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Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party. Rosetta 2 is all in house as far as we know. Different CEO as well. Jobs was more o

Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party. Rosetta 2 is all in house as far as we know. Different CEO as well. Jobs was more opinionated on “principles” - Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. I think Rosetta 2 will last.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TillE 4y ago
What important Intel-only macOS software is going to exist in five years? It's basically only games and weird tiny niches, and Apple is pretty happy to abandon both those categories. The saving grace is that there's very few interesting Mac-exclusive games in the Intel era.
- flomo 4y ago
  Yeah, Apple killed all "legacy" 32-bit support, so one would think there's not much software which is both x86-64 and not being actively developed.
  - astrange 4y ago
    Rosetta 2 can run 32-bit software, there just isn't a 32-bit macOS anymore so the only client is WINE.
  - vxNsr 4y ago
    2006 Apple was very different from 2011 Apple, renewing that license in 2011 was probably considered cost prohibitive for the negligible benefit.
- rerx 4y ago
  Starting with Ventura, Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x64 executables. I expect x64 Docker containers to remain relevant for quite a few years to come. Running those at reasonable speeds on Apple Silicon would be huge for developers.
dmitriid 4y ago
> Jobs was more opinionated on “principles” - Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. Well, the current "principle" is "iOS is enough, we're going to run iOS apps on MacOS, and that's it". Rosetta isn't needed for that.
- dmitriid 4y ago
  It's strange to see people downvoting this when three days ago App Store on MacOS literally defaulted to searching iOS and iPad apps for me https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1589179351572312066 https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1589179351572312066
masklinn 4y ago
> Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party. Yes, I'm sure Apple had no way of extending the license. > Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. I think Rosetta 2 will last. There's no "buy" here. Rosetta is complexity to maintain, and an easy cut. It's not even part of the base system. And “what people will buy” certainly didn’t prevent essentially removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS. Which is a lot more impactful than Rosetta as far as I’m concerned.
- NavinF 4y ago
  > removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS Did that really reduce sales? Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation. Eg https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/yof7va/friends_dont_let_friends_run_win10_with_4gb_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/yof7va/frien...
  - masklinn 4y ago
    > Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation. Standard DPI displays are not "crappy low-end hardware"? I don't think there's a single widescreen display which qualifies as hiDPI out there, that more or less doesn't exist: a 5K 34" is around 160 DPI (to say nothing of the downright pedestrian 5K 49" like the G9 or the AOC Agon).
    - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
      dpi isn't the right metric. you don't keep a phone the same distance as a 49" monitor.
      - Dylan16807 4y ago
        DPI works fine as long as the type of device is in the context. The context here is desktop/laptop.
      - 4y ago
kitsunesoba 4y ago
We’ll see, but even post-Cook Apple historically hasn’t liked the idea of third parties leaning on bridge technologies for too long. Things like Rosetta are offered as temporary affordances to allow time for devs to migrate, not as a permanent platform fixture.
bpye 4y ago
They’ve also allowed Rosetta 2 in Linux VMs - if they are serious about supporting those use cases then I think it’ll stay.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TillE 4y ago

What important Intel-only macOS software is going to exist in five years? It's basically only games and weird tiny niches, and Apple is pretty happy to abandon both those categories. The saving grace is that there's very few interesting Mac-exclusive games in the Intel era.

flomo 4y ago
Yeah, Apple killed all "legacy" 32-bit support, so one would think there's not much software which is both x86-64 and not being actively developed.
- astrange 4y ago
  Rosetta 2 can run 32-bit software, there just isn't a 32-bit macOS anymore so the only client is WINE.
- vxNsr 4y ago
  2006 Apple was very different from 2011 Apple, renewing that license in 2011 was probably considered cost prohibitive for the negligible benefit.
rerx 4y ago
Starting with Ventura, Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x64 executables. I expect x64 Docker containers to remain relevant for quite a few years to come. Running those at reasonable speeds on Apple Silicon would be huge for developers.

dmitriid 4y ago

> Jobs was more opinionated on “principles” - Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. Well, the current "principle" is "iOS is enough, we're going to run iOS apps on MacOS, and that's it". Rosetta isn't needed for that.

dmitriid 4y ago
It's strange to see people downvoting this when three days ago App Store on MacOS literally defaulted to searching iOS and iPad apps for me https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1589179351572312066 https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1589179351572312066

masklinn 4y ago

> Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party. Yes, I'm sure Apple had no way of extending the license. > Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. I think Rosetta 2 will last. There's no "buy" here. Rosetta is complexity to maintain, and an easy cut. It's not even part of the base system. And “what people will buy” certainly didn’t prevent essentially removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS. Which is a lot more impactful than Rosetta as far as I’m concerned.

NavinF 4y ago
> removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS Did that really reduce sales? Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation. Eg https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/yof7va/friends_dont_let_friends_run_win10_with_4gb_of/ https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/yof7va/frien...
- masklinn 4y ago
  > Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation. Standard DPI displays are not "crappy low-end hardware"? I don't think there's a single widescreen display which qualifies as hiDPI out there, that more or less doesn't exist: a 5K 34" is around 160 DPI (to say nothing of the downright pedestrian 5K 49" like the G9 or the AOC Agon).
  - adgjlsfhk1 4y ago
    dpi isn't the right metric. you don't keep a phone the same distance as a 49" monitor.
    - Dylan16807 4y ago
      DPI works fine as long as the type of device is in the context. The context here is desktop/laptop.
    - 4y ago

kitsunesoba 4y ago

We’ll see, but even post-Cook Apple historically hasn’t liked the idea of third parties leaning on bridge technologies for too long. Things like Rosetta are offered as temporary affordances to allow time for devs to migrate, not as a permanent platform fixture.

bpye 4y ago

They’ve also allowed Rosetta 2 in Linux VMs - if they are serious about supporting those use cases then I think it’ll stay.