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You’ve correctly identified one reason Apple’s hardware is so effective: they have a hardware-accelerated standard library, something that requires cooperation

You’ve correctly identified one reason Apple’s hardware is so effective: they have a hardware-accelerated standard library, something that requires cooperation between their software and silicon developers. The nearest comparison is if Dell released a line of servers that, when paired with Ubuntu LTS, provided a hardware-accelerated glibc. They could do this at any time, but it’s not easy; the capital cost is incredibly high and demand is incredibly low. Apple has managed to deliver, and now owns a niche last claimed by Amiga decades ago. The advantages of that niche are exactly as you describe them, but if it were as easy to profit from that niche as your dismissiveness implies, there wouldn’t have been a twenty year gap between Amiga and Apple Silicon.

moron4hire 5y ago
A lot of good it does them. MacOS is an incredibly poor performing OS. For years, Windows and especially Linux have been more responsive and load faster than macOS on similar hardware, despite not being in a vertically-integrated hardware/software system. It's difficult to imagine how anyone can think that M1 is "competing" with Intel or AMD because of this. You won't be getting macOS on any new x86 processor, and you won't be getting Windows on an M1. For the vast majority of people, M1 provides no meaningful decision point. It's not like I'm going to stop using Linux on my servers, pull out of the cloud, and build a closet full of M1 Mac Minis. I could write my day job software from a Mac, but again, I'm not really getting much of a benefit from that because of the rest of the issues with the OS. And gaming is a no-go. So what is the point?
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  I don't think you have a working definition of "competition". Here [1] is something from the 70s that might help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  You are absolutely right, with one key alteration: There is no point for you in what Apple's doing. As you've identified, you're not the target market for their products. There is, however, a point for others, who have different priorities and compromises than you. M1 is not a decision point for their consumer base, because most people don't care what CPU architecture is inside their laptop. However, M1 notably improves the decision points that do matter to their customer base: weight, noise, and battery capacity for each customer's workload. This comes at the cost of macOS and the restrictions inherent in it. If that cost is acceptable, then the benefits are significant. If that cost is unacceptable, then the benefits are irrelevant. As you indicate, that cost isn't acceptable to you, and you do not indicate interest in any of the other benefits of their platform, which specifically exclude Windows, Linux, and PC gaming. This leaves me unable to determine why you're participating in this discussion. So, then; why does the topic of 'M1 MAX' matter to you at all? I'm happy to continue discussing, but without that information, there's not a lot left to say.
- lowbloodsugar 5y ago
  Counter anecdote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29018935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29018935 "But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM!"

moron4hire 5y ago

A lot of good it does them. MacOS is an incredibly poor performing OS. For years, Windows and especially Linux have been more responsive and load faster than macOS on similar hardware, despite not being in a vertically-integrated hardware/software system. It's difficult to imagine how anyone can think that M1 is "competing" with Intel or AMD because of this. You won't be getting macOS on any new x86 processor, and you won't be getting Windows on an M1. For the vast majority of people, M1 provides no meaningful decision point. It's not like I'm going to stop using Linux on my servers, pull out of the cloud, and build a closet full of M1 Mac Minis. I could write my day job software from a Mac, but again, I'm not really getting much of a benefit from that because of the rest of the issues with the OS. And gaming is a no-go. So what is the point?

lowbloodsugar 5y ago
I don't think you have a working definition of "competition". Here [1] is something from the 70s that might help. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis
floatingatoll 5y ago
You are absolutely right, with one key alteration: There is no point for you in what Apple's doing. As you've identified, you're not the target market for their products. There is, however, a point for others, who have different priorities and compromises than you. M1 is not a decision point for their consumer base, because most people don't care what CPU architecture is inside their laptop. However, M1 notably improves the decision points that do matter to their customer base: weight, noise, and battery capacity for each customer's workload. This comes at the cost of macOS and the restrictions inherent in it. If that cost is acceptable, then the benefits are significant. If that cost is unacceptable, then the benefits are irrelevant. As you indicate, that cost isn't acceptable to you, and you do not indicate interest in any of the other benefits of their platform, which specifically exclude Windows, Linux, and PC gaming. This leaves me unable to determine why you're participating in this discussion. So, then; why does the topic of 'M1 MAX' matter to you at all? I'm happy to continue discussing, but without that information, there's not a lot left to say.
lowbloodsugar 5y ago
Counter anecdote: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29018935 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29018935 "But the Linux desktop experience has been ... frustrating to say the least. And I say this as someone who has used linux in the terminal at my job every day for 5+ years now. It's ridiculous that the software experience still cannot match my 9 year old laptop running macOS Sierra on a 2.5GHz Core i5 and 8GB of DDR3 RAM!"