Apple will someday cut off support for apps that don't upgrade, so you should summarily stop using them today.
To what purpose? Make sure you suffer today instead of waiting for some unspecified time in the future when you might (or might not) be forced to?
That sounds pretty counter-productive to me. Especially when Apple hasn't even completed their hardware transition.
Seems like someone is taking the business decisions of software companies and developers personally. The result of this current age of tech fandom where companies and their CEOs are the new Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant. Not that fandom of celebrities in any way better mind you.
I think you've hit the nail on the head. Somewhere along the line, society decided to take any assault, however benign, on ideas or opinions of remote interest personally, leading to the social-justice-warrior-type approach on everything. That's not to say the author isn't entitled to his opinion, but to advocate abandoning a piece of software because it's 'an affront to apple silicon' and 'how dare they' is a bit much. The apologetic wars fought for corporations who couldn't give a crap about you need to end.
I think the author of this article has done a fine job of articulating one very specific viewpoint of how the author "grades" the migration of apps from Intel to Apple Silicon technology. His perspective is explained quite clearly as is the rationale behind calling out "developers" who seem to be, in the opinion expressed in the article, laggards to progress. Whether or not other commenters, including myself, agree with the author and put forward our own viewpoints is all part of the normal discourse that takes place whenever big changes are proposed or take place. This all very normal and healthy discussion.
If I didn't make it clear, my comments are from the perspective of businesses that have to figure out how to make the best of their limited time, money, and resources to keep their businesses afloat. But this is just another opinion that's been heavily influenced by experiences having to compete for time, money, and resources while staying as close to the forefront of technological innovation. It's all part of what I'd call the "architect's dilemma," which involves fighting to stay current, make progress, while also properly managing pragmatic business concerns, including supporting legacy for longer than you'd prefer to.
Apple is in a position where they not only have to balance all of the previously mentioned concerns, but also try to influence others to play along with and support what they doing and where they are going. There is probably not a single Apple customer that asked for Apple Silicon. There are plenty of Apple customers at all levels including partners, ISVs, and end users who asked for all of the qualities that Apple Silicon provides, the "whats" like faster performance, lower power requirements, and faster technology update cycles than what Intel was delivering, but nobody was asking Apple to build what became the M1, with the "hows" that include not only benefits, but yes, even some drawbacks.
Apple wants everyone to move with them and move quickly, but they don't want to lose anyone in the process, especially developers. Apple is building bridges that allow developers more time to make the move while continuing to make the move more attractive. In the "carrot versus stick" line of encouragement, Apple is currently floating as many carrots as they can. They do not really ever want to use the stick and will do whatever is reasonable for as long as reasonable to keep the stick safely stowed in its locker.
My take on the author of this article's perspective is that Apple should at least take the stick out of its locker and show it to developers. It's just about letting them know that yeah, there is a stick, and its name is "The End of Rosetta 2 support." The author isn't proposing that the stick be employed now, only that its existence be made known to all. I happen to believe that waving the stick around now is premature because developers who are still fighting the "architect's dilemma" within their organizations and trying to nail down migration plans that are compatible with business needs and constraints (not to mention an ongoing pandemic) have not had sufficient time to work out all of the details and rationale.
As Apple releases more products built around Apple Silicon and continues to show the huge benefits that Apple Silicon delivers, especially around higher end business focused products and applications, these jumbo carrots will compel more organizations to latch on to and demand native support for Apple Silicon within their product teams. This pull model is far better than Apple trying to push organizations to use Apple Silicon, or worse yet, breaking out and actually using the stick. Having to use the stick would be a lose-lose scenario for everyone involved. Crowley mentioned a couple of options but missed a third one, Option 3: Goodbye Apple - Hello Microsoft.
If your posts "keep getting deleted," it's not because we object to your opinion (which is clear based on the wide array of it on display here), it's because you violated a commenting rule. A link to them is conveniently posted at the bottom of every forum thread.
It's time to review them, if this is you. Feel free to repost your opinion, without the rule-breaking part.
As far as I could tell, that would be rule 3: "Do not complain about typos, timeliness, newsworthiness, how something is covered, or relevance to AppleInsider. If you see typos or grammar issues or have other complaints we do want to hear about them, but please email us (news at appleinsider dot com)."
That's because I've deemed this opinion piece wrong (or at the very list, very narrow sighted) and not newsworthy at all!
But hey, what do I know??? I don't even have plans yet to replace my Intel MBP. Besides, Mathworks has already pledged native Apple Silicon support next year for MATLAB (a multi gigabyte professional application) that is working flawlessly in Rosetta (according to a limited sample I know). Following the proposed logic, perhaps the University where I teach "should stop using me", although that would be hard, being tenured and all.
The whole thing is beyond childish...
Nope. I've DMed you with the point you keep missing. Communities, including ones associated with tenure that you have at your university, have rules. Disobey them at your peril.
And you're making incredible and bad leaps of logic well beyond what's in the piece, as it pertains to your employment and work flows. You are not a computer family, with a new architecture that you didn't have two years ago.
Further commentary in this thread about what you keep missing as it pertains to forum rules is neither required nor desired.
There isn’t always a alternative! We use Broadcast cameras from Sony. These cameras use SXS Cards as memory card. Sony doesn’t support with their device driver Apple Silicon. It’s impossible to ingest content to M1 Macs 🤨
Sony makes nice products, but they were early adopters of concept of proprietary tech that only plays nicely with other Sony products.
Sort of. They have learned. BlackMagic design copied that model and stole a lot of their business. For cheaper.
But then NewTek came along with their NDI STANDARD and rocked everyone’s world. If your not using NDI for broadcasting now, it’s time to switch. SDI is old snd you have to keep investing money into the pit to upgrade your SDI generations in cameras and receivers, switchers, etc. with NDI, it’s not only more capable, better quality, and far far more extensible, but cheaper to implement.
We switched from a very unprofessional hdmi setup when I first arrived (and to my utter horror) to a 6g SDI SETUP which was reliable, but we were only getting hd from our 4K Sony cameras as a result.
Then we switched to NDI, and what a difference. Razor sharp 4K. Rock solid (be sure your camera network is closed and only used for your broadcasting) and we could easily add as many cameras as we wanted, including iPhones over wireless in a pinch. It’s like a miracle. We were pretty maxed out on our budget, but NDI gave us a “free” extra budget to pipe in content from sources that were a gigantic challenge before. For live broadcasting and recorded content, it’s been a dream. Go NDI. Never worry about proprietary boxing in again.
Sorry to sound like an evangelist. But dang. This saved our rear ends in a time where our media team had to get very very creative on a tiny budget. Next thing we knew, we were looking like an unlimited budget crew. Had to share.
One scenario William did not think of - from one developer I contacted
The release notes say “ Aug 20, 2021 Native support for M1 processor.” but it’s actually still INTEL.
The excuses were at least entertaining - along the lines of “Apple’s Xcode misled the developers” and the more usual “you won’t notice any difference” plus many more.
Having most of our computers now M1s, I would love everything we use to have native Apple Silicon code. Most of my software is Apple Silicon, however some of it is not. People can think and do as they want, however I think it is silly at this point to abandon software just because they don't have native Apple Silicon code. Some of the software is quite complex and overall Macs are a small part of the world and Apple Silcon are a smaller part of that. Some developers will quit, others will not continue to program for the Macs, some will continue at their pace, and there will be new blood. What about drivers? Will that printer I have, continue to support Macs and Apple Silicon? What about games? Roblox is a very popular game/experience that so far is Intel, and there is nothing on their plans/site that even says anything about the Apple Silicon or M1 Macs. Roblox didn't adopt Metal right away. I imagine Robox will have Apple Silicon code, when they feel the time is right. As of 2020, only 75% of Roblox's users were on Metal. What about other games? Another game I have is Trainz, they didn't adopt Metal until this year. Trainz now supports Metal and Apple Silicon, however they require Mac OS Big Sur and above.
I only dumped 32 bit software, when no longer supported by the OS and I will do the same with Intel software. This is going to be a long process and I think Rosetta 2 will be around a long time, to keep from annoying a large group of people.
Apple will someday cut off support for apps that don't upgrade, so you should summarily stop using them today.
To what purpose? Make sure you suffer today instead of waiting for some unspecified time in the future when you might (or might not) be forced to?
That sounds pretty counter-productive to me. Especially when Apple hasn't even completed their hardware transition.
Seems like someone is taking the business decisions of software companies and developers personally. The result of this current age of tech fandom where companies and their CEOs are the new Elizabeth Taylor and Cary Grant. Not that fandom of celebrities in any way better mind you.
That's not to say the author isn't entitled to his opinion, but to advocate abandoning a piece of software because it's 'an affront to apple silicon' and 'how dare they' is a bit much.
Whilst you’re entitled to your interpretation, the author never said this. The App Stores are currently riddled with apps from developers clamouring to cash in on Apple’s ecosystem & user base whilst degrading that ecosystem.
I would say that’s parasitic & the apps should be removed. If developers no longer wish to support Apple, Apple should no longer have to support them.
Apple will someday cut off support for apps that don't upgrade, so you should summarily stop using them today.
To what purpose? Make sure you suffer today instead of waiting for some unspecified time in the future when you might (or might not) be forced to?
That sounds pretty counter-productive to me. Especially when Apple hasn't even completed their hardware transition.
Most posters who disagree with, or are complaining about the article, I think are missing the point.
The article is talking about leaving/looking for alternative now, for ONLY the apps where the developer won't even state they are going to natively support Apple Silicon with their apps.
And I believe Rosetta 2 will go away in about 4-5 years from the released date (not in the macOS release in 2025 at the latest). It will go away - only Apple knows when.
If a developer won't even comment on supporting Apple Silicon, how should they expect their customers to support them (TALKING TO YOU, PLEX!)
Seems like the author is completely clueless to the challenges that many, many developers on the Mac and iOS platforms face. Way to go, this isn't helping.
So are you saying because it’s challenging the devs should not support Apple Silicon natively? If so they’re not very good at developing software.
Option 1: Develop features that all customers want Option 2: Support a new architecture that only a small percentage of customer want (and none of them need, because Rosetta works so well)
Option 2 isn't sexy. It's the equivalent of an Infrastructure & Maintenance Bill.
Option 2 isn't very forward thinking of a developer. Transition of all new Macs to AS will be complete next year (8-9 months). The developer will have no new customer base after that. Sounds like a road to going out of business for the developer (if macOS is a major part of their business).
And I'll repeat it again - the article is mainly implying to look for alternates/drop developers who won't even comment on, or commit to AS support. (LOOKING AT YOUR PLEX).
Call me crazy, but isn’t that what Rosetta is for? For something like Dropbox, doesn’t that pretty much do the trick? I totally understand for complex apps. I don’t understand why people would leave Dropbox over it. Maybe I’m missing something.
You are missing something - Rosetta 2 will go away, in less than 5 years, I predict. AI mods/authors predict much sooner (see above comments).
And Dropbox won't commit/announce any plans for AS support. So do you stay with a company who won't talk about how long they'll support your platform (not be ready, but won't comment/commit), or do you move on and find someone who at least comments on it?
This article is a joke, right? Sounds like the author isn't old enough to know how the PowerPC to Intel transition progressed. Apple completed the entire hardware transition to Intel in just over 200 days. Yet they continued to provide Rosetta for five and a half years after the introduction of the first Intel Macs, Jan 2006 to Mid-2011. Why? Because there were literally millions of PowerPC Macs in operation for years after the switch. Same is true now. There are probably over a hundred million Intel Macs in operation, both privately and in enterprise. Developers go where the money is, and currently it is still with Intel Macs. There is only a very small percentage of Apple Silicon Macs in operation now compared to the number of Intel Macs. Apple is also still selling Intel Macs, and will do so well into 2022. The Apple Silicon transition is going very slow because it took Apple 11 months to come out with new models after the first batch, and their flagship Macs, the 27-inch iMac and Mac Pro are still Intel. The pandemic, is the author aware there is still a pandemic going on, has played a huge part along with the world-wide chip shortage in causing major delays with everything.
So telling people to jump ship after 11 months is ridiculous. Rosetta will be around for at least 5 years to support Intel apps running on Apple Silicon, and Intel Macs will continue to be used by people for years to come. Remember, the Apple Silicon Macs aren't great for everything, many people take advantage of virtual machines, something the Apple Silicon Macs do not do well. Intel Mac can run Windows natively, and can also run older versions of Mac OS X in Parallels for older software compatibility, something Apple Silicon Macs will never do (maybe someday Microsoft will be on board with running the ARM version of Windows natively). More people will still be using Intel Macs for years to come, much more than people using Apple Silicon Macs. And it took Apple a year and a half after announcing Apple Silicon to finally come out with Apple Silicon Macs that are worth buying. The M1 Macs were nice low end models, but the lack of memory and features held a lot of people back. People wanted faster Macs with more features, not faster Macs with features cut. Apple has finally fixed that mistake.
I will be very surprised if Apple doesn't kill Rosetta and cut off Intel Macs in the next two versions of the operating system after Monterey.
The author was around for not just the PowerPC to Intel, but also the 68K to PPC shifts - and so was I. All three shifts, including Intel to Apple Silicon came at different times in the company's history with incredibly different market forces, software delivery mechanisms, and customer dynamics acting on the company. Once upon a time, the Mac was the product that brought customers to other Apple products. It hasn't been that way in a decade, it's been the iPhone for a very long time, and 1) those folks that bought a M1 Mac because of the iPhone were perfectly fine with the "nice low end model" M1 Macs, and 2) they do not give a crap about older processor technologies.
Apple knows all this.
I'd be very surprised if they cut off Intel support within the two versions/years after Monterey. That'd be between roughly September 2022 and 2024, only ~9 months to 2 years 9 months after they stopped selling Intel Macs - assuming they update the 27" iMac and MP in early 2022. Both of which would be an extremely software support life.
That said, Apple supported PPC for about 3 years post-transition, finishing with Snow Leopard. The original Rosetta was supported until Lion, which gave it a life of 5 years. So a short support time wouldn't be entirely unprecedented, but in this era where CPU speeds are not accelerating as they were during the PPC/x86 transition, software support now exists for a lot longer than that of yore. Therefore Apple can't really justify the excuse that the last Intel Macs are too slow, as the latest PPC Macs genuinely were by 2009 when Lion was released. Generally speaking contemporary hardware is further ahead of software bloat than it was in the PPC days. That and the performance improvement between the top end G5 and Mac Pro was 1.2-1.8x, compared with the current i9 to M1 Max gap which is actually negative.
If it does happen so soon, I'd imagine quite a backlash. People with perfectly good $25,000 Mac Pros wouldn't be too pleased, I'm sure.
... Apple supported PPC for about 3 years post-transition, finishing with Snow Leopard. The original Rosetta was supported until Lion, which gave it a life of 5 years. ...
Context matters here.
Apple didn't develop Rosetta. They licensed it from Transitive. Support was cut off when IBM bought Transitive and stopped licensing the technology. Apple didn't have a choice in the matter.
Although it's purely speculation on my part, I think Apple would've kept Rosetta alive until some OS change broke it (since it wouldn't be cost effective to perform a major rewrite if it isn't completely necessary).
Rosetta 2, as far as I know, was developed by Apple. So no outside companies can force Apple to drop it. As such, Apple will keep supporting it until the costs (from ongoing support) outweigh the benefits (supporting legacy apps). To me this means at least as long as certain critical third-party apps (e.g. Adobe Creative Cloud) require it, and possibly beyond that, until an OS change breaks it. The number of OS releases that this translates to should be irrelevant.
Comments
If I didn't make it clear, my comments are from the perspective of businesses that have to figure out how to make the best of their limited time, money, and resources to keep their businesses afloat. But this is just another opinion that's been heavily influenced by experiences having to compete for time, money, and resources while staying as close to the forefront of technological innovation. It's all part of what I'd call the "architect's dilemma," which involves fighting to stay current, make progress, while also properly managing pragmatic business concerns, including supporting legacy for longer than you'd prefer to.
Apple is in a position where they not only have to balance all of the previously mentioned concerns, but also try to influence others to play along with and support what they doing and where they are going. There is probably not a single Apple customer that asked for Apple Silicon. There are plenty of Apple customers at all levels including partners, ISVs, and end users who asked for all of the qualities that Apple Silicon provides, the "whats" like faster performance, lower power requirements, and faster technology update cycles than what Intel was delivering, but nobody was asking Apple to build what became the M1, with the "hows" that include not only benefits, but yes, even some drawbacks.
Apple wants everyone to move with them and move quickly, but they don't want to lose anyone in the process, especially developers. Apple is building bridges that allow developers more time to make the move while continuing to make the move more attractive. In the "carrot versus stick" line of encouragement, Apple is currently floating as many carrots as they can. They do not really ever want to use the stick and will do whatever is reasonable for as long as reasonable to keep the stick safely stowed in its locker.
My take on the author of this article's perspective is that Apple should at least take the stick out of its locker and show it to developers. It's just about letting them know that yeah, there is a stick, and its name is "The End of Rosetta 2 support." The author isn't proposing that the stick be employed now, only that its existence be made known to all. I happen to believe that waving the stick around now is premature because developers who are still fighting the "architect's dilemma" within their organizations and trying to nail down migration plans that are compatible with business needs and constraints (not to mention an ongoing pandemic) have not had sufficient time to work out all of the details and rationale.
As Apple releases more products built around Apple Silicon and continues to show the huge benefits that Apple Silicon delivers, especially around higher end business focused products and applications, these jumbo carrots will compel more organizations to latch on to and demand native support for Apple Silicon within their product teams. This pull model is far better than Apple trying to push organizations to use Apple Silicon, or worse yet, breaking out and actually using the stick. Having to use the stick would be a lose-lose scenario for everyone involved. Crowley mentioned a couple of options but missed a third one, Option 3: Goodbye Apple - Hello Microsoft.
And you're making incredible and bad leaps of logic well beyond what's in the piece, as it pertains to your employment and work flows. You are not a computer family, with a new architecture that you didn't have two years ago.
Further commentary in this thread about what you keep missing as it pertains to forum rules is neither required nor desired.
One scenario William did not think of - from one developer I contacted
The release notes say “ Aug 20, 2021 Native support for M1 processor.” but it’s actually still INTEL.
The excuses were at least entertaining - along the lines of “Apple’s Xcode misled the developers” and the more usual “you won’t notice any difference” plus many more.
I only dumped 32 bit software, when no longer supported by the OS and I will do the same with Intel software. This is going to be a long process and I think Rosetta 2 will be around a long time, to keep from annoying a large group of people.
I would say that’s parasitic & the apps should be removed. If developers no longer wish to support Apple, Apple should no longer have to support them.
The article is talking about leaving/looking for alternative now, for ONLY the apps where the developer won't even state they are going to natively support Apple Silicon with their apps.
And I believe Rosetta 2 will go away in about 4-5 years from the released date (not in the macOS release in 2025 at the latest). It will go away - only Apple knows when.
If a developer won't even comment on supporting Apple Silicon, how should they expect their customers to support them (TALKING TO YOU, PLEX!)
And I'll repeat it again - the article is mainly implying to look for alternates/drop developers who won't even comment on, or commit to AS support. (LOOKING AT YOUR PLEX).
And Dropbox won't commit/announce any plans for AS support. So do you stay with a company who won't talk about how long they'll support your platform (not be ready, but won't comment/commit), or do you move on and find someone who at least comments on it?
That said, Apple supported PPC for about 3 years post-transition, finishing with Snow Leopard. The original Rosetta was supported until Lion, which gave it a life of 5 years. So a short support time wouldn't be entirely unprecedented, but in this era where CPU speeds are not accelerating as they were during the PPC/x86 transition, software support now exists for a lot longer than that of yore. Therefore Apple can't really justify the excuse that the last Intel Macs are too slow, as the latest PPC Macs genuinely were by 2009 when Lion was released. Generally speaking contemporary hardware is further ahead of software bloat than it was in the PPC days. That and the performance improvement between the top end G5 and Mac Pro was 1.2-1.8x, compared with the current i9 to M1 Max gap which is actually negative.
If it does happen so soon, I'd imagine quite a backlash. People with perfectly good $25,000 Mac Pros wouldn't be too pleased, I'm sure.