also have issues with some of the PC buses (PCIe). Does this mean a new Apple bus architecture? There's a lot of upside for Apple there. Does that, in turn, mean going to GPUs too? There's definitely an argument to be made for them there as well.
posted by bonehead at 8:41 AM on April 3, 2018
I really don't want my next MacBook to be a glorified iPhone which is where things seem to be heading.
posted by octothorpe at 8:43 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by octothorpe at 8:43 AM on April 3, 2018 [8 favorites]
You might not know that your next Mac is a SPARCstation; if Apple bought SPARC from Oracle, they'd probably end up reworking it extensively, taking it apart and merging it into their own chip-design practices, changing opcodes, register configurations and such to fit. Then, when the new post-Intel MacBooks are announced, the word SPARC would be nowhere in sight; it'd be known as something like the “Apple X1 CPU” or the “Apple high-performance architecture”. When they came out, someone would poke around one and report back that it looks nothing like an ARM, and somebody else that it looks a little SPARCy in places. Some time later, it'f be more or less confirmed by an engineer speaking off the record that the architecture's pedigree goes back to SPARC.
Of course, that would be if Apple buy SPARC from Oracle, which probably won't happen. ARM is making advances beyond high-efficiency mobile devices, and is the favourite by a long distance. SPARC just seems like the least implausible of the other options (Apple going with RISC-V, Apple building their own IA64 architecture, Apple switching to MIPS or going back to POWER, &c.)
posted by acb at 8:53 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Of course, that would be if Apple buy SPARC from Oracle, which probably won't happen. ARM is making advances beyond high-efficiency mobile devices, and is the favourite by a long distance. SPARC just seems like the least implausible of the other options (Apple going with RISC-V, Apple building their own IA64 architecture, Apple switching to MIPS or going back to POWER, &c.)
posted by acb at 8:53 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Apple doesn't have Xeon class CPUs in large part because they don't have a computer to put them in - the current chips should already be pretty competitive with i7 out of the box very nearly just by dropping a heat sink and fan on them and adjusting the clock accordingly. And the issues with ARM and PCIe are largely (one assumes) because most ARM chips have no reason to implement PCIe.
posted by wotsac at 8:53 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by wotsac at 8:53 AM on April 3, 2018
I would assume that Apple desktop chips wouldn't be the same as the A Series chips in iOS devices, but would be a different class. There's a lot more thermal headroom and space to play with, even in a laptop, versus an iPad, let alone an iPhone, so they could do a larger, hotter chip that can reach higher clock speeds.
I suppose we'll learn more about this, if we learn more about this, at WWDC, either this year or next.
wotsac: They did promise a New Mac Pro this year, so there's at least going to be something that would be using Xeon class CPUs, one assumes. Again, WWDC would probably be where we hear about it.
posted by SansPoint at 8:55 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
I suppose we'll learn more about this, if we learn more about this, at WWDC, either this year or next.
wotsac: They did promise a New Mac Pro this year, so there's at least going to be something that would be using Xeon class CPUs, one assumes. Again, WWDC would probably be where we hear about it.
posted by SansPoint at 8:55 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
wotsac: They did promise a New Mac Pro this year, so there's at least going to be something that would be using Xeon class CPUs, one assumes. Again, WWDC would probably be where we hear about it.
That should sell well. "Buy buy buy, it's very high performance until increasing numbers of things fall into an emulation layer."
posted by jaduncan at 9:03 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
That should sell well. "Buy buy buy, it's very high performance until increasing numbers of things fall into an emulation layer."
posted by jaduncan at 9:03 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
ARMs also have issues with some of the PC buses (PCIe). Does this mean a new Apple bus architecture?
I expect they'll just bring the outdoors indoors and wire it all together with Thunderbolt.
posted by flabdablet at 9:03 AM on April 3, 2018
I expect they'll just bring the outdoors indoors and wire it all together with Thunderbolt.
posted by flabdablet at 9:03 AM on April 3, 2018
I am wondering if it would make more sense for Apple to straight up buy AMD. They'd then have an x86 chip for which they control the supply chain, and access to a lot of good options for GPUs.
posted by caution live frogs at 9:06 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by caution live frogs at 9:06 AM on April 3, 2018
Buy buy buy, it's very high performance until increasing numbers of things fall into an emulation layer
If it's good enough for Android, it's good enough for you.
posted by flabdablet at 9:06 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
If it's good enough for Android, it's good enough for you.
posted by flabdablet at 9:06 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
If Apple buys AMD, they don't get access to x86. Any change of control for AMD or Intel (either gets acquired) results in termination of their cross licensing agreement.
This all ties into my pet theory on tech doomsday, Apple switches away from x86 CPUs, leaving them no longer dependent on Intel. They then buy AMD. This triggers the termination of the cross licensing agreement, so AMD/Apple can't make x86 compatible CPUs, but they don't care, that's not their play. The problem is that Intel can't make CPUs with AMD's x86-64 instruction set. Intel implodes, taking the entire PC market with them. Apples reigns over the wreckage.
posted by borkencode at 9:22 AM on April 3, 2018 [17 favorites]
This all ties into my pet theory on tech doomsday, Apple switches away from x86 CPUs, leaving them no longer dependent on Intel. They then buy AMD. This triggers the termination of the cross licensing agreement, so AMD/Apple can't make x86 compatible CPUs, but they don't care, that's not their play. The problem is that Intel can't make CPUs with AMD's x86-64 instruction set. Intel implodes, taking the entire PC market with them. Apples reigns over the wreckage.
posted by borkencode at 9:22 AM on April 3, 2018 [17 favorites]
OS8 is back!
BRB, just registering sock puppet account “Sheriff of Copeland”
posted by rodlymight at 9:26 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
BRB, just registering sock puppet account “Sheriff of Copeland”
posted by rodlymight at 9:26 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
> octothorpe:
"I really don't want my next MacBook to be a glorified iPhone which is where things seem to be heading."
You know, to Apple, your opinion is irrelevant, right? Because you just aren't thinking differently correctly. Oh, yeah, move your finger. Get that phone held right, already!
posted by Samizdata at 9:31 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
"I really don't want my next MacBook to be a glorified iPhone which is where things seem to be heading."
You know, to Apple, your opinion is irrelevant, right? Because you just aren't thinking differently correctly. Oh, yeah, move your finger. Get that phone held right, already!
posted by Samizdata at 9:31 AM on April 3, 2018 [3 favorites]
If it's good enough for Android, it's good enough for you.
Which is a big part of why Android phones tend to have faster CPUs and bigger batteries than Apple phones and still perform more sluggishly.
posted by acb at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2018
Which is a big part of why Android phones tend to have faster CPUs and bigger batteries than Apple phones and still perform more sluggishly.
posted by acb at 9:47 AM on April 3, 2018
We're never going to keep Wirth's Law alive if you keep spilling the beans like that.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 AM on April 3, 2018
>> Uncleozzy if you're not running with an SSD, make the change for sure.
> Yeah, I've been meaning to, but I really don't want to take the glass off the iMac in my dusty, catty house, which means finding a reputable shop to do it.
My 2013 iMac's flash portion of the fusion drive crapped out and I didn't want to open it up, so I installed MacOS on a Thunderbolt SSD drive. Looks like the 2011 iMac could also boot from Thunderbolt.
> ARMs also have issues with some of the PC buses (PCIe).
What do you mean? iDevices use PCIe-connected flash. Not the same as slots for GPUs, but seems not-insurmountable, no?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:55 AM on April 3, 2018
> Yeah, I've been meaning to, but I really don't want to take the glass off the iMac in my dusty, catty house, which means finding a reputable shop to do it.
My 2013 iMac's flash portion of the fusion drive crapped out and I didn't want to open it up, so I installed MacOS on a Thunderbolt SSD drive. Looks like the 2011 iMac could also boot from Thunderbolt.
> ARMs also have issues with some of the PC buses (PCIe).
What do you mean? iDevices use PCIe-connected flash. Not the same as slots for GPUs, but seems not-insurmountable, no?
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 9:55 AM on April 3, 2018
Ugh. uncleozzy, I'm in a similar boat -- keeping my Early 2011 MBP going until it drops, upgraded to SSD and RAM double what it officially supports, and I was hoping to keep it going until they move past this RAM-soldered-onto-the-logic-board bullshit, and now it seems I have a two year limbo of will-they-or-won't-they to unveil the Next New Whatever. Oh my dear little laptop, please just keep swimming!
(And I'm a unix curmudgeon who's used Mac as a desktop since the mid-late 90s -- last time I had to do something on Windows was a month ago to troubleshoot a scenario for a customer, and I had a visceral reaction to how user-hostile and unintelligible it is. Bad enough I was contemplating picking up a crappy Windows laptop just so I can run Quicken on it, I'll claw my eyes out before I switch to Windows as my primary platform. Or worse: switch to Linux on the desktop.)
posted by sldownard at 9:57 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
(And I'm a unix curmudgeon who's used Mac as a desktop since the mid-late 90s -- last time I had to do something on Windows was a month ago to troubleshoot a scenario for a customer, and I had a visceral reaction to how user-hostile and unintelligible it is. Bad enough I was contemplating picking up a crappy Windows laptop just so I can run Quicken on it, I'll claw my eyes out before I switch to Windows as my primary platform. Or worse: switch to Linux on the desktop.)
posted by sldownard at 9:57 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Though it's not for want of trying.
Back when I started writing software, the last step in the build toolchain was linking all the object files together to make the final executable. Linking was always pretty slow, and it made nice big executables.
But hardware got bigger and faster, so we had to invent shared libraries and dynamic linking and force the users to do the entire link step at runtime just to get launch times back up to something reasonable again.
Now everything's got a multi-GHz processor in it and RAM and cores out the wazoo, so we've just about hit the limits of what shared libraries can give us on the slowdown and bloatage front. Android bought us a bit of time with the Dalvik virtual machine, but nothing lasts forever. There's really not much point in making users load a thousand tiny DLLs if they can just do that with zero latency off an SSD.
So we're going to need something better. Distributing everything in LLVM format might be a way forward; nice to see Apple pushing in that direction.
Maybe by 2020 we could make everybody launch everything directly off an app store every single time. That should hold them for a bit until we can work out a way just to push out source code.
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Back when I started writing software, the last step in the build toolchain was linking all the object files together to make the final executable. Linking was always pretty slow, and it made nice big executables.
But hardware got bigger and faster, so we had to invent shared libraries and dynamic linking and force the users to do the entire link step at runtime just to get launch times back up to something reasonable again.
Now everything's got a multi-GHz processor in it and RAM and cores out the wazoo, so we've just about hit the limits of what shared libraries can give us on the slowdown and bloatage front. Android bought us a bit of time with the Dalvik virtual machine, but nothing lasts forever. There's really not much point in making users load a thousand tiny DLLs if they can just do that with zero latency off an SSD.
So we're going to need something better. Distributing everything in LLVM format might be a way forward; nice to see Apple pushing in that direction.
Maybe by 2020 we could make everybody launch everything directly off an app store every single time. That should hold them for a bit until we can work out a way just to push out source code.
posted by flabdablet at 10:00 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
My mid-2011 iMac has an external ssd sitting on a 'sled' that balances off of the stand behind it. Best thing I ever did to it. And yeah, I am not gonna rip that thing open in my dusty cat hair home either.
posted by destructive cactus at 10:02 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by destructive cactus at 10:02 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
So we're going to need something better. Distributing everything in LLVM format might be a way forward; nice to see Apple pushing in that direction.
The LLVM Bitcode is never sent to the user's device; the final stage of the build process, converting it to the device's machine code, is done by the App Store servers at download time. (Or, in practice, cached, but same difference.) The user sees no difference between downloading an app that was stored as Bitcode and downloading machine code that was compiled on the developer's MacBook.
posted by acb at 10:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
The LLVM Bitcode is never sent to the user's device; the final stage of the build process, converting it to the device's machine code, is done by the App Store servers at download time. (Or, in practice, cached, but same difference.) The user sees no difference between downloading an app that was stored as Bitcode and downloading machine code that was compiled on the developer's MacBook.
posted by acb at 10:11 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
It's hard to imagine Intel licensing them the IP no matter how much Apple offers.
AMD introduced the AMD64 architecture in 1999, and filed for all necessary patents around that time. (Here's a critical patent filed in August 2000.) That's what the Intel-AMD cross-licensing deal was about. Patents last 20 years.
posted by miyabo at 10:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
AMD introduced the AMD64 architecture in 1999, and filed for all necessary patents around that time. (Here's a critical patent filed in August 2000.) That's what the Intel-AMD cross-licensing deal was about. Patents last 20 years.
posted by miyabo at 10:14 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Apple will have no problem switching to ARM. There'll be very few downsides for users. The guaranteed upside will be battery life. The 'pie in the sky' upside that I don't expect to see will be about $150 shaved off of the price of Macs. Actually, because of all the OTHER custom hardware Apple will have to make, yeah there'll definitely be no savings.
The switch from PPC to Intel barely affected me and pretty much all of my workflows depend upon Mac. I concede that if I had used a lot of plugins back then, it might have been a problem, but if their developers weren't around to recompile, then the plugins would have eventually stopped working anyhow. The switch to OS X was MUCH more drawn-out and painful for everyone.
posted by destructive cactus at 10:43 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
The switch from PPC to Intel barely affected me and pretty much all of my workflows depend upon Mac. I concede that if I had used a lot of plugins back then, it might have been a problem, but if their developers weren't around to recompile, then the plugins would have eventually stopped working anyhow. The switch to OS X was MUCH more drawn-out and painful for everyone.
posted by destructive cactus at 10:43 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
My mid-2011 iMac has an external ssd sitting on a 'sled' that balances off of the stand behind it. Best thing I ever did to it
Using it as the boot drive? Hm, I may need to look into this. I've only got the one Thunderbolt port, though, and I'm using for an audio interface that doesn't daisy-chain, so I'll need to figure out how to connect it.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:46 AM on April 3, 2018
Using it as the boot drive? Hm, I may need to look into this. I've only got the one Thunderbolt port, though, and I'm using for an audio interface that doesn't daisy-chain, so I'll need to figure out how to connect it.
posted by uncleozzy at 10:46 AM on April 3, 2018
Yep, boot drive. Much faster than the internal one, for sure. I'm actually using the fw800 port on the iMac for it, which is probably technically a bit of a speed hit, but still faster than the old spinnydrive.
posted by destructive cactus at 10:57 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by destructive cactus at 10:57 AM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
converting it to the device's machine code, is done by the App Store servers at download time. (Or, in practice, cached, but same difference.)
Does Apple actually do this? When you upload to the App Store you send bitcode and machine code and AFAIK Apple currently sends the machine code to the end user and the bitcode is used for unknown purposes. Has this changed?
posted by grahamparks at 11:09 AM on April 3, 2018
Does Apple actually do this? When you upload to the App Store you send bitcode and machine code and AFAIK Apple currently sends the machine code to the end user and the bitcode is used for unknown purposes. Has this changed?
posted by grahamparks at 11:09 AM on April 3, 2018
I'm keen for this. Intel's a shit company selling a shit product coasting on three decades of nigh-monopoly, creeping ahead only when their legally hamstrung competition finally start to catch up. I will be very happy to never buy another Intel processor. Crossing fingers this ca2012 RMBP keeps on chugging at speed for another 2-3 years.
I'm apprehensive, because I have a fair amount invested in OSX on Intel, but I also think you're right about which architecture has the brighter future so we'll see how it goes.
posted by atoxyl at 11:12 AM on April 3, 2018
I'm apprehensive, because I have a fair amount invested in OSX on Intel, but I also think you're right about which architecture has the brighter future so we'll see how it goes.
posted by atoxyl at 11:12 AM on April 3, 2018
The original x86 Macs were close to being standard PC hardware at the time and it wasn’t that hard to get Windows running on them. Mac hardware has actually diverged quite significantly from your average Dell hardware since then, adding extra Apple designed hardware like the recent coprocessor while omitting other hardware that Windows now expects, like a TPM chip. In particular, most Macs now use a kind of direct access SSD that is alien to Windows so they can’t even boot from a vanilla Windows install. Currently Bootcamp manages to solve these problems and give users a working Windows setup by adding extra Windows drivers (which Apple also has to write) and possibly making other mystery modifications to Windows. However, with the hardware platforms moving steadily away from each other, keeping Windows working is going to get harder and harder with new Macs. That is one more reason I can totally see Apple ditching this whole x86 thing and using their own ARM chips as on iOS. In fact I expected Apple to do it years ago.
posted by w0mbat at 11:17 AM on April 3, 2018
posted by w0mbat at 11:17 AM on April 3, 2018
→ I'm faced with losing everything that they don't port to ARM-based macOS
This is entirely part of Apple's design: dropping legacy hardware means less weird crud to support years after its expiry date. It has the pleasant side effect of Apple guaranteed to get the majority of users to keep upgrading their hardware due to OS lockout. The only users Apple genuinely cares about are the ones who are about to buy Apple hardware. The pesky actual users cost the company time and money to support.
There are already Windows ultralight notebooks that run Windows on ARM and come with an X86 emulation layer. It's currently clunky, but works. I wouldn't be surprised if a fat binary/LLVM intermediate/containery thing becomes how you get software soon. It turns out we were running Transmeta processors after all ...
posted by scruss at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is entirely part of Apple's design: dropping legacy hardware means less weird crud to support years after its expiry date. It has the pleasant side effect of Apple guaranteed to get the majority of users to keep upgrading their hardware due to OS lockout. The only users Apple genuinely cares about are the ones who are about to buy Apple hardware. The pesky actual users cost the company time and money to support.
There are already Windows ultralight notebooks that run Windows on ARM and come with an X86 emulation layer. It's currently clunky, but works. I wouldn't be surprised if a fat binary/LLVM intermediate/containery thing becomes how you get software soon. It turns out we were running Transmeta processors after all ...
posted by scruss at 11:46 AM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
seanmpuckett: "I'm also broke as shit so it would be nice also if this results in a few hundred bucks off the laptop prices in future."
Apple prices are completely divorced from what hardware costs Apple.
posted by Mitheral at 12:15 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Apple prices are completely divorced from what hardware costs Apple.
posted by Mitheral at 12:15 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
a fat binary/LLVM intermediate/containery thing
Brilliant! Everything can be delivered as a Docker instance, complete with multiple embedded LLVM bitcode interpreters for every supported architecture and maybe six or seven versions of node.js, a snapshot of CPAN and a handful of Ruby and Python frameworks for good measure. This should blow the deliverable size out to at least twenty times what it actually needs to be; much more even, for small executables.
Combine that with enforcing a network download per launch and we should be able to overcome every hardware speed improvement that FIOS and 5G and processor manufacturers can throw at us for years.
posted by flabdablet at 12:24 PM on April 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
Brilliant! Everything can be delivered as a Docker instance, complete with multiple embedded LLVM bitcode interpreters for every supported architecture and maybe six or seven versions of node.js, a snapshot of CPAN and a handful of Ruby and Python frameworks for good measure. This should blow the deliverable size out to at least twenty times what it actually needs to be; much more even, for small executables.
Combine that with enforcing a network download per launch and we should be able to overcome every hardware speed improvement that FIOS and 5G and processor manufacturers can throw at us for years.
posted by flabdablet at 12:24 PM on April 3, 2018 [9 favorites]
> scruss:
"entirely part of Apple's design: dropping legacy hardware means less weird crud to support years after its expiry date. It has the pleasant side effect of Apple guaranteed to get the majority of users to keep upgrading their hardware due to OS lockout. The only users Apple genuinely cares about are the ones who are about to buy Apple hardware. The pesky actual users cost the company time and money to support.
There are already Windows ultralight notebooks that run Windows on ARM and come with an X86 emulation layer. It's currently clunky, but works. I wouldn't be surprised if a fat binary/LLVM intermediate/containery thing becomes how you get software soon. It turns out we were running Transmeta processors after all ..."
Let me correct that. Dropping legacy hardware means we can just shrug, be lazy, force our users to purchase all new hardware and software, not have to worry about supporting our financially poor user base, since they aren't going to buy enough stuff anyway, AND take advantage of how we have conditioned our users to buy all new everything periodically, so as to maximize shareholder value. Besides, Daddy needs a new headquarters building!
posted by Samizdata at 12:46 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
"entirely part of Apple's design: dropping legacy hardware means less weird crud to support years after its expiry date. It has the pleasant side effect of Apple guaranteed to get the majority of users to keep upgrading their hardware due to OS lockout. The only users Apple genuinely cares about are the ones who are about to buy Apple hardware. The pesky actual users cost the company time and money to support.
There are already Windows ultralight notebooks that run Windows on ARM and come with an X86 emulation layer. It's currently clunky, but works. I wouldn't be surprised if a fat binary/LLVM intermediate/containery thing becomes how you get software soon. It turns out we were running Transmeta processors after all ..."
Let me correct that. Dropping legacy hardware means we can just shrug, be lazy, force our users to purchase all new hardware and software, not have to worry about supporting our financially poor user base, since they aren't going to buy enough stuff anyway, AND take advantage of how we have conditioned our users to buy all new everything periodically, so as to maximize shareholder value. Besides, Daddy needs a new headquarters building!
posted by Samizdata at 12:46 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I was curious about the current state of Windows 10 on ARM64 e.g. Snapdragon:
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:58 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
- Drivers for hardware, games and apps must be designed for a Windows 10 PC running on a Snapdragon processor or else they won’t work... Some apps that commonly use drivers are antivirus and antimalware software, printing or PDF software, assistive technologies, CD and DVD utilities, and virtualization software.
- If the driver doesn’t work, then the app or hardware that relies on that driver won’t work either (or certain functionality might not work properly).
- 64-bit (x64) apps won’t work. Windows 10 S on Snapdragon supports 32-bit (x86 ) apps, 32-bit (ARM32) apps, and 64-bit (ARM64) apps. Although most app developers offer 32-bit (x86) versions of their apps, some only offer 64-bit (x64) apps. Note: 32-bit (x86) apps might run more slowly than they would on a PC device that has an Intel or AMD processor. This is because 32-bit (x86) apps run in an “emulation” mode on a Windows 10 PC running on a Snapdragon processor.
- Certain games won’t work. Games and apps that use a version of OpenGL greater than 1.1 won’t work. The same is true for games that rely on "anti-cheat" drivers. Check with your game publisher to see if the game you want to play will work.
- Some apps that customize the Windows experience might have problems.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 12:58 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
OpenGL 1.1 came out in 1997. Soooo...
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:05 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 at 1:05 PM on April 3, 2018
Samizdata: On the other hand, these sort of issues crop up with every transition in computing.
Assuming this is a transition to ARM, and Apple handles it like they handled the PPC to Intel transition (with several years of emulation layers, and dual-architecture binaries, etc,) the transition should be fairly painless. I bought my first Mac, a G4 mini in 2005, right at the start of the Intel transition, thinking that they'd get to that model last. Sure enough, less than six months after I bought my Mac mini, the Intel Mac minis were released. That G4 Mac mini, however, lasted me until 2008, and Apple didn't discontinue Rosetta (the PPC emulation layer) until 2009.
posted by SansPoint at 1:11 PM on April 3, 2018
Assuming this is a transition to ARM, and Apple handles it like they handled the PPC to Intel transition (with several years of emulation layers, and dual-architecture binaries, etc,) the transition should be fairly painless. I bought my first Mac, a G4 mini in 2005, right at the start of the Intel transition, thinking that they'd get to that model last. Sure enough, less than six months after I bought my Mac mini, the Intel Mac minis were released. That G4 Mac mini, however, lasted me until 2008, and Apple didn't discontinue Rosetta (the PPC emulation layer) until 2009.
posted by SansPoint at 1:11 PM on April 3, 2018
I can't afford to buy a new Mac and a new set of software. Apple usually supports the last chip— but not the chip before it. I still use PowerPC programs, and I'm still bitter that I can't use my copy of the OED because it's a 68000 program.
posted by zompist at 1:16 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by zompist at 1:16 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
zompist: I really can't tell if you're serious about using a 68000 version of the OED.
posted by SansPoint at 1:17 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 1:17 PM on April 3, 2018
> SansPoint:
"Samizdata: On the other hand, these sort of issues crop up with every transition in computing.
Assuming this is a transition to ARM, and Apple handles it like they handled the PPC to Intel transition (with several years of emulation layers, and dual-architecture binaries, etc,) the transition should be fairly painless. I bought my first Mac, a G4 mini in 2005, right at the start of the Intel transition, thinking that they'd get to that model last. Sure enough, less than six months after I bought my Mac mini, the Intel Mac minis were released. That G4 Mac mini, however, lasted me until 2008, and Apple didn't discontinue Rosetta (the PPC emulation layer) until 2009."
Yeah, not so much. I just saw just saw this.
In short, after May 25th, first gen Apple TVs will no longer be able to use iTunes. So, you Apple fans keep telling yourself this is the kind benevolence of Apple looking out for you. And, I guess Kodi box your first gen?
And, yeah, I realize these transitions happen, but they sure seem to happen more with Apple than about anyone else.
posted by Samizdata at 1:29 PM on April 3, 2018
"Samizdata: On the other hand, these sort of issues crop up with every transition in computing.
Assuming this is a transition to ARM, and Apple handles it like they handled the PPC to Intel transition (with several years of emulation layers, and dual-architecture binaries, etc,) the transition should be fairly painless. I bought my first Mac, a G4 mini in 2005, right at the start of the Intel transition, thinking that they'd get to that model last. Sure enough, less than six months after I bought my Mac mini, the Intel Mac minis were released. That G4 Mac mini, however, lasted me until 2008, and Apple didn't discontinue Rosetta (the PPC emulation layer) until 2009."
Yeah, not so much. I just saw just saw this.
In short, after May 25th, first gen Apple TVs will no longer be able to use iTunes. So, you Apple fans keep telling yourself this is the kind benevolence of Apple looking out for you. And, I guess Kodi box your first gen?
And, yeah, I realize these transitions happen, but they sure seem to happen more with Apple than about anyone else.
posted by Samizdata at 1:29 PM on April 3, 2018
Samizdata: That's an eleven year old device, though. I can see it being inconvenient if you have the original Apple TV, I won't lie, but... how many of those are even in the wild, right now? For reference, that's the Apple TV that was, essentially, a stripped down Mac mini, not even the puck that runs a version of iOS.
posted by SansPoint at 1:32 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by SansPoint at 1:32 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
SansPoint: I'm not sure why I wouldn't be. I don't have the box any more, but the earliest file from it still on my computer dates to 1993. I was able to run the software until 2013.
I know, it's incredibly retro to expect a reference work to be available indefinitely. I have books, too, if you can believe it.
posted by zompist at 1:40 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I know, it's incredibly retro to expect a reference work to be available indefinitely. I have books, too, if you can believe it.
posted by zompist at 1:40 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Sans Point: I am currently using a late 2008 (admittedly upgraded) Core 2 Quad machine as we speak. I runs Win10 almost flawlessly (except for the periodic "feature updates" that never install correctly). So I am not locked out there.
With Apple's service lock in on so much stuff, as soon as THEY decide they don't want to support something, you are pretty much left with a neutered nicely styled paperweight. Although, mind you, a paperweight that Apple has taken steps to keep you from using as anything else BUT a paperweight (I remember trying to get Linux installed on some of my old PPC Macs).
posted by Samizdata at 1:44 PM on April 3, 2018
With Apple's service lock in on so much stuff, as soon as THEY decide they don't want to support something, you are pretty much left with a neutered nicely styled paperweight. Although, mind you, a paperweight that Apple has taken steps to keep you from using as anything else BUT a paperweight (I remember trying to get Linux installed on some of my old PPC Macs).
posted by Samizdata at 1:44 PM on April 3, 2018
There has to be a cutoff point where a company can say "We really can't support software and hardware anymore" usually because the time required to do it is better spent elsewhere, right? It's a pain in the ass, I know, but there are things like emulation (SheepShaver in the case of Classic MacOS software, including 68000-based stuff) to help. We had a similar discussion when Apple announced the USB-C MacBook Pros, and I took the position that needing an adapter is a temporary pain in the ass, because eventually everything will be USB-C. It's still a pain in the ass, but there's more USB-C stuff coming out every month.
And, hey, my primary computer is a 2012 non-Retina MacBook Pro, which runs everything I need and the latest OS pretty flawlessly after five years, though that is after upgrading to an SSD and installing a new battery, both of which are not options on the Retina or USB-C MacBook Pros. That's worth getting grumbly about, I won't argue. It's part of why I haven't replaced mine. Also, you know, up-front cost.
Also, this is far from an Apple problem. Most Android phones don't get the newest operating system. Smart home product companies get bought and their products bricked on a pretty regular basis. It's annoying, yes, but far from an Apple-exclusive issue.
But the way it seems like some folks go on, it's an absolute crime that I can't buy a computer that has an 8" floppy drive, a DE-9 Serial Port, and a Token Ring LAN connector.
posted by SansPoint at 2:02 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
And, hey, my primary computer is a 2012 non-Retina MacBook Pro, which runs everything I need and the latest OS pretty flawlessly after five years, though that is after upgrading to an SSD and installing a new battery, both of which are not options on the Retina or USB-C MacBook Pros. That's worth getting grumbly about, I won't argue. It's part of why I haven't replaced mine. Also, you know, up-front cost.
Also, this is far from an Apple problem. Most Android phones don't get the newest operating system. Smart home product companies get bought and their products bricked on a pretty regular basis. It's annoying, yes, but far from an Apple-exclusive issue.
But the way it seems like some folks go on, it's an absolute crime that I can't buy a computer that has an 8" floppy drive, a DE-9 Serial Port, and a Token Ring LAN connector.
posted by SansPoint at 2:02 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
They [Apple] then buy AMD. This triggers the termination of the cross licensing agreement, so AMD/Apple can't make x86 compatible CPUs, but they don't care, that's not their play. The problem is that Intel can't make CPUs with AMD's x86-64 instruction set. Intel implodes, taking the entire PC market with them.
Don't think this is likely. For a few reasons: (1) the key patents are coming up against their expiration dates, and (2) if Apple actually did something that threatened the x86 cross-license and basically screamed "EXISTENTIAL THREAT" to Intel, they would have to go to the mat over it, leverage the shit out of themselves if necessary—Apple is big, sure, but Intel isn't some two-bit operation. They could make that move very expensive for Apple. (INTC market cap: ~$250B; AAPL market cap: ~$860B)
Plus, it would be a pretty obvious shot at Microsoft (~$710B), provided they don't have a viable route away from x86 by then, which I tend to doubt; they and Intel combined are bigger than Apple. Add in the other big players in the Wintel ecosystem who would also be looking at their own destruction if they didn't act to prop up AMD and keep the x86 market going, and it's serious money.
Intel+Microsoft+Dell could easily artificially prop up AMD and keep Apple from obtaining a majority stake if they felt it necessary, to say nothing of the legions of other companies (and foreign governments with sovereign wealth funds, even) who might want to toss their own wrenches in.
There's probably antitrust concerns in doing something like that in an organized fashion, but I think that'd be hard to make stick, first because it would be a terribly obvious thing to do even without any organized effort—no coordination is really necessary—and second because there would be huge amounts of lobbying and PR pressure brought to bear, and I'm not sure Apple would want to open up the antitrust/are-we-the-baddies worm can if it was serious about trying to rule the world.
And all the other companies would need to do is prop up the shambling corpse of AMD long enough for the cross-licensing patents to expire, and then they could let it die.
At the end of the day what you'd end up with is a Wintel/x86-64 vs. Apple/ARM duopoly, basically a redux of what we had in the 90s. It's entirely possible that's the "stable state" of the IT market writ large. Nobody wants to let a single company dominate the entire supply chain, particularly for office computers that are critical to national and corporate infrastructure. That level of ambition could be Apple's undoing.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:21 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Don't think this is likely. For a few reasons: (1) the key patents are coming up against their expiration dates, and (2) if Apple actually did something that threatened the x86 cross-license and basically screamed "EXISTENTIAL THREAT" to Intel, they would have to go to the mat over it, leverage the shit out of themselves if necessary—Apple is big, sure, but Intel isn't some two-bit operation. They could make that move very expensive for Apple. (INTC market cap: ~$250B; AAPL market cap: ~$860B)
Plus, it would be a pretty obvious shot at Microsoft (~$710B), provided they don't have a viable route away from x86 by then, which I tend to doubt; they and Intel combined are bigger than Apple. Add in the other big players in the Wintel ecosystem who would also be looking at their own destruction if they didn't act to prop up AMD and keep the x86 market going, and it's serious money.
Intel+Microsoft+Dell could easily artificially prop up AMD and keep Apple from obtaining a majority stake if they felt it necessary, to say nothing of the legions of other companies (and foreign governments with sovereign wealth funds, even) who might want to toss their own wrenches in.
There's probably antitrust concerns in doing something like that in an organized fashion, but I think that'd be hard to make stick, first because it would be a terribly obvious thing to do even without any organized effort—no coordination is really necessary—and second because there would be huge amounts of lobbying and PR pressure brought to bear, and I'm not sure Apple would want to open up the antitrust/are-we-the-baddies worm can if it was serious about trying to rule the world.
And all the other companies would need to do is prop up the shambling corpse of AMD long enough for the cross-licensing patents to expire, and then they could let it die.
At the end of the day what you'd end up with is a Wintel/x86-64 vs. Apple/ARM duopoly, basically a redux of what we had in the 90s. It's entirely possible that's the "stable state" of the IT market writ large. Nobody wants to let a single company dominate the entire supply chain, particularly for office computers that are critical to national and corporate infrastructure. That level of ambition could be Apple's undoing.
posted by Kadin2048 at 2:21 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I would be tickled pink if Apple bought the assets of Transmeta...
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:28 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by Annika Cicada at 2:28 PM on April 3, 2018 [4 favorites]
Yes! Crusoe Macs! With full backwards compatability! To the Apple 1!
posted by ckape at 2:39 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by ckape at 2:39 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
SansPoint: "There has to be a cutoff point where a company can say "We really can't support software and hardware anymore" usually because the time required to do it is better spent elsewhere, right?"
True of course. Still we can bitch when our favourite app/hardware becomes a paperweight more aggressively than we'd like.
posted by Mitheral at 2:49 PM on April 3, 2018
True of course. Still we can bitch when our favourite app/hardware becomes a paperweight more aggressively than we'd like.
posted by Mitheral at 2:49 PM on April 3, 2018
Mitheral: Right, but there’s a subtle difference between “Ugh, I wish I could have gotten a little more out of that thing” and “Apple is an evil, greedy company that is just disabling my device so they can get more of my money.” Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason for something to be discontinued.
posted by SansPoint at 2:55 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 2:55 PM on April 3, 2018
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this leaked within a week of Microsoft eliminating Windows as a division—seems like they are as ready to move on from Wintel as everyone.
posted by BlueDuke at 3:43 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by BlueDuke at 3:43 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Well my broad question about this would be, look at what happened to Siri when Apple tried to maintain its own tech. Like, is Apple suited for this transition from being a consumer company to also being a research and engineering company like Intel is, and being able to execute and integrate these roles. The assumption of CPU technology being at a certain stable level is a pretty big one here, even though let's say the PC market's stagnation, as well as Apple's A_n chips, as pieces of evidence for technology stability. So what are the long-term and short-term implications for a computer company trying to pull this off, etc.
posted by polymodus at 4:40 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by polymodus at 4:40 PM on April 3, 2018
My real big issue is that with the tightly coupled ecosystem of services and hardware, when Apple says you are done, you are done. At least with my current machine, if Windows stopped working on it, without too much work, I can put a different OS on it, and avoid it being useless and sitting in storage like my Macs do.
posted by Samizdata at 4:45 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by Samizdata at 4:45 PM on April 3, 2018
polymodius: I think the key difference between Siri and making chips is that Siri is software—software Apple acquired—while hardware has been their bread-and-butter for decades.
posted by SansPoint at 4:54 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 4:54 PM on April 3, 2018
flabdablet:
/me pours another drink...
posted by mikelieman at 5:23 PM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
Brilliant! Everything can be delivered as a Docker instance, complete with multiple embedded LLVM bitcode interpreters for every supported architecture and maybe six or seven versions of node.js, a snapshot of CPAN and a handful of Ruby and Python frameworks for good measure. This should blow the deliverable size out to at least twenty times what it actually needs to be; much more even, for small executables.I have a lifetime of experience in computing, and ladies and gentlemen, my experience tells me that THIS^ is the mortgage-the-house-and-invest-it-all-in trend of the next decade.
Combine that with enforcing a network download per launch and we should be able to overcome every hardware speed improvement that FIOS and 5G and processor manufacturers can throw at us for years.
/me pours another drink...
posted by mikelieman at 5:23 PM on April 3, 2018 [5 favorites]
* buys supertanker.io *
posted by miyabo at 5:48 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by miyabo at 5:48 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
SansPoint: "“Ugh, I wish I could have gotten a little more out of that thing” and “Apple is an evil, greedy company that is just disabling my device so they can get more of my money.” Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason for something to be discontinued."
Well personally I think Apple is much too aggressive deprecating hardware. But that is one of the main reasons I don't buy their stuff. Especially on interconnects. They are constantly bringing out new "this one new interface will solve all your interconnection issues"; supporting it for a few years; then jerking the rug out EG: ADC, USB, Thunderbolt. If you can buy all new hardware every few years great; for someone like me still using a keyboard from 1981 it's pretty annoying.
posted by Mitheral at 6:32 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
Well personally I think Apple is much too aggressive deprecating hardware. But that is one of the main reasons I don't buy their stuff. Especially on interconnects. They are constantly bringing out new "this one new interface will solve all your interconnection issues"; supporting it for a few years; then jerking the rug out EG: ADC, USB, Thunderbolt. If you can buy all new hardware every few years great; for someone like me still using a keyboard from 1981 it's pretty annoying.
posted by Mitheral at 6:32 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
I think discontinuing support for a product is inevitable in a universe with finite resources. What I don’t think is unreasonable is making it legally compulsory for companies like Apple to build devices such that they can be made open for modification after they’re officially EOLed. iPads of several generations ago are extremely capable computers, it’s ridiculous that they’re effectively unusable without significant effort because of a hardware-enforced software upgrade path.
posted by invitapriore at 6:48 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by invitapriore at 6:48 PM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]
polymodius: I think the key difference between Siri and making chips is that Siri is software—software Apple acquired—while hardware has been their bread-and-butter for decades.
Apple may be a consumer hardware company, but are they also a CPU or GPU company is the question. Like, a sushi chef might not make a good fisher/fish-monger. "Do one thing well" comes to mind. The iPhone/iWatch and LLVM/Swift stuff points to an effort to set up capability and integration should they get into in-house, high-performance/high-complexity CPU's. But that area isn't just hardware, it's nontrivial engineering.
posted by polymodus at 7:49 PM on April 3, 2018
Apple may be a consumer hardware company, but are they also a CPU or GPU company is the question. Like, a sushi chef might not make a good fisher/fish-monger. "Do one thing well" comes to mind. The iPhone/iWatch and LLVM/Swift stuff points to an effort to set up capability and integration should they get into in-house, high-performance/high-complexity CPU's. But that area isn't just hardware, it's nontrivial engineering.
posted by polymodus at 7:49 PM on April 3, 2018
Can’t you run the “Internet of Things Windows 10” release on Raspberry Pi now?
posted by wenestvedt at 8:13 PM on April 3, 2018
posted by wenestvedt at 8:13 PM on April 3, 2018
> SansPoint:
"Mitheral: Right, but there’s a subtle difference between “Ugh, I wish I could have gotten a little more out of that thing” and “Apple is an evil, greedy company that is just disabling my device so they can get more of my money.” Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason for something to be discontinued."
I love it when someone makes my point for me. There is a distinct difference between discontinuing hardware and disabling hardware. With the integrated control of the Apple ecosystem, if Apple shakes their head at a product, it is pretty much completely useless without an inordinate amount of time and effort (cf Samizdata trying to get a Mac booting from an non-OS X CD with Ubuntu PPC on it). And Apple has already admitted to making experiences suboptimal on older equipment.
I can't exactly blame them though with such a rabid corps of large walleted supporters/defenders/zerlots at hand that have shown forced obsolence is an acceptible course of action.
posted by Samizdata at 8:16 PM on April 3, 2018
"Mitheral: Right, but there’s a subtle difference between “Ugh, I wish I could have gotten a little more out of that thing” and “Apple is an evil, greedy company that is just disabling my device so they can get more of my money.” Sometimes there is a perfectly good reason for something to be discontinued."
I love it when someone makes my point for me. There is a distinct difference between discontinuing hardware and disabling hardware. With the integrated control of the Apple ecosystem, if Apple shakes their head at a product, it is pretty much completely useless without an inordinate amount of time and effort (cf Samizdata trying to get a Mac booting from an non-OS X CD with Ubuntu PPC on it). And Apple has already admitted to making experiences suboptimal on older equipment.
I can't exactly blame them though with such a rabid corps of large walleted supporters/defenders/zerlots at hand that have shown forced obsolence is an acceptible course of action.
posted by Samizdata at 8:16 PM on April 3, 2018
MetaFilter: zerlots
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:28 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Johnny Wallflower at 9:28 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
they’re effectively unusable without significant effort because of a hardware-enforced software upgrade path.
The thing is, though, it's not just hardware-enforced. The hardware provides the capability to enforce it, but it's the boot loader that actually does the enforcing. If Apple wanted to (or were forced to by court order) it would be easy for them to release, as a final and optional "update" for the OS on what they have officially deemed to be end-of-life hardware, a boot loader that launches a standard UEFI boot environment; the open source OS movement could take it from there.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 PM on April 3, 2018
The thing is, though, it's not just hardware-enforced. The hardware provides the capability to enforce it, but it's the boot loader that actually does the enforcing. If Apple wanted to (or were forced to by court order) it would be easy for them to release, as a final and optional "update" for the OS on what they have officially deemed to be end-of-life hardware, a boot loader that launches a standard UEFI boot environment; the open source OS movement could take it from there.
posted by flabdablet at 9:50 PM on April 3, 2018
And Apple has already admitted to making experiences suboptimal on older equipment.
Apple really bungled the messaging on this, but this is not what was going on. They slowed the clock speed on older phones with aging batteries, yes, but they did this to prevent a more serious problem. If the phone tries to draw more power than the battery can currently supply, the phone suddenly turns off and won't turn back on for a while. I've dealt with that personally, it's not great. Slowing the clock speed to prevent that is prolonging the usefulness of the hardware. Doing that and not telling people until they noticed the slowdown... was a very bad decision.
Apologies if you're referencing some other incident.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:23 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
Apple really bungled the messaging on this, but this is not what was going on. They slowed the clock speed on older phones with aging batteries, yes, but they did this to prevent a more serious problem. If the phone tries to draw more power than the battery can currently supply, the phone suddenly turns off and won't turn back on for a while. I've dealt with that personally, it's not great. Slowing the clock speed to prevent that is prolonging the usefulness of the hardware. Doing that and not telling people until they noticed the slowdown... was a very bad decision.
Apologies if you're referencing some other incident.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:23 PM on April 3, 2018 [1 favorite]
> Johnny Wallflower:
"MetaFilter: zerlots"
Oh, crap. I made a typo, didn't I? I was tablet posting on break at work and the keyboard is strangely laggy on MeFi for some reason.
> vibratory manner of working:
"Apple really bungled the messaging on this, but this is not what was going on. They slowed the clock speed on older phones with aging batteries, yes, but they did this to prevent a more serious problem. If the phone tries to draw more power than the battery can currently supply, the phone suddenly turns off and won't turn back on for a while. I've dealt with that personally, it's not great. Slowing the clock speed to prevent that is prolonging the usefulness of the hardware. Doing that and not telling people until they noticed the slowdown... was a very bad decision.
Apologies if you're referencing some other incident."
Nope. You got the incident right, but I am sorry. I can only see it as Apple pushing for people to abandon old kit and get new kit, messaging aside. What makes me see that is the designed lack of user replaceable batteries and a software design philosophy that declares three year old phones as "too old" for correct functionality. Trust you me, I did do the most due dililgence on the topics as I could, given my lack of desire to own any Apple kit any more. Couple that with other issues like all the reviews of the newest iPad being no real major change from the last, yet it's a gotta have! At this point, the lovely little hacker driven garage company has become a machine to separate people from their money to shame cryptocurreny.
posted by Samizdata at 11:52 PM on April 3, 2018
"MetaFilter: zerlots"
Oh, crap. I made a typo, didn't I? I was tablet posting on break at work and the keyboard is strangely laggy on MeFi for some reason.
> vibratory manner of working:
"Apple really bungled the messaging on this, but this is not what was going on. They slowed the clock speed on older phones with aging batteries, yes, but they did this to prevent a more serious problem. If the phone tries to draw more power than the battery can currently supply, the phone suddenly turns off and won't turn back on for a while. I've dealt with that personally, it's not great. Slowing the clock speed to prevent that is prolonging the usefulness of the hardware. Doing that and not telling people until they noticed the slowdown... was a very bad decision.
Apologies if you're referencing some other incident."
Nope. You got the incident right, but I am sorry. I can only see it as Apple pushing for people to abandon old kit and get new kit, messaging aside. What makes me see that is the designed lack of user replaceable batteries and a software design philosophy that declares three year old phones as "too old" for correct functionality. Trust you me, I did do the most due dililgence on the topics as I could, given my lack of desire to own any Apple kit any more. Couple that with other issues like all the reviews of the newest iPad being no real major change from the last, yet it's a gotta have! At this point, the lovely little hacker driven garage company has become a machine to separate people from their money to shame cryptocurreny.
posted by Samizdata at 11:52 PM on April 3, 2018
I understand some of the comments in this thread.
posted by zardoz at 1:41 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by zardoz at 1:41 AM on April 4, 2018 [4 favorites]
well, yeah, the Tabernacle didn't erase all your knowledge about technology, just the knowledge that would be necessary to destroy the Tabernacle.
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:23 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by GCU Sweet and Full of Grace at 4:23 AM on April 4, 2018
Couple that with other issues like all the reviews of the newest iPad being no real major change from the last, yet it's a gotta have!
Never seen a mid-cycle product spec refresh before, eh? It has a new CPU and supports Apple Pencil. I have the older one and am fine with it, but how DARE Apple hold that education event in Chicago saying that it'd be good for students and offering a lower price for them! They're basically twisting my arm out of the socket and forcing me to buy it! Obviously, it should be illegal for them to attempt to market their products in any way.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:24 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
Never seen a mid-cycle product spec refresh before, eh? It has a new CPU and supports Apple Pencil. I have the older one and am fine with it, but how DARE Apple hold that education event in Chicago saying that it'd be good for students and offering a lower price for them! They're basically twisting my arm out of the socket and forcing me to buy it! Obviously, it should be illegal for them to attempt to market their products in any way.
posted by destructive cactus at 8:24 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
destructive cactus: I'm actually thinking about buying that new iPad! I've got an iPad Air 2, but I want an iPad that supports the Apple Pencil, since I've got this bug up my butt about how great it would be to have handwriting to text conversion, as I absolutely loathe retyping stuff I've written by hand. An iPad Pro is just a bit too dear at the moment, but I could probably swing the new iPad, and I could probably keep using my old Logitech keyboard case with it, too. Win-win!
posted by SansPoint at 8:28 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 8:28 AM on April 4, 2018
The new iPad is not a terrible deal at all, though I have heard bad things about reliability on the Pencil. I am still a little cranky about the final iOS update for my first gen retina iPad basically rendering the thing unusably slow, though (this was a bad choice on Apple's part). It's not even usable as a music player, really. OTOH my partner is still using an iPhone 4S as a daily driver and it's poky but still doing all the things it needs to do. My 6S is still doing very nicely, too. Anecdata, yay, it's what's for dinner while Apple eats everyone else's lunch.
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:19 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by seanmpuckett at 9:19 AM on April 4, 2018
seanmpuckett: Yeah, I had that same iPad, and it was a dog starting with iOS 8, if not iOS 7. There's a reason that model only lasted six months, and I think it's because Apple goofed on the hardware.
posted by SansPoint at 9:33 AM on April 4, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 9:33 AM on April 4, 2018
Apple may be a consumer hardware company, but are they also a CPU or GPU company is the question.
Given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's, they are most definitely a CPU company. And the A11 shipped with Apple's first in-house-designed GPU, which performs better than the the GPU in the A10, which was designed by industry veteran Imagination Technologies. So, Apple is now a GPU company. They're already there.
posted by zsazsa at 10:33 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's, they are most definitely a CPU company. And the A11 shipped with Apple's first in-house-designed GPU, which performs better than the the GPU in the A10, which was designed by industry veteran Imagination Technologies. So, Apple is now a GPU company. They're already there.
posted by zsazsa at 10:33 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's
I'm not actually convinced that this is the case. iOS does feel slightly more responsive than Android on phones with similar hardware specs, but I'm pretty convinced that this is because Android is shit software, not because Apple makes particularly great CPUs. Apple's battery life is also not notably different from anybody else's in phones of comparable size and weight.
Near as I can tell, an ARM is an ARM is an ARM; I don't see Apple doing anything cleverer with their ARM cores than Samsung or Qualcomm are doing with theirs.
posted by flabdablet at 11:04 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
I'm not actually convinced that this is the case. iOS does feel slightly more responsive than Android on phones with similar hardware specs, but I'm pretty convinced that this is because Android is shit software, not because Apple makes particularly great CPUs. Apple's battery life is also not notably different from anybody else's in phones of comparable size and weight.
Near as I can tell, an ARM is an ARM is an ARM; I don't see Apple doing anything cleverer with their ARM cores than Samsung or Qualcomm are doing with theirs.
posted by flabdablet at 11:04 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
> destructive cactus:
"Couple that with other issues like all the reviews of the newest iPad being no real major change from the last, yet it's a gotta have!
Never seen a mid-cycle product spec refresh before, eh? It has a new CPU and supports Apple Pencil. I have the older one and am fine with it, but how DARE Apple hold that education event in Chicago saying that it'd be good for students and offering a lower price for them! They're basically twisting my arm out of the socket and forcing me to buy it! Obviously, it should be illegal for them to attempt to market their products in any way."
You know, the last real Apple Education event I remember being significant was Kids Can't Wait. That was 1983. (Yes, my first real personal machine was an Apple ][.)
posted by Samizdata at 11:27 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
"Couple that with other issues like all the reviews of the newest iPad being no real major change from the last, yet it's a gotta have!
Never seen a mid-cycle product spec refresh before, eh? It has a new CPU and supports Apple Pencil. I have the older one and am fine with it, but how DARE Apple hold that education event in Chicago saying that it'd be good for students and offering a lower price for them! They're basically twisting my arm out of the socket and forcing me to buy it! Obviously, it should be illegal for them to attempt to market their products in any way."
You know, the last real Apple Education event I remember being significant was Kids Can't Wait. That was 1983. (Yes, my first real personal machine was an Apple ][.)
posted by Samizdata at 11:27 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
> seanmpuckett:
"The new iPad is not a terrible deal at all, though I have heard bad things about reliability on the Pencil. I am still a little cranky about the final iOS update for my first gen retina iPad basically rendering the thing unusably slow, though (this was a bad choice on Apple's part). It's not even usable as a music player, really. OTOH my partner is still using an iPhone 4S as a daily driver and it's poky but still doing all the things it needs to do. My 6S is still doing very nicely, too. Anecdata, yay, it's what's for dinner while Apple eats everyone else's lunch."
> SansPoint:
"seanmpuckett: Yeah, I had that same iPad, and it was a dog starting with iOS 8, if not iOS 7. There's a reason that model only lasted six months, and I think it's because Apple goofed on the hardware."
I just do NOT understand this viewpoint. "Yeah, Apple screwed up and made my expensive equipment unusable, either by screwing up the hardware or the mandatory OS, but they are STILL the most kickass around!"
posted by Samizdata at 11:30 AM on April 4, 2018
"The new iPad is not a terrible deal at all, though I have heard bad things about reliability on the Pencil. I am still a little cranky about the final iOS update for my first gen retina iPad basically rendering the thing unusably slow, though (this was a bad choice on Apple's part). It's not even usable as a music player, really. OTOH my partner is still using an iPhone 4S as a daily driver and it's poky but still doing all the things it needs to do. My 6S is still doing very nicely, too. Anecdata, yay, it's what's for dinner while Apple eats everyone else's lunch."
> SansPoint:
"seanmpuckett: Yeah, I had that same iPad, and it was a dog starting with iOS 8, if not iOS 7. There's a reason that model only lasted six months, and I think it's because Apple goofed on the hardware."
I just do NOT understand this viewpoint. "Yeah, Apple screwed up and made my expensive equipment unusable, either by screwing up the hardware or the mandatory OS, but they are STILL the most kickass around!"
posted by Samizdata at 11:30 AM on April 4, 2018
Samizdata: I've been an Apple user for 13 years. I've had six iPhones, four Macs (one desktop, three laptops), and two iPads, plus various Apple accessories. Of these, the only one that was a problem after an OS update was that original Retina iPad. That's still a pretty dang good hit rate. That iPad was still usable, just pretty dang slow. That was the one dog in the iPad lineup, and it didn't reveal it's dogness for a couple years. Oh, well. The number of Windows machines I've used that turned out to be lemons is much, much higher.
But, hey, nobody's making you buy Apple products. You want to buy a Windows or Android tablet, go nuts. You want to buy one of those giant 20 pound laptops with two of every connector and a battery life of 30 minutes? Fine. I like Apple products, and I've only had one that turned out to be... Not even a lemon. Maybe just a lime.
posted by SansPoint at 11:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
But, hey, nobody's making you buy Apple products. You want to buy a Windows or Android tablet, go nuts. You want to buy one of those giant 20 pound laptops with two of every connector and a battery life of 30 minutes? Fine. I like Apple products, and I've only had one that turned out to be... Not even a lemon. Maybe just a lime.
posted by SansPoint at 11:40 AM on April 4, 2018 [1 favorite]
Near as I can tell, an ARM is an ARM is an ARM; I don't see Apple doing anything cleverer with their ARM cores than Samsung or Qualcomm are doing with theirs.
Not all CPUs with ARM cores are alike. It depends on the kind of ARM license the chip designer has. Most smaller chip makers simply license cores as-is from ARM and don't do anything clever with it. It's easy to tell from die shots if someone is just using a licensed ARM core, since they all look the same. However Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm all have ARM architectural licenses – they design their ARM cores from the ground up, but still meet the ARM ISA. A few years ago, Qualcomm was in a bit of a pickle when they didn't have a 64-bit design in time to counter Apple and used off-the-shelf ARM Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 cores for their first 64-bit Snapdragons, and they were awful. However Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon design with an in-house core is pretty much at parity with Apple's A11, so it looks like there's some good competition going on now. So I somewhat take back my "given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's" remark, but some benchmarks still show Apple still way ahead.
posted by zsazsa at 11:51 AM on April 4, 2018
Not all CPUs with ARM cores are alike. It depends on the kind of ARM license the chip designer has. Most smaller chip makers simply license cores as-is from ARM and don't do anything clever with it. It's easy to tell from die shots if someone is just using a licensed ARM core, since they all look the same. However Apple, Samsung, and Qualcomm all have ARM architectural licenses – they design their ARM cores from the ground up, but still meet the ARM ISA. A few years ago, Qualcomm was in a bit of a pickle when they didn't have a 64-bit design in time to counter Apple and used off-the-shelf ARM Cortex-A57 and Cortex-A53 cores for their first 64-bit Snapdragons, and they were awful. However Qualcomm's latest Snapdragon design with an in-house core is pretty much at parity with Apple's A11, so it looks like there's some good competition going on now. So I somewhat take back my "given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's" remark, but some benchmarks still show Apple still way ahead.
posted by zsazsa at 11:51 AM on April 4, 2018
> SansPoint:
"Samizdata: I've been an Apple user for 13 years. I've had six iPhones, four Macs (one desktop, three laptops), and two iPads, plus various Apple accessories. Of these, the only one that was a problem after an OS update was that original Retina iPad. That's still a pretty dang good hit rate. That iPad was still usable, just pretty dang slow. That was the one dog in the iPad lineup, and it didn't reveal it's dogness for a couple years. Oh, well. The number of Windows machines I've used that turned out to be lemons is much, much higher.
But, hey, nobody's making you buy Apple products. You want to buy a Windows or Android tablet, go nuts. You want to buy one of those giant 20 pound laptops with two of every connector and a battery life of 30 minutes? Fine. I like Apple products, and I've only had one that turned out to be... Not even a lemon. Maybe just a lime."
I have an Android tablet, with a quite nice price (Lenovo, around $150), and a folding keyboard and easel case that means my laptop doesn't have to go anywhere any more.
Although you also rather make my point in this comment. 13 years. Six phones, 4 PCs and two tablets. Barring any additional information, I am assuming none of the pieces of equipment suffered catastrophic destruction. This to me strikes me as a rather pricey life cycle. But, for you, that's fine. That's part of the problem to me. The mandatory lifestyle training that goes along with Apple.
posted by Samizdata at 11:59 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
"Samizdata: I've been an Apple user for 13 years. I've had six iPhones, four Macs (one desktop, three laptops), and two iPads, plus various Apple accessories. Of these, the only one that was a problem after an OS update was that original Retina iPad. That's still a pretty dang good hit rate. That iPad was still usable, just pretty dang slow. That was the one dog in the iPad lineup, and it didn't reveal it's dogness for a couple years. Oh, well. The number of Windows machines I've used that turned out to be lemons is much, much higher.
But, hey, nobody's making you buy Apple products. You want to buy a Windows or Android tablet, go nuts. You want to buy one of those giant 20 pound laptops with two of every connector and a battery life of 30 minutes? Fine. I like Apple products, and I've only had one that turned out to be... Not even a lemon. Maybe just a lime."
I have an Android tablet, with a quite nice price (Lenovo, around $150), and a folding keyboard and easel case that means my laptop doesn't have to go anywhere any more.
Although you also rather make my point in this comment. 13 years. Six phones, 4 PCs and two tablets. Barring any additional information, I am assuming none of the pieces of equipment suffered catastrophic destruction. This to me strikes me as a rather pricey life cycle. But, for you, that's fine. That's part of the problem to me. The mandatory lifestyle training that goes along with Apple.
posted by Samizdata at 11:59 AM on April 4, 2018 [2 favorites]
I mean clearly Apple is selling their products solely on their merits otherwise they'd be spending huge money on branding and 'lifestyle' advertising.. Incidentally, you really don't see ads for cocaine either, the product actually does sell itself.
Six phones in thirteen years is 2.167 years per phone... seems like a pretty disposable product to me, just by the numbers. But then again I used to think my buddy was nuts for buying a new car every 4 years so... you know, we all have our vices.
posted by some loser at 12:01 PM on April 4, 2018
Six phones in thirteen years is 2.167 years per phone... seems like a pretty disposable product to me, just by the numbers. But then again I used to think my buddy was nuts for buying a new car every 4 years so... you know, we all have our vices.
posted by some loser at 12:01 PM on April 4, 2018
With regards to phones, I only had to replace a phone once due to hardware failure, and that was my own damn fault.
I can upgrade my phone every two years (well, really, every year, but I stick with two years) through my carrier. I like new phones. Sue me.
posted by SansPoint at 12:16 PM on April 4, 2018
I can upgrade my phone every two years (well, really, every year, but I stick with two years) through my carrier. I like new phones. Sue me.
posted by SansPoint at 12:16 PM on April 4, 2018
I'm writing this post on an 11-year old iMac (2ghz Core 2 Duo CPU). Now, I maxed the RAM about 6 years ago and swapped the HDD for a SDD about 3 years ago, but yeah, I can't tell you how mad I am that I'm 18 months past my last supported OS upgrade (although I still get security updates).
My wife is running a 2009 MBP that I maxed the RAM on and replaced the battery a couple years ago.
They're just so goddamn unreasonable with how they push customers into new hardware with their evil trickery!
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:28 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
My wife is running a 2009 MBP that I maxed the RAM on and replaced the battery a couple years ago.
They're just so goddamn unreasonable with how they push customers into new hardware with their evil trickery!
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:28 PM on April 4, 2018 [3 favorites]
Given how much better their mobile CPUs are than anyone else's, they are most definitely a CPU company.
Yeah but I thought I had acknowledged that in the rest of my question; I was really asking about desktops and laptops, and whether Apple really would want to build and sustain its own engineering/research ecosystem for such microprocessors (their previous efforts were all joint ventures). I doubt it is as simple as scaling up transistor count and power envelope and presto a desktop-class CPU. The competitive targets they'd have to match are Intel, AMD, and Nvidia and I imagine that those companies aren't structured like ARM or Snapdragon. Intel has 100,000 employees to sustain its projects.
posted by polymodus at 1:16 AM on April 5, 2018
Yeah but I thought I had acknowledged that in the rest of my question; I was really asking about desktops and laptops, and whether Apple really would want to build and sustain its own engineering/research ecosystem for such microprocessors (their previous efforts were all joint ventures). I doubt it is as simple as scaling up transistor count and power envelope and presto a desktop-class CPU. The competitive targets they'd have to match are Intel, AMD, and Nvidia and I imagine that those companies aren't structured like ARM or Snapdragon. Intel has 100,000 employees to sustain its projects.
posted by polymodus at 1:16 AM on April 5, 2018
And again, the Mac people make my point. You are so vehement in defending Beloved Apple you can't even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not the company thinks of you as anything else than a profit vector.
posted by Samizdata at 1:38 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Samizdata at 1:38 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
The people who think this would be anything other than ARM are smoking crack, in my opinion.
posted by nnethercote at 3:40 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by nnethercote at 3:40 AM on April 5, 2018
Yeah, has it been recognized that ARM is one of Apple's offspring? 1990, Acorn / Apple / VLSI begat ARM. Reason: the Newton. I can feel the historical context of this.
posted by polymodus at 3:55 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by polymodus at 3:55 AM on April 5, 2018
And again, the Mac people make my point. You are so vehement in defending Beloved Apple you can't even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not the company thinks of you as anything else than a profit vector.
Now you’re just being silly.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:42 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Now you’re just being silly.
posted by Big Al 8000 at 6:42 AM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
Samizdata: And again, the Mac people make my point. You are so vehement in defending Beloved Apple you can't even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not the company thinks of you as anything else than a profit vector.
Every company thinks of everyone as nothing more than a profit vector.
posted by SansPoint at 6:45 AM on April 5, 2018
Every company thinks of everyone as nothing more than a profit vector.
posted by SansPoint at 6:45 AM on April 5, 2018
And again, the Mac people make my point. You are so vehement in defending Beloved Apple you can't even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not the company thinks of you as anything else than a profit vector.
You are so vehement in trying to get people to see themselves through your eyes that you can’t even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not this is even anything that matters. Do you have brands you like? Those companies aren’t thinking of you as anything else than a profit vector. Use what you like. Feel free to debate the merits of one product vs another. But you’re pushing the tired old argument that people who like Apple products are sheep being blindly led wherever they’re told. Some people like Apple and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Samsung and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Microsoft and are willing to spend money on their products. Guess which of these groups of people is stupid for doing what they do? None of them.
posted by azpenguin at 7:42 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
You are so vehement in trying to get people to see themselves through your eyes that you can’t even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not this is even anything that matters. Do you have brands you like? Those companies aren’t thinking of you as anything else than a profit vector. Use what you like. Feel free to debate the merits of one product vs another. But you’re pushing the tired old argument that people who like Apple products are sheep being blindly led wherever they’re told. Some people like Apple and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Samsung and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Microsoft and are willing to spend money on their products. Guess which of these groups of people is stupid for doing what they do? None of them.
posted by azpenguin at 7:42 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
And some people like picking up discarded hardware for nothing from people who crave the New Shiny Thing for no apparent reason, sticking Linux or BSD on it and then using it until it falls to bits. We happy band of bottom-feeding tech scavengers would of course like to thank those of you in thrall to marketing for your perfectly serviceable leavings, but we do think you're all barking mad.
posted by flabdablet at 9:04 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by flabdablet at 9:04 AM on April 5, 2018
flabdablet: No reason you can't be both, either! I've got a clamshell iBook G3 that I picked up from a friend and have been trying to find a use for. Original plan was a home Linux server, but I haven't found a way to keep it running with the lid closed, short of hacking the hardware, and opening that dang thing up is a chore and a half. I've also eyed the tech recycling bin in my building's basement to keep an eye out for any clean, decent junk hardware I could use for the same purpose. Slim pickings, though.
posted by SansPoint at 9:08 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 9:08 AM on April 5, 2018
Original plan was a home Linux server
That's actually a use case where new hardware makes more sense than scavenged. A server typically stays on for extended periods, meaning that the electricity it consumes becomes a real concern.
I have an Odroid XU4 with an 8TB USB3 hard drive connected for this purpose. Total equipment cost was under $200 (got the drive on special), and with my typical service loads it only eats about $10 worth of electricity per year.
Before I got this toy, I was using a comparatively ancient Pentium III box with a collection of scavenged drives set up in RAID 5. It cost me nothing but time to set up but it was a bit noisy, had less than a fifth of the storage capacity, and over five years it added $400 to my electricity bill.
Desktop machines are where the good recycling is at. The one I'm using right now is an ex-school Acer Veriton built in 2009, with a Core 2 Duo E8500, 2GiB of scavenged RAM and a scavenged 2TB hard drive; it runs Debian and I'm completely happy with the way it performs.
posted by flabdablet at 9:43 AM on April 5, 2018
That's actually a use case where new hardware makes more sense than scavenged. A server typically stays on for extended periods, meaning that the electricity it consumes becomes a real concern.
I have an Odroid XU4 with an 8TB USB3 hard drive connected for this purpose. Total equipment cost was under $200 (got the drive on special), and with my typical service loads it only eats about $10 worth of electricity per year.
Before I got this toy, I was using a comparatively ancient Pentium III box with a collection of scavenged drives set up in RAID 5. It cost me nothing but time to set up but it was a bit noisy, had less than a fifth of the storage capacity, and over five years it added $400 to my electricity bill.
Desktop machines are where the good recycling is at. The one I'm using right now is an ex-school Acer Veriton built in 2009, with a Core 2 Duo E8500, 2GiB of scavenged RAM and a scavenged 2TB hard drive; it runs Debian and I'm completely happy with the way it performs.
posted by flabdablet at 9:43 AM on April 5, 2018
flabdablet: Seeing as I'm living in an apartment and my electric bill is part of my rent, and there's already two laptops that are always on, more or less, I can't see it being that much of a problem. I wasn't going to be using it for streaming media, just dicking around with like maybe a Twitter bot or hosting a personal wiki, or some other pointless geek stuff. But I don't really have the time to dick around with any of that stuff.
In fact, that's a big part of why I'm all in the Apple ecosystem after spending several years as a Linux user, and more years as a Windows user before that: I don't want to spend a lot of time getting things set up and, maintaining them. A computer-as-appliance is really all I want to bother with at this point so I can just do what I want to do without a lot of fuss. Say what you will, but Apple products are pretty good at that.
posted by SansPoint at 9:46 AM on April 5, 2018
In fact, that's a big part of why I'm all in the Apple ecosystem after spending several years as a Linux user, and more years as a Windows user before that: I don't want to spend a lot of time getting things set up and, maintaining them. A computer-as-appliance is really all I want to bother with at this point so I can just do what I want to do without a lot of fuss. Say what you will, but Apple products are pretty good at that.
posted by SansPoint at 9:46 AM on April 5, 2018
So are Debian Testing boxes. The installation I'm using right now is an Xfce one I built up eight years ago on completely different hardware, and have just kept up to date with an apt update every so often. When I got the machine it's presently running on, literally all I did to make it go was take the hard disk drive out of the old machine and mount it in this one's chassis. Oh look, everything is exactly as it used to be, only quicker! Commodity hardware FTW.
posted by flabdablet at 9:52 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by flabdablet at 9:52 AM on April 5, 2018
flabdablet: "some people like picking up discarded hardware for nothing from people who crave the New Shiny Thing for no apparent reason"
Yep. That's me. I have 5 Macs at home - an ancient PPC Mini, a 2008-ish white 13" MacBook, 2009 24" iMac, a 2010 17" Pro, a 2013 13" MacBook Pro. And my new work machine, a 2017 Retina Touchbar MBP with everything I could possibly upgrade maxed to the gills. The last one was acquired because we (finally!) got a major grant to land. Everything else was free salvage or a hand-me-down. I survived on my old 2007 MBP for close to 8 years before I picked up the 2013 model - sold the original, used the cash to max the RAM in the 2013 - the 17" was my wife's home computer (that one was found dead, I swapped out some memory and after that it worked well enough). The PPC was dumped due to a dead HDD, I threw in a used laptop drive and that worked as my home server for years. iMac, in an unusually familiar story here, was found dead with a nonworking HDD, I pulled the screen off, threw in a used HDD, and it has been running as my replacement for the Mini for the last 3 years - my son uses it to play Minecraft. The white MB, that was a "gift" from a friend who didn't know what to do with it. It's the only one I acquired so late in the game that it wasn't usable for anything. It and the Mini are slated for electronics recycling. The 17" is up for sale as my wife is now using my old 13".
tl;dr: Macs are expensive, because the hardware is solid. Used ones can have a lot of life left in them.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:04 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
Yep. That's me. I have 5 Macs at home - an ancient PPC Mini, a 2008-ish white 13" MacBook, 2009 24" iMac, a 2010 17" Pro, a 2013 13" MacBook Pro. And my new work machine, a 2017 Retina Touchbar MBP with everything I could possibly upgrade maxed to the gills. The last one was acquired because we (finally!) got a major grant to land. Everything else was free salvage or a hand-me-down. I survived on my old 2007 MBP for close to 8 years before I picked up the 2013 model - sold the original, used the cash to max the RAM in the 2013 - the 17" was my wife's home computer (that one was found dead, I swapped out some memory and after that it worked well enough). The PPC was dumped due to a dead HDD, I threw in a used laptop drive and that worked as my home server for years. iMac, in an unusually familiar story here, was found dead with a nonworking HDD, I pulled the screen off, threw in a used HDD, and it has been running as my replacement for the Mini for the last 3 years - my son uses it to play Minecraft. The white MB, that was a "gift" from a friend who didn't know what to do with it. It's the only one I acquired so late in the game that it wasn't usable for anything. It and the Mini are slated for electronics recycling. The 17" is up for sale as my wife is now using my old 13".
tl;dr: Macs are expensive, because the hardware is solid. Used ones can have a lot of life left in them.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:04 AM on April 5, 2018 [2 favorites]
flabdabblet: You still had to do a fair amount of up-front setup, though, right? I mean for the one you built eight years ago. That’s the issue I have with getting into a lot of this stuff. Just the cost in time of the initial setup, and again, I’m from a Linux background, it’s just been a while.
I’ll still never forget plugging in my digital camera to my first Mac, seeing iPhoto open up and ask to import my photos. Out of the box. No setup. On my Linux machine, getting photos off my camera required opening a Terminal, running a conmand line app, and (due to some weird permissions quirk, I had to run it as a superuser), chowning and chmodding all the files so I could access them from my user account. This was 2005, so I’m sure it’s easier and better now, but I still lack the time or patience to bother with that. I want stuff to just work.
posted by SansPoint at 10:13 AM on April 5, 2018
I’ll still never forget plugging in my digital camera to my first Mac, seeing iPhoto open up and ask to import my photos. Out of the box. No setup. On my Linux machine, getting photos off my camera required opening a Terminal, running a conmand line app, and (due to some weird permissions quirk, I had to run it as a superuser), chowning and chmodding all the files so I could access them from my user account. This was 2005, so I’m sure it’s easier and better now, but I still lack the time or patience to bother with that. I want stuff to just work.
posted by SansPoint at 10:13 AM on April 5, 2018
That should sell well. "Buy buy buy, it's very high performance until increasing numbers of things fall into an emulation layer."
posted by jaduncan at 11:01 AM on April 5, 2018
We've known since a press roundtable in April 2017 that Apple was "completely rethinking" the Mac Pro, in the words of marketing chief Phil Schiller. Now, we have confirmation that the product is arriving next year after some speculation that it could make an appearance this year at a fall hardware event typically reserved for MacBook announcements.I take it back. I would heavily suspect that the new processor architecture will also be on that.
"We want to be transparent and communicate openly with our pro community so we want them to know that the Mac Pro is a 2019 product. It's not something for this year," Tom Boger, Apple's senior director of Mac hardware product marketing, told TechCrunch. "In addition to transparency for pro customers on an individual basis, there's also a larger fiscal reasoning behind it." [The Verge]
posted by jaduncan at 11:01 AM on April 5, 2018
> azpenguin:
"You are so vehement in trying to get people to see themselves through your eyes that you can’t even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not this is even anything that matters. Do you have brands you like? Those companies aren’t thinking of you as anything else than a profit vector. Use what you like. Feel free to debate the merits of one product vs another. But you’re pushing the tired old argument that people who like Apple products are sheep being blindly led wherever they’re told. Some people like Apple and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Samsung and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Microsoft and are willing to spend money on their products. Guess which of these groups of people is stupid for doing what they do? None of them."
I don't like people getting, as I see it, taken advantage of. All I wanted to see was someone like my admin friend, whose opinion is "Yeah, Apple sucks. But they do what I need for work, so I use them." Not these statements of "Yeah, that iPhone blew up and destroyed my hand, but I still get the new model every two years." And I don't feel like any of those other companies are positioning themselves as my cool friend that will make my life more awesome and cool. I pay them and they make kit I like.
posted by Samizdata at 11:13 AM on April 5, 2018
"You are so vehement in trying to get people to see themselves through your eyes that you can’t even seem to spend a second to consider openly whether or not this is even anything that matters. Do you have brands you like? Those companies aren’t thinking of you as anything else than a profit vector. Use what you like. Feel free to debate the merits of one product vs another. But you’re pushing the tired old argument that people who like Apple products are sheep being blindly led wherever they’re told. Some people like Apple and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Samsung and are willing to spend money on their products. Some people like Microsoft and are willing to spend money on their products. Guess which of these groups of people is stupid for doing what they do? None of them."
I don't like people getting, as I see it, taken advantage of. All I wanted to see was someone like my admin friend, whose opinion is "Yeah, Apple sucks. But they do what I need for work, so I use them." Not these statements of "Yeah, that iPhone blew up and destroyed my hand, but I still get the new model every two years." And I don't feel like any of those other companies are positioning themselves as my cool friend that will make my life more awesome and cool. I pay them and they make kit I like.
posted by Samizdata at 11:13 AM on April 5, 2018
Samizdata: I'm not being taken advantage of. I have computers and devices that do what I want and need, and do so with a minimum of fuss, that I enjoy using. I'm willing to pay more for that. No, they're not perfect, and I could get by with commodity hardware, and free software, and all of that, but I don't want to. I don't want the tradeoffs that come with free software of needing to spend more time on my tools. Even if it's just up-front time. I'm paying, in part, for convenience, and yeah, that's fine. That's my priority.
What made me buy a Mac back in 2005, which set me on this whole trip into the Apple ecosystem wasn't Apple's marketing. It was seeing people I know and admire, who are tech-savvy, make the switch and talking about how much easier they felt like their tech lives were with Apple stuff. At the time, I needed a new computer, and I was trying to decide between a $500 laptop, or a $500 Mac mini. I figured I'd get the Mac mini and see how I felt about it after a year. Well, it won me over with that iPhoto thing I mentioned in my last comment.
No, the experience hasn't been perfect, and Apple has done stuff I don't like. For example, I'm probably going to have to replace my laptop in a couple years, and I'm not really thrilled that newer Macs aren't nearly as upgradable as they used to be. But I'll suck it up and deal with soldered-in RAM because the overall experience of macOS and the larger Apple ecosystem is still what I prefer. It all comes down to tradeoffs, and I'm willing to trade a larger up-front cost for a set of hardware and software that works the way I like, does what I need, and works together well with minimal fiddlyness. Linux has come a long way since I last used it, but by all accounts, it's still way more fiddly than I have the time or energy to want to bother with.
posted by SansPoint at 11:27 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
What made me buy a Mac back in 2005, which set me on this whole trip into the Apple ecosystem wasn't Apple's marketing. It was seeing people I know and admire, who are tech-savvy, make the switch and talking about how much easier they felt like their tech lives were with Apple stuff. At the time, I needed a new computer, and I was trying to decide between a $500 laptop, or a $500 Mac mini. I figured I'd get the Mac mini and see how I felt about it after a year. Well, it won me over with that iPhoto thing I mentioned in my last comment.
No, the experience hasn't been perfect, and Apple has done stuff I don't like. For example, I'm probably going to have to replace my laptop in a couple years, and I'm not really thrilled that newer Macs aren't nearly as upgradable as they used to be. But I'll suck it up and deal with soldered-in RAM because the overall experience of macOS and the larger Apple ecosystem is still what I prefer. It all comes down to tradeoffs, and I'm willing to trade a larger up-front cost for a set of hardware and software that works the way I like, does what I need, and works together well with minimal fiddlyness. Linux has come a long way since I last used it, but by all accounts, it's still way more fiddly than I have the time or energy to want to bother with.
posted by SansPoint at 11:27 AM on April 5, 2018 [3 favorites]
→ On my Linux machine, getting photos off my camera …
Is as easy as Mac OS Photos. Attach camera, and they get imported into Shotwell. Better than Apple Photos, Shotwell really does delete the images when you ask it to — Photos grinds on indexing images it's already seen and should've deleted.
posted by scruss at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2018
Is as easy as Mac OS Photos. Attach camera, and they get imported into Shotwell. Better than Apple Photos, Shotwell really does delete the images when you ask it to — Photos grinds on indexing images it's already seen and should've deleted.
posted by scruss at 11:36 AM on April 5, 2018
scruss: I know it's easier now, but it wasn't that way back in 2005. Or if it was, I certainly didn't know about it. I do know that there was something screwy with the USB device permissions in Fedora Core, but I didn't know what, and I didn't know how to fix it, and I couldn't find how to fix it even with the best Google-Fu I could muster in 2005. My solution was just to switch.
posted by SansPoint at 11:38 AM on April 5, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 11:38 AM on April 5, 2018
seeing people I know and admire, who are tech-savvy, make the switch and talking about how much easier they felt like their tech lives were with Apple stuff.
I tried, I really did. The experience went to shit the first time my fingers tried to find the Home and End keys. Then I tried to right-click a thing. Then I switched back. My hands and Apple's control peripherals just do not get along.
I've also been completely spoiled by the GNU userland tools that come with every modern Linux distro, to the point where I become frustrated and enraged every time one of the BSD commands that come standard with OS X turns out to be missing some feature I've come to rely on. I'd rather that stuff just worked out of the box, without my having to faff about with Brew or some shit.
posted by flabdablet at 12:12 PM on April 5, 2018
I tried, I really did. The experience went to shit the first time my fingers tried to find the Home and End keys. Then I tried to right-click a thing. Then I switched back. My hands and Apple's control peripherals just do not get along.
I've also been completely spoiled by the GNU userland tools that come with every modern Linux distro, to the point where I become frustrated and enraged every time one of the BSD commands that come standard with OS X turns out to be missing some feature I've come to rely on. I'd rather that stuff just worked out of the box, without my having to faff about with Brew or some shit.
posted by flabdablet at 12:12 PM on April 5, 2018
flabdablet: The experience went to shit the first time my fingers tried to find the Home and End keys. Then I tried to right-click a thing. Then I switched back. My hands and Apple's control peripherals just do not get along.
I did get an Apple Pro Keyboard when I got my first Mac, mostly because my Model M didn't have the Command key that is, you know, the core of Mac keyboard stuff. But I just plugged in the Logitech USB mouse I had and it worked fine. Including right-click. And the Home and End keys were in the right place on that one.
As for BSD stuff? I'm not much of a terminal guy, so it never was an issue for me. But for you, yeah, roll with the pre-existing Linux terminal stuff.
posted by SansPoint at 12:22 PM on April 5, 2018
I did get an Apple Pro Keyboard when I got my first Mac, mostly because my Model M didn't have the Command key that is, you know, the core of Mac keyboard stuff. But I just plugged in the Logitech USB mouse I had and it worked fine. Including right-click. And the Home and End keys were in the right place on that one.
As for BSD stuff? I'm not much of a terminal guy, so it never was an issue for me. But for you, yeah, roll with the pre-existing Linux terminal stuff.
posted by SansPoint at 12:22 PM on April 5, 2018
AirPods and the Three Stages of Apple Criticism. Especially with the criticisms of Apple users under Stage 2, I'm fairly sure that someone could gin up a bingo card for this discussion, or just about any other Apple-related FPP on the blue.
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:17 PM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Halloween Jack at 1:17 PM on April 5, 2018 [6 favorites]
The people who think this would be anything other than ARM are smoking crack, in my opinion.
IMHO, Apple are overwhelmingly likely to use ARM, as ARM is shaping up into a strong competitor to Intel in the high-performance space, and Apple already have it beating Intel in the mobile space. (Were binary compatibility not an issue, an ARM-based 12" MacBook would make sense today.) However, if ARM was not likely to provide the performance required for a top-end MacBook Pro or Mac Pro, I have no doubt that Apple would not hesitate about kicking it to the kerb and going with something better. Apple have shown themselves to be unsentimental about CPU architectures, and if anything, have spent the past decade moving the tooling to where they can better afford to switch architectures.
In fact, it's plausible that the switch won't happen at once: that there'll be a year or so when there are both ARM and Intel MacBooks, with App Store-distributed apps being installed in the requisite architecture (as Apple did during the 32-bit to 64-bit ARM transition on iOS), apps shipped outside the App Store shipping as fat binaries or bundles with multiple executables, and an Intel emulation layer on ARM getting a workout for the edge cases.
posted by acb at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
IMHO, Apple are overwhelmingly likely to use ARM, as ARM is shaping up into a strong competitor to Intel in the high-performance space, and Apple already have it beating Intel in the mobile space. (Were binary compatibility not an issue, an ARM-based 12" MacBook would make sense today.) However, if ARM was not likely to provide the performance required for a top-end MacBook Pro or Mac Pro, I have no doubt that Apple would not hesitate about kicking it to the kerb and going with something better. Apple have shown themselves to be unsentimental about CPU architectures, and if anything, have spent the past decade moving the tooling to where they can better afford to switch architectures.
In fact, it's plausible that the switch won't happen at once: that there'll be a year or so when there are both ARM and Intel MacBooks, with App Store-distributed apps being installed in the requisite architecture (as Apple did during the 32-bit to 64-bit ARM transition on iOS), apps shipped outside the App Store shipping as fat binaries or bundles with multiple executables, and an Intel emulation layer on ARM getting a workout for the edge cases.
posted by acb at 3:22 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
I tried, I really did. The experience went to shit the first time my fingers tried to find the Home and End keys. Then I tried to right-click a thing. Then I switched back. My hands and Apple's control peripherals just do not get along.
At work, my Macbook is almost always hooked up to a Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard so that I can right-click, have CTRL buttons on both sides of the keyboard and can PGUP and PGDN on webpages. I'm sure that there's some Command-Option-Arrow combination that will let me page down but I'll never remember it.
posted by octothorpe at 4:17 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
At work, my Macbook is almost always hooked up to a Microsoft Mouse and Keyboard so that I can right-click, have CTRL buttons on both sides of the keyboard and can PGUP and PGDN on webpages. I'm sure that there's some Command-Option-Arrow combination that will let me page down but I'll never remember it.
posted by octothorpe at 4:17 PM on April 5, 2018 [1 favorite]
octothorpe If you have an Fn key (also known as the "Eff'n'" key), you can press Fn-Up to PgUp, and Fn-Down to PgDn.
posted by SansPoint at 4:27 PM on April 5, 2018
posted by SansPoint at 4:27 PM on April 5, 2018
> The people who think this would be anything other than ARM are smoking crack, in my opinion.
Crack? Nah, pipe-weed! Switching from intel to Hobbit64
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 10:19 AM on April 12, 2018
Crack? Nah, pipe-weed! Switching from intel to Hobbit64
posted by ASCII Costanza head at 10:19 AM on April 12, 2018
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posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:05 AM on April 3, 2018 [2 favorites]