Developing for visionOS requires a Mac with Apple silicon

[NewtMostly]

I just noticed this in the release notes for Xcode 15.1 beta:

Developing for visionOS requires a Mac with Apple silicon. (114799042)

This was most of the reason I wanted to upgrade from Monterey (which is still getting security updates) to Sonoma. My silicon laptop handles visionos simulator fine BUT had beefed up the RAM on my Hack to take some of the build load.

Now I think the best use of my Hack is to ssh into its local AI models and load lots of webpages into memory that I don't want on my laptop.

On a sidenote I network with my Hack from my Mac with plain USB-C to USB 3.1 or 3.2... it works but doesn't show up under network tab which means I can't share internet from my laptop to my Hack. Anyone know of any thirdparty solutions I may have missed?

Reference:

Xcode 15.1 Beta Release Notes | Apple Developer Documentation

Update your apps to use new features, and test your apps against API changes.

developer.apple.com

 

[c-o-pr]

The visionOS constraint is perfectly in keeping with the history of Mac architecture transitions of the past

I've been watching old WWDC keynotes from major inflection points in history of Apple, and this has all gone down before.

The last one was 2006 Mac Pro XCode 2.1 announcement and universal binary support. Apple's first Mac Pro was pre-offered to developers immediately for purchase at the conference ($999, delivered in 2 weeks, but must be returned when requested) so that developers could get rolling ASAP. Mac Pro would ship widely a month or so later.

You could not forward compile from a PPC to Intel because XCode 2.1 was not provided for PPC.

Looking back at history, it's clear that Mac Pro was always marketed as a necessity for developers, even though the target markets were much larger. They expected to sell zillions more iMacs than Mac Pros, and a year later the Mac would be sidelined by the iPhone.

Another point that can only be grokked in retrospect, is that while Intel Macs were pitched as a breakthrough in performance per watt which IBM/Moto roadmaps could not support for Apple, at the point of introduction of Intel Mac, the firm was already developing the iPhone on AppleSi roadmap, but never made overt mention that on Apple's roadmap, Intel was obsolete from day-1 no matter how far they advanced during the architecture's lifespan. And history reveals that in its heyday, Intel arch has always been a power-hog unsuitable for Apple's plans even as Jobs was celebrating it as a breakthrough.

Apple Vision is such a tricky product that maybe past performance will not predict future results, but this has all gone down before.