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> I think Apple moving towards entirely ARM compatible Macs and Macbooks will drive the ARM SBC market forward for developers (it’s difficult to develop on arch

> I think Apple moving towards entirely ARM compatible Macs and Macbooks will drive the ARM SBC market forward for developers (it’s difficult to develop on architecture X for architecture Y). I'd be very surprised if this was the case.

zeckalpha 6y ago
Not only limited connection between Macs and SBCs, but the opposite has been true about iOS development.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  Although interestingly, Android development on the other hand was actually hampered for a long time by the slow emulator
  - withjive 6y ago
    If your doing Android Development with the ARM emulator, then its crazy slow. However, if you use the x86 emulator - then you get native speed. Xcode/iOS's emulator is actually x86 - which is why it seems faster than Android's default emulator.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      Xcode doesn’t emulate anything, it runs the entire iOS userspace as native processes on top of the macOS kernel.
      - richardwhiuk 6y ago
        It "emulates" the hardware - e.g. you can inject shake / GPS / etc This is the same as the Android x86 "emulator".
        saagarjha 6y ago
        IIRC the Android uses hardware-assisted virtualization through Intel HAXM. iOS simulator is run entirely in userspace in a seperate launchd context. (Mostly referring to the actual processor/OS itself; buttons that "vibrate" the phone are not really technically interesting to me.)
    - kristianp 6y ago
      The annoying part about the default x86 emulator that installs from Android Studio is that it's incompatible with hyper-v. Requiring a reboot to disable.
amelius 6y ago
I'm surprised that Apple didn't buy ARM yet.
- benzoate 6y ago
  I think they’d struggle to do anything with it, given anti-trust concerns
- kalium-xyz 6y ago
  Apple is one of the parties which founded ARM
  - jannes 6y ago
    Source? As far as I can see they only made a joint venture: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s...
    - simonh 6y ago
      According to that article the joint venture they co-founded was actually ARM.
      - jannes 6y ago
        True, however the joint venture was founded to “further develop” the technology. That means the ARM architecture itself seems to have originated at Acorn, without Apple.
        simonh 6y ago
        Yes, that's correct.
        Followerer 6y ago
        The point is, originally, Apple were co-owners of Arm (together with Acorn and VLSI).
izacus 6y ago
I'm not quite sure where the assumption that Apple Sillicon instruction set will even be compatible with other ARM chips. Apple does add their own instructions.
- klelatti 6y ago
  Citation? Edit - I'm getting downvoted but if you're going to suggest that Apple are departing from the ARMv8 instruction set - which is a really important point if true and which I've not seen any evidence for - then you really need to supply a citiation.
  - virtue3 6y ago
    Apple is making a really strong push to differentiate it's chips from ARM. A few of the mac sites are claiming it's "Apple Silicon" and not "ARM". I believe the heart of it is that Apple has "followed the ARM spec" but did not use ARMs actual silicon designs. I don't really know what the backing of this is either. I'm sure they added a few of their own instructions. And I read that they single handedly pushed the ARM platform to 64bit (citation needed, definitely not sure if that's really true).
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      It’s easier to just tweak some system registers than to do that (and indeed this is how Apple implements their proprietary “in-silicon” features).
    - Followerer 6y ago
      "Apple Silicon" is a literal truth. The silicon design, the microarchitecture, is theirs, not ARM's. The architecture, this includes the ISA but also many other things that have to be taken into consideration in CPU design (exception model, consistency, virtual memory, virtualization,...), is ARM's. They simply don't want to tie their brand to ARM's, which is fair enough, Apple's brand is much more valuable than ARM's. Regarding the push for a 64-bit chip, I've heard the exact opposite. Aarch64 (64-bit ARM) was an ARM design without a customer, Apple were the first to buy into it. I've heard that many said it was a premature jump, and there was a lot of scepticism within ARM that they'd be able to sell it (this happened when ARM was selling mobile designs exclusively, with no intentions of getting into servers). Still, they went ahead with it, and was an unexpected success.
chrisjc 6y ago
There's a little bit about the history of ARM and Apple in the podcast Acquired did about Softbank and ARM. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/arm-softbank https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/arm-softbank

zeckalpha 6y ago

Not only limited connection between Macs and SBCs, but the opposite has been true about iOS development.

kalleboo 6y ago
Although interestingly, Android development on the other hand was actually hampered for a long time by the slow emulator
- withjive 6y ago
  If your doing Android Development with the ARM emulator, then its crazy slow. However, if you use the x86 emulator - then you get native speed. Xcode/iOS's emulator is actually x86 - which is why it seems faster than Android's default emulator.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    Xcode doesn’t emulate anything, it runs the entire iOS userspace as native processes on top of the macOS kernel.
    - richardwhiuk 6y ago
      It "emulates" the hardware - e.g. you can inject shake / GPS / etc This is the same as the Android x86 "emulator".
      - saagarjha 6y ago
        IIRC the Android uses hardware-assisted virtualization through Intel HAXM. iOS simulator is run entirely in userspace in a seperate launchd context. (Mostly referring to the actual processor/OS itself; buttons that "vibrate" the phone are not really technically interesting to me.)
  - kristianp 6y ago
    The annoying part about the default x86 emulator that installs from Android Studio is that it's incompatible with hyper-v. Requiring a reboot to disable.

amelius 6y ago

I'm surprised that Apple didn't buy ARM yet.

benzoate 6y ago
I think they’d struggle to do anything with it, given anti-trust concerns
kalium-xyz 6y ago
Apple is one of the parties which founded ARM
- jannes 6y ago
  Source? As far as I can see they only made a joint venture: https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-story.html https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1990-11-28-fi-4993-s...
  - simonh 6y ago
    According to that article the joint venture they co-founded was actually ARM.
    - jannes 6y ago
      True, however the joint venture was founded to “further develop” the technology. That means the ARM architecture itself seems to have originated at Acorn, without Apple.
      - simonh 6y ago
        Yes, that's correct.
      - Followerer 6y ago
        The point is, originally, Apple were co-owners of Arm (together with Acorn and VLSI).

izacus 6y ago

I'm not quite sure where the assumption that Apple Sillicon instruction set will even be compatible with other ARM chips. Apple does add their own instructions.

klelatti 6y ago
Citation? Edit - I'm getting downvoted but if you're going to suggest that Apple are departing from the ARMv8 instruction set - which is a really important point if true and which I've not seen any evidence for - then you really need to supply a citiation.
- virtue3 6y ago
  Apple is making a really strong push to differentiate it's chips from ARM. A few of the mac sites are claiming it's "Apple Silicon" and not "ARM". I believe the heart of it is that Apple has "followed the ARM spec" but did not use ARMs actual silicon designs. I don't really know what the backing of this is either. I'm sure they added a few of their own instructions. And I read that they single handedly pushed the ARM platform to 64bit (citation needed, definitely not sure if that's really true).
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    It’s easier to just tweak some system registers than to do that (and indeed this is how Apple implements their proprietary “in-silicon” features).
  - Followerer 6y ago
    "Apple Silicon" is a literal truth. The silicon design, the microarchitecture, is theirs, not ARM's. The architecture, this includes the ISA but also many other things that have to be taken into consideration in CPU design (exception model, consistency, virtual memory, virtualization,...), is ARM's. They simply don't want to tie their brand to ARM's, which is fair enough, Apple's brand is much more valuable than ARM's. Regarding the push for a 64-bit chip, I've heard the exact opposite. Aarch64 (64-bit ARM) was an ARM design without a customer, Apple were the first to buy into it. I've heard that many said it was a premature jump, and there was a lot of scepticism within ARM that they'd be able to sell it (this happened when ARM was selling mobile designs exclusively, with no intentions of getting into servers). Still, they went ahead with it, and was an unexpected success.

chrisjc 6y ago

There's a little bit about the history of ARM and Apple in the podcast Acquired did about Softbank and ARM. https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/arm-softbank https://www.acquired.fm/episodes/arm-softbank