Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control(androidauthority.com)
androidauthority.com
Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control
https://www.androidauthority.com/apple-m1-chip-platform-control-1178210/
363 comments
Agreed. Apple could be lying, but they (top executives) have stated multiple times that the mac is not an iDevice. They have also stated they have no plans to only allow installs from app store, and they understand the value of tools like brew etc...They are what makes the mac popular with developers.
This could all change, but until it does articles like this feel a lot like FUD. Additionally, completely dismissing the M1 as a 'marginal improvement' shows a level of anti-Apple that is clearly clouding the authors judgement.
This could all change, but until it does articles like this feel a lot like FUD. Additionally, completely dismissing the M1 as a 'marginal improvement' shows a level of anti-Apple that is clearly clouding the authors judgement.
Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script. While the article is clearly biased, it would be foolish to believe that Apple is a company that doesn't change course, going as far as total U-turns on public statements, as long as it's in their interests to do so.
> They are what makes the mac popular with developers
Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it comes to hardware, especially the Mac, in large part due to the perfect intersect that was the MBP for many years. That tide already turned in 2016 with the new keyboard, followed by the touch bar. Like the joke that the 'S' in IoT stands for security (the joke being there is no S, and there is no security), there is no 'D' for developer in MBP. Apple have been consistently clear that 'professional developers' are not the primary target of their 'Pro' lineup across the board.
Someone else made a comment on this forum that got my attention recently, that we're all so used to being courted as customers by (mostly free) services that we've forgotten that we're not always the target customer. Similarly, developers are only welcome in Apple's ecosystem if they play by Apple's rules. Like we've seen with the App Store, Apple will frequently alter the terms of the deal. All you can do is pray they do not alter them any further.
None of this should diminish the extraordinary results that can be delivered by the M1. That is amazing.
> They are what makes the mac popular with developers
Developers believe that they're Apple's priority when it comes to hardware, especially the Mac, in large part due to the perfect intersect that was the MBP for many years. That tide already turned in 2016 with the new keyboard, followed by the touch bar. Like the joke that the 'S' in IoT stands for security (the joke being there is no S, and there is no security), there is no 'D' for developer in MBP. Apple have been consistently clear that 'professional developers' are not the primary target of their 'Pro' lineup across the board.
Someone else made a comment on this forum that got my attention recently, that we're all so used to being courted as customers by (mostly free) services that we've forgotten that we're not always the target customer. Similarly, developers are only welcome in Apple's ecosystem if they play by Apple's rules. Like we've seen with the App Store, Apple will frequently alter the terms of the deal. All you can do is pray they do not alter them any further.
None of this should diminish the extraordinary results that can be delivered by the M1. That is amazing.
You realize they fixed the keyboard, right? The Touch Bar is irritating, but I don't have to use it.
As someone who uses an MBP for development for 8-10 hours a day for work and another one for 4-6 hours a day for school, I'm pretty happy with them for development purposes
As someone who uses an MBP for development for 8-10 hours a day for work and another one for 4-6 hours a day for school, I'm pretty happy with them for development purposes
Apple products are targeted at developers as well, to developers that care about Apple eco-system, not those that use macbooks to actually do work for GNU/Linux.
“Apple have a history of denying anything until it's ready, and then they flip the script”
So does any company that paid attention in marketing & sales 101. An established hardware company has to sell what it has, and shouldn’t try to sell what it doesn’t have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect is the classical example of why not to sell what you don’t have (yet))
(if you don’t have anything to sell yet, selling what you don’t have is fine. See Kickstarter and early Tesla)
I think the reason people think Apple is special at this is that Steve Jobs was very good at selling what he had and downplaying what he didn’t have.
So does any company that paid attention in marketing & sales 101. An established hardware company has to sell what it has, and shouldn’t try to sell what it doesn’t have (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osborne_effect is the classical example of why not to sell what you don’t have (yet))
(if you don’t have anything to sell yet, selling what you don’t have is fine. See Kickstarter and early Tesla)
I think the reason people think Apple is special at this is that Steve Jobs was very good at selling what he had and downplaying what he didn’t have.
What are some relevant, analogous examples from this history?
They said OSX dev signatures were only for security, then invalidated one or threatened to based on an iOS business dispute (later backed down after a judge ordered them to).
Similar story with Apple Sign In (though no judge order there).
Similar story with Apple Sign In (though no judge order there).
Steve Jobs incredulously derided both Android phablets ("no one wants these Hummer phones"[1]) and 7"/8" Android tablets ("They are so small, you'll have to file down your fingers to use them"[1]). All the while, Apple was working on both bigger iPhones and smaller iPads. When Apple's version of products were released, those niches weren't terrible, all of a sudden.
1. I'm paraphrasing
1. I'm paraphrasing
Sure but that's hardly Apple promising you to do or not do something and then doing the opposite. Jobs's schtick in these presentations always included talking smack about other products, nobody set their watches by that stuff. What makes it even thinner gruel is that in his lifetime, he was pretty much right - the Android versions of these products were poopy and Apple eventually made better ones. Do you think Job's shittalking in keynotes is actually solid supporting evidence that... Apple is going to turn Macs into iOS devices 9+ years after he died?
Not exactly the same, but it reminded me of how they never made FaceTime an open standard after stating they would.
This is not so much a flip but probably the closest thing to a meaningful 'reversal' compared to the other ones in thread so far. Like, they never said they will never have an App store, styluses are still specialized rather than standard input devices, etc. Obviously, companies both change direction and fail to meet various expectations all the time but 'history of flipping the script' seems pretty tenuous to me, so far.
There's a few more I thought of in this vein, of various sizes:
zfs
java (and also ruby, python) as 'first class' Cocoa languages
GC'ed ObjC runtime
[Ancient history but kinda huge!] just about the entire post-System 7 technology stack and roadmap was tossed.
zfs
java (and also ruby, python) as 'first class' Cocoa languages
GC'ed ObjC runtime
[Ancient history but kinda huge!] just about the entire post-System 7 technology stack and roadmap was tossed.
The behind the scenes story there is that Steve Jobs never actually cleared it with anyone when he announced it on stage, but it turns out FaceTime depended on lots of elements that Apple didn't have the rights to and, therefore, couldn't release into the open without the other rights holders' consent.
[deleted]
The first example I could think of actually counters the OP: when the iPhone launched and developers were told their only option on the platform would be via Web-apps.
Of course Apple did a 180 soon after and introduced the iOS SDK.
Not so sure if that was flipping the script when they were ready or that Apple had hoped to not have to open the OS but bent to the developer outcry (or saw that there might be some merit for growing the platform in opening it up).
Of course Apple did a 180 soon after and introduced the iOS SDK.
Not so sure if that was flipping the script when they were ready or that Apple had hoped to not have to open the OS but bent to the developer outcry (or saw that there might be some merit for growing the platform in opening it up).
Not sure if OP means me, but if so there is a big difference. Going from web app only to a full SDK is opening up the platform, and a big step forward. Going from macOS today, to only allowing apps installed from the app store would be closing the platform and stepping backwards in a huge way.
> Going from web app only to a full SDK is opening up the platform
How is that so? The initial promise with "web apps only" was that they would add the necessary APIs for people to develop web-apps that could do almost anything.
Nowadays Apple (intentionally or not) is crippling the entire web-app ecosystem by not supporting the APIs that everyone else does (no notifications, non-standard manifest, etc.).
How is that so? The initial promise with "web apps only" was that they would add the necessary APIs for people to develop web-apps that could do almost anything.
Nowadays Apple (intentionally or not) is crippling the entire web-app ecosystem by not supporting the APIs that everyone else does (no notifications, non-standard manifest, etc.).
IIRC, some guys reverse-engineered the application packaging format and the APIs and were happily hacking away at installing their own apps. This awoke Apple and they created the AppStore.
Other examples of Apple reversing course would be "No stylus on iDevices", no use of intel chips, no switch back to scissor-type keyboards.
Other examples of Apple reversing course would be "No stylus on iDevices", no use of intel chips, no switch back to scissor-type keyboards.
If Apple changed on this the press and customer sentiment would be terrible. Oh so terrible. I'm sure they are aware of that.
Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you're most vocal work of mouth folks turn than this would be bad for sales.
Word of mouth is the best form of advertising. If you're most vocal work of mouth folks turn than this would be bad for sales.
Apple is aware that they constantly change their story mid steam and the majority of the media simply buys it.
Sure, but the main point here is switching the MacOS platform to "app store only", which they could have already done. Using their own hardware vs Intel hasn't prevented that. Do you think there's something else that has prevented them, related to their hardware? If they limited it a year ago, people would have the option to just use their macbook for Windows or Linux? Now they won't?
I'm just genuinely confused as to why people seem to think that [a] Apple is planning to switch to a locked down ecosystem on their notebooks and [b] Apple has been somehow limited in doing this until they had their own "silicon".
I'm just genuinely confused as to why people seem to think that [a] Apple is planning to switch to a locked down ecosystem on their notebooks and [b] Apple has been somehow limited in doing this until they had their own "silicon".
> Additionally, completely dismissing the M1 as a 'marginal improvement' shows a level of anti-Apple that is clearly clouding the authors judgement.
Is there somewhere I can find some evidence that it isn't a marginal improvement?
Apple timed the release perfectly to create the impression that it was more, because its obvious competition will be Zen 3 laptops, which are right around the corner but not actually out yet. So then you get benchmarks comparing it to 14nm Intel processors based on 5-year-old technology, and 10nm Intel processors with half as many cores as the M1 because Intel's 10nm yields are so bad they can't make high core count processors, and Zen 2 laptops when the Zen 3 ones it will actually be competing with in a couple months are expected to be 20% faster. And Zen 3 desktops, which the M1 loses to badly on multi-threaded tests, but is competitive with on single threaded tests -- as expected, since modern mobile processors actually have single-thread performance which is competitive with desktops in general, but manages to amaze anyone who doesn't know that.
Which isn't to say they've done a bad job. Making something which is even competitive with modern x86-64 processors is no small feat. But the fanboys are making it out to be some kind of coup when it does, in practice, appear to be a marginal improvement. And we still don't even have many real-world benchmarks because most of the real-world applications haven't actually been ported yet.
Is there somewhere I can find some evidence that it isn't a marginal improvement?
Apple timed the release perfectly to create the impression that it was more, because its obvious competition will be Zen 3 laptops, which are right around the corner but not actually out yet. So then you get benchmarks comparing it to 14nm Intel processors based on 5-year-old technology, and 10nm Intel processors with half as many cores as the M1 because Intel's 10nm yields are so bad they can't make high core count processors, and Zen 2 laptops when the Zen 3 ones it will actually be competing with in a couple months are expected to be 20% faster. And Zen 3 desktops, which the M1 loses to badly on multi-threaded tests, but is competitive with on single threaded tests -- as expected, since modern mobile processors actually have single-thread performance which is competitive with desktops in general, but manages to amaze anyone who doesn't know that.
Which isn't to say they've done a bad job. Making something which is even competitive with modern x86-64 processors is no small feat. But the fanboys are making it out to be some kind of coup when it does, in practice, appear to be a marginal improvement. And we still don't even have many real-world benchmarks because most of the real-world applications haven't actually been ported yet.
> Is there somewhere I can find some evidence that it isn't a marginal improvement?
While your story about raw computing performance holds, there are two reasons why apple's M1 release is significant (i.e.: not marginal):
1. This is the first time in decades that we see a serious non-x86 competitor for general purpose consumer-level computing. This is significant in and of itself.
2. Power consumption. These things seem to consume 2/3rds as many watts to offer the same performance levels than their x86 counterparts. This is big in the laptop space.
While your story about raw computing performance holds, there are two reasons why apple's M1 release is significant (i.e.: not marginal):
1. This is the first time in decades that we see a serious non-x86 competitor for general purpose consumer-level computing. This is significant in and of itself.
2. Power consumption. These things seem to consume 2/3rds as many watts to offer the same performance levels than their x86 counterparts. This is big in the laptop space.
> This is the first time in decades that we see a serious non-x86 competitor for general purpose consumer-level computing. This is significant in and of itself.
I feel like this would be a lot more significant if you could buy the chip on its own. When you can only buy it as part of a Mac, you're really not buying the chip, you're buying a Mac with all that entails. Then who makes the chip in your Mac doesn't really change much because you buy it from Apple either way.
> Power consumption. These things seem to consume 2/3rds as many watts to offer the same performance levels than their x86 counterparts. This is big in the laptop space.
But that's much the same issue where you're comparing it to Zen 2 when Zen 3 is expected to be 20% faster at the same power, and close a lot of that gap.
It's also hard to compare this in general, for two reasons. The first is that the M1 is 5nm, so then the question is how much of the efficiency is due to that (and will accrue to AMD next year) and how much, if any, is the design?
And the second is that the M1 is big.LITTLE. The small cores are more power efficient, so when you average them in, the overall result should be more power efficient than entirely big cores. But x86-64 processors with a similar configuration are sparse, so what do you compare to? It will be interesting to see the result when there are some (both Intel and AMD have some planned).
I feel like this would be a lot more significant if you could buy the chip on its own. When you can only buy it as part of a Mac, you're really not buying the chip, you're buying a Mac with all that entails. Then who makes the chip in your Mac doesn't really change much because you buy it from Apple either way.
> Power consumption. These things seem to consume 2/3rds as many watts to offer the same performance levels than their x86 counterparts. This is big in the laptop space.
But that's much the same issue where you're comparing it to Zen 2 when Zen 3 is expected to be 20% faster at the same power, and close a lot of that gap.
It's also hard to compare this in general, for two reasons. The first is that the M1 is 5nm, so then the question is how much of the efficiency is due to that (and will accrue to AMD next year) and how much, if any, is the design?
And the second is that the M1 is big.LITTLE. The small cores are more power efficient, so when you average them in, the overall result should be more power efficient than entirely big cores. But x86-64 processors with a similar configuration are sparse, so what do you compare to? It will be interesting to see the result when there are some (both Intel and AMD have some planned).
> I feel like this would be a lot more significant if you could buy the chip on its own.
Oh, totally. I'm not buying into apple (again) anytime soon, so the only bad thing about M1's for me is that I just won't have them, no matter how good they are.
> But that's much the same issue where you're comparing it to Zen 2 when Zen 3 is expected to be 20% faster at the same power, and close a lot of that gap.
I expect next-gen AMD laptop processors to close the gap either in performance or in power consumption, but not both. Also, power consumption of a laptop is very much a whole-package deal, and Apple really shines here.
To be clear, I dislike apple for who they are and where are they leading the personal computing industry, so I won't buy from them. Nonetheless, I have to acknowledge that they make some damn fine machines.
Oh, totally. I'm not buying into apple (again) anytime soon, so the only bad thing about M1's for me is that I just won't have them, no matter how good they are.
> But that's much the same issue where you're comparing it to Zen 2 when Zen 3 is expected to be 20% faster at the same power, and close a lot of that gap.
I expect next-gen AMD laptop processors to close the gap either in performance or in power consumption, but not both. Also, power consumption of a laptop is very much a whole-package deal, and Apple really shines here.
To be clear, I dislike apple for who they are and where are they leading the personal computing industry, so I won't buy from them. Nonetheless, I have to acknowledge that they make some damn fine machines.
It's not marginal at all at the same price point:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxSI45eeAts
Not to mention the ergonomic factor of being cooler and quieter.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxSI45eeAts
Not to mention the ergonomic factor of being cooler and quieter.
> It's not marginal at all at the same price point
This review appears to be comparing a dual core Intel i3 to the 4+4 core M1, which are only the same price because Apple doesn't sell any laptops for less than $999 even when they're a dual core Intel i3.
This review appears to be comparing a dual core Intel i3 to the 4+4 core M1, which are only the same price because Apple doesn't sell any laptops for less than $999 even when they're a dual core Intel i3.
The i5 model costs more than the M1 and still doesn't perform as well. So that the i3 should be cheaper is somewhat moot.
You're still comparing Apple's pricing for Apple processors to Apple's pricing for non-Apple processors. There are Ryzen laptops for less money than the M1 which are faster than the i5.
Hope so, but Apple implemented the wholesale Metal Only (not Metal Only unless you run a command in terminal) update which killed off using Nvidia cards for those of us who bought MBPs for eGPUing Nvidia cards. Considering Apple hardware doesn’t have a Nvidia option and people like me are probably niche to bring their own GPU (even though CUDA exists), it’d be highly unrealistic to think that Nvidia would rewrite their drivers for Metal because the affected users has to be quite small.
I hope you’re right, but personally, I don’t trust Apple to allow me to do what I wish anymore.
I hope you’re right, but personally, I don’t trust Apple to allow me to do what I wish anymore.
Possibly naive question but does anyone know if CUDA is supported on the new M1 macs? I think I heard on a podcast last week that eGPUs would no longer be supported, but I can't find a reference.
Well, Nvidia (outside of some really, really old hardware) isn’t supported on Mac so I’d imagine effectively M1 doesn’t support CUDA.
I would hope they didn’t kill off eGPUing Radeon cards, but I haven’t kept track of the new hardware other than M1 being really good.
I would hope they didn’t kill off eGPUing Radeon cards, but I haven’t kept track of the new hardware other than M1 being really good.
They didn't. But there are no driver available for Radeon cards on M1, so for now it is effectively dead.
EGPUs aren’t supported for the M1, but Big Sur still identifies and connects to them, implying Apple may restore this feature in the future.
I saw this mentioned recently that they are just missing drivers. Which this being ealy days for Apple Silicon makes sense.
I think eGPUs require a thunderbolt connection, which IIRC is only supported by Intel processors
The new mac's ship with USB4/Thunderbolt ports - it's now a cross-platform port (USB4 is a merger of sorts between USB and Thunderbolt)
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-4-faq,38766.html
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/usb-4-faq,38766.html
Apparently Thunderbolt is full of low-level x86 quirks, so getting existing devices working on ARM Macs is likely to be a punishingly heavy lift even for Apple, which seems to have barely started work. And of course Intel isn't likely to be all that co-operative. https://level1techs.com/video/can-apple-do-thoughts-armthund...
Apple is the developer of thunderbolt,They wrote the specifications for it and there are two thunderbolt ports on every M1 Mac
Intel invented Thunderbolt as LightPeak. Apple developed it further in cooperation with Intel.
You are right. I forgot about LightPeak, which was designed to work over optical cables.
Apple came in when Intel decided to build a version for standardized cables, and helped Intel develop the spec (and even supplied the name).
But my point remains. Apple knows Thunderbolt as well as Intel does by this time.
Apple came in when Intel decided to build a version for standardized cables, and helped Intel develop the spec (and even supplied the name).
But my point remains. Apple knows Thunderbolt as well as Intel does by this time.
There is one AMD motherboard I’ve seen with a TB3 port. ASRock I think makes it?
>I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store
Of course there are things that suggest this, such as, that is how iphones and ipads work, and its become increasingly difficult over time to do it on a mac.
Of course there are things that suggest this, such as, that is how iphones and ipads work, and its become increasingly difficult over time to do it on a mac.
As in what, having to RMB -> Open ?
In what way was it made "more difficult" than that?
What exactly suggests it is "becoming (even?) more difficult"?
In what way was it made "more difficult" than that?
What exactly suggests it is "becoming (even?) more difficult"?
You used to be able to open any application directly. Simple and easy.
Then they introduced Gatekeeper, but you had the option to disable the Gatekeeper check for all applications.
Then they removed the option to disable the check for all applications. You now only have the options "App Store" and "App Store and identified developers".
They have definitely made the whole thing harder and harder during these past 10 years. Now if you don't want to pay Apple for a developer license, or you're just otherwise ousted by Apple (like Epic Games), you need to teach your users on how they can circumvent Apple's restrictions.
Then they introduced Gatekeeper, but you had the option to disable the Gatekeeper check for all applications.
Then they removed the option to disable the check for all applications. You now only have the options "App Store" and "App Store and identified developers".
They have definitely made the whole thing harder and harder during these past 10 years. Now if you don't want to pay Apple for a developer license, or you're just otherwise ousted by Apple (like Epic Games), you need to teach your users on how they can circumvent Apple's restrictions.
Epic wasn’t ‘just ousted’. They lied to Apple, and broke their contract, in full awareness of the consequences.
The courts have agreed that the reason their apps are not in the store is of their own doing, which is why they have not granted an injunction.
Whatever the outcome of their case, they are not an example of some general trend of Apple ‘ousting’ developers.
The courts have agreed that the reason their apps are not in the store is of their own doing, which is why they have not granted an injunction.
Whatever the outcome of their case, they are not an example of some general trend of Apple ‘ousting’ developers.
https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
The first time you "RMB -> Open", as you put it, it won't allow you to open the app at all. You have to do it twice, only the second time does the button to actually open the app appear.
Both times the dialog boxes mention "malware". Both times the default button is "move to trash".
The first time you "RMB -> Open", as you put it, it won't allow you to open the app at all. You have to do it twice, only the second time does the button to actually open the app appear.
Both times the dialog boxes mention "malware". Both times the default button is "move to trash".
Gah, that really rankles me. Is it too much to ask to have an obvious keystore that allows the user to decide what signatures to trust? Ideally self-compiled binaries could be self-signed and still protect from attacker supplied binaries.
I had to enable it in settings, I was prevented from opening an app that was not signed by apple. And I was prevented from opening even signed apps when their servers were down the other day.
> We know for a fact that this is a much smaller problem on iOS than Android. I am happy that Android exists as a choice for users but let us not pretend there are no trade offs.
Android is not a choice for iOS users, it's not a seamless switch. The solution as I see it is that apple could still very well protect users from "trojans" but have an opt-in for 3p app installation. A button that says "I want to install apps from anywhere, I know the risks".
If I pay for the hardware, as a customer, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. With the iPhone, it feels like I'm renting rather than owning. I worry that's the direction apple is taking Macs in with the M1.
Android is not a choice for iOS users, it's not a seamless switch. The solution as I see it is that apple could still very well protect users from "trojans" but have an opt-in for 3p app installation. A button that says "I want to install apps from anywhere, I know the risks".
If I pay for the hardware, as a customer, I should be able to do whatever I want with it. With the iPhone, it feels like I'm renting rather than owning. I worry that's the direction apple is taking Macs in with the M1.
The problem with this 'I know the risks' approach is that it is often put out there by people who do know the risks but these people are massively outnumbered by the huge mass of people who have no idea about the risks but will gladly install from Bob's FlyByNight App Emporium if it means they will get a "can't lose" video poker app or a chance to win a free Fortnite skin and please be sure to click OK to all of those security warnings thanks so much for your bank details...
If you want a different ecosystem there are choices available to you. Why exactly are you complaining when it is clear no one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use Apple products?
If you want a different ecosystem there are choices available to you. Why exactly are you complaining when it is clear no one is putting a gun to your head and forcing you to use Apple products?
I think the answer to this is painfully clear: because no one makes hardware anywhere near close to the quality of mac and iphone hardware in those verticals.
We'd like to use the best available software, running on the best available hardware.
Criticizing Apple's software censorship choices is thus the natural logical target. Otherwise, we have to use things like the PinePhone for the next 10-15 years until someone makes something comparable to an iPhone 6 that can run whatever software the owner wants.
We'd like to use the best available software, running on the best available hardware.
Criticizing Apple's software censorship choices is thus the natural logical target. Otherwise, we have to use things like the PinePhone for the next 10-15 years until someone makes something comparable to an iPhone 6 that can run whatever software the owner wants.
Alternatively one could contribute to making the competing hardware just as good.
Do you have any suggestions as to how? I am not in the phone business.
By buying phones from the likes of Jolla and Purism.
It always seems like some sort of deflection tactic. Shouting how bad apple is, while using a device practically owned by google.
Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open. I don't know how Google "practically owns" your device considering Apple asserts a much more complete control over your device.
> most of the source code for Android
Except for everything related to the Play Store, correct? And that is a critical part of Android at this point. Google is progressively closing Android.
Except for everything related to the Play Store, correct? And that is a critical part of Android at this point. Google is progressively closing Android.
You're unfortunately right that Google is closing down Android. I dislike Apple with a passion, but the noose over hear in Android-land is getting tighter too.
One example is how in newer phones it will be impossible for apps to bypass root detection. I don't know why it should be anyone's business whether I want to run my banking app on a rooted phone or not, but this is the state of modern technology unfortunately...
One example is how in newer phones it will be impossible for apps to bypass root detection. I don't know why it should be anyone's business whether I want to run my banking app on a rooted phone or not, but this is the state of modern technology unfortunately...
You can absolutely use Android without having the Play Store installed.
>> Google allows third-party app stores and most of the source code for Android is out there in the open.
Is that true though? I though pretty much all of the Google services and vendor-specific skins and OS modifications are just as closed as iOS? Last time I heard vanilla AOSP is pretty much unusable because besides the core OS functions everything is grossly outdated? Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services?
Is that true though? I though pretty much all of the Google services and vendor-specific skins and OS modifications are just as closed as iOS? Last time I heard vanilla AOSP is pretty much unusable because besides the core OS functions everything is grossly outdated? Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services?
I'll play the part and mention microG, an alternative which supplies many of the Google services that are required by a ton of apps these days. Fair warning, though. Installing microG on a lot of popular phones is non-trivial.
> Is anyone using Android phones without any of the Google services?
Yes I have a couple of phones running LineageOS without GApps. The apps are installed through FDroid or direct from the vendor ( e.g. WhatsApp.apk from their website, which also manages its own updates ).
Yes I have a couple of phones running LineageOS without GApps. The apps are installed through FDroid or direct from the vendor ( e.g. WhatsApp.apk from their website, which also manages its own updates ).
I'm pretty neutral about it myself; on the one hand, you give up a bit of control and freedom over your hardware. But on the other, 99% of users have no need for, or cannot be trusted with that freedom.
I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up.
That was caused by an insecure operating system on the one hand - which can and has been fixed by core operating system mechanics - but a big factor was both freedom and lack of expertise from users. They're easily tempted by e.g. "install this browser bar for dank discounts" without understanding the consequences. They may not even really register what's going on because so much is going on.
99% of users need to be protected from themselves. And developers need to work with that.
Apple has already proven how a closed ecosystem is ultimately beneficial for the consumer - how many security incidents has the iphone had, ever? I can't think of ANY to be honest, outside of the odd scummy app slipping through that is a bit too liberal with user's data. But they have never compromised a user's system. Mobile banking apps became a thing while I was an app developer, and that would never have flown on an unconstrained system. Pretty sure they had a lot more trouble with the Android version as well in that regard.
Tl;dr, 99% of users will never know any better and will not care, they just want to hit install and for things to Just Work.
I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up.
That was caused by an insecure operating system on the one hand - which can and has been fixed by core operating system mechanics - but a big factor was both freedom and lack of expertise from users. They're easily tempted by e.g. "install this browser bar for dank discounts" without understanding the consequences. They may not even really register what's going on because so much is going on.
99% of users need to be protected from themselves. And developers need to work with that.
Apple has already proven how a closed ecosystem is ultimately beneficial for the consumer - how many security incidents has the iphone had, ever? I can't think of ANY to be honest, outside of the odd scummy app slipping through that is a bit too liberal with user's data. But they have never compromised a user's system. Mobile banking apps became a thing while I was an app developer, and that would never have flown on an unconstrained system. Pretty sure they had a lot more trouble with the Android version as well in that regard.
Tl;dr, 99% of users will never know any better and will not care, they just want to hit install and for things to Just Work.
> I mean I've worked with Windows for multiple generations of the operating system, and once the internet became a thing it was just complete shit. I had a side job fixing computers for people, and it was always adware, viruses, etc messing things up.
Windows 10 isn't perfect but it's a much different time than multiple generations ago with Windows 95 / 98, XP or even 7.
Back then you could visit a site and end up needing to format because of a virus, even if you were very much into tech.
Nowadays even if you disable Windows Defender and any active AV tool, it's pretty unlikely you'll get yourself to the point where you need to format due to a virus or some adware.
This is speaking from the perspective of someone who has been using Windows since the mid 1990s.
Windows 10 isn't perfect but it's a much different time than multiple generations ago with Windows 95 / 98, XP or even 7.
Back then you could visit a site and end up needing to format because of a virus, even if you were very much into tech.
Nowadays even if you disable Windows Defender and any active AV tool, it's pretty unlikely you'll get yourself to the point where you need to format due to a virus or some adware.
This is speaking from the perspective of someone who has been using Windows since the mid 1990s.
I would expect Apple to support third party repair and right to repair itself if what they had in mind was to improve user experience.
Maybe those are two things separate, hardware post-purchase support and software user experience, but I can't as a consumer separate those two.
Maybe those are two things separate, hardware post-purchase support and software user experience, but I can't as a consumer separate those two.
> too colored by a strong dislike for all things Apple and borderline conspiratorial thinking
> It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish
So much for "Hacker" News.
> It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish
So much for "Hacker" News.
The fact that Apple stopped requiring dev licenses to sideload code onto iOS devices makes me think that their effort to ensure that "typical users" install signed apps on macOS, really is about security and experience.
I think its funny that most people here wouldent trust a website with no certificate, but for applications the idea seems to be considered abhorrent.
I think its funny that most people here wouldent trust a website with no certificate, but for applications the idea seems to be considered abhorrent.
Most people don't put much stock in "EV" certificates though, which to me would be the equivalent of the signed app, sort of, as it demonstrates that the person you are talking to is a specific known legal entity, sort of like demonstrating the app you are installing came from a specific known legal entity.
The "ordinary" certificates we use just are meant to prove the website you are talking to is the authorized owner of the domain you mean to be talking to... I'm not sure if there's really an analogy with installing apps, that kind of cert is I think maybe meant to protect against a kind of attack only relevant to network communications, not app installs.
The "ordinary" certificates we use just are meant to prove the website you are talking to is the authorized owner of the domain you mean to be talking to... I'm not sure if there's really an analogy with installing apps, that kind of cert is I think maybe meant to protect against a kind of attack only relevant to network communications, not app installs.
Apple still requires paid dev license for some entitlements, and manual approval for a few of those, such as CarPlay.
Requiring apps to be signed is what most of us complainers WANT instead of having a store lockdown and rules about what programs we can run on our computers.
The knowledge that the switch to closing the system is there has a decidedly chilling effect, Apple doesn't even need to flick it. But if you buy a ARM-Mac, you should know that it could be turned into a sealed iDevice any time.
That said, the M1 is one damned good chip. And the Macbooks are hands down the laptops with the best feel and build quality.
That said, the M1 is one damned good chip. And the Macbooks are hands down the laptops with the best feel and build quality.
It's a trillion-dollar market. Of course the incentive is there to monopolize and monetize app installations.
> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store.
It is already exceptionally difficult to distribute apps produced outside of their developer program.
It is already exceptionally difficult to distribute apps produced outside of their developer program.
And in any case there's no reason they couldn't do that on Intel if they wanted to. IIRC there was some Windows variant back in the day that did this on Intel. Windows 10S, possibly?
They couldn't do that on intel because if they made it too draconian people would just install windows. Now people are locked in tight.
Intel Macs have never had typical BIOSes or standards compliant UEFI, to say nothing of their device drivers.
Without Apple providing a HAL FLL for the windows executive and device drivers along with a special bootloader shim (the marketing guys call this package "Bootcamp"), Windows would not work on Intel Macs. Microsoft or some third party would have to reverse engineer the device drivers, and they're definitely not making that investment.
Not to mention more basically that Apple has to sign the NT kernel for it to load on Macs without disabling the equivalent of SecureBoot.
Without Apple providing a HAL FLL for the windows executive and device drivers along with a special bootloader shim (the marketing guys call this package "Bootcamp"), Windows would not work on Intel Macs. Microsoft or some third party would have to reverse engineer the device drivers, and they're definitely not making that investment.
Not to mention more basically that Apple has to sign the NT kernel for it to load on Macs without disabling the equivalent of SecureBoot.
People can just install Linux here, via self-signed kernel, it appears.
Apple could, obviously, prevent people from installing Windows on Intel Macs if it wanted to.
Apple could, obviously, prevent people from installing Windows on Intel Macs if it wanted to.
> Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses.
I don't intend to sound dismissive, but this line of thinking has a name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
I don't intend to sound dismissive, but this line of thinking has a name
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paternalism
Or pragmatism. At some point it's better and easier for users to offload some of these decisions to someone else. I don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison, the same way I don't want to have to deep dive into every app. And yes, I know the system is not perfect, but I'm talking about the general system here.
> don't want to test every piece of food I buy at the grocery store for poison
I consider myself a pragmatic and I think that the only way to actually be sure there is no poison in your food is to literally produce it yourself.
Someone who's not even telling me the recipe is not a trusted source of premium food.
There is also no poison waiting outside of Apple ecosystem.
There is no offloading decision to someone else involved, you simply have the option or you don't, it doesn't mean you have to go full in one way or the other
You don't have to deep dive every app either, it's a straw man IMO
The argument is the same for picking mushrooms in the woods: you don't pick all of them, put them in the same basket, and then test them for venom one by one, you only pick those that you already know as safe, and you're absolutely sure about it.
Nobody in their right mind would do otherwise.
I'm ok with people trusting Apple more than their parents, what I find disturbing is the idea that if I trust my parents to use the same 3 apps that everybody else in the World uses (WhatsApp, FB and Google Maps) and are certified good, I'm putting them in danger.
It is not true.
It's a false premise.
Also the idea that people will go and install every app they see it's false.
They see a warning, they usually stop right there.
My father used to turn off the phone when he saw the red alert of a missing call, thinking of a malfunction.
There's no risk he's gonna install something by chance.
Also, if iOS is on 25% of the devices in Europe, while Android is on 3/4 of them does it mean that 75% of the 700 million European citizens are not pragmatic?
I consider myself a pragmatic and I think that the only way to actually be sure there is no poison in your food is to literally produce it yourself.
Someone who's not even telling me the recipe is not a trusted source of premium food.
There is also no poison waiting outside of Apple ecosystem.
There is no offloading decision to someone else involved, you simply have the option or you don't, it doesn't mean you have to go full in one way or the other
You don't have to deep dive every app either, it's a straw man IMO
The argument is the same for picking mushrooms in the woods: you don't pick all of them, put them in the same basket, and then test them for venom one by one, you only pick those that you already know as safe, and you're absolutely sure about it.
Nobody in their right mind would do otherwise.
I'm ok with people trusting Apple more than their parents, what I find disturbing is the idea that if I trust my parents to use the same 3 apps that everybody else in the World uses (WhatsApp, FB and Google Maps) and are certified good, I'm putting them in danger.
It is not true.
It's a false premise.
Also the idea that people will go and install every app they see it's false.
They see a warning, they usually stop right there.
My father used to turn off the phone when he saw the red alert of a missing call, thinking of a malfunction.
There's no risk he's gonna install something by chance.
Also, if iOS is on 25% of the devices in Europe, while Android is on 3/4 of them does it mean that 75% of the 700 million European citizens are not pragmatic?
It also has another name:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_experience
UX can guide the user toward what it thinks to be the best option, or it can forbid the user from choosing anything else.
The former helps grandma get her tasks done and lets the power user go the extra mile.
The latter helps grandma get her tasks done, tells the power user he's not worth supporting and blames grandma for it.
The former helps grandma get her tasks done and lets the power user go the extra mile.
The latter helps grandma get her tasks done, tells the power user he's not worth supporting and blames grandma for it.
UX can be paternalistic as well
It can also be very bad or the very opposite of what Apple does and also be the best around and still let people free to explore all the options available.
There is nothing specific in what Apple does that can be reduced to simply UX.
Maybe ergonomics is more correct to define what Apple tries to do with their human interfaces, but the Apple store or the locked down platform have nothing to do with either UX or ergonomics.
What Apple does is to remove electric plugs from the walls because someone could put a fork inside them and experience an electric shock.
And I am not the one saying it, I was answering to "Apple removed trojan and viruses to help people who don't know better".
That's paternalism.
It can also be very bad or the very opposite of what Apple does and also be the best around and still let people free to explore all the options available.
There is nothing specific in what Apple does that can be reduced to simply UX.
Maybe ergonomics is more correct to define what Apple tries to do with their human interfaces, but the Apple store or the locked down platform have nothing to do with either UX or ergonomics.
What Apple does is to remove electric plugs from the walls because someone could put a fork inside them and experience an electric shock.
And I am not the one saying it, I was answering to "Apple removed trojan and viruses to help people who don't know better".
That's paternalism.
Does that not apply to the State and government?
Yes, but governments are or should be accountable to the state, which imposes rules thereby verified and rattified by civil society and their representatives.
Second point, though weaker on its own merit, is that the State's primary objective is to improve the commonwealth by acting as proxy to the collective effort, regulating compromise etc which are paternalistic without a doubt.
Private corporations exist for entirely different reasons though this probably wasn't always the case. In our world, corporations can make massive losses, have no working product, or be of such marginal value and yet be valued for billions by speculators in the free market. Its all random and irrational. States cannot operate like that.
Second point, though weaker on its own merit, is that the State's primary objective is to improve the commonwealth by acting as proxy to the collective effort, regulating compromise etc which are paternalistic without a doubt.
Private corporations exist for entirely different reasons though this probably wasn't always the case. In our world, corporations can make massive losses, have no working product, or be of such marginal value and yet be valued for billions by speculators in the free market. Its all random and irrational. States cannot operate like that.
The difference between the State and the Private Company is that citizens vote for the State, and Legislators (the "paternalizers") are directly installed by the voters.
The iPhone buyer does not get a say in the development staff or direction at Apple.
My government intends to be "Of the people, for the people, by the people". Imagine if Apple every single year had elections at every level of their company! Vote for your local support representatives. Vote for your local b+m store management. Vote for executive staff. Etc etc.
But until Apple does that, there is literally no fair comparison with paternalism in state and private industry.
The iPhone buyer does not get a say in the development staff or direction at Apple.
My government intends to be "Of the people, for the people, by the people". Imagine if Apple every single year had elections at every level of their company! Vote for your local support representatives. Vote for your local b+m store management. Vote for executive staff. Etc etc.
But until Apple does that, there is literally no fair comparison with paternalism in state and private industry.
Elections != democracy. Or even representation.
Apple has a certain awareness of public opinion and user mood. It isn't obliged to pay attention to either, and of course it also tries to control both through PR efforts.
But if it ignores or irritates its users too much there are financial consequences.
Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
Apple has a certain awareness of public opinion and user mood. It isn't obliged to pay attention to either, and of course it also tries to control both through PR efforts.
But if it ignores or irritates its users too much there are financial consequences.
Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
> But if it ignores or irritates its users too much there are financial consequences.
I believe they very much know what their users want and are giving it to them
That's why they are so successful.
And what their users want is a device to support their paternalism.
I've never witnessed so many judgments against elderly or people that are a bit of techno illiterate (a bit is enough) as I have in discussions about Apple.
The baseline is always of two types:
- they are easy to operate, so even my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] can use them
- I would never let my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] use an open device where they can get viruses that then I have to fix (like fixing something for your family is some kind of punishment, they did it for me repeateadly when I was younger!)
And i think it's a bit naive to think that people supporting the idea that Apple knows better are in good faith and are not doing it because they like the control too and to be "influencers" (with many quotes) in their inner circles.
I would never think that my parents who raised me and made me what I am are incapable of understanding basic safety rules on the Internet once explained to them (safety rules that anyway protect them from something that don't kill people, it simply kills the battery of the device)
> Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
I'm sure they do.
One interesting other thing that we can be sure and I didn't think possible is that there are people monitoring this forums as well with enough karma to downvote, that not only downvote your posts in a discussion, but go back to yout history and downvote older posts as well.
It just happened to me, I had posts from yesterday and two days ago downvoted right now by the same people that downvoted me in this thread.
I don't know if HN can do something about it or not, but for starter disallowing voting on older submissions that users have not shown interest on could help (it should be easy to check which submissions users have opened, when, how many times and for how long to establish if they are genuinely interested in the topic)
I believe they very much know what their users want and are giving it to them
That's why they are so successful.
And what their users want is a device to support their paternalism.
I've never witnessed so many judgments against elderly or people that are a bit of techno illiterate (a bit is enough) as I have in discussions about Apple.
The baseline is always of two types:
- they are easy to operate, so even my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] can use them
- I would never let my [insert moms, dads, granpas etc here] use an open device where they can get viruses that then I have to fix (like fixing something for your family is some kind of punishment, they did it for me repeateadly when I was younger!)
And i think it's a bit naive to think that people supporting the idea that Apple knows better are in good faith and are not doing it because they like the control too and to be "influencers" (with many quotes) in their inner circles.
I would never think that my parents who raised me and made me what I am are incapable of understanding basic safety rules on the Internet once explained to them (safety rules that anyway protect them from something that don't kill people, it simply kills the battery of the device)
> Meanwhile you can be sure forums like HN are monitored for sentiment.
I'm sure they do.
One interesting other thing that we can be sure and I didn't think possible is that there are people monitoring this forums as well with enough karma to downvote, that not only downvote your posts in a discussion, but go back to yout history and downvote older posts as well.
It just happened to me, I had posts from yesterday and two days ago downvoted right now by the same people that downvoted me in this thread.
I don't know if HN can do something about it or not, but for starter disallowing voting on older submissions that users have not shown interest on could help (it should be easy to check which submissions users have opened, when, how many times and for how long to establish if they are genuinely interested in the topic)
Aren't you voting with your wallet when you voluntarily buy an Apple product?
I am familiar with the saying, however, in this case, voting for government officials and creating a "demand" datapoint in markets by completing a purchase are not synonymous.
When we go to the polls, we are literally making decisions about what you call "paternalism". Who should write our laws? Who should manage our criminal justice system? Who should regulate our industries? These are pretty direct decisions to make.
But when we go to Best Buy or Apple Store to buy an iDevice, almost all consumer are not making a decision about the "paternalistic" decisions of Apple, who they employ, etc. They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice.
I fear for our society if these two actions become one and the same.
When we go to the polls, we are literally making decisions about what you call "paternalism". Who should write our laws? Who should manage our criminal justice system? Who should regulate our industries? These are pretty direct decisions to make.
But when we go to Best Buy or Apple Store to buy an iDevice, almost all consumer are not making a decision about the "paternalistic" decisions of Apple, who they employ, etc. They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice.
I fear for our society if these two actions become one and the same.
You need to step back one more level from "The iPhone buyer does not get a say" to "The phone buyer does get a say"; buy an iPhone or buy an Android device if you have an issue with their business arrangements.
"They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice."
That doesn't sound unlike many voters of all sorts to me!
"They are buying a shiny object that makes their brain give them the happy juice."
That doesn't sound unlike many voters of all sorts to me!
I personally believe that it is naive to think that Apple cares what consumers think as they have enough money to take $0 from consumers for say 30 years straight and be fine. They are post-capitalist.
I understand that in an ideal market, a business has to react to demand. That in many industries, if you don't do what the customer wants, the customer leaves.
I do not think Apple operates in that world or by those rules.
Apple doesn't care what you think and they don't care if you buy their products.
Ironically, the only way you might get Apple to change isn't with your wallet, it's with your government. EU notching wins against Apple bad practices on behalf of Apple's European customers that their wallets never won them.
I understand that in an ideal market, a business has to react to demand. That in many industries, if you don't do what the customer wants, the customer leaves.
I do not think Apple operates in that world or by those rules.
Apple doesn't care what you think and they don't care if you buy their products.
Ironically, the only way you might get Apple to change isn't with your wallet, it's with your government. EU notching wins against Apple bad practices on behalf of Apple's European customers that their wallets never won them.
Not really
It was 6 centuries ago, when it was first invented, it has a much broader meaning now.
Anyway Apple is State and Government in Apple ecosystem
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr
> The civil law does not allow the enforcement of certain kinds of contracts, e.g., for gambling debts. It requires minors to have blood transfusions even if their religious beliefs forbid it. Persons may be civilly committed if they are a danger to themselves.
Doctors do not tell their patients the truth about their medical condition. A physician may tell the wife of a man whose car went off a bridge into the water and drowned that he died instantly when in fact he died a rather ghastly death.
A husband may hide the sleeping pills from a depressed wife. A philosophy department may require a student to take logic courses.
A teacher may be less than honest about telling a student that he has little philosophical ability.
All of these rules, policies, and actions may be done for various reasons; may be justified by various considerations. When they are justified solely on the grounds that the person affected would be better off, or would be less harmed, as a result of the rule, policy, etc., and the person in question would prefer not to be treated this way, we have an instance of paternalism.
As the examples indicate the question of paternalism is one that arises in many different areas of our personal and public life
It was 6 centuries ago, when it was first invented, it has a much broader meaning now.
Anyway Apple is State and Government in Apple ecosystem
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/paternalism/#Intr
> The civil law does not allow the enforcement of certain kinds of contracts, e.g., for gambling debts. It requires minors to have blood transfusions even if their religious beliefs forbid it. Persons may be civilly committed if they are a danger to themselves.
Doctors do not tell their patients the truth about their medical condition. A physician may tell the wife of a man whose car went off a bridge into the water and drowned that he died instantly when in fact he died a rather ghastly death.
A husband may hide the sleeping pills from a depressed wife. A philosophy department may require a student to take logic courses.
A teacher may be less than honest about telling a student that he has little philosophical ability.
All of these rules, policies, and actions may be done for various reasons; may be justified by various considerations. When they are justified solely on the grounds that the person affected would be better off, or would be less harmed, as a result of the rule, policy, etc., and the person in question would prefer not to be treated this way, we have an instance of paternalism.
As the examples indicate the question of paternalism is one that arises in many different areas of our personal and public life
My wife was an apple fan until she bought an iPhone and got locked out when she forget the password. Apple support refused to cooperate despite repeated cries of help.
M1 feels like a stepping stone in the same direction on laptops.
Personally it feels wrong to pay for a device someone can lock you out of and then refuse to unlock. It's like paying ransom without getting kidnapped.
M1 feels like a stepping stone in the same direction on laptops.
Personally it feels wrong to pay for a device someone can lock you out of and then refuse to unlock. It's like paying ransom without getting kidnapped.
As someone who had their bank account compromised by a successful social engineering attack on the account representatives, I'm okay with Apple giving us a technical solution that even they cannot break. It's up to me to remember the key, of course, but I like knowing that even Apple can't break into my device if they want.
That's an apples to oranges comparison (pun intended). If I forget passcode my device, why I shouldn't be allowed to reset and configure it from scratch if I am willing to lose my data?
There can be numerous situations in which this can happen like a child trying passcode repeated.
You will be happy if apple bricks your M1 laptop if you forgot the password due to any reason. What happened to spirit of HN culture?
You will be happy if apple bricks your M1 laptop if you forgot the password due to any reason. What happened to spirit of HN culture?
Stop spouting falsehoods. You can reset your iPhone without your passcode
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
and Apple isn’t changing anything about how M1 Macs are secured over other Macs, and certainly not bricking them for lost passwords.
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
and Apple isn’t changing anything about how M1 Macs are secured over other Macs, and certainly not bricking them for lost passwords.
You were not clear, and your implication was that Apple would not help you unlock a locked phone. Not that you had a bricked phone because of activation lock.
It is somewhat difficult to lock your own device so that you cannot factory reset it. You wouldn't just have to lose the passcode, you would also need to lose the credentials to your iCloud account as well as your purchase receipt for the phone. Then you become indistinguishable from a thief.
I am okay with Apple's choice on this, as I prefer the security and the theft deterrence. I keep several methods for recovering my iCloud account, and I keep the receipt for my expensive devices.
Does activation lock even apply to Macbooks?
It is somewhat difficult to lock your own device so that you cannot factory reset it. You wouldn't just have to lose the passcode, you would also need to lose the credentials to your iCloud account as well as your purchase receipt for the phone. Then you become indistinguishable from a thief.
I am okay with Apple's choice on this, as I prefer the security and the theft deterrence. I keep several methods for recovering my iCloud account, and I keep the receipt for my expensive devices.
Does activation lock even apply to Macbooks?
> It is somewhat difficult to lock your own device so that you cannot factory reset it....
Well this can happen to non tech savvy users like my wife who configured their device once and then just used it for couple of years until the day of the incident.
> I am okay with Apple's choice on this, as I prefer the security and the theft deterrence. I keep several methods for recovering my iCloud account, and I keep the receipt for my expensive devices.
This would mean market for stolen iDevices should not exist?
> Does activation lock even apply to Macbooks?
Not yet but it might once M1 becomes ubiquitous.
Well this can happen to non tech savvy users like my wife who configured their device once and then just used it for couple of years until the day of the incident.
> I am okay with Apple's choice on this, as I prefer the security and the theft deterrence. I keep several methods for recovering my iCloud account, and I keep the receipt for my expensive devices.
This would mean market for stolen iDevices should not exist?
> Does activation lock even apply to Macbooks?
Not yet but it might once M1 becomes ubiquitous.
> then just used it for couple of years
I have never managed to go anywhere near that long without being prompted for my iCloud password for one reason or another. And if you did lose the password, you could use password recovery to get it back.
It really seems like a contrived example.
I have never managed to go anywhere near that long without being prompted for my iCloud password for one reason or another. And if you did lose the password, you could use password recovery to get it back.
It really seems like a contrived example.
I mean that sucks for your wife, but what prevents literally anyone else from impersonating someone and unlocking a device? There are very good reasons that Apple does not "cooperate" in theses situations. Passwords are not supposed to be bypassed by third parties.
Why did she put a passcode on it if she didn’t want it to be secure? You can use an iPhone with no passcode at all.
Blaming Apple for “locking you out” when you were the one who locked the door and lost the key is silly.
Blaming Apple for “locking you out” when you were the one who locked the door and lost the key is silly.
If I lose the keys to my home, I can break the lock or if required break the door and get into my house so why I can't reset and reconfigure my iPhone?
Because you can reset your iPhone if you forget your passcode?
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204306
Apple Support cannot do anything if you forget the device passcode, there is no back door. Best advice I can think of is, is ask her to restore an iCloud backup, after erasing the phone.
> I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses.
Sorry but I had to LOL (combined with grey-haired head shaking). I've been a "technologist" for over 25 years. Every time some corporate entity or government body adds similar "security" they trot out this same cliche line. "Oh no no no it's not so we can CONTROL you, is so we can PROTECT you". Yeah, sure buddy.
Sorry but I had to LOL (combined with grey-haired head shaking). I've been a "technologist" for over 25 years. Every time some corporate entity or government body adds similar "security" they trot out this same cliche line. "Oh no no no it's not so we can CONTROL you, is so we can PROTECT you". Yeah, sure buddy.
> However, that marginal improvement hardly seems worth upsetting the entire Mac OS developer and consumer software ecosystem.
Architecturally it looks like they're sacrificing expandability and raw multiprocessing power (like massively parallel database server multiprocessing) for a single minded focus on laptop chips. Why would it be surprising it'd excel in that domain?
The author also makes the confusing suggestion that M1 is a ploy to get developers to publish to the App Store because ... Xcode produces fat mach-o's? Maybe I'm an idiot here, but all those third party apps are also made with xcode. Where is the correlation with the app store? Sure, apple has been pushing the app store, but how does "apple silicon" specifically push devs there?
If there's anything apple has done to discourage 3rd party distribution, it's through Gatekeeper and strictly requiring notorized executables. If they wanted to make non app store distribution even less appealing, they could only allow notorization through the app store, or change the default to "only app store" ... Oh wait, they did that. On Intel.
Apple has always had complete platform control. They've done a lot of crappy things -- but this article tries to dismiss the M1 for pretty absurd reasons IMO.
The author clearly and obviously has no clue about M1. Calling its performance a "marginal improvement" is laughable. The entire article reads as a desperate attempt to distract people from the obvious advantages of the M1.
I'd be desperate too if I were trying to pretend Android is a serious competitor performance-wise when the CPUs are 18-24 months behind and the gap is still widening.
I'd be desperate too if I were trying to pretend Android is a serious competitor performance-wise when the CPUs are 18-24 months behind and the gap is still widening.
holstvoogd(1)
>I'd be desperate too if I were trying to pretend Android is a serious competitor performance-wise when the CPUs are 18-24 months behind and the gap is still widening.
I open WhatsApp on an iPhone XR. It launches instantly.
I open WhatsApp on a five year old Oneplus. It launches instantly.
Honestly who cares unless you have some niche use case or play mobile games. Having a class leading CPU isn't an advantage if it offers an indiscernible performance increase.
What I do care about though is having a respectable battery life and useful features like a headphone jack. A brand new phone (iPhone SE) should not have worse battery life than a phone from 2015 with its original battery that cost half its price.
I open WhatsApp on an iPhone XR. It launches instantly.
I open WhatsApp on a five year old Oneplus. It launches instantly.
Honestly who cares unless you have some niche use case or play mobile games. Having a class leading CPU isn't an advantage if it offers an indiscernible performance increase.
What I do care about though is having a respectable battery life and useful features like a headphone jack. A brand new phone (iPhone SE) should not have worse battery life than a phone from 2015 with its original battery that cost half its price.
The key is that it increases the size of the performance and energy budget. When you have a large budget, you can start doing interesting things.
A friend of mine got some Samsung flagship(don't remember which one but something new and expensive) from this year, she's into Instagram filters whan she showed me some fun ones she likes I noticed that these filters have significantly slow FPS on live preview - something I am not used to see on an iPhone. I tried the same filters on the lowest end iPhone I have access to, which is iPhone 6s, and that device gave much much better FPS on the live filters of Instagram.
This got me thinking, maybe the Andoid ecosystem is degrading the iPhone experience too? Probably Facebook is holding back on filter capabilities in the name of having the same features on all the platforms? If this Samsung flagship is not better than iPhone 6 in Instagramming, god knows what's the experience on lower end devices.
BTW, TikTok filters have superior face tracking in my experience with excellent iPhone 6s performance. I don't know what's the Andorid situation on TikTok.
A friend of mine got some Samsung flagship(don't remember which one but something new and expensive) from this year, she's into Instagram filters whan she showed me some fun ones she likes I noticed that these filters have significantly slow FPS on live preview - something I am not used to see on an iPhone. I tried the same filters on the lowest end iPhone I have access to, which is iPhone 6s, and that device gave much much better FPS on the live filters of Instagram.
This got me thinking, maybe the Andoid ecosystem is degrading the iPhone experience too? Probably Facebook is holding back on filter capabilities in the name of having the same features on all the platforms? If this Samsung flagship is not better than iPhone 6 in Instagramming, god knows what's the experience on lower end devices.
BTW, TikTok filters have superior face tracking in my experience with excellent iPhone 6s performance. I don't know what's the Andorid situation on TikTok.
If all you use is WhatsApp, then you really don’t need to care about Apple. There is a huge range of android phones that will meet your needs.
It might be a marginal improvement for some apps running on Rosetta 2.
Benchmarks from relatively trusted sites, such as Anandtech, suggests that strong native performance on most benchmarks, and at least competitive, if not slightly better, when emulating.
The article is a bad argument to a conclusion that we already know, something that they can already do without putting out their own chips.
Benchmarks from relatively trusted sites, such as Anandtech, suggests that strong native performance on most benchmarks, and at least competitive, if not slightly better, when emulating.
The article is a bad argument to a conclusion that we already know, something that they can already do without putting out their own chips.
Having worked as a mobile app developer primarily on iOS, I quickly learned that many Android fans has an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder. My Android developer co-worker has to use every opportunity given to rant about how superior Android was and how terrible iPhone was. Not to mention how downright evil Apple was.
I've noticed the same thing.
I admittedly do have an obsession with ranting about Android, but I find that there are fewer reasons to rant than five years ago. So I rant less.
As the Android platform has improved over the years, I find that the main reason I don't want people around me to use Android is the ridiculously short product lifecycle of many Android phones, and the risk of non-techies using unpatched devices.
I honestly think Apple's recent 5-6 years is unsustainable, but the three-year(?!) promise that seems to be a best case for Android is just obscene.
Someone at work said it's partially due to SoC manufacturers not providing drivers for new Android kernels for very long, but I might have misunderstood.
I admittedly do have an obsession with ranting about Android, but I find that there are fewer reasons to rant than five years ago. So I rant less.
As the Android platform has improved over the years, I find that the main reason I don't want people around me to use Android is the ridiculously short product lifecycle of many Android phones, and the risk of non-techies using unpatched devices.
I honestly think Apple's recent 5-6 years is unsustainable, but the three-year(?!) promise that seems to be a best case for Android is just obscene.
Someone at work said it's partially due to SoC manufacturers not providing drivers for new Android kernels for very long, but I might have misunderstood.
This to me is perhaps the primary reason I view Android as simply irresponsible as an ecosystem.
The average lifespan of their phones is kind of sad. Most people keep their iPhones for many, many years. But if you try to do that on the Android side you're putting up with a lot of hardware pains or putting yourself at risk using a device that's no longer getting security patches.
Totally understand that people have different cosmetic preferences in operating system, or even philosophically just prefer the Android approach. But it's this fundamental disposability of Android that seems so wrong in comparison to how Apple dutifully designs their phones for long haul support.
The average lifespan of their phones is kind of sad. Most people keep their iPhones for many, many years. But if you try to do that on the Android side you're putting up with a lot of hardware pains or putting yourself at risk using a device that's no longer getting security patches.
Totally understand that people have different cosmetic preferences in operating system, or even philosophically just prefer the Android approach. But it's this fundamental disposability of Android that seems so wrong in comparison to how Apple dutifully designs their phones for long haul support.
And last time Greenpeace did a checkup of this, it seemed like it was only Fairphone and Apple that even had attempted to work on their processes to limit the environmental impact of their products. It's really hilarious, especially considering the limited user serviceability of Apple products https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/reports/greener-electronics-2...
iPhones have actual resell value, too.
I switched to iPhone in 2012 after I got super annoyed about the poor quality of and lack of software support my HTC Desire Z was receiving. Since then, every phone I've had, has served out its full 5 or 6 year lifecycle with family members.
I generally switch iPhones every two years, and as of late, the only reason I do it is to prevent family members from ending up with garbage Androids. From iPhone 6s forward, I feel that the 'useful lifespan' of these products for someone who wants something snappy, has only increased.
Here in Finland, one can buy phones from carriers unsubsidized, but with years of interest-free installment. After two years, the market price of my old phone is pretty close to the remainder of my installment.
iPhones have actual resell value, too.
I switched to iPhone in 2012 after I got super annoyed about the poor quality of and lack of software support my HTC Desire Z was receiving. Since then, every phone I've had, has served out its full 5 or 6 year lifecycle with family members.
I generally switch iPhones every two years, and as of late, the only reason I do it is to prevent family members from ending up with garbage Androids. From iPhone 6s forward, I feel that the 'useful lifespan' of these products for someone who wants something snappy, has only increased.
Here in Finland, one can buy phones from carriers unsubsidized, but with years of interest-free installment. After two years, the market price of my old phone is pretty close to the remainder of my installment.
> many Android fans has an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder
I've also found many Apple fans have an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder, but my anecdote is about as pointless as yours here.
There are also plenty of people in both "camps" who just want a device to go about their business and, as is their choice, don't care much beyond "what costs less" (however they might define that), or what their friends/family use or recommend, or maybe just what fits a very specific use case of theirs.
I've used both types of devices, and there are some things Apple/iOS does better and some things Google/Android does better, and certainly some things neither does well. The specifics of that will always be a subject of disagreement depending on who you ask.
I've also found many Apple fans have an unhealthy obsession with Apple bordering on mental disorder, but my anecdote is about as pointless as yours here.
There are also plenty of people in both "camps" who just want a device to go about their business and, as is their choice, don't care much beyond "what costs less" (however they might define that), or what their friends/family use or recommend, or maybe just what fits a very specific use case of theirs.
I've used both types of devices, and there are some things Apple/iOS does better and some things Google/Android does better, and certainly some things neither does well. The specifics of that will always be a subject of disagreement depending on who you ask.
Apple fans tend to be fanboys, Android fans tend to be hateboys too.
I find the hate part to be very unhealthy. Seriously annoying people, they wouldn't just defend their camp, they would just be evangelists of Andoroid, they are also on a quest to bring down anything else. They even branch between themselves and have fractions of purists, Samsungers, xiaomiens ands so on and they will constantly try to bring down each another too.
I find the hate part to be very unhealthy. Seriously annoying people, they wouldn't just defend their camp, they would just be evangelists of Andoroid, they are also on a quest to bring down anything else. They even branch between themselves and have fractions of purists, Samsungers, xiaomiens ands so on and they will constantly try to bring down each another too.
This is patently false. Apple fanboys also go to great lengths to demean users of other platforms.
Case in point: Your labeling of users of other platforms.
Case in point: Your labeling of users of other platforms.
As an android user, I hate that iPhone users put up with insane bs that Apple does. They normalize abusive behavior and that spreads to the Android ecosystem too. Which hurts me. Case in point: headphone jacks
its annoying and anti-consumer (imo) to remove things like headphone jacks (especially when there is plenty internal space left for one) but it seems what your really angry at isnt apple per-se but market behaviors and competition (where companies rush to imitate the market leader)
this happens (for better or worse) all over the place, with fast-food, cars, fashion, electronics etc
this happens (for better or worse) all over the place, with fast-food, cars, fashion, electronics etc
I'm an Android user but also have an iPhone for work purposes. There's nothing I find particularly delightful about either platform and I can't fathom what would motivate someone to be an Android or Apple fanboy.
The reason I've stuck with Android has got very little to do with the software.
The reason I've stuck with Android has got very little to do with the software.
> Architecturally it looks like they're sacrificing expandability and raw multiprocessing power (like massively parallel database server multiprocessing) for a single minded focus on laptop chips.
I don't see that there's any hard evidence they're doing that; there's no obvious reason that they can't just shove in more cores for an M1X or whatever (very much Intel's approach these days, say), and they're not (at least technologically) married to the on-package RAM thing.
I don't see that there's any hard evidence they're doing that; there's no obvious reason that they can't just shove in more cores for an M1X or whatever (very much Intel's approach these days, say), and they're not (at least technologically) married to the on-package RAM thing.
Actually, they might not be able to.
Everything comes with a cost when you're working in silicon. You can add more cores, yes, but to do so, you either must make each core smaller, or increase the maximum distance between two cores.
This is important, because the longer the distance, the harder it is to maintain e.g. cache coherency between all cores. There's a physical limit to the speed electrons travel, and you have to account for that.
Intel's designs rely on pretty teeny cores with small L1{I,D} caches and small private L2 caches on a ring bus topology, with the iGPU on one polar end, and the system agent/memory controllers on the other ends. [0] [1]
Zen takes a slightly different approach, using individual ICs with four cores on a single IC complex, sharing a single, relatively slow L3 cache, with small private L2 caches per core. The "chip complexes" are contained on a carrier chip which takes care of PCIe and the memory controller, similar to Intel's system agent, but farther from every core. [2] [3]
Apple has instead opted for all the cores to, instead, share a single large L2 cache, with enormous L1 caches. Both the GPU and CPU appear to have point-to-point connections to the memory controller and to the other peripherals.
Because they use 1) large caches and 2) squash everything together, they've managed to achieve ridiculously high memory bandwidth with teeny L1 latency.
For example, while Intel's latest uarch requires 5 CPU cycles to read L1D cache, M1 can do so in 3 cycles. Zen requires either 4 or 5 cycles.
There's no free lunch here, and I doubt they could maintain this same architecture while adding many more cores. They're missing the interconnects and necessary silicon to do so, and adding it would add latency and/or shrink existing caches. The design seems to be predicated on being small with minimal distance between components.
Caveat emptor, I'm not an engineer, this is all idle speculation.
[0] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/thumb/c/cf/coffee_lake_over...
[1] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/5/53/coffee_lake_die_%28oct...
[2] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/a/a7/amd_zen_ccx_2_%28annot...
[3] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/7/75/amd_zen_octa-core_die_...
Everything comes with a cost when you're working in silicon. You can add more cores, yes, but to do so, you either must make each core smaller, or increase the maximum distance between two cores.
This is important, because the longer the distance, the harder it is to maintain e.g. cache coherency between all cores. There's a physical limit to the speed electrons travel, and you have to account for that.
Intel's designs rely on pretty teeny cores with small L1{I,D} caches and small private L2 caches on a ring bus topology, with the iGPU on one polar end, and the system agent/memory controllers on the other ends. [0] [1]
Zen takes a slightly different approach, using individual ICs with four cores on a single IC complex, sharing a single, relatively slow L3 cache, with small private L2 caches per core. The "chip complexes" are contained on a carrier chip which takes care of PCIe and the memory controller, similar to Intel's system agent, but farther from every core. [2] [3]
Apple has instead opted for all the cores to, instead, share a single large L2 cache, with enormous L1 caches. Both the GPU and CPU appear to have point-to-point connections to the memory controller and to the other peripherals.
Because they use 1) large caches and 2) squash everything together, they've managed to achieve ridiculously high memory bandwidth with teeny L1 latency.
For example, while Intel's latest uarch requires 5 CPU cycles to read L1D cache, M1 can do so in 3 cycles. Zen requires either 4 or 5 cycles.
There's no free lunch here, and I doubt they could maintain this same architecture while adding many more cores. They're missing the interconnects and necessary silicon to do so, and adding it would add latency and/or shrink existing caches. The design seems to be predicated on being small with minimal distance between components.
Caveat emptor, I'm not an engineer, this is all idle speculation.
[0] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/thumb/c/cf/coffee_lake_over...
[1] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/5/53/coffee_lake_die_%28oct...
[2] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/a/a7/amd_zen_ccx_2_%28annot...
[3] https://en.wikichip.org/w/images/7/75/amd_zen_octa-core_die_...
> The author also makes the confusing suggestion that M1 is a ploy to get developers to publish to the App Store because ... Xcode produces fat mach-o's? Maybe I'm an idiot here, but all those third party apps are also made with xcode. Where is the correlation with the app store? Sure, apple has been pushing the app store, but how does "apple silicon" specifically push devs there?
App Store has smart deploy features so it only sends you what you need. So maybe that's it. But still.. it's a pretty weak argument.
App Store has smart deploy features so it only sends you what you need. So maybe that's it. But still.. it's a pretty weak argument.
[deleted]
> At some point in the not too distant future, old x86 applications will cease to run on Macs, as emulation support won’t run forever
One thing I can credit Android some, and Windows a lot (even 10 with all its manifold privacy and user-hostility problems) with is that they are backwards compatible.
exceptions to every rule, etc., but I can run all old versions of Android apps on an Android 11 phone, same for Windows programs going back to 1996 or so with few tweaks, and can squeeze that back to 1993 if I fuss and cuss and so on.
yes, this is arch to arch emulation, but the idea od taking that feature away in ~4 years vs Android's best effort continued compatibility or Microsoft's compatibility layers is a cost/benefit that I apparently disagree with Apple decision makers on.
One thing I can credit Android some, and Windows a lot (even 10 with all its manifold privacy and user-hostility problems) with is that they are backwards compatible.
exceptions to every rule, etc., but I can run all old versions of Android apps on an Android 11 phone, same for Windows programs going back to 1996 or so with few tweaks, and can squeeze that back to 1993 if I fuss and cuss and so on.
yes, this is arch to arch emulation, but the idea od taking that feature away in ~4 years vs Android's best effort continued compatibility or Microsoft's compatibility layers is a cost/benefit that I apparently disagree with Apple decision makers on.
It is always a trade off. Prioritizing backwards compatibility does not come for free.
One result I see from this is that MS keep creating new APIs whole old ones languish in obscurity.
On Macs in contrast Cocoa is part of a lineage all the way back to the 1980s. I can still use Objective-C skills I learned even before macOS X was released.
The same cannot be said for Windows. Nobody in their right mind writes Win16 or Win32 apps today.
So ironically the backwards compatibility MS offers it users come at the expense of backwards compatibility for developer skills.
When you ban breaking changes in an API you also stop that API from modernizing and staying relevant.
One result I see from this is that MS keep creating new APIs whole old ones languish in obscurity.
On Macs in contrast Cocoa is part of a lineage all the way back to the 1980s. I can still use Objective-C skills I learned even before macOS X was released.
The same cannot be said for Windows. Nobody in their right mind writes Win16 or Win32 apps today.
So ironically the backwards compatibility MS offers it users come at the expense of backwards compatibility for developer skills.
When you ban breaking changes in an API you also stop that API from modernizing and staying relevant.
> So ironically the backwards compatibility MS offers it users come at the expense of backwards compatibility for developer skills.
im not sure this follows necessarily: whats to prevent ms from say, writing a wrapper that packages up said legacy apps and supplies the libraries they need, so they can keep running and ms can still dump thier old frameworks and stop supportimg them in newer os's?
basically, what im saying is, for legacy apps, they can be "bottled up" and still run on newer systems without harming developer compatibility and modernizing (wine proves this imo)
but maybe im missing some important detail...
im not sure this follows necessarily: whats to prevent ms from say, writing a wrapper that packages up said legacy apps and supplies the libraries they need, so they can keep running and ms can still dump thier old frameworks and stop supportimg them in newer os's?
basically, what im saying is, for legacy apps, they can be "bottled up" and still run on newer systems without harming developer compatibility and modernizing (wine proves this imo)
but maybe im missing some important detail...
We surely do write Win32 applications, which is one of the reasons why UWP failed and now Project Reunion is bringing the best parts of UWP into Win32.
.NET 5 was also only released for Win32, Linux and macOS, UWP will get an update only later next year, if ever.
.NET 5 was also only released for Win32, Linux and macOS, UWP will get an update only later next year, if ever.
True, that's a good thing, but that's also where you get a lot of the cruft that slows things down.
For example Apple no longer has to support OpenGL and it can just cut out relevant hardware on the SoC level, leaving more room for other things.
On the smartphone front, Qualcomm can't do that, since it sells its chips to a broad base that have variable requirements.
I guess it's a tradeoff.
For example Apple no longer has to support OpenGL and it can just cut out relevant hardware on the SoC level, leaving more room for other things.
On the smartphone front, Qualcomm can't do that, since it sells its chips to a broad base that have variable requirements.
I guess it's a tradeoff.
> Apple no longer has to support OpenGL and it can just cut out relevant hardware on the SoC level, leaving more room for other things.
Just for everyone who is scared by this statement - macOS on Apple Silicon still supports OpenGL and OpenCL, but it is emulated on top of Metal now.
Just for everyone who is scared by this statement - macOS on Apple Silicon still supports OpenGL and OpenCL, but it is emulated on top of Metal now.
Can you give a source for this? Also, is it still stuck at 4.1/1.2?
Yep, still OpenGL 4.1 and OpenCL 1.1. It goes through AppleMetalGLRenderer on Apple Silicon Macs.
You might want to look at: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zink-mac... though. Maybe there'll be more interest for a direct OpenGL to Metal layer not built by Apple in the future, for having a newer feature set.
You might want to look at: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Zink-mac... though. Maybe there'll be more interest for a direct OpenGL to Metal layer not built by Apple in the future, for having a newer feature set.
There is a cost to that though, the reality is Windows has become rather bloated because MS can't let anything go. It doesn't help that they have never been able to say no to anything and everything getting included.
> because MS can't let anything go.
To be clear, this isn't really up to them. It's what market forces have dictated.
Tons of old corp apps exist all over the place that necessitate this level of backwards compatibility.
To be clear, this isn't really up to them. It's what market forces have dictated.
Tons of old corp apps exist all over the place that necessitate this level of backwards compatibility.
It's totally up to them. If Microsoft wanted to, they could say tomorrow that Windows 11 will no longer maintain backwards compatibility with X, Y, and Z ancient technologies.
This would anger some of their corporate customers. Possibly even enough that they could get together and fund some kind of Windows Legacy effort. But realistically, if Microsoft decided to stop being backwards-compatible, where are their customers who are stuck with ancient Windows software going to go? Macs? Linux? Neither of those will have the kind of guarantees their purchasing departments require for compatibility.
Maybe, just maybe, if Microsoft stopped supporting everything ever written for one of their OSes, some of the godawful legacy cruft would actually have to be replaced by new software, and some poor corporate IT people's lives would improve immensely...
This would anger some of their corporate customers. Possibly even enough that they could get together and fund some kind of Windows Legacy effort. But realistically, if Microsoft decided to stop being backwards-compatible, where are their customers who are stuck with ancient Windows software going to go? Macs? Linux? Neither of those will have the kind of guarantees their purchasing departments require for compatibility.
Maybe, just maybe, if Microsoft stopped supporting everything ever written for one of their OSes, some of the godawful legacy cruft would actually have to be replaced by new software, and some poor corporate IT people's lives would improve immensely...
They tried that with WinRT, and despite many of us actually liking those efforts, it failed as those customers did not accepted it, now there is Project Reunion to unroll the path taken since Windows 8 introduction.
> this isn't really up to them. It's what market forces have dictated.
This is a symmetric process. Microsoft chose its marker and set its customers’ expectations. That influences both who buys its products and how they structure their own dependencies.
This is a symmetric process. Microsoft chose its marker and set its customers’ expectations. That influences both who buys its products and how they structure their own dependencies.
One crazy thing I read about, was of a bug from some 3rd party company’s application.
On some Windows update, the application no longer worked. But since Microsoft wanted to ensure a seamless transition during upgrades, they changed their OS code to perpetuate the bug from that application, to allow it to continue working.
Kudos to them for doing so.
On some Windows update, the application no longer worked. But since Microsoft wanted to ensure a seamless transition during upgrades, they changed their OS code to perpetuate the bug from that application, to allow it to continue working.
Kudos to them for doing so.
That's nice of them, but it does needlessly bloat OS code, specification, and tests.
In the long run, clear specification and implementation is a lot more desirable, than needing to support various hacks and workarounds for 3rd party software.
In the long run, clear specification and implementation is a lot more desirable, than needing to support various hacks and workarounds for 3rd party software.
That said, they are moving in a direction; they've stopped trying to make IE work in favor of a rewrite, keeping IE around for older apps.
Honestly wouldn't be surprised - actually I AM surprised this isn't a thing yet - that they would run older Windows apps in a VM / emulator. Actually they may already do this but I'm just not aware of it.
One thing they have been doing is turn Windows into an evergreen operating system (together with Edge), so that few people will still be running older versions of their operating system.
Honestly wouldn't be surprised - actually I AM surprised this isn't a thing yet - that they would run older Windows apps in a VM / emulator. Actually they may already do this but I'm just not aware of it.
One thing they have been doing is turn Windows into an evergreen operating system (together with Edge), so that few people will still be running older versions of their operating system.
In Windows 7, they had "XP Mode" which was just a VM for running Windows XP. (I do not recall if it was available in Vista - they did not include it in Windows 10.)
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=800...
> It uses virtualization technology such as Windows Virtual PC to provide a Virtual Windows XP environment for Windows 7.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=800...
> It uses virtualization technology such as Windows Virtual PC to provide a Virtual Windows XP environment for Windows 7.
> ..rather bloated because MS can't let anything go.
Ah. This comment seems off the cuff and not well thought out.
I think you may be underestimating the scope and scale at which Windows OS operates[0]. Outside of cool techie agencies and SV type companies, the default OS for any organization from churches to charities to governments to schools, the world over, is Windows. MacOS may be sleek and shiny apex predator but our world would grind to a halt, an absolute standstill if WindowsOS suddenly got wiped. It's not a whale. It's the ocean itself.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_sys...
Ah. This comment seems off the cuff and not well thought out.
I think you may be underestimating the scope and scale at which Windows OS operates[0]. Outside of cool techie agencies and SV type companies, the default OS for any organization from churches to charities to governments to schools, the world over, is Windows. MacOS may be sleek and shiny apex predator but our world would grind to a halt, an absolute standstill if WindowsOS suddenly got wiped. It's not a whale. It's the ocean itself.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_sys...
I really applaud Microsoft for their backwards compatibility efforts and I'm sure organizations love it. But I personally don't need to run Windows software from 20 years ago.
For me, there is no reason to use Windows over any of the more modern lean and mean operating systems available, and I know a ton of blue collar workers in the U.S. who only have a smartphone and maybe a tablet.
Windows is just not very easy to use by 2020 standards because of all its baggage and consumers care a lot more about that kinda thing compared to organizations. Most of Microsofts attempts to modernize (Microsoft Store, UWP, sandboxing, etc.) seem to have stalled or failed unfortunately.
Honestly, at this point it might make more sense for Microsoft to just milk Windows for as long as possible while minimizing costs and investing in their other businesses (like Azure). Trying to modernize Windows would be like trying to modernize Edge to be competitive with Chrome.
For me, there is no reason to use Windows over any of the more modern lean and mean operating systems available, and I know a ton of blue collar workers in the U.S. who only have a smartphone and maybe a tablet.
Windows is just not very easy to use by 2020 standards because of all its baggage and consumers care a lot more about that kinda thing compared to organizations. Most of Microsofts attempts to modernize (Microsoft Store, UWP, sandboxing, etc.) seem to have stalled or failed unfortunately.
Honestly, at this point it might make more sense for Microsoft to just milk Windows for as long as possible while minimizing costs and investing in their other businesses (like Azure). Trying to modernize Windows would be like trying to modernize Edge to be competitive with Chrome.
Ah. This comment seems off the cuff and not well thought out.
I know how pervasive Windows is, I've made my living writing software for it for the last twenty five years. That is why I know that it is a bloated and over complicated mess.
The reality for most corporates is the only software they want on their desktops is Office and a web browser. This has been the case for a long time. There are laggards of course but taking too much notice of them has crippled the system.
I know how pervasive Windows is, I've made my living writing software for it for the last twenty five years. That is why I know that it is a bloated and over complicated mess.
The reality for most corporates is the only software they want on their desktops is Office and a web browser. This has been the case for a long time. There are laggards of course but taking too much notice of them has crippled the system.
I started developing iOS apps for iOS 5, and me my first apps still run on iOS 14 unchanged. Not sure what you are on about?
32 bit apps don't run on iOS 14.
Not being backwards compatible is a huge pain, but Apple can (somehow) afford to put that burden on developers.
They added 32 bit x86 support to Rosetta apparently just to get CrossOver to work. This could be a reason for them to never remove Rosetta. Maybe they'll just remove the x86 userland.
> but I can run all old versions of Android apps on an Android 11 phone
Mostly. They've done a pretty good job of maintaining backwards compatibility but it isn't perfect. E.g. there's no way to access the old hardware options button anymore. You also get a warning popup if you try to run old apps.
I just tried running an old app I wrote and it freaked out a bit with the layout, jittering all over the place initially. But other than that it mostly worked.
Mostly. They've done a pretty good job of maintaining backwards compatibility but it isn't perfect. E.g. there's no way to access the old hardware options button anymore. You also get a warning popup if you try to run old apps.
I just tried running an old app I wrote and it freaked out a bit with the layout, jittering all over the place initially. But other than that it mostly worked.
While the point of Apple Silicon is undoubtedly for Apple to have more control over their ecosystem, this article doesn't make that point very well. For example:
> However, there’s a clear nudge for developers to publish their recompiled apps to Apple’s store.
That doesn't make any sense. Where is the "nudge" coming from? The article doesn't make any argument for how that works, given that you can share universal binaries outside the App store. Apple Silicon isn't changing anything that would "not so gently nudge" developers into the App Store.
Similarly, old apps only compiled for x86 being compatible in the future is... not really about control. PowerPC apps aren't compatible with intel Macbooks; that's just an inevitable outcome of switching the ISA. There's nothing about platform control in that.
> However, there’s a clear nudge for developers to publish their recompiled apps to Apple’s store.
That doesn't make any sense. Where is the "nudge" coming from? The article doesn't make any argument for how that works, given that you can share universal binaries outside the App store. Apple Silicon isn't changing anything that would "not so gently nudge" developers into the App Store.
Similarly, old apps only compiled for x86 being compatible in the future is... not really about control. PowerPC apps aren't compatible with intel Macbooks; that's just an inevitable outcome of switching the ISA. There's nothing about platform control in that.
> That doesn't make any sense. Where is the "nudge" coming from?
I had the impression that the person that wrote the article believes that Universal Binaries are an AppStore-only feature.
I had the impression that the person that wrote the article believes that Universal Binaries are an AppStore-only feature.
They mention a couple of lines before that you can "share or submit [them] to the Mac App Store", so they seem to be aware that you can share Universal Binaries.
What is it about Apple that makes people’s brains turn off?
Apple silicon doesn’t change anything about Apple’s mac app store. Microsoft would need to release a native version of Windows, not Apple. He has a point with Rosetta 2, that it will very likely disappear (years from now), though that would affect software that isn’t being actively maintained (most of which failed to make the transition to x64 already). And suggesting a switch to AMD instead is just non-sense.
I guess writing stuff like this about Apple is cynical way to boost page views.
Apple silicon doesn’t change anything about Apple’s mac app store. Microsoft would need to release a native version of Windows, not Apple. He has a point with Rosetta 2, that it will very likely disappear (years from now), though that would affect software that isn’t being actively maintained (most of which failed to make the transition to x64 already). And suggesting a switch to AMD instead is just non-sense.
I guess writing stuff like this about Apple is cynical way to boost page views.
It’s a general problem with the overall, wider polarization of modern culture. Whether it’s politics or tech, people really really really love to take sides in our world today, it it seems to have a blinding effect on perspectives and logic for many people on both sides of the argument.
It's good that one has the enlightened centrists to tell everyone that both sides are equally bad, at least.
I see what you did there!
It's better than shilling for your favorite tech company for free.
Craig Federighi make a statement the other day that made it seem like Windows ARM Natively supporting the M1, without virtualisation, was very much in Microsofts court.
Apple has been screwed by CPU manufacturers 3 times already, or do you think they changed architectures because they were having great fun doing that?
In the past 3 years I've seen more and more people asking not for an Arm Mac, but for an AMD Mac. Because AMD is again cheaper and faster than Intel.
But it appears Apple can now afford to build their own CPUs that are better and lower power than either AMD or Intel. Not to mention PowerPC, which is still around in some form at IBM :)
It's a no brainer for them. No one can screw them over now except themselves.
In the past 3 years I've seen more and more people asking not for an Arm Mac, but for an AMD Mac. Because AMD is again cheaper and faster than Intel.
But it appears Apple can now afford to build their own CPUs that are better and lower power than either AMD or Intel. Not to mention PowerPC, which is still around in some form at IBM :)
It's a no brainer for them. No one can screw them over now except themselves.
> Apple has been screwed by CPU manufacturers 3 times already
Arguably 4. Motorola abandoned m68k (at least as a desktop route; variants lived on for a very, very long time as an embedded thing). Then Motorola largely abandoned PPC, leaving IBM as the only desktop-y manufacturer. Then, unsurprisingly, IBM fell behind with it. And now Intel.
Arguably 4. Motorola abandoned m68k (at least as a desktop route; variants lived on for a very, very long time as an embedded thing). Then Motorola largely abandoned PPC, leaving IBM as the only desktop-y manufacturer. Then, unsurprisingly, IBM fell behind with it. And now Intel.
> In the past 3 years I've seen more and more people asking not for an Arm Mac, but for an AMD Mac
I've seen the opposite. The people asking for an AMD mac were always thinking of it as a stop gap. Ever since the iPhone/iPad A series chips started blowing the doors off of benchmarks, people have been clamoring for a mac with a higher tdp A series chip. Now that the M1 is out, we can see why.
I've seen the opposite. The people asking for an AMD mac were always thinking of it as a stop gap. Ever since the iPhone/iPad A series chips started blowing the doors off of benchmarks, people have been clamoring for a mac with a higher tdp A series chip. Now that the M1 is out, we can see why.
This is obviously about control.
Apple's MO with every _smaller_ supplier has been:
1. Set up office down the road 2. Poach top engineers 3. Come up with some excuse to cancel use of supplier and integrate in house.
The media and fanboys are remarkably complicit, coming up with excuses for apple's behaviour and giving very favourable coverage.
In this case, intel are too big for this trick to work and apple already have loads of ARM talent so it makes perfect sense to transition.
I wouldn't rule out apple trying on the whole 'we don't need a license' thing any more with Nvidia but it's probably unlikely given their size.
I worked at imagination technologies who was bankrupted by Apple doing this technique and whose GPUs are still used by them so I saw this and people's remarkable lack of attention on the incredibly consistent pattern of control first hand.
While all of this is obviously true, I actually think it's great that intel and AMD are receiving some serious ISA competition and it will net benefit non-apple consumers too long run.
Congrats to apple for pretty impressive technical work but I do wish more would see apple for the ruthless control freaks they are.
At the end of the day I think rather mundanely it's really more about money than anything else.
Apple's MO with every _smaller_ supplier has been:
1. Set up office down the road 2. Poach top engineers 3. Come up with some excuse to cancel use of supplier and integrate in house.
The media and fanboys are remarkably complicit, coming up with excuses for apple's behaviour and giving very favourable coverage.
In this case, intel are too big for this trick to work and apple already have loads of ARM talent so it makes perfect sense to transition.
I wouldn't rule out apple trying on the whole 'we don't need a license' thing any more with Nvidia but it's probably unlikely given their size.
I worked at imagination technologies who was bankrupted by Apple doing this technique and whose GPUs are still used by them so I saw this and people's remarkable lack of attention on the incredibly consistent pattern of control first hand.
While all of this is obviously true, I actually think it's great that intel and AMD are receiving some serious ISA competition and it will net benefit non-apple consumers too long run.
Congrats to apple for pretty impressive technical work but I do wish more would see apple for the ruthless control freaks they are.
At the end of the day I think rather mundanely it's really more about money than anything else.
That's very sad to hear. Could you explain how close Apple's GPU is to Imagination's and why Imagination wasn't able to protect their IP?
Their GPU _is_ imagination's GPU in my opinion. Heavily customised (they had a full ARM-like license to do so) but the fundamentals are all the same. Apple claimed that they'd completely reinvented a GPU that didn't rely on any hardware IP owned by IMG whatsoever, provided no evidence of that and recent phones have bug-for-bug compatibility (as far as I heard form a friend who ran some tests).
I can't tell you 100% that it's not an entirely new GPU that was somehow completely reinvented from scratch but I can tell you I think that's highly unlikely.
Imagination couldn't protect their IP because they couldn't afford the lengthily court case that would ensue.
Note by the way Apple have quietly started licensing IP from IMG again, long after striking ~75% off the stock price and resulting in them being acquired by a private equity firm...
I can't tell you 100% that it's not an entirely new GPU that was somehow completely reinvented from scratch but I can tell you I think that's highly unlikely.
Imagination couldn't protect their IP because they couldn't afford the lengthily court case that would ensue.
Note by the way Apple have quietly started licensing IP from IMG again, long after striking ~75% off the stock price and resulting in them being acquired by a private equity firm...
Thanks - that's dreadful. It always seemed remarkable that Apple was able to come up with a leading GPU architecture without in some way infringing someones' IP (and that would be most likely to be Imagination's given the circumstances).
I guess taking your biggest (ex)customer to court isn't something that any company would do lightly especially when that company has the deepest pockets in the world and you're not in the best financial position yourself.
It's a shame that more light can't be shed in the press - if Apple cares about one thing it's their brand.
I guess taking your biggest (ex)customer to court isn't something that any company would do lightly especially when that company has the deepest pockets in the world and you're not in the best financial position yourself.
It's a shame that more light can't be shed in the press - if Apple cares about one thing it's their brand.
No IMG would have happily taken them to court it just wasn't financially viable and apple have effectively infinite resources. IMG were fools to rely on apple so much but this isn't a new development.
Apple have repeatedly done this same process to a number of suppliers. There was a good website that listed all of the offices apple opened near suppliers before cutting them off, but it went offline :(
IMG should have been much more careful but instead went all-in splashing the cash they got from apple and acting like it was forever. Pretty dumb.
Apple can rely on the media giving them positive coverage. At the time I was amazed at even how much benefit of the doubt even the BBC gave them (US company bankrupting a UK one you'd think they'd back the UK one eh?)
I was also amused to be 'inside' a story discussed on HN, and unsurprised at how far off many were. Tons of apple rationalisation syndrome as usual and lots of 'how dare IMG be so arrogant' etc.
The reality is Apple are extremely ruthless and have been trying to take control of everything for quite some time now.
Apple have repeatedly done this same process to a number of suppliers. There was a good website that listed all of the offices apple opened near suppliers before cutting them off, but it went offline :(
IMG should have been much more careful but instead went all-in splashing the cash they got from apple and acting like it was forever. Pretty dumb.
Apple can rely on the media giving them positive coverage. At the time I was amazed at even how much benefit of the doubt even the BBC gave them (US company bankrupting a UK one you'd think they'd back the UK one eh?)
I was also amused to be 'inside' a story discussed on HN, and unsurprised at how far off many were. Tons of apple rationalisation syndrome as usual and lots of 'how dare IMG be so arrogant' etc.
The reality is Apple are extremely ruthless and have been trying to take control of everything for quite some time now.
Never owned an Apple product and generally don't have too great of an opinion of this ecosystem.
But the M1 MacBook Air is perhaps the first Apple product that really caught my attention. A fan-less (without overheating issues) ultrabook with crazy batter life outperforming every comparable offering out there for $1,000. Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it. Which in my case is the keyboard. And general dislike of the ecosystem, but I already see it as completely locked down, this one being more so doesn't change anything for me. If it had a trackpoint and a few more keys I would get it despite hating the platform.
But the M1 MacBook Air is perhaps the first Apple product that really caught my attention. A fan-less (without overheating issues) ultrabook with crazy batter life outperforming every comparable offering out there for $1,000. Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it. Which in my case is the keyboard. And general dislike of the ecosystem, but I already see it as completely locked down, this one being more so doesn't change anything for me. If it had a trackpoint and a few more keys I would get it despite hating the platform.
> generally don't have too great of an opinion of this ecosystem.
+1.
> Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it.
For example, if you try Linux or BSD, and you'll find none of the peripherals works, and the community reverse engineering efforts will take years before getting basic functionality, and even then, the battery will only last for 2 hours and nobody besides Apple knows how exactly the power management mechanism works, thus PM will forever be broken. I learned my lesson the hard way on Windows tablets.
There was a time when "non-x86" is automatically developer/hacking-friendly (ancient examples are SPARC, MIPS, and those ARM Chromebooks were probably the last examples...), now the landscape has changed. I always want to use a non-x86 machine as my desktop, but perhaps it's time to abandon this idea.
+1.
> Pretty much the best deal on the market, unless you have specific issues with it.
For example, if you try Linux or BSD, and you'll find none of the peripherals works, and the community reverse engineering efforts will take years before getting basic functionality, and even then, the battery will only last for 2 hours and nobody besides Apple knows how exactly the power management mechanism works, thus PM will forever be broken. I learned my lesson the hard way on Windows tablets.
There was a time when "non-x86" is automatically developer/hacking-friendly (ancient examples are SPARC, MIPS, and those ARM Chromebooks were probably the last examples...), now the landscape has changed. I always want to use a non-x86 machine as my desktop, but perhaps it's time to abandon this idea.
AMD was originally going to release a desktop ARM CPU along with the x86 ryzen. The crazy part was they were meant to be pin compatible. AMD abandoned the idea due to complications and to focus on ryzen instead. We were so close to ARM desktops, probably wont see one for another 8 years.
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/181867-amds-project-sk...
https://www.extremetech.com/computing/181867-amds-project-sk...
Wow... I hasn't heard of the project before, knowing its failure makes me unhappier ;-(
BTW, In my dream, I hope there exists an ATX compatible motherboard and a standard specification for its CPU-board, so that you can fit an ARM machine inside an existing computer chassis, and allowing you to upgrade the chips by simply swapping CPU boards. On paper it looks possible, but in practice there are some potential problems (based on my limited electronics knowledge): signal integrity (PCI-E should be solvable, but DDR3 is extremely problematic) and heatsink. However, a compromise to put DRAM on the CPU board (soldered or socketed) should be fine, and heatsink is hopefully solvable if the CPU is power efficient. The HoneyComb LX2K workstation [0] is essentially designed based on this idea, it has a CPU board on top of a Mini-ITX board, and it doesn't need heatsink.
Still, without many high-performance ARM CPUs for selection, it's essentially only a big Raspberry Pi...
[0] https://www.solid-run.com/nxp-lx2160a-family/honeycomb-works...
BTW, In my dream, I hope there exists an ATX compatible motherboard and a standard specification for its CPU-board, so that you can fit an ARM machine inside an existing computer chassis, and allowing you to upgrade the chips by simply swapping CPU boards. On paper it looks possible, but in practice there are some potential problems (based on my limited electronics knowledge): signal integrity (PCI-E should be solvable, but DDR3 is extremely problematic) and heatsink. However, a compromise to put DRAM on the CPU board (soldered or socketed) should be fine, and heatsink is hopefully solvable if the CPU is power efficient. The HoneyComb LX2K workstation [0] is essentially designed based on this idea, it has a CPU board on top of a Mini-ITX board, and it doesn't need heatsink.
Still, without many high-performance ARM CPUs for selection, it's essentially only a big Raspberry Pi...
[0] https://www.solid-run.com/nxp-lx2160a-family/honeycomb-works...
People who don’t use Macs keep saying it is completely locked down but that has never been my experience. Windows feels far more locked down to me. It is much easier to use Unix software on Mac than on Windows. File formats tend to be easy to read. On Windows there tends to be a lot more binary formats aimed at keeping the competition out.
Mac software is usually easy to install. In PC there is all sorts of authentication and verification. Digging up a long license key for the OS is not a thing on Mac.
Mac software is usually easy to install. In PC there is all sorts of authentication and verification. Digging up a long license key for the OS is not a thing on Mac.
Those butterfly keyboards are no longer shipped, they reverted to their prior designs.
As a counterpoint...I've been using Mac laptops for 10 or 11 years after having grown up staunchly anti-Apple and previously using Linux for some years. I will not be buying an M1. I was already about to ditch Mac after the escape key debacle, but they realized their mistake and lured me back this year. Well, no more. I'm not willing to support the vendor lock-in and privacy invasions with the recently discussed ocsp phoning home.
Sorry Apple, this is a bridge too far. I'm out.
Sorry Apple, this is a bridge too far. I'm out.
I also think the marketing was genius.
NOT labeling that graph they showed did exactly what they wanted. It was impressing the non tech people and the tech people ALL kept talking and talking about it - because it wasn't labeled.
Apple's marketing is brilliant. It really gets the kind of people who think they are too smart to be marketed to AND the normies, all in one message.
Apple's marketing is brilliant. It really gets the kind of people who think they are too smart to be marketed to AND the normies, all in one message.
I consider myself a tech person and was immediately intrigued by the claims. Because I thought Apple could do it. And, after getting the Mac Mini in my hands as the only Apple computer in the house, I can mostly confirm it is quite astounding.
Maybe adding to the mystique helped some sales from curious people; it would help explain why benchmarks have been kept quiet and vague for the most part, even though they are very impressive.
I’ve witnessed single core performance on this device that I have not seen before and likely would need overclocking to hit if it can be done. For some workloads, it’s truly something.
Even thinking about it, I do expect some of this move was about performance, especially performance per watt. I doubt any other mobile processor is holding a candle at the moment. The control grabs, I think, might be secondary.
Maybe adding to the mystique helped some sales from curious people; it would help explain why benchmarks have been kept quiet and vague for the most part, even though they are very impressive.
I’ve witnessed single core performance on this device that I have not seen before and likely would need overclocking to hit if it can be done. For some workloads, it’s truly something.
Even thinking about it, I do expect some of this move was about performance, especially performance per watt. I doubt any other mobile processor is holding a candle at the moment. The control grabs, I think, might be secondary.
Non tech people didn't care. Tech people could read the many details that Apple provided on specific performance claims.
And to be clear, the presentation claimed "this is a fast mobile processor that's very efficient". Both claims have been very soundly proven. So I'm not sure why they would attempt the deception you seem to be implying. There was simply no need.
The M1 release is fascinating because never have I seen such a frantic effort to dismiss something in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a pretty great thing. Eh.
And to be clear, the presentation claimed "this is a fast mobile processor that's very efficient". Both claims have been very soundly proven. So I'm not sure why they would attempt the deception you seem to be implying. There was simply no need.
The M1 release is fascinating because never have I seen such a frantic effort to dismiss something in the face of overwhelming evidence that it's a pretty great thing. Eh.
And yet, the reviewers’ real world tests show that the unlabeled graph wasn’t a lie.
Here’s a labeled graph from Anandtech, scroll down to “Apple vs Intel Top Performance”
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
Apple’s unlabeled graph wasn’t a lie. Early reviewers confirm that the performance from a fanless, body-temperature laptop with 15+ hours of battery life is downright mind blowing. There is nothing else like it on the market.
Marketing only gets you so far. This product speaks for itself.
Here’s a labeled graph from Anandtech, scroll down to “Apple vs Intel Top Performance”
https://www.anandtech.com/show/16226/apple-silicon-m1-a14-de...
Apple’s unlabeled graph wasn’t a lie. Early reviewers confirm that the performance from a fanless, body-temperature laptop with 15+ hours of battery life is downright mind blowing. There is nothing else like it on the market.
Marketing only gets you so far. This product speaks for itself.
I was wondering why Gamer Nexus (a very rigorous YouTube review channel) didn't sent a M1 device, while those Apple fanboy channels got it. Probably the dude would've torn the M1 performance claims apart.
Because those outlets never get Macs usually, and it isn't what they cover.
Note that a laptop chip also isn't a gaming product, for obvious reasons.
Note that a laptop chip also isn't a gaming product, for obvious reasons.
Thankfully AnandTech received Mac mini unit from Apple, Thanks Anand now at Apple?
Gamers Nexus also does CPU tests, when reviewing CPUs. Gaming benchmarks are an aside.
Also if Apple's opening statement for M1 is that its industry-leading, then they should let these reviewers substantiate it, because that's what they usually review.
Also if Apple's opening statement for M1 is that its industry-leading, then they should let these reviewers substantiate it, because that's what they usually review.
Because the GPU there is okay-ish, but not amazing - not really suitable for gaming.
The power-sipping, integrated GPU has performance 30% better than a GTX 1050 Ti [1].
The GTX 1050 Ti is still a current, sold product [2], selling for $150 or so USD [3], and consumes about 75-100W in your PC.
We can no true Scotsman this, but that GPU performance is a literal magnitude+ greater than what the majority of users have in their computers (and I am including full desktops in this discussion). The overwhelming majority of users are not paying $500-$1000 for a GPU (now add the 700W+ PSU, and what in effect becomes a space heater), which is the current going rate for the mythical gaming market.
Is it intended for enthusiast gamers who have giant $1000 graphics cards sucking 300W? No, of course not. There is no surprise that Apple didn't send it to a guy who targets that crowd. But for the vast majority of people that chip would represent a pretty significant upgrade over what they currently have.
[1] - Even in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, demonstrated purely given that it was running under Rosetta 2, it did quite decent.
[2] - Current products from EVGA, Gigabyte, ASUS and others feature the GTX 1050 Ti, making it a current product.
[3] - Which is a range, and above, that similar cards sell for. If you can time travel you may be able to get an equal performance level for less, but I lack time travel abilities.
The GTX 1050 Ti is still a current, sold product [2], selling for $150 or so USD [3], and consumes about 75-100W in your PC.
We can no true Scotsman this, but that GPU performance is a literal magnitude+ greater than what the majority of users have in their computers (and I am including full desktops in this discussion). The overwhelming majority of users are not paying $500-$1000 for a GPU (now add the 700W+ PSU, and what in effect becomes a space heater), which is the current going rate for the mythical gaming market.
Is it intended for enthusiast gamers who have giant $1000 graphics cards sucking 300W? No, of course not. There is no surprise that Apple didn't send it to a guy who targets that crowd. But for the vast majority of people that chip would represent a pretty significant upgrade over what they currently have.
[1] - Even in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, demonstrated purely given that it was running under Rosetta 2, it did quite decent.
[2] - Current products from EVGA, Gigabyte, ASUS and others feature the GTX 1050 Ti, making it a current product.
[3] - Which is a range, and above, that similar cards sell for. If you can time travel you may be able to get an equal performance level for less, but I lack time travel abilities.
>The GTX 1050 Ti is still a current, sold product, selling for $250 or so USD
That's very misleading. The card was released more than 4 years ago and has a MSRP of $139[1]. It's neither a current or expensive product.
The $250 price is almost certainty because it's "rare", not because it's actually worth that much. See for instance, i7-6700k being sold for $279[2] when you can get a similar performing current gen i3 for $115[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_proces...
[2] https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i7-6th-gen-core-i7-6700k/p...
[3] https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i3-10100-core-i3-10th-gen/...
That's very misleading. The card was released more than 4 years ago and has a MSRP of $139[1]. It's neither a current or expensive product.
The $250 price is almost certainty because it's "rare", not because it's actually worth that much. See for instance, i7-6700k being sold for $279[2] when you can get a similar performing current gen i3 for $115[3]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nvidia_graphics_proces...
[2] https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i7-6th-gen-core-i7-6700k/p...
[3] https://www.newegg.com/intel-core-i3-10100-core-i3-10th-gen/...
The 2080 Max-Q in my laptop is fairly underpowered (even for a mobile GPU) and yet it achieves ~3x the performance of the GTX 1050 Ti.
Also its TDP is 90W - not exactly power sipping, but also not 300W.
The M1's GPU may be efficient (thanks mostly to TSMC's 5nm process it's built in), but in terms of raw power it's just not there.
Also its TDP is 90W - not exactly power sipping, but also not 300W.
The M1's GPU may be efficient (thanks mostly to TSMC's 5nm process it's built in), but in terms of raw power it's just not there.
"The 2080 Max-Q in my laptop is fairly underpowered"
The 2080 Max-Q only exists in ~$3000 gaming laptops. Poor battery life, 4lb+ laptops. There is no universe where that is "fairly underpowered" unless we've moved the goal posts to pretend that everyone is rolling with a GTX 3080 and anything less is unbearable. In the real world you have to go to the seriously compromised "gaming" tier to get better graphics performance.
"but in terms of raw power it's just not there"
That depends upon what we define as the destination. It in no way competes with dedicated gaming rigs, as I made clear. Not by a huge margin. It isn't going to be something a guy reviewing 300W, $1000 GPUs will care about. That isn't the target market.
But the vast majority of people don't having those gaming rigs. Laptops that have better GPUs are a _tiny_, minuscule component of the market. And if you actually use those dedicated GPUs, you'd better be plugged in.
So when we talk about "gaming" we get into a No True Scotsman thing (to repeat myself) where it isn't gaming unless it's someone playing Warzone at 120Hz at 4K. But a pretty heady number of users are doing things like Civilization, The Sims, Roblox, Minecraft, and similar gaming. The M1 can host that style of gaming with ease.
"thanks mostly to TSMC's 5nm process"
It's kind of interesting that we're at this point. Apple has made a pretty capable GPU, stellar CPU cores, stellar inference cores, among other remarkable hardware. It was pretty stellar at 7nm too. It's all being dismissed as the 5nm advantage. I don't think it's remotely so simple.
The 2080 Max-Q only exists in ~$3000 gaming laptops. Poor battery life, 4lb+ laptops. There is no universe where that is "fairly underpowered" unless we've moved the goal posts to pretend that everyone is rolling with a GTX 3080 and anything less is unbearable. In the real world you have to go to the seriously compromised "gaming" tier to get better graphics performance.
"but in terms of raw power it's just not there"
That depends upon what we define as the destination. It in no way competes with dedicated gaming rigs, as I made clear. Not by a huge margin. It isn't going to be something a guy reviewing 300W, $1000 GPUs will care about. That isn't the target market.
But the vast majority of people don't having those gaming rigs. Laptops that have better GPUs are a _tiny_, minuscule component of the market. And if you actually use those dedicated GPUs, you'd better be plugged in.
So when we talk about "gaming" we get into a No True Scotsman thing (to repeat myself) where it isn't gaming unless it's someone playing Warzone at 120Hz at 4K. But a pretty heady number of users are doing things like Civilization, The Sims, Roblox, Minecraft, and similar gaming. The M1 can host that style of gaming with ease.
"thanks mostly to TSMC's 5nm process"
It's kind of interesting that we're at this point. Apple has made a pretty capable GPU, stellar CPU cores, stellar inference cores, among other remarkable hardware. It was pretty stellar at 7nm too. It's all being dismissed as the 5nm advantage. I don't think it's remotely so simple.
The 2080 Max-Q only exists in ~$3000 gaming laptops. Poor battery life, 4lb+ laptops.
I have an ASUS Zephyrus G14.
1680g(3.7lb) as checked just a minute ago using a kitchen scale. I don't know about battery life because I capped the charging at 80% and it still lasts a whole day of normal usage if need be. MSRP ~$1,500 in the US.
I don't think it's remotely so simple.
If you compare it to the Ryzen 4xxx mobile CPUs it checks out - performance increase is roughly as expected given the difference in feature size.
I have an ASUS Zephyrus G14.
1680g(3.7lb) as checked just a minute ago using a kitchen scale. I don't know about battery life because I capped the charging at 80% and it still lasts a whole day of normal usage if need be. MSRP ~$1,500 in the US.
I don't think it's remotely so simple.
If you compare it to the Ryzen 4xxx mobile CPUs it checks out - performance increase is roughly as expected given the difference in feature size.
A disclaimer on your battery life: that is doing literally nothing with the 2080. Effectively turning it off and carrying it around as an extra cost/weight for nothing.
Because the moment you use that 2080, your battery life will be South of 3 hours with a 100% charge and a factory new battery. You'll also have a jet engine fan and a leg burning device.
Which is the point.
Because the moment you use that 2080, your battery life will be South of 3 hours with a 100% charge and a factory new battery. You'll also have a jet engine fan and a leg burning device.
Which is the point.
I have a whole day on battery for normal usage, and competent gaming performance when I plug it in.
The M1 offers only one of these things.
The M1 offers only one of these things.
GPU perf/watt is mainly depends on manufacturing process so comparing it to 1050Ti is just for indicating its performance, not for comparing to others. M1's CPU is really impressive but I don't think GPU is impressive but well done for mobile use.
That was some Fake news using worthless benchmarks. It's not even near 1050 Ti in the real world, check any game, M1 gets destroyed by that 4 year old 1050 Ti GPU. For example, Shadow of the Tomb Raider 45 fps 1080p medium vs 26 fps on M1.
You might say it's because of Rosetta (not that it makes any difference because probably most games will never be ported anyway, so Rosetta is all you get when talking about current games), but there's another game which has Apple Sillicon support - World of Warcraft. That one measures high 30s to mid 40s fps on ultra 1080p vs 58.1 avg fps on 1050 Ti. Comparisons are from userbenchmark.com regarding 1050 Ti and youtuber tests regarding M1.
So all those claims "30 % better" were just a manipulative scam using benchmarks nobody cares about.
You might say it's because of Rosetta (not that it makes any difference because probably most games will never be ported anyway, so Rosetta is all you get when talking about current games), but there's another game which has Apple Sillicon support - World of Warcraft. That one measures high 30s to mid 40s fps on ultra 1080p vs 58.1 avg fps on 1050 Ti. Comparisons are from userbenchmark.com regarding 1050 Ti and youtuber tests regarding M1.
So all those claims "30 % better" were just a manipulative scam using benchmarks nobody cares about.
Do you have sources for those numbers? I'm curious about the M1's gaming performance, but I haven't yet seen any articles talking about it...
Shadow of the Tomb Raider on M1 :
https://youtu.be/Cu8gEq-Os_E?t=238
World of Warcraft on M1 (which is as good as it will get on Apple Sillicon because it has support, not emulated via Rosetta) : https://youtu.be/Cu8gEq-Os_E?t=192
1050 Ti Shadow Of Tomb Raider: https://www.gpucheck.com/game-gpu/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider/... 77 fps seems too high, mostly people on youtube seem to be getting ~45 fps, but it's still way better than M1's 26 fps.
1050 Ti World of Warcraft: https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCGame/FPS-Estimates-World-of-...
World of Warcraft on M1 (which is as good as it will get on Apple Sillicon because it has support, not emulated via Rosetta) : https://youtu.be/Cu8gEq-Os_E?t=192
1050 Ti Shadow Of Tomb Raider: https://www.gpucheck.com/game-gpu/shadow-of-the-tomb-raider/... 77 fps seems too high, mostly people on youtube seem to be getting ~45 fps, but it's still way better than M1's 26 fps.
1050 Ti World of Warcraft: https://www.userbenchmark.com/PCGame/FPS-Estimates-World-of-...
Gamers Nexus audience is very niche - PC enthusiasts. Apple has a much larger demo that they are targeting.
This article has decent points but is definitely just sort of coming from the perspective of being completely unfamiliar with the Mac platform.
Worrying about the App Store taking over on the Mac is misguided. The Mac has never forced the App Store on anyone and the Mac App Store doesn’t even seem to be particularly popular.
“Emulation” (it’s not emulation) is apparently this big problem, except that early M1 Macs show faster Rosetta performance with still-better battery life in many cases.
And yes, Rosetta won’t be around forever, but we have been here before. It wasn’t a problem going from PowerPC to Intel either. If the authors at Android authority ever used a Mac they’d already know this. Anecdotal, but I can’t think of a single pre-Intel program that was lost to the Intel transition that I was using at the time. All the developers checked the box and recompiled, and the dinosaurs like Adobe eventually trudged along.
For those of us who actually used Macs back in the PowerPC days and earlier, there was no such thing as Hackintosh or Boot Camp. The fact that those are going away is essentially inconsequential, especially now that the Mac platform is vastly more popular than it was in 2006.
Why would I want to run Windows on my Mac? It’s been a shitty experience anyway, because even in Intel-land the hardware has been heavily macOS optimized including things like fan and power control. The trackpad driver on Windows was always worse, for example. And again why would you want to run Windows when you spent all this money to not run Windows? It doesn’t make sense especially since so many programs (e.g. 1Password) have their best versions on Mac.
Worrying about the App Store taking over on the Mac is misguided. The Mac has never forced the App Store on anyone and the Mac App Store doesn’t even seem to be particularly popular.
“Emulation” (it’s not emulation) is apparently this big problem, except that early M1 Macs show faster Rosetta performance with still-better battery life in many cases.
And yes, Rosetta won’t be around forever, but we have been here before. It wasn’t a problem going from PowerPC to Intel either. If the authors at Android authority ever used a Mac they’d already know this. Anecdotal, but I can’t think of a single pre-Intel program that was lost to the Intel transition that I was using at the time. All the developers checked the box and recompiled, and the dinosaurs like Adobe eventually trudged along.
For those of us who actually used Macs back in the PowerPC days and earlier, there was no such thing as Hackintosh or Boot Camp. The fact that those are going away is essentially inconsequential, especially now that the Mac platform is vastly more popular than it was in 2006.
Why would I want to run Windows on my Mac? It’s been a shitty experience anyway, because even in Intel-land the hardware has been heavily macOS optimized including things like fan and power control. The trackpad driver on Windows was always worse, for example. And again why would you want to run Windows when you spent all this money to not run Windows? It doesn’t make sense especially since so many programs (e.g. 1Password) have their best versions on Mac.
When they repeatedly used the word “emulation” instead of translation in the article I knew they hadn’t done their homework.
Apple is about platform control.
Apple Silicon is about performance and efficiency.
A friendly, open-hardware Apple would have moved to their own chips too, though they'd have documented their GPU, and a walled-garden Apple without a competitive laptop chip would have locked the system down anyway, as, in fact, they were doing on Intel.
Apple Silicon is about performance and efficiency.
A friendly, open-hardware Apple would have moved to their own chips too, though they'd have documented their GPU, and a walled-garden Apple without a competitive laptop chip would have locked the system down anyway, as, in fact, they were doing on Intel.
> Apple is about platform control. Apple Silicon is about performance and efficiency. [...] A friendly, open-hardware Apple would have moved to their own chips too
Well said. But is it even possible to separate them anymore? What if they are practically both sides of the same coin? Apple uses its platform control to finance the development of Apple Silicon, which in turn strengthens its platform control. In an alternative universe, will the open-hardware friendly Apple even have the resources to develop a top-performance Apple Silicon (as seen in this universe) to begin with?
I'm afraid that x86 vs ARM has become a "pick your poison" game, unless a serious competitor to Apple Silicon emerges... Well, if someone can show me that Linux or BSD runs perfectly on Mac w/ Apple Silicon with working periphrases and not-too-bad power management before the end of 2022, I may change my mind and buy one...
Well said. But is it even possible to separate them anymore? What if they are practically both sides of the same coin? Apple uses its platform control to finance the development of Apple Silicon, which in turn strengthens its platform control. In an alternative universe, will the open-hardware friendly Apple even have the resources to develop a top-performance Apple Silicon (as seen in this universe) to begin with?
I'm afraid that x86 vs ARM has become a "pick your poison" game, unless a serious competitor to Apple Silicon emerges... Well, if someone can show me that Linux or BSD runs perfectly on Mac w/ Apple Silicon with working periphrases and not-too-bad power management before the end of 2022, I may change my mind and buy one...
There's a huge green quote: "Apple has confirmed that Boot Camp support isn’t coming to Arm-based Macs."
And it comes right after the same sentence is uttered in the article... and is followed by "unless".
All in all, pretty weird form of journalism.
And it comes right after the same sentence is uttered in the article... and is followed by "unless".
All in all, pretty weird form of journalism.
It will be interesting to see how long Rosetta-2 will be supported.
macOS 10.15 took away 32bit apps, which was a sizeable chunk so clearly Apple is willing to alienate some of its users in the name of progress and slimlining.
A quick look at previous transitions shows...
Classic Mac OS support (both 68k and PPC): OS X 10.0 was released March 2001, dropped with 10.5 released October 2007. So about 6 years, 8 months.
PowerPC Mac OS X app support: First Intel Mac January 2006, support dropped with 10.7 in July 2011, so 5 years 5 months.
32 bit iOS app support: iPhone 5S with 64 bit CPU released October 2013, 32 bit app support removed in iOS 11, September 2017, so 3 years 11 months.
32 bit Intel app support (and Carbon framework): Mac OS 10.5 was first to allow 64 bit GUI apps[1], in October 2007, 32 bit support dropped in 10.15, released October 2019, so 12 years.
I'd probably count this nearer to the first three than the kinda drawn out 32 bit to 64 bit Intel transition, so perhaps about 4 years?
[1] There was limited 64 bit support before in 10.4.
Classic Mac OS support (both 68k and PPC): OS X 10.0 was released March 2001, dropped with 10.5 released October 2007. So about 6 years, 8 months.
PowerPC Mac OS X app support: First Intel Mac January 2006, support dropped with 10.7 in July 2011, so 5 years 5 months.
32 bit iOS app support: iPhone 5S with 64 bit CPU released October 2013, 32 bit app support removed in iOS 11, September 2017, so 3 years 11 months.
32 bit Intel app support (and Carbon framework): Mac OS 10.5 was first to allow 64 bit GUI apps[1], in October 2007, 32 bit support dropped in 10.15, released October 2019, so 12 years.
I'd probably count this nearer to the first three than the kinda drawn out 32 bit to 64 bit Intel transition, so perhaps about 4 years?
[1] There was limited 64 bit support before in 10.4.
Keep in mind that there is a much larger installed base of Intel machines than any of those other transitions. Apple is unlikely to want to alienate so many people. It will take several years for the percentage of Intel Mac users to fall under 50%.
I see Intel support continuing for closer to 10 years.
I see Intel support continuing for closer to 10 years.
While I don't disagree, Apple users also seem to be the fastest to upgrade to new versions of Apple OSes and tech. They're already like 90%+ upgraded to the new macOS, etc.
I thought the same at first, but the fact that Apple dropped x86 32bit support means a lot of old unmaintained Intel binaries are already out of the equation.
> Keep in mind that there is a much larger installed base of Intel machines than any of those other transitions.
The OP asked about Rosetta2 though. How many Intel macs are out there doesn't mean much when fat binaries can support both. This is all about software moving.
The OP asked about Rosetta2 though. How many Intel macs are out there doesn't mean much when fat binaries can support both. This is all about software moving.
The two are connected. The more niche (or custom) software is the more resistant it is to porting. There's going to be a lot of Wintel based stuff which is a quick and dirty port from Windows with few Mac native elements. The years where Mac was Intel compatible made the platform more attractive to people who worked in a mostly Wintel environment. There is almost no incentive for those who ported software to the Mac because it was easy to now port to ARM.
So there are two sides to that: those people are going to hang on to their Intel machines longer and they'll want Intel compatibility when they finally buy ARM machines. This is important to Apple because it can shrink the pool of potential customers.
So there are two sides to that: those people are going to hang on to their Intel machines longer and they'll want Intel compatibility when they finally buy ARM machines. This is important to Apple because it can shrink the pool of potential customers.
I was on the last PPC during the ppc->x86. My experience on it was that after a year it was starting to be hard to find new releases containing a ppc build already, and those who did very frequently were poorly tested. Although OSX releases continued to support ppc, at the user level it was pretty clear I was on a dead end. Even on the OSS front I had to rebuild for PPC frequently myself, as more often than not the x86 build was the only one available.
Is that even a serious criticism? Users had about ten years of warning before 32-bit went away. The real impact of that on real users is minimal.
Yes, there were warnings, but what can I as a user do about it? I am impacted by 32 bit going away and I cannot do anything about it. That is why I am running Mojava instead of Catalina. On the bright side, whenever I am going to buy a new Mac, the ARM processor effectively doesn't cause any additional troubles on the compatibility side, and that was probably the reason for Apple to kill 32 bit with Catalina.
But there is something you can do about it. You're already doing it. You can run Mojave.
You want the platform to be weighed down with cruft forever because of a 0.01% use case? Do you want 8-bit support in there too, for the 68000?
You want the platform to be weighed down with cruft forever because of a 0.01% use case? Do you want 8-bit support in there too, for the 68000?
There are some non-trivial apps used by real users that are 32-bit only, in particular the pre-subscription versions of Adobe Creative Suite.
And real users can keep running that old software on real similarly-old computers. I don't think the number of still-functional old Macs is so small that they're going to be impossible to find any time soon.
I can understand being unhappy that Adobe doesn't offer an upgrade path from an obsolete version of CS to similar licensing terms for a modern version that runs on modern computers. But I think that complaint should be directed at Adobe, not Apple.
I can understand being unhappy that Adobe doesn't offer an upgrade path from an obsolete version of CS to similar licensing terms for a modern version that runs on modern computers. But I think that complaint should be directed at Adobe, not Apple.
So end-of-life releases that have been replaced with newer builds? Any application that doesn't survive the progression of technology doesn't deserve to-- software requires maintenance. We expect hardware to get bigger/faster/stronger but are unwilling to hold software to the same standard?
I am wracking my brain but cannot think of a single application that I ran on previous epochs of hardware (whether it be 32bit, PowerPC, Itanium, or anything else) that I am now missing out on.FOSS has really mitigated this a ton too because if there was a good idea from a defunct codebase, inevitably a project would spring up to fill that void.
Professionally, legacy software is the bane of my existence because I am expected to move heaven and earth to make crappy, long outdated and inherently insecure proprietary enterprise apps work on modern networks with modern operating systems and modern security requirements. Let it all burn.
I am wracking my brain but cannot think of a single application that I ran on previous epochs of hardware (whether it be 32bit, PowerPC, Itanium, or anything else) that I am now missing out on.FOSS has really mitigated this a ton too because if there was a good idea from a defunct codebase, inevitably a project would spring up to fill that void.
Professionally, legacy software is the bane of my existence because I am expected to move heaven and earth to make crappy, long outdated and inherently insecure proprietary enterprise apps work on modern networks with modern operating systems and modern security requirements. Let it all burn.
Software that runs perfectly fine, performs just what I need, and that I already paid for, that has no security implications... and you want me to now start paying monthly for the privilege of using the same software. No thanks.
I know software requires maintenance. When it’s cheaper to buy another computer that runs the old software just fine than paying for “updates” and “improvements” and “bug fixes” that do nothing for me, I think people are going to stop paying for such “updates”.
I know software requires maintenance. When it’s cheaper to buy another computer that runs the old software just fine than paying for “updates” and “improvements” and “bug fixes” that do nothing for me, I think people are going to stop paying for such “updates”.
And those aren’t the worst examples, as alternatives exist (subscription only and/or more expensive, possibly, but they do exist)
Especially in companies, there may be that ‘essential’ app somebody wrote in two decades ago that nobody has the source code to or, if they have, uses a language dialect no modern compiler supports, requires third party libraries of companies long out of business, etc.
Also, hardware support may be an issue. Expensive hardware can have long lifetimes, and hardware companies tend to be bad at upgrading drivers order hardware they don’t sell anymore.
Especially in companies, there may be that ‘essential’ app somebody wrote in two decades ago that nobody has the source code to or, if they have, uses a language dialect no modern compiler supports, requires third party libraries of companies long out of business, etc.
Also, hardware support may be an issue. Expensive hardware can have long lifetimes, and hardware companies tend to be bad at upgrading drivers order hardware they don’t sell anymore.
Those companies should pay the developers of those “essential” apps for the update. I’m tired of companies cheeping out and blaming everyone else when they don’t want to pay devs.
And a massive chunk of Steam library which will never be updated.
> Users had about ten years of warning before 32-bit went away.
Citation needed. I remember 32 bit being deprecated just 12 months before its support removal and there were no signs earlier. I just had to recompile my apps to x64, but some 3rd party tools I use never got an update and my 2013 Macbook will stay on Mojave forever.
Citation needed. I remember 32 bit being deprecated just 12 months before its support removal and there were no signs earlier. I just had to recompile my apps to x64, but some 3rd party tools I use never got an update and my 2013 Macbook will stay on Mojave forever.
64-bit apps debuted something like 12 years ago on the Mac. The writing has thus been on the wall for circa a decade, as I said. You figured 32-bit would be supported for what, 20 years? 30?
> The writing has thus been on the wall for circa a decade, as I said.
So do you say that there is writing on the wall for removing 32-bit support in Windows and Linux too? I certainly don't. If Apple deprecated 32-bit while introducing x64 then the writing would be on the wall but they kept supporting and updating 32-bit.
> You figured 32-bit would be supported for what, 20 years? 30?
At least one hardware generation lifetime from moment of deprecation (5 years would be bad, 10 would be great). There were 32-bit AU plugins still being sold in 2018 and some of them never got an update. KORG never updated some of their synth control apps for synthesisers that are still on sale - they just updated docs and wrote that macOS is not supported anymore.
So do you say that there is writing on the wall for removing 32-bit support in Windows and Linux too? I certainly don't. If Apple deprecated 32-bit while introducing x64 then the writing would be on the wall but they kept supporting and updating 32-bit.
> You figured 32-bit would be supported for what, 20 years? 30?
At least one hardware generation lifetime from moment of deprecation (5 years would be bad, 10 would be great). There were 32-bit AU plugins still being sold in 2018 and some of them never got an update. KORG never updated some of their synth control apps for synthesisers that are still on sale - they just updated docs and wrote that macOS is not supported anymore.
Sounds like the writing is on the wall for 32bit linux but you still have some time.
https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-fo...
https://ubuntu.com/blog/statement-on-32-bit-i386-packages-fo...
I saw someone post on a non work slack about their steam library, where they had a bunch of games that previously ran on mac, being decimated, and they meant decimated literally by catalina. 90% of their games were 32 bit.
The good news for steam users is that you don’t have to purchase the game separately for each platform. The decimated users can build their own Windows gaming PC and easily regain access to all of their old games. I doubt they had any Mac-exclusive games that also happened to be 32-bit only. Do such games even exist? Maybe.
Funnily enough that is the inverse of the historical meaning of decimated (to destroy 10% of something).
Good to know, thanks.
At WWDC they said they're starting a transition period that'll last 2 years.
So I expect them to drop support in 1.5 years
So I expect them to drop support in 1.5 years
No way. Rosetta-2 was introduced as part of the transition, why would Apple sunset it so quickly?
This is an in accurate reading of the word “transition“.
Transition of their hardware, so in two years all their devices will be Mac silicon. Probably. I think the Mac Pro may not migrate, given that it uses server grade hardware and Mac's silicon is not there yet (I think / assume / I'm probably wrong)
I don't understand why exerting better control over hardware + software would mean we are being duped. A more cohesive experience provided by Apple can only be a win for them and their customers.
As long as your interests align with Apple's, yes. But if they stop being aligned you basically have no control. So it's a double edged sword, it basically comes down to personal choice.
As long as there is an escape hatch which macOS has. The key problem IMHO with iOS is not the AppStore but the lack of an escape hatch.
Running something from outside the AppStore should be an option. It could be a switch or toggle you could turn on with a warning.
Running something from outside the AppStore should be an option. It could be a switch or toggle you could turn on with a warning.
> I don't understand why exerting better control over hardware + software would mean we are being duped
So much for "Hacker" news.
So much for "Hacker" news.
One example is the right to repair that Apple is fighting.
> What Cupertino really wants more control. First over the development roadmap and inner working of its silicon. With in-house processors, Apple can drive integrated imaging, machine learning, and security features in the direction it wants.
This is the real point about control - not about forcing anyone to use the App store which may or may not happen but could have happened with Intel CPUs too - and its about building more capable machines. The speed is in part as a result of that control.
And I don't think anyone is being duped.
This is the real point about control - not about forcing anyone to use the App store which may or may not happen but could have happened with Intel CPUs too - and its about building more capable machines. The speed is in part as a result of that control.
And I don't think anyone is being duped.
Yes Apple is about platform control and monetization, and they're pretty good at it. They want you to buy-in into their ecosystem and stay loyal; even developers of iOS and Mac OS apps have to open Apple dev accounts (and the process of rolling out an app on the App Store is ... byzantine). They keep off copycat and privacy-invading apps that way, and their customers love that aspect of their platform (I even use a cheap iPhone to get away from the mass surveillance devices called Android phones).
Apple's Silicon is a great success AFAICT, when Intel has just stagnated for years now. I love Apple innovations like that, and I think Apple Silicon is in principal orthogonal to the lock-in aspect so far, apart from the fact that there won't be alternative O/S on Apple Silicon due to lack of drivers; now of course, Apple could soon extend the ARM ISA in proprietary ways.
However, as much as Apple produces shiny consumer laptops (despite their naming, I don't consider MBPs as "professional" devices due to lack of options), I'm probably staying away from Mac OS, because professionally I need to run (mostly) F/OSS apps such as compilers, databases, middlewares, VMs/containers, and backend tool chains. I also believe their notarization thing will kill F/OSS on Mac OS which makes it useless for me. And Apple has to take the piss here, as F/OSS is what Mac OS (Mac OS X) is built on, and what made it even remotely acceptable in 2002/3. If you're a developer of non-Mac OS, non-iOS apps, expect Mac OS to stop being an option even more so than it is already.
Apple's Silicon is a great success AFAICT, when Intel has just stagnated for years now. I love Apple innovations like that, and I think Apple Silicon is in principal orthogonal to the lock-in aspect so far, apart from the fact that there won't be alternative O/S on Apple Silicon due to lack of drivers; now of course, Apple could soon extend the ARM ISA in proprietary ways.
However, as much as Apple produces shiny consumer laptops (despite their naming, I don't consider MBPs as "professional" devices due to lack of options), I'm probably staying away from Mac OS, because professionally I need to run (mostly) F/OSS apps such as compilers, databases, middlewares, VMs/containers, and backend tool chains. I also believe their notarization thing will kill F/OSS on Mac OS which makes it useless for me. And Apple has to take the piss here, as F/OSS is what Mac OS (Mac OS X) is built on, and what made it even remotely acceptable in 2002/3. If you're a developer of non-Mac OS, non-iOS apps, expect Mac OS to stop being an option even more so than it is already.
> I don't consider MBPs as "professional" devices due to lack of options
Counterpoint is the 10s of thousands of "professionals" (like me, senior software engineer at a Company You Know) who use them....
Counterpoint is the 10s of thousands of "professionals" (like me, senior software engineer at a Company You Know) who use them....
You got me wrong; I didn't mean to insult Apple users. What makes a notebook "pro" is having options for display, ports, memory, mass storage devices, docking, etc., plus the supply and delivery chain that go with it. Also, for eg music production, things like stable interfaces, timings, and apps to base larger investments on. When I bought my Powerbook, it came with a PCMCIA slot (that I used for a third FHD display), exchangeable battery, memory, optical storage, wired networking in addition to WLAN, commitment to support for Java development, POSIX certification. Many of these things may be uneccessary today, but MBP prices haven't changed or have even increased since. The MBP doesn't even have a std keyboard layout without touch bar and ties its design aesthetic to a glossy screen/screen-top. Feels like a rip-off to me even if I personally can afford it.
Edit: and there's nothing "Pro" about the lack of perspective for both S/W development and music production on Mac OS
Edit: and there's nothing "Pro" about the lack of perspective for both S/W development and music production on Mac OS
Maybe it was Intel that had platform control all along.
With Intel there at least was AMD as an option:
* https://amd-osx.com
* https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-hackintosh-syste...
* https://amd-osx.com
* https://www.tomshardware.com/news/amd-ryzen-hackintosh-syste...
With Arm, maybe Hackintoshes that will be worth it (for VMs at least) will be possible in the future. If Windows 10 on Arm succeeds... to make that hardware widely available. SBCs do not count.
(there's technically nothing preventing you of running macOS arm64 on non-Apple hardware in a VM)
(there's technically nothing preventing you of running macOS arm64 on non-Apple hardware in a VM)
Yes there is: the lack of third party graphics drivers. That single issue has the potential to nobble any useable ARM based Hackintosh, though someone might step forward and implement a graphics driver, but that's quite hard.
And while I have not seen anything on that subject (yet), a much deeper integration with their Secure Enclave is likely, and it’s very much possible they extended the ISA and take advantage if that internally.
macOS arm64 doesn't require any instructions that aren't part of the standardized Arm ISA. And about the Secure Enclave, just don't expose the device in the device tree (that's enough w/ stubbing AppleSystemPolicy).
That issue is actually quite interesting.
It's because if the GPU is reverse engineered enough, you can simulate an Apple GPU on another machine _and_ run other OSes with a proper GPU stack on those macs.
It's because if the GPU is reverse engineered enough, you can simulate an Apple GPU on another machine _and_ run other OSes with a proper GPU stack on those macs.
The little I’ve heard about the M1 makes it sound radically different in one respect: the system RAM is unified with the video RAM and shared, rather than partitioned the way it usually is on integrated video.
Now I don’t know anything about GPU stacks, but I could imagine that one change essentially requiring a rewrite of the entire stack if certain assumptions were baked into the old one.
The new model would seem to allow the developer to allocate a buffer full of stuff and rapidly alternate between CPU and GPU instructions on that buffer, without copying. If so, that’s a pretty huge win for performance.
Now I don’t know anything about GPU stacks, but I could imagine that one change essentially requiring a rewrite of the entire stack if certain assumptions were baked into the old one.
The new model would seem to allow the developer to allocate a buffer full of stuff and rapidly alternate between CPU and GPU instructions on that buffer, without copying. If so, that’s a pretty huge win for performance.
That's present on basically every Arm SoC, with the CPU and GPU on the same die. (and Intel & AMD APUs too, the difference is that Apple is scaling UMA beyond what anyone did for sold systems in x86 land that aren't consoles)
Currently, Apple and NVIDIA have the beefiest UMA w/ the CPU GPUs available, and those are Arm solutions.
Currently, Apple and NVIDIA have the beefiest UMA w/ the CPU GPUs available, and those are Arm solutions.
There's two parts to this issue: one is reverse engineering the Apple driver interface, the other is reverse engineering the third party target hardware interface.
Most vendors of graphics hardware keep their interface secret, but not all. The problem is that the set of hardware that isn't secret won't overlap much with what people have or want to run, which is pretty central to what makes Hackintoshes attractive.
Most vendors of graphics hardware keep their interface secret, but not all. The problem is that the set of hardware that isn't secret won't overlap much with what people have or want to run, which is pretty central to what makes Hackintoshes attractive.
Yeah... because nobody else makes ARM compatible chips.
x86 is not an open ISA. For all practical purposes nobody besides intel and AMD can make x86 chips.
Pretty much anybody can ask ARM to get a license to make ARM chip.
Sure Macs have special chips in addition but that is true for their intel offerings as well. You have never been able to just plop an AMD chip into a Mac so it is not like that choice ever meant anything to consumers.
x86 is not an open ISA. For all practical purposes nobody besides intel and AMD can make x86 chips.
Pretty much anybody can ask ARM to get a license to make ARM chip.
Sure Macs have special chips in addition but that is true for their intel offerings as well. You have never been able to just plop an AMD chip into a Mac so it is not like that choice ever meant anything to consumers.
And what about disk controllers like the T2? How is that going to be emulated?
The ARM ISA versus x86 ISA is probably the least complicated part of this equation. At least on x86 there were widely used graphics components that were leveraged. What exactly do we know about the built-in GPU on the M1?
The ARM ISA versus x86 ISA is probably the least complicated part of this equation. At least on x86 there were widely used graphics components that were leveraged. What exactly do we know about the built-in GPU on the M1?
Intel never had platform control. They had market control.
While they often had superior hardware compared to competitors, they had so much influence in the market that they could maintain market dominance even when the hardware wasn't superior.
While they often had superior hardware compared to competitors, they had so much influence in the market that they could maintain market dominance even when the hardware wasn't superior.
Apple Silicon Macs aren't any more locked down than x86 ones.
Hopefully, the GPU and such will be reverse engineered, that's a lot of one-time effort that might take a year or more the first time but will be easier for future gens.
Hopefully, the GPU and such will be reverse engineered, that's a lot of one-time effort that might take a year or more the first time but will be easier for future gens.
Now that the T2 chip has been hacked, that statement is no longer true.
I'm part of the checkra1n team, and I can tell you that the difference doesn't really matter. We can do anything that we need on Apple Silicon macs, and will show something when we are ready.
* you don't need to hack the SEP for anything here (consider it as a glorified TPM), and the AP is can be unlocked officially.
* you don't need to hack the SEP for anything here (consider it as a glorified TPM), and the AP is can be unlocked officially.
This article leaves two billion-dollar market opportunities on the table: Online testing and multiplayer gaming^.
Apple’s recent announcement of a web authentication API includes if your system is booted in fully secure mode^ an attestation that the OS is in secure mode, crypto-signed by the secure kernel whose own signature is by Apple.
This provides something that no desktop/laptop today can provide: certainty that the user isn’t tampering with the operating system to try and cheat. The entire stack, from hardware to UI, is signed and verified to have integrity, and modifying any component of the stack will result in the “secure” attestation being withheld. So instead of having to deal with insane anti-cheating spyware and kernel extensions and system monitoring, testing software and multiplayer game modes can simply require you to be in secure mode to login.
This is available today, immediately, if anyone were to implement it. Of course no one has yet, because no one is thinking of the iOS and macOS platforms as tamperproof computing for the Internet world, and so Apple’s quiet announcement of this in a technical API footnote has gone unnoticed.
Apple will probably always let you shut off anti-tampering on macOS with reboots and terminal commands, and then you can tamper to your heart’s content, but they will never allow your system to attest that it’s in tamperproof mode to third-parties, and that crypto signature can’t be spoofed since the Secure Enclave is involved in generating it.
This ‘tamperproof’ market opportunity is worth billions of dollars, and Apple made it there first. I can’t wait to see what happens when all the industries that suffer undetectable tampering today realize this.
^ Multiplayer FPS developers have had little incentive to develop for Metal prior to now, but Apple Silicon has the capability to easily unseat 5950X/GTX3090 as peak PC gaming performance for a tiny fraction of the cost and heat. Someday the Apple TV will get an Apple Silicon chip that can run FPS games using Metal at 4K/60/HDR, which should noticeably alter that cost-benefit equation.
^ I believe this is signed-sealed OS partition, SIP enabled, kernel extensions disabled; though I may have missed one or two bits.
Apple’s recent announcement of a web authentication API includes if your system is booted in fully secure mode^ an attestation that the OS is in secure mode, crypto-signed by the secure kernel whose own signature is by Apple.
This provides something that no desktop/laptop today can provide: certainty that the user isn’t tampering with the operating system to try and cheat. The entire stack, from hardware to UI, is signed and verified to have integrity, and modifying any component of the stack will result in the “secure” attestation being withheld. So instead of having to deal with insane anti-cheating spyware and kernel extensions and system monitoring, testing software and multiplayer game modes can simply require you to be in secure mode to login.
This is available today, immediately, if anyone were to implement it. Of course no one has yet, because no one is thinking of the iOS and macOS platforms as tamperproof computing for the Internet world, and so Apple’s quiet announcement of this in a technical API footnote has gone unnoticed.
Apple will probably always let you shut off anti-tampering on macOS with reboots and terminal commands, and then you can tamper to your heart’s content, but they will never allow your system to attest that it’s in tamperproof mode to third-parties, and that crypto signature can’t be spoofed since the Secure Enclave is involved in generating it.
This ‘tamperproof’ market opportunity is worth billions of dollars, and Apple made it there first. I can’t wait to see what happens when all the industries that suffer undetectable tampering today realize this.
^ Multiplayer FPS developers have had little incentive to develop for Metal prior to now, but Apple Silicon has the capability to easily unseat 5950X/GTX3090 as peak PC gaming performance for a tiny fraction of the cost and heat. Someday the Apple TV will get an Apple Silicon chip that can run FPS games using Metal at 4K/60/HDR, which should noticeably alter that cost-benefit equation.
^ I believe this is signed-sealed OS partition, SIP enabled, kernel extensions disabled; though I may have missed one or two bits.
What about this scenario?: A gamer wishes to cheat. They run the game on an unmodified, tamperproof, attested computer as per your description. Then they attach the HDMI output to a video capture card on a secondary computer, run some artificial intelligence software, and send back automated commands using a USB mouse and keyboard. Given that this kind of attack/circumvention is possible, are you sure that an attestable computer is a worthwhile goal?
Yes, because unlike today, that’s not a software-exclusive attack that can be sold online without shipping a physical product.
(Games can also trivially enable HDCP to defend against that sort of attack in the majority of cases where it’s even possible to construct it at all, setting aside the chances of successfully asking a neural net to decode a game’s video signal and cheat effectively — and since the entire stack is attested secure, cheaters can’t use hacked video drivers that spoof HDCP, either.)
(Games can also trivially enable HDCP to defend against that sort of attack in the majority of cases where it’s even possible to construct it at all, setting aside the chances of successfully asking a neural net to decode a game’s video signal and cheat effectively — and since the entire stack is attested secure, cheaters can’t use hacked video drivers that spoof HDCP, either.)
See also today’s parallel discussion about Microsoft Pluton providing remote attestation in exactly this manner for Azure cloud servers and, eventually, all consumer x86_64 CPUs: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25192681
If you look at Intel's mediocre-at-best improvements over the last few years, it makes perfect sense that Apple want to move to their own silicon. They also could have moved to AMD, but they probably started thinking about this move before Ryzen happened, and given Apple already make great chips for iPads, it's no great stretch to put them in MacBooks too.
Sure, it gives them more control, but they already had the ability to exercise platform control on x86. They could have disabled Boot Camp etc on the T2 chip Macs if they wanted to, it's not about the CPU.
Sure, it gives them more control, but they already had the ability to exercise platform control on x86. They could have disabled Boot Camp etc on the T2 chip Macs if they wanted to, it's not about the CPU.
<rant>
Even if everything the article claims is true, the open-source / libre software and hardware communities had at least 20 years to come up with a better model. So far, they have failed.
Is it such a crime for a corporation to try and prioritize their users' identities safety and produce a variant that tries to compromise between monopoly and convenience?
I fully recognize the possible dystopian futures here, mind you, and I am as distrustful towards corporations as most techies. But after being a commercial programmer for 19 years, I can't seem to find other agents who did better than Microsoft and Apple in this area. We all know the memes about them and I'll concede that 90% of them are true.
But could somebody -- or something -- else do better? So far the answer seems to be "no", and that's the reality we are living in. What does it say about us if we are denying it?
And don't get me wrong. Give me the same (or little less) performance on a 100% libre hardware and software and I'll switch tomorrow, even if a mere 13" laptop with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD costs $5000. I will, I kid you not. But there doesn't seem to be any choices that come close to Apple's laptop ergonomics, quality of screens, and (mostly) integrated and polished experience. And don't get me started with "if you do this bucket list of 37 tasks then Brand+Model laptop is very close to a MacBook". Truth is, there is nothing like a MacBook. I wish there was, but especially with release of the M1, there really isn't.
</rant>
Even if everything the article claims is true, the open-source / libre software and hardware communities had at least 20 years to come up with a better model. So far, they have failed.
Is it such a crime for a corporation to try and prioritize their users' identities safety and produce a variant that tries to compromise between monopoly and convenience?
I fully recognize the possible dystopian futures here, mind you, and I am as distrustful towards corporations as most techies. But after being a commercial programmer for 19 years, I can't seem to find other agents who did better than Microsoft and Apple in this area. We all know the memes about them and I'll concede that 90% of them are true.
But could somebody -- or something -- else do better? So far the answer seems to be "no", and that's the reality we are living in. What does it say about us if we are denying it?
And don't get me wrong. Give me the same (or little less) performance on a 100% libre hardware and software and I'll switch tomorrow, even if a mere 13" laptop with 32GB RAM and 1TB SSD costs $5000. I will, I kid you not. But there doesn't seem to be any choices that come close to Apple's laptop ergonomics, quality of screens, and (mostly) integrated and polished experience. And don't get me started with "if you do this bucket list of 37 tasks then Brand+Model laptop is very close to a MacBook". Truth is, there is nothing like a MacBook. I wish there was, but especially with release of the M1, there really isn't.
</rant>
A website that's got "android" in the site name is saying false things about Apple, what a surprise. There's nothing in Apple M1 that is about platform control any more than x86 in Mac was about platform control. They could have locked down the x86 Mac and prevented you from installing other OSes trivially, but they didn't. In fact they already allow you to install other OSes on Mac, if those OSes had support for the M1.
It is not ALL about platform control. ARM’s big.LITTLE architecture gives us full day battery browsing/video-playback using the efficient IceStorm cores as well as very competitive performance benchmark results using the FireStorm cores.
Apple's System-on-a-Chip provides additional value-add (e.g. unified memory). Vertical integration of silicon does expand Apple’s walled garden but I’m not convinced this is the driving force.
Apple's System-on-a-Chip provides additional value-add (e.g. unified memory). Vertical integration of silicon does expand Apple’s walled garden but I’m not convinced this is the driving force.
> Apple's System-on-a-Chip provides additional value-add (e.g. unified memory).
Both AMD and Intel support unified memory on their igp (and AMD at least is working on dGP unified memory).
Both AMD and Intel support unified memory on their igp (and AMD at least is working on dGP unified memory).
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Yeah and don't be duped by the cost savings and reliability of SpaceX, they just want control.
Product development is about control in some form.
If Apple have genuinely just make a decades leap in performance then you just look at the trade offs.
I'm not sure why I'm still typing, the article is such child-like faux insightfulness.
Product development is about control in some form.
If Apple have genuinely just make a decades leap in performance then you just look at the trade offs.
I'm not sure why I'm still typing, the article is such child-like faux insightfulness.
[deleted]
In one of the older threads someone asked whether you'd eventually be able to run Linux on this, and someone responded that this would be annoying to do, since there aren't any docs. Is that actually true? The Apple A SoCs don't boot random kernels, so I would think the Apple M SoC does not, either, and requires bootloader/kernel to be signed by Apple, just like iPhone firmware.
They can be configured to boot other operating systems, see https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/macos-recovery-a-ma....
From that page:
“Review the following security options:
Full Security: Ensures that only your current OS, or signed operating system software currently trusted by Apple, can run. This mode requires a network connection at software installation time.
Reduced Security: Allows any version of signed operating system software ever trusted by Apple to run.”
⇒ it appears ‘other’ still requires OSes signed by Apple, but it allows you to run an OS even if Apple has no longer trusts it. Or am I misreading that?
So, there might be Apple-signed Linuxes, but I wouldn’t hold my breadth for that.
“Review the following security options:
Full Security: Ensures that only your current OS, or signed operating system software currently trusted by Apple, can run. This mode requires a network connection at software installation time.
Reduced Security: Allows any version of signed operating system software ever trusted by Apple to run.”
⇒ it appears ‘other’ still requires OSes signed by Apple, but it allows you to run an OS even if Apple has no longer trusts it. Or am I misreading that?
So, there might be Apple-signed Linuxes, but I wouldn’t hold my breadth for that.
Edit: so like Secure Boot with only Windows key, Secure Boot with Microsoft-approved key (note that the key used for Windows and key for Linux signing is different) and Secure Boot disable.
Eh, I read reduced mode as basically how secure boot works on hardware with Microsoft-only keys in which MS signs a shim and it automatically blesses desendants (technically the OEM is not restricted to put other keys on the key database, but aside from business computers it seems that most machines have only Microsoft and OEM keys). Of course, Microsoft has a stronger incentive to sign these (or else they will be accused of antitrust violations), so Apple might not do that.
Eh, I read reduced mode as basically how secure boot works on hardware with Microsoft-only keys in which MS signs a shim and it automatically blesses desendants (technically the OEM is not restricted to put other keys on the key database, but aside from business computers it seems that most machines have only Microsoft and OEM keys). Of course, Microsoft has a stronger incentive to sign these (or else they will be accused of antitrust violations), so Apple might not do that.
See this "option only appears when you run csrutil disable", which is the one that you need for third-party OSes, and doesn't impose any requirements on the OS that you boot.
Looks like they removed "Permissive Security" mode from the support document in an update. You can still find it in https://web.archive.org/web/20201117164532/https://support.a.... Hope they don't remove this option in the firmware.
Bootloader/kernel signing can be turned off, there is even GUI for that if you turn off SIP first. Is it just like a jailbroken iPhone/iPad, but straight from Apple and without losing warranty.
No, you cannot turn off the signed bootloader requirement just by using the GUI. You need to run csrutil in a terminal after booting into macOS recovery.
Well, I should have been more precise. There is GUI for switching system into 'permissive security' mode that does not check system signatures [1] but user still needs to first turn SIP off using terminal in recovery mode.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/TsXQiHj.jpg
[1] https://i.imgur.com/TsXQiHj.jpg
To be fair though to Apple, at least it is standardized. Have you tried to turn off Secure Boot?
Note: depending on the specific motherboard it could be:
- Windows Command-line (some Surfaces)
- a simple switch on the BIOS configuration (usually on desktop motherboards which are sold as a part)
- set first a password to the setup and then switching it off (notably some Acer laptops)
- removing a screw physically, setting a setup password and switching it off (some Acer laptops probably copied from ChromeOS SKUs)
- Setting secure boot to custom and then clearing the key database (usually business computers)
- (Technically incorrect) setting it to BIOS/CSM mode
- Shout to heavens because that OEM has somehow hard-baked secure boot on the system and does not have CSM options (company shall remain unnamed but the name ends in L)
Note: depending on the specific motherboard it could be:
- Windows Command-line (some Surfaces)
- a simple switch on the BIOS configuration (usually on desktop motherboards which are sold as a part)
- set first a password to the setup and then switching it off (notably some Acer laptops)
- removing a screw physically, setting a setup password and switching it off (some Acer laptops probably copied from ChromeOS SKUs)
- Setting secure boot to custom and then clearing the key database (usually business computers)
- (Technically incorrect) setting it to BIOS/CSM mode
- Shout to heavens because that OEM has somehow hard-baked secure boot on the system and does not have CSM options (company shall remain unnamed but the name ends in L)
As soon as you have kernel-level code execution ability you can "chainload" either u-boot or a Linux kernel directly. But yeah, the biggest problem will be the lack of documentation - for example the good old classic iPod had iPodLinux, but never got real traction.
The new M series? Probably Apple themselves will allow booting other OSes, but I would not count on any official support in getting stuff running.
The new M series? Probably Apple themselves will allow booting other OSes, but I would not count on any official support in getting stuff running.
[deleted]
To be honest, do most people even know or care what CPU Apple is using for their Macs?
I’m assuming that people buy Macs for the software platform from Apple.
I have a few Macs, and I never had any intention to install Linux on it.
But admittedly I only used my Macs as a toy. I eventually gave up on it, since it didn’t do what I needed it to do.
I’m assuming that people buy Macs for the software platform from Apple.
I have a few Macs, and I never had any intention to install Linux on it.
But admittedly I only used my Macs as a toy. I eventually gave up on it, since it didn’t do what I needed it to do.
If nVidia/ARM manages to put out a chip that competes with Intel (doesn't even have to be as fast as the M1) and have Windows on-board, it's probably over for Intel
(Of course, unless they engage in some unfair competition, but I think the price difference will be so big it won't matter)
(Of course, unless they engage in some unfair competition, but I think the price difference will be so big it won't matter)
[deleted]
> Today, similar pricing and innovation issues have reared their head with Intel.
I’d also add difficulties with coordinating releases.
It will still be difficult, but should become easier.
I’d also add difficulties with coordinating releases.
It will still be difficult, but should become easier.
Google Play Services is all about platform control.
There are other benefits to the architecture change. A strong motivation is that profit margins can be increased by using more efficient in CPU size/speed, battery size, and amount of RAM to deliver the same performance compared to x86 Macs. Rather than pass these savings to consumers Apple can bank the difference. And the consumer wins with smaller/lighter devices and longer battery life. Expect that macOS will continue by adding background processing limit permissions etc.
MacOS is not iOS because a Mac is not a phone. Craig Federeghi has spoken about the differences multiple times recently, repeatedly saying they aren’t changing MacOS to be more like iPadOS or iOS. They use the Mac too, and need its separate use case.
They got 20 hour battery life just by switching to Apple Silicon, they aren’t going to hobble Mac apps with any significant restrictions to try to eek out a few hours more.
They got 20 hour battery life just by switching to Apple Silicon, they aren’t going to hobble Mac apps with any significant restrictions to try to eek out a few hours more.
Yours dearly, the competition.
¿Porque no los dos?
Surprise, surprise - Apple wants to control the end-to-end computing experience on their Macs the way they do on their iDevices thus allowing them to differentiate themselves in a commodity market. Why wouldn't they do that?
Always one guy who shouts about control and submission. Don't like it don't buy it?
It's like saying
"I like my polluting car, if you don't, don't buy one"
"I like my t-shirt that has been manufactured with slave labour, if you don't, don't buy one"
Can we stop with this naive "Let me buy one, if you don't like it don't buy it" ?
This puts your immediate personal comfort over the common future of computing, technology, freedom, privacy, economy and more.
"I like my polluting car, if you don't, don't buy one"
"I like my t-shirt that has been manufactured with slave labour, if you don't, don't buy one"
Can we stop with this naive "Let me buy one, if you don't like it don't buy it" ?
This puts your immediate personal comfort over the common future of computing, technology, freedom, privacy, economy and more.
Wow what a bunch of non sequitors.
Someone polluting the air impacts your life, someone choosing a different computer does not.
Is someone in a third world country building goods for first world consumers “slave labor” or improving their standard of living by “pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps”. Methinks an accurate discussion is far more nuanced than you really want to have.
Someone polluting the air impacts your life, someone choosing a different computer does not.
Is someone in a third world country building goods for first world consumers “slave labor” or improving their standard of living by “pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps”. Methinks an accurate discussion is far more nuanced than you really want to have.
This is a shallow argument that is repeated over and over again. - For those who invested a lot in hardware, software and know-how on Apple platforms, cost of change is holding them back from quickly jumping to other platforms. For them, Apple is a quasi monopole. For me personally, it would take quite some time changing platforms, and I am already planning on doing this, but it will take time.
More importantly, Apple is a huge player that shapes the structure of the industry towards a vision that lacks any kind of freedom for its users. An end game where its users are just consumers, void of any freedom to do what they want with their hardware. This is not a bright future Apple is painting: Some sort of Utopia that we can take part of by giving up freedom, by accepting Apple's rules 100% or leaving their territory.
I can understand that what Apple does appeals to many users. I still recommend Apple devices to my retired parents and to friends who do not want to fiddle with their hardware. But that folks here on HN are defending Apple's practices is way beyond me.
More importantly, Apple is a huge player that shapes the structure of the industry towards a vision that lacks any kind of freedom for its users. An end game where its users are just consumers, void of any freedom to do what they want with their hardware. This is not a bright future Apple is painting: Some sort of Utopia that we can take part of by giving up freedom, by accepting Apple's rules 100% or leaving their territory.
I can understand that what Apple does appeals to many users. I still recommend Apple devices to my retired parents and to friends who do not want to fiddle with their hardware. But that folks here on HN are defending Apple's practices is way beyond me.
They're shouting at you not to buy it!
I bet there were people like you back when slavery was legal.
If you don't like slavery, just don't buy slaves. Nothing wrong with that, right? YoU hAvE oPtIonS aS a CoNsuMer.
If you don't like slavery, just don't buy slaves. Nothing wrong with that, right? YoU hAvE oPtIonS aS a CoNsuMer.
It is in extremely bad taste—not to mention ludicrously inaccurate—to compare your premium laptop ecosystem options with chattel slavery.
Aren't Apple devices assembled in sweatshops? The comparison might be more accurate than intended.
No, you see Foxconn is the one building them, Apple only pays them.. Lol.
> I bet there were people like you back when slavery was legal.
It still is.
Go research Apple's relationship with Foxconn.
It still is.
Go research Apple's relationship with Foxconn.
Apples relationship with Foxconn has a lot more to do with providing safer and higher paid jobs to allow workers to escape brutal rural farm jobs.
I’ve never seen anyone wait in massive lines for days just for the chance at slavery.
I’ve never seen anyone wait in massive lines for days just for the chance at slavery.
It was a masterclass in duping really.
Step 1. Design the enclosure/thermals for a much lower TDP ARM chip, causing the Intel chips to thermal throttle and run hot as possible burning your lap and roasting your palms for years
Step 2. Introduce the new powerful ARM chip which now runs much cooler and faster in the same enclosure
Step 3. Profit!
Worked on me, I just ordered mine
Step 1. Design the enclosure/thermals for a much lower TDP ARM chip, causing the Intel chips to thermal throttle and run hot as possible burning your lap and roasting your palms for years
Step 2. Introduce the new powerful ARM chip which now runs much cooler and faster in the same enclosure
Step 3. Profit!
Worked on me, I just ordered mine
That would hold water if people only compared it to intel Macs. Last I saw, most decent reviews compared it also to other mobile intel processors, so who exactly is in the group that's duping you?
Don't get me wrong it's an amazing chip, but the Intels were never given a proper chance on the previous machines especially the MBA. If my previous gen machine wasn't a toaster I wouldn't be upgrading
How is that a dupe? A dupe would be if the M1 chip was worse than Intel. If Apple can design a chip for those constraints and Intel can't, it's Intel's fault and problem
It's Intel's fault but it is a problem for all of us. It isn't good when a company gets too big in too many areas and tightly couples everything.
Dupe is not a good word, but maybe disingenuous? Apple is touting silence now, but had the thermals of intel MacBooks been better they could be way less of hairdryers too. Apple could have also introduced better power controls for Intel Macs (now everybody runs Turbo Boost switcher).
iMac Pro has shown that they can do better with same enclosure, I wonder if they could have done something with MacBooks too. They would probably have to sacrifice a few millimetres of thinness but I think the decreased noise and throttling would be more noticeable.
That said, I don't believe there was any master plan behind this. They just originally prioritised thinness and battery size over everything else. With M1 they can have their cake and eat it too.
Edit: Also they could have ditched Intel for AMD a generation or two ago and also improve on performance per watt.
iMac Pro has shown that they can do better with same enclosure, I wonder if they could have done something with MacBooks too. They would probably have to sacrifice a few millimetres of thinness but I think the decreased noise and throttling would be more noticeable.
That said, I don't believe there was any master plan behind this. They just originally prioritised thinness and battery size over everything else. With M1 they can have their cake and eat it too.
Edit: Also they could have ditched Intel for AMD a generation or two ago and also improve on performance per watt.
>Don’t be duped by performance, Apple’s M1 silicon is all about platform control
Yes. That's the biggest benefit, and another reason I'm buying it (on top of great performance for my NLE apps). I want the Mac to be it's own platform, and be under Apple's control and vision. If it's also made foul-proof and air-tight, so much the better.
I don't want another lowest common denominator OS converging on the same point.
If I didn't want platform control I'd buy some OEM device...
That doesn't mean I approve of any and every restriction. But I'm ok with a "walled garden" -- better than an open garden full of junkies and garbage. Some of the best Japanese gardens and so on I've seen had walls around them...
Of course an open garden that's beautifully maintained, respected by those in it, etc, would be even better, but that's hardly the case in real life, so that's where curation and walls come in.
To me this brings me to the Amiga and Atari and Acorn and other alternative platforms of my youth. I don't want everything to be amd64 and Windows or the nth Linux distro.
In any case, Apple doesn't force anyone's hand, if anything they make it more difficult to buy their stuff (more expensive, targeting the expensive end of the market, only 10% market share at best, different OS and now different CPU than the rest of the market, etc).
Yes. That's the biggest benefit, and another reason I'm buying it (on top of great performance for my NLE apps). I want the Mac to be it's own platform, and be under Apple's control and vision. If it's also made foul-proof and air-tight, so much the better.
I don't want another lowest common denominator OS converging on the same point.
If I didn't want platform control I'd buy some OEM device...
That doesn't mean I approve of any and every restriction. But I'm ok with a "walled garden" -- better than an open garden full of junkies and garbage. Some of the best Japanese gardens and so on I've seen had walls around them...
Of course an open garden that's beautifully maintained, respected by those in it, etc, would be even better, but that's hardly the case in real life, so that's where curation and walls come in.
To me this brings me to the Amiga and Atari and Acorn and other alternative platforms of my youth. I don't want everything to be amd64 and Windows or the nth Linux distro.
In any case, Apple doesn't force anyone's hand, if anything they make it more difficult to buy their stuff (more expensive, targeting the expensive end of the market, only 10% market share at best, different OS and now different CPU than the rest of the market, etc).
This is the very definition of off topic and tangential but...
Walled garden is a rich metaphor. You can contrast a walled garden to a community garden as you did. That's about controlling who comes in.
Anyway.. the "garden" part has is rich too. What's the contrast to garden? Wilderness? I think what makes a garden is being artificial. The gardner makes the garden. Everything in the garden is natural and the garden itself is inevitably an ecosystem. But, if the gardner abandons it, the garden will quickly evolve into something else. In that sense, the garden is an moderately unstable state being maintained by a gardner.
Besides biodiversity, that's my way of quantifying wildness. What will happen if people leave? How different will it be? I think that's why we associate forest so strongly with wilderness. The forest will remain a forest. The amount of tension between what a garden is now and what nature would like it to be.
Walled garden is a rich metaphor. You can contrast a walled garden to a community garden as you did. That's about controlling who comes in.
Anyway.. the "garden" part has is rich too. What's the contrast to garden? Wilderness? I think what makes a garden is being artificial. The gardner makes the garden. Everything in the garden is natural and the garden itself is inevitably an ecosystem. But, if the gardner abandons it, the garden will quickly evolve into something else. In that sense, the garden is an moderately unstable state being maintained by a gardner.
Besides biodiversity, that's my way of quantifying wildness. What will happen if people leave? How different will it be? I think that's why we associate forest so strongly with wilderness. The forest will remain a forest. The amount of tension between what a garden is now and what nature would like it to be.
Can you leave these beautiful Japanese Gardens once you decided to enter or are you getting jailed there? Because you can't just leave Apples ecosystem unless willing to switch devices+ecosystem of course.
I've used Apple for 16+ years. I can leave at any moment.
Most apps I use are cross platform (Adobe CS, Cubase, Resolve), others are web based (Gmail, Basecamp, etc), my music is on Spotify, videos on Netflix and Prime, and my peripherals all work.
>Because you can't just leave Apples ecosystem unless willing to switch devices+ecosystem of course.
Well, I buy new laptop every 4-5 years or so. So if I want to move, I can always do so. If in a rush, I can always sell the old laptop in the first or second year too - with the added benefit that Macs keep their resale value better.
Most apps I use are cross platform (Adobe CS, Cubase, Resolve), others are web based (Gmail, Basecamp, etc), my music is on Spotify, videos on Netflix and Prime, and my peripherals all work.
>Because you can't just leave Apples ecosystem unless willing to switch devices+ecosystem of course.
Well, I buy new laptop every 4-5 years or so. So if I want to move, I can always do so. If in a rush, I can always sell the old laptop in the first or second year too - with the added benefit that Macs keep their resale value better.
"Switching devices+ecosystem" is leaving the garden. There's really no other possible way to put it in that metaphor. You're not jailed.
The only thing keeping you there is your own desire to retain the things that are...inside the garden. The Apple software. The services. The user experience.
The one thing I can see being upset about is losing access to the software you've purchased. But switching to Apple (or even Linux) from Windows/Android means giving up exactly the same things. That's not about a "walled garden": it's just a consequence of the fact that software has to be written, or at least compiled, for a particular platform, and significant extra effort has to be expended to make it functional across platforms.
The only thing keeping you there is your own desire to retain the things that are...inside the garden. The Apple software. The services. The user experience.
The one thing I can see being upset about is losing access to the software you've purchased. But switching to Apple (or even Linux) from Windows/Android means giving up exactly the same things. That's not about a "walled garden": it's just a consequence of the fact that software has to be written, or at least compiled, for a particular platform, and significant extra effort has to be expended to make it functional across platforms.
The Ben Franklin quote that
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
seems particularly apt, here.
Rhetorically: how much do you care about privacy as an issue? Because this is the trade you're making, and you should do it with your eyes open.
I personally don't think the trade-off is worth it, but I also really really hope I'm wrong.
My biggest cause for concern is the long history of the USG collaborating with megacorporations to control people. It's super scary as we reach the point with technology where every person can be identified fully, and is essentially "always on". You can argue that you can unplug, but the cost of that option is so high when society is dependent on it that it rapidly becomes impractical.
"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
seems particularly apt, here.
Rhetorically: how much do you care about privacy as an issue? Because this is the trade you're making, and you should do it with your eyes open.
I personally don't think the trade-off is worth it, but I also really really hope I'm wrong.
My biggest cause for concern is the long history of the USG collaborating with megacorporations to control people. It's super scary as we reach the point with technology where every person can be identified fully, and is essentially "always on". You can argue that you can unplug, but the cost of that option is so high when society is dependent on it that it rapidly becomes impractical.
>The Ben Franklin quote that "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety." seems particularly apt, here.
On the other hand, I'm a European, could not care less for Ben Franklin (or the Founding Fathers for that matter), and don't consider them some great sages of the centuries. Nor is their word gospel.
I say that because I see such supposed "deep" quotes all the time, as if a simplistic proverb-like statement settles a complex real world situation...
Not to mention that the quote is used out of context [1].
Safety is always temporary -- there are no long term guarantees in history. And we all give up all kinds of essential liberties for safety - that's part of living in a society. We pay taxes, we allow ourselves to be taken to prison if we break one of 1000000 laws, etc.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou....
On the other hand, I'm a European, could not care less for Ben Franklin (or the Founding Fathers for that matter), and don't consider them some great sages of the centuries. Nor is their word gospel.
I say that because I see such supposed "deep" quotes all the time, as if a simplistic proverb-like statement settles a complex real world situation...
Not to mention that the quote is used out of context [1].
Safety is always temporary -- there are no long term guarantees in history. And we all give up all kinds of essential liberties for safety - that's part of living in a society. We pay taxes, we allow ourselves to be taken to prison if we break one of 1000000 laws, etc.
[1] https://www.npr.org/2015/03/02/390245038/ben-franklins-famou....
I wasn't making any assumptions about your nationality; it seems irrelevant regarding the truth or falsity of an idea. Like different countries responding to COVID: truth doesn't really care how special the US/Sweden/Japan/wherever thinks they are.
I read your link but I don't understand the point that the Brookings institution is trying to make about the context of the quote. I'm open minded, but miss the point they are making; perhaps because it's a transcribed interview.
Nevertheless: quotes are nice because they distill an idea down to an elemental form. They might be wise or they might be dumb, but the simple idea expressed in the phrase (regardless of who uttered it, or what they meant at the time) seems wise to me as we consider the tradeoffs between a walled garden vis-a-vis privacy.
I read your link but I don't understand the point that the Brookings institution is trying to make about the context of the quote. I'm open minded, but miss the point they are making; perhaps because it's a transcribed interview.
Nevertheless: quotes are nice because they distill an idea down to an elemental form. They might be wise or they might be dumb, but the simple idea expressed in the phrase (regardless of who uttered it, or what they meant at the time) seems wise to me as we consider the tradeoffs between a walled garden vis-a-vis privacy.
>I wasn't making any assumptions about your nationality; it seems irrelevant regarding the truth or falsity of an idea.
Yes, but it's not irrelevant regarding to the propensity of certain nationals to consider some ideas true (or "consider them to be self-evident" - see what I did here?), and to put them forward at any opportunity.
>Nevertheless: quotes are nice because they distill an idea down to an elemental form. They might be wise or they might be dumb, but the simple idea expressed in the phrase (regardless of who uttered it, or what they meant at the time) seems wise to me as we consider the tradeoffs between a walled garden vis-a-vis privacy.
Well, the idea is: never trade essential liberties for temporary safety, you'll lose both.
To which I answer: safety is always temporary, what's an "essential libery" is debatable, and we must voluntarily (and ocassionally involuntarily) give up essential liberties all the time to get the temporary safety and other goodies afforded by society.
Yes, but it's not irrelevant regarding to the propensity of certain nationals to consider some ideas true (or "consider them to be self-evident" - see what I did here?), and to put them forward at any opportunity.
>Nevertheless: quotes are nice because they distill an idea down to an elemental form. They might be wise or they might be dumb, but the simple idea expressed in the phrase (regardless of who uttered it, or what they meant at the time) seems wise to me as we consider the tradeoffs between a walled garden vis-a-vis privacy.
Well, the idea is: never trade essential liberties for temporary safety, you'll lose both.
To which I answer: safety is always temporary, what's an "essential libery" is debatable, and we must voluntarily (and ocassionally involuntarily) give up essential liberties all the time to get the temporary safety and other goodies afforded by society.
Apple's walled gardens don't solve the maleware problem. People get code Apple doesn't approve of onto their platforms all the time.
What these things do make more difficult is community maintained software, which is what made the platforms you feel nostalgic about so nice.
What these things do make more difficult is community maintained software, which is what made the platforms you feel nostalgic about so nice.
Yeah let us stop using Anti virus software on PC because it doesn’t stop every virus. It is never about elimination but minimization. Reality is that macOS and iOS both have much smaller malware problem than competing platforms.
I would disagree, GNU/Linux has less of a malware problem than OSX and at the end of the day they all run browsers which have their own issues.
There's also a serious cost to the walled gardens. These things eliminate community maintained software which results in everything on your computer being controlled by a profit (often marketing) driven corporation. These always eventually die (taking your data with them) or abuse their special position of power.
There's also a serious cost to the walled gardens. These things eliminate community maintained software which results in everything on your computer being controlled by a profit (often marketing) driven corporation. These always eventually die (taking your data with them) or abuse their special position of power.
>There's also a serious cost to the walled gardens. These things eliminate community maintained software
So, what's Homebrew, MacPorts, or the tons of Mac-native foss UI apps?
So, what's Homebrew, MacPorts, or the tons of Mac-native foss UI apps?
Homebrew at least is outside the walled garden. There's no way a source based package manager would ever make it onto an Apple run app store.
Community maintained software seems to be dying without anything Apple is doing because people can’t afford to maintain it.
>Apple's walled gardens don't solve the maleware problem.
It reduces it to the point of being a non-problem.
>People get code Apple doesn't approve of onto their platforms all the time.
Only if they put it there themselves. 99.99% of those "Apple viruses" one hears are just trojans.
And if you stick to the Mac App Store and trusted sources (Adobe, MS, etc), you get close to zero malware, with the ocassional "missed it at Mac App store review" exception that gets stomped on soon.
I think this is enough:
https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security....
It reduces it to the point of being a non-problem.
>People get code Apple doesn't approve of onto their platforms all the time.
Only if they put it there themselves. 99.99% of those "Apple viruses" one hears are just trojans.
And if you stick to the Mac App Store and trusted sources (Adobe, MS, etc), you get close to zero malware, with the ocassional "missed it at Mac App store review" exception that gets stomped on soon.
I think this is enough:
https://www.pandasecurity.com/en/mediacenter/mobile-security....
Well said. I don’t have anything to add other than I, too, am all in on the “it-just-works” of Apple.
The problems with this are more societal ones than technical or practical: It is impossible, for example, to install most popular apps for macOS without identifying yourself to Apple (and by extension the US government and military intelligence). You can't use the App Store (even for free apps) without an Apple ID, and you can't get an Apple ID without a phone number. (In many countries, you can't get a phone number without a government ID.)
Similarly, if you wish to publish apps widely, you can do so with unsigned ones, but users won't ever figure out how to run those.[1] If you want your app to be widely used, you must ID yourself to Apple, who can deny/censor at will (or under state (or Hollywood) compulsion).
It builds a world in which it is impossible to easily build or distribute tools that the state really doesn't want distributed or used, because Apple is too large to deny them their demands.
I think the phrase used is "turnkey tyranny".
Anonymous publishing is essential to the preservation of a free society.
Imagine if there were one company who could remotely disable printing presses, or televisions/radios.
For those of you who aren't yet worried about this possibility of state compulsion, I ask you this: Dubya is to Trump as Trump is to x? It's not a matter of if these remote censorship tools built by Apple will be used to abuse human rights en masse, but instead a matter of when. Apple is already compromising their crypto due to requests (not compulsion) from the federal police—today.
[1]: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
Similarly, if you wish to publish apps widely, you can do so with unsigned ones, but users won't ever figure out how to run those.[1] If you want your app to be widely used, you must ID yourself to Apple, who can deny/censor at will (or under state (or Hollywood) compulsion).
It builds a world in which it is impossible to easily build or distribute tools that the state really doesn't want distributed or used, because Apple is too large to deny them their demands.
I think the phrase used is "turnkey tyranny".
Anonymous publishing is essential to the preservation of a free society.
Imagine if there were one company who could remotely disable printing presses, or televisions/radios.
For those of you who aren't yet worried about this possibility of state compulsion, I ask you this: Dubya is to Trump as Trump is to x? It's not a matter of if these remote censorship tools built by Apple will be used to abuse human rights en masse, but instead a matter of when. Apple is already compromising their crypto due to requests (not compulsion) from the federal police—today.
[1]: https://lapcatsoftware.com/articles/unsigned.html
>The problems with this are more societal ones than technical or practical: It is impossible, for example, to install most popular apps for macOS without identifying yourself to Apple (and by extension the US government and military intelligence).
For those kind of problems, I agree. But I think they should be solved in the political and legal level, not some technical fix.
If you can't trust the government, if the government wants increasingly more data, the government should be curbed by protests, voting, and so on. The apps not talking to the vendor is just a band-aid. They can still get your moves from your phone, your searches from Google, and so on.
And, in any case, Tor is not a substitute for democracy.
>It builds a world in which it is impossible to easily build or distribute tools that the state really doesn't want distributed or used, because Apple is too large to deny them their demands.
We shouldn't allow the state to have a say on this, like we shouldn't allow censorship.
(Of course, many tech people, are all ok for censorship, as long as it happens to the right, that is bad, guys, e.g. those peddling "fake news" -- with the state or the Zuck guaranteeing for them what are "real news", like the WMDs and other establishment truths).
For those kind of problems, I agree. But I think they should be solved in the political and legal level, not some technical fix.
If you can't trust the government, if the government wants increasingly more data, the government should be curbed by protests, voting, and so on. The apps not talking to the vendor is just a band-aid. They can still get your moves from your phone, your searches from Google, and so on.
And, in any case, Tor is not a substitute for democracy.
>It builds a world in which it is impossible to easily build or distribute tools that the state really doesn't want distributed or used, because Apple is too large to deny them their demands.
We shouldn't allow the state to have a say on this, like we shouldn't allow censorship.
(Of course, many tech people, are all ok for censorship, as long as it happens to the right, that is bad, guys, e.g. those peddling "fake news" -- with the state or the Zuck guaranteeing for them what are "real news", like the WMDs and other establishment truths).
> If you can't trust the government, if the government wants increasingly more data, the government should be curbed by protests, voting, and so on. The apps not talking to the vendor is just a band-aid.
And what if you can't discuss protests or protest organization on any of the apps you are allowed to install on your device, as Apple has made the case already in Hong Kong?
This all starts with the tools. Without tools, we cannot even begin to effect change: to organize protests, to communicate with other organizers without surveillance and interference (Poitras can probably testify to this), to reach potential voters.
In Apple's jurisdiction, there are essentially zero options on the ballot for candidates that wish to roll back US state/military surveillance. Voting is not a useful or practical tool in this fight.
Private communications tools (as well as arms) must remain out of the instantaneous reach of the state. Once those are compromised, there will be no way to effect practical change or resistance.
If Signal's iOS publishing certificate were revoked tomorrow and Apple temporarily stopped signing self-builds, we'd be there right now with iOS phones.
We've already lost this freedom on mobile. We need to fight to preserve it on desktop/laptop.
And what if you can't discuss protests or protest organization on any of the apps you are allowed to install on your device, as Apple has made the case already in Hong Kong?
This all starts with the tools. Without tools, we cannot even begin to effect change: to organize protests, to communicate with other organizers without surveillance and interference (Poitras can probably testify to this), to reach potential voters.
In Apple's jurisdiction, there are essentially zero options on the ballot for candidates that wish to roll back US state/military surveillance. Voting is not a useful or practical tool in this fight.
Private communications tools (as well as arms) must remain out of the instantaneous reach of the state. Once those are compromised, there will be no way to effect practical change or resistance.
If Signal's iOS publishing certificate were revoked tomorrow and Apple temporarily stopped signing self-builds, we'd be there right now with iOS phones.
We've already lost this freedom on mobile. We need to fight to preserve it on desktop/laptop.
>And what if you can't discuss protests or protest organization on any of the apps you are allowed to install on your device, as Apple has made the case already in Hong Kong?
What about it? People had protests, and far more massive, at the era of Louis XVI or the Czar, or Pinochet, or whatever. Without IM apps and 10000 electronic alternatives, and with much worse repurcursions if caught...
>In Apple's jurisdiction, there are essentially zero options on the ballot for candidates that wish to roll back US state/military surveillance. Voting is not a useful or practical tool in this fight.
Sideloading isn't gonna help if that's the kind of problems you're facing...
What about it? People had protests, and far more massive, at the era of Louis XVI or the Czar, or Pinochet, or whatever. Without IM apps and 10000 electronic alternatives, and with much worse repurcursions if caught...
>In Apple's jurisdiction, there are essentially zero options on the ballot for candidates that wish to roll back US state/military surveillance. Voting is not a useful or practical tool in this fight.
Sideloading isn't gonna help if that's the kind of problems you're facing...
Wars are fought now primarily with information, not violence. I would like to keep it that way; extremely effective systems of state censorship of publishing and communications, such as implemented presently on iOS (remember when the US was about to ban TikTok?) is a good way to force large groups to revert to those bad, old ways if all other options are removed.
I don't want the majority of the population to only have immediate access to devices that are similarly censored, centrally controlled, and able to be remotely surveilled (such as the unencrypted OCSP data leak extant in macOS the last two+ years, and all of the telemetry built into Windows by design).
Privacy and freedom and peace are all deeply interlinked. It's an ecosystem, and damaging one part can have deep consequences for the others.
I don't want the majority of the population to only have immediate access to devices that are similarly censored, centrally controlled, and able to be remotely surveilled (such as the unencrypted OCSP data leak extant in macOS the last two+ years, and all of the telemetry built into Windows by design).
Privacy and freedom and peace are all deeply interlinked. It's an ecosystem, and damaging one part can have deep consequences for the others.
>Wars are fought now primarily with information, not violence.
Only in the safe western countries, where wars have not been fought for 70+ years anyway.
In the rest of the world wars are still fought with violence, including violence by said western countries...
This idea is like the similar one that today's currency is ideas and information, not industry -- when the industrial production is bigger than ever and our dependency on it bigger than ever, it's just (similarly) hidden (outsourced) in China and the developing world.
Only in the safe western countries, where wars have not been fought for 70+ years anyway.
In the rest of the world wars are still fought with violence, including violence by said western countries...
This idea is like the similar one that today's currency is ideas and information, not industry -- when the industrial production is bigger than ever and our dependency on it bigger than ever, it's just (similarly) hidden (outsourced) in China and the developing world.
> the government should be curbed by protests, voting, and so on. The apps not talking to the vendor is just a band-aid
This is a big false dichotomy.
It's difficult to find an aspect of modern society that is not influenced by a complex combination of social, ethical and legal norms plus science, technology, economy, education and so on.
This is a big false dichotomy.
It's difficult to find an aspect of modern society that is not influenced by a complex combination of social, ethical and legal norms plus science, technology, economy, education and so on.
>This is a big false dichotomy.
No, it's an actual distinction.
>It's difficult to find an aspect of modern society that is not influenced by a complex combination of social, ethical and legal norms plus science, technology, economy, education and so on.
And all of them are influenced by politics.
No, it's an actual distinction.
>It's difficult to find an aspect of modern society that is not influenced by a complex combination of social, ethical and legal norms plus science, technology, economy, education and so on.
And all of them are influenced by politics.
Please learn the meaning of "false dichotomy".
Please don't be rude.
Or, to answer at the same level, learn the difference between
(a) when action at two fronts is legitimate
vs:
(b) when there's an essential front where action must be focused at, and a distraction/band-aid/irrelevant secondary target that doesn't really settle anything.
Not all dichotomies are false dichotomies. Sometimes you really should not spend effort at one level/battleground, but on another.
The fact that you can spend effort at both is irrelevant -- and spending effort at both can still be detrimental to your cause.
Or, to answer at the same level, learn the difference between
(a) when action at two fronts is legitimate
vs:
(b) when there's an essential front where action must be focused at, and a distraction/band-aid/irrelevant secondary target that doesn't really settle anything.
Not all dichotomies are false dichotomies. Sometimes you really should not spend effort at one level/battleground, but on another.
The fact that you can spend effort at both is irrelevant -- and spending effort at both can still be detrimental to your cause.
The problem with this line of thinking regarding Macs is, well, there are just so many good alternatives to Macs.
Now, it is worth giving consideration to the possibility that Macs will become so much better than the competition that they could become like iPhones, and develop more of a stranglehold over people's lives.
As it stands now, and in the immediate future, I don't see this as a valid concern. There are just too many good alternatives, if your concerns are limited to the above.
(now, I wish open hardware became way more prevalent -- not PC open, but open source with libre firmware. I'm concerned that window is permanently closing, as the market is consolidating on very literal monopolies with highly restricted firmware. Almost every company I'm aware of is now using Synopsys IP for their DDR4 PHY trainer -- a CPU which has direct access to memory, and writable, signed, encrypted firmware...)
Now, it is worth giving consideration to the possibility that Macs will become so much better than the competition that they could become like iPhones, and develop more of a stranglehold over people's lives.
As it stands now, and in the immediate future, I don't see this as a valid concern. There are just too many good alternatives, if your concerns are limited to the above.
(now, I wish open hardware became way more prevalent -- not PC open, but open source with libre firmware. I'm concerned that window is permanently closing, as the market is consolidating on very literal monopolies with highly restricted firmware. Almost every company I'm aware of is now using Synopsys IP for their DDR4 PHY trainer -- a CPU which has direct access to memory, and writable, signed, encrypted firmware...)
As for the average person, phones have already taken over, and things like laptops and desktops are mostly irrelevant except in the workplace.
We've already seen total vendor control there. There's nothing to suggest that those same vendors won't do the exact same things on all of their platforms. Already it's basically impossible to distribute unsigned mac apps.
We've already seen total vendor control there. There's nothing to suggest that those same vendors won't do the exact same things on all of their platforms. Already it's basically impossible to distribute unsigned mac apps.
I don’t think there is anything that suggests Apple is going to stop people from installing Apps outside their App Store. Rather it is about making sure it is easy for regular users to get Apps in a safe manner without malware and Trojan horses.
This isn’t just hype. We know for a fact that this is a much smaller problem on iOS than Android. I am happy that Android exists as a choice for users but let us not pretend there are no trade offs.
It is a bit too conspiratorial to think Apple control is all about some dictatorship fetish. It is a choice Apple makes to improve user experience at the expense of flexibility.