Apple Silicon M1: A Developer's Perspective
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1. For my open source projects, running tests has sped up so much that I find it more of a joy to work on this projects now. Test suites that take ~60 seconds on my 2017 MacBook Pro i7, now take just ~15 seconds. That's a HUGE win in the edit, run test suite cycle.
2. My Rust projects now compile in WAY less time. Something that used to take 3 minutes to compile + link for a debug build is now down to 40 seconds. Once again, this has increased my productivity in the edit, compile, test cycle.
For other projects like node/npm the speedups are also massive and running various pipelines to go from source code to final deployable object is also much faster.
I use vim to develop, and it runs on Rosetta just fine, so I can continue to use all my existing plugins. I don't extensively use docker containers, but for those I connect to the cloud instead of running them locally, which is a move I was already making even on my Intel based MacBook Pro.
I got the 16GB 13" MacBook Pro. I, like the blog author, was thinking of this as a secondary laptop, something fun to have around, but I have hardly touched my old 15" MacBook Pro because this one does everything I already need. And does it faster.
I've been living with 16GB of RAM forever, so maybe I am used to fitting in that memory space... I avoid Electron based apps like the plague, and with being able to run iPad/iOS apps on the M1, I've been able to cut down even further since things like Authy are way faster to launch when they aren't large Chrome based hogs.
I am looking forward to the 16" MacBook Pro's with Apple Silicon based processors, but only because I do miss the additional screen real-estate, and prefer the larger size. But the 13" MacBook Pro M1 has been absolutely fantastic so far.
I'm glad Vim is running fine on Rosetta, still, if you wanted to compile it from source, it really shouldn't be too hard.
(Rust is a harder problem, so I wouldn't worry too much, still, once the dependencies are downloaded and compiled it's usually fine)
$ file `which vim`
/usr/bin/vim: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures: [x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e]
/usr/bin/vim (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
/usr/bin/vim (for architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64eIt hasn't been merged yet as some of the dependencies aren't available, one of them apparently being LuaJIT, but if you build it yourself without that it shouldn't be a problem.
Also need to track down and install all of the dependencies, and the dependencies dependencies and all the way down, and figure out the right configure flags to pass, and what environment variables it needs and where it expects to look for header files and the like.
Doing all of that from scratch takes hours and hours. Homebrew lets me not worry about that, and instead be productive.
The nice thing is I can just wait out the compatibility issues re: arm migration, especially with some of the third party crates my rust projects depend on currently failing to build.
Also, the ARM version of Homebrew is not yet ready for primetime, there is a ton of software that doesn't compile for ARM yet (Including MacVim).
iOS apps on the Mac are a game changer for me. The UX isn't 100% perfect, but it sure is better than web apps, which are very often slow, resource intensive and kill your battery. I haven't touched the Twitter web app since I've installed the iOS/Catalyst app on my Mac. Even with its iOS-optimized user interface, the better performance of the iOS app makes it so much more enjoyable than the web version.
I'm very much looking forward to seeing other iOS apps arrive on the Mac, to replace their web variants.
There's really something to be said about how web developers have been killing the performance of their websites with their bloated frameworks or whatever. I know web apps will always be at a performance disadvantage compared to native apps, but the performance regression has gotten absurd. Using Reddit via the Apollo iOS app is a quick and buttery smooth experience, meanwhile the redesigned Reddit webpage is a laggy stuttering mess on my MacBook Pro.
I've also run Jira on a server before, and if you optimize the Java runtime's settings and over-provision, you can get a pretty fast Jira instance going. It's just most folks rarely touch the default configurations, which are terrible, or don't shell out for SSDs when running it. And the cloud version ... well, it seems a bit under-provisioned if you ask me. Jira doesn't appear to be written well enough to take full advantage of the cloud, yet.
Totally agree, particularly for small utility apps and the like. Most good iOS apps launch instantly and sip power even on comparatively limited iPhone and iPad batteries, so the impact they have on a Macbook battery should be close to nothing. Night and day compared to electron stuff.
Had Apple switched to AMD Ryzen processors on TSMC's 7nm node the performance improvement will have been similarly stark.
Apple clearly has a huge advantage here with a cutting edge process and for all practical purposes unlimited money to throw at this. Their cash on hand is more than AMD s full market cap.
From all benchmarks the Apple M1 laptops are around 1.8-2x more battery life than anything from AMD/Intel.
That includes compiling/running tests/and not just web browsing/checking mail.
And still, there are more catches: Apple is probably driving the screen at 60Hz instead of 120Hz for the G14, and the screen tends to be one of the main drivers of battery life.
What I'm trying to say is that the talks revolve around the M1 vs x86 for battery consumption, but the big savings can probably come from other components in the system.
You are running the newest of the newest.
My Lenovo Thinkpad X390 which i'm sitting on right now for a while, still has ~8h left to go.
Chrome with 30 tabs, intellij etc. open and running.
I do assume the M1 is doing a great job, don't get me wrong, but i would like to see a more objective comparison.
Personally speaking, the most interesting thing for me to see is that Apple now put a very strong SoC on all its models. From Air to Pro, with a relative good price point (as long as you don't upgrade anything...)
I bought a laptop with an AMD chip once, never again. Thing was a fire hazard.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/are-processors-pushi...
Light travels about a foot in 1 nanosecond so moving RAM from a foot away to touching the CPU saves 2 ns in round-trip latency. That's a big win on modern systems.
In reality it's a bigger effect since electric signals travel slower than light. And the effect is yet bigger because off-package memory must be accessed through buses with several levels of synchronization and buffer and gate delays.
Apple gets away with "unified memory" in the M1 because having the memory on-package means a good deal of the bus and sync and contention logic becomes unnecessary. So everything that touches RAM gets a lot faster. And almost everything touches RAM.
https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/19/apple_m1_high_bandwid...
https://www.macworld.com/article/3597569/m1-macs-memory-isnt...
We are finally moving to the conversion point between smartphone's and PCs. It has been in the making for a while.
Now, if that is a good thing for the consumers ( losing upgradability ) is another thing? But given how PC's have become less and less flexible anyway.
We used to have slots for everything ( GPU, Network, Audio, ...). Now we have ATX boards where you maximally put in a GPU. SATA is going the way of the dodo with m.2 becoming the new standard for anything data. I mean, what do we even change anymore on PC's... CPU, Memory, GPU.
GPU's will become a external device with USB4. Mass storage has been moving to NAS more and more or USB3 devices. The people that need 4+ HDD's are more exceptions. And you can get away with USB3 HUB's + external enclosures.
I questioned for a long time, why we still have Chipset, that artificially segment MB's when the difference has become very small between them anyway. You can easily move that last bit of IO into the CPU SOC.
The days that we buy AMD or Intel SOC's with some default CPU+RAM+IO is probably closer then what most think.
Separate hardware is probably going to become a Server / Workstation Pro only feature ( with big $$$ prices ).
The reality is that hardware has reached a point, that most people did not even upgrade for years anymore. And its more a smaller group / minority that really needs ultra fast hardware.
Flexibility is moved from big MB's to external devices, connected over high speed connections.
Sorry if i have gone a bit off topic but when you mentioned the onboard memory, it got me thinking about how we really are moving to a SOC/NUC/... future for even powerful hardware.
I wouldn't class it as a hack since it is pretty standard in enterprise environments. Downside is that it does consume CPU which depending on your workload may/may not be noticeable.
Might not be for everyone, but I only need it to drive a single external monitor.
I had a seriously nice mac mini taken off me once, got given a "new Mac Pro". Was huge downgrade, was not happy.
We got docking stations for the laptops but I just couldn't get used to it, and my desktop was just sitting there still functioning happy as could be.
So I still use my desktop for actual work and my laptop is basically a very over-powered video conferencing machine.
Your post reads less like a sincere question and more like "you should be doing it this way unless you can defend your position". Maybe--just maybe--people weigh up tradeoffs differently than you do personally.
FWIW 'on the move' can mean going into a meeting room or even just walking over to a coworker's desk with your computer. Desktops kinda suck when you work around humans who don't just stare at their screens with cans on all day.
Yeah, dude, we're all thinking. As a hands-on programmer-manager I can report that creating slides for the fundraising deck that'll raise money to pay you or writing that email about you taking bags of beef jerky home for your post-workout recovery meal can take as much sustained concentration as you spinning in your `while 1 { copy_compiler_error(); stack_overflow_it(); paste_code(); }` infinite loop.
I can't do that.
So no,
We're not "all thinking", some tasks require deep thought and long periods of uninterrupted concentration.
The problem is working in a team requires communication, and management of interruption, it is not useful to be like this dick with the headphones on, that creates barriers (the attitude, not the headphones) to communication.
Here's how I think.
I model interaction between distinct parts. I have a mental model of how X fits with Y, how X can affect Y, and how Y can in turn affect X. I'm not doing it with just X and Y, I painstakingly build this mental model[1] over as much of the problem space as I can, and having done this for many years now, I can cover a fair amount of ground before the complexity gets beyond my ability to model. It takes a while to create this, and then when some middle-management type wanders along, taps me on the shoulder and disturbs the concentration, and it all comes crashing down around me, I am less than best-pleased. Bonus points if it's just to "touch base" or "remember we have a meeting in 2 hours time", or ... you get the picture.
Why do I expend this enormous mental effort to gain such a fragile and ephemeral state ? Because I can mentally throw boundary conditions at it and "see" how things will react. It's how I deal with inherent complexity of large systems, and a couple of hours of mental effort can prevent me spending a week coding down a dead-end path. It's happened often enough now that even my line management understand it's worth the time - there's been plenty-a-meeting where I go in and say "yeah, I know we wanted to do <insert X> but I think there's a problem when Y and Z come into play under conditions A, B and C. I think <insert option gamma> is a better route even though we didn't think so at first".
Sometimes you really do just need to be able to be left alone and think. As someone who used to own the company before he sold it, and who's done pitches to VC's and other investors, I can quite categorically state that (for me), the slides, presentations, and client management is nowhere near the level of mental investment. Nowhere near.
Just my $0.02
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[1] It's not visual, I have aphantasia, it's more firing-condition-based.
This is all off topic in any event.
“Compared to the desktop (sitting), tablet and laptop use resulted in increased neck flexion (mean difference tablet 16.92°, 95% CI 12.79-21.04; laptop 10.92, 7.86-13.97, P < 0.001) and shoulder elevation (right; tablet 10.29, 5.27-15.11; laptop 7.36, 3.72-11.01, P < 0.001).”
“These findings suggest that using a tablet or laptop may increase neck flexion, potentially increasing posture strain.”
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30373975/
And it is on-topic enough for both the link and the OP.
Portability.
I think next go round I'm going to get a desktop replacer style laptop and see if I can get best of both worlds.
I don't really care about portability and thus use a desktop but I do want to sit outside or work from the couch sometimes.
I don’t recall if that worked on the smaller models, but it worked on my 15” model. I’ve been using 2 Dell P2715Qs since then and they work great.
Meetings, is another one.
Doing presentations.
Also for me at least: On-Call.
I would prefer a workstation at home and a lightweight laptop with company network access but hey my companie prefers to buy me a Laptop for 3k over a desktop for 1k and a light laptop for 1k.
What can i do? yeah nothing :)
It also greatly simplifies working from home. Not just for portability.
Interesting! Are you compiling to arm64 or emulating x86?
For Rust I am running the ARM toolchain that was recently released, so no Rosetta involved at all.
So there is no moving anything. Python compiled using pyenv for the Intel platform.
Which reports are you reading? Are they using C libraries or doing heavy math computation that is not CPU bound because there's no optimized ARM version yet?
What I am finding now is that python is working more than fine on M1, be it through rosetta or native code, which is consistent with your experience.
Also to clear things a bit, I parsed your "3.6 -> 3.9" as meaning that you had moved from Py36 on intel to Py39 on apple, which is why I asked if maybe there were speedups or differences from moving to 3.9.
I was unable to get all the versions I needed compiled natively, which means for now I will use the non-native versions.
I have tested Py3.9 compiled for arm64, and one particular test suite went from 9 seconds to 6 seconds. Other test suites were not as dramatic, especially larger ones, where it might go down from 40 seconds to 36 seconds.
Still a speed improvement, but not as dramatic as the 2017 MacBook Pro i7 -> 2020 MacBook Pro M1.
wow, a 5x improvement without you doing anything but changing hardware!? That's an excellent upgrade imho.
I wish apple would be able to sell the M1 as a generic processor to which other machines can use.
So far all the crates that were not working have been getting updates to work on the new platform, so far I haven't found any issues!
1990s me laughs remembering edit/compile/test cycles measured in hours.
I'm honestly for the first time in a decade a bit excited about an upcoming computer, pretty great.
Still running on a 2014 MBP that honestly is still great so can wait a bit.
The MacRumours buyers guide has the MacBook Pro 16” as due an update right now: https://buyersguide.macrumors.com/#MacBook_Pro_16
Honestly, I’d be surprised if we don’t get an M1x (or whatever it’s called) within six months.
I think we are more excited about a shake up in the whole computer world, that may mean the dead of ATX/MB's/etc as we know it. And a more profound move to eGPU/NUC/Laptop like powerful devices with a low power usage.
This feels a bit like a wakeup call to the industry. Like how the first (commercial) successful smartphone, the iPhone 1 fueled a entire industry for over 10 years to massive evolve. What is kind of funny because i felt like the smartphone evolution was starting to loos steam. The conversion between PC/Laptop/Smarthones will begin now.
Don't forget—Vim comes as a Universal binary, so it already runs natively on the M1.
/usr/bin/vim: Mach-O universal binary with 2 architectures
[x86_64:Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64] [arm64e]
/usr/bin/vim (for architecture x86_64): Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64
/usr/bin/vim (for architecture arm64e): Mach-O 64-bit executable arm64eEdit: not my opinion, just what I found on the internets, not sure why the downvotes if it invites discussion.
For normal users (such as people not compiling V8), swapping may be virtually unnoticeable.
For many people 16GB is absolutely enough, and Apple had to start somewhere. But if 16GB wasn't enough for you yesterday, it isn't enough for you now.
Those numbers are about 2-3x as fast as what my 2020 Intel-based MacBook Air gets.
But 2-3x won't change swap from grinding to a halt to perfectly smooth, either. It's still over 20x slower than RAM.
More significant for swap usage though is random reads and read latency, neither of which are going to be particularly impressive on the M1's SSDs. You need something like Optane to make that a compelling case.
As for the GP cited use case, there's no plausible way in which the compilers involved in the V8 build process would start using less memory due to their memory management machinery getting magically transformed by the hardware from tracing GC to refcounting GC, even assuming LLVM had been using tracing GC in the first place.
(Also the tracing GC memory overhead claims originating in Apple's marketing copy are way hyperbolic, modern tracing GCs don't require double storage used in "mark and sweep" GCs)
Maybe this big leap in processor / thermal / battery life (and a revision back to proper keyboards) will be enough to get us to switch! I think 64GB (or at least 32GB) would be a nice sweetener.
Nothing enticing because my computer is lightning fast and this means having to use the Apple ecosystem.
It's almost like Apple has a culture of forcing people to do things the hard way, just so it feels rewarding when it's done. Gamifying the experience?
A new laptop isn't critical to my work at the moment, so I'm happy to wait for an M2, if that's what it will be called. Looking at Apple timelines a new chip tends to be 1-2 years apart, and I'm fine with that.
I'm also reluctant to give up Magsafe, or at least have to buy a magnetic USB C connector.
Just got a 16MB 500GB M1 Air and so far everything is at least as snappy as the 16" Pro, and battery looks like a full 8 hour day + so far... it's a keeper I think. I also find the keyboard a bit nicer to type on personally than on the 16", so accuracy is up.
Maybe they will integrate wireless charging into the laptops soon?
When unplugged, it engages the performance cores as little as possible. You should be able to run `powermetrics` on an interval while running a high-intensity task to confirm; the performance cores pin first when on mains, then ramp up the efficiency cores, and the opposite happens on battery.
It's a big difference because the efficiency cores max out at about 2W draw, and the performance cores max out at around 18W. There's a big incentive in battery life to rely on that behavior.
I'm not sure yet if it's tunable, macOS doesn't make that a transparent behavior where you can just tweak it at will.
The Air will throttle if under full load long enough, but it's still mostly just ramping down the performance cores to stay cool.
With a true 'all day' battery, you'll probably only plug it in at a desk where tripping or knocking things over isn't an issue. While travelling, you just charge it at night or when you aren't using it. Much more like smartphone usage.
How many people are aching for a magsafe phone charger?
I can't imagine how you got used to the performance you have right now. Either you are not doing anything with your device or you would hugely benefit of upgrading at least every 3 years or so.
I don't think expecting more than 16GB of ram for entry level Apple laptops should be expected.
The low amount of ram, energy inefficiency and plateauing performance are the exact reason why Apple is moving away from Intel and onto a platform where they can control their own destiny.
and how are the macbook pro or mac mini entry level laptops?
Every device with an M1 available today is Apple’s lowest-end (and least expensive) offering.
The 7200u supports 32GB or RAM. That chip is over 4 years old and nothing special. Not sure how long that's been supported, I didn't feel like looking further back.
https://ark.intel.com/content/www/us/en/ark/products/95443/i...
The rated battery life of the Macbook Pro didn't change between 2017 and 2018.
I find myself scrambling for a power supply way more often than I ever did with my 2017 15" MacBook Pro.
Even with the older battery in the 2017, with more cycles, I get a longer battery life out of it than the 2019.
That is not true, example CPU I had in my old laptop: https://ark.intel.com/content/www/pl/pl/ark/products/78939/i...
Supports 32GB RAM, released in 2014.
The reason some older laptops didn't have more RAM was twofold: 1. Either the BIOS wasn't written with such support 2. There were no RAM sticks big enough (no 16GB in a single SO-DIMM) so you could have 2x16 - but there are currently since a year or two, SO-DIMMs with 32GB RAM, so you could easily reach 64MB in a laptop.
Pretty incredible to blame another company for a decision that was made inside Apple. Especially for a chip that was designed from scratch in apple, and therefore has no Intel constraints.
With the 'touchification' of big sur, it seems pretty likely apple is going to release some sort of convertible macbook or maybe something iPad style. Or maybe iPads can start running macos?
Work laptop will get upgraded to an M1 one way or another anyway.
At the moment I have around 2 GB free on my 8 GB Linux machine with a webserver, MariaDB, a JetBrains IDE, Slack and Firefox running. It would be easy and dirt cheap to increase the RAM to 16 or 32 GB but I'm too lazy to even order it and open the machine up since I have never felt the need to have more.
I'm just saying this so that people like me remember that they're still professionals and their work is valuable even if they don't need 64 GB of RAM.
Folks working with data intensive applications often need to trade off writing code to page data in and out of memory during development with larger dev boxes.
8gb still sounds a bit excessive but given how long java stack traces can be maybe it's not so strange.
You're not opening a TXT file with 100K lines in it.
Sound more like a Jetbrain ( IntelliJ company ) problem. Used to develop on PHPstorm ( another Jetbrain ) product ( same software in the background ) and the slow startup's, 2GB+ memory eating for relative small projects, crashes way too much, expensive as hell for what it does ( especially with the license change years ago ) ...
Eventually switched to Visual Studio Code and while people whine how Electron is memory inefficient, its like 1/6 the memory usage of PHPstorm, with only a few features missing.
Even on a 32GB PC system, i barely use 16GB ( and WSL2 is eating up a lot with a lot of docker images. And its not really docker, just Linux cache eating up memory ). Not a issue on a Mac that does not need a VM like layer.
Its about priorities sometimes. If people keep upgrading their memory, developers/companies simply push the responsibility to the clients and do not bother with spending time on optimizing.
If people start leaving software product on the way side for being just horrible inefficient messes, then maybe a bit of focus will come back to actually optimizing products! You will see Jetbrain change tune, when VSC etc keep eating its market share.
If it works, is it impression or reality?
Jetbrains that fits in 8GB of memory with slack and Firefox leaving 2GB free it's not happening
I used to code on 800×600 monitors professionally
If I say today that they are more than enough to work, I expect to be taken to a mental institution
Certainly some devs need more than 16gb, but they know who they are. And you know who they are because, well, they love telling you :).
$ dd if=/dev/zero of=/swap bs=1M count=8192
$ mkswap /swap
$ swapon /swap
$ echo "/swap swap swap defaults 0 0" >> /etc/fstabI use swap files all the time with things like raspberry pi's and such because I don't want to mess with the sd card partitions, but still from time to time it's good to have that swap fallback since the memory onboard is limited.
Swap files are super easy to set up, take up no "brainpower" and disk space is cheap these days.
As always, for some people 16 GB will be fine, for some it won’t.
As always, more RAM extends the usefulness of a computer.
After upgrading to 24 GB the machine became very usable.
I wouldn't ever want to go back to 8 GB. Perhaps 16 GB might be usable for iOS and Xamarin development, especially if the Android emulator can run in some kind of HAXM [0] mode, but for ARM processors ... not sure if that's possible right now. I'm sure the SSD also makes a big difference compared to my Fusion drive right now.
Still it feels safer (more future-proof) if the machine has a bit more memory than 16 GB.
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[0]: https://github.com/intel/haxm/wiki/Installation-Instructions...
There's no way I'm buying a 16 GB computer now, 32 GB is a minimum to be future proof.
I bought a computer with 16GB in 2011 and around 2015 it was already lagging quite a bit due to swap - switching to 64GB in 2016 was day and night, I don't have to fear launching arbitrarily many jobs anymore.
And that's not an uncommon use-case amongst the developer crowd which has a lot of overlap with HN.
This is telling just about how unrealistic Geekbench benchmarks, used by most reviewers, really are - they were all forecasting M1 completely humiliating everything from Intel and yet in practice it's not quite right. It's a dang impressive chip still though.
Not really comparable though.
My daily driver is a Hackintosh and with the CPUs pegged pulls about 70W from the wall. The two displays add another 90W.
M1 is impressively efficient but there's still a gap for fast, no-compromise workstations.
But on a laptop, it matters a ton. Personally I prefer doing work from my couch rather than my desk; ergonomics and external monitors be damned.
Around 40 years old is usually when you start to pay for carelessness with your body. Ask me how I know ...
Apple has already said that they are releasing a workstation-class M1X/M2 next year.
The point is that the M1 is already comparable to many workstations.
Not sure how power use actually matters when I'm sitting and waiting for things to compile several times a day.
The top Intel MacBook has 8 cores and only beats the M1 (4 performance cores) by 1 minute.
The desktop Hackintosh most likely has way more cores, expecting the low power M1 to beat it is unrealistic.
Don't congratulate Apple for failing to ship trash.
There's an argument for efficiency on a laptop, no doubt, but that's not what the parent commenter is talking about.
M1 is the highest perf-per-watt CPU today, no question. Ignoring efficiency, there are plenty of faster CPUs both for single-core and multi-core tasks. That's what "my Hackintosh did the build in 5 minutes" is showing.
Are you saying it's an unfair comparison? The Intel Macs are operating in the same environment as the M1 Macs. It doesn't matter if the Intel parts could be faster in theory, because you're still dealing with battery and size constraints. If you want unthrottled Intel CPU in a laptop, your only options are 6 pound, 2 inch thick gaming laptops with 30 minutes of battery life. Now comparing that (or worse, a desktop) to M1 is unfair.
Apple's thermal solutions could be better, but they are designed within Intel's power envelope specs. e.g. The i9-9880H in the current 16" MBP is only rated for 2.3Ghz with all cores active at its 45W TDP. The i9-9880H is a 2.3Ghz @ 45W part that can burst up to 4.8Ghz for short periods, not the other way around.
There's nothing in M1 that indicates that Apple learned how to improve thermal management, but lots to indicate that they'd still rather make thinner/lighter devices that compromise on repair, expansion, or sustained high-end performance — the even deeper RAM integration, offering binned parts as the lower-end "budget" option instead of a designed solution, or offering Thunderbolt 3, fewer PCIe lanes, and a lower RAM cap as being enough for a MBP or Mini.
You can relax the power limits and try to clock it closer to the 5.3GHz turbo frequency. But how much power do you need? I can't find numbers specifically for the i9-10980HK, but it seems like the desktop i9-9900K needs over 160 watts [1] to hit a mere 4.7GHz across all cores, measured at the CPU package (ie. not including VRM losses). Overall system power would be in excess of 200 watts, perhaps 300 watts with a GPU. Good luck cooling that in a laptop unless it's 2 inches thick or has fans that sound like a jet engine.
[1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/13400/intel-9th-gen-core-i9-9...
I assume they do this for market segmentation; see 2016 Touch Bar vs. non-Touch-Bar Pro. One fan vs. two.
The TDPs look appropriate for M1 parts. They're too small for Intel. I'm guessing that (a) Apple predicted the M1 transition sooner and (b) Apple designed ahead for Intel's roadmap (perf at reduced TDP) which never eventuated.
So, unfortunately, Apple have shipped a generation of laptops with inadequate cooling.
is it just a matter of making a thicker laptop?
If anything, then numbers in TFA are an outlier rather than a contradiction.
Java does not need to be run through emulation. Azul already published ARM64 Zulu builds for OpenJDK (here: https://www.azul.com/downloads/zulu-community/?package=jdk) and they work great on the M1. I'm currently using IntelliJ running in emulation mode (an official release for the M1 was originally expected by the end of November) and but build/run my projects on a local Zulu JVM with ARM64 support.
And what if it is too late? E.g. Apple owning the entire space you want to develop apps for? Or, if this seems an impossible theory to you, how about competitors copying Apple's model?
Please understand that as a consumer you have power, but if you don't use it you can end up like the proverbial boiled frog.
Practically speaking being “locked” into a system would only be a possibility in a world where highly distributed, massively supported OS’s (Windows, Linux) didn’t exist.
Anti-apple people have a hard time fathoming the degree to which many other “power users” are okay with privacy/security trade offs if it results in a more robust/stable environment that just works.
Problem is, it’s being framed as some sort of Faustian bargain when it’s really not that big of a deal.
Until it doesn't. I can open my Thinkpad (W530) and replace parts in it that die. Can you say the same for your Macbook? Are you okay with a future where everyone follows Apple's example because it generates more profits, where right-to-repair is a thing of the past? I know that sounds alarmist, but it's definitely the trajectory I see.
Since the new Air lacks even a fan, it seems even less likely to need service.
As to your second point, MacBooks have been available for how long now? And yet thinkpads still exist.
The X1 Carbon doesn't have upgradeable RAM. On some level, I'm convinced that Lenovo wants to follow in Apple's footsteps and is testing the waters with the X1 Carbon series.
So yea, Apple their gravy train is going to run into a massive road block. In the US states are also starting to rectify laws that push the right to repair.
Its one of the reasons why Apple "suddenly" allows repair shops to buy parts. As a way to change the narrative. Of course that buying parts has "issues" Apple style. A grifter is going to grift.
I do believe Microsoft would love to head down a path like that, but are too burned with the massive frankenstein of legacy tech that is Windows. I also tend to share a bleak view of the future of computing as many of the people voicing concerns, I just don’t believe that a niche set of consumers can overpower that of the majority who could care less if you ranted to them about control or privacy or whatever.
Oh hell no! This is the scenario that Stallman warned us about, over two decades ago:
That being said, I usually backup and "factory restore" my computers before servicing. Mostly because I don't want to hand out my password or hand over my personal data, but I expect them to test that its fixed and that's easier in a generic OS. I also think it'd be odd to hand over a Macbook Pro (or even a Microsoft Surface) with Linux installed and expect their random, low-level tech to asses things.
Stallman hasn’t been of much use for this, and his followers fervently cite his decades-old works each time I raise this point — but meanwhile, this is available today to any website accessed by any Apple Silicon MacBook, and it’s already deployed and in use in the (Linux) servers powering Azure Cloud, and it’ll probably reach the consumer Windows market in the next year.
Now what? After we get past “RMS told us this would happen”, after we blow off steam about “My ideals are being violated”, is there anything left to discuss and consider here?
I thought there was — for example: “Is it possible to reconcile the conflicting needs of safety and modifiability?” — but the prevalence of replies like the above over the past few weeks makes me think that I’m mistaken, and should simply let this go unnoticed until it’s too late and irrelevant what anyone believes.
Clearly we differ, because it looks to me like Stallman put forward the only plausible solution to someone taking control of my system without my knowledge or permission: open source. Granted, that wasn't what he was trying to do at the time, he was as you say perusing the "It is my right to modify" line. But that's how it's turned out.
You are apparently perfectly happy to have Apple / Google / Microsoft or whoever install whatever backdoors and spyware they please on your system. It's not like you have a choice, or will even know, so it's probably best you've made your peace with it; just as people have made their peace with Facebook, Google Chrome not deleting their own cookies, or Microsoft refusing to copy files because some virus checker had a copyright violation signature fire (that's actually happened to me).
Maybe I'd even be OK with trusting those companies, but I definitely draw the line with governments granting themselves the legal right to rummage through that same cookie jar, which is exactly what the Australian government did with it's Assistance and Access bill. [0] I'm sure all governments do the same thing of course, including the Chinese government. A good indicator of how seriously the governments themselves take this threat is how Huawei is being treated by Western Governments. I have no doubt the Russian and Chinese view western gear with the same level of suspicion. To me that is the only sane position to take.
Just to be clear, I'm not saying TPM's and the DRM they enable aren't useful, but the problem is the lack of visibility into what these black boxes you are carrying around with you and putting in your living room. If you know what those boxes are doing, locking them down so hard they can’t be compromised by someone who has physical access to them is a nice addition, although the threat scenario (someone who has physical access) is very limited so perhaps not a major addition. But what you seem to be applauding is locking them down so hard even you, who has physical access, can’t see what they are doing, and then you go on to pillar a person who proselytized making all software transparent, so everyone could see if there systems system are running software they approve of, and not malware or worse.
[0] Quick summary: the Assistance and Access bill gives the ozzie government the right to force any company to write spyware that won't be detected by their OS's (that's the "Assistance" but), and then install it via their auto patch systems onto to device they nominate (that's the "Access" bit).
Focus your energy on the real issues at hand:
How are we going to adapt to the reality of secure attestation? How are we going to confront it with technology? How should we legislate to protect against abuse of it? How can we make use of it appropriately?
My goal is to raise awareness, and based on the other half of your reply, I’ve succeeded with one person. That’s progress, I suppose.
Warning: You are using macOS 11.0.
We do not provide support for this released but not yet supported version.
You will encounter build failures with some formulae. Please create pull requests instead of asking for help on Homebrew's GitHub, Twitter or any other official channels. You are responsible for resolving any issues you experience while you are running this released but not yet supported version.[1] https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/312330/brew-link-u...
Homebrew is the perfect glue between the traditional Unix world and the somewhat unexpected Unix environment that macOS is providing these days (mostly a consequence of Xcode wanting to be a self-contained .app and /usr being read-only while still honoring the tradition of leaving /usr/local alone for you as a user)
Yes you need to spend a bit of work to find out what dependencies you need, but the configure scripts will tell you that when they fail.
> Homebrew is the perfect glue between the traditional Unix world and the somewhat unexpected Unix environment that macOS is providing these days (mostly a consequence of Xcode wanting to be a self-contained .app and /usr being read-only while still honoring the tradition of leaving /usr/local alone for you as a user)
On Mac packages have always naturally installed into /usr/local and not /usr.
Unless you go the extra length, the “easy fix” is to compile your own version of those libraries which is fine until you need to be linked against a binary shipped with the OS (say you are trying to compile an Apache module).
At that point you will have conflicting symbol names between the binary that shipped with the OS and depends on its libraries and your binary that depends on the self-compiled libraries which might or might not have matching versions and/or custom patches.
Libedit, libxml2 and many others are samples of this. Their binaries are in-fact installed in read-only /usr as shipped by apple, but the matching include files live in the Developer folder of either the command line developer tools or Xcode.
No open source package will be able to link to the system libraries by default with this split and when all they support is pkgconfig, you’re SOL without additional manual work
I am not bothered as much by the 16gb of ram, it is still rather usable. What I really bought the machine for was the battery life. I've had it for a day or two and it is amazing how long I can stay away from my power socket. Also this thing runs really cool. I have not even heard the fans spin up once, even during the recent Sydney heatwave (45°C).
Of course, there will always be a need for running dev toolchains locally, but I wonder how many other people are like me who would rather use Linux over an internet connection, and really only need a terminal emulator and an IDE.
There are code editing apps for iOS, but I don’t know what they're capable of these days. Some use cloud servers, but as soon as you know you want the option then the laptop is probably the way to go. Happy hunting!
I am still waiting for a premium chromebook with ARM CPU and great battery life to hit the market.
I was looking into buying the new MacBook Air. Anybody has any particular alternative to recommend? I am looking for a new laptop and haven't found anything similar to the MacBook Air (I hate the touchbar) for a similar price (the 16GB of RAM model, if expandable better). Anything similar is either a lot more expensive or the build quality is a lot worse.
Any recommendation is more than welcomed!
What is opinion on these m1 machines longevity. Some tech people are comparing it to first gen iPad.Like they will be sunset after a couple of years vs 2nd gen which are supported much longer. but I am not so sure most of the issues with these first gen m1 machines are software so in theory they should be supported for long time.
If you look back at the Intel transition, if I remember correctly they released the MacBook Pro with a Core Duo in January of 2006 and Core 2 Duo in October. The latter being 64-bit. Sure, the latter ones were better, but the former ones worked fine. OS support seems to go with architecture generations. The early 2006 laptops supported Snow Leopard which had its last release in 2011. The next laptops supported Lion which had its last release in 2012 (but with hacks could get updated until 2018).
I think the major question is if you want to wait to see what the "pro" machines look like or if Apple has tweaks in 6 months to the current line up. The Mac Pro has some big questions about what may need to change if they're looking for parity with the current Mac Pro (improved multi-monitor support, more RAM options, upgradable GPUs). Those changes may show up in the high end Macbook Pros (likely not upgradable GPUs).
* iPad 1, which was basically a iPhone 3GS with a bigger screen, and from day 1 didn't have enough RAM to drive the big screen
* First Intel macs, which were 32-bit, before Apple quickly transitioned everything to 64-bit
* First Apple Watch ("series 0") which was just underpowered in general
The M1 Macs really don't appear to have any obvious flaws like these.
This says you can run it on arm with fall creators update or newer.
My current computers feel like they have enough memory until I load virtual box, or VMware.
Personally I will try to wait it out until they release a new design... although may end up with a Mac Mini build machine
Apple deems itself a consumer company and perfection is too expensive. Apple quality is generally going up every year, but slowly.
Apple makes incremental improvements manufacturing nearly weekly just like software builds. I always say never buy first gen, or at least never on the first day. Never assume your machine is just going to work.
How do you run the command line tools through Rosetta once they are installed?
Another pain point is code that relies heavily on SIMD. AVX/AVX2/AVX-512 instructions are not translated, so in those cases you'll be using slower kernels. My machine learned models are ~10 times slower with libtorch under Rosetta. Though they are competitive when compiling libtorch natively.
(Source: I have used an M1 Air for a week, but decided to return it.)
out of curiosity, why did you return it?
For now, I'm mostly using Rosetta2 for running iTerm. It works great. I do fine sluggishness on some initial builds, but then it's off to the races.
I think Apple is expecting all developers to jump and port their apps so they are ready when the high-end Apple Silicon devices hit the market.
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2015-02/msg00...
If rms had a sane way of reading e-mail, things might be different :).
A14/M1 will come, but the question is when...
How would optimized M1 assembly differ from optimized ARM assembly in general?
I imagine good ARM assembly code on a Gravitron2 or a Snapdragon chip would be similarly good on an M1 chip
Apple of course uses these things in the lower levels of their software, so if you're using their APIs you're getting this for free across OSes and CPUs.
[1] Even the family/model/stepping designation has an oddity: the 486 was family 4, the Pentium was family 5, and then everything from the Pentium II/III up to the latest Core series, as well as the Atoms, uses family 6; but the P4 was family 15.
Some things like the instruction density and inlining heuristics translate from processor to processor, but the actual microarchitecture (rather than the ISA) determine what is "good" code from platform to platform e.g. Good instruction scheduling depends on how the CPU is designed.
Edit: this is totally wrong. see thread.
https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/36617#issuecomment...
Tried looking for docs but didn’t find anything decisive either way
What a bizarre perspective with nothing to support it except apparently blind optimism.
Unlike Microsoft dipping its toes into the ARM waters, everyone knows Apple is committed to this.
This is a step toward mobile/iOS. Apple isn't the same underdog that it was when PowerPC was put to bed, and the transition is challenging because the Mac platform is bifurcated in the interim.
PowerPC to Intel isn't a good proxy for this because the technology is different, the transition strategy is different, and the company itself is different.
If the M1 transition is to be smooth, it has to achieve that on its own merits, without looking back in search of comparable transitions past.
Rosetta 2, from all reports, works well enough that I’d argue they’ve already succeeded in making the transition smooth enough to call it a success.
The main non-developer concern raised in this piece is extraneous dialog messages, which sadly we’ve pretty well all been trained to ignore. I agree they’re unfortunate, but they’re hardly a show-stopper.
The real risks Apple faces, as far as I can see:
* Will developers do the needful for universal apps? That seems to be well underway, even among the giants.
* Will a lack of x86-64 Windows emulation prove to be a deal-breaker for too many users? I’d say that’s impossible to know, but I’m optimistic. (And if Apple once again is setting a trend for the industry, Windows itself may fully make this transition someday.)
* Will Apple be able to keep up with AMD and Intel in the chip race? Obviously early signs are promising.
Big risks, but mostly ones Apple can control, or at least influence. What other dangers am I missing?
Adding: the dependence on TSMC is obviously a risk, but I imagine Apple has some notion of what they can do if they lose that option.
* Virtualization not supported
* Gradle is extremely slow
* Webkit crashes
* No Docker yet
* Builds not as fast as their top-end Intel based MBP
* Builds not nearly as fast as their Hackintosh
* Can't wait to migrate CI to it
wut
Apple has killed any good will among nerdy developers by treating them like shit for 20 years. Sure there are still corporate developers that are forced to make iOS apps, but it's not like a hobbyist is going to buy an Apple computer for embedded, web dev, gaming, PC applications, etc...
Until Apple treats us(and maybe their non dev customers) better, I don't see any reason outside iOS Apps to ever buy a macbook for dev.
I have the complete opposite experience. I don't feel any burden from apple when using a mac. MacOS being a unix like operating system makes developing on it a breeze. On windows i need to use archaic developer tools like powershell. Linux commands I use on my production servers don't work on my development environment. If I want to use git in a sane manner from the command line i need to install an emulator that has its own issues.
There is a reason almost all companies in silicon valley use macbooks for their developers.
> but it's not like a hobbyist is going to buy an Apple computer for embedded, web dev, gaming, PC applications, etc...
As someone else has said, this is exactly what people seem to be doing.
What makes PowerShell archaic, in your opinion?
Two weights, two measures?
As for WSL you got it all wrong, after the failure of Project Astoria (running Android apps on UWP), Microsoft found a business opportunity in selling Windows to folks that buy Apple devices to do GNU/Linux work instead of supporting Linux OEMS, unhappy with Apple no longer caring for them as they no longer need their money.
So they picked up the infrastructure, redone it as WSL, and start selling the feature to that crowd, now they can get the hardware that Apple doesn't sell them, while keep paying proprietary garbage vendors instead of supporting the vendors in the Linux community.
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell#legal-and-licensing
I think it would probably work for web development as long as you keep everything inside WSL, but for other development tasks you're going to run into issues real quick.
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/873
https://github.com/microsoft/WSL/issues/4197
The last 2 issues are an issue as of today but you can workaround them where it becomes a non-issue in the end by setting 1 config file value and running 1 command maybe once a month.
Also if you keep your source code inside WSL 2's file system then the first 2 issues are non-issues in practice.
I mean, you can dislike Powershell and love Unix tools, but your choice of words is remarkably funny.
If anything, Unix tools are archaic, generally organically grown and not that designed or designed based on principles from 50 years ago, in many cases principles that have been superseded.
Powershell actually has a design and a modern one.
Again, you might like one and dislike the other, it depends a lot on personal preference and familiarity.
But... Poor choice of words :-)
This may surprise you, but yes, it's what people seem to be doing.
It’s fine if it’s not for you, but to stereotype an entire part of the industry like this isn’t fair.
No. Stop presuming to speak for all of us. Apple has generally treated me a lot better than Microsoft did, as a user and as a developer.
Downvoting the other side may give the impression that everybody is of the same opinion in this echo chamber, but it won’t change the reality that many people are happy with Apple and excited for the direction they’re taking.
I really don't know what you are talking about. All my development work could probably be made on a linux computer, or windows, but I choose to use Mac just because it makes embedded work and web development so much easier.
Most of the toolchains are OSS
Yeah, this is simply just false.
Apple being a consumer grade Posix OS is exactly why hobbiest choose it. It has first tier support every consumer app you need, with no configuration headaches and has all the tools you want for modern development.
This is why most web devs today are still carrying Macbooks. Even if Apple has not been prioritizing building machines with beefy specs.
I can say for me personally that yeah I have my issues with macOS, but the amount of fiddling I have to do with Linux and the different patterns I have to learn with Windows means macOS will likely continue to be my choice for years to come.
(A notable exception to that feeling is VSCode. While I would quite prefer a native app with its features, I’ll gladly pay the Electron tax because it’s the best editor I’ve ever used.)
Apple’s far from perfect, but there is something to be said for ‘just works’.
Amusingly you mentioned bluetooth, apparently the new M1s are having serious bluetooth issues, so much that those with the apple bluetooth mouse and keyboard are resorting to wired devices.
Think about the future where a new developer needs to pay a license fee, and have their software reviewed just to show his friends.
Why is that so difficult?
Until the day when there aren't other options -- which isn't so difficult to understand, really.
And what makes you so important that every hardware provider has to bend to your will? I can't run Shor's Algorithm on my Raspberry Pi, whose fault is that?
EDIT:
> isn't so difficult to understand, really
You may be confusing "understand" with "imagine"
Like what? ps5/xbox series x/ps4/xbox one are very sophisticated, comparable to a modern desktop PC, yet it's totally closed off. Consoles no longer resemble embedded devices like previous gens. Heck, even the original nes used the MOS 6502 chip, which was very popular in PCs in the early days.
The openness of the PC should be enforced legally across anything that can be reasonably construed to be one.
Oh fuck no.
If you want a PC you can get a PC. Stop trying to force your mediocrity-for-all BS on those who don’t want PCs.
>Actual money in the hand now is worth more than theoretical money in the future and so on.
Exactly, short-term profit will almost always trump long-term problems. Is that so difficult to consider?
>They likely did the math and found that the risk is worth the reward to them
GP is saying that they likely did not do the math or that they prioritized short-term gains over the long-term impacts of their decisions as for-profit entities typically do.
I'm not sure what there was to misunderstand about my original comment since I more or less said exactly that.
No, GP said they did not consider future impact, period. I said that entities can consider future impact and still choose short term profit (and that it is often rational to do so). I then pointed out that assuming someone else didn't do the math because their results are different than your results is egoistical.
I don't care if the inevitable future of the Mac platform is more locked down. In fact I welcome it. Does it limit what I can do with my device? Of course. Do I lament some of the control I’ve already given up? Sure. But the trade off is a safer and smoother computing experience that allows me to focus more on what I want to achieve with what the platform does provide.
I spent some time on Linux, I got into hyper-customizing every minute detail, I swapped out third party RAM and even early adopted SSDs by mounting them in the optical drive bay. I built a PC tower from personally selected components. I triple booted Windows and Linux on my first Intel Mac with community built boot loaders well before Boot Camp was a thing.
I can’t imagine spending my time that way anymore. I learned a lot, but now I just wanna get stuff done. I like having some of the system out of reach. I like knowing that it’s readonly and I like the kind of hardware advances Apple’s vertical integration has enabled.
It’s okay if we value different things, and it’s okay if we make different compromises to experience them.
You go so far as to validate the things he's concerned about and reiterate that you just don't care about them. I don't see what's wrong with pointing out the inherent shortsightedness of that line of thinking.
>it’s disappointing to me that so many here simply can’t conceive that some people don’t share their priorities, and make conscious choices that reflect their own priorities.
Have you considered that those people understand basic human psychology and that they take issue with the exact priorities that they are speaking against?
What problem? How do my decisions to prefer one computer platform have any impact on GP or you or anyone? Apple turning the entire Mac line into iPads can’t and won’t eliminate more open platforms that you or GP may prefer. There’s no future inflection point where Apple has locked down the Mac platform in a way that enables them to storm into your home and replace your Linux computer (or whatever) with a Mac.
It’s elitist because the suggestion is that my preference represents an inability to evaluate the impact it has on me. It has no meaningful impact on you. It would have no meaningful impact on you if I decided to eschew all computing technology and go live in a monastery.
> You go so far as to validate the things he's concerned about and reiterate that you just don't care about them. I don't see what's wrong with pointing out the inherent shortsightedness of that line of thinking.
I am allowed to have different preferences and priorities. It’s not shortsighted, I see the compromise I’m making and I’m satisfied with what it provides in return. And since it in no way harms you or GP, it’s not your business to tell me to change my preferences.
> Have you considered that those people understand basic human psychology and that they take issue with the exact priorities that they are speaking against?
Have you considered that taking issue with other people’s preferences and imposing your own is far more controlling than just accepting that some people like different things, even if their preferences are personally limiting in a way you’re not comfortable with for yourself?
Also, your point about Mac future is pure speculation at this point, which contradicts public statements from Apple.
Also I'd highly recommend coming up with specifications for your computer you want.
Don't just buy brands because you've seen them on tv.
It's worth noting that Apple has a 14 day return policy, and on the rare occasions I've used it it's been hassle-free.
M1 is just going to make macs even more dominant.
And AMD is not going to rescue Windows/Intel. These night and day improvements are simply too big to be explained by TSMC being a better fab than Intel.
- Linux 55%
- Windows 53%
...
- MacOS 24%
"Linux and Windows maintain the top spots for most popular platforms, with over half of the respondents reporting that they have done development work with them this year. We also see some year over year growth in the popularity of container technologies such as Docker and Kubernetes."
- Windows 45.8%
- macOS 27.5%
- Linux 26.6%
But still, macOS users represent only around a quarter of developers.
There are sectors of the industry where Windows is a hard requirement, ones where Macs are utterly dominant, and others where Linux is assumed and running a proprietary Apple OS gets you the side-eye.
Software development is a big tent.
I think you got it reversed. One can develop Android apps on macOS because there's no lockin like XCode. The same is not true for iOS apps which require XCode.
So if anything macOS is a hard requirement.
There are entire industries (healthcare, to name but one), where Windows is simply a given, and all development targets that platform.
It's true that Macs are a requirement for iOS development, I was referring more to the observed fact that most devs in SF doing "cloud" whatever use a Mac, probably around 80%.
A specific use case in a specifc place of the globe is your definition of "dominant"?
I knew HN was a bubble but this is hilarious.
Imagine considering macOS dominant because it's trendy in SF.
It's my definition of a "sector", which you would know, if you had read my words with more care and sympathy.
I'm sorry but your whole "granularity" tangent makes no sense.
They're just victims of group think, advertising, peer pressure or status signalling. Everywhere else in the world, 80% of people doing "cloud" whatever aren't using a Mac.
Inside my world little circle of freelance Java / JavaScript developers 2/3 are on a mac. People buy their own work machine unlike maybe working for a big organisation where that is provided for you.
The author lists several bugs, instead of posting the issue number with a link, he puts his Tweet with the bug numbers (without link). Im not sure what the author is trying to accomplish here. Also I guess these kind of bugs, although not nice, they are mostly because MacOS suffered the biggest change since its history and supporting 2 completely different architectures is not an easy job. Of course we are at the mercy of Apple to fix them but this is part of the deal when you buy such a machine at this point.
Then all other points are just showing all the known the same issues that some commercial SW was not yet ported to a new architecture.
Apple cedes a lot of sales by not attempting to bring into their fold all the gaming companies. Just looking at Steam alone shows the disparity and there is a lot of money to be had. The idea of just own two systems is one that not everyone can justify.
Apple have stated multiple times that they don't have any intention to lock down macOS more or less - I can't really think why anyone would think Apple would lock down macOS. There's... really no reason right?
My gut feeling is that there are a lot of people that don't like Apple, mostly due to their proprietary nature, and they just... argue against Apple. Before the M1 appeared, the argument was that Apple's Macs are expensive for nothing, they have terrible hardware, Touch Bar is bad, software quality has declined, etc... and now it's all about the user's freedom.
Seriously people. This article is about using dev tools on the M1 Mac. Let's not start arguing about how Apple is bad for freedom, etc.
Generally it's people who aren't even invested in the ecosystem anyway.
They've said this stuff for years, I can't do anything less on Big Sur than I've been able to do on any mac.
In fact the only difference I can think of is that there's always some degree of reactionary discourse when Apple is mentioned by people who feel the need to defend the company personally. You never see this type of comment on a thread full of people complaining about Windows or AWS, but you almost always see it when there are a few comments critical of Apple.
There are many reactive voices speaking out in support of Apple, but they are responding to those who complain (for the most part) from the outside, or on their way out of Apple's door.
And my point was that the very fact that Apple is the one with defendants, among the technologists who tend to make up HN commenters, should make one wonder if they aren’t doing some of those things right, not that the supporting commenters are mouth-breathing dullards who just “don’t get it”. Apple are getting bad press right now over pushing for a bill in the US designed to eliminate slavery from supply chains, and I will join the voices calling on them to take responsibility for that. But in reference to how they control their hardware-software ecosystem for their customers, the reactionary point of view is that they shouldn’t be progressing towards a user-safe environment.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25240953
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25237993
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9583362
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25238542
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6420048
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655400
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23655400
Some of these are the replies to the claims of bias, some are the original claims themselves. The search bar is at the bottom of the home page. I may have been rather childish throughout this thread, it's a defence mechanism, but it doesn't mean I'm wrong, and it doesn't mean there isn't pro-Apple bias on HN. That doesn't mean there isn't pro-<FAANG> bias around here either.
People are entitled to these opinions, and to express them, as are you and I to participate in whatever you call this exchange. It's why I still love the internet even though it feels like it's raising my blood pressure from time to time. And why I go through spits and spats of spurning all social media and then participating in controversial discussions like this and other philosophical debates.
But all that said, given the quality of developer tools from Apple I don't have much faith that they won't impede everything but swift development in Xcode.
Didn't they also say that notarization was about security?
These new CPUs will represent a huge generational leap and dropping of old baggage. A laptop which has nearly 20h battery life, is small/portable, and is still fast? Wow.
Anything Apple delivers on for the CPUs will find its way into Linux and Windows machine.
This is good for everyone. Eventually you’ll see the next generation Lenovo’s X series or Dell’s XPS series with the same generational improvements.
This should be enough to make you look elsewhere.
But then there is the locked bootloader, the Apple tax, etc. etc.
By supporting Apple, things will only get worse.
NO company can, or should be above criticism. You will see comments critical of _all_ large companies in HN threads, but only comments defensive in these threads. Imagine a comment like yours on a thread about Amazon or Facebook.
I have gut feeling of my own - that many people identify with their Apple products (identity politics) and are personally offended by any criticism that the organisation receives.
--
Edit: To put it in a little perspective... I invite you to view the contemporary Amazon thread. What would happen if you posted that everyone should focus on AMZN creating jobs and hiring people rather than criticizing them?
M1 has been out for a short time, and Apple Stores are not accepting walk-in customers. People aren't seeing their friends much due to the pandemic, so it's unlikely that those who bought the new machines are broadly showing them off.
Lots of forum praise about M1 seems like it's coming from people who have no hands-on experience with the new devices. I have no reason to believe that Apple pays people to stir up hype on the web, but I definitely sense that the vast majority of people hyping M1 haven't purchased an M1 device. My sense is that they just read some blogs, ogle some benchmarks, and regurgitate what they see.
That's not exactly a diversity of opinion. I can tell you I've been voted down a couple of times just for suggesting that there's too much hype and not enough information.
So I think there is some reliable evidence in it's favour. But I don't think you should be downvoted for disagreeing with that. Since it definitely up for debate! Someone seems to have downvoted your comment here, and I think that is the wrong action to take on what is clearly a thoughtfull response on your part.
You even find the usual contrarians who moan that it’s Apple, so anyone saying anything positive have to be shills and the CPU has to be terrible (plenty of those in this thread).
Since when do he have to buy something to have an opinion? Are you saying that the people who complain about the M1 (or Macs in general) without having bought one should just shut up?
It's pretty difficult to have an informed opinion about a product that you've never seen/used/tested/tried.
Due to the requirements for a shopping appointment at an Apple Store (hard to come by, if you check online), and due to social distancing, it's fairly unlikely that a person who hasn't bought/received an M1 machine can have an informed opinion about it -- especially so soon after the release.
That's why I take the hype regurgitation with a grain of salt. Has nothing to do with buying the right to have an opinion.
Because they keep introducing new security features that get progressively more annoying to disable. Have you looked at how difficult it is to modify system files these days?
I perceive a level of anti-Apple bias in HN threads, I don't think it's imagined, but more prevalent is the power user bias of people who have advanced knowledge of computer systems and want a superuser machine off the shelf.
To me, the fact that you call them "security features" and not some pejorative euphemism is a bit of a capitulation.
This is just one of the things that you can do; I've occasionally patched system libraries, replaced resources, and so on depending on what I've wanted to do.
Given how everything else you talked about could be turned off. Do you think that would be a better default? to allow system libraries and such to be altered? and that the protection would need to be explicitly turned on instead?
Yes, very. It's not like the toolchain really cares which version of XNU it's running on.
> Given how everything else you talked about could be turned off. Do you think that would be a better default? to allow system libraries and such to be altered? and that the protection would need to be explicitly turned on instead?
I liked what they did in Catalina, where you could remount the rootfs as writable. What they have in Big Sur is too much; you have to restart every time you want to modify anything and it is not possible to change anything after booting.
What Apple says and Apple does can or are two different things. And it applies to any company in the world. Blindly believing them is naive at best.
> I can't really think why anyone would think Apple would lock down macOS
I can think of one: iOS. Locking down the software and hardware can allow Apple to funnel people to their own stores and services. It is not rocket science to figure out that a company is trying to increase their revenue. Right now you have only MacOS as the operating system, Linux may never come and Windows support is anyones guess right now.
It takes a lot of engineering work to make more permissive security modes work. To re-architect booting. To make external drive booting work. To make developing kernel extensions on production systems work. To allow signing your own boot blob. Work that 99% of users don't even understand let alone care about.
If that isn't enough evidence then nothing ever will be.
Thus I’ve been using an 8gb M1 Mac mini doing this for a week now and haven’t had any problems. It makes a very nice terminal computer with luxury desktop. When a suitable 27” approx iMac appears with an M-series CPU in it, I will buy one. It’s nice being able to triple swipe between a Mac desktop with native apps, a desktop full of terminals to Linux VMs and a windows desktop machine via RDP transparently!