Apple ARM Based MacBooks and iMacs to come in 2021

This is likely a waste of time. You’re here to be decisive and not actually have an understanding. But here goes anyway.
Need is a strong word. Want is more accurate.
Good. Hopefully people will make their case off of sound business decisions.

Windows has all the applications. Why would Windows consider using Mac applications?
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t have FCPX or Logic which are both big draws. Not to mention the OS and the way it works itself. Why would I want telemetry. Why would I want forced updates? Why would I want to manage driver updates that can wreck my install and be forced to format? Also, hotkeys, spaces, stability, and the like will always be better on Mac. Windows can’t go one direction for more than a year.

There's a reason why no such thing as a Parallels like application is found on Windows to run Mac apps.
That's a very limited reason to have Parallels or VMware. The big reason was to be able to code apps and test apps in other environments (even another instance of macOS running, *gasp*). It should still be very easy to spin up VM's for Android and iOS even after the change.
It is telling that Windows isn't capable of running VM's. Probably because it's not stable enough.
Just like Windows also doesn't have a real terminal/command line interface. If you're a sys admin you're either on Linux or Mac. Windows pales in comparison.

Yes but, who will actually do it and deal with losing money to port their app and support in? Especially when the obvious answer is to get them to buy the newest version?
That’s a question for devs to ask themselves. They can make their own decisions. The response i gave was in regards to a question about getting software on the platform. My explanation was that it’s easy with existing software.

Is that all Mac users need to use their computers for?
No. Most people are casuals that browse. And use YouTube and social media.
Heavy users are covered in creative fields and programming as well as system administration. But your constant distain of Apple and its users is duly noted.

Those don't sound like productivity applications.
That is correct. Good on the reading comprehension. Most people aren’t doing heavy work on their computers. And that’s across platforms. Most people don’t need a computer. A phone is enough.

That's not how the law of thermal dynamics works. ARM is efficient but once you make it as fast as an Intel then the efficiency goes out the window. If Apple doesn't put a fan then you're running the CPU at 100C. Just look at what they do with their Intel laptops.
This is such an absurd response. The a12z is already doing this. A 5w chip is already competing with i5s.
But to directly talk about this: ‘A’ series processors have low power efficiency cores. Also processors only need to clock up and clock down when there is actual workload. Every AMD and Intel professor has been doing this at some level for a decade and a half.
So you let me know why any ARM chip is going to need to spin up to all of its cores to 4GHz in order to browse a website. Especially considering that things like decoding of video have specialized parts on die to do it and don’t require general processing. Which is one of the reasons why Apple Arm is so efficient in the first place.

Apple's ARM at 25-30w is going to accomplish what Intel at 60w isn't capable of. And if they do make a 60w+ chip, that will be reserved for the 16" Macbook Pro which already has an adequate cooling system to deal with any throttling (or obviously desktop). Apple ARM at 60w is going to wreck more or less anything that Intel has been doing for the past 5 years minimum.

I'm going to have a fun time explaining to people why they can run certain games on these ARM Macs because they made a mistake and bought an Apple product. Fun times are coming.
Cool story bro.
 
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I'm sorry, did you buy a Voodoo graphics card to do video editing? Or even a TNT2? These things were made with the intent to play video games and nothing more.

Voodoo1 launched about a decade after graphics card were invented.
 
Hopefully they are able to. I was just going by what I read up to that point. As I said, it could obviously change but sounds like they are working on it already. That would be another step in the right direction and another reason to believe it can be a success. Thanks for the link, hasn't seen that yet (probably because I don't really care to much for apple stuff in general, to locked down for my taste).
I'm hoping it works, otherwise I'm done with Apple. If I have to use a separate computer entirely just for Windows I'll just use Windows. And now I'm hearing the next iPhone won't even include a charger. It's not like Apple needs to watch their margins cuz they're hurting financially. I don't like the direction they've been going.
 
Did you read the ONE line you quoted from my post where you first pounced? :
" If I were in the market for a Mac, and didn't need Windows application support, I would be holding off waiting for a ARM Mac. "

Now you are rambling about needing Windows applications.

Obviously if you NEED windows applications I would not suggest waiting for an ARM Mac. There is subset of people that do need this, but they aren't the majority.

Thus I think the majority of potential Mac buyers(those that don't need Windows), would be better served waiting to see the ARM machines.
I agree, I even stated it's a niche group. I also said you had me (aka, I was in agreement) until I hit that line. Meaning I agree with the majority of what you said, was just poinnting out that some users who can currently run a Mac and do this (run windows apps that they can't get for Mac, but overall prefer them), may not be able to going forward. I worked with a few guys that ran their software on a Mac but we had windows specific software (Rockwell PLC software with some other industrial software) that they were able to run under parallel. When you said you need windows apps and we were talking about Mac I assumed you were talking about running windows apps on Mac like is currently possible in many cases. I was just making the point that they could possibly lose this (admittedly small) group. It appears the company that makes parallel may be working on something to bridge this gap, which would be another + towards its success.

Ps. I took your statement about needing windows apps as under Mac since this is how Mac users currently do it. I realize by your reaction you were just saying you'd never use a Mac because you need windows itself. Sorry for the confusion but since this was a Mac thread and running windows apps on a Mac is common practice, that's how I read your statement.
 
I agree, I even stated it's a niche group. I also said you had me (aka, I was in agreement) until I hit that line. Meaning I agree with the majority of what you said, was just poinnting out that some users who can currently run a Mac and do this (run windows apps that they can't get for Mac, but overall prefer them), may not be able to going forward. I worked with a few guys that ran their software on a Mac but we had windows specific software (Rockwell PLC software with some other industrial software) that they were able to run under parallel. When you said you need windows apps and we were talking about Mac I assumed you were talking about running windows apps on Mac like is currently possible in many cases. I was just making the point that they could possibly lose this (admittedly small) group. It appears the company that makes parallel may be working on something to bridge this gap, which would be another + towards its success.

Ps. I took your statement about needing windows apps as under Mac since this is how Mac users currently do it. I realize by your reaction you were just saying you'd never use a Mac because you need windows itself. Sorry for the confusion but since this was a Mac thread and running windows apps on a Mac is common practice, that's how I read your statement.

I feel like you are still missing the point. My recommendation wasn't about me, and it was generically this:

A) If you DON'T Need Windows Applications on a Mac, Wait for an ARM Mac.

I stated previously, the other side of that coin:

B) If you DO Need Windows Applications on a Mac, get an Intel Mac.

You jumped in and stated you had a problem with A) Based on needing Windows applications, when I specifically said this was only intended for people that didn't need Windows applications.

Now that both cases are there explicitly stated, do you still have a problem with A) ?


Now as far as my personal case, I don't need Windows applications, but I would like to have them, and really there is no way I am parting with my old legacy Windows games.

I could add an ARM Mac mini if it were cheap enough, but I would keep a Windows PC for gaming.
 
No it doesn’t. It doesn’t have FCPX or Logic which are both big draws.
Commercial-grade NLE and DAP don't exist outside of the Mac'o'sphere?
Not to mention the OS and the way it works itself. Why would I want telemetry. Why would I want forced updates? Why would I want to manage driver updates that can wreck my install and be forced to format?
Preventing drivers from wrecking the OS while maintaining performance has been one of the key advancements starting with Windows Vista that continues through Windows 10. Telemetry I'll give you based on your definition, but I also understand it from the enterprise perspective. Apple can leave security to the wind because their install base is so small as to not be worth targeting first; Microsoft has had to become a leader in security research just to protect your average user from themselves.
Also, hotkeys, spaces, stability, and the like will always be better on Mac.
This sounds like a personal problem.
Windows can’t go one direction for more than a year.
They've been going in the same direction for a decade...
That's a very limited reason to have Parallels or VMware. The big reason was to be able to code apps and test apps in other environments (even another instance of macOS running, *gasp*). It should still be very easy to spin up VM's for Android and iOS even after the change.
The only thing you can't develop for on a Windows system is MacOS...
It is telling that Windows isn't capable of running VM's. Probably because it's not stable enough.
This is... laughable.
Just like Windows also doesn't have a real terminal/command line interface. If you're a sys admin you're either on Linux or Mac. Windows pales in comparison.
They have Terminal, a version of PowerShell that's open and cross-platform, and are developing a command-line package manager called winget. Then you have whichever Linux distro you want available at the command-line.
That’s a question for devs to ask themselves. They can make their own decisions. The response i gave was in regards to a question about getting software on the platform. My explanation was that it’s easy with existing software.
If Apple tightens their grip on the ecosystem with the ARM push, then the real difference will be that Apple has turned all of their computing devices into appliances, not just their mobile line. Given their very poor lack of penetration into most computing levels outside of consumer laptops, this makes some sense, but it also means that they'll lose what little appeal they had to anyone that likes to 'color outside the lines'.
No. Most people are casuals that browse. And use YouTube and social media.
Most could get by with a Chromebook; I know I could, if I could stand the interface, for most 'work'. In other news, this is exactly the platform that Apple is intent to imitate.
Heavy users are covered in creative fields and programming as well as system administration.
'Heavy' users aren't using consumer electronics to do this stuff. They're using datacenters. A Mac is just a pretty terminal.
But your constant distain of Apple and its users is duly noted.
Those that blindly use Apple products are just consumers. Anyone else that does so purposefully has to enjoy working in a box controlled by Apple. I assume some find comfort in that; some people don't like making decisions for themselves, after all.
This is such an absurd response. The a12z is already doing this. A 5w chip is already competing with i5s.
But to directly talk about this: ‘A’ series processors have low power efficiency cores. Also processors only need to clock up and clock down when there is actual workload. Every AMD and Intel professor has been doing this at some level for a decade and a half.
So you let me know why any ARM chip is going to need to spin up to all of its cores to 4GHz in order to browse a website. Especially considering that things like decoding of video have specialized parts on die to do it and don’t require general processing. Which is one of the reasons why Apple Arm is so efficient in the first place.

Apple's ARM at 25-30w is going to accomplish what Intel at 60w isn't capable of. And if they do make a 60w+ chip, that will be reserved for the 16" Macbook Pro which already has an adequate cooling system to deal with any throttling (or obviously desktop). Apple ARM at 60w is going to wreck more or less anything that Intel has been doing for the past 5 years minimum.
This is going to need... significant independent verification.

Very likely, the only things that will be 'competitive' with desktop-class processors will be things that Apple says you should be doing with their hardware, because that's what they actually optimized their logic for.

Anything unoptimized is likely to run poorly, if at all.
 
I can’t wait to see what they actually release and how it performs, then we’ll know which one of you armchair processor designers “called it”!
 
Apple can leave security to the wind because their install base is so small as to not be worth targeting first.
This hasn't been true in a very long time. They have 1/4th the active users that Microsoft currently does, which is saying a lot.
 
I feel like you are still missing the point. My recommendation wasn't about me, and it was generically this:

A) If you DON'T Need Windows Applications on a Mac, Wait for an ARM Mac.

I stated previously, the other side of that coin:

B) If you DO Need Windows Applications on a Mac, get an Intel Mac.

You jumped in and stated you had a problem with A) Based on needing Windows applications, when I specifically said this was only intended for people that didn't need Windows applications.

Now that both cases are there explicitly stated, do you still have a problem with A) ?


Now as far as my personal case, I don't need Windows applications, but I would like to have them, and really there is no way I am parting with my old legacy Windows games.

I could add an ARM Mac mini if it were cheap enough, but I would keep a Windows PC for gaming.
I concur with those statements, probably due to my assumptions/misunderstanding. I'm not a huge apple person. I actually like them in general, but ever since I started doing phone development and I found you had to jailbreak and install 3rd party libs just to use serial over Bluetooth I've been turned off from wasting my time (now if someone hired me to I'd suck it up, but it was for a hobby) on such a locked down platform.
 
Commercial-grade NLE and DAP don't exist outside of the Mac'o'sphere?
It's not a matter of "does x exist", it's a matter of whether or not it's the best one for your purposes. The fact that there are over 4 NLE's on Windows should tell you that, much the same as on macOS.

Preventing drivers from wrecking the OS while maintaining performance has been one of the key advancements starting with Windows Vista that continues through Windows 10. Telemetry I'll give you based on your definition, but I also understand it from the enterprise perspective.
It's worse from the enterprise perspective. If you want, I can just go ahead and link a search to the Hardforums own "Operating Systems" subforum where you can see plenty of admins incredibly annoyed at Windows pushing of updates that break things.

Apple can leave security to the wind because their install base is so small as to not be worth targeting first; Microsoft has had to become a leader in security research just to protect your average user from themselves.
You can have any reason you want.

This sounds like a personal problem.
Or a UI/UX issue which Windows basically fails at. As much as Android users want to harp that iOS looks the same, Windows basically is functionally the same after 25 years. They made Tiles for the start menu... which also may be going away. And telemetry ridden Cortana. And that's about it.

They've been going in the same direction for a decade...

This is a fun one. Steven Sinofsky Disagrees with you. Considering he was the president of Windows and actually developed the Windows operating system for a number of years, I'll take his opinion over yours.
https://www.ped30.com/2020/06/28/apple-silicon-steven-sinofsky/
https://medium.learningbyshipping.com/apples-relentless-strategy-and-execution-7544a76aa26

To directly quote his tweet:
"7/ But really that is incredibly brave when so much could potentially change, more importantly could go wrong. Every big company does multi-year planning (I did) but everyone knows those plans mean little after a fiscal year. Apple is entirely different in that regard."

He's impressed with their multi-year strategy. Considering your entire retort is basically just an attempt to take a shit on Apple, I'll take any of his answers about the numerous problems with Windows over any of your anecdotal evidence.

Such as all the issues with carry garbage legacy around, not really being able to do anything visionary with the platform because basically Microsoft is beholden to Enterprises. Windows is basically the biggest and longest running camel there is.

"Or did it. As it would turn out we finally had a breakthrough in this in coming to grips with the fact that an 8 year old computer was also not a computer that would ever get new software. So why bother? Well, with an enterprise agreement customer all they have to do is ask. Microsoft was in fact beholden to these customers."

They have Terminal, a version of PowerShell that's open and cross-platform, and are developing a command-line package manager called winget. Then you have whichever Linux distro you want available at the command-line.
I'll take your word for it. Yay. Windows has two check boxes. That and gaming.

If Apple tightens their grip on the ecosystem with the ARM push, then the real difference will be that Apple has turned all of their computing devices into appliances, not just their mobile line. Given their very poor lack of penetration into most computing levels outside of consumer laptops, this makes some sense, but it also means that they'll lose what little appeal they had to anyone that likes to 'color outside the lines'.
You're going to need to sight a lot of evidence. This is just your unsubstantiated opinion.

Most could get by with a Chromebook; I know I could, if I could stand the interface, for most 'work'. In other news, this is exactly the platform that Apple is intent to imitate.
You're going to need to sight a lot of evidence. This is just your unsubstantiated opinion.

'Heavy' users aren't using consumer electronics to do this stuff. They're using datacenters. A Mac is just a pretty terminal.
One that gets the job done and is way more preferred than Windows.

Those that blindly use Apple products are just consumers. Anyone else that does so purposefully has to enjoy working in a box controlled by Apple. I assume some find comfort in that; some people don't like making decisions for themselves, after all.
Exactly. Just like those Windows 10 updates getting pushed. People can't make their own decisions. Or to actually fully manage how their own operating system works without buying enterprise version and likely using console commands and then using third party software. I'm sure all the sys-admins are enjoying 2004.
I know all our people aren't:
https://hardforum.com/threads/windo...ved-the-defer-feature-update-setting.1998291/
https://hardforum.com/threads/how-to-turn-off-auto-updates-win-10-pro.1996510/#post-1044640223
https://hardforum.com/threads/updat...ow-i-have-to-re-activate-windows-wtf.1997340/
https://hardforum.com/threads/windo...preferences-after-every-major-update.1998087/


This is going to need... significant independent verification.

Very likely, the only things that will be 'competitive' with desktop-class processors will be things that Apple says you should be doing with their hardware, because that's what they actually optimized their logic for.

Anything unoptimized is likely to run poorly, if at all.
You're going to need to sight a lot of evidence. This is just your unsubstantiated opinion.

In any case, we're gonna see. But even if these machines are 10x faster than their Windows bretheren, it won't change anything for you. You're not invested at all in the Mac platform and you're mostly just here to stir the pot.
 
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So if I don't agree with you it isn't civil? You guys want an echo chamber where everyone agrees with you?
Not necessarily, where it is frustrating is that when you are presented with factual information, not just opinions, you tend to brush it off and then state an outdated or obsolete claim that has either already been disproven or, if correct, still refers to tech from years/decades ago which is no longer applicable to the current state of technology; that isn't meant to be a cut against you personally or anything, it's just a general observation from discussing things with you thus far.
I certainly don't want an echo chamber where everyone speaks the same thing, but when factual information (not opinions or speculation) is presented, it would be nice to have a conversation about it without a blatant disregard for it.

In order to see the forest through the trees, what I'm trying to get across isn't that I'm pro-Apple, but more so that they are going to be the ones who initially take the next large step to making the ARM ISA a feasible platform for laptops, desktops, and workstations, and beyond mobile devices and specialized servers.
ARM has a lot of potential, and Apple has laid the x86-64 transitional groundwork for it on said platforms.

Will this potentially alienate gamers, Windows-users, and certain specialized use-case scenarios - yes, but those areas were never Apple's market to begin with, and worse-case, the pendulum swings back to where we were at in 2005.
While I am in agreement with you that those aren't necessarily good things, I am looking forward to the branching markets which will emerge after Apple takes hold with their ARM-based systems.

It will also increase the competition against x86-64 CPUs, which will keep help keep the fire hot under AMD to continue to innovate, and drive another nail into Intel's mismanaged casket.
These are positive aspects that will be a win for gamers, developers, markets, etc., and it all begins with Apple - even if they aren't directly the win for these groups, they will be the catalyst which will lead to other companies developing products that will produce the functions we want and require.

I do respect the healthy dose of skepticism you present, though I do think it might be a good option to consider facts that are presented.
Marketing BS is just that, marketing BS, but when we see actual results of real-world performance, that is a hard claim to deny, and I don't see a megacorp the size of Apple pulling a bait-n-switch on performance; Microsoft and Sony, on the other hand, I will agree with you until the product is launched and the technology proven otherwise. ;)


EDIT:
The more I think on this, I do agree with you that we should be able to do what we want with our equipment, and if we want to run games on it, Apple or otherwise, we should be able to.
Your comments to be before about the PS3 and how Sony took away the ability to run the OtherOS hypervisor with Linux in 2010 was bullshit, and in a later court case, it was actually overturned, legally allowing users to again use OtherOS in older firmware versions (even though Sony never re-implemented it into their PS3 Firmware).

So, it would be hypocritical to say that we should be able to run Linux on a PS3, but not games on an Apple system, and I am not saying that.
Hopefully Apple will continue to support Steam, and either include functionality for the existing x86-64 library of games on ARM, or include an option for developers of that library of games to be able to patch or re-develop those games for ARM on MacOS.

But, if they don't, then vote with your wallet, and use what works.
Again, though, gaming is not Apple's primary market nor focus, and has been a convenient afterthought from 2006-present, so that functionality is definitely up in the air.

Really, though, they need to include gaming functionality, much like how they demoed Tomb Raider in their 2020 keynote, as we need optimized games on their ARM platform to help us compare the real-world performance of their ARM CPUs to existing x86-64 CPUs.
Again, another positive to come out of this will be the added real-world performance comparisons that this will now grant to us to compare ARM to x86-64; we have the emulated/METAL/Rosetta 2 performance comparison, now we need the bare-metal performance comparison.
 
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The only thing I can find about this is here, and while it looks good it isn't exactly a benchmark value.

So according to that link the emulated Geekbench runs on the new Mac with a "single-core score of 811 and an average multi-core score of 2871". This is all running on the Apple A12Z. But normally that SOC gets a score of 1,117 and 4,712. That's about 25.4% slower in single-core and 45.2% slower in multi-core. That's what I would expect and not very different from QEMU. It looks respectable, but again this is based on a synthetic benchmark that isn't exactly telling us the whole story. Also, you are losing at least 25 percent of your systems performance in x86 applications. We don't even know if the Apple A12Z is what Apple will use in their new Macs.

They have already stated the A12Z will not ship in Macs and should not be used as any sort of metric of what macs will perform like.
 
Apple can leave security to the wind because their install base is so small as to not be worth targeting first; Microsoft has had to become a leader in security research just to protect your average user from themselves.

Apple is VERY security and privacy focused under Tim cook. The days of Apple security by obscurity are a decade+ gone.



They've been going in the same direction for a decade...

What direction is that? Because it looks like MS seems to be alienating Windows customers more and more.



If Apple tightens their grip on the ecosystem with the ARM push, then the real difference will be that Apple has turned all of their computing devices into appliances, not just their mobile line. Given their very poor lack of penetration into most computing levels outside of consumer laptops, this makes some sense, but it also means that they'll lose what little appeal they had to anyone that likes to 'color outside the lines'.

ARM Macs are as open as Intel Macs, there is no App store requirement.



This is going to need... significant independent verification.

Very likely, the only things that will be 'competitive' with desktop-class processors will be things that Apple says you should be doing with their hardware, because that's what they actually optimized their logic for.

Anything unoptimized is likely to run poorly, if at all.

I think Apple deserves significant benefit of the doubt here. Their ARM SoCs domination of the field looks like Intels domination over Bulldozer in the old days. They have banked a lot of credibility with two previous architecture transitions.

Previous architecture transitions were driven by necessity. This time Apple has the best SoC, based in their own internal CPU core design, all the money in the world, and years to get ready for a transition they didn't have to rush, and could wait until every piece was ready. They could have coasted along on the same industry standard x86 architecture as their competitors, but instead decided to push for something beyond that.

To think that are going to deliver something stumbles and falls short of the competition, seems to be ignoring the evidence.

Emulated speed will likely feel like native for most users in most applications.

But Native should fly, and shouldn't run poorly for anything.

Really the only thing that suffers is the loss of Windows, and that will be a big blow for a subset of users, but they are the minority. Things will be better for the majority.

Long term, I expect ARM Windows, to be supported via virtualization. Which will probably make Macs the fastest ARM Windows machines. :D

But this may depend on MS improving the mess that is ARM Windows.
 
Why?

Given that iPads now support KB/Mice/Touch/stylus, and runs on ARM, it seems kind of pointless to switch KB/Mouse only Macs to ARM.

Not when you can charge $3k for an arm laptop the profits will be tremendous
 

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Apple is VERY security and privacy focused under Tim cook. The days of Apple security by obscurity are a decade+ gone.
They're certainly focused on being seen as privacy conscious; they're also not leaders in malware and attack vector research.
It's worse from the enterprise perspective. If you want, I can just go ahead and link a search to the Hardforums own "Operating Systems" subforum where you can see plenty of admins incredibly annoyed at Windows pushing of updates that break things.
Sysadmins that don't test updates before pushing them out to their clients...?
Or a UI/UX issue which Windows basically fails at. As much as Android users want to harp that iOS looks the same, Windows basically is functionally the same after 25 years. They made Tiles for the start menu... which also may be going away. And telemetry ridden Cortana. And that's about it.
...and we have people here complaining about the UI changes and clinging to deprecated operating systems that no longer get security patches...
He's impressed with their multi-year strategy. Considering your entire retort is basically just an attempt to take a shit on Apple, I'll take any of his answers about the numerous problems with Windows over any of your anecdotal evidence.

Such as all the issues with carry garbage legacy around, not really being able to do anything visionary with the platform because basically Microsoft is beholden to Enterprises. Windows is basically the biggest and longest running camel there is.

"Or did it. As it would turn out we finally had a breakthrough in this in coming to grips with the fact that an 8 year old computer was also not a computer that would ever get new software. So why bother? Well, with an enterprise agreement customer all they have to do is ask. Microsoft was in fact beholden to these customers."
Apple's multi-year planning is succeeding largely in part due to the fanaticism of their user base and their users willing to accept significant compromises, something you don't find in the enterprise.
Windows has two check boxes.
Windows has all the check boxes. Apple is taking more away...
You're going to need to sight a lot of evidence. This is just your unsubstantiated opinion.
I don't really need to; the evidence is in sales. Tablets and phones significantly oversell laptops and desktops.
Considering your entire retort is basically just an attempt to take a shit on Apple
This is how you're taking and responding to my post, not how it is 'meant'. Apple is moving to ARM, an architecture that may be able to be pushed to be competitive with five year-old desktop technology, using more advanced fabrication technologies and a decade of research. And then there's the quite obvious limitation of architecture changes. Apple using x86 was a boon to software development on their systems, not the least of which because other software would work on their hardware with a different OS booted.

Unless Apple is keen on providing support for other operating systems on their ARM Macs to ease software development, the resulting systems are going to wind up being little more than appliances simply because the bar for expanding their functionality will be too high.

Also, I'm not at all interested in 'shitting' on Apple, and I do think that they're going to make some really nice appliances with their ARM Macs.
One that gets the job done and is way more preferred than Windows.
I can run a terminal on anything. At least a Dell Latitude or XPS would have a common keyboard layout!
People can't make their own decisions.
Well, this is how Apple operates. Limiting user choice. What Microsoft has done has been to address the spread of botnets and their use for a myriad of shady purporses, and they've done that work across platforms and operating systems. Apple really is the odd man out there!

But even if these machines are 10x faster than their Windows bretheren, it won't change anything for you.
10x faster at what?

I expect these machines to be significantly faster upon release at certain approved workloads within Apple's walled garden; it's the other stuff that's questionable, and that's well within reason given the approach that they're taking.
 
They have a lot more secure HW than Intel, and there are specific HW security enforcement features in the new silicon, that will migrate from iPhone/iPad to the Mac when they shift to ARM CPUs:
Compared to Skylake?

Probably.

But that's also at the hardware level; an attacker gets there, you've already failed. I'm talking about the rest of the stack, which Apple also develops.
 
Compared to Skylake?

Probably.

But that's also at the hardware level; an attacker gets there, you've already failed. I'm talking about the rest of the stack, which Apple also develops.

This is HW security enforcement of the SW stack, which is advantage Apple since they control both.
 
Yeah because Intel and Microsoft have been such an amazing security combination up till now :LOL:
To be fair, the xbox one has avoided piracy for 6 years, now. People can use all sorts of handwavy excuses for why, but in the end, it's managed to avoid it.
 
Apple MacOS Arm64 will only support Apple Metal GPUs


While one might be comfortable accepting that Apple's Metal GPUs are going to be fine and dandy in its consumer portables and desktops, there are questions about whether third party GPU architectures will be supported by higher-end Macs, like the MacBook Pro and Mac Pro machines. Currently GPUs from the likes of AMD do a lot of heavy lifting for Apple's pro-targeted machines and it will be very interesting to see if Apple has the confidence and capabilities to simply use its own processors, or will support AMD/Nvidia some way, like eGPU or accelerator AICs.

https://m.hexus.net/tech/news/graphics/143962-apple-macos-arm64-will-support-apple-metal-gpus/
 
Shouldn’t be too surprising.

if they’re already building a whole solution that includes a GPU competitive with entry-level desktop graphics (maybe even mid-range in some cases), and they are dropping Intel to have better control of their product stack and timelines for updates, why would they keep GPUs from third parties that could restrict their schedule similarly to Intel CPUs?

Two years to continue to release intel-based macs with third party GPUs also gives them plenty of time to build their own APU competitive with higher end x86 and GPUs.

(and by competitive I mean “sufficiently capable for their target audience and faster than anything they have now“, not “pushes the same benchmark scores as a $1500 NVIDIA gpu”)
 
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IIRC, the 3D package they demoed running under Rosetta, uses OGL not Metal. So while OGL support is deprecated, it appears to still be there.
 
It’s rumors at this point. Both pages are siteing the same slide and guessing. Not really definitive.
 
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Is this gigantic font supposed to help me in some way?
erek does this to point out large updates for said thread without having to make a new topic.
I think it is pretty convenient rather than going through an entire thread searching for something with normal-sized font.
 
(and by competitive I mean “sufficiently capable for their target audience and faster than anything they have now“, not “pushes the same benchmark scores as a $1500 NVIDIA gpu”)
Yeah, it's only really a question as to whether they can scale that performance. As stated, they have legacy OpenGL capability built into the OS today, and so long as Metal allows for feature parity with successive iterations of DX12 and Vulkan as well as the hardware that may be accessed through them (Nvidia / AMD / Intel), they should be alright.

Also, Apple is in the weird and somewhat enviable position of just being able to focus on compute. If they can provide relatively acceptable gaming and AI (and other massively parallel, low-precision targets) performance on their platform where needed, then compute is really all that matters to their user base. And brute compute performance is fairly straightforward, see AMDs dominance despite their significant shortcomings in approximate like-for-like comparisons with Nvidia for gaming.
 
erek does this to point out large updates for said thread without having to make a new topic.
I think it is pretty convenient rather than going through an entire thread searching for something with normal-sized font.
Except he just said all he did was copy/paste.
 
Except he just said all he did was copy/paste.
It's still helpful since it highlights major updates in said thread.
Not sure why everyone has so many issues with erek and his threads/posts - if whomever doesn't like it, anyone is welcome to make their own threads/posts with news updates and articles.
 
Yeah, it's only really a question as to whether they can scale that performance. As stated, they have legacy OpenGL capability built into the OS today, and so long as Metal allows for feature parity with successive iterations of DX12 and Vulkan as well as the hardware that may be accessed through them (Nvidia / AMD / Intel), they should be alright.

Also, Apple is in the weird and somewhat enviable position of just being able to focus on compute. If they can provide relatively acceptable gaming and AI (and other massively parallel, low-precision targets) performance on their platform where needed, then compute is really all that matters to their user base. And brute compute performance is fairly straightforward, see AMDs dominance despite their significant shortcomings in approximate like-for-like comparisons with Nvidia for gaming.

Has anybody verified whether OpenGL is present in the Apple Silicon builds of macOS? I'd be surprised to see them bother after all that grandstanding about it being a "legacy" API, even though its state on the platform was due to Apple's neglect. Yes, yes, Metal got priority, rah rah. At least MoltenVK exists to facilitate porting to macOS going forward.

I will be interested to see how well Apple's graphics parts perform with bigger silicon and power budgets. Efficient compute or no, I suspect they'll hit a bandwidth wall unless Apple springs for quad-channel memory. Time will tell. I'm still interested in an ARM Mac mini.
 
It's still helpful since it highlights major updates in said thread.
Not sure why everyone has so many issues with erek and his threads/posts - if whomever doesn't like it, anyone is welcome to make their own threads/posts with news updates and articles.
I don’t have any problems. Just thought it was funny that the font was so huge. Looked especially big on mobile.
 
Has anybody verified whether OpenGL is present in the Apple Silicon builds of macOS? I'd be surprised to see them bother after all that grandstanding about it being a "legacy" API, even though its state on the platform was due to Apple's neglect. Yes, yes, Metal got priority, rah rah.
Honestly I don't think that it matters. Any software actually compiled for release on the system will almost certainly be using Metal instead; here they most likely just wanted to get something more or less working, and there's not a lot of API overhead for graphics these days.
I will be interested to see how well Apple's graphics parts perform with bigger silicon and power budgets. Efficient compute or no, I suspect they'll hit a bandwidth wall unless Apple springs for quad-channel memory.
I don't see it as being a problem. Apple has access to the same types of memory that other vendors do, and they can just as easily do an HBM setup for a local memory cache; realistically, this is what all vendors should be doing for APUs. Something like 4GB of HBM for the graphics section would make APUs scream, especially if they have relatively lower access latency to main memory as well.
 
IIRC, the 3D package they demoed running under Rosetta, uses OGL not Metal. So while OGL support is deprecated, it appears to still be there.
If it was the Tomb Raider game, all three of the recent ones have Metal support. Dunno if it is native or using MoltenVK, but the porting team (company) states Metal support.
 
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