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What you said makes sense, particularly: > There is just too much software investment in the x86 ecosystem at this point. But I don't have any confidence in A
by thomascgalvin 6y ago
What you said makes sense, particularly:
> There is just too much software investment in the x86 ecosystem at this point.
But I don't have any confidence in Apple's leadership anymore. There was a lot of software investment in 32 bit apps, too, and they merrily launched a nuke at that entire library.
Do I think they're going to drop X86? No. But is it a possibility? Absolutely.
- regularfry 6y agoI think there's a better-than-average chance that they'd cut compatibility just to show that they're capable of doing so. They'd probably get away with it, too.
- scarface74 6y agoHave you been following Apple for the last two decades? They have always dropped legacy support - 68K, Classic MacOS, PPC, 32 bit software. Keeping compatibility forever has its own drawbacks - maintenance, performance, increased vulnerability surface, regression testing etc.
- timw4mail 6y ago68K support on the hardware side happened in OS 8.6. On the software side, it wasn't dropped until the Classic environment was. Legacy support has deteriorated more rapidly recently, it seems.
- scarface74 6y agoThe last 32 bit Mac was shipped in 2006. They announced they weren’t going to port Carbon to 64 bit about a decade ago. Was there really any great surprise that you shouldn’t be writing 32 bit software in 2015 let alone 2019?
- timw4mail 6y agoI think the bigger surprise is that the first Intel Macs were 32bit and/or had 32bit EFI. My gripe is more with how long they supported PowerPC on the Intel side.