loopless

cloudguy said:

But, no pun intended, the failures are the edge cases, and compatibility is the norm.

Yeah, no, that is not true at all. As predicted, lots of major apps are either running very slowly, frequently crashing or not running at all. 

https://news.softpedia.com/news/it-s-not-only-milk-and-honey-terrible-app-experience-on-apple-silicon-531592.shtml

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/317715-early-adopters-of-apple-m1-macs-should-be-cautious-about-compatibility

https://mspoweruser.com/too-good-to-be-true-plenty-of-software-not-compatible-with-apple-m1-laptops/

The initial reviewers were mostly "journalists who write about tech" types - including one who literally stated "who cares about Linux ... it is hard and practically nobody uses it" - who mostly rely on first party Apple software, browser stuff as well as software that Apple "helpfully" recommended. None of them applied a QA testing "let's see what works and what breaks" type of rigorous approach because that wasn't their background.

Of course, I wouldn't expect Apple Insider to do such a thing ... but a lot of the folks at the alleged "independent tech-oriented sites" have egg on their faces right now. I have noted for years that when you read those sites, their "tests" of computing devices include video/photo editing (which virtually no one in the workforce outside of a few jobs/industries does) and they always compare everything to their MacBook Air/iMac/iPad/iPhone. But the first person to get the ball rolling was Patrick Moorhead. The guy doesn't like Apple much - so sue and boo him - but he is a tech consultant who regularly uses Macs for his job. He states:

 I have experienced application crashes in Microsoft Edge, Outlook, WinZip and Logitech Camera Control. I got installation errors with Adobe Reader XI, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, a Samsung SSD backup application, and Xbox 360 Controller for Mac. I couldn’t even install Adobe Reader XI 11.0.10. The installer just sat there, and I had to hard reboot the entire system. Acrobat DC would not install either. Given how many incompatibilities the M1 chip is having, a samaritan has created a site called “Is Apple Silicon Ready” documenting incompatible apps."

https://isapplesiliconready.com/

Granted, this is to be expected. We are basically a week into the launch of both a new hardware stack and a new operating system version. However, I felt that I had to reply to the "the failures are the edge cases and compatibility is the norm" when major applications like the entire Intellij suite - used heavily for programmers/developers - and Adobe applications aren't working and Outlook is unreliable. No one should buy M1 Macs as their primary work machines right now, but as secondary machines for specific applications.