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It's actually a brilliant move by Apple. After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behi

It's actually a brilliant move by Apple. After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. Only independent releases (stuff not in the app store) will have to deal with the shit show, which will also push more developers to the Apple tax. For regular Mac users (who are already using the app store for everything), there will be no difference, and nobody will care what's actually under the hood. All of their software will work just fine whether it's x64 or ARM. There's nothing to wait for because these ARM machines aren't going to be so much better that people delay their purchase. It would be like holding off on the 2.2L engine variant of a car because the new model with the 2.4L engine with 5% better acceleration is around the corner. Of course the reality will be that some apps will break, but the majority will just work, and Apple will be working behind the scenes with the biggest fish to make sure their stuff transitions smoothly.

Mindwipe 6y ago
> For regular Mac users (who are already using the app store for everything) Lol. Definitely not.
te_chris 6y ago
Given a large proportion of premium mac sales are to people in the creative industries using specialist software distributed outside the app store, I don't think your intuition is correct on this one.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  What percentage of the mac user population are they? 5%? 10%? 80% of mac users are like my mother-in-law: The Mac is a machine that does their taxes, emails, word processing, small business stuff, browsing, movie watching, and sometimes video chat if they're not doing that on their phone. And if a company that depends on the creative industry is selling its software outside of Apple channels, I'm sure they'll have the foresight and budget to make sure their software works on the new machines.
  - te_chris 6y ago
    If apple loses the creative industries they lose a lot more than points of market share.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I have no data but I bet it's far more than 10%. Your mother-in-law doesn't need a fancy iMac or $2,000 Macbook Pro.
    - kstenerud 6y ago
      I imagine that Apple has a pretty smart team that has thought of their market share prospects, using internal data that no one else has access to. The chances of an armchair analyst out-thinking them is pretty slim.
saagarjha 6y ago
> After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. That would be really magical; this is essentially impossible.
- awinder 6y ago
  It's not every app as far as I know because I believe you can opt out of BitCode, but this would be widely the case with exceptions: https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-developer-news-at-wwdc-that-nobodys-talking-about-bitcode/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-devel... https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translatin... (other direction but clearly demonstrative of what apple can do here)
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Yes, Bitcode is not a requirement for the Mac App Store. Furthermore, Steven’s blog post is misleading: it implies that Apple can just seamlessly translate IR into a different architecture, and shows it kind of working for the simple example he has there. The problem is that this falls apart for anything that is more than mildly complicated (which, of course, is not mentioned in he blog post) because of ABI differences. Apple did this once before with Apple Watch and there they had full control of both the chipset and the ABI on both sides of the transition, plus they had the forsight to mandate Bitcode submissions for the platform. And watchOS itself precludes doing certain fancy things anyways. So this isn’t really a proven way forwards in this case.
    - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
      Anything that uses a 32-bit uintptr_t will blow up.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  It's not though; when submitting a native app to the app store, at least for iOS you're sending them an intermediate version; a version that can be compiled and repackaged by Apple for a specific CPU, e.g. 32 or 64 bits. They will also grab the assets intended for that platform, e.g. regular images for small screens, 2x images for retina and 3x images for iPad screens. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_representation
diroussel 6y ago
> app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes That will be hard to do, as apple doesn't have the source code. They could transcode them from one machine code to another, but this is unlikely. It will be the app developers themselves that will need to recompile. But I'm sure it will be a (relatively) easy process.

Mindwipe 6y ago

> For regular Mac users (who are already using the app store for everything) Lol. Definitely not.

te_chris 6y ago

Given a large proportion of premium mac sales are to people in the creative industries using specialist software distributed outside the app store, I don't think your intuition is correct on this one.

kstenerud 6y ago
What percentage of the mac user population are they? 5%? 10%? 80% of mac users are like my mother-in-law: The Mac is a machine that does their taxes, emails, word processing, small business stuff, browsing, movie watching, and sometimes video chat if they're not doing that on their phone. And if a company that depends on the creative industry is selling its software outside of Apple channels, I'm sure they'll have the foresight and budget to make sure their software works on the new machines.
- te_chris 6y ago
  If apple loses the creative industries they lose a lot more than points of market share.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I have no data but I bet it's far more than 10%. Your mother-in-law doesn't need a fancy iMac or $2,000 Macbook Pro.
  - kstenerud 6y ago
    I imagine that Apple has a pretty smart team that has thought of their market share prospects, using internal data that no one else has access to. The chances of an armchair analyst out-thinking them is pretty slim.

saagarjha 6y ago

> After the new machines are released, all Mac app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes by Apple to run on ARM. That would be really magical; this is essentially impossible.

awinder 6y ago
It's not every app as far as I know because I believe you can opt out of BitCode, but this would be widely the case with exceptions: https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-developer-news-at-wwdc-that-nobodys-talking-about-bitcode/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-devel... https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translatin... (other direction but clearly demonstrative of what apple can do here)
- saagarjha 6y ago
  Yes, Bitcode is not a requirement for the Mac App Store. Furthermore, Steven’s blog post is misleading: it implies that Apple can just seamlessly translate IR into a different architecture, and shows it kind of working for the simple example he has there. The problem is that this falls apart for anything that is more than mildly complicated (which, of course, is not mentioned in he blog post) because of ABI differences. Apple did this once before with Apple Watch and there they had full control of both the chipset and the ABI on both sides of the transition, plus they had the forsight to mandate Bitcode submissions for the platform. And watchOS itself precludes doing certain fancy things anyways. So this isn’t really a proven way forwards in this case.
  - kevin_thibedeau 6y ago
    Anything that uses a 32-bit uintptr_t will blow up.
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
It's not though; when submitting a native app to the app store, at least for iOS you're sending them an intermediate version; a version that can be compiled and repackaged by Apple for a specific CPU, e.g. 32 or 64 bits. They will also grab the assets intended for that platform, e.g. regular images for small screens, 2x images for retina and 3x images for iPad screens. See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_representation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate_representation

diroussel 6y ago

> app store apps will just magically work because they were recompiled behind the scenes That will be hard to do, as apple doesn't have the source code. They could transcode them from one machine code to another, but this is unlikely. It will be the app developers themselves that will need to recompile. But I'm sure it will be a (relatively) easy process.