Linus Torvalds Comments On Apple's Potential Move to ARM

Correct me if I'm wrong, and I probably am wrong, but shouldn't it not matter what processor is in your system? C(++) is C(++) no matter if you're on x86_64 or ARM, it doesn't matter (at least it shouldn't matter) since it's the compiler that ultimately translates the C(++) to machine code to run on the processor.
 
trparky said:
Correct me if I'm wrong, and I probably am wrong, but shouldn't it not matter what processor is in your system? C(++) is C(++) no matter if you're on x86_64 or ARM, it doesn't matter (at least it shouldn't matter) since it's the compiler that ultimately translates the C(++) to machine code to run on the processor.
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You're thinking is correct, but requesting a 'window' is an object in most GUI systems, and that requires libraries specific to the operating system. I remember the first time I had to initialize a Windows object for homework, the parameters for the object were about as big as the rest of my program.

The idea of a programming language that would compile and run anywhere is how we got Java. And Java stinks, mostly.
 
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seanreisk said:
libraries specific to the operating system
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And if the OS is compiled for ARM then the libraries will be compiled for ARM. Right? Yes. So getting applications to run on ARM would be simply as easy as just re-compiling them for the platform. Easy.
 
trparky said:
And if the OS is compiled for ARM then the libraries will be compiled for ARM. Right? Yes. So getting applications to run on ARM would be simply as easy as just re-compiling them for the platform. Easy.
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If a compiler exists for that operating system on that CPU, which usually requires the maker of the operating system to create an A==B kernel (and also make the compiler).

I started to write a TL;DR novella, but then I realized that there weren't any soapboxes clamoring to get under me so I stopped. It's complicated. Some Linux programs can be compiled for either ARM or x86 (or PowerPC). Some can't.
 
Apple is not going anywhere fast with X86, more like shrinking in that area. Maybe good if Apple goes to Arm particularly if ARM servers start to appear. I don't think they have much to loose plus hey, they can resell to the same folks all the new software they will need to have, win-win. I would think bigger as in how ARM will relate to current and future devices and programming for them, how a native platform such as a MacPro running with ARM would fit in. From TV's, phones, cars and the list goes on with the number of devices using arm that dwarfs x86 processors and maybe an inward with servers. Apple could position themselves right in the middle of all those new devices. I see a green light for Apple on this while it may piss off a number of folks (who are leaving anyways to the richer PC platform) but for the next generation and so forth - probably a smart move.
 
Paul_Johnson said:
That is a rather short sighted view. Apple almost died completely back in the late 1990's and would have if it wasn't for Microsoft giving them $100 million plus capital injection plus bringing Office over. In reality, they have only been wildly successful since the iDevice days.
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Respectfully,

Was this predictable?


Can you guess what they will do or won't do next?

I'd bet if either of us could, we would have been retired after we sold the stock we bought before the iPhone came out and this conversation wouldn't exist.

I wish I could though :/
 
trparky said:
And if the OS is compiled for ARM then the libraries will be compiled for ARM. Right? Yes. So getting applications to run on ARM would be simply as easy as just re-compiling them for the platform. Easy.
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It's not that easy. Yeah simple hello world type applications trivially compile for any architecture due to compiler magic, but once you get down to system level libraries and device drivers and stuff, it's not that simple. There are endianness issues. Assumptions about how things are arranged in memory. Often device drivers have bits of assembly in them to load data in and out of specific special registers and crap like that. It gets really messy. God help you with multithreaded code that isn't 10000% thread safe, because different processor architectures make different assumptions about what kinds of operations are atomic and how memory coherency is handled. These things can be very time consuming to test and validate. Yes it can be done but it's not as simple as changing a compiler option.

However I totally see why Apple would do this. They would be crazy not to, really. The A12X in the new Ipad Pro is faster than a mobile i7, uses less power, is self-supplied instead of relying on Intel, and their most important ecosystem (iOS) is already all ARM.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I feel like this is the case with most laptops these days. At home on the rare occasion I need a laptop, I use my old Dell E6430s. It is great. I can swap drives, RAM and WLAN card son it on a moments notice if I so desire. It has a surprisingly good keyboard (for a laptop) too! None of those terrible scissor switches everyone is using these days. Sure it is a little thick, but I don't care.

At work I have a recent E7xxx series (forget the exact model). Sure it is nice and thin, and has a higher resolution screen, but everything I hated about servicing a Mac I hate about this thing.

Dells Latitude series have lost their soul in the last 6-7 years.

As far as I am concerned, ~2012 was the last time you could buy a new good laptop.
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Those are damned fine machines! I've got several Latitude E6230, E6330, E6430, E6540, M4700, M4800 lying around that are still going strong (I used to buy bulk lots, repair as needed, and flip them).
 
Lakados said:
Meh.... as long as I can get Office365 installed on it along with a Citrix client then I’m good. Apple was bound to unify their OS platform at some point.
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You can already do all of that on an iPad, but doesn't do you any good without mouse or trackpad support in iOS.
 
ND40oz said:
You can already do all of that on an iPad, but doesn't do you any good without mouse or trackpad support in iOS.
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Yeah, so really for my work environment it won’t make any real difference. As superior as my Apple users like to act really at this point their machines are glorified dumb terminals, so any change Apple makes really has no effect on anything but their smug punchable faces.
 
Lakados said:
Yeah, so really for my work environment it won’t make any real difference. As superior as my Apple users like to act really at this point their machines are glorified dumb terminals, so any change Apple makes really has no effect on anything but their smug punchable faces.
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I'd most likely be using an iPad Pro over my rMBA if they actually had a working trackpad. I just need the Horizon Client for the most part, Office and Skype for Business is nice to have too. As a bonus, the iOS version of Civ 6 runs better on the iPad Pro than MacOS version does on the rMBA.

For users, you could always just get them mobile thin clients if you really want to give them a dumb terminal.
 
seanreisk said:
You're thinking is correct, but requesting a 'window' is an object in most GUI systems, and that requires libraries specific to the operating system. I remember the first time I had to initialize a Windows object for homework, the parameters for the object were about as big as the rest of my program.

The idea of a programming language that would compile and run anywhere is how we got Java. And Java stinks, mostly.
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Not to mention manual memory addressing.
 
Imagine. An Apple desktop the size of an Rpi. Imagine it as fast as your desktop. But you don't have to imagine the extra zeroes that will be appended to the price.
 
VIC-20 said:
Respectfully,

Was this predictable?


Can you guess what they will do or won't do next?

I'd bet if either of us could, we would have been retired after we sold the stock we bought before the iPhone came out and this conversation wouldn't exist.

I wish I could though :/
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That doesn't change anything about my point. For most of apples existence they were not wildly successful as you suggested and only exist today because of Microsoft.
 
VIC-20 said:
Respectfully,

Was this predictable?


Can you guess what they will do or won't do next?

I'd bet if either of us could, we would have been retired after we sold the stock we bought before the iPhone came out and this conversation wouldn't exist.

I wish I could though :/
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Awesome post, thank you for sharing!!!
 
Multi Threaded Parallelism..

Still not a thing.

Perhaps ML and self writing code will finally make use of all these cores!
 
Paul_Johnson said:
That doesn't change anything about my point. For most of apples existence they were not wildly successful as you suggested and only exist today because of Microsoft.
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I don't disagree with that at all, it is quite true.

I'm saying that I have no idea if Apple will move to ARM for OSX or abandon OSX and make ARM iOS Macbooks. (as the project "Marzipan or Star" rumours suggest) Me personally.

I have given up guessing entirely on what they will do, because to me, they are wildly unpredictable now and they succeed at selling ridiculous things. I've been in the tech industry for over 20 years and I've been wrong about Apple pretty much every time.


I thought the iPhone would fail. I thought the iPad would fail. I thought Apple watch would fail. I thought a lot of their recent products would never come to pass or be successful if they did. Soldered drives and RAM in a laptop? Who would buy that? Consumers apparently. Dedicated and unbelievably loyal consumers.

To me, Apple could go bankrupt tomorrow or build a factory on the moon. I wouldn't see it coming but I wouldn't be surprised.

That is all I am saying. I apologize if that wasn't clear.
 
VIC-20 said:
I thought the iPhone would fail. I thought the iPad would fail. I thought Apple watch would fail.
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As did I and I was wrong. The problem that many of us here at [H]ardOCP have is that we look at products from more of a geek's point of view. This goes for both Microsoft and Apple products but mostly Apple products; Microsoft products tend to fail because of their own stupidity and not because nobody bought them. We think... "Why would any one want a locked down ecosystem? You can't load your own apps. You can't customize it. You can't do anything with it that Apple themselves didn't provide. Yeah... it'll fail." Again, looking at it from a geek's point of view.

I have stated this before in another thread but I'm going to say it again here... The vast majority of users do not care about the things we [H]ardOCP people care about. We care about customization, the average user doesn't. We care if we can load our own apps, the average user's eyes would glaze over if you asked them about that. The average user cares about only one thing... if it works. They don't care how it works, they don't want to know how it works, just as long as it does work.

Granted with the recent scandals regarding the Macbook lineup it's beginning to show that even the more loyal of Apple fanatics are starting to see that all Apple cares about is making things look pretty and not be functional. This is a good thing because when even the common person can see fault (despite the common person being relatively tech-stupid), it shows that Apple is making some real bone-headed mistakes.
VIC-20 said:
Soldered drives and RAM in a laptop?
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Apple isn't the only one doing that. The want to make things thin for the sake of thin has caused this to happen. In order for things to be thin the ability to take it apart and dissect it is usually the first thing to go into the garbage. Even SO-DIMM modules need space to be put into a slot, that's space that would otherwise make it so that you can't make the device thin. The same goes with an SSD, even an NVMe SSD needs space to be put into a slot; again that's space that would otherwise make it so that you can't make the device thin. Best to solder all that junk onboard the motherboard. Thin. Thin! THIN!!!
 
trparky said:
As did I and I was wrong. The problem that many of us here at [H]ardOCP have is that we look at products from more of a geek's point of view. This goes for both Microsoft and Apple products but mostly Apple products; Microsoft products tend to fail because of their own stupidity and not because nobody bought them. We think... "Why would any one want a locked down ecosystem? You can't load your own apps. You can't customize it. You can't do anything with it that Apple themselves didn't provide. Yeah... it'll fail." Again, looking at it from a geek's point of view.

I have stated this before in another thread but I'm going to say it again here... The vast majority of users do not care about the things we [H]ardOCP people care about. We care about customization, the average user doesn't. We care if we can load our own apps, the average user's eyes would glaze over if you asked them about that. The average user cares about only one thing... if it works. They don't care how it works, they don't want to know how it works, just as long as it does work.

Granted with the recent scandals regarding the Macbook lineup it's beginning to show that even the more loyal of Apple fanatics are starting to see that all Apple cares about is making things look pretty and not be functional. This is a good thing because when even the common person can see fault (despite the common person being relatively tech-stupid), it shows that Apple is making some real bone-headed mistakes.

Apple isn't the only one doing that. The want to make things thin for the sake of thin has caused this to happen. In order for things to be thin the ability to take it apart and dissect it is usually the first thing to go into the garbage. Even SO-DIMM modules need space to be put into a slot, that's space that would otherwise make it so that you can't make the device thin. The same goes with an SSD, even an NVMe SSD needs space to be put into a slot; again that's space that would otherwise make it so that you can't make the device thin. Best to solder all that junk onboard the motherboard. Thin. Thin! THIN!!!
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What a great post.

I will add... I am not sure why people keep talking about hardware when it comes to consumer devices. Apple is a software/service/ecosystem company now.

As a geek I have my gaming PC that I use daily for a multitude of things. But, if I implement anything into the household it has to work easily for non geeks as well. Apple has ZERO rivals in that regard. If it is a daily function that I am trying to integrate into more tech savy solution then apple brings the best system to the table. Watching Movies/TV, home automation, Music etc. Apple integrates these services into their core OS on their devices. This means that when they update all these things will be updated with it. The other options you have to hodgepodge together and one company changing something could break another and then you have to wait (if at all) for the other company to issue an update.

Apple is working to integrate technology and digital into day to day activities. Having the same company handling software and hardware will give them a strong market presence (Only on [H] is having a market share of ~30% something to scoff at). Google could do the same but it seems they continue to let manufacturers and carriers shit on their OS. Other options require multiple companies and products to integrate together. I have watched nerds beat their head against the wall just to avoid using Apple.

I am the tech guy in my friends circle and they all ask why I use Apple. My response is that my phone, TV, music, movies, etc need to integrate seamless with each other and easily for my household. I tried Kodi with frontends a servers. It was so cumbersome to keep updated and working smoothly that I never got any further than Movies.
 
XvMMvX said:
Google could do the same but it seems they continue to let manufacturers and carriers shit on their OS.
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Exactly. Android would be great if only the likes of Samsung (and the other OEMs) couldn't shit all over the damn thing by adding custom overlays to it. For instance, Samsung TouchWiz needs to die in a fire. I could understand that the custom overlays were necessary back in the early days of Android but today? Nope. Android doesn't need those overlays anymore, Android is good enough without that stuff and adding them only serves to make Android into over-bloated piece of garbage. Google needs to start telling everyone that if they want to use Android that they can't change it (that includes the carriers which are even more evil than the OEMs).
XvMMvX said:
I have watched nerds beat their head against the wall just to avoid using Apple.
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Me too.
XvMMvX said:
I am the tech guy in my friends circle and they all ask why I use Apple.
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I have an iPhone and AppleTV. I'm not your usual Apple fanatic, I have my iPhone 7 Plus and I have my AppleTV but my desktop is a custom-built Windows system. Apple can take their over engineered computers and shove them up where the sun doesn't shine. Meanwhile I'm completely happy with my iPhone 7 Plus, I saw no need to upgrade to the latest and greatest iPhone. Sure, it would be nice to have it but do I need it? Nope. Will I upgrade later this year? Probably I will but like my iPhone 7 Plus I'll keep that device for three years.
 
XvMMvX said:
What a great post.

I will add... I am not sure why people keep talking about hardware when it comes to consumer devices. Apple is a software/service/ecosystem company now.

As a geek I have my gaming PC that I use daily for a multitude of things. But, if I implement anything into the household it has to work easily for non geeks as well. Apple has ZERO rivals in that regard. If it is a daily function that I am trying to integrate into more tech savy solution then apple brings the best system to the table. Watching Movies/TV, home automation, Music etc. Apple integrates these services into their core OS on their devices. This means that when they update all these things will be updated with it. The other options you have to hodgepodge together and one company changing something could break another and then you have to wait (if at all) for the other company to issue an update.

Apple is working to integrate technology and digital into day to day activities. Having the same company handling software and hardware will give them a strong market presence (Only on [H] is having a market share of ~30% something to scoff at). Google could do the same but it seems they continue to let manufacturers and carriers shit on their OS. Other options require multiple companies and products to integrate together. I have watched nerds beat their head against the wall just to avoid using Apple.

I am the tech guy in my friends circle and they all ask why I use Apple. My response is that my phone, TV, music, movies, etc need to integrate seamless with each other and easily for my household. I tried Kodi with frontends a servers. It was so cumbersome to keep updated and working smoothly that I never got any further than Movies.
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It was a great post and yours is too.

I can't even pretend to be ignorant of what you both are saying. I have an 08 and an 09 Mac Pro. I have a Macbook, Apple TV and use an iPhone along with half a dozen PCs in my house. I work in an organization where I have to install, image, support and repair/service not only 1200+ PCs, but nearly 100 iMacs and a number of MacBook Pros plus Airs. I have no choice. I have to embrace and learn Apple products enough to be able to support my clients. I have experienced enough to appreciate some things they do.

Despite all this, I do have to admit that my resistance of Apple normalizing practices, ideas and products which goes against every grain of my [H] self makes me blind to what will do next and be successful at. My personal bias is likely the very reason I see them as being unpredictable.
 
Apple makes some great products but at the same time they've made some real boneheaded mistakes. Microsoft has made some great products but like Apple, they too have made some real boneheaded mistakes. We can say this about every company in existence; GM, Ford, nVidia, AMD, Intel, Toyota, Samsung, Dell, HP, Verizon, AT&T, I really could go on for hours. What do all of these companies have in common with one another? They make great products and services but they've also been known for some real boneheaded mistakes. That's why I have absolutely no use for fanboys of ANY company. Fanboys are like zombies.
 
Hackintoshes getting to common with similar hardware? Switch back to hardware and software that is unique and must be Apple exclusive!
 
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