6 ms·

This is not the first time this has happened in Apple’s history. The transition from the 68k architecture to the PowerPC brought major performance improvements

This is not the first time this has happened in Apple’s history. The transition from the 68k architecture to the PowerPC brought major performance improvements, but Apple’s software didn’t take full advantage of it. If I remember correctly, even after the PowerPC switch, core elements of the classic Mac OS still ran in emulation as late as Mac OS 9. Additionally, the classic Mac OS lacked protected memory and preemptive multitasking, leading to relatively frequent crashes. Taligent and Copland were attempts to address these issues, but they both faced development hell, culminating with the purchase of NeXT and the development of Mac OS X. But by the time Mac OS X was released, PowerPC was becoming less competitive than the x86, culminating with the Intel switch in 2006. At this point it was Apple’s software that distinguished Macs from the competition, which remained the case until the M1 Macs were released five years ago.

mikepurvis 1y ago
Sixteen years ago, John Gruber wrote: > Hardware and software both matter, and Apple’s history shows that there’s a good argument to be made for developing integrated hardware and software. But if you asked me which matters more, I wouldn’t hesitate to say software. All things considered I’d much prefer a PC running Mac OS X to a Mac running Windows. https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity At the time I'd only been a Mac user for a few years and I would have strongly agreed. But definitely things have shifted— I've been back on Windows/WSL for a number of years, and it's software quality/compatibility issues that are a lot of what keeps me from trying another Mac. Certainly I'm far more tempted by the hardware experience than I am the software, and it's not even really close.
- KeplerBoy 1y ago
  I bet most people around here would prefer fully supported linux over mac os on their apple silicon.
  - Romario77 1y ago
    Linux UI is crap compared to Mac. It's a server or developer box first and a non-technical user second.
    - timschmidt 1y ago
      I've felt the opposite for more than a decade. On Linux, it's relatively easy for me to choose a set of applications which all use the same UI toolkit. Additionally, the web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Linux was the first OS with an "app store" (the package manager). CLI utilities available tend to be the full fat versions with all the useful options, rather than minimalist versions there to satisfy posix compatibility. I could go on. On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike. But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.
      - MichealCodes 1y ago
        > limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets And arbitrary turf wars like their war against web apis/apps causing more friction for devs and end users.
        ahartmetz 1y ago
        I'm a Linux fan and I like that Apple isn't rubber-stamping the two new web APIs a week that Google comes up with. There are hundreds of them, most of them quite small fortunately.
      - robenkleene 1y ago
        > The web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? To me, this is actually a great example of the problems with Linux as a community, that GUI applications seem to just be treated as placeholders (e.g., all word processors are the same?), but then its inconsistent by celebrating the unique differences between editors like Vim and Emacs. Photoshop, Excel, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro are, in my opinion, crown jewels of what we've accomplished in computing, and by extension some of the greatest creations of the human race, democratizing tasks that in some cases would have cost millions of dollars before (e.g., a recording studio in your home). Relegating these to generic names like "spreadsheet", makes them sound interchangeable, when in my opinion they're each individual creations of great beauty that should wear their names with pride. They've helped improve the trajectory of the human race by facilitating many individuals to perform actions they never would have had the resources to do otherwise.
- selectodude 1y ago
  That’s so wild to me - my personal laptop is still a Mac but I’m in windows all day for work. Some of the new direction of macOS isn’t awesome but the basics are still rock solid. Touchpad is perfect, sleep works 100% of the time for days on end, still has UNIX underneath.
  - MichealCodes 1y ago
    The basics are not rock solid. Even a core feature such as remote management crashes and freezes every 5 minutes when you connect from a non-apple machine, many have reported this over years but Apple just does Apple. Safari is still atrocious when it comes to web api supports. The worst part is, with Apple, we do not know if these are intentional anti-competitive barriers or actual software bugs. I purchased a mac mini simply to compile apps via xcode and can say the core experience is MUCH more buggy than a fresh Windows or Ubuntu install. Edit: Hard to call intentionally preventing support for web apis a power user thing. This creates more friction for basic users trying to use any web app. Edit2: lol Apple PR must be all over this, went from +5 to -1 in a single refresh. Flagged for even criticizing what they intentionally break.
    - butlike 1y ago
      They said the basics are rock solid (to which I agree). What you're describing, I'd consider a "power user."
    - foldr 1y ago
      Are those basics? You don’t have to use Safari, and I’ve never used remote management over the 20 years or so that I’ve been a Mac user.
      - MichealCodes 1y ago
        If we dismiss remote management as a non-core feature shouldn't we consider installing a new browser to be advanced usage as well? I understand that this post is about MacOS, but yes, we are forced to support Safari for iOS. Many of these corporate decisions to prevent web apps from functioning properly spill over from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari.
- qwertytyyuu 1y ago
  these days i'd rather have macbook running windows than macos running on standard windows laptop of the same form factor, purely for the efficiency of apple silicon.
  - floam 1y ago
    It wouldn’t be so power efficient anymore.
- lenkite 1y ago
  Windows would have beat MacOS only if Microsoft had just done one small, teeny-weeny thing - just left the OS alone after Win 10.
  - xedrac 1y ago
    I haven't been able to stomach Windows since Vista, and I can barely stomach MacOS. Linux has spoiled me.
  - leptons 1y ago
    It depends on what you mean by "beat". Windows has a vastly larger market share than Apple ever has, or ever will.
  - dysoco 1y ago
    Oh but they absolutely did beat MacOS. The amount of people who give a damn about UI polish, response times, etc. is insignificant to them. They got away with pushing ads, online and enterprise services, Copilot, etc. to every desktop user.
  - NetMageSCW 1y ago
    I think you meant to say Windows 7…
- lotsofpulp 1y ago
  Seeing my wife have to deal with BSOD and tedious restarts for Windows updates and myriad just to use Teams/Excel makes me think the software issues are far worse on the Windows side. Not once in 10 years have I had ti troubleshoot while she uses her personal macOS, but a Dell Latitude laptop in 2025 still can’t just “open lid, work, close lid”. And it’s slower. And eats more battery.
- klooney 1y ago
  Advertisements in Windows seem like a deal breaker to me, but I've been gone for a while.
- foobarian 1y ago
  To me it's not a MacOS vs Windows thing. It's a hardware build quality thing for sure; but even more importantly it's the integration with the OS. Now, you could say we could get a team together and integrate Windows too, but the problem is this is vastly more effective when the hardware and software are co-designed in the same house with strong feedback loops. As a result Apple's product will inevitably be better than those without such an organizational backbone. Quoth the Tao of Programming: 8.4 Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are Yin and I am Yang. If we travel together, we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so they set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame; therefore, nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.
larodi 1y ago
Curiously every big player/vendor doing something remotely relevant to GPU/NPU/APU etc. sees massive growth. Apple's M-processors are much better in terms price/value ratio for current ML pipelines. But Apple do not have server line, which then seems to be super massive problem for their products, even though their products actually compete with NVidia in the consumer market, which is very substantial position, software or not. AMD was also lagging with drivers, but now we see OpenAI swearing they gonna buy loads of their products, which so many people were not favor of liek just 5-7 years ago.

mikepurvis 1y ago

Sixteen years ago, John Gruber wrote: > Hardware and software both matter, and Apple’s history shows that there’s a good argument to be made for developing integrated hardware and software. But if you asked me which matters more, I wouldn’t hesitate to say software. All things considered I’d much prefer a PC running Mac OS X to a Mac running Windows. https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity https://daringfireball.net/2009/11/the_os_opportunity At the time I'd only been a Mac user for a few years and I would have strongly agreed. But definitely things have shifted— I've been back on Windows/WSL for a number of years, and it's software quality/compatibility issues that are a lot of what keeps me from trying another Mac. Certainly I'm far more tempted by the hardware experience than I am the software, and it's not even really close.

KeplerBoy 1y ago
I bet most people around here would prefer fully supported linux over mac os on their apple silicon.
- Romario77 1y ago
  Linux UI is crap compared to Mac. It's a server or developer box first and a non-technical user second.
  - timschmidt 1y ago
    I've felt the opposite for more than a decade. On Linux, it's relatively easy for me to choose a set of applications which all use the same UI toolkit. Additionally, the web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Linux was the first OS with an "app store" (the package manager). CLI utilities available tend to be the full fat versions with all the useful options, rather than minimalist versions there to satisfy posix compatibility. I could go on. On Linux there is variety and choice, which some folks dislike. But on the Mac I get whatever Apple gives me, and that is often subject to the limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets.
    - MichealCodes 1y ago
      > limitations of corporate attention spans and development budgets And arbitrary turf wars like their war against web apis/apps causing more friction for devs and end users.
      - ahartmetz 1y ago
        I'm a Linux fan and I like that Apple isn't rubber-stamping the two new web APIs a week that Google comes up with. There are hundreds of them, most of them quite small fortunately.
    - robenkleene 1y ago
      > The web browser is often called "Web Browser" in the application launcher, LibreOffice Writer "Word Processor", and so on. In general there is far less branding and advertisement and more focus on function. Should Emacs and Vim both be called "Editor" then? To me, this is actually a great example of the problems with Linux as a community, that GUI applications seem to just be treated as placeholders (e.g., all word processors are the same?), but then its inconsistent by celebrating the unique differences between editors like Vim and Emacs. Photoshop, Excel, Logic Pro, Final Cut Pro are, in my opinion, crown jewels of what we've accomplished in computing, and by extension some of the greatest creations of the human race, democratizing tasks that in some cases would have cost millions of dollars before (e.g., a recording studio in your home). Relegating these to generic names like "spreadsheet", makes them sound interchangeable, when in my opinion they're each individual creations of great beauty that should wear their names with pride. They've helped improve the trajectory of the human race by facilitating many individuals to perform actions they never would have had the resources to do otherwise.
selectodude 1y ago
That’s so wild to me - my personal laptop is still a Mac but I’m in windows all day for work. Some of the new direction of macOS isn’t awesome but the basics are still rock solid. Touchpad is perfect, sleep works 100% of the time for days on end, still has UNIX underneath.
- MichealCodes 1y ago
  The basics are not rock solid. Even a core feature such as remote management crashes and freezes every 5 minutes when you connect from a non-apple machine, many have reported this over years but Apple just does Apple. Safari is still atrocious when it comes to web api supports. The worst part is, with Apple, we do not know if these are intentional anti-competitive barriers or actual software bugs. I purchased a mac mini simply to compile apps via xcode and can say the core experience is MUCH more buggy than a fresh Windows or Ubuntu install. Edit: Hard to call intentionally preventing support for web apis a power user thing. This creates more friction for basic users trying to use any web app. Edit2: lol Apple PR must be all over this, went from +5 to -1 in a single refresh. Flagged for even criticizing what they intentionally break.
  - butlike 1y ago
    They said the basics are rock solid (to which I agree). What you're describing, I'd consider a "power user."
  - foldr 1y ago
    Are those basics? You don’t have to use Safari, and I’ve never used remote management over the 20 years or so that I’ve been a Mac user.
    - MichealCodes 1y ago
      If we dismiss remote management as a non-core feature shouldn't we consider installing a new browser to be advanced usage as well? I understand that this post is about MacOS, but yes, we are forced to support Safari for iOS. Many of these corporate decisions to prevent web apps from functioning properly spill over from MacOS Safari to iOS Safari.
qwertytyyuu 1y ago
these days i'd rather have macbook running windows than macos running on standard windows laptop of the same form factor, purely for the efficiency of apple silicon.
- floam 1y ago
  It wouldn’t be so power efficient anymore.
lenkite 1y ago
Windows would have beat MacOS only if Microsoft had just done one small, teeny-weeny thing - just left the OS alone after Win 10.
- xedrac 1y ago
  I haven't been able to stomach Windows since Vista, and I can barely stomach MacOS. Linux has spoiled me.
- leptons 1y ago
  It depends on what you mean by "beat". Windows has a vastly larger market share than Apple ever has, or ever will.
- dysoco 1y ago
  Oh but they absolutely did beat MacOS. The amount of people who give a damn about UI polish, response times, etc. is insignificant to them. They got away with pushing ads, online and enterprise services, Copilot, etc. to every desktop user.
- NetMageSCW 1y ago
  I think you meant to say Windows 7…
lotsofpulp 1y ago
Seeing my wife have to deal with BSOD and tedious restarts for Windows updates and myriad just to use Teams/Excel makes me think the software issues are far worse on the Windows side. Not once in 10 years have I had ti troubleshoot while she uses her personal macOS, but a Dell Latitude laptop in 2025 still can’t just “open lid, work, close lid”. And it’s slower. And eats more battery.
klooney 1y ago
Advertisements in Windows seem like a deal breaker to me, but I've been gone for a while.
foobarian 1y ago
To me it's not a MacOS vs Windows thing. It's a hardware build quality thing for sure; but even more importantly it's the integration with the OS. Now, you could say we could get a team together and integrate Windows too, but the problem is this is vastly more effective when the hardware and software are co-designed in the same house with strong feedback loops. As a result Apple's product will inevitably be better than those without such an organizational backbone. Quoth the Tao of Programming: 8.4 Hardware met Software on the road to Changtse. Software said: "You are Yin and I am Yang. If we travel together, we will become famous and earn vast sums of money." And so they set forth together, thinking to conquer the world. Presently, they met Firmware, who was dressed in tattered rags and hobbled along propped on a thorny stick. Firmware said to them: "The Tao lies beyond Yin and Yang. It is silent and still as a pool of water. It does not seek fame; therefore, nobody knows its presence. It does not seek fortune, for it is complete within itself. It exists beyond space and time." Software and Hardware, ashamed, returned to their homes.

larodi 1y ago

Curiously every big player/vendor doing something remotely relevant to GPU/NPU/APU etc. sees massive growth. Apple's M-processors are much better in terms price/value ratio for current ML pipelines. But Apple do not have server line, which then seems to be super massive problem for their products, even though their products actually compete with NVidia in the consumer market, which is very substantial position, software or not. AMD was also lagging with drivers, but now we see OpenAI swearing they gonna buy loads of their products, which so many people were not favor of liek just 5-7 years ago.