8 votes

Apple hires key chip designer from ARM as own efforts ramp up

3 comments

  1. [3]
    sqew
    Link
    I'll be interested to see what comes of this. I know there's been rumors of Apple going ARM for MacOS for years now, but with the most recent A-series chips being as powerful as they are, maybe...

    I'll be interested to see what comes of this. I know there's been rumors of Apple going ARM for MacOS for years now, but with the most recent A-series chips being as powerful as they are, maybe they're getting closer? IIRC, those most recent chips come pretty close to matching Intel's super low power laptop CPUs.

    Assuming they do go ahead with it, I'll also be interested to see how they go about getting software onto the new platform. Some could probably be handled quickly with recompilation, but would they need to have a top notch x86 emulation setup, too?

    3 votes
    1. [2]
      Luna
      Link Parent
      This is Apple. They control the platform and they know power users who want a proper UNIX system are a small minority of their customers at this point. As far as I know, there is no good x86_64...

      would they need to have a top notch x86 emulation setup, too?

      This is Apple. They control the platform and they know power users who want a proper UNIX system are a small minority of their customers at this point. As far as I know, there is no good x86_64 emulation for ARM systems, only x86 emulation (and it's slow). Considering Catalina will be 64-bit only, unless they have some incredible engineering solution up their sleeves, there will be no backwards compatibility when they make the jump to ARM. Considering that ARM will likely permanently lock users into the App Store (which most casual users are happy to remain within the confines of), Apple has little incentive to develop any sort of compatibility layer.

      2 votes
      1. unknown user
        Link Parent
        This is a large leap. Apple—and their employees—know the difference between iOS & macOS. When you really understand the Mac, and what it represents, you see that it's plainly obvious Apple will...

        Considering that ARM will likely permanently lock users into the App Store

        This is a large leap. Apple—and their employees—know the difference between iOS & macOS. When you really understand the Mac, and what it represents, you see that it's plainly obvious Apple will never restrict users to the Mac App Store: irrespective of what underlying instruction layer is present. They're separate concerns.

        1 vote