Mac users: any advantages to ARM for Music Production?

[Scotty]

Some will see this as a disadvantage but it will be easy for IOS developers to port their software to ARM based Macs. I like that idea a lot as it applies to some IOS music apps. This would be a secondary machine for me but welcomed.

[Tronam]

Some will see this as a disadvantage but it will be easy for IOS developers to port their software to ARM based Macs. I like that idea a lot as it applies to some IOS music apps. This would be a secondary machine for me but welcomed.

There’s actually no porting required. Apple silicon Macs will be able to run any iOS or iPadOS app natively without any developer work. Of course they may want to tweak them anyway to take better advantage of mouse menus or the larger screen real estate. Apparently your purchases will carry over as well. I might reconsider picking up the Fabfilter bundle now while it’s so inexpensive (relatively speaking).

[BONES]

The advantage is Apple will be able to design CPUs that fit the needs of their computers, rather than having to design their computers around the available CPUs from a 3rd party (Intel.)

Dream on. From Apple's point of view it just means that all the real work can continue to be done for iOS, with macOS being thrown the scraps with no particular care about what benefits it offers, for the simple reason they know their user base will put up with whatever half-arsed, slip-shod garbage Apple care the put in front of them. You people have made your bed, now you will have to lie in it. This move is all about making life simple for Apple, not better for its customers.

[Tronam]

The advantage is Apple will be able to design CPUs that fit the needs of their computers, rather than having to design their computers around the available CPUs from a 3rd party (Intel.)

Dream on. From Apple's point of view it just means that all the real work can continue to be done for iOS, with macOS being thrown the scraps with no particular care about what benefits it offers, for the simple reason they know their user base will put up with whatever half-arsed, slip-shod garbage Apple care the put in front of them. You people have made your bed, now you will have to lie in it. This move is all about making life simple for Apple, not better for its customers.

If Intel wasn’t 5+ years behind on their roadmap, we might not be having this conversation. I could switch back to Windows without too much difficulty, but if the end result of this processor transition results in considerably more powerful computers with better battery life, less heat, lower power consumption and prices, I think the move will have been worth it. The Mac represents less than 10% of the overall PC market. Opening it up to one of the largest software app stores on the planet with day one compatibility benefits everyone in the longterm, both users and developers who will no longer need to maintain two codebases. There will probably be some short-term transitional pain, but Apple seems to have invested heavily into minimizing the typical pain points of switches like this. I’m curious to see how it turns out.

[BONES]

Who cares where Intel is on their roadmap? That's for investors, all that matters to me is that I can render a hugely complex 3D scene in broadcast quality HD or 2k at around 10 seconds per frame. That's 360 frames per hour, or 15 seconds of finished animation per hour, if you prefer to look at it that way. That means I can put on a render before I go to bed and have two minutes of video rendered when I get up. As most shots I need to render are well below two minutes long, having a faster computer wouldn't help much.

Of course, when it comes to music production, I rarely see CPU usage above 30%, even on my most complex arrangements. So why, exactly, would I care how far Intel are behind in their roadmap?

Opening it up to one of the largest software app stores on the planet with day one compatibility benefits everyone in the longterm, both users and developers who will no longer need to maintain two codebases.

Can you explain how having to drop all your prices to match App Store prices and then giving 30% of that paltry sum to Apple will be good for developers? Sounds like a roadmap to disaster to me.

Of course, the upside is that Windows 10 has been available on ARM based systems for 18 months or so now but, so far, no-one has shown even the slightest interest in porting anything to it. If Apple's move changes that, then it might have benefits for everyone. Or maybe Apple moving to ARM will be similarly ignored by devs and all you'll be able to run is iOS apps forever?

[Tronam]

Who cares where Intel is on their roadmap? That's for investors, all that matters to me is that I can render a hugely complex 3D scene in broadcast quality HD or 2k at around 10 seconds per frame. That's 360 frames per hour, or 15 seconds of finished animation per hour, if you prefer to look at it that way. That means I can put on a render before I go to bed and have two minutes of video rendered when I get up. As most shots I need to render are well below two minutes long, having a faster computer wouldn't help much.

Of course, when it comes to music production, I rarely see CPU usage above 30%, even on my most complex arrangements. So why, exactly, would I care how far Intel are behind in their roadmap?

Opening it up to one of the largest software app stores on the planet with day one compatibility benefits everyone in the longterm, both users and developers who will no longer need to maintain two codebases.

Can you explain how having to drop all your prices to match App Store prices and then giving 30% of that paltry sum to Apple will be good for developers? Sounds like a roadmap to disaster to me.

Of course, the upside is that Windows 10 has been available on ARM based systems for 18 months or so now but, so far, no-one has shown even the slightest interest in porting anything to it. If Apple's move changes that, then it might have benefits for everyone. Or maybe Apple moving to ARM will be similarly ignored by devs and all you'll be able to run is iOS apps forever?

Mac-only developers won't have to sell their apps in the App Store, but some may choose to for the increased visibility on iPhone/iPad, despite the ridiculous 30% cut. Regardless, it can't be ignored by devs because they won't have a choice. This is why Apple will succeed where Microsoft has not: full commitment. Microsoft can't just go all in on ARM due to their lingering adherence to decades of x86 backward compatibility, particularly in the enterprise market. I view this has a strength of the Windows platform, but it also means very little incentive for developers to invest the time and energy into developing for Windows on ARM when x86 will always be there. Apple has no fear of aggressive platform changes, for better or worse, and they've been quite successful at it. They also have some of the best chip designers in the world and after a decade of custom SoCs have enough experience to pull off a transition like this. It might fail, but I suspect they won't. They've probably been prototyping this for years and know exactly what they're doing.

Either way, I'm not stuck on the platform. If things go poorly I'd likely just build another custom PC, but I'm definitely interested to see if this shakes up the industry a little bit.

[BONES]

You're making assumptions, assumptions coloured by your bias. For all you know Apple might mandate that everything sold on macOS for ARM must be sold through the App Store. I'll wait and see what happens but I will expect Apple to do what's best for them, not what's best for their users.

[Tronam]

You're making assumptions, assumptions coloured by your bias. For all you know Apple might mandate that everything sold on macOS for ARM must be sold through the App Store. I'll wait and see what happens but I will expect Apple to do what's best for them, not what's best for their users.

I’ve just been paying close attention to WWDC and many of their deep dive developer sessions. They fully understand the distinction between the sandboxed mainstream iDevices and the Mac, which is a much more open ended platform. It’s what they themselves use for research and software development. They’ve made it clear that they want to preserve that difference leaving it open for experimentation, even letting users completely disable SIP (system integrity protection) or secure boot if they wish, or run alternative operating systems. I’m mainly biased in the sense that I feel optimistic, but admittedly it might be misplaced. 2020 has proven to be pretty lousy this far, so maybe I should be expecting the worst.

[UltraJv]

All the claims are speculation. Apple are under attack from all their enemies, needless to say all things will be delayed so I doubt they will even survive :
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1188493.shtml

[Tronam]

All the claims are speculation. Apple are under attack from all their enemies, needless to say all things will be delayed so I doubt they will even survive :
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1188493.shtml

So I guess this is now going to devolve into a "this whole world is going to hell" kind of thread. I'm out.

[BONES]

All the claims are speculation. Apple are under attack from all their enemies, needless to say all things will be delayed so I doubt they will even survive :
https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1188493.shtml

You do realise that is the state-owned propaganda arm of the Chinese Communist Party, don't you? They are incapable of printing anything that even remotely resembles any kind of truth.

[foxache]

Long-term it'll probably lead to some great improvements in performance particularly at the lower-end devices, as their production costs will be way less with everything in-house and with CPUs designed for the system rather than vice versa. I really wouldn't want to be an early adopter for anything like that kind of change though. Apple have past form for introducing major problems with their new, "visionary" ideas. Even big OS updates can be playing compatibility Russian Roulette...