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Comment by masklinn | Hacker News Reader

> I hope Rosetta is here to stay and continues developement.

It almost certainly is not. Odds are Apple will eventually remove Rosetta II, as they did Rosetta back in the days, once they consider the need for that bridge to be over (Rosetta was added in 2006 in 10.4, and removed in 2011 from 10.7).

> And I hope what is learned from it can be used to make a RISC-V version of it. translating native ARM to RISC-V should be much easier than x86 to ARM as I understand it, so one could conceivably do x86 -> ARM -> RISC-V.

That's not going to happen unless Apple decides to switch from ARM to RISC-V, and... why would they? They've got 15 years experience and essentially full control on ARM.

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> Odds are Apple will eventually remove Rosetta II, as they did Rosetta back in the days, once they consider the need for that bridge to be over (Rosetta was added in 2006 in 10.4, and removed in 2011 from 10.7).

The difference is that Rosetta 1 was PPC → x86, so its purpose ended once PPC was a fond memory.

Today's Rosetta is a generalized x86 → ARM translation environment that isn't just for macOS apps. For example, it works with Apple's new virtualization framework to support running x86_64 Linux apps in ARM Linux VMs.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/virtualization/run...

Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party. Rosetta 2 is all in house as far as we know.

Different CEO as well. Jobs was more opinionated on “principles” - Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. I think Rosetta 2 will last.

What important Intel-only macOS software is going to exist in five years?

It's basically only games and weird tiny niches, and Apple is pretty happy to abandon both those categories. The saving grace is that there's very few interesting Mac-exclusive games in the Intel era.

Yeah, Apple killed all "legacy" 32-bit support, so one would think there's not much software which is both x86-64 and not being actively developed.

2006 Apple was very different from 2011 Apple, renewing that license in 2011 was probably considered cost prohibitive for the negligible benefit.

Rosetta 2 can run 32-bit software, there just isn't a 32-bit macOS anymore so the only client is WINE.

Starting with Ventura, Linux VMs can use Rosetta 2 to run x64 executables. I expect x64 Docker containers to remain relevant for quite a few years to come. Running those at reasonable speeds on Apple Silicon would be huge for developers.

> Jobs was more opinionated on “principles” - Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy.

Well, the current "principle" is "iOS is enough, we're going to run iOS apps on MacOS, and that's it".

Rosetta isn't needed for that.

It's strange to see people downvoting this when three days ago App Store on MacOS literally defaulted to searching iOS and iPad apps for me https://twitter.com/dmitriid/status/1589179351572312066

> Rosetta 1 had a ticking time bomb. Apple was licensing it from a 3rd party.

Yes, I'm sure Apple had no way of extending the license.

> Cook is more than happy to sell what people will buy. I think Rosetta 2 will last.

There's no "buy" here.

Rosetta is complexity to maintain, and an easy cut. It's not even part of the base system.

And “what people will buy” certainly didn’t prevent essentially removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS. Which is a lot more impactful than Rosetta as far as I’m concerned.

> removing support for non-hidpi displays from MacOS

Did that really reduce sales? Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation. Eg https://www.reddit.com/r/LinusTechTips/comments/yof7va/frien...

> Consider that the wide availability of crappy low end hardware gave Windows laptops a terrible reputation.

Standard DPI displays are not "crappy low-end hardware"?

I don't think there's a single widescreen display which qualifies as hiDPI out there, that more or less doesn't exist: a 5K 34" is around 160 DPI (to say nothing of the downright pedestrian 5K 49" like the G9 or the AOC Agon).

dpi isn't the right metric. you don't keep a phone the same distance as a 49" monitor.

DPI works fine as long as the type of device is in the context. The context here is desktop/laptop.

DPI is absolutely the right metric, the target goal just depends on the usage.

A hidpi computer display is north of 200 (iMacs are a bit below 220, MacBooks a bit above).

A phone is north of 300 (iPhones have ranged from 324 to 476).

Ehh I had a 2013 MacBook pro back in 2013 with a 2560x1600 display. That's 227 dpi. A decade later, I think it's safe to say that anything smaller than that is extremely low-end in 2022.

I agree it's kinda sad how few desktop monitors are high dpi. It gets even worse if you limit yourself to low latency monitors.

Anyway I haven't used macos in a while so I'm not sure what you mean by Apple not supporting non-hidpi

The actual screen dimensions make a huge difference to whether or not a given DPI value is low or high end. My current monitor is 157 DPI and I can assure you it is not an extremely low end monitor at all. Unless your frame of reference is anything below $5k is low end or something.

Right, what I meant to say is that anything under 1600p is low end because it was already widely available in 2013.

What do you mean non HiDPI display support being removed from Mac OS? I’ve been using a pair of 1920x1080 monitors with my Mac Mini M1 just fine? Have they somehow broken something in Mac OS 13 / Ventura? (I haven’t clicked the upgrade button yet, I prefer to let others leap boldly first).

We’ll see, but even post-Cook Apple historically hasn’t liked the idea of third parties leaning on bridge technologies for too long. Things like Rosetta are offered as temporary affordances to allow time for devs to migrate, not as a permanent platform fixture.

They’ve also allowed Rosetta 2 in Linux VMs - if they are serious about supporting those use cases then I think it’ll stay.

> That's not going to happen unless Apple decides to switch from ARM to RISC-V, and... why would they? They've got 15 years experience and essentially full control on ARM.

15? More than a quarter century. They were one of the original investors in ARM and have produced plenty of arm devices since then beyond the newton and the ipod.

I’d bet they use a bunch of risc v internally too if they just need a little cpu to manage something locally on some device and just want to avoid paying a tiny fee to ARM or just want some experience with it.

But RISC V as the main CPU? Yes, that’s a long way away, if ever. But apple is good at the long game. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Apple has iOS running on RISC V, but even something like the lightning-to-HDMI adapter runs IOS on ARM.

> 15? More than a quarter century. They were one of the original investors in ARM and have produced plenty of arm devices since then beyond the newton and the ipod.

They didn't design their own chips for most of that time.

At the same time as the ARM investment they had a Cray for...chip design.

Yes and?

Apple invested in ARM and worked with ARM/Acorn on what would become ARM6, in the early 90s. The newton uses it (specifically the ARM610), it is a commercial failure, later models use updated ARM CPUs to which AFAIK Apple didn't contribute (DEC's StrongARM, and ARM's ARM710).

<15 years pass>

Apple starts working on bespoke designs again around the time they start working on the iPhone, or possibly after they realise it's succeeding.

That doesn't mean they stopped using ARM in the meantime (they certainly didn't).

The iPod's SoC was not even designed internally (it was contracted out to PortalPlayer, later generations were provided by Samsung). 15 times and the revolution of Jobs' return (and his immediate killing of the Newton) is a long time for an internal team of silicon designers.

Back then, a Cray-1 could execute an infinite loop in 4.7 seconds.

It would be funny/not funny if in a few years Apple removes Rosetta 2 for Mac apps but keeps the Linux version forever so docker can run at reasonable speeds.

> They've got 15 years experience

Did you only start counting from 2007 when the iPhone was released? All the iPods prior to that were using ARM processors. The Apple Newton was using ARM processors.

iPods and Newton were entirely different chips and OS's. The first iPods weren't even on an OS that Apple created - they licensed it.

> All the iPods prior to that were using ARM processors.

Most of the original device was outsourced and contracted out (for reasons of time constraint and lack of internal expertise). PortalPlayer built the SoC and OS, not Apple. Later SoC were sourced from SigmaTel and Samsung, until the 3rd gen Touch.

> The Apple Newton was using ARM processors.

The Apple Newton was a completely different Apple, and there were several years' gap between Jobs killing the Newton and the birth of iPod, not to mention the completely different purpose and capabilities. There would be no newton-type project until the iPhone.

Which is also when Apple started working with silicon themselves: they acquired PA in 2008, Intrinsity in 2010, and Passif in 2013, released their first partially in-house SoC in 2010 (A4), and their first in-house core in 2013 (Cyclone, in the A7).

>That's not going to happen unless Apple decides to switch from ARM to RISC-V, and... why would they? They've got 15 years experience and essentially full control on ARM.

Two points here.

• First off, Apple developers are not binded to Apple. The knkwledge gained can be used elsewhere. See Rivos and Nuvia for example.

• Second, Apple reportedly has already ported many of it's secondary cores to RISC-V. It's not unreasonable that they will switch in 10 years or so.

Apple reportedly has already ported many of it's secondary cores to RISC-V

Really? In current hardware or is this speculation?

If you've got some management core somewhere in your silicon you can, with RISC-V, give it a MMU but no FPU and save area. You're going to be writing custom embedded code anyways so you get to save silicon by only incorporating the features that you need instead of having to meet the full ARM spec. And you can add your own custom instructions for the job at hand pretty easily.

That would all be a terrible idea if you were doing it for a core intended to run user applications, but that's not what Apple, Western Digital, NVidia are embracing RISC-V for embedded cores. If I were ARM I'd honestly be much more worried about RISC-V's threat to my R and M series cores than my A series cores.

Arm64 allows FPU-less designs. There are some around…

Sure. The FPU is optional on a Cortex M2, for instance. But those don't have MMUs. You'd certainly need an expensive architectural license to make something with an MMU but no FPU if you wanted to and given all the requirements ARM normally imposes for software compatibility[1] between cores I'd tend to doubt that they'd let you make something like that.

[1] Explicitly testing that you don't implement total store ordering by default is one requirement I've heard people talk about to get a custom core licensed.

Apple has an architecture license (otherwise they could not design their own cores, which they’ve been doing for close to a decade), and already had the ability to take liberties beyond what the average architecture licensee can, owing to being one of ARM’s founders.

There are arm64 designs with MMUs but not FPUs. See Cortex-R82.

That [1] is wrong too. Tegra Xavier shipped with sequential consistency out of the box :)

Don’t think any are shipping, but they’re hiring RISC-V engineers.

>Many dismiss RISC-V for its lack of software ecosystem as a significant roadblock for datacenter and client adoption, but RISC-V is quickly becoming the standard everywhere that isn’t exposed to the OS. For example, Apple’s A15 has more than a dozen Arm-based CPU cores distributed across the die for various non-user-facing functions. SemiAnalysis can confirm that these cores are actively being converted to RISC-V in future generations of hardware.[0]

So to answer your question, it is not in currently in hardware, but it is more than just speculation.

[0]https://www.semianalysis.com/p/sifive-powers-google-tpu-nasa...

For me, those two points make it clear that it would be possible for Apple to port to RISC-V. But it's still not clear what advantages they would gain from doing so, given that their ARM license appears to let them do whatever they want with CPUs that they design themselves.

The first point precludes Apple's gain from the discussion.

> it’s not unreasonable that they will switch in 10 years or so.

You’ve not provided any rationale at all for why they should switch their application cores let alone on this specific timetable.

Switching is an expensive business and there has to be a major business benefit for Apple in return.

> They've got 15 years experience and essentially full control on ARM.

Do they? ARM made it very clear that they consider all ARM cores their own[1]

[1]: https://www.theregister.com/2022/11/07/opinion_qualcomm_vs_a...

Apple is in a somewhat different position to Qualcomm in that they were a founding member of ARM. I've also heard rumours that aarch64 was designed by apple and donated to ARM (hence why apple was so early to release an aarch64 processor). So I somewhat doubt ARM will be a position to sue them any time soon.

The Qualcomm situation is based on breaches of a specific agreement that ARM had with Nuvia, which Qualcomm has now bought. It's not a generalizable "ARM thinks everything they license belongs to them fully in perpetuity" deal.

> Do they?

They do, yes. They were one of the founding 3 members of ARM itself, and the primary monetary contributor.

Through this they acquired privileges which remain extant: they can literally add custom instructions to the ISA (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29798744), something there is no available license for.

> ARM made it very clear that they consider all ARM cores their own[1]

The Qualcomm situation is a breach of contract issue wrt Nuvia, it's a very different issue, and by an actor with very different privileges.

Is there a real source for this claim? It gets parroted a lot on HN and elsewhere, but I've also heard it's greatly exagerated. I don't think Apple engineers get to read the licences, and even if they did, how do we know they understood it corretly and that it got repeated correctlty? I've never seen a valid source for this claim.

For what claim? They they co-founded ARM? That’s historical record. That they extended the ISA? That’s literally observed from decompilations. That they can do so? They’ve been doing it for at least 2 years and ARM has yet to sue.

> I've never seen a valid source for this claim.

What is “a valid source”? The linked comment is from Hector Martin, the founder and lead of Asahi, who worked on and assisted with reversing various facets of Apple silicon, including the capabilities and extensions of the ISA.

>For what claim?

that they have "essentially full control on ARM"

Having an ALA + some extras doesn't mean "full control."

he also says:

>And apparently in Apple's case, they get to be a little bit incompatible

So he doesn't seem to actually know the full extent to which Apple has more rights, even using the phrase "a little bit" — far from your claim. And he (and certainly you) has not read the license. Perhaps they have to pay for each core they release on the market that breaks compatabilty? Do you know? Of course not. A valid source would be a statement from someone who read the license or one of the companies. There is more to a core than just the ISA. If not, why is Apple porring cores to RISC-V? If they have so much control ?

Why does it need a "real source"? ARM sells architecture licenses, Apple has a custom ARM architecture. 1 + 1 = 2.

https://www.cnet.com/tech/tech-industry/apple-seen-as-likely...

"ARM Chief Executive Warren East revealed on an earnings conference call on Wednesday that "a leading handset OEM," or original equipment manufacturer, has signed an architectural license with the company, forming ARM's most far-reaching license for its processor cores. East declined to elaborate on ARM's new partner, but EETimes' Peter Clarke could think of only one smartphone maker who would be that interested in shaping and controlling the direction of the silicon inside its phones: Apple."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac_transition_to_Apple_silico...

"In 2008, Apple bought processor company P.A. Semi for US$278 million.[28][29] At the time, it was reported that Apple bought P.A. Semi for its intellectual property and engineering talent.[30] CEO Steve Jobs later claimed that P.A. Semi would develop system-on-chips for Apple's iPods and iPhones.[6] Following the acquisition, Apple signed a rare "Architecture license" with ARM, allowing the company to design its own core, using the ARM instruction set.[31] The first Apple-designed chip was the A4, released in 2010, which debuted in the first-generation iPad, then in the iPhone 4. Apple subsequently released a number of products with its own processors."

https://www.anandtech.com/show/7112/the-arm-diaries-part-1-h...

"Finally at the top of the pyramid is an ARM architecture license. Marvell, Apple and Qualcomm are some examples of the 15 companies that have this license."

I should have been more explicit. I am questioning the claim that Apple has "full control on ARM" with no restriction on the cores they make, grandfathered in from the 1980s. Nobody has ever substantiated that claim.

The common refrain is that "Since Apple helped found ARM they have a super special relationship that gives them more rights than anyone else."

That they had to specifically sign an architectural license in 2008 sounds like that is not at all true but that they are just another standard licensee (albeit one with very deep pockets).

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