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This is FUD.

> Technically you can install other OSes, but the reality is that currently only crippled versions of Linux and xBSD is available and practically the only full-featured OS available for it is macOS.

That's because it's a radically new chipset, not because Apple intentionally hampered other OSes. In fact, quite the opposite: Apple went out of their way to support projects like Asahi. They could have trivially locked everything down, but instead they took extra steps to make sure the door was left wide open.

See this writeup for details: https://github.com/AsahiLinux/docs/wiki/Introduction-to-Appl...

> ... not because Apple intentionally hampered other OSes ... Apple went out of their way to support projects like Asahi.

Yeah, right - if "Apple went out of their way" to help them, they wouldn't have to reverse-engineer the ARM M1 Macs to figure out how to run things on it. "Apple going out of their way" would be them releasing hardware drivers for Linux or xBSD - you know, like they have been doing for Windows in the past. Developing drivers can consume some resources at Apple and may be too much to expect for every OS platform. But still, if they genuinely wanted to support a multi-os environment, they could make public the hardware APIs so others system engineers could develop drivers for the hardware more easily, instead of struggling with having to reverse engineer everything they are not familiar with.

> They could have trivially locked everything down

Yes, technically, it is trivial now for them to lock the bootloader and completely lock down every mac with a firmware update. But commercially it is not yet a viable move for them as the backlash to such a move would generate a lot of bad PR that would hurt the sale and adoption of the ARM Macs. Apple learnt that lesson when they introduced the Mac Minis with soldered RAM and SSDs - it was the worse selling Mac Minis, and they were forced to step back and reintroduce another model with removable RAMs.

> The backlash to such a move would generate a lot of bad PR that would hurt the sale and adoption of the ARM Macs

You are severely overestimating the potential impact of such a backlash. In fact, I’m afraid the sheer lack of interest in even running other bootloaders is the better reason to expect Apple to continue allowing other bootloaders.

There are good reasons to solder things; it makes things cheaper, smaller, and lighter. These are all good properties to have. The M1 boards are almost comically small and light for what they do.

I'm not overly fond of the non-open nature of Apple (and most Android) hardware, but as long as x86 machines/PCs remain a viable open alternative (still the majority of the market) I'm not overly worried about this; I just don't buy Apple hardware.

I worry that, once Windows also migrates to ARM, every hardware will start shipping with everything's soldered like the M1 does.

99%+ of users both: a) want to run the proprietary OS that came preinstalled on their computer and b) do not want malicious bootkits on their system.

Apple did the best possible thing here.

The iPhone/iPad (on Ax/Mx series chips) is locked as you describe, so the fact that they explicitly designed these as general purpose computers with an escape hatch is great.

That's the best possible situation for the 99% and the 1%.

Sometimes it feels like Apple gets a free pass over here...

I think every year for the last 10 years people have claimed the Mac was going to "become an iPhone" or stop running 3rd party code or something and it hasn't happened.

It is happening already happening - I can run macOS, Windows, Linux, xBSD, Android ports etc. on my Intel Mac Minis. But with the ARM Macs, your option are limited to macOS and crippled Linux and xBSD because they can't use many parts of the SoC (like the GPU).

But it is thanks those vocal critics that Apple hasn't been able to go full monty with its plans to fully close the mac platform, and chosen the slow and careful approach to close the system closely, with every iteration. Once the adoption of the Arm Macs reach a critical point, they will close it. Closed ARM SoCs are the wet dreams of every computer manufacturer as they allow them to fully control the system at the expense of us consumers who get locked-in with less and less choice. However, good the Apple ARM Socs maybe, the x86-x64 platform today remains the only viable "open" & truly multi-OS platform for general purpose computing.

Doesn’t the GPU already work in Asahi? You’re not locked out of it either. It’s proprietary but that isn’t different from Nvidia.

x86 isn’t that open since some of it is still patented by Intel/AMD and it has an ME, microcode, etc in the CPU. (The M1 has neither.)

>> ... while Apple didn’t help port Linux to the M1 (Asahi developers had to reverse engineer everything), they designed the M1 to allow for the installation and booting of other operating systems. >Isn't it sad that this is supposed to be a big deal?

Who said this is a big deal? You are the only one calling it a big deal. It is not a big deal. Apple has in the past and is continuing to make booting other OSes possible on the Mac. Business as usual.

As far as full featured, Asahi isn't full featured yet. When was the last time a new Linux port to an entirely new computer design was full featured right out of the gate? Not a useful criticism.

Yeah, wouldn't it be terrible if we all had to run very fast and efficient computers with really high memory bandwidth? Oh the misery. The vast majority of consumers don't give a toss about any of the faux concerns you've raised.