jdiamond

knowitall said:

It will be the best move of Apple, ever.

It is also important to do it as fast as possible, late 2020 is already a bit late.
Maybe no one sees this coming but competition from opensource hardware and software designs will be intense.

 

Yeah - it's a shame  - if Apple weren't so heavily invested in ARM they could've gone with RISC-V.  I think that had it not been for AMD's fire storm of a comeback, x86 would already be on the way out.  That's what prompted all the huge companies to create business server ARM CPUs in the first place.  It would also be nice if Apple shifted to a non-binary delivery model to make ISA shifts less painful in the future.

A good reminder that we should hold off buying new Mac Hardware when Catalina is first released until we have a proven set up working with Catalina - 'cause new Macs won't support Mojave. 

And I can't spread this news enough - running your old 32-bit MacOS apps in an emulator DOES NOT WORK, so if this is your backup plan, abandon it now.  The reason is that Apple doesn't provide an accelerated 3D API to emulators like VMWare Fusion and Parallels, and there is no software fallback API.  I've found than even some of the simplest 2D apps I've tried simply crash and exit, 'cause they all still try to do something graphical.  This is an unfortunate move by Apple, who could easily provide an emulator, but I assume it's to give developers an impetus for people to move iOS apps to Mac, just as having only USB-C plugs gives manufacturers a reason to make USB-C devices.

For current software under active development, this is not an issue.  But I've found most developers, even if still active, can't even recompile their older software let alone fix it.  Sad sounding, but just the way it is.  

So glad you wrote this article - glad to find out about this hub.  Certainly looks less "Hideous" to me than the other hubs out there.  You missed two important features of the hub, though:

1) You can hook a hard drive up to the USB-A port and charge at the same time.  There is no penalty - it reads and writes files at the same speed, whether on the USB-C port or the USB-A port, both at 5 gigabits (USB 3.0 speeds).  And USB-C to USB-A cables are ubiquitous.

2) It not only supports HDMI, but the USB-C port also supports Displayport 1.2 with HDCP!  (But only up to Full-HD resolution.) . But now you really can't charge at the same time.

My experience is that the user experience nose dives long before Apple officially pulls support.  I upgraded to a 6S because iOS 10 ran unbearably slow on my 5S.  And iOS 12 has reduced my 6S's battery life to about 90 minutes, max.  (Or 15 minutes with a 3D game.  ) This is opposite of my experience with MacOS, where high end, older models can run new MacOSes fine even though they need to be hacked to allow it.  Probably because each Mac line covers a huge range of performance, while each iPhone is just one.

I'd guess the reason the iPhones are the last to switch to USB-C even though they were the first to lose the headphone jack is because the majority of iPhone users are actually Windows users (there are only 100 million Mac users and a billion+ iPhone users).  I'd say that MOST PC laptops do not have functioning USB-C ports.  Maybe Apple doesn't want to annoy their single biggest customer base (and source of revenue) with dongles?  (Even though they had no issues at all doing that to Mac users...)

OTOH, if USB-C is actually less reliable/durable than lightning, we're all in trouble, because lightning has not been exactly care free with my iPhones - in fact, the number one reason I've had iOS devices replaced is a broken lightning port...