Apple Announces "3rd Transition" for macOS: From Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon

[D.Houch]

Here we go again... BACK to Apple's 90's-style "Isolated, Proprietary Hell!"

Steve Jobs came along and showed Apple what it takes to make the Mac platform truly popular, and they've done little to keep that trend going since Mr. Jobs' passing... IMHO.

Apple almost went belly up in the 90's because they were so isolated from the rest of the computing world. Hell, they even lost Adobe as near exclusive Mac platform software. Now they're going back to their own little corner -- and trust me, it will end up a very little corner -- of the desktop computer market. Stupid... simply stupid!

If Apple were doing so well with desktops and MacOS software we would not (or at least I would not) have been building Hackintoshes the last year and a half. Apple's MacOS software is as buggy as it's ever been throughout it's entire history, their desktops are over-priced and vastly lacking in performance. I think this move will just about do it for me. BACK to a full-time Windows user after being a Mac Evangelist since the mid-nineties... sadly so!

Again, I would not even have a Hackintosh if Apple were doing what they were supposed to be doing since Jobs' passing. Problem is, I LOVE the MacOS, but cannot stand the "new" (actually has-been) incarnation of Apple. Aside from their nice displays which, let's face it, are LG displays (so no kudos there, Apple), Apple's hardware implementation stinks in comparison to what much of the PC world produces. Never mind almost endless choices!

My first Hackintosh has virtually the same hardware config as my last purchased iMac. Yet, I can boot both machines at the same time and the Hackintosh is booted, MacOS fully loaded, on the web and surfing flawlessly for at least 2-4 minutes before the iMac has gotten passed the login screen. What's wrong with this picture, Apple? It's as slow as molasses. Seriously, it's painful!

The Hackintosh is running Catalina, and the iMac is running High Sierra. How does Apple manage to make their systems run 5-10 times slower (complete with multiple occasions of spinning beach ball) than a comparable custom built system? I'm no coder or OS guru, granted. But I use computers for music production and web/graphic design. The first i5-based Hackintosh blows the doors off of my iMac.

Combine all of that with Tim Cook showering everyone with his political opinions, personal preferences, political correctness, etc. (which is all fine for your personal life... whatever the choice/opinion). But what we should be hearing only and expecting from Apple is GREAT computing product announcements once again.

This going to hurt, but unless Apple finds a way to run Windows as efficiently as it now runs (Boot Camp), and I have no problems running my current software equally as efficiently as... well... never mind... I'm already resigning myself to being a future, Windows [solely] user.

The isolation and proprietary ARM-based move has me already decided... I'M OUT! Sadly so.

Excuse the Rant if that is how it's taken. But completely changing and adapting to a new MacOS platform once again is out of the question for me. And I think it unnecessary at that. Only my .02 cents! Gimme' Intel, or gimme AMD!

Until then, I will continue to enjoy my time here.

 

[richfiles]

It's true that current software developmers will be offered tools to aid in transitioning to compiling for ARM and x64/ARM combination binaries, however, this ignores a lot of legacy software. Apple is already screwing over legacy users by locking 32-bit apps from even executing on Caltalina... They could just have easily created a Rosetta like 64-bit "sandbox" to launch 32-bit apps in, like a VM, if they were concerned with any security issues, but no!

Even worse, I can't buy a modern RX 5700X and run 10.14 Mojave, cause even though APPLE tells users if they need to rely on 32-bit legacy applications, to not upgrade, they seemingly have refused to actually maintain and upgrade the drivers on 10.14! It's absurd!!!

Apple has taken the last legacy update of Mac OS 10, and chopped off it's 32-bit compatibility... I can still execute a 32-bit app in Windows 10... I mean... What was the point, if not to force users to abandon legacy software... We're GPU upgrade locked at 10.14, legacy locked at 10.15... And Mac OS 11 is shifting to ARM...

Apple should have left 32-bit execution in Catalina, or at least offered a user selectable option to restrict or allow it.
Barring that, Apple should have provided updates for current hardware upgrades, like the RX 5700X in 10.14.

I'm 100% certain they've done this to quite painfully neuter the legacy Intel Mac user (be they running Apple made hardware or a Hackintosh). It's an artificial inconvenience.

Where does this leave us?

Well, not every piece of legacy software is gonna be updated. A lot of companies have come and gone, and some companies are small and don't have a lot of resources. Some companies are big, and can't be bothered allocating resources to things that won't flex for the shareholders... The reality is that a LOT of legacy software dies with 10.15 and 11.x

That little game you like... It's not getting an update. It'll never run on a modern Mac, outside of some kind of VM type sandbox mode or an emulator. That nifty little video transcoding utility that you absolutely adore... Done for. Company barely got an Intel build made before going under, much less a 64-bit build. You'll never see it run on Catalina, much less even ARM.

So much legacy software dies with 10.15 and 11.x.

I would legit like to see a sandbox type launcher who's sole purpose is to execute 32-bit apps in a 64-bitwrapper... Not to mention, it seems stupid to drop Rosetta like they did before. It just means that it kills legacy apps. Lets be real, the majority of legacy apps that you still would look at after 5 years is gonna be games. Even Windows offers a compatibility mode for launching old apps.

Apple just wants to cut legacy's feet off, then it's head, and bury legacy Mac apps in a shallow grave, all so they can sell iOS apps on Mac OS, and completely wall in the Mac OS software garden into just as walled a garden as the iOS platform is.

I think I'm done with Apple. I'll install 10.14 on a new machine, hope and pray someone figures out a way to get it to run Big Navi GPUs, and run it till it becomes unbearable.

This just makes me sad... I kinda wanna build a Mac OS 9 machine now. Relive the old days... Play some Myth and Marathon and Escape Velocity... Even my current machine can't do that. Apple killed PPC → Intel Rosetta so, so long ago... Like, WHY do that!

Ugh... They'll just do it again...
Now I wanna restore my old SE/30 and put system 6 on it... Play some Dungeon of Doom. Same goes with my 840av... put System 7 on it, play some Color Vette!

I'm just nostalgic for the old days, when I used to actually be enthusiastic about Apple. When I was actually a fan. I remember Apple throwing shade at Intel, bragging about how fast the G3 was vs a Pentium 2... I remember the smoked bunnies commercial... I remember when I could upgrade the CPU in my Mac, twice, and run it for 8 years... I remember when Jobs used to get on stage and legit brag about performance...

Now, Tim Cook only brags that the latest iPhone takes pretty pictures, and the Macbook is so thin (at the expense of durability, keyboard, CPU thermals, expansion, everything that is sacrificed for the form factor). A Mac Pro wastes money on expensive machining processes for it's overpriced case. There's not even a remote attempt to appease a high end home user/low end pro market. Nothing about Apple was appealing before, and it's becoming less appealing than it was before. I'm just tired rambling... I hate what Apple became, and I hate them doubling, tripling, quadrupling down on this shell of what it once was. I'm just sad...

 

[XQC]

Well, the countdown for Hackintoshs has officially started. But we all knew that it was coming sooner or later (I even made a thread back then in 2016 - https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/support-for-arm-chips-found-in-macos-sierra-kernel.203503/)

Personally I switched to real Macs in 2018 and didn't look back. Hackintoshing in general is fun... until some update broke something and I lost one day of work because of finding the fix in this forum

However, being on Hackintoshs for 5 years, I spent many hours in this forum and had a lot of fun.

I don't think this is the end however. My personal guess is: Official support for Intel Macs until 2025, and unofficial software support until 2027.

 

[Simon70]

The commercial policy is the one that matters and if undoubtedly Apple's tendency is to return to absolute control over hardware, software and assistance even on PCs (which with the Mac Pro have had to give up a bit in order to grant compatibility and internal expandability towards bands particularly demanding), the market numbers explain that what is needed is to grow the Apple PC market (I do not consider the Hackintosh world in the least, as Apple obviously does) up to having numbers comparable to the market group iPhone and iPad that share the same operating system structure. To attract an iPhone/iPad user who is not yet an Apple PC user to purchase an Apple PC, he is offered a similar user experience perspective for all environments and the possibility (within hardware limits of course) to use equal software on all environments.
The world of large commercial numbers (iPhone/iPad in this case) is completely different from the Expert and PRO world (not only for the label in the name as it happens for "iPhone PRO") and the needs to be met for this world are related to concept of comfort and charm rather than the concept of functionality and performance.
Comfort and charm can be easily facilitated with normal technology and a little software work, but functionality (intended as expandability, customizable architecture for special needs and availability of non-Apple software) and performance are not obtained cheaply and with commercial slogans: there it wants PRO policy towards PRO software houses and it takes technology (which I don't think the first Apple slicon can offer) to guarantee the TOP performance necessary for an intensive MacPRO user today.
A "SWITCH" of this level does not come into being in a day or even in two years, just as MacPRO does not come into being at the same time, and therefore if they brought out a new PC for the PRO (when they surely already had siliconAPPLE in the project) it is because they know that they will still need it for a long time despite the switch they intend to do (and perhaps for many features guaranteed only by the world, not Apple will always have to remain compatible or decide to lose that user). Moving a "bandwagon" of huge external software developers (not small apps for tablets and phones) is something that requires a lot of political and economic work and does not arrive in two days and Apple do not think that it intends to force the hand, as it can afford to do with whom he buys an iPhone/iPad, at large software houses, changing everything and telling him that he must learn everything from scratch.

Comercially it is logical that this step is (as happened for iPad which has been "opened more" becoming a PC for the less performance demanding, but very comfortable) to introduce a new segment of the PC market as an invitation for the large commercial user that can live a FULL Apple experience, but without wanting to lose in one fell swoop all the users who use the PC not because there is Airdrop etc ... but because it offers performance, reliability and functionality, things that will come gradually for the complexity of the "bandwagon" that has to be moved and that precisely because of its complexity will lead Apple to refine the internal direction to be followed moment by moment and therefore today it is unpredictable to see where it will end. One thing is certainly foreseeable: Apple does not want to lose its greatest asset, that is to be considered (and actually be) reliable, functional and performance by the PRO world (the real one, not that of the "iPhone PRO" label), a heritage that he has built over decades and expanded thanks to compatibility with the Intel world, although logically he wants to become absolute owner of his world.
Unless he has analyzed the market and has realized that he has already lost it and is betting everything on the popular market (hypothesis that I don't believe), but that image heritage, built on facts and concreteness in many years, soon vanishes if the facts do not they are more (the fact that they are "selling off" the PRO label makes you think this way a bit, but I hope it is not so because it would be sad for poor Jobs).

Just like any company that wants to grow, it aims at an expansion of numbers and market, but does not want to lose what it has conquered, nor much value and image, Apple works for profit and conforms to its policies, certainly trying to add the Jobs' innovative spirit that gave it an extra gear, which despite being still in the DNA, unfortunately is no longer as prmarious as it was and has left the highest positions on the list of priorities precisely in terms related to the commercial.
The transition to Intel from PowerPC was a stroke of genius worthy of Jobs who fused innovation and the need for commercial expansion together, but it was an expansive step precisely (an opening) and was welcomed and developed in a way appropriate to an opening that is, receiving favor and downhill roads. The transition to Apple silicon is exactly the opposite (a closure) and is an uphill road that Apple considers necessary (for now) for its structural configuration. but that it will surely manage in a conscious way for the physiological and physical differences it entails compared to facing a downhill road.

We will see what will happen in the next appointments, but for sure who has a MacPRO and does not want to give it back for a shiny new Apple silicon, will need assistance and software for at least 7 years ... or maybe they have considered that they have sold so few that they can to replace loss-making and offset gains with Apple silicon's "pop" expansion? What is certain is that if they manage to convince a PRO to drop the MacPRO for an Apple silicon, it means that the functionality and performance are there and this will be worth to Apple as a further point gain in that image made of reliability, concreteness and performance built by Jobs and it would be a move that honors the founder and will certainly be widely publicized, but it will not be good news for us poor people.

 

[pastrychef]

Those who think that ARM CPUs can't compete with Intel CPUs need to take a look at the Geekbench scores of the latest iPhones. It outperforms my overclocked i9-9900K in single core. It trails in multi-core performance, but on a laptop or desktop they can easily tack on more cores and increase clock speeds since space and cooling won't be as limited. I think it would be foolish to think that Apple will release ARM based Macs that can't out-bench Intel based ones, including the Mac Pros.



What I'd like to know is whether the ARM based Macs will still be using AMD graphics and whether users will still be able to replace graphics cards with off-the-shelf cards in the ARM based Mac Pros when they are released.

Those who believe that macOS will continue to be updated with support for Intel CPUs are lying to themselves. It makes no sense for Apple to continue support and development for two different platforms. I see a gradual wind down of support for Intel. Realistically, I think Intel based Macs and, by extension, hackintoshes will continue to see OS support and updates for 3-5 years. After that, whatever the last version of macOS that has Intel support will continue to get "Security Updates" for a few more years but no more new major releases of macOS and no more Universal 2 or Rosetta 2.

Looking at the comments, I see some have already made the decision to move on to Linux or Windows. To me, this really shows why Apple really left hackintoshing alone and never really actively went out of their way to inhibit it. Many hackintoshers would not have purchased Macs anyway.

Whle I do use Linux and Windows when I must, I can't see myself using either as my daily OS. I have always liked the UI of macOS best. I am most comfortable with macOS. I know macOS far better than any of the alternatives. Personally, I'm looking forward to buying my first ARM based Mac.

Just my two cents and my guesses/estimates...

 

[Azimuth1]

Realistically but too early. Only A12Z from iPad Pro was shown yesterday and we don’t know if the performance of A14 under a desktop level would drastically raise.

From what I saw yesterday the performance of A12Z chip are far from being amazing:

• you apply a preset to a small bunch of DNGs (we don't even know how many MP each!) on LR (already the "mobile" version, so already optimised, let's say) and the system takes some seconds to apply them? it sucks!
• PS just handles a 5GB file with a modification in only one layer in 8 bit color version? Come on! ...
• FCPX handles a PRO RES stream (FHD?), even three, in real time but when it comes to three they are cropped in some sort of mobile format instead of a full 4K/5K/6K ?! Come on! ...

Performances are not there now. Even if an hypothetical A14 can be 2X of A12Z (I guess and OC version of A12X) in performance we are still far behind from what a top league Intel chip can do. At least in desktop compartment. T2 can come to an help but still I don't expect nothing special at the moment. Much will depends if Apple A14 adopts ARM v 9.0 ISA or still the old 8.2 ISA, I'm very curious about that.

So Apple is not ready to leave Intel in desktops. It will require at least two years, even 3 years if they come late as often they happen to be ... that means we can have PciEx 4.0 (which is very important in terms of performance!), we can have Comet Lake which will be the 1st generation of Intel CPU with cores optimised either for performance either for power. And if we are a bit lucky we can also Rocket Lake on 10nm (or less) and DDR5. We will see. For sure it's not so easy to have at the present the same power of a fully configured iMac Pro or Mac Pro. Those silicons are much more powerful and complex that a simil Cortex chip.

In laptops probably they are much closer. But laptops traditionally have always been very difficult to hack, so the most of us, if you need a modern laptop, you have to buy Apple HW. Nothing changes from the past.

Let's say we have realistically 5 years ahead and no more. After that... we will need a lot of money to stay in the Apple ecosystem with a powerful desktop.

 

[trs96]

just got z490, I haven't purchased the CPU yet.
but if there is no comet lake base iMac release it seems useless...
I hope Apple releases 10th intel iMac or anything running on 10600k or 10900k.

All the people that release Apple leak info are saying the next refreshed iMac this year will have Intel 10th Gen. Apple simply doesn't have an ARM CPU right now that can match the multi-core performance of the i9-10900K. Single core performance is better with an A14 chip but for a video editor or someone using Logic Pro they'll still want Intel for this year. There are many that use older macOS versions for their video and audio work that aren't like developers that always need the latest macOS version and Xcode. In fact, it's often worse for them to be on the newest macOS version. Catalina already runs fine on 10th gen Intel silicon as proven in this community.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Off topic (I'm a moderator and self-moderating )

 

[CitizenK]

Apple is leading in consumer life style products. Apple Macs are barely even visible in the earnings reports.

I'm pretty sure the new Macs will close the gap between iOS and MacOS. They will be silent, tiny and stylish. They will be iPhones for the big screen. What an iPhone is for your pocket, the new Macs will be for your home.

Probably there will even be new Macs completely integrated into the cloud, with just a small SSD if at all. That's where the mass market for life style is.

Today it's still hard to find some software in versions for Mac & Windows (& Linux). In many cases the revenue for Mac support is just not high enough for the developers. Splitting the small MacOS market into two will make things even worse. I doubt we will see too many offering now a Windows, a Mac Intel and a Mac ARM (& Linux) Version - maybe some traditional MacOS supporters, but even they won't do it for too long. The big ones yes, many smaller developers probably not. And ARM is the future, so Mac Intel will be the first to go.

Splitting development, QA, support and bug fixing from Mac into Mac ARM and Mac Intel won't make products more stable and won't help with development time for improvements and new features, if you have to develop, QA and debug twice.

The future looks quite bad for anyone using a Mac as a workhorse. (I'm not even talking about a Hackintosh)

 

[Ritchie333]

Well I can't say I'm at all surprised. I'm used to ARM chips from running Raspberry Pis, which are now getting good enough to run as desktop machines, and the RISC instruction set has been proven to be far better for performance and power consumption in the long term. So from a technical standpoint, it makes sense.

The obvious difference is that a Pi costs next to nothing, and you can buy bundles of them. The obvious drawback is it doesn't run old Windows software that you don't have the source code for, and I suspect a lot of people who got Macs because they could also function as PCs, and Unix boxes and hence "do it all" are going to be stuck for this. Apple may think that 20-year old software is obsolete, but many people in the corporate world rely on this sort of stuff, and will be far more cautious about moving to MacOS if backwards compatibility completely flies out of the window.

As a longtime Windows critic, I've got to say Windows 10 is pretty good these days, and I think only hardened Apple fanboys would disagree. It's the complete opposite to MacOS - anything that ran the first build of Windows 10 will run the current build 5 years later without any issues whatsoever. The hardware is orders of magnitude cheaper, there's a better variety of components, and stuff just works these days. Sure, you don't get a Unix command prompt out of the box and I've never quite found the time to learn Powershell and Mingw is not quite the same ... but most people don't care about that. I'm already starting to look at alternative DAWs to Logic, such as Bitwig. I'm not really bothered which OS it runs at this stage, except that I am pretty confident that both Windows and Linux will support the system for years to come.

It's been a good 10 years with Apple, but I can now picture myself jumping ship at some point. As someone who tinkers around with hardware and software quite a bit (kind of the reason I ended up here), I really want to see Linux pick up a bunch of ex-Mac users so it can have a better desktop experience. It's already getting much more support for games, and unlike MacOS your not-so-ancient NVidia card will still work!

As for Big Sur's attempt to look more like IOS - jeez, is this the new Windows 8?