"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I have zero games on my Windows installation under Parallels. I do have EDA software (electronics simulation, schematic capture, PCB routing, FPGAs, etc.), test & measurement software to interface with electronics T&M gear, MCAD software, software development apps (Visual Studio, the real one not the toy Code version, plus various embedded software tools), etc.
Another group of people will have in-house apps that are Windows only.
Maybe in your line of work pro users don't need Windows software. It doesn't mean no one else does.
I have to agree with you. My solution of course for the home/office is to have a real Windows PC. If real estate is a problem a NUC or similar small form factor (SFF) Windows box is something that's very easy to accommodate. Most modern display monitors support at least 2 video inputs and Logitech (and others) make some decent keyboards/mice/trackballs that support 2 or 3 machines, or you can get a small KVM switch for convenience. I'm very used to switching video inputs on my monitors because I usually have a Raspberry Pi on the second HDMI port. One of my Raspberry Pis is setup as a NAS file server with Apple File Protocol (AFP) that even works with Time Machine.
Virtualization solutions are great if you have a beefy Mac with plenty of memory and storage. I've never had any major issues with VMWare on PCs and Macs so I've never resorted to using BootCamp. In fact, most of the development I've done in the past decade has been on VMs for a number of reasons, but mainly the ease of being able to replicate the entire build environment, test on multiple versions of operating systems, and to remain isolated from corporate administration of physical machines, i.e., getting updates pushed from the IT department that change and potentially screw-up your build environment. I've also used Windows-to-Go to put Windows 10 completely on a USB connected SSD and booted into it from the Mac boot option. This works well because it doesn't touch anything on your Mac's storage drive (HD/SSD) but it has some other issues, like the inability to upgrade the Windows-to-Go instance to newer versions.
The #1 issue with Windows virtual machines (and Windows-to-Go) since the advent of virtualization is Microsoft's restrictive licensing model. Sure, if your company is paying for a big ticket MSDN subscription and you have a lot of activation keys this is not a problem. But for home/personal use this is a major problem if you care about Windows activation.
Bottom line is that I've always found ways to avoid using BootCamp. YMMV.
Glad to see we’re heading towards the 22nd century with a better architecture and software platform. Now if only the Windows platform would just die already.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I went back through the Keynote and at the 1:40:11 mark, Docker (docker.com) was shown running Linux. At the 1:41:58 mark Parallels was shown running Debian. Craig said all macOS Big Sur demoes were run on an AS Mac so I assume it's either the AS Mac mini or another development AS Mac. Parallels has made some big changes in ver 15 but I run VMWare Fusion so haven't looked at Parallels for a long time. Anyway, at this point in the keynote they were talking about Rosetta 2 so I assume they simply installed Parallels ver 15 and it converted it to run on Apple Silicon. They didn't show Windows running but that's really Parallels and Dockers responsibility to provide the hardware interface between Windows and the host platform. It appears this is working but as everyone (else) wants to know, will it run Windows. We'll have to wait for the first developer to try it on the developer kit.
One other thing. I checked the serial number of the AS Mac mini in the keynote and it says "We’re sorry, but this serial number isn’t valid. Please check your information and try again." I don't remember if this was simply a faked screen shot or if Craig did an About this Mac and it showed up. Apple could also be blocking certain serial numbers.
While I hope you’re right, they were quite explicit to mention the game as an Intel binary. They never did the same for Parallels. So it’s possible that it’s a Parallels ARM port. Evidently Linux runs on ARM as well, and I assume Docker also does, so either wouldn’t be a roadblock.
Overall they were quite vague with the wording during the keynote, so it’s a coin toss as to whether it was running Linux on ARM or Linux on Intel.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I think Parallels itself will run, but it was running an ARM version of Linux. It might not be possible to run 32-bit Windows Apps since the OS won’t have access to the full x86 instruction set (Rosetta 2 just translates x64 code since that’s all the Intel code that Catalina and Big Sur support).
Look, I understand that being to run Windows is a big deal for some users. But by Apple leaving Intel behind, they have not stopped anyone from being able to do that. They just may not be able to do it on an Apple Silicon based Macs from here on out. It is a huge convenience to be able to run Windows on a Mac for those that needed it, but Apple is not going to keep themselves from moving forward by a set of users' needs that can be met in other ways; continue to use your old Mac for Windows, by a Wintel PC, or use Windows 10 for ARM.
And who knows, maybe Apple will grant access to Rosetta 2 to 3rd party virtualization developers and they will come up with a way to create virtualized x64 CPUs? Today's computers are extremely fast, so doing translation in software is not going to have a significant impact on performance. Maybe the new Macs will contain a FPGA that can be programmed to do translation in real-time without any performance hit? A FPGA could be used for many different types of applications.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I went back through the Keynote and at the 1:40:11 mark, Docker (docker.com) was shown running Linux. At the 1:41:58 mark Parallels was shown running Debian. Craig said all macOS Big Sur demoes were run on an AS Mac so I assume it's either the AS Mac mini or another development AS Mac. Parallels has made some big changes in ver 15 but I run VMWare Fusion so haven't looked at Parallels for a long time. Anyway, at this point in the keynote they were talking about Rosetta 2 so I assume they simply installed Parallels ver 15 and it converted it to run on Apple Silicon. They didn't show Windows running but that's really Parallels and Dockers responsibility to provide the hardware interface between Windows and the host platform. It appears this is working but as everyone (else) wants to know, will it run Windows. We'll have to wait for the first developer to try it on the developer kit.
One other thing. I checked the serial number of the AS Mac mini in the keynote and it says "We’re sorry, but this serial number isn’t valid. Please check your information and try again." I don't remember if this was simply a faked screen shot or if Craig did an About this Mac and it showed up. Apple could also be blocking certain serial numbers.
Parallels doesn’t present any “hardware” interface. All they do is to allow An OS to run in their virtualized environment. But that an x86 environment. Of course, Microsoft has Windows for ARM. But that also a native ARM implementation, which requires developers to redo their software for ARM. So it’s not “really” Windows. If parallels could run windows, even poorly right now, I think Apple would have mentioned that it was being worked on. If Microsoft was working to get it working natively on the new Macs, then it would have been mentioned. It’s too obvious a feature to just ignore.
Check out, https://www.parallels.com/blogs/apple-silicon-wwdc/ Of course the canned answer about Windows support is check the blog, which doesn't have anything new but it's still early. The FACT they worked with Apple on providing a special version of Parallels running on AS Mac means it wasn't simply started using Rosetta 2.
I didn’t say one way or the other as to what this was in the demo. But normally, it’s just an x86 environment. I expect it to be ported over. But the Windows question is a big one. Just because parallels will work, natively or not, doesn’t mean that Windows will run on it. I expect that if Microsoft is so inclined, they may make their ARM version available to license for this. I’m not sure if it is now.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I have zero games on my Windows installation under Parallels. I do have EDA software (electronics simulation, schematic capture, PCB routing, FPGAs, etc.), test & measurement software to interface with electronics T&M gear, MCAD software, software development apps (Visual Studio, the real one not the toy Code version, plus various embedded software tools), etc.
Another group of people will have in-house apps that are Windows only.
Maybe in your line of work pro users don't need Windows software. It doesn't mean no one else does.
And those like you consist of what, 0.5% of Apple’s user base?
I hypothesize that those like me are 50% of the user base.
Absurd, you say?
Not any more than your figure. Both of us took these numbers straight out of our rear end.
You were never 50%. Maybe 10% in the beginning, but almost nothing now. My figure isn’t out of my ear. It’s based on writing of those who have in the business. We do know that Apple said that 2% of Macs coming in for service have Windows installed in Bootcamp. Most are used for gaming. That’s been written about too. There are somewhat over 110 million Macs being used, according to Apple. 0.5% would be 500,000 people. So sure, that’s a lot of people, but as a percentage, it’s very small.
Now your expensive pro gear may not last as long as you initially planned, and by the time you sell it, it will probably be worthless. I mean really, if you paid upwards of $10,000 on a Mac Pro recently (quite easy with CPU, RAM, storage and GPU upgrades), who's going to pay more than, say, $3,000 or $4,000 for it in three years, knowing the fate of Intel hardware?
People who still find value in it, and in this case likely can still make enough money off of it to make $3-4K a worthwhile expense?
How many times do we relive these same fear and doom scenarios?
Although the keynote was very well thought out, the biggest issue is that they did not spend enough time on here and now. Other than saying, we will support your intel purchases for "years" which technically means 2 or more. Apple has pulled so many things out from under me, that my trust level is gone. How many are going to go out and buy an expensive dead end computer with no resale value for only 2 years of use. Again, it may not be two years, but Apple was being vague and should have come right out and gave us a number to quell those fears. ie. We will simultaneously be creating an intel version of the OS every year for a minimum of the next 5 years. Without clarification, it's going to be a bumpy road for Mac Sales over the next couple of years. What bothers me is that they are smart enough to know this but still purposely decided to be vague. Hopefully the machine you want to buy isn't the last one to transition 2 years from now. If you were expecting 5 years of use out of that, it means Apple would have to support and maintain intel software for 7 more years from today. That's not going to happen, so someone (meaning you) is going to get shafted. I know I won't be buying anymore intel Macs unless they clarify what "years" means and what "support" means.
You don't know that. They're a much bigger company now and with their announcement that they have Intel Macs in the pipeline I think you can assume you have meaningful support for at least a few years beyond that. They're not going to abandon everyone. Just give it a minute. They're not going to announce every single detail right now.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I have zero games on my Windows installation under Parallels. I do have EDA software (electronics simulation, schematic capture, PCB routing, FPGAs, etc.), test & measurement software to interface with electronics T&M gear, MCAD software, software development apps (Visual Studio, the real one not the toy Code version, plus various embedded software tools), etc.
Another group of people will have in-house apps that are Windows only.
Maybe in your line of work pro users don't need Windows software. It doesn't mean no one else does.
And those like you consist of what, 0.5% of Apple’s user base?
I hypothesize that those like me are 50% of the user base.
Absurd, you say?
Not any more than your figure. Both of us took these numbers straight out of our rear end.
You were never 50%. Maybe 10% in the beginning, but almost nothing now. My figure isn’t out of my ear. It’s based on writing of those who have in the business. We do know that Apple said that 2% of Macs coming in for service have Windows installed in Bootcamp. Most are used for gaming. That’s been written about too. There are somewhat over 110 million Macs being used, according to Apple. 0.5% would be 500,000 people. So sure, that’s a lot of people, but as a percentage, it’s very small.
I see you keep taking numbers off your rear end: not 50%, 10%, 2% (this one, while not taken out of your rear end, is irrelevant to the discussion), 110 million, 0.5%, 500,000. Taking numbers off your rear end is not a valid argumentative technique.
Let me repeat, very slowly: what matters is the percentage of people who run VIRTUALIZATION software. Boot Camp is not virtualization. Anyone who runs Boot Camp is a PC user who happened to find, at a certain point of time, that the Mac hardware being offered at the time was a better deal to them than the rest of PC hardware he looked at, and it happened to have Intel compatibility, so it met those users' needs. So this was merely an accidental Mac sale; these users are not macOS converts with concrete chances of staying in the Apple ecosystem. These kinds of users most likely are buying PC hardware from now on, no question about it. Additionally, because in general Apple hardware is more expensive than the equivalent PC hardware, these users are not really representative, as I've already tried to argue.
To see how many real Mac users Apple will lose, it's necessary to find reports of the percentage of users running VMware, Parallels or VirtualBox. Note that I said "reports" there, not "numbers taken out of one's rear end". Without that figure, the discussion cannot proceed.
Now your expensive pro gear may not last as long as you initially planned, and by the time you sell it, it will probably be worthless. I mean really, if you paid upwards of $10,000 on a Mac Pro recently (quite easy with CPU, RAM, storage and GPU upgrades), who's going to pay more than, say, $3,000 or $4,000 for it in three years, knowing the fate of Intel hardware?
People who still find value in it, and in this case likely can still make enough money off of it to make $3-4K a worthwhile expense?
How many times do we relive these same fear and doom scenarios?
Economics 101, supply and demand. Sure there are people who find value at $3,000, or $4,000, maybe even at $10,000 or more (I don't know, maybe they run a manufacturing plant which puts out a million dollars of product a day, but needs a very CPU-intensive Mac app that keeps the plant running?). Thought this last scenario was crazy and unlikely? That's exactly my point, there aren't enough people finding value at $10,000 so that everyone with a $10,000+ Mac Pro can make a sale and recap their expected resale value prior to this announcement.
Any time you obsolete a product, you take a huge chunk of people from the pool of potential buyers (i.e. the demand) while the supply is kept identical (seeing as nobody invented a time machine that allows you to go back in time and not purchase the Mac Pro that you already did). There is no other possible outcome than the price of the goods being reduced under this scenario.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I don’t use boot camp but I do depend on MS Project and Visio running on my Mac via vmware.
They also better have docker running completely identical to intel or a lot of devs will have to stop using Macs too.
For everything else it’s probably mostly a painless transition but if MS doesn’t do a MS Project and Visio port then unfortunately this is the last replacement cycle I can use Macs.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I have zero games on my Windows installation under Parallels. I do have EDA software (electronics simulation, schematic capture, PCB routing, FPGAs, etc.), test & measurement software to interface with electronics T&M gear, MCAD software, software development apps (Visual Studio, the real one not the toy Code version, plus various embedded software tools), etc.
Another group of people will have in-house apps that are Windows only.
Maybe in your line of work pro users don't need Windows software. It doesn't mean no one else does.
And those like you consist of what, 0.5% of Apple’s user base?
Probably a lot more for Pros. Macs are already a little handicapped if you depend on MS apps. Our excel just isn’t quite the same, neither is Outlook, etc.
There’s a boatload of enterprise stuff that only kinda sorta supports MacOS users where Parallels and Fusion makes viable.
We’re a 50/50 Mac shop and I wonder if IT will even keep it as an option once Intel Macs are no longer sold. Probably since PPC Macs were allowed. But for sure this will be a harder transition for enterprise users than home users.
Is Apple going to offer an AppleCare extension to bridge Intel users to the Apple Silicon? My AppleCare expired on 6/15. I had hoped Apple would announce new iMacs. Right now I feel naked without AppleCare coverage.
No manufacturer cares about an owner of such an old machine. It’s time to think about buying a new one. If you can’t afford one, buy a newer model that’s used or refurbished.
I think even in the state of California a new car or product must have replacement parts for repairs available for at least 3 years after purchase.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I went back through the Keynote and at the 1:40:11 mark, Docker (docker.com) was shown running Linux. At the 1:41:58 mark Parallels was shown running Debian. Craig said all macOS Big Sur demoes were run on an AS Mac so I assume it's either the AS Mac mini or another development AS Mac. Parallels has made some big changes in ver 15 but I run VMWare Fusion so haven't looked at Parallels for a long time. Anyway, at this point in the keynote they were talking about Rosetta 2 so I assume they simply installed Parallels ver 15 and it converted it to run on Apple Silicon. They didn't show Windows running but that's really Parallels and Dockers responsibility to provide the hardware interface between Windows and the host platform. It appears this is working but as everyone (else) wants to know, will it run Windows. We'll have to wait for the first developer to try it on the developer kit.
One other thing. I checked the serial number of the AS Mac mini in the keynote and it says "We’re sorry, but this serial number isn’t valid. Please check your information and try again." I don't remember if this was simply a faked screen shot or if Craig did an About this Mac and it showed up. Apple could also be blocking certain serial numbers.
While I hope you’re right, they were quite explicit to mention the game as an Intel binary. They never did the same for Parallels. So it’s possible that it’s a Parallels ARM port. Evidently Linux runs on ARM as well, and I assume Docker also does, so either wouldn’t be a roadblock.
Overall they were quite vague with the wording during the keynote, so it’s a coin toss as to whether it was running Linux on ARM or Linux on Intel.
docker runs Linux inside and while multi arch support now exists it depends heavily on qemu to develop for arm on Intel. I can’t recall if they cross compile or compile in qemu since I didn’t pay much attention to that part of DockerCon last year.
Presumably you would need the inverse for developing in docker on AS Macs...technology that Apple could pay to mature but is still cumbersome and generally leads to poorer performance.
Given that you are mostly OS agnostic when using docker that means transitioning from MacOS to Linux on cheaper intel hardware becomes more attractive if the dev environment is degraded. I see more and more folks opting for Linux and using a Windows VM for email and other enterprise tools in their computer refresh. I’d say that most of these are former MacOS users since the Windows folks are more set in their ways.
As a useless manager type I use MS office too much to want to do that. For the first time in 20 years I’m looking at Windows as the alternative for work (my refresh notice just came in). I’ll still get to keep my 2017 MBP so I’ll have my mac fix and I still have a 2013 Mac Pro as well.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I have zero games on my Windows installation under Parallels. I do have EDA software (electronics simulation, schematic capture, PCB routing, FPGAs, etc.), test & measurement software to interface with electronics T&M gear, MCAD software, software development apps (Visual Studio, the real one not the toy Code version, plus various embedded software tools), etc.
Another group of people will have in-house apps that are Windows only.
Maybe in your line of work pro users don't need Windows software. It doesn't mean no one else does.
And those like you consist of what, 0.5% of Apple’s user base?
I hypothesize that those like me are 50% of the user base.
Absurd, you say?
Not any more than your figure. Both of us took these numbers straight out of our rear end.
You were never 50%. Maybe 10% in the beginning, but almost nothing now. My figure isn’t out of my ear. It’s based on writing of those who have in the business. We do know that Apple said that 2% of Macs coming in for service have Windows installed in Bootcamp. Most are used for gaming. That’s been written about too. There are somewhat over 110 million Macs being used, according to Apple. 0.5% would be 500,000 people. So sure, that’s a lot of people, but as a percentage, it’s very small.
I see you keep taking numbers off your rear end: not 50%, 10%, 2% (this one, while not taken out of your rear end, is irrelevant to the discussion), 110 million, 0.5%, 500,000. Taking numbers off your rear end is not a valid argumentative technique.
Let me repeat, very slowly: what matters is the percentage of people who run VIRTUALIZATION software. Boot Camp is not virtualization. Anyone who runs Boot Camp is a PC user who happened to find, at a certain point of time, that the Mac hardware being offered at the time was a better deal to them than the rest of PC hardware he looked at, and it happened to have Intel compatibility, so it met those users' needs. So this was merely an accidental Mac sale; these users are not macOS converts with concrete chances of staying in the Apple ecosystem. These kinds of users most likely are buying PC hardware from now on, no question about it. Additionally, because in general Apple hardware is more expensive than the equivalent PC hardware, these users are not really representative, as I've already tried to argue.
To see how many real Mac users Apple will lose, it's necessary to find reports of the percentage of users running VMware, Parallels or VirtualBox. Note that I said "reports" there, not "numbers taken out of one's rear end". Without that figure, the discussion cannot proceed.
If you keep acting idiotic, then there’s no point in talking to you at all. The numbers I’m using are from the number of licenses Parallels is estimated to sell. It’s considered that they have about two thirds of the users out there. So, about 0.5%. It’s not being pulled out of anywhere. If you want to double the number, fine, it’s still a very small percentage. And Bootcamp is certainly relevant to this. It’s Windows users too.
most Bootcamp users are mostly Mac users that need to run Windows for whatever reason. Mostly gamers, from what I see, where Parallels can’t really run a game ideally.
so, yes, you’ve tried to argue that, and you accuse me of pulling things out of somewhere? Please!
Now your expensive pro gear may not last as long as you initially planned, and by the time you sell it, it will probably be worthless. I mean really, if you paid upwards of $10,000 on a Mac Pro recently (quite easy with CPU, RAM, storage and GPU upgrades), who's going to pay more than, say, $3,000 or $4,000 for it in three years, knowing the fate of Intel hardware?
People who still find value in it, and in this case likely can still make enough money off of it to make $3-4K a worthwhile expense?
How many times do we relive these same fear and doom scenarios?
Economics 101, supply and demand. Sure there are people who find value at $3,000, or $4,000, maybe even at $10,000 or more (I don't know, maybe they run a manufacturing plant which puts out a million dollars of product a day, but needs a very CPU-intensive Mac app that keeps the plant running?). Thought this last scenario was crazy and unlikely? That's exactly my point, there aren't enough people finding value at $10,000 so that everyone with a $10,000+ Mac Pro can make a sale and recap their expected resale value prior to this announcement.
Any time you obsolete a product, you take a huge chunk of people from the pool of potential buyers (i.e. the demand) while the supply is kept identical (seeing as nobody invented a time machine that allows you to go back in time and not purchase the Mac Pro that you already did). There is no other possible outcome than the price of the goods being reduced under this scenario.
Mac Pros are tools that people buy and use to make money. Nobody is buying them for their resale value. That said, there's no way it's going to be rendered "worthless". People buy old hardware all the time for all sorts of reasons. It's a non-issue.
Just want to clarify something here. If you have current machines, MacOS 11 won't make bootcamp unusable. Whatever happens later on Silicone Mac will be another 2 years, who knows if Windows have ARM version ready, but the new MacOS won't rendered your current machine useless or reduce in value.
"This works with any Intel Mac app" [quoted from the article, regarding Rosetta 2]
Are you sure? Does that include Parallels running x86-64 Windows? It's quite telling that they mentioned Rosetta and virtualization, yet made no mention of this, which could alleviate concerns on many pro users' minds (myself included).
I doubt they meant that. But as Apple has said, only 2% of Macs coming in for service had Windows installed in Bootcamp. How many are using Parallels or other virtualization software with Windows, I don’t know, but it’s not a lot. I have it too, but I haven’t run Windows for more than a year. I still do Run Linux occasionally though. So likely, from what I hear, that’s more important.
i doubt I’d too many pro users use Windows on their Mac these days. It’s mostly used by gamers.
I went back through the Keynote and at the 1:40:11 mark, Docker (docker.com) was shown running Linux. At the 1:41:58 mark Parallels was shown running Debian. Craig said all macOS Big Sur demoes were run on an AS Mac so I assume it's either the AS Mac mini or another development AS Mac. Parallels has made some big changes in ver 15 but I run VMWare Fusion so haven't looked at Parallels for a long time. Anyway, at this point in the keynote they were talking about Rosetta 2 so I assume they simply installed Parallels ver 15 and it converted it to run on Apple Silicon. They didn't show Windows running but that's really Parallels and Dockers responsibility to provide the hardware interface between Windows and the host platform. It appears this is working but as everyone (else) wants to know, will it run Windows. We'll have to wait for the first developer to try it on the developer kit.
One other thing. I checked the serial number of the AS Mac mini in the keynote and it says "We’re sorry, but this serial number isn’t valid. Please check your information and try again." I don't remember if this was simply a faked screen shot or if Craig did an About this Mac and it showed up. Apple could also be blocking certain serial numbers.
While I hope you’re right, they were quite explicit to mention the game as an Intel binary. They never did the same for Parallels. So it’s possible that it’s a Parallels ARM port. Evidently Linux runs on ARM as well, and I assume Docker also does, so either wouldn’t be a roadblock.
Overall they were quite vague with the wording during the keynote, so it’s a coin toss as to whether it was running Linux on ARM or Linux on Intel.
docker runs Linux inside and while multi arch support now exists it depends heavily on qemu to develop for arm on Intel. I can’t recall if they cross compile or compile in qemu since I didn’t pay much attention to that part of DockerCon last year.
Presumably you would need the inverse for developing in docker on AS Macs...technology that Apple could pay to mature but is still cumbersome and generally leads to poorer performance.
Given that you are mostly OS agnostic when using docker that means transitioning from MacOS to Linux on cheaper intel hardware becomes more attractive if the dev environment is degraded. I see more and more folks opting for Linux and using a Windows VM for email and other enterprise tools in their computer refresh. I’d say that most of these are former MacOS users since the Windows folks are more set in their ways.
As a useless manager type I use MS office too much to want to do that. For the first time in 20 years I’m looking at Windows as the alternative for work (my refresh notice just came in). I’ll still get to keep my 2017 MBP so I’ll have my mac fix and I still have a 2013 Mac Pro as well.
For office type applications, why wouldn't you just switch to a cloud provider of Windows x86 Office? I would guess most people can get along just fine with the macOS version of Office but if an application or feature is not available on the macOS version, it certainly would be on a cloud instance. This seems like a solvable problem unlike the previously noted engineering applications needed for doing CAD. Those would probably be problematic with the lag introduced by a cloud connection.
As for Docker, I hope that Apple is flexible in doling out their Developer Transition Kits. I really want a head start on understanding the consequences of this transition on my ability to develop enterprise software. I've applied for the DTK program so we'll see but since I don't have any macOS, iOS or iPadOS applications, Apple may reject my application. I can certainly wait until Apple releases actual commercial hardware but that would mean starting at square one with whatever machine(s) they release first. I would much rather have already done the research by then. Apple has said that they've already gotten Docker and openJava updated but that is only part of the equation. DevOps can be complicated with lots of interdependent requirements. I don't think most enterprise developers are going to be happy with any system that uses qemu for production work.
Look, I understand that being to run Windows is a big deal for some users. But by Apple leaving Intel behind, they have not stopped anyone from being able to do that. They just may not be able to do it on an Apple Silicon based Macs from here on out. It is a huge convenience to be able to run Windows on a Mac for those that needed it, but Apple is not going to keep themselves from moving forward by a set of users' needs that can be met in other ways; continue to use your old Mac for Windows, by a Wintel PC, or use Windows 10 for ARM.
And who knows, maybe Apple will grant access to Rosetta 2 to 3rd party virtualization developers and they will come up with a way to create virtualized x64 CPUs? Today's computers are extremely fast, so doing translation in software is not going to have a significant impact on performance. Maybe the new Macs will contain a FPGA that can be programmed to do translation in real-time without any performance hit? A FPGA could be used for many different types of applications.
A couple of solutions come to mind if Apple can't or won't allow Rosetta 2 in virtualization. The easiest for most people that find the macOS versions of Windows software inadequate is a cloud provider of x86 Windows applications. I haven't checked in years but at the very least Microsoft must supply this on Azure.
Another solution is to use one of Intel's PC stick hardware devices or a solution from another company. This could be used in conjunction with VM software to provide a local PC that runs as a window in the macOS environment. This seems to be a pretty doable software project integrated into one of the existing VM applications. I don't know how fast the PCs on thumb drive size devices are but again, for most purposes besides gaming, it would probably be adequate. Windows DirectX gaming is the one use that ARM Macs are not going to be able to support. But I just can't imagine that the number of people buying Macs for Windows gaming is very high. You get much better bang for your dollar by just going out and buying an actual Windows PC.
I think in a year or so, all this will shake out and people will have a much better idea of what to buy to meet their needs. I'm guessing that Apple has already thought a lot of this through and made the determination that the market will solve most of the problems.
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Virtualization solutions are great if you have a beefy Mac with plenty of memory and storage. I've never had any major issues with VMWare on PCs and Macs so I've never resorted to using BootCamp. In fact, most of the development I've done in the past decade has been on VMs for a number of reasons, but mainly the ease of being able to replicate the entire build environment, test on multiple versions of operating systems, and to remain isolated from corporate administration of physical machines, i.e., getting updates pushed from the IT department that change and potentially screw-up your build environment. I've also used Windows-to-Go to put Windows 10 completely on a USB connected SSD and booted into it from the Mac boot option. This works well because it doesn't touch anything on your Mac's storage drive (HD/SSD) but it has some other issues, like the inability to upgrade the Windows-to-Go instance to newer versions.
The #1 issue with Windows virtual machines (and Windows-to-Go) since the advent of virtualization is Microsoft's restrictive licensing model. Sure, if your company is paying for a big ticket MSDN subscription and you have a lot of activation keys this is not a problem. But for home/personal use this is a major problem if you care about Windows activation.
Bottom line is that I've always found ways to avoid using BootCamp. YMMV.
Overall they were quite vague with the wording during the keynote, so it’s a coin toss as to whether it was running Linux on ARM or Linux on Intel.
And who knows, maybe Apple will grant access to Rosetta 2 to 3rd party virtualization developers and they will come up with a way to create virtualized x64 CPUs? Today's computers are extremely fast, so doing translation in software is not going to have a significant impact on performance. Maybe the new Macs will contain a FPGA that can be programmed to do translation in real-time without any performance hit? A FPGA could be used for many different types of applications.
You were never 50%. Maybe 10% in the beginning, but almost nothing now. My figure isn’t out of my ear. It’s based on writing of those who have in the business. We do know that Apple said that 2% of Macs coming in for service have Windows installed in Bootcamp. Most are used for gaming. That’s been written about too. There are somewhat over 110 million Macs being used, according to Apple. 0.5% would be 500,000 people. So sure, that’s a lot of people, but as a percentage, it’s very small.
How many times do we relive these same fear and doom scenarios?
You don't know that. They're a much bigger company now and with their announcement that they have Intel Macs in the pipeline I think you can assume you have meaningful support for at least a few years beyond that. They're not going to abandon everyone. Just give it a minute. They're not going to announce every single detail right now.
Let me repeat, very slowly: what matters is the percentage of people who run VIRTUALIZATION software. Boot Camp is not virtualization. Anyone who runs Boot Camp is a PC user who happened to find, at a certain point of time, that the Mac hardware being offered at the time was a better deal to them than the rest of PC hardware he looked at, and it happened to have Intel compatibility, so it met those users' needs. So this was merely an accidental Mac sale; these users are not macOS converts with concrete chances of staying in the Apple ecosystem. These kinds of users most likely are buying PC hardware from now on, no question about it. Additionally, because in general Apple hardware is more expensive than the equivalent PC hardware, these users are not really representative, as I've already tried to argue.
To see how many real Mac users Apple will lose, it's necessary to find reports of the percentage of users running VMware, Parallels or VirtualBox. Note that I said "reports" there, not "numbers taken out of one's rear end". Without that figure, the discussion cannot proceed.
Economics 101, supply and demand. Sure there are people who find value at $3,000, or $4,000, maybe even at $10,000 or more (I don't know, maybe they run a manufacturing plant which puts out a million dollars of product a day, but needs a very CPU-intensive Mac app that keeps the plant running?). Thought this last scenario was crazy and unlikely? That's exactly my point, there aren't enough people finding value at $10,000 so that everyone with a $10,000+ Mac Pro can make a sale and recap their expected resale value prior to this announcement.
Any time you obsolete a product, you take a huge chunk of people from the pool of potential buyers (i.e. the demand) while the supply is kept identical (seeing as nobody invented a time machine that allows you to go back in time and not purchase the Mac Pro that you already did). There is no other possible outcome than the price of the goods being reduced under this scenario.
They also better have docker running completely identical to intel or a lot of devs will have to stop using Macs too.
For everything else it’s probably mostly a painless transition but if MS doesn’t do a MS Project and Visio port then unfortunately this is the last replacement cycle I can use Macs.
There’s a boatload of enterprise stuff that only kinda sorta supports MacOS users where Parallels and Fusion makes viable.
We’re a 50/50 Mac shop and I wonder if IT will even keep it as an option once Intel Macs are no longer sold. Probably since PPC Macs were allowed. But for sure this will be a harder transition for enterprise users than home users.
Presumably you would need the inverse for developing in docker on AS Macs...technology that Apple could pay to mature but is still cumbersome and generally leads to poorer performance.
As a useless manager type I use MS office too much to want to do that. For the first time in 20 years I’m looking at Windows as the alternative for work (my refresh notice just came in). I’ll still get to keep my 2017 MBP so I’ll have my mac fix and I still have a 2013 Mac Pro as well.
most Bootcamp users are mostly Mac users that need to run Windows for whatever reason. Mostly gamers, from what I see, where Parallels can’t really run a game ideally.
so, yes, you’ve tried to argue that, and you accuse me of pulling things out of somewhere? Please!
As for Docker, I hope that Apple is flexible in doling out their Developer Transition Kits. I really want a head start on understanding the consequences of this transition on my ability to develop enterprise software. I've applied for the DTK program so we'll see but since I don't have any macOS, iOS or iPadOS applications, Apple may reject my application. I can certainly wait until Apple releases actual commercial hardware but that would mean starting at square one with whatever machine(s) they release first. I would much rather have already done the research by then. Apple has said that they've already gotten Docker and openJava updated but that is only part of the equation. DevOps can be complicated with lots of interdependent requirements. I don't think most enterprise developers are going to be happy with any system that uses qemu for production work.
A couple of solutions come to mind if Apple can't or won't allow Rosetta 2 in virtualization. The easiest for most people that find the macOS versions of Windows software inadequate is a cloud provider of x86 Windows applications. I haven't checked in years but at the very least Microsoft must supply this on Azure.
Another solution is to use one of Intel's PC stick hardware devices or a solution from another company. This could be used in conjunction with VM software to provide a local PC that runs as a window in the macOS environment. This seems to be a pretty doable software project integrated into one of the existing VM applications. I don't know how fast the PCs on thumb drive size devices are but again, for most purposes besides gaming, it would probably be adequate. Windows DirectX gaming is the one use that ARM Macs are not going to be able to support. But I just can't imagine that the number of people buying Macs for Windows gaming is very high. You get much better bang for your dollar by just going out and buying an actual Windows PC.
I think in a year or so, all this will shake out and people will have a much better idea of what to buy to meet their needs. I'm guessing that Apple has already thought a lot of this through and made the determination that the market will solve most of the problems.