narwhal

My delay was I'm switching from Cocoa to Catalyst for my macOS apps. It's a lot of work. I think I've figured everything out now, but the learning curve is long. For one thing, Xcode 12 GUI doesn't support building for both macOS 10.15 (Intel) and 11 (Intel and M1), you need to tweak the project in a text editor. For another, you need to implement the old Mac help system in your Catalyst apps, including Help Indexer, and there's zero support for it in Xcode. Another thing is, Apple didn't post sample code showing how to implement menus on Catalyst apps, so it's a guessing game getting it working. There's zero sample code for the transition -- which is insane. Some frameworks simply don't work in Catalyst apps: you can forget about StoreKit and GameKit, they don't work on M1. There's more, I could make a longer list, but now that I've figured everything out, I'm busy releasing apps.

coolfactor said:

The fact that Apple is returning nearly one half of the original fee is more than generous, i say. Again, how can someone complain about this? It's a gift.

Just out of curiosity, are you a small developer who ported his apps to Apple Silicon using the DTK, and is now faced with going without an Apple Silicon machine for a month? I have to PACK UP my DTK, wait for apple to issue a coupon, then order an M1 Mac mini (wait time is 3 weeks now for 16 GB version). It would make a LITTLE more sense if we could replace the mini before sending it back; but going a month without an AS dev/test machine is CRAZY!

I’m surprised Apple announced this on a Wednesday. This is the type of news a government or unscrupulous corporation announces Friday evening before a long weekend.

Xed said:

You could afford the $500 for the DTK but not the $600 for an M1 Mac mini?

That's a good question. I *CAN* afford a $600 M1 Mac mini, but it's better as a test machine, not a dev machine. The higher-end 16GB M1 Mac mini would be better for a dev machine, but it's back-ordered 3 weeks. The way I see it, with Apple's plan, if I want to use Apple's $200 coupon, I'll be without an Apple Silicon machine for between a week and a month. And I *MIGHT* be forced to buy 2 Apple Silicon Macs this year -- the low end one for testing (because it's available now) and a higher end one later for dev.

Ideally, Apple would send us DTK leasers a 16GB M1 Mac mini, then have us send the DTK back to them in the same box. I'd be willing to pay some dough for the price difference. But the current offer is a joke.

wozwoz said:

"Mac shifting to ARM may come as soon as ..."  ... ore more likely, it may not. 
It's a dumb idea that breaks the Windows compatibility that has been Apple's hook into bringing people over from the dark side, and will involve huge amounts of angst for everyone, with no 'noticeable' difference (other than your software won't work). By noticeable, it needs to run 40 times faster for anyone to care. 

Have you noticed what software is popular on Windows? Chrome, iTunes, Office, Adobe CC, anti-virus, torrent software. All of these are on macOS too. I have a feeling the people running Windows VMs on Mac are the geekier among us; and it's not the potential audience Apple desires for Mac. (Apple is content with geekier phone users buying Android, and regular folks buying iPhones.) If Apple produces chips running twice as fast as Intel's at lower cost, that would be fast enough to be noticed. Forty times faster would be better though, you're right.

I also think macOS devs won't have much trouble with a recompile unless Apple drops AppKit and goes UIKit-only on the new chip.

This is great for developers running ads who never update their apps. But for developers who update their apps regularly, their apps will appear to App Store customers as more intrusive and dangerous. Apple should add information to older apps too stating that their privacy settings are undetermined due to the age of the app.

mike eggleston said:

I am genuinely curious as to what still uses QuickTime 7. That hasn't been updated in many years (I believe in 2015).

The QuickTime Player Pro 7 app had editing tools that never made it to QuickTime Player 10. If memory serves, it could edit .mov files; add, delete or append audio and video tracks to a .mov, and play MPEG2 files. Most of those things can be done in iMovie, but not as easily.

If Apple releases a Mac Pro with Intel inside in 2022, it means existing Intel Mac users will continue to get OS updates for several more years. Sounds good. I expect that someday Apple will have an M-series chip faster than the fastest Xeons, but if it's not for a few more years, no worries.

For always putting on a tough-guy act, Putin is just a little sissy crybaby. Poor little Vlad. Boo hoo. Wah wah! Where's your binky? Is your diaper full? Little baby Putin. He just wants to be loved by someone who's not psycho or feeble-minded.

Japhey said:

Why would they need an adapter? They could just use a mini-HDMI to HDMI cable. No adapter needed. 

That's not the way it works. When you give presentations you get exactly one end of a standard HDMI cable. The other end of the cable is attached to an Epson projector, which could be on the ceiling.