I am not a power user, but I would not buy a Mac laptop if it was unable to operate Windows applications. Compatibility remains very important for many. Microsoft Project, a versatile project management application, is only available in Windows (a situation that is overdue for a change). I do not use Project every day, but I use it often enough that I would have bought a Surface instead of a top-of-the-line 2017 MacBook Pro 15" two years ago if Project could not be used on the Mac via Bootcamp (though Apple needs to work out some unacceptable kinks involving Bootcamp and High Sierra that did not exist several years ago). And certain websites remain more compatible with the Windows browser than with Safari.
I am not a power user, but I would not buy a Mac laptop if it was unable to operate Windows applications. Compatibility remains very important for many. Microsoft Project, a versatile project management application, is only available in Windows (a situation that is overdue for a change). I do not use Project every day, but I use it often enough that I would have bought a Surface instead of a top-of-the-line 2017 MacBook Pro 15" two years ago if Project could not be used on the Mac via Bootcamp (though Apple needs to work out some unacceptable kinks involving Bootcamp and High Sierra that did not exist several years ago). And certain websites remain more compatible with the Windows browser than with Safari.
I am not a power user, but I would not buy a Mac laptop if it was unable to operate Windows applications. Compatibility remains very important for many. Microsoft Project, a versatile project management application, is only available in Windows (a situation that is overdue for a change). I do not use Project every day, but I use it often enough that I would have bought a Surface instead of a top-of-the-line 2017 MacBook Pro 15" two years ago if Project could not be used on the Mac via Bootcamp (though Apple needs to work out some unacceptable kinks involving Bootcamp and High Sierra that did not exist several years ago). And certain websites remain more compatible with the Windows browser than with Safari.
Whaaaa? What websites. It’s not 1997 anymore.
azure.com, microsoft.com, onedrive.com, and outlook.com? But I can't say any of those don't work great with Safari so to say "more compatible" may simply be some experimental Edge tags that have no real effect on usability in the real world. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The first page of this discussion is interesting but many of you guys are wrapped around things that don’t matter. RISC or CISC don’t matter, frankly the speed of the cores don’t matter either. What does matter is the freedom At pls gets to design its own high performance execution units to solve new problems. We are just at the very beginning of accelerating AI technologies for example.
Beyond one that I really don’t think the numbers quoted really apply to the larger user base. Frankly I’d be surprised if 5% of the total user base even needs Windows compatibility.
As for the so called issues with “porting” apps to ARM you guys need to wake up!!!!!!! Has anybody taken a serious look at Linux these days. There are distros running on i86, ARM, PowerPC and even RISC-V. If the open source guys and their crappy software can do it there is no reason why an Apple developer can’t do it. Beyond that if anybody would take a few minutes to digest what is being taught at WWDC over the last half decade you will realize that Apple has been doing everything possible to make sure developers program to SDK’s not hardware. The developer that listen will not have problems.
“MacARM” is the iPad Pro. There will be no more “Mac” ARM but there will be even more iPad Pro with iPad OS.
iPad OS + iPad Pro combo is a more advanced concept than MacARM. The future is the iPad. Macs will continue to exist but for backwards compatibility and for industrial legacy applications only. And if Intel does well within this limited role, it will always do.
The lack of filesystem accessibility on iPadOS or IOS is a huge problem to me and all developers. We work with files all the time. MacOS allows us to do that. Attachment to emails are files. I add files to emails all the time. Makes passing data easy. Why go to the complexity of using DropBox and uploading a file (those darn files won't go away will they)
IMHO, IOS (in any of its guises) has a long way to go to be a total replacement for MacOS. I may well be pushing up daisies before that happens.
My condolences. You expect to dead by the fall, then?
More seriously... Did you miss everything last week? IOS now offers filesystem access. (And no, that's not enough to totally replace MacOS. But nobody with a clue is seriously considering that in the first place. That unfortunately includes the person you're replying to.)
Actually what Apple revealed for File access is still a pretty half assed approach. We can only hope that their solution evolves into something far more useful over time. Oh by the way for an iPad to be a viable solution it really does need the flexibility of Mac OS users.
If Apple can bring prices down for the same performance by moving to ARM, I think that would be great. With iOS 13 supporting a trackpad/mouse, I can easily move my general work to an iPad with a keyboard/trackpad cover; becomes the low end laptop. I prefer to buy an Apple branded cover of this type but it's a start. I prefer to use an iPad as my mobile computer and then I have a desktop at home for the heavy lifting; I could have done this with a MacBook and an iMac but it.s a real hassle to configure and manage to macOS configurations.
As a developer, I need both mac and windows support. To openly campaign to remove Windows compat is to be irresponsible to the marketplace. If users don't need Windows, that's fine. Don't penalize me for your lack of needs.
That is your problem and frankly it is attitudes like this that keep technology from moving forward. To be as blunt as possible I want an ARM based Mac to have all the benefits of a MacOS based device running on ARM can offer.
@damk, agreed. There are linux tools that a lot of us use in macOS that would require porting over to ARM from x86.
Linux already runs on ARM.
Yep and has to some extent or another for years now!!! 😜😜😜😜
This little fact seems seems to be completely ignored by the doom and gloom crowd. Further it is possible to get some distros running on four or five completely different processor architectures. Beyond that Linux is a far better operating solution these days than anytime in the past.
This is no different to the death of fax machines or film cameras or VHS players or CDs or DVDs or floppy discs or DVD drives or wired headphones or tons of other technology: there is always an (ageing, usually) out-of-touch bunch of naysayers who have fantasy rants about how nothing will ever be the same and how their handful of bucks is going to stop inevitable change and bring about the downfall of the offending company.
What they they really mean is that they don’t have the ability or imagination to change. They get stuck and the rest of the world zooms ahead. Their criticisms say more about their own inabilities rather what can and will happen in the future.
ARM is coming. Intel is dying. X86 is dying. Windows is dying. The rest of the planet are moving on to a cleaner, safer, faster future.
I am wondering why no one is talking about the possibility of having a main ARM chip, with a custom x86 sub processor embedded into it? Or having a secondary Intel chip on the motherboard?
This is pure random speculation. But how feasible is this strategy; especially since Apple knows that Pros (especially their developers) would benefit from having both.
That could be done but it is a waste of money.
One thing people seem to foget is how little tweaks to ARMs archetecture and instruction set can have big payoffs. The most recent example is the addition of instructions to speed up JavaScript. Just a couple of instructions resulted in. Significant improvements.
Now imagine adding a couple of instructions to speed up i86 emulation. Maybe throw in some specially mapped registers to go a bit further. I have no idea if Apple is planning this but the point is you can’t look towards the past to determine how well something will work today. Right now A-2 is at the head of the pack when handling JavaScript all due to instruction set extensions. There are all sorts of possibilities here if Apple was to offer an i86 solution.
firstly, no, the ‘a serir]es still has a long way to go before it can compete
1) It's an odd assumption to think that the A-series chip is the most powerful chip Apple can design seeing as how those are designed for handheld devices with no options for fans, very limited batteries, and incredibly small spaces, but I find it even more odd that you assume that it would be an A-series chip and not another chip designation, like all the others Apple has come up with already.
2) We know that Apple's chip designs can compete because we already have evidence that their chips are outpacing what they're putting into many of their Macs, but you're incorrectly assuming that they only way Apple could come out with an ARM-based Macs on the lower-end (where compatibility for Bootcamp and virtualization won't have to be supported) is for Apple to also best Intel on their upcoming Mac Pro performance.
if Apple does begin this process, it will be a very difficult one.
Of course Apple has begun this process. Do you really not see all these changes to their codebase at WWDC as not leading to this eventual transition to offer some ARM-baed Macs?
Yes it is not. The modernization and uniform changes have happened twice at NeXT when I worked there, and now three times at Apple. They had nothing to do with the platform ISA which will forever be x86 based.
Intel is just now phasing out Itanium, and no one at Apple even bothered porting to that.
AMD is blowing up the market with their Zen architecture which has 5 major and 5 minor designs already in the middle to stamp out phases of design and mature market levels.
Apple went ARM because of the Patent IP accessibility and only player in the world for embedded systems balance of performance and power requirements.
ARM cannot compete in the x86 market. Apple who co-developed ARM knows this from its inception.
Moving to a 64 core/ 128 thread PCI-E 4.0 based Mac Pro/iMac Pro/iMac etc., will cost Apple NOTHING with AMD as the CPUs/APUs/GPGPUs other than a custom ASIC on their custom designed motherboards. The cost reduction and margin increases will make Apple far more than they have with Intel.
Having been behind the curtain at NeXT and Apple if they were going to waste their time on ARM for desktop it would have happened 8 years ago. Even with ARM's latest designs it gets its ass handed to it.
None of these chip designs competes with Intel and AMD. Not by a long shot. Nor will they. PowerPC is losing ground to AMD, not just Intel.
ROME is arriving in a few days for EPYC 2 at 64 core/128 threads whose chiplet design blows the doors off of anything Intel can do. The upcoming Ryzen 3950x 16 core/ 32 thread non Threadripper CPU stomps all over the competition. The 64/128 Threadripper 3 will be the only non Apple platform in the Windows/Linux creative space market.
Apple moving to AMD is the inevitable outcome, not ARM.
I’d like to believe that Apple would wrap an AMD chip inside one of their boxes but I honestly believe ARM will happen before that. As for performance you can’t cherry pick data. Apples A12 is already capable of replacing i86 with respect to performance. This is without any attempt on Apples part to build a high performance chip. Given the design crews they have it should be easy for them to ships much higher performance device.
Beyond all of that imaging if Apple borrower from AMD’s current play book with a chiplet design. They would be able to scale performance and maybe more importantly implement new tech rapidly. Imagine Neural Engine or the GPUs as chiplet modules Apple can implement at Will.
In the end Apple has a huge number of technological avenues to follow going ARM! It is this freedom to implement what they want that is key. ARM is only a consideration due to the freedom it offers Apple.
This is no different to the death of fax machines or film cameras or VHS players or CDs or DVDs or floppy discs or DVD drives or wired headphones or tons of other technology: there is always an (ageing, usually) out-of-touch bunch of naysayers who have fantasy rants about how nothing will ever be the same and how their handful of bucks is going to stop inevitable change and bring about the downfall of the offending company.
What they they really mean is that they don’t have the ability or imagination to change. They get stuck and the rest of the world zooms ahead. Their criticisms say more about their own inabilities rather what can and will happen in the future.
ARM is coming. Intel is dying. X86 is dying. Windows is dying. The rest of the planet are moving on to a cleaner, safer, faster future.
ARM is already here as it dominates smartphones and other devices, which are computers. I don't really see how Windows is dying. I'm sure Microsoft is readying for the transition should it come. Linux will never dominate the desktop without an official version supported by a major vendor, as Google has done with Android, so Windows is really the only game in town.
firstly, no, the ‘a serir]es still has a long way to go before it can compete
1) It's an odd assumption to think that the A-series chip is the most powerful chip Apple can design seeing as how those are designed for handheld devices with no options for fans, very limited batteries, and incredibly small spaces, but I find it even more odd that you assume that it would be an A-series chip and not another chip designation, like all the others Apple has come up with already.
2) We know that Apple's chip designs can compete because we already have evidence that their chips are outpacing what they're putting into many of their Macs, but you're incorrectly assuming that they only way Apple could come out with an ARM-based Macs on the lower-end (where compatibility for Bootcamp and virtualization won't have to be supported) is for Apple to also best Intel on their upcoming Mac Pro performance.
if Apple does begin this process, it will be a very difficult one.
Of course Apple has begun this process. Do you really not see all these changes to their codebase at WWDC as not leading to this eventual transition to offer some ARM-baed Macs?
Yes it is not. The modernization and uniform changes have happened twice at NeXT when I worked there, and now three times at Apple. They had nothing to do with the platform ISA which will forever be x86 based.
Intel is just now phasing out Itanium, and no one at Apple even bothered porting to that.
AMD is blowing up the market with their Zen architecture which has 5 major and 5 minor designs already in the middle to stamp out phases of design and mature market levels.
Apple went ARM because of the Patent IP accessibility and only player in the world for embedded systems balance of performance and power requirements.
ARM cannot compete in the x86 market. Apple who co-developed ARM knows this from its inception.
Moving to a 64 core/ 128 thread PCI-E 4.0 based Mac Pro/iMac Pro/iMac etc., will cost Apple NOTHING with AMD as the CPUs/APUs/GPGPUs other than a custom ASIC on their custom designed motherboards. The cost reduction and margin increases will make Apple far more than they have with Intel.
Having been behind the curtain at NeXT and Apple if they were going to waste their time on ARM for desktop it would have happened 8 years ago. Even with ARM's latest designs it gets its ass handed to it.
None of these chip designs competes with Intel and AMD. Not by a long shot. Nor will they. PowerPC is losing ground to AMD, not just Intel.
ROME is arriving in a few days for EPYC 2 at 64 core/128 threads whose chiplet design blows the doors off of anything Intel can do. The upcoming Ryzen 3950x 16 core/ 32 thread non Threadripper CPU stomps all over the competition. The 64/128 Threadripper 3 will be the only non Apple platform in the Windows/Linux creative space market.
Apple moving to AMD is the inevitable outcome, not ARM.
I’d like to believe that Apple would wrap an AMD chip inside one of their boxes but I honestly believe ARM will happen before that. As for performance you can’t cherry pick data. Apples A12 is already capable of replacing i86 with respect to performance. This is without any attempt on Apples part to build a high performance chip. Given the design crews they have it should be easy for them to ships much higher performance device.
Beyond all of that imaging if Apple borrower from AMD’s current play book with a chiplet design. They would be able to scale performance and maybe more importantly implement new tech rapidly. Imagine Neural Engine or the GPUs as chiplet modules Apple can implement at Will.
In the end Apple has a huge number of technological avenues to follow going ARM! It is this freedom to implement what they want that is key. ARM is only a consideration due to the freedom it offers Apple.
I totally agree on the freedom point. Apple doesn’t need to beat Intel on traditional single thread performance benchmarks. All they need to do is beat them on some tasks that are very important to Mac users or that enable new features.
regarding chiplets— I don’t know if that approach makes sense for Apple or not. From a performance standpoint a single big chip is better than multiple small chips. I think one reason AMD went that route is that there is a high fixed cost to developing a chip on the 7nm node and AMD is very cash constrained. Apple has no cash constraints, but of course they do care about ROI. So it might come down to how many units Apple thinks they will sell.
As a developer, I need both mac and windows support. To openly campaign to remove Windows compat is to be irresponsible to the marketplace. If users don't need Windows, that's fine. Don't penalize me for your lack of needs.
I don't think you, nor FredFref read the article.
Why does a dissenting opinion mean they didn't read the article? Maybe they read, disagreed with the basic premise "cross-platform software compatibility is now mostly irrelevant to the wider user base" and everything that follows. Especially since you had a poll, found 35% that said, yes they needed windows and then proceeded to hand wave that away as AI readers aren't a representative sample. Which begs the question of WHY RUN THE POLL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The next assertion "for Apple's biggest user base, the need for Windows compatibility isn't the same as it is for the main readers of this site" is fabricated out of thin air and has zero supporting data. Whether true or not it's based on nothing but speculation.
If the primary uses of the Macs are Pro and everyone else migrates to iPads then a significant fraction of Mac users (dare I say 35%) will want x86 compatibility.
But, nope...because they disagree they didn't read the article.
That's not why I said that, and you know it. And, there's a lot more to this quote of mine than what you clipped out. And, I didn't even say anything about the ludicrous assumption that this article is a "campaign" to remove Windows compatibility.
It wasn't handwaved away. What it is, is that 35% of the user base that reads AI doesn't need it, which is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs and does with their machines, and you know this as well, based on your own interactions with the rest of the AI readership. And, even if you translate it literally, it does mean that the majority doesn't care about Windows on the Mac.
Why run the poll and then disregard it? So what if 35% isn't the majority? It's still a large part of the user base.
And how do you know that it is "an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs"? On what data is this assertion based on? Why do you assume that the majority of your readers are pros? Why did you not include in your survey to self identify if they were pros or just general users? Never mind that these polls are generally horridly misleading anyway.
The article, and you, would like to make it seem like it's 0.35% of the user base to sell the idea that x86 compatibility is no longer needed. Apple may have a good idea as to the number but you don't. Moreover you ignored the entire enterprise market because it's inconvenient. Does IBM and other major Mac deployments believe x86 compatibility is irrelevant? I have no idea and neither do you. It would have been fairly easy to reach out to IT folks highlighted in past articles and ask "hey, is x86 compatibility important to your Mac enterprise deployment?"
Nope.
But hey...35% is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs...
Regarding the bolded section, we are, and your own supposition of how that is going so far is wrong because what they care about so far is iOS development and general productivity. We'll see how it goes in total when we're done.
In regards to our audience, exactly who do you think AppleInsider is read by far, far more? College grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot, or the "new Apple user" which is iOS centric, where the iPhone is a halo for the Mac and not the other way around?
And the demographics for Mac users are what? Gee maybe folks who are "college grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot"?
Nah.
I will assert, based on personal experience, that there are very few enterprise iOS developers that don't care about MS project, DOORS and a bevy of windows/x86 corporate tools...still dependent on Excel with macros. People send me a lot of stuff in Visio to boot. Also, most of us aren't iOS developers but enterprise developers and the docker tool chain is a significant part of devops.
Yeah. we're not done. So far, we've spoken to IBM, Cisco, and Deloitte. There are about eight more on the docket. The point of this article, stands, though, that there is a line, where below it, the need for Windows is non-existent.
And you have failed to show where that line is. Again, is the AI demographic you just stated significantly different than that of Mac users? Or have most of the "new Apple users" that don't frequent AI already moved to the iPad or never bought a Mac in the first place and have a windows laptop somewhere?
I'm not really sure what you're asking, here.
We didn't set out to draw precisely where the line is, so there is no failure to show something that we didn't set out to show. The piece is more to remind folks that there is a line, even though that there is the assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody. We were pretty clear in the end of the piece in regards to the Mac Pro maybe never shifting.
Who do you think reads AI? Do you not think it's primarily Apple devout for decades? William addresses this in the piece, somewhat, in regards to who reads AI. Who reads AI should be apparent from the forums at least. Based on what we know, the "average" AI reader has been in the Apple ecosystem for well over a decade, is pretty heavily technologically savvy, has many Apple devices and has for ages, well before the iPhone 3gs, iPad, and iPhone 6 explosions in Apple user volume.
If we could tap into 1% of the "new" Apple customer, we'd be sitting on a gold mine. Most of the new Apple users bought an iPhone and have just that so aren't relevant to this particular conversation, or got an iPhone or iPad and said "hey, this Mac thing might be pretty great" rather than the other way around like it was a decade ago.
This is the point. The article (and you) argues that the poll results are irrelevant (ie "overly conservative") because it does not represent the "larger user base needs". I argue that the AI demographic more closely matches that of Mac users than the larger "new Apple users" and therefore not necessarily "overly conservative".
If around a third of the prospective user base needs a feature it sure as hell isn't a minor feature. There isn't any "assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody" but that a significant part of the Mac user base (say closer to 35% than 3.5%) wants that feature.
There is nothing an ARM based Mac does that an ARM based iPad Pro couldn't do with a couple further tweaks to iOS.
So why go through the disruption of a significant processor change and leave the Mac lineup half Intel and half ARM?
This is no different to the death of fax machines or film cameras or VHS players or CDs or DVDs or floppy discs or DVD drives or wired headphones or tons of other technology: there is always an (ageing, usually) out-of-touch bunch of naysayers who have fantasy rants about how nothing will ever be the same and how their handful of bucks is going to stop inevitable change and bring about the downfall of the offending company.
What they they really mean is that they don’t have the ability or imagination to change. They get stuck and the rest of the world zooms ahead. Their criticisms say more about their own inabilities rather what can and will happen in the future.
ARM is coming. Intel is dying. X86 is dying. Windows is dying. The rest of the planet are moving on to a cleaner, safer, faster future.
ARM has been around and Microsoft has been using them for their Surface line. And no, Windows isn't dying at all. Far from it. Cleaner, safer and faster? Have you checked the news lately? It's not even going that way due to the current administration from the White House at DC. And if you think the rest of the planet is going cleaner, not quite. They have a long way to go before everyone including the USA gets on the same page completely and fix the environmental and climate issues.
And I doubt Apple will put ARM in all of their machines. Something tells me they're going to have some bumps with the transition in the next few years just like they did with PowerPC to Intel. More likely ARM will be in iPad and MacBooks for mobile computing which makes sense. Not sure about iMac and Mac Pros which I don't think is a good idea and that's where Intel should stick with.
As a developer, I need both mac and windows support. To openly campaign to remove Windows compat is to be irresponsible to the marketplace. If users don't need Windows, that's fine. Don't penalize me for your lack of needs.
I don't think you, nor FredFref read the article.
Why does a dissenting opinion mean they didn't read the article? Maybe they read, disagreed with the basic premise "cross-platform software compatibility is now mostly irrelevant to the wider user base" and everything that follows. Especially since you had a poll, found 35% that said, yes they needed windows and then proceeded to hand wave that away as AI readers aren't a representative sample. Which begs the question of WHY RUN THE POLL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The next assertion "for Apple's biggest user base, the need for Windows compatibility isn't the same as it is for the main readers of this site" is fabricated out of thin air and has zero supporting data. Whether true or not it's based on nothing but speculation.
If the primary uses of the Macs are Pro and everyone else migrates to iPads then a significant fraction of Mac users (dare I say 35%) will want x86 compatibility.
But, nope...because they disagree they didn't read the article.
That's not why I said that, and you know it. And, there's a lot more to this quote of mine than what you clipped out. And, I didn't even say anything about the ludicrous assumption that this article is a "campaign" to remove Windows compatibility.
It wasn't handwaved away. What it is, is that 35% of the user base that reads AI doesn't need it, which is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs and does with their machines, and you know this as well, based on your own interactions with the rest of the AI readership. And, even if you translate it literally, it does mean that the majority doesn't care about Windows on the Mac.
Why run the poll and then disregard it? So what if 35% isn't the majority? It's still a large part of the user base.
And how do you know that it is "an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs"? On what data is this assertion based on? Why do you assume that the majority of your readers are pros? Why did you not include in your survey to self identify if they were pros or just general users? Never mind that these polls are generally horridly misleading anyway.
The article, and you, would like to make it seem like it's 0.35% of the user base to sell the idea that x86 compatibility is no longer needed. Apple may have a good idea as to the number but you don't. Moreover you ignored the entire enterprise market because it's inconvenient. Does IBM and other major Mac deployments believe x86 compatibility is irrelevant? I have no idea and neither do you. It would have been fairly easy to reach out to IT folks highlighted in past articles and ask "hey, is x86 compatibility important to your Mac enterprise deployment?"
Nope.
But hey...35% is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs...
Regarding the bolded section, we are, and your own supposition of how that is going so far is wrong because what they care about so far is iOS development and general productivity. We'll see how it goes in total when we're done.
In regards to our audience, exactly who do you think AppleInsider is read by far, far more? College grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot, or the "new Apple user" which is iOS centric, where the iPhone is a halo for the Mac and not the other way around?
And the demographics for Mac users are what? Gee maybe folks who are "college grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot"?
Nah.
I will assert, based on personal experience, that there are very few enterprise iOS developers that don't care about MS project, DOORS and a bevy of windows/x86 corporate tools...still dependent on Excel with macros. People send me a lot of stuff in Visio to boot. Also, most of us aren't iOS developers but enterprise developers and the docker tool chain is a significant part of devops.
Yeah. we're not done. So far, we've spoken to IBM, Cisco, and Deloitte. There are about eight more on the docket. The point of this article, stands, though, that there is a line, where below it, the need for Windows is non-existent.
And you have failed to show where that line is. Again, is the AI demographic you just stated significantly different than that of Mac users? Or have most of the "new Apple users" that don't frequent AI already moved to the iPad or never bought a Mac in the first place and have a windows laptop somewhere?
I'm not really sure what you're asking, here.
We didn't set out to draw precisely where the line is, so there is no failure to show something that we didn't set out to show. The piece is more to remind folks that there is a line, even though that there is the assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody. We were pretty clear in the end of the piece in regards to the Mac Pro maybe never shifting.
Who do you think reads AI? Do you not think it's primarily Apple devout for decades? William addresses this in the piece, somewhat, in regards to who reads AI. Who reads AI should be apparent from the forums at least. Based on what we know, the "average" AI reader has been in the Apple ecosystem for well over a decade, is pretty heavily technologically savvy, has many Apple devices and has for ages, well before the iPhone 3gs, iPad, and iPhone 6 explosions in Apple user volume.
If we could tap into 1% of the "new" Apple customer, we'd be sitting on a gold mine. Most of the new Apple users bought an iPhone and have just that so aren't relevant to this particular conversation, or got an iPhone or iPad and said "hey, this Mac thing might be pretty great" rather than the other way around like it was a decade ago.
This is the point. The article (and you) argues that the poll results are irrelevant (ie "overly conservative") because it does not represent the "larger user base needs". I argue that the AI demographic more closely matches that of Mac users than the larger "new Apple users" and therefore not necessarily "overly conservative".
If around a third of the prospective user base needs a feature it sure as hell isn't a minor feature. There isn't any "assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody" but that a significant part of the Mac user base (say closer to 35% than 3.5%) wants that feature.
There is nothing an ARM based Mac does that an ARM based iPad Pro couldn't do with a couple further tweaks to iOS.
So why go through the disruption of a significant processor change and leave the Mac lineup half Intel and half ARM?
iOS is macOS. The platform is already split between ARM and INTEL and has been for over a decade. Apple is now moving to unify software development across the architectures and that will provide the path for a smooth transition, if and when it becomes necessary.
As a developer, I need both mac and windows support. To openly campaign to remove Windows compat is to be irresponsible to the marketplace. If users don't need Windows, that's fine. Don't penalize me for your lack of needs.
I don't think you, nor FredFref read the article.
Why does a dissenting opinion mean they didn't read the article? Maybe they read, disagreed with the basic premise "cross-platform software compatibility is now mostly irrelevant to the wider user base" and everything that follows. Especially since you had a poll, found 35% that said, yes they needed windows and then proceeded to hand wave that away as AI readers aren't a representative sample. Which begs the question of WHY RUN THE POLL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The next assertion "for Apple's biggest user base, the need for Windows compatibility isn't the same as it is for the main readers of this site" is fabricated out of thin air and has zero supporting data. Whether true or not it's based on nothing but speculation.
If the primary uses of the Macs are Pro and everyone else migrates to iPads then a significant fraction of Mac users (dare I say 35%) will want x86 compatibility.
But, nope...because they disagree they didn't read the article.
That's not why I said that, and you know it. And, there's a lot more to this quote of mine than what you clipped out. And, I didn't even say anything about the ludicrous assumption that this article is a "campaign" to remove Windows compatibility.
It wasn't handwaved away. What it is, is that 35% of the user base that reads AI doesn't need it, which is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs and does with their machines, and you know this as well, based on your own interactions with the rest of the AI readership. And, even if you translate it literally, it does mean that the majority doesn't care about Windows on the Mac.
Why run the poll and then disregard it? So what if 35% isn't the majority? It's still a large part of the user base.
And how do you know that it is "an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs"? On what data is this assertion based on? Why do you assume that the majority of your readers are pros? Why did you not include in your survey to self identify if they were pros or just general users? Never mind that these polls are generally horridly misleading anyway.
The article, and you, would like to make it seem like it's 0.35% of the user base to sell the idea that x86 compatibility is no longer needed. Apple may have a good idea as to the number but you don't. Moreover you ignored the entire enterprise market because it's inconvenient. Does IBM and other major Mac deployments believe x86 compatibility is irrelevant? I have no idea and neither do you. It would have been fairly easy to reach out to IT folks highlighted in past articles and ask "hey, is x86 compatibility important to your Mac enterprise deployment?"
Nope.
But hey...35% is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs...
Regarding the bolded section, we are, and your own supposition of how that is going so far is wrong because what they care about so far is iOS development and general productivity. We'll see how it goes in total when we're done.
In regards to our audience, exactly who do you think AppleInsider is read by far, far more? College grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot, or the "new Apple user" which is iOS centric, where the iPhone is a halo for the Mac and not the other way around?
And the demographics for Mac users are what? Gee maybe folks who are "college grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot"?
Nah.
I will assert, based on personal experience, that there are very few enterprise iOS developers that don't care about MS project, DOORS and a bevy of windows/x86 corporate tools...still dependent on Excel with macros. People send me a lot of stuff in Visio to boot. Also, most of us aren't iOS developers but enterprise developers and the docker tool chain is a significant part of devops.
Yeah. we're not done. So far, we've spoken to IBM, Cisco, and Deloitte. There are about eight more on the docket. The point of this article, stands, though, that there is a line, where below it, the need for Windows is non-existent.
And you have failed to show where that line is. Again, is the AI demographic you just stated significantly different than that of Mac users? Or have most of the "new Apple users" that don't frequent AI already moved to the iPad or never bought a Mac in the first place and have a windows laptop somewhere?
I'm not really sure what you're asking, here.
We didn't set out to draw precisely where the line is, so there is no failure to show something that we didn't set out to show. The piece is more to remind folks that there is a line, even though that there is the assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody. We were pretty clear in the end of the piece in regards to the Mac Pro maybe never shifting.
Who do you think reads AI? Do you not think it's primarily Apple devout for decades? William addresses this in the piece, somewhat, in regards to who reads AI. Who reads AI should be apparent from the forums at least. Based on what we know, the "average" AI reader has been in the Apple ecosystem for well over a decade, is pretty heavily technologically savvy, has many Apple devices and has for ages, well before the iPhone 3gs, iPad, and iPhone 6 explosions in Apple user volume.
If we could tap into 1% of the "new" Apple customer, we'd be sitting on a gold mine. Most of the new Apple users bought an iPhone and have just that so aren't relevant to this particular conversation, or got an iPhone or iPad and said "hey, this Mac thing might be pretty great" rather than the other way around like it was a decade ago.
This is the point. The article (and you) argues that the poll results are irrelevant (ie "overly conservative") because it does not represent the "larger user base needs". I argue that the AI demographic more closely matches that of Mac users than the larger "new Apple users" and therefore not necessarily "overly conservative".
If around a third of the prospective user base needs a feature it sure as hell isn't a minor feature. There isn't any "assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody" but that a significant part of the Mac user base (say closer to 35% than 3.5%) wants that feature.
There is nothing an ARM based Mac does that an ARM based iPad Pro couldn't do with a couple further tweaks to iOS.
So why go through the disruption of a significant processor change and leave the Mac lineup half Intel and half ARM?
INTEL processor emulation isn't going to cut it. Apple will need to give developers time to develop for ARM as they move away from INTEL, if and when that happens. iOS (macOS) on ARM was the beginning of that transition.
As a developer, I need both mac and windows support. To openly campaign to remove Windows compat is to be irresponsible to the marketplace. If users don't need Windows, that's fine. Don't penalize me for your lack of needs.
I don't think you, nor FredFref read the article.
Why does a dissenting opinion mean they didn't read the article? Maybe they read, disagreed with the basic premise "cross-platform software compatibility is now mostly irrelevant to the wider user base" and everything that follows. Especially since you had a poll, found 35% that said, yes they needed windows and then proceeded to hand wave that away as AI readers aren't a representative sample. Which begs the question of WHY RUN THE POLL IN THE FIRST PLACE?
The next assertion "for Apple's biggest user base, the need for Windows compatibility isn't the same as it is for the main readers of this site" is fabricated out of thin air and has zero supporting data. Whether true or not it's based on nothing but speculation.
If the primary uses of the Macs are Pro and everyone else migrates to iPads then a significant fraction of Mac users (dare I say 35%) will want x86 compatibility.
But, nope...because they disagree they didn't read the article.
That's not why I said that, and you know it. And, there's a lot more to this quote of mine than what you clipped out. And, I didn't even say anything about the ludicrous assumption that this article is a "campaign" to remove Windows compatibility.
It wasn't handwaved away. What it is, is that 35% of the user base that reads AI doesn't need it, which is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs and does with their machines, and you know this as well, based on your own interactions with the rest of the AI readership. And, even if you translate it literally, it does mean that the majority doesn't care about Windows on the Mac.
Why run the poll and then disregard it? So what if 35% isn't the majority? It's still a large part of the user base.
And how do you know that it is "an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs"? On what data is this assertion based on? Why do you assume that the majority of your readers are pros? Why did you not include in your survey to self identify if they were pros or just general users? Never mind that these polls are generally horridly misleading anyway.
The article, and you, would like to make it seem like it's 0.35% of the user base to sell the idea that x86 compatibility is no longer needed. Apple may have a good idea as to the number but you don't. Moreover you ignored the entire enterprise market because it's inconvenient. Does IBM and other major Mac deployments believe x86 compatibility is irrelevant? I have no idea and neither do you. It would have been fairly easy to reach out to IT folks highlighted in past articles and ask "hey, is x86 compatibility important to your Mac enterprise deployment?"
Nope.
But hey...35% is an overly conservative estimate of what the larger user base needs...
Regarding the bolded section, we are, and your own supposition of how that is going so far is wrong because what they care about so far is iOS development and general productivity. We'll see how it goes in total when we're done.
In regards to our audience, exactly who do you think AppleInsider is read by far, far more? College grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot, or the "new Apple user" which is iOS centric, where the iPhone is a halo for the Mac and not the other way around?
And the demographics for Mac users are what? Gee maybe folks who are "college grads with advanced degrees, industry folk, designers and whatnot"?
Nah.
I will assert, based on personal experience, that there are very few enterprise iOS developers that don't care about MS project, DOORS and a bevy of windows/x86 corporate tools...still dependent on Excel with macros. People send me a lot of stuff in Visio to boot. Also, most of us aren't iOS developers but enterprise developers and the docker tool chain is a significant part of devops.
Yeah. we're not done. So far, we've spoken to IBM, Cisco, and Deloitte. There are about eight more on the docket. The point of this article, stands, though, that there is a line, where below it, the need for Windows is non-existent.
And you have failed to show where that line is. Again, is the AI demographic you just stated significantly different than that of Mac users? Or have most of the "new Apple users" that don't frequent AI already moved to the iPad or never bought a Mac in the first place and have a windows laptop somewhere?
I'm not really sure what you're asking, here.
We didn't set out to draw precisely where the line is, so there is no failure to show something that we didn't set out to show. The piece is more to remind folks that there is a line, even though that there is the assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody. We were pretty clear in the end of the piece in regards to the Mac Pro maybe never shifting.
Who do you think reads AI? Do you not think it's primarily Apple devout for decades? William addresses this in the piece, somewhat, in regards to who reads AI. Who reads AI should be apparent from the forums at least. Based on what we know, the "average" AI reader has been in the Apple ecosystem for well over a decade, is pretty heavily technologically savvy, has many Apple devices and has for ages, well before the iPhone 3gs, iPad, and iPhone 6 explosions in Apple user volume.
If we could tap into 1% of the "new" Apple customer, we'd be sitting on a gold mine. Most of the new Apple users bought an iPhone and have just that so aren't relevant to this particular conversation, or got an iPhone or iPad and said "hey, this Mac thing might be pretty great" rather than the other way around like it was a decade ago.
This is the point. The article (and you) argues that the poll results are irrelevant (ie "overly conservative") because it does not represent the "larger user base needs". I argue that the AI demographic more closely matches that of Mac users than the larger "new Apple users" and therefore not necessarily "overly conservative".
If around a third of the prospective user base needs a feature it sure as hell isn't a minor feature. There isn't any "assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody" but that a significant part of the Mac user base (say closer to 35% than 3.5%) wants that feature.
There is nothing an ARM based Mac does that an ARM based iPad Pro couldn't do with a couple further tweaks to iOS.
So why go through the disruption of a significant processor change and leave the Mac lineup half Intel and half ARM?
iOS is macOS. The platform is already split between ARM and INTEL and has been for over a decade. Apple is now moving to unify software development across the architectures and that will provide the path for a smooth transition, if and when it becomes necessary.
Apple’s efforts to unify software development across architectures is actually a clear proof of that CPU dichotomy will persist for years, not a proof of the opposite, I.e. transitioning from one architecture to the other. Apple wants to provide a CPU-agnostic way of development. Only if CPU differences will be so big and crucial that you may need to develop in CPU-agnostic way.
Developers/professionals who expect Windows and/or Intel instruction sets (ex: Linux devs who need to run docker/virtualization).
iOS users who have held off on switching to Macs because they can't run certain iOS applications?
Also:
How much money does Apple save by not having to pay Intel for its chips, assuming the price of Macs remains unchanged
The amount of money Apple makes by fully controlling its hardware release/marketing cycle, and not being at the mercy of Intel's screw-ups/roadmap delays?
I think the very last of the four points is extremely compelling to Apple, and it may make up for the losses from the first point.
Personally (and highly anecdotally), I would have no choice but to switch to a Linux laptop if Apple does this. I use too many Linux and Java tools for me to risk incompatibility problems with a new CPU instruction set.
However, I wouldn't be able to easily and elegantly pry myself away from the Apple ecosystem (I've been part of it since 2004) but at that point I would have no choice to do so at least for my desktop computing.
Comments
The question is only whether they think it's worth the effort. I think it's worth the effort, but do they? I just don't know.
Beyond one that I really don’t think the numbers quoted really apply to the larger user base. Frankly I’d be surprised if 5% of the total user base even needs Windows compatibility.
As for the so called issues with “porting” apps to ARM you guys need to wake up!!!!!!! Has anybody taken a serious look at Linux these days. There are distros running on i86, ARM, PowerPC and even RISC-V. If the open source guys and their crappy software can do it there is no reason why an Apple developer can’t do it. Beyond that if anybody would take a few minutes to digest what is being taught at WWDC over the last half decade you will realize that Apple has been doing everything possible to make sure developers program to SDK’s not hardware. The developer that listen will not have problems.
This little fact seems seems to be completely ignored by the doom and gloom crowd. Further it is possible to get some distros running on four or five completely different processor architectures. Beyond that Linux is a far better operating solution these days than anytime in the past.
What they they really mean is that they don’t have the ability or imagination to change. They get stuck and the rest of the world zooms ahead. Their criticisms say more about their own inabilities rather what can and will happen in the future.
ARM is coming. Intel is dying. X86 is dying. Windows is dying. The rest of the planet are moving on to a cleaner, safer, faster future.
One thing people seem to foget is how little tweaks to ARMs archetecture and instruction set can have big payoffs. The most recent example is the addition of instructions to speed up JavaScript. Just a couple of instructions resulted in. Significant improvements.
Now imagine adding a couple of instructions to speed up i86 emulation. Maybe throw in some specially mapped registers to go a bit further. I have no idea if Apple is planning this but the point is you can’t look towards the past to determine how well something will work today. Right now A-2 is at the head of the pack when handling JavaScript all due to instruction set extensions. There are all sorts of possibilities here if Apple was to offer an i86 solution.
Beyond all of that imaging if Apple borrower from AMD’s current play book with a chiplet design. They would be able to scale performance and maybe more importantly implement new tech rapidly. Imagine Neural Engine or the GPUs as chiplet modules Apple can implement at Will.
In the end Apple has a huge number of technological avenues to follow going ARM! It is this freedom to implement what they want that is key. ARM is only a consideration due to the freedom it offers Apple.
regarding chiplets— I don’t know if that approach makes sense for Apple or not. From a performance standpoint a single big chip is better than multiple small chips. I think one reason AMD went that route is that there is a high fixed cost to developing a chip on the 7nm node and AMD is very cash constrained. Apple has no cash constraints, but of course they do care about ROI. So it might come down to how many units Apple thinks they will sell.
If around a third of the prospective user base needs a feature it sure as hell isn't a minor feature. There isn't any "assumption that Windows compatibility is everything to everybody" but that a significant part of the Mac user base (say closer to 35% than 3.5%) wants that feature.
There is nothing an ARM based Mac does that an ARM based iPad Pro couldn't do with a couple further tweaks to iOS.
So why go through the disruption of a significant processor change and leave the Mac lineup half Intel and half ARM?
And I doubt Apple will put ARM in all of their machines. Something tells me they're going to have some bumps with the transition in the next few years just like they did with PowerPC to Intel. More likely ARM will be in iPad and MacBooks for mobile computing which makes sense. Not sure about iMac and Mac Pros which I don't think is a good idea and that's where Intel should stick with.