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It has just been confirmed. Macs are moving to Apple's ARM chips. Edit 1: They are pushing the performance/Watt angle, as well as all their SoC features alread
by Cu3PO42 6y ago
It has just been confirmed. Macs are moving to Apple's ARM chips.
Edit 1: They are pushing the performance/Watt angle, as well as all their SoC features already known on other devices. They also say they will bring a "family of SoCs" to Mac.
Edit 2: All Apple apps will ship with native code at launch, including Final Cut and Logic Pro. MS and Adobe apps will also get native versions. There are going to be new "Universal (2)" binaries shipping with both x64 and ARM code.
Edit 3: Office, Lightroom, and Photoshop were shown working as expected.
Edit 4: It sounded like they just said "A12Z" in a Mac. I'm not entirely sure I got that right.
Edit 5: Rosetta 2 is announced. It's a translation layer from x64 to ARM. Apparently it does AOT translation, as well as JITting.
Edit 6: Working virtualization confirmed, in particular Docker.
Edit 7: They are showing Maya running in Rosetta. It seems smooth. Some Tomb Raider game is also running fine translated.
Edit 8: iOS apps are coming to Mac.
Edit 9: A "Developer Transition Kit" is coming, which will ship new hardware (Mac mini with an A12Z) this week. You have to apply.
Edit 10: They expect the transition to take two years. They also said there's still new Intel-based Macs in the pipeline.
Edit 11: That's all she wrote. I'm personally sad and slightly surprised that they weren't giving us any hard performance numbers. Be it raw power or battery life improvements or anything really. If they're shipping hardware now we're bound to find out very soon, though.
- nicoburns 6y agoOffice and Photoshop up and running pre-launch sure takes the wind out of a lot of the app compatibility complaints!
- penagwin 6y agoThese two program ecosystems (and AAA video games with anticheat) are the biggest things that hold a lot of people like me back from using Linux exclusively.
- MR4D 6y agoVirtualization also running now. Great for us Linux users! And "iPad apps run on it directly!" - from Craig himself Transition kit = mac mini running A12Z processor. Shipping today! - no word on cost...
- dhosek 6y agoA comment that I may regret in a few minutes, but it seems to me that running iOS apps directly on new Macs implies touch screen.
- MR4D 6y agoIf you remember that they had cursor support in the latest iPad , my guess is that the cursor support enables it instead of a touchscreen.
- penagwin 6y agoWoah I think you're right. Sure some apps might work without a touchscreen but that kinda defeats the point? Unless this feature is just to help on board new apps to macs that were previously only for ios but don't require a touch screen, but that seems like it would be rather niche? I bet they're actually pivoting towards a product that's "ipad pro + desktop apps" and then they'll try to phase out their "computers" that currently feel like an after thought.
- MR4D 6y agoI think iPad mouse support is a better bet: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211008 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211008
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- threeseed 6y agoiOS apps are built using a Mac and a mouse. I highly doubt Apple would have a touch screen anytime soon.
- kohtatsu 6y agoIt's just a neat way of porting iOS code to native mac apps, to expedite development. It isn't an iOS emulator or anything cheap like that.
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- txcwpalpha 6y ago>It sounded like they just said "A12Z" in a Mac. I'm not entirely sure I got that right. That is what was said, but the A12Z is the current SoC that is in current iPad Pros. Craig said that the machine he was on was a "Development Platform" for testing software using the iPad Pro chip. I don't think that necessarily means the new non-iPads will be using the A12Z. My guess is that they are saving the announcement of the new chip's name until later (maybe until the end of the keynote). edit: no mention at all of the chip specifics or name for new "Apple Silicon". Maybe they're holding that off until the actual hardware announcement later in the fall?
- nicoburns 6y agoI wonder whether they're actually launching a new mac today/soon. They're demoing on a new imac... EDIT: They're launching a mac mini development kit based on the A12Z today.
- raverbashing 6y agoWhen they did the transition to Intel they also had a dev kit which was not based on the final product processor, so I guess history repeats itself (it was a P4 based kit but I don't think we ever saw a P4 Mac)
- numpad0 6y agoYeah a part of the point of Intel Core branding was to allow Mac to use Intel without carrying Pentium name.
- js2 6y agoRight. Also, the "About This Mac" window shows the "Apple Development Platform" is an A12Z with 16GB of RAM. I think the latest iPad Pro is 6GB or 8GB?
- MDWolinski 6y agoI'm making a guess it'll be it's own series of chip. I also predict that it'll be called the M-Series.
- protomyth 6y agoI am very curious why they mentioned Linux but not Windows?
- oneplane 6y agoMight be competition type thing, MS not wanting to or because they simply didn't get it to work yet. Speculation is free.
- dahfizz 6y ago> or because they simply didn't get it to work yet Based on how poorly every other Windows on Arm experiment has gone, I'm guessing Apple is not willing to officially sanction bootcamp (yet).
- oneplane 6y agoOther possibility: bootcamp (native Windows booting) requires something like iBoot starting a CSM or UEFI stub (if the A-SoC doesn't use UEFI - which it might not) to then start the Windows Boot Manager. I don't actually know the current status of supported Windows firmware loaders, but the most recent information I had was that even on ARM you needed UEFI with Secure Boot. I am interested in Linux on those Mac ARM desktop machines, probably takes a lot of effort, I don't see Apple making the effort themselves. On the other hand: there is a super small chance that if the A-series SoCs are marketable you'd get no-OS ARM (micro) servers. That'd be pretty cool.
- dahfizz 6y agoI don't think it's an issue like that. You can run windows without secure boot[1], and the windows boot loader can be chain loaded from whatever apple is using if they are not using a standard eufi firmware for whatever reason. At the very least, booting windows is a relatively low effort problem to solve compared to everything else that has to happen to move a whole ecosystem to a new architecture. We can conclude its a low priority for Apple, if it's something they still want to support at all. [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/disabling-secure-boot#disable-secure-boot https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufactur...
- Rebelgecko 6y agoWas there any mention of how long Rosetta 2 will be supported? The problem for me was that I still had PowerPC binaries after Apple got rid of Rosetta
- Cu3PO42 6y agoI don't think they said anything on that. However they did say there's still new Intel-based Macs coming, so I would expect it to be a while.
- toyg 6y agoCook said they expect the transition to last 2 years. The first models will ship before Christmas.
- zapzupnz 6y agoI believe the Rosetta technology was licenced from another company and the licence expired.
- modeless 6y agoiOS apps on Mac? Are they finally going to relent and add a touchscreen?
- tcoff91 6y agoI doubt it. 'Most' apps work fine unmodified they said. Probably iPadOS cursor support. Perhaps multitouch trackpad gestures will work maybe?
- MR4D 6y agoI doubt it. Probably just mouse support from iPadOS.
- dahfizz 6y agoBut then they couldn't make you buy an iPad and a Mac.
- zapzupnz 6y agoNo. It's likely a stopgap until those apps get a proper macOS version. It'll be sufficient for games, but macOS users will eventually demand Catalyst or full AppKit conversions for certain apps.
- toyg 6y agoI wouldn't take any prerecorded, retouched video as proof of performance. It does look like they've covered most angles though, from a strategy perspective. I'll wait for actual reviews but it looks like a done deal. Sigh. Thinkpad it is then.
- ProZsolt 6y agoNo new macbook.
- 1_player 6y agoNo mention of Bootcamp at all. RIP.