Though in the plus side, even the base M1 is so capable that even if they stopped there it would be useful for years to come.
This is more true on the gpu side than the cpu/soc side for sure. Speaking as someone who worked on this (i did a bunch of the m3 work here, and some wifi work) - it's not anywhere near as bad as embedded work i used to do many eons ago.
Apple doesn't like to spend tons of time/energy either, and since they make most of their own hardware interfaces (or force others to their specs), most of the time the driver->hardware interfaces are just being extended/improved year over year.
Sometimes things move from one bus kind to another, and there's different hookup to do, or you have to get around to some functionality you never did, etc. But it's not like you need a brand new driver every year for the usb controller, for example.
Power management is probably one of the worst changing areas, along with NPU/GPU obviously.
Put another way - outside of NPU/GPU, you can slowly build up enough of the driver base that it can be maintained and kept up to date by a small number of people with not huge amounts of time.
It's not there yet, but it's possible to get there.
This is because Apple doesn't get a lot from changing this stuff either.
Also as a minor counter point, the only reason Asahi is even possible is that Apple explicitly designed in support for booting other operating systems into the M-series chips. They certainly could have locked them down just like they did the iPhone and iPad, but they didn't. That was a conscious choice according to the Asahi folks.
So while they may not be sharing technical documentation/drivers or otherwise making it easy on the Asahi devs, even the famously "walled garden" Apple seems to have explicitly not restricted their new line of computers in the way you're describing.
Thank Xeno, who has since been creating open-source training on low-level firmware security at https://p.ost2.fyi, a new iteration of open training material published ~15 years ago at https://opensecuritytraining.info before joining Apple.
https://archive.fosdem.org/2022/schedule/speaker/xeno_kovah/
his final project was leading the M1 SecureBoot architecture - being directly responsible for designing a system that could provide iOS-level security, while still allowing customer choice to trust arbitrary non-Apple code such as Linux bootloaders.Don't you think it's interesting that it's an option for Macs but not iPad Pros? They both use the same SoC.
> So while they may not be sharing technical documentation/drivers or otherwise making it easy on the Asahi devs, even the famously "walled garden" Apple seems to have explicitly not restricted their new line of computers in the way you're describing.
Give it a few more years. Asahi will probably be so far behind that it wouldn't even matter. Eventually they can just turn off allowing third-party operating systems on new hardware.
Apple has always sold iPads as a closed walled garden and Macs as an open platform.
Apple designed the Apple Silicon Mac hardware to allow you to run an unsigned third party OS without a negative security impact when you run MacOS, because it is an open platform.
However we have definitely seen examples of other formerly open platforms facing new restrictions.
Android was sold to the public as an open platform that Google is actively closing with new restrictions to side loading apps
Windows was sold to the public as an open platform, but Microsoft is locking out users who refuse to use an online account to access their local computer.
PTSD can block lights in tunnels.
2024: UTM SE entered iOS App Store, https://www.tomshardware.com/phones/iphone/utm-se-emulator-r...
The team implemented a version of the Qemu Tiny-Code Threaded Interpreter (TCTI). Qemu TCTI interprets the code rather than compiling it, allowing Turing Software to get around the JIT ban. Mind you, this results in a rather slow experience even by the standards of the emulated hardware.
StikDebug enables on-device JIT for any app, making it possible to run DolphiniOS without sideloading or tethering to a PC or Mac.. approved in the U.S. App Store.
The fact that you need to launch apps through a debugger to enable JIT is hilarious though. Every other platform either allows it all the time or doesn't! I would not count on it staying on the App Store - Apple can remove it whenever they want to
I think that has more to due with product positioning. They see the iPad as an iPhone style device (though it’s slowly getting more Mac-like), so kept it locked down. Not saying I agree with their decision, but I get why they made it.
> Give it a few more years. Asahi will probably be so far behind that it wouldn't even matter. Eventually they can just turn off allowing third-party operating systems on new hardware.
Unfortunately I think this is probably going to be true, but fingers crossed.
I will say though that while I like the idea of Asahi in theory, I installed it for more than a year and ended up really never booting into it. When I needed Linux for something (which is pretty rare since most any tool I would want I can just run natively in macOS terminal) it was always more convenient to use a VM, so I personally won’t lose anything if I can only run macOS, but in principle I’d like it to stay open just like the Intel Macs were with Bootcamp.
Definitely. That part makes sense - I don't understand why they didn't lock it down from the start though. There was no guarantee a project like Asahi would have succeeded given the complete lack of documentation from Apple. Perhaps it was just a part of their plans to transition from x86 -> ARM because taking away the ability to install a third-party OS might have driven people away.
Why would they fall behind? Asahi caught up from scratch the first time, they might catch up again. Maybe not for every new model, but they can simply skip some of them if forced to prioritise.
Is it possible to buy a compatible M-whatever Mac and install Linux on it without network access, without it phoning home to Apple for permission?
Sincere question since I have only used one Apple Silicon Mac ever, and it was a work machine so I never tried Asahi on it. I am curious about the privacy implications of non-macOS support.
I so know that once you have Asahi installed you never need to boot into macOS again if you don’t want to and don’t require network checkins or anything like that to keep using it.
Also unlike Windows 11, it’s trivial to set up macOS without ever creating an account with Apple, so you don’t have to give them personal info or even an email or anything to do the initial macOS setup.
My M1 Air is 4 years old and it's by far the most capable 4 year old Mac I've owned.
I tried out using Handbrake to CPU encode the same video on both devices. Amazingly the M1 Air was slightly faster than the i9, while comparatively sipping power, and staying relatively cool without even having a fan. The i9 on the other hand drained its battery super fast, sounded like a jet plane taking off, and was too hot to sit on my lap.
That’s when I knew it was really a massive leap forward.