Apple Mac computers make jump to its own chips

[ChamomileShark]

well, you have one developer answering. I came accross the possibility of this on Sonic Talk a week or so back. Yoad Nevo talked about it, he's one of the developers for Waves. I tried to copy the link for the correct time point in the video but it doesn't seem to work, so go to 34mins 57sec if you are interested.




Also the point re moving everything to the Apple Store was mentioned although that is a different subject obviously.

[softska]

This is just speculation, but as the operating systems of Apple desktops and mobile devices begin to merge, Apple may force all developers to sell on the App store only thus having to pay 30%. A lot of independent developers new and experienced may look at the cost/return ratio and decide it's just not worth it.

App store gives me nightmare. On principle it seems like it will be an easy way like Steam as a one stop shop (and 5 seats automatically), but I had multiple instances where apps stop being compatible or broken (can't reinstall without your own backup), or straight up vanishes without notice. and then there is one dev release a "version 2" as new subscription-based app, and delete the old v1 I paid money for...

It's not worth it for user either.

[dermage]

Pretty sad day for developers of music software.
Most of them will get nothing for what might be half a year of work or more to get the new architecture running, if at all.
I'm a developer (not music software) and I work on platform independent servers. You have to plan right from the beginning to be as portable as possible. If you use one library which isn't available/portable to another architecture you have to re-write a lot of code.
Also thinking about products like sound cards and other equipment which needs drivers and is not class compliant.

Apple does simply not care for developers. And does not care for the environment either. How many Intel Macs and equipment are going to be trashed in a few years after they switch off Intel support in their "required" MacOS upgrade?

Personal opinion:
I mean I'm still on my quite strong 9 year old i7 2600k (overclocked@4,5ghz on air) on Windows and upgraded several single items without trashing the whole system. Apple in the meantime ended to support this CPU for Mojave in 2018 already. In the studio I have an i7700k which is only about 20-30% faster than the 9 year old, so it's running quite well and Microsoft does not deprecate Software all the time.
I'm no MS fanboi, but their system just makes more sense for professionals IMO (at least after they fixed several real-time/low latency problems about 10 years ago)

Anyway, I hope this change won't impact the development of new products/upgrades with functionality as much, but I fear it does postpone stuff for 6-12 months, at least for smaller developers.

[Freaqpeak]

Amazing. Mostly marketing bullcrp throughout the whole WWDC.
Funny to see the claims of "innovative" and "new" and claims that other platforms copy what Apple does. When other platforms have had the same features for years! Quite funny, are Apple users so unaware of the platforms around that they believe anything Apple says?

Also, they contradict themselfs. First they say, Oh look, our new ARM-based silicon is the best - extremely fast - now everybody can run every Apple software on any platform from Apple. Then they say, at the end:
We will release new Macbooks. With Intel CPUs. ... Why is that? They don't believe 100% in their own decision to go with ARM.

Maybe, just maybe, because ARM CPU's are so much slower than AMD or Intel?
Also, not a single comparison that shows the performance between Apple and the competition - or even a comparison between Apples previous Intel-based machines and their new ARMs.
Why would they release new Macbooks on Intel otherwise? I can only think of one answer, and that is that they don't believe enough in their own ARM platform can match the performance of the competition..

Now, who really needs to run a $4 dollar iPhone-app made for tiny screens on a $4000 Macbook?

I'm sure they will succeed anyways. Those who buy into the whole Apple universe bubble will think everything is good.

[rezoneight]

Except you're talking almost a decade ago and in the meantime Windows 10 runs pretty well on new ARM chips (Surface Pro X). And frankly nobody comes close to Apple in this space. The power is there already.

...you mean the one that doesn't support 64bit instructions?

No idea what you're referring to as the Surface Pro X is ARM64 and Apple chips have been 64-bit for years.

[rezoneight]

We devs currently do not even know if our frameworks like vst or AU do still compile on the new Macs. There are a massive number of dependencies and most likely it will not be easy at all. Many old plugins will not be ported to ARM.

You can expect that the performance of Rosetta2 for emulating the Intel will be very slow. IntelX64 is very difficult to emulate, since it is a very complex processor.

Except for the fact that they showed the exact opposite yesterday both in the keynote and the platform state of the union video. And I'd hope AU works as it's Apple's own spec.

I also doubt that the new machines will support OpenGL, which is deprecated by Apple. Seems quite a desaster, since a massive number of the recent plugins use it.

Deprecated two OS releases ago. I have not seen any news as of yet that OpenGL is being removed for Big Sur so speculation here is pointless.

The ARM Macs are not only bad news if you want to do audio. It is also bad news if you play games. In the future less games will be ported to the Mac, since the the architecture is a lot more different than PC now. This means higher development costs for ports.

If you are a customer who is doing music I recommend to you to stick with the Intel as long as possible

No offense but who the hell is buying Macs to play games right now? Nobody. But given what they showed yesterday with Unity I doubt the future is as bleak as you're making it out here.

All that said, they said this is a two year transition. Thats a LONG time for developers to get their shit together. Not to mention they said they'd be supporting Intel Macs for a long time. They're not going away anytime soon.

[rezoneight]

Amazing. Mostly marketing bullcrp throughout the whole WWDC.
Funny to see the claims of "innovative" and "new" and claims that other platforms copy what Apple does. When other platforms have had the same features for years! Quite funny, are Apple users so unaware of the platforms around that they believe anything Apple says?

Let me guess...you're just here to troll right?

[el-bo (formerly ebow)]

Now, who really needs to run a $4 dollar iPhone-app made for tiny screens on a $4000 Macbook?

Most worthwhile iPhone apps (especially the music ones) are Universal, and therefore are also designed to work on a 12" iPad Pro. It might not scale well to large fullscreen HD monitors, but it won't be any more of an issue than the current VSTi that we work with

[rezoneight]

Pretty sad day for developers of music software.

Personal opinion:
I mean I'm still on my quite strong 9 year old i7 2600k (overclocked@4,5ghz on air) on Windows and upgraded several single items without trashing the whole system. Apple in the meantime ended to support this CPU for Mojave in 2018 already. In the studio I have an i7700k which is only about 20-30% faster than the 9 year old, so it's running quite well and Microsoft does not deprecate Software all the time.
I'm no MS fanboi, but their system just makes more sense for professionals IMO (at least after they fixed several real-time/low latency problems about 10 years ago)

So the Windows user is here "worried" about the Mac users. Oh how sweet. If you're running on Windows and happy there why the hell do you even care about any of this other than to troll?

[Freaqpeak]

Amazing. Mostly marketing bullcrp throughout the whole WWDC.
Funny to see the claims of "innovative" and "new" and claims that other platforms copy what Apple does. When other platforms have had the same features for years! Quite funny, are Apple users so unaware of the platforms around that they believe anything Apple says?

Let me guess...you're just here to troll right?

What makes you say that? Did you read my whole post? You didn't watch the WWDC did you?

[dermage]

Pretty sad day for developers of music software.

Personal opinion:
I mean I'm still on my quite strong 9 year old i7 2600k (overclocked@4,5ghz on air) on Windows and upgraded several single items without trashing the whole system. Apple in the meantime ended to support this CPU for Mojave in 2018 already. In the studio I have an i7700k which is only about 20-30% faster than the 9 year old, so it's running quite well and Microsoft does not deprecate Software all the time.
I'm no MS fanboi, but their system just makes more sense for professionals IMO (at least after they fixed several real-time/low latency problems about 10 years ago)

So the Windows user is here "worried" about the Mac users. Oh how sweet. If you're running on Windows and happy there why the hell do you even care about any of this other than to troll?

If one is an angry troll, then it's you.
I made my point clear in the beginning, marked my personal opinion clearly, and told the story from a developer point. I'm solidarizing with the music software developers, as I'm myself partly developing for MacOS.
I've used Apple in the pre-Intel era professionally and watched them go Intel (which IMO was their best decision/move back then, like doing the Iphone or even the Ipod). If you can't stand personal opinions then please keep your mood to yourself or try to bring some argument to the discussion.

You can keep on being angry. I hope someday the Internet will be like the year 2000 and before again. Mostly nice and valued discussions and not (too much) aggressive attacks. Anyway, quote me again, I'll be happily watching.

[Freaqpeak]

Pretty sad day for developers of music software.

Personal opinion:
I mean I'm still on my quite strong 9 year old i7 2600k (overclocked@4,5ghz on air) on Windows and upgraded several single items without trashing the whole system. Apple in the meantime ended to support this CPU for Mojave in 2018 already. In the studio I have an i7700k which is only about 20-30% faster than the 9 year old, so it's running quite well and Microsoft does not deprecate Software all the time.
I'm no MS fanboi, but their system just makes more sense for professionals IMO (at least after they fixed several real-time/low latency problems about 10 years ago)

So the Windows user is here "worried" about the Mac users. Oh how sweet. If you're running on Windows and happy there why the hell do you even care about any of this other than to troll?

How sweet that you don't have anything of value to add in this discussion but to attack other users here? If you want to contribute with your point of view, just do so.

I work with a vast number of systems on a daily basis, all of them has to support "all" platforms. About 30% of them being Apple products (about 6000 out of 20000 devices). I make sure our enterprise environment is compatible with ALL platforms, from Windows, Linux, MacOS, ChromeOS, Android, etc. Guess what users and what OS that has brought most trouble expecting everyone else to use specific non-standard proprietary protocols?
I also help music and video production studios, they mostly go full Apple because they are used to it and they also want all the major industry standard DAWs and programs in the same studios (Protools, Cubase and Logic). They sure pay extra $$$ for that decision. My own studio is 100% Windows based and I can run much more complex and large projects than they can in their Apple setup. But good for them if they are happy.

I have no issue with the actual quality of Apples products. But it's emberrasing to see how Apple tries to take control over the narrative based on some lies and wishful thinking - and hiding of real facts. Of course, I can be totally wrong about the ARM silicon! Can you please tell me how good Apples ARM CPU's are based on facts, any benchmarks available?

And... maybe, just maybe, YOU are the one acting like a troll here? Where are your own opinions, insights, viewpoints.. anything to add to the discussion?

[Freaqpeak]

Except you're talking almost a decade ago and in the meantime Windows 10 runs pretty well on new ARM chips (Surface Pro X). And frankly nobody comes close to Apple in this space. The power is there already.

...you mean the one that doesn't support 64bit instructions?

No idea what you're referring to as the Surface Pro X is ARM64 and Apple chips have been 64-bit for years.

Surface runs pretty well? I owned Surfaces, the ARM based ones are basically useless for other things than browsing and office work. For audio work? Forget it..

[Hanz Meyzer]

Thanks Markus. And would also love to read some thoughts of other developers in here, if possible. Thanks.

[imrae]

Apple Mac computers make jump to its own chips

Can we just take a moment to appreciate what a charmingly nonsensical piece of writing this is?

(Written by BBC editors, not OP)