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It's fine that Apple is moving to ARM. It's not okay that this is going to be a proprietary, locked down CPU. T2 has shown that Apple customers no longer own th

It's fine that Apple is moving to ARM. It's not okay that this is going to be a proprietary, locked down CPU. T2 has shown that Apple customers no longer own their hardware.

underdeserver 6y ago
Apple customers haven't owned their hardware in quite a while.
_bxg1 6y ago
> proprietary, locked down CPU Is it somehow more proprietary and locked-down than the Intel ones?
- gpderetta 6y ago
  I think the worry is a locked bootloader.
  - pathartl 6y ago
    That and Apple being able to introduce security via obscurity means we'll probably never see a non-Apple OS on the platform.
    - _bxg1 6y ago
      It's already quite difficult and unideal to install a non-Apple OS on a Mac, aside from Windows via Bootcamp. Not being able to install a custom OS is a long way from "not owning your hardware". Apple OSes are part of the sum package; if you don't want that, you aren't the kind of person who's buying Apple hardware in the first place.
      - pathartl 6y ago
        3-4 years ago it wasn't difficult at all to replace macOS with pretty much any EFI-enabled OS. Moving to a proprietary ARM CPU/GPU will probably result in not being able to write applications unless it's using Apple's toolchain. If you have no say over what software you can run on your computer, you no longer own that computer. We really haven't seen such a large technological separation like this. At least back in the old days you could still run what you want. macOS moving to the iOS route where you have to jailbreak your device to get any sort of usability out of it is not a space I want to participate in, and yet it seems that's how the entire Apple line is moving. They're almost the complete opposite compared to Microsoft these days.
        _bxg1 6y ago
        As long as developers continue buying Macs for building non-Apple-native software, there will be ways to get them to run whatever you want, because that's required for a dev machine. If Apple ever decides it no longer cares about selling Macs to developers, well, I guess that's a possibility but it would be incredibly stupid, because that's a significant fraction of their current market.
murermader 6y ago
Whats wrong with the T2? I just heard some stories that you can't recover your data when your hardware fails (which is not that huge of a problem, who does not sync their files nowadays), and that some laptops get 'improperly' resold (not being deactivated), but thats it. I probably missed something.
- pathartl 6y ago
  The problem with the T2 is if it fails in any way, you now lose access to your all of your data and your motherboard is rendered useless. At best it turns your computer into a large piece of e-waste. It's also a fairly powerful ARM CPU with access to nearly everything within the system. It paints a very large target on its back for exploits.
sigstoat 6y ago
who makes the non-proprietary CPUs that will provide competitive performance here in 2020?

It's fine that Apple is moving to ARM. It's not okay that this is going to be a proprietary, locked down CPU. T2 has shown that Apple customers no longer own their hardware.

underdeserver 6y ago

Apple customers haven't owned their hardware in quite a while.

_bxg1 6y ago

> proprietary, locked down CPU Is it somehow more proprietary and locked-down than the Intel ones?

gpderetta 6y ago
I think the worry is a locked bootloader.
- pathartl 6y ago
  That and Apple being able to introduce security via obscurity means we'll probably never see a non-Apple OS on the platform.
  - _bxg1 6y ago
    It's already quite difficult and unideal to install a non-Apple OS on a Mac, aside from Windows via Bootcamp. Not being able to install a custom OS is a long way from "not owning your hardware". Apple OSes are part of the sum package; if you don't want that, you aren't the kind of person who's buying Apple hardware in the first place.
    - pathartl 6y ago
      3-4 years ago it wasn't difficult at all to replace macOS with pretty much any EFI-enabled OS. Moving to a proprietary ARM CPU/GPU will probably result in not being able to write applications unless it's using Apple's toolchain. If you have no say over what software you can run on your computer, you no longer own that computer. We really haven't seen such a large technological separation like this. At least back in the old days you could still run what you want. macOS moving to the iOS route where you have to jailbreak your device to get any sort of usability out of it is not a space I want to participate in, and yet it seems that's how the entire Apple line is moving. They're almost the complete opposite compared to Microsoft these days.
      - _bxg1 6y ago
        As long as developers continue buying Macs for building non-Apple-native software, there will be ways to get them to run whatever you want, because that's required for a dev machine. If Apple ever decides it no longer cares about selling Macs to developers, well, I guess that's a possibility but it would be incredibly stupid, because that's a significant fraction of their current market.

murermader 6y ago

Whats wrong with the T2? I just heard some stories that you can't recover your data when your hardware fails (which is not that huge of a problem, who does not sync their files nowadays), and that some laptops get 'improperly' resold (not being deactivated), but thats it. I probably missed something.

pathartl 6y ago
The problem with the T2 is if it fails in any way, you now lose access to your all of your data and your motherboard is rendered useless. At best it turns your computer into a large piece of e-waste. It's also a fairly powerful ARM CPU with access to nearly everything within the system. It paints a very large target on its back for exploits.

sigstoat 6y ago

who makes the non-proprietary CPUs that will provide competitive performance here in 2020?