4 ms·

My guess (without value judgement) is he was referring to the fact that they don't really work without such software

qoez 2y ago
Seems like a common pattern lately that apples hardware people continues to be top notch and the software group is slacking.
- CamouflagedKiwi 2y ago
  I don't think that's really fair here? The comment suggests the hardware doesn't work well without relatively complex software to support it, which seems to be the case on macos. That suggests the software group are keeping up their end at least.
- brundolf 2y ago
  That's not at all the takeaway. macOS has the requisite software built-in; the hardware is designed in such a way that it requires software assistance to function, which is a choice that has advantages and disadvantages. The OP exists for situations where you aren't running Apple's own beamforming software on this hardware (to my understanding)
robertoandred 2y ago
How's hardware supposed to work without software?
- stefan_ 2y ago
  With a hardware DSP? It's gonna have software in it, but doing this kind of processing in the upper most top level OS stack is certainly a choice.
  - argsnd 2y ago
    It seems like a good choice. It’s computationally extremely light and you can update it much more easily with new features (they actually did this once - to let you change the beamforming mode in the menu bar)
    - stefan_ 2y ago
      It is also notoriously time sensitive however, and while likely the hardware can already ensure the synchronization between mics, processing in the OS itself necessarily means buffering for a significant period so you don't run the risk of draining the pipe in a non-realtime system.
- brundolf 2y ago
  Here's a similar situation with the macbook pro's speakers, from the Asahi Linux team (scroll down to "Audio Advances"): https://asahilinux.org/2022/11/november-2022-report/ https://asahilinux.org/2022/11/november-2022-report/ Similarly they can't be used very effectively without special, complex software that involves physical simulation of the speaker hardware. Doing things this way allows them to reach an amazing level of compactness + volume, but at the cost of complexity If Apple intended to support platform openness, they'd likely have made such software available to hackers. But they never enthusiastically encouraged that, so people like the Asahi team are left to reverse-engineer and reinvent everything they need that lives in software
- jervant 2y ago
  firmware
  - threeseed 2y ago
    Which is just software at a different layer.

qoez 2y ago

Seems like a common pattern lately that apples hardware people continues to be top notch and the software group is slacking.

CamouflagedKiwi 2y ago
I don't think that's really fair here? The comment suggests the hardware doesn't work well without relatively complex software to support it, which seems to be the case on macos. That suggests the software group are keeping up their end at least.
brundolf 2y ago
That's not at all the takeaway. macOS has the requisite software built-in; the hardware is designed in such a way that it requires software assistance to function, which is a choice that has advantages and disadvantages. The OP exists for situations where you aren't running Apple's own beamforming software on this hardware (to my understanding)

robertoandred 2y ago

How's hardware supposed to work without software?

stefan_ 2y ago
With a hardware DSP? It's gonna have software in it, but doing this kind of processing in the upper most top level OS stack is certainly a choice.
- argsnd 2y ago
  It seems like a good choice. It’s computationally extremely light and you can update it much more easily with new features (they actually did this once - to let you change the beamforming mode in the menu bar)
  - stefan_ 2y ago
    It is also notoriously time sensitive however, and while likely the hardware can already ensure the synchronization between mics, processing in the OS itself necessarily means buffering for a significant period so you don't run the risk of draining the pipe in a non-realtime system.
brundolf 2y ago
Here's a similar situation with the macbook pro's speakers, from the Asahi Linux team (scroll down to "Audio Advances"): https://asahilinux.org/2022/11/november-2022-report/ https://asahilinux.org/2022/11/november-2022-report/ Similarly they can't be used very effectively without special, complex software that involves physical simulation of the speaker hardware. Doing things this way allows them to reach an amazing level of compactness + volume, but at the cost of complexity If Apple intended to support platform openness, they'd likely have made such software available to hackers. But they never enthusiastically encouraged that, so people like the Asahi team are left to reverse-engineer and reinvent everything they need that lives in software
jervant 2y ago
firmware
- threeseed 2y ago
  Which is just software at a different layer.