Software and platform lockdown are a lot weaker than they were in the WinTel heyday. It’s a lot easier to go from macOS to Windows to Linux these days. There are many exceptions of course, but I’d wager that market is not as big as you think.
Most of the world uses web apps. Huge and performance sensitive applications like Adobe, Maya, etc mostly already have their own UI rendering engine anyway.
It’s a lot different from the Win32/x86 duopoly situation.
Yes, most tools are cross platform (not necessarily cross-arch but that's a matter of time) and performance is important - I don't care if it's Apple silicon or Intel or AMD, or what OS GUI I'm using - I just want faster builds and iteration
Also note that the only benchmark where the A13 was included was Spec2006 - so unless Spec 2006 is relevant across most workloads that most users care about it's not really telling the whole story.
There will be an arm version of windows.. but there’s no reason to believe that Microsoft will or can support all of the coprocessors that Apple is going to add - including gpu, t2, nueral engine, etc. it isn’t like Apple plays nice with 3rd parties. I seriously doubt they’ll release the details necessary to develop independent drivers for those... whether it’s Microsoft or Linux.
So there’s good reason to believe it may be macOS only.
Personally I’ll believe it when I see it... because right now there are no 3rd party iPad or iPhone operating systems. So a better question is probably: what makes you think there will be 3rd party OS support?
Yes. There is the fact that macOS on ARM does not appear to have a standardized boot method (Apple says the boot sequence is "based on iPadOS"), and there is the fact that Apple also uses their own GPU architecture for which they're only motivated to make mac/iOS drivers.
Getting Windows to run on this is a pretty tall order, and without significant investment it won't happen. And significant investment from whom? Not Apple surely. I'm guessing Microsoft has more stake if anyone. At best we're going to see Windows on ARM virtual machines.
Apple has enough incentive to do it now because Windows on x86 is something people actually want/need to use. It doesn't cost much to support and probably sells a bunch of Macs. Windows on ARM is not really something people would want to use, not to the enormous extent people want to to use Windows on x86.
Speaking from what people expect from a "Windows PC" - Windows on a current MacBook makes a decent Windows PC. Windows on a future MacBook makes for a very poor Windows PC that will make customers regret their purchase.
Apple currently uses standard PC architecture, with identical CPUs, GPUs and Wifi chips to standard PCs, and a (sort of) standard EFI booting mechanism. With ARM Macs, it won't. Clearly Apple in its hardware design is already not invested enough to support Windows - they could use standard EFI on ARM, for example. So why would they spend a lot of money to do it in software, so people can run a "crippled" version of a competitor's OS?
Note I don't actually believe Apple will actively lock this down. I do believe we will get native Linux on these things to some extent. But I do believe Apple will not lift a single finger to make alternative OSes happen on ARM Macs. Apple only cares about macOS and virtualization. I also think Windows on ARM is a great product, but I also know that common people that just want to use a Windows computer won't agree with me.
Yes. You can't install anything on iPads and iPhones. And those are the closet hardware we have to to be release ARM macs. I would actually be incredibly surprises if they could run anything but Mac OS.
Counterargument: the closest hardware we currently have to ARM Macs is probably... Intel Macs.
The "Apple is going to lock down the Mac just like the iPhone" narrative has been with us since, well, the iPhone. But despite the alarm at tighter security measures in more recent versions of macOS, that hasn't happened yet -- and if a Secret Nefarious Lockdown Plan (tm) was going to come to fruition, the year that they shifted CPU hardware and radically redesigned the operating system's UX would sure as heck seem to be The Perfect Moment. And it still hasn't happened.
Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns and all that, but I don't think there's any reason to think Apple is going to make it any harder to run different operating systems on Apple Silicon hardware than they do on Intel hardware. (Of course, I don't think there's any reason to think they'll make it easier, either.)
On Intel macs the default was that it would run windows as long as Apple did not make substantial changes to the uefi, etc.
But arm macs are really an Apple A series processor plus a number of coprocessors like the t2, nueral engine, etc.. and the default is that windows will not work on this specialized hardware.
So unless there’s evidence that Apple is actively going to help 3rd parties develop operating systems for the Mac, the best we can hope for is a fairly acceptable OS with reverse engineered drivers for those chips. We’re either going to get an unstable OS or a severely crippled OS.
With intel macs Apple just had to stand back and let 3rd parties do their work. But they would have to actively assist with arm macs.. and there’s no indication theyve ever done that much less intend to do so in the future.
That's false. The ARM chips are tightly integrated SoCs. They aren't even close to a dropdown in replacement as "just" a new CPU would be. The internals of the ARM Macs will be much closer to the Ipad then to the Intel Macs.
And I don't think it's a coincidence Apple is slowly but surely moving OSX towards a locked down platform. It's already made pretty hard to run normal software.
Apple has already confirmed that they have no plans on restricting the ability of third party operating systems to run on Apple Silicon based notebooks.
That’s not really a helpful statement. There are so many coprocessors that we need them to actively release the details for those.. not just say they won’t oppose it.
The former requires their support. The later just says they won’t oppose reverse engineering. The later is far more difficult and will likely mean any OS will be buggy and flaky. Unless Apple comes out and says they will actively support 3rd parties, it’s just going to be a shit show with no good alternative OS options.
Is there a reference for this? Running Windows, particularly with the 64-bit x86 emulation announcement, would go a long way to making purchases more palatable.
They may be very nice machines but they won’t be in the race for a very large portion of the market.