4 ms·

It cleaned up dramatically what Apple had to support going forward for ARM. They COULD have kept supporting it, they decided since we needed an ISA change, may

• msephton 3y ago
  Right, but could they have done something like Wine/you are doing and kept it? A compromise of sorts? Edit: I see you're saying they chose a clean break.
  • londons_explore 3y ago
    The smart move for Apple would be to always be ready to emulate any old platform. Build the emulator as an app, so that one day, when that app gets too old, run it itself in an emulator. That way it can be emulation all the way down, and you get binary compatibility forever with minimal ongoing engineering cost. The performance would be atrocious if not for the fact computers today are faster than 1980's computers so it really doesn't matter.
    • deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    • MichaelZuo 3y ago
      That's a pretty good point, it is odd for Apple to not have provided even a simple WINE-like utility for emulating 32 bit apps, even without any effort put into optimization it would have still been useful for M1/M2 chips.
      • jwells89 3y ago
        The problem with this is that it effectively gives license for companies to even more frequently toss a binary over the wall and make no attempt at long term maintenance, because that old binary still technically works. It also means more users using more emulated binaries more frequently, which can make the hardware’s battery life and performance seem worse than they actually are, especially to less technically inclined users who don’t know the details but notice their laptop dying a lot faster than it should.
        • MichaelZuo 3y ago
          I'm not sure why it matters if shady companies are slightly incentivized more to be shady? If they don't really care, they're going to put the minimum possible effort on a separate 64 bit version too and it'll be just as inefficient anyways, except with no backwards compatibility.
          • unnah 3y ago
            By cutting off 32-bit support, Apple gets more people to buy a new computer, as new software versions are only available on 64-bit computers. It also removes the incentive for software vendors to keep producing 32-bit software versions.
  • burnte 3y ago
    Yes, I'm saying they saw no benefit to themselves in keeping 32bit code, so they cut it.