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That might be a reason for the reversal. My guess is that the reasoning was that they thought they might be maintaining a mixed platform of both x86_64 and aar

by api 4y ago

That might be a reason for the reversal. My guess is that the reasoning was that they thought they might be maintaining a mixed platform of both x86_64 and aarch64 and maybe even RISC-V indefinitely, and that this would allow app interop across all targets on all Apple OSes without fat binaries. I could have told them that wouldn't even work well. LLVM bitcode is not really that great as an object distribution format. It's really just for use during builds. I'd argue that Apple has skipped many opportunities to lock down the Mac, including not locking down the boot loader on the M series chips and allowing it to boot Linux or even (when supported) Windows aarch64. It's clear that they see the Mac as a pro platform and understand that pro users want flexibility.

bsaul 4y ago
"I could have told them that wouldn't even work well" I have no idea who you are, but IIRC that choice was made while Chris Lattner was still at Apple. I doubt that they could have made a better informed decision at the time.
- asveikau 4y ago
  And yet it transparently seems like a goofy idea, and they axed it. It could also be that Chris Lattner made that decision based on some constraints or requests that were kind of contrived and make less sense or are no longer valid today.
  - coldtea 4y ago
    >And yet it transparently seems like a goofy idea, and they axed it. Nope, they axed it because platform-wise they don't need it: they have desktop/laptop ARM now to use. If they had x86+ARM to support in the future, they'd have kept it. Plus, it worked for years, so there was nothing either about it being "goofy" or "not working" for them behind axing it...
    - asveikau 4y ago
      I'm going to say it is goofy. There was another platform i will leave nameless. They performed additional "ahead of time" type optimization after a developer submitted a binary. That layer had bugs. I personally saw them surface. Since the AOT happened transparently on the platform vendor's machine it was very hard for a developer to test, diagnose, confirm fixed, etc. The developer still got blamed for bugs hitting the end user. That layer one can also imagine could see changes on the platform vendor's server so something could theoretically break later on and nobody would know until the bug reports came flooding to the developer. Because it was a goofy idea. Sounds good superficially, but ill conceived at the design stage. Moreover, that goofiness may also be why they don't need it anymore. It wasn't a solid idea to begin with, so your changing requirements wind up revealing that.
whywhywhywhy 4y ago
> It's clear that they see the Mac as a pro platform and understand that pro users want flexibility. I think it's more they know the right strategy about how to shift Mac users to iOS. The initial hope was the iPad Pro was so powerful and felt so spaceage next to the janky worst intel Macbooks ever that people would switch voluntarily. When that didn't happen they switched tactics. It will happen, MacBooks will eventually ship with iPadOS as their main OS and MacOS as a legacy option that will eventually be deprecated entirely. You have to remember the main success of the past 10 years has been on Apple being a parasite on the work of others via app store fees and they're gonna eventually manage to capture that value on the Mac, there will be execs sat at the top who actually find it strange they don't already get a cut of say Adobe CC when running on a Mac because they're not people in love with the concept of "computing" like HN readers, oldschool Mac users and the like are.
- api 4y ago
  If they do that, they'll just lose the pro and developer market. If that's what they want, fine.
  - whywhywhywhy 4y ago
    It'll still run XCode, what you gonna do? Not ship an iOS app? Not sure if you realize it or not but most developers no longer have a choice.
    - api 4y ago
      If you target Apple platforms you would need the token Apple build machine, but it'd be out for daily driver which means devs not buying highest-end hardware or upgrading frequently.
- alwillis 4y ago
  MacBooks will eventually ship with iPadOS as their main OS and MacOS as a legacy option Absolutely not. Just from a business point of view, in the 37 year history of the Mac, it’s never sold better. Ever since Apple Silicon Macs were available for sale the end of 2019, it’s been record quarter after record quarter. The Mac is a $10 billion—and growing—business. It’s not going anywhere [1]. [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q2_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q2_Consolidated_Fin...

by api 4y ago

bsaul 4y ago

"I could have told them that wouldn't even work well" I have no idea who you are, but IIRC that choice was made while Chris Lattner was still at Apple. I doubt that they could have made a better informed decision at the time.

asveikau 4y ago
And yet it transparently seems like a goofy idea, and they axed it. It could also be that Chris Lattner made that decision based on some constraints or requests that were kind of contrived and make less sense or are no longer valid today.
- coldtea 4y ago
  >And yet it transparently seems like a goofy idea, and they axed it. Nope, they axed it because platform-wise they don't need it: they have desktop/laptop ARM now to use. If they had x86+ARM to support in the future, they'd have kept it. Plus, it worked for years, so there was nothing either about it being "goofy" or "not working" for them behind axing it...
  - asveikau 4y ago
    I'm going to say it is goofy. There was another platform i will leave nameless. They performed additional "ahead of time" type optimization after a developer submitted a binary. That layer had bugs. I personally saw them surface. Since the AOT happened transparently on the platform vendor's machine it was very hard for a developer to test, diagnose, confirm fixed, etc. The developer still got blamed for bugs hitting the end user. That layer one can also imagine could see changes on the platform vendor's server so something could theoretically break later on and nobody would know until the bug reports came flooding to the developer. Because it was a goofy idea. Sounds good superficially, but ill conceived at the design stage. Moreover, that goofiness may also be why they don't need it anymore. It wasn't a solid idea to begin with, so your changing requirements wind up revealing that.

whywhywhywhy 4y ago

> It's clear that they see the Mac as a pro platform and understand that pro users want flexibility. I think it's more they know the right strategy about how to shift Mac users to iOS. The initial hope was the iPad Pro was so powerful and felt so spaceage next to the janky worst intel Macbooks ever that people would switch voluntarily. When that didn't happen they switched tactics. It will happen, MacBooks will eventually ship with iPadOS as their main OS and MacOS as a legacy option that will eventually be deprecated entirely. You have to remember the main success of the past 10 years has been on Apple being a parasite on the work of others via app store fees and they're gonna eventually manage to capture that value on the Mac, there will be execs sat at the top who actually find it strange they don't already get a cut of say Adobe CC when running on a Mac because they're not people in love with the concept of "computing" like HN readers, oldschool Mac users and the like are.

api 4y ago
If they do that, they'll just lose the pro and developer market. If that's what they want, fine.
- whywhywhywhy 4y ago
  It'll still run XCode, what you gonna do? Not ship an iOS app? Not sure if you realize it or not but most developers no longer have a choice.
  - api 4y ago
    If you target Apple platforms you would need the token Apple build machine, but it'd be out for daily driver which means devs not buying highest-end hardware or upgrading frequently.
alwillis 4y ago
MacBooks will eventually ship with iPadOS as their main OS and MacOS as a legacy option Absolutely not. Just from a business point of view, in the 37 year history of the Mac, it’s never sold better. Ever since Apple Silicon Macs were available for sale the end of 2019, it’s been record quarter after record quarter. The Mac is a $10 billion—and growing—business. It’s not going anywhere [1]. [1]: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q2_Consolidated_Financial_Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/FY22_Q2_Consolidated_Fin...