Apparently nobody is looking at other use cases that will be jeopardized if Macs move away from Intel. I am using my MBP for cloud development, meaning that I typically run locally a small Kubernetes cluster to develop applications that once tested will be deployed on a Kubernetes cluster in the cloiud . Because all cloud platform are based on Docker containers which are basically Linux X86 images, Imight face serious issue.
I have no clue if or when docker containers can run on a ARM based Mac but I am sure that if Docker containers could run on Arm based Macs, the performance impact will be considerable, making a Mac no longer a competitive machine compared to an Ubuntu based Dell XPS
"Then, too, there are Windows virtualization options, such as Parallels. These tend to be clunkier than the hardware Boot Camp, but then if you weren't prepared for clunkiness, you wouldn't be using Windows."
Why are you pushing Parallels when VMware is a much better product? I run Fusion and it's not clunky. Running Boot Camp is easier because you simply boot into it but running a virtual OS, or multiple virtual OSes, is the way many server farms are running today. Why worry about Boot Camp when there's a good product that replaces it?
I've been watching some youtube videos showing Hackintosh running on AMD Ryzen CPUs that are half the price of the Mac Pro and are faster. Yes, there are a few limitations but they use a motherboard that includes the following, very friendly to Mac, capabilities: DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2, AX Wi-Fi 6, 10G Super LAN. If these "PC" motherboards and the Ryzen CPU are both more or less Mac compatible then Apple surely can build their own AMD CPU, motherboard and everything else while adding full software capability. I see it as when, not if.
The ARM Mac will be a hybrid iPad Pro with a build-in keyboard.
Can't Apple achieve the same thing using iPadOS as opposed to porting macOS to ARM?
That's what mdriftmeyer is saying. An iPadOS clamshell will be the "ARM Mac". It implies he or she doesn't think macOS/ARM is happening, but Apple will ship iPadOS on Mac form factors and call it a day.
If Apple opens iPadOS up, like side loading (non App Store installs), shell access, overlapping window UI, external monitor support, it would be great, but lots of doubts Apple is willing to do this to iPadOS.
"Then, too, there are Windows virtualization options, such as Parallels. These tend to be clunkier than the hardware Boot Camp, but then if you weren't prepared for clunkiness, you wouldn't be using Windows."
Why are you pushing Parallels when VMware is a much better product? I run Fusion and it's not clunky. Running Boot Camp is easier because you simply boot into it but running a virtual OS, or multiple virtual OSes, is the way many server farms are running today. Why worry about Boot Camp when there's a good product that replaces it?
I've been watching some youtube videos showing Hackintosh running on AMD Ryzen CPUs that are half the price of the Mac Pro and are faster. Yes, there are a few limitations but they use a motherboard that includes the following, very friendly to Mac, capabilities: DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2, AX Wi-Fi 6, 10G Super LAN. If these "PC" motherboards and the Ryzen CPU are both more or less Mac compatible then Apple surely can build their own AMD CPU, motherboard and everything else while adding full software capability. I see it as when, not if.
We're not "pushing" anything. Parallels is more public-facing than VMware, and was presented as an example.
Apparently nobody is looking at other use cases that will be jeopardized if Macs move away from Intel. I am using my MBP for cloud development, meaning that I typically run locally a small Kubernetes cluster to develop applications that once tested will be deployed on a Kubernetes cluster in the cloiud . Because all cloud platform are based on Docker containers which are basically Linux X86 images, Imight face serious issue.
I have no clue if or when docker containers can run on a ARM based Mac but I am sure that if Docker containers could run on Arm based Macs, the performance impact will be considerable, making a Mac no longer a competitive machine compared to an Ubuntu based Dell XPS
How do you know nobody is looking at other use cases? Isn't it possible (actually likely) that your situation is rare enough to be ignored?
Lowering the price, and/or improving the performance of Macs overall will attract enough people to make up for those cases Apple considered, and decided were expendable.
This has been done before with the Intel transition. The Rosetta emulator for going from PowerPC to Intel x86 was quite effective. The problem with the ARM transition is that the ARM CPU isn’t likely to be as much faster from the Intel CPU as was the Intel CPU from the PowerPC CPU. So any slowdowns will seem like very poor performance.
The rumored Apple custom CPU for Mac is going to be fabbed on TSMC 5 nm. That's a 70% higher transistor density than the transistor densities afforded by Intel 10 nm or TSMC 7 nm, which AMD uses. And, Intel may still be fabbing desktop processors on 14 nm in the fall. That really boggles the mind and Apple at minimum should be jumping to AMD or their own custom processor ASAP.
TSMC 5 nm has a 3x to 4x density advantage over Intel 14 nm. Like with AMD with TSMC 7 nm Zen 2 is crushing Intel 14 nm processors in perf/watt/$, Apple is going to crush AMD and Intel if they are fabbing these processors TSMC 5 nm while AMD is on 7 nm and Intel is using whatever they are using by then.
Apparently nobody is looking at other use cases that will be jeopardized if Macs move away from Intel. I am using my MBP for cloud development, meaning that I typically run locally a small Kubernetes cluster to develop applications that once tested will be deployed on a Kubernetes cluster in the cloiud . Because all cloud platform are based on Docker containers which are basically Linux X86 images, Imight face serious issue.
I have no clue if or when docker containers can run on a ARM based Mac but I am sure that if Docker containers could run on Arm based Macs, the performance impact will be considerable, making a Mac no longer a competitive machine compared to an Ubuntu based Dell XPS
How do you know nobody is looking at other use cases? Isn't it possible (actually likely) that your situation is rare enough to be ignored?
Lowering the price, and/or improving the performance of Macs overall will attract enough people to make up for those cases Apple considered, and decided were expendable.
His comment also ignores that Apple introducing a low-end ARM-based Mac will not cause his current Intel Mac to stop working or keep any newer Macs from being released with Intel processors before he's able to find a compatible solution before the transition is over.
The ARM Mac will be a hybrid iPad Pro with a build-in keyboard.
Can't Apple achieve the same thing using iPadOS as opposed to porting macOS to ARM?
That's what mdriftmeyer is saying. An iPadOS clamshell will be the "ARM Mac". It implies he or she doesn't think macOS/ARM is happening, but Apple will ship iPadOS on Mac form factors and call it a day.
If Apple opens iPadOS up, like side loading (non App Store installs), shell access, overlapping window UI, external monitor support, it would be great, but lots of doubts Apple is willing to do this to iPadOS.
Honestly, neither do but it wouldn't be the first time I've been wrong so we'll see.
Watching Steve Jobs give a presentation was such a refreshing blast from the past versus Tim Cook. Such a great mix of straightforward, informative, and just slightly comical.
I don't think Apple will have as hard a time dragging their developers into ARM as some are suggesting. They're not Microsoft, who couldn't even get their own developers to sign on to major changes in the OS.
I also continue to think, and say at every opportunity afforded me, that the move to macOS on ARM is going to be more along the lines of increasing the role of the T2 (or later chip) to handle OS calls, and gradually (or suddenly even) more and more of the Application environment, leaving the x86 for specific tasks it is still needed for. This could even mean the Pro As A Service model I've talked about, where the x86 (or replacement) is offloaded completely to a data centre (for some uses, others might still require it to be local).
There is large number of open-source libraries in use, and both closed source and open source applications built on these running on macOS where it is highly unlikely they will ever be ported to ARM. Many of these run on the current macOS by a shoe-string only by feature of running on Intel, as the port is relative untrivial compared to a port to ARM.
You're missing the crucial aspect of Open Source software: the source code is ...open.
The ones that are needed will come along. As needed.
Just because it is open does not mean it will port easily to another processor architecture. So I am not missing anything.
Rip the bandaid off. Legacy platforms need to upgrade or die off. It's a harsh and expensive stance to have, but it needs to happen. Software needs to be agile to stay relevent if not it needs to die. Im tired of all these "can't happen, I need legacy software" users. Technology moves too fast to wait for you, develop accordingly.
For many it's not going to be a bumpy road, it's going to be a game over.
Anyone who has ever been to a developer conference knows how many MacBook Pros are there. If Apple goes ARM, in *many* places MacBook pro will not be a viable alternative anymore. I don't think people who are looking forward to this are aware of how many developers rely on Docker or some other virtualization platform. If MacBook Pro goes ARM, it can retain the name, but for many pros it's going to be completely useless.
And what about TB3? Everyone I see one of these articles, everyone just pretends it doesn't exist. Does Apple have a working ARM TB3 controller? Is it compatible with all peripherals? That would be a major accomplishment.
Unless they can keep all the features that are currently in place including Bootcamp it would be the worst mistake Apple could do.
I don't think so. Once upon a time, the Mac gave the halo to the iPhone. It hasn't been that way in 10 years, and is instead the other way around. The new Mac user doesn't care. Boot Camp installs are a very small percentage of the overall user base, as the article discusses.
We'll all see together.
I wonder how much that grows, though, if we include virtualization like Parallels... and then isn't software porting from Windows versions easier too? I think a lot of people don't do Bootcamp, especially these days, because it is a bit of a mess. It took me several days of experimenting to get my Mac mini going with my Blackmagic eGPU properly on Bootcamp. I doubt an average user would have gotten it going or have even tried. Bootcamp feels like Apple hasn't done much with it in a decade or so (though there have been updates).
We're not talking about Mac software moving to ARM, we're talking about iOS/iPad/iPhone software moving to the Mac/ARM.
This is the part that would scare me the most... if we lose too significant of a chunk of current Mac software, and have to try to fill in the gap with iOS stuff. Not only would that be difficult in the short-term, but there seems to be a 'developer gap' between those as well, where the new people don't seem to understand UIs and workflows and such.
jdb8167 said: ... The problem with the ARM transition is that the ARM CPU isn’t likely to be as much faster from the Intel CPU as was the Intel CPU from the PowerPC CPU. So any slowdowns will seem like very poor performance. ...
Hmm, were the Core CPUs that much faster? There were more 'cores' but I'm not sure there was an initial performance gain. I seem to remember that happening slowly over time. When the G5 was in its prime, it was faster than anything Intel had. Apple made the transition for power-use reasons more than performance ones, IMO, though eventually more cores helped with the 'feel' and then processors get faster, too.
zoetmb said: Full migration? A large percentage of the user base has not switched because of the cost and/or complexity of third party software upgrades. My son-in-law manages Macs for five different companies and NONE of them have switched. I haven't switched, not because I'm "cheap", but because I don't want subscription software, so I've been resisting...
Hmm, are there really that many people resisting? I'd be interested in some statistics on that.
... They'll do it according to what's best overall and in the long run. They always favor the strategic. During the Intel changeover, it went so well they just went ahead and pulled the trigger. That wasn't a reaction to customer perceptions, it just WAS. ...
Do you think there is enough of that same Apple existing today for that to be the case again? I hope so, but I'm skeptical.
godofbiscuits said: You're missing the crucial aspect of Open Source software: the source code is ...open.
The ones that are needed will come along. As needed.
I suppose, maybe now that Apple is catching back up after the iPhone being all consuming? But, if they can't even keep open source libraries being developed for them up to date, how will they keep ported libraries up to date?
I'm not a developer, but I'm loosely following the branch of ClassicPress from WordPress, and it seems like a heck of a big deal, even though it's all based in open source. I have a hard time imagining Apple going down that road.
hodar said: Aside from the cloning mistake - I think that Apple will likely come out with a few competitive lines of ARM Macs, that will show a superior performance level across a variety of price points, and performance will sell the ARM Macs. It's pretty apparent, Intel cannot match the performance improvements we are witnessing year after year with the ARM processors.
Thanks for the history, and interesting thought. But, wouldn't that be a bit too disruptive to the Mac community?
rob53 said: Why are you pushing Parallels when VMware is a much better product? I run Fusion and it's not clunky. Running Boot Camp is easier because you simply boot into it but running a virtual OS, or multiple virtual OSes, is the way many server farms are running today. Why worry about Boot Camp when there's a good product that replaces it?
I can't really speak to Parallels vs VMware. I switched too many years back to know the current comparison. But, I agree that Parallels (or virtualization in general) is easier and has many advantages. BUT, the performance isn't there, depending on what you're doing. If you're running Windows CAD/3D type stuff, you likely need the full GPU power, which isn't there with virtualization.
That said, I've been testing Autodesk Revit on both BootCamp and Parallels, and really can't tell much difference (at least in project sizes I have available to me right now). (Though maybe that has more to do with Revit's (from my limited perspective) lack of taking advantage of the hardware, than Parallels being so close to the performance of the direct hardware.)
Rip the bandaid off. Legacy platforms need to upgrade or die off. It's a harsh and expensive stance to have, but it needs to happen. Software needs to be agile to stay relevent if not it needs to die. Im tired of all these "can't happen, I need legacy software" users. Technology moves too fast to wait for you, develop accordingly.
That's nice, but if most (or even a crucial bit) of your workflow no longer flows, you're in trouble.
For many it's not going to be a bumpy road, it's going to be a game over.
Anyone who has ever been to a developer conference knows how many MacBook Pros are there. If Apple goes ARM, in *many* places MacBook pro will not be a viable alternative anymore. I don't think people who are looking forward to this are aware of how many developers rely on Docker or some other virtualization platform. If MacBook Pro goes ARM, it can retain the name, but for many pros it's going to be completely useless.
And what about TB3? Everyone I see one of these articles, everyone just pretends it doesn't exist. Does Apple have a working ARM TB3 controller? Is it compatible with all peripherals? That would be a major accomplishment.
We didn't ignore it, because it isn't a problem. Thunderbolt 3 isn't Intel-proprietary and hasn't been for some time. One of the Titan Ridge controllers works on AMD (yes, AMD, not ARM) -- and has been certified. And, anything with PCI-E channels can now support TB3 and USB4 - and there are ARM chips that have sufficient PCI-E channels to support full bandwidth now.
Why are you pushing Parallels when VMware is a much better product?
I dunno. Maybe because it isn’t really a better product. I’ve been using Parallels since v3 (it’s now on v14, I believe) and bought Fusion licenses during the early days and again a few years ago. Fusion has two definite advantages over Parallels: 1) better support for VMware images, and 2) A much less restrictive licensing scheme.
In so many other ways, VMware is inferior. The early version had serious issues when running images on external drives and caused numerous kernel panics. I’m guessing that’s been resolved in more recent updates, but Fusion still doesn’t support running multiple displays each in their own space, and that was a deal breaker with my workflow.
Parallels is more mature, and certainly not clunky, although I also haven’t found Fusion to be clunky either. I personally find setting up Boot Camp t be far more clunky than any virtualization tool, including VirtualBox, and that’s free.
Comments
Why are you pushing Parallels when VMware is a much better product? I run Fusion and it's not clunky. Running Boot Camp is easier because you simply boot into it but running a virtual OS, or multiple virtual OSes, is the way many server farms are running today. Why worry about Boot Camp when there's a good product that replaces it?
I've been watching some youtube videos showing Hackintosh running on AMD Ryzen CPUs that are half the price of the Mac Pro and are faster. Yes, there are a few limitations but they use a motherboard that includes the following, very friendly to Mac, capabilities: DDR4, PCIe 4.0, SATA 6Gb/s, M.2, USB 3.2, AX Wi-Fi 6, 10G Super LAN. If these "PC" motherboards and the Ryzen CPU are both more or less Mac compatible then Apple surely can build their own AMD CPU, motherboard and everything else while adding full software capability. I see it as when, not if.
If Apple opens iPadOS up, like side loading (non App Store installs), shell access, overlapping window UI, external monitor support, it would be great, but lots of doubts Apple is willing to do this to iPadOS.
Lowering the price, and/or improving the performance of Macs overall will attract enough people to make up for those cases Apple considered, and decided were expendable.
TSMC 5 nm has a 3x to 4x density advantage over Intel 14 nm. Like with AMD with TSMC 7 nm Zen 2 is crushing Intel 14 nm processors in perf/watt/$, Apple is going to crush AMD and Intel if they are fabbing these processors TSMC 5 nm while AMD is on 7 nm and Intel is using whatever they are using by then.
I also continue to think, and say at every opportunity afforded me, that the move to macOS on ARM is going to be more along the lines of increasing the role of the T2 (or later chip) to handle OS calls, and gradually (or suddenly even) more and more of the Application environment, leaving the x86 for specific tasks it is still needed for. This could even mean the Pro As A Service model I've talked about, where the x86 (or replacement) is offloaded completely to a data centre (for some uses, others might still require it to be local).
And what about TB3? Everyone I see one of these articles, everyone just pretends it doesn't exist. Does Apple have a working ARM TB3 controller? Is it compatible with all peripherals? That would be a major accomplishment.
This is the part that would scare me the most... if we lose too significant of a chunk of current Mac software, and have to try to fill in the gap with iOS stuff. Not only would that be difficult in the short-term, but there seems to be a 'developer gap' between those as well, where the new people don't seem to understand UIs and workflows and such.
Hmm, were the Core CPUs that much faster? There were more 'cores' but I'm not sure there was an initial performance gain. I seem to remember that happening slowly over time. When the G5 was in its prime, it was faster than anything Intel had. Apple made the transition for power-use reasons more than performance ones, IMO, though eventually more cores helped with the 'feel' and then processors get faster, too.
Hmm, are there really that many people resisting? I'd be interested in some statistics on that.
Do you think there is enough of that same Apple existing today for that to be the case again? I hope so, but I'm skeptical.
I suppose, maybe now that Apple is catching back up after the iPhone being all consuming? But, if they can't even keep open source libraries being developed for them up to date, how will they keep ported libraries up to date?
I'm not a developer, but I'm loosely following the branch of ClassicPress from WordPress, and it seems like a heck of a big deal, even though it's all based in open source. I have a hard time imagining Apple going down that road.
Thanks for the history, and interesting thought. But, wouldn't that be a bit too disruptive to the Mac community?
That said, I've been testing Autodesk Revit on both BootCamp and Parallels, and really can't tell much difference (at least in project sizes I have available to me right now). (Though maybe that has more to do with Revit's (from my limited perspective) lack of taking advantage of the hardware, than Parallels being so close to the performance of the direct hardware.)
That's nice, but if most (or even a crucial bit) of your workflow no longer flows, you're in trouble.
In so many other ways, VMware is inferior. The early version had serious issues when running images on external drives and caused numerous kernel panics. I’m guessing that’s been resolved in more recent updates, but Fusion still doesn’t support running multiple displays each in their own space, and that was a deal breaker with my workflow.
Parallels is more mature, and certainly not clunky, although I also haven’t found Fusion to be clunky either. I personally find setting up Boot Camp t be far more clunky than any virtualization tool, including VirtualBox, and that’s free.