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It was pretty much the same with PowerPC to Intel... Steve Jobs demoed OSX first. Then surprised everybody by saying, OSX had lived a double life in a secret b

It was pretty much the same with PowerPC to Intel... Steve Jobs demoed OSX first. Then surprised everybody by saying, OSX had lived a double life in a secret building for many years (with photo), and that he had been running on an Intel Pentium 4 during the demo all morning. Nothing about performance. There was also a developer system back then; an Intel Pentium 4 in a PowerMac case. In a lot of ways, this is far more ambitious, and could mean a lot more for Apple long term, but... ... The one thing that hit me the most was, how impressed I was with Apple back then, and how excited I was that a company could do this. Steve Jobs presented it really well, but this time it felt quite flat. ... I really, wish they worked a bit on their showman-ship. They rushed through so many small things, and the presentation felt unnatural. Like they have all over-rehearsed it, but are still reading while presenting (you could even see eye-movements). It is just too smooth, too generic, and a bit too polished. Please slow down, focus on only the most interesting bits, and give us time to digest it...

cestith 6y ago
That wasn't their first processor change, either. Not even was it first in the Mac line. The Apple I and II were MOS 6502 machines except for the Apple IIgs which was a 65c816. Then the early Macs were 680x0 machines. Then PowerPC. Then Intel. They looked at Intel chips for the iPhone and settled on Arm before launch. I wouldn't be surprised if some very brittle, early development version of iOS was running on an Intel mobile platform at some point.
- sedatk 6y ago
  Apple is known for throwing the towel early in backwards compatibility though.
- kccqzy 6y ago
  Not only that, there were also early versions of iOS compiled for PowerPC, for running inside the iPhone simulator app on PowerPC-based Macs.
jedberg 6y ago
I think some of that stems from the fact that Steve Jobs was saying his own words, but everyone else is saying marketing's words. The best marketing could do to Steve was tell him that he's using a competing's brand name incorrectly. Everything else was his. So he could speak passionately in his own words. Everyone else is acting, but they aren't actors.
- unicornfinder 6y ago
  Nailed it. With Steve Jobs his own passion and enthusiasm really shone through, whereas now we're seeing a rehearsed, scripted presentation. I don't think they're necessarily wrong to take this route, and I think with Apple's much bigger reach it's probably a fairly wise and safe bet, but it does sadden me a bit that we don't get Steve's showmanship anymore.
kps 6y ago
It wasn't a surprise to anyone paying attention; NeXTSTEP had run on 68K/x86/Sparc/PA-RISC. Removing architecture support would have been remarkable. What's important, for those paying attention, is that Apple promoted PowerPC emulation with the first x86 Macs in OS X 10.4 and then removed it after 10.6. If you think Apple won't screw you again, well, go ahead, it's your money. [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose.
- dhosek 6y ago
  The first Intel Macs were shipped in January 2006. Rosetta was dropped with the release of 10.7 in July 2011. Five years' support for a discontinued architecture seems rather generous.
- jimbokun 6y ago
  There was almost 10 years between 10.0 and 10.7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history#Releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history#Releases So if you're worried about not being able to run your Intel Mac OS X software in 2030, yeah, you should probably avoid these new ARM Macs.
  - kps 6y ago
    (1) OS X 10.0 through 10.3 were released for PowerPC only. Apple first supported x86 in 10.4 and last supported PPC in 10.6. (2) It's not 2030. If you're reading this is 2030, HN won't let you reply. That's a separate but related problem. (3) Time passed, so fuck you is not a customer-centered philosophy. Time passed, so I'm going to remove already shipped capabilities is a customer centered philosophy in the sense that it's centered on fucking the customer. (4) I have an Apple IIe and a MacPro3,1 and a whole bunch in between: fool me once, shame on you; fool me fifteen times, shame on me. [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose.
- AlexandrB 6y ago
  > [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose. It’s extremely weird to me to assume that an opinion someone posts in an online message board will be heavily influenced by their stock portfolio.
Yhippa 6y ago
Your "buts" are dead-on. Everything felt so distant and unauthentic. They should require their execs and presenters to not read from somewhere else and do it live.
- toufka 6y ago
  There is a Pandemic going on. This fully online WWDC certainly affected the feeling as much as the content.
- untog 6y ago
  I don't understand why anyone would care about this. What difference could it possibly make? Are fewer people going to buy ARM Macbooks because the execs sounded a little wooden?
  - joakleaf 6y ago
    When I saw the PowerPC to Intel move, it felt like a company with ambition and vision who knew what they were doing with technology. It was a confident CEO that used his own words to passionately live-demo the products his company was developing and selling. He almost apologetically told us that Apple had to make the change to deliver the notebooks he had promised two years before -- But couldn't with PowerPC. It made sense. And then, he showed us that all along Apple had the foresight to plan for this many years ahead. It was inspiring, and I was really excited about it. As a user and computer scientist, it made me curious about OSX. As a developer I wanted to support their platform, and went on to work on iOS apps a couple of years later. Apple felt like the future. This time, I feel unenthusiastic, and wondering where to go next... Despite the fact, that I objectively think this has the potential to be far more significant. Delivery with confidence and passion for the product always matter. A lot.
    - untog 6y ago
      I’m sorry, but to me what you just described is a sales pitch. I consider it vitally important to see through them even evaluating technical decisions.
    - 6y ago

cestith 6y ago

That wasn't their first processor change, either. Not even was it first in the Mac line. The Apple I and II were MOS 6502 machines except for the Apple IIgs which was a 65c816. Then the early Macs were 680x0 machines. Then PowerPC. Then Intel. They looked at Intel chips for the iPhone and settled on Arm before launch. I wouldn't be surprised if some very brittle, early development version of iOS was running on an Intel mobile platform at some point.

sedatk 6y ago
Apple is known for throwing the towel early in backwards compatibility though.
kccqzy 6y ago
Not only that, there were also early versions of iOS compiled for PowerPC, for running inside the iPhone simulator app on PowerPC-based Macs.

jedberg 6y ago

I think some of that stems from the fact that Steve Jobs was saying his own words, but everyone else is saying marketing's words. The best marketing could do to Steve was tell him that he's using a competing's brand name incorrectly. Everything else was his. So he could speak passionately in his own words. Everyone else is acting, but they aren't actors.

unicornfinder 6y ago
Nailed it. With Steve Jobs his own passion and enthusiasm really shone through, whereas now we're seeing a rehearsed, scripted presentation. I don't think they're necessarily wrong to take this route, and I think with Apple's much bigger reach it's probably a fairly wise and safe bet, but it does sadden me a bit that we don't get Steve's showmanship anymore.

kps 6y ago

It wasn't a surprise to anyone paying attention; NeXTSTEP had run on 68K/x86/Sparc/PA-RISC. Removing architecture support would have been remarkable. What's important, for those paying attention, is that Apple promoted PowerPC emulation with the first x86 Macs in OS X 10.4 and then removed it after 10.6. If you think Apple won't screw you again, well, go ahead, it's your money. [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose.

dhosek 6y ago
The first Intel Macs were shipped in January 2006. Rosetta was dropped with the release of 10.7 in July 2011. Five years' support for a discontinued architecture seems rather generous.
jimbokun 6y ago
There was almost 10 years between 10.0 and 10.7: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history#Releases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacOS_version_history#Releases So if you're worried about not being able to run your Intel Mac OS X software in 2030, yeah, you should probably avoid these new ARM Macs.
- kps 6y ago
  (1) OS X 10.0 through 10.3 were released for PowerPC only. Apple first supported x86 in 10.4 and last supported PPC in 10.6. (2) It's not 2030. If you're reading this is 2030, HN won't let you reply. That's a separate but related problem. (3) Time passed, so fuck you is not a customer-centered philosophy. Time passed, so I'm going to remove already shipped capabilities is a customer centered philosophy in the sense that it's centered on fucking the customer. (4) I have an Apple IIe and a MacPro3,1 and a whole bunch in between: fool me once, shame on you; fool me fifteen times, shame on me. [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose.
AlexandrB 6y ago
> [Dis]claimer: I have no long or short in AAPL. Anyone posting or voting in this thread should similarly disclose. It’s extremely weird to me to assume that an opinion someone posts in an online message board will be heavily influenced by their stock portfolio.

Yhippa 6y ago

Your "buts" are dead-on. Everything felt so distant and unauthentic. They should require their execs and presenters to not read from somewhere else and do it live.

toufka 6y ago
There is a Pandemic going on. This fully online WWDC certainly affected the feeling as much as the content.
untog 6y ago
I don't understand why anyone would care about this. What difference could it possibly make? Are fewer people going to buy ARM Macbooks because the execs sounded a little wooden?
- joakleaf 6y ago
  When I saw the PowerPC to Intel move, it felt like a company with ambition and vision who knew what they were doing with technology. It was a confident CEO that used his own words to passionately live-demo the products his company was developing and selling. He almost apologetically told us that Apple had to make the change to deliver the notebooks he had promised two years before -- But couldn't with PowerPC. It made sense. And then, he showed us that all along Apple had the foresight to plan for this many years ahead. It was inspiring, and I was really excited about it. As a user and computer scientist, it made me curious about OSX. As a developer I wanted to support their platform, and went on to work on iOS apps a couple of years later. Apple felt like the future. This time, I feel unenthusiastic, and wondering where to go next... Despite the fact, that I objectively think this has the potential to be far more significant. Delivery with confidence and passion for the product always matter. A lot.
  - untog 6y ago
    I’m sorry, but to me what you just described is a sales pitch. I consider it vitally important to see through them even evaluating technical decisions.
  - 6y ago