WWDC 2020

Krupa

@richardyot said:

@Krupa said:
I’ve though about the eGPU option, but it’s fairly expensive on top of the price of a nice MacBook and other manufacturers include them in the actual laptop... there is a small advantage perhaps in terms of flexibility and the ability to upgrade later, also heat dissipation. But the fact that it’s basically a big kludge puts me off a bit, that and all the other advantages of a laptop are somewhat negated by being attached to a big box that needs plugging in...

I’m going to watch with interest how the developers react to the ARM thing over the next few months, I could be pleasantly surprised, or maybe not

The other factor that has contributed to the death of the Mac in 3D is the advent of Threadripper CPUs. You can build a 16core machine for under two grand, with 32GB RAM and a decent GPU. If you're willing to spend more you can get a 32 core machine with dual GPUs for five grand, or even go for a 64 core CPU.

Apple simply isn't catering to this market, they have no offerings that make sense. The iMac Pro starts at just under five grand for an eight-core CPU. You would be paying twice as much for a quarter of the performance of a budget Threadripper.

Ever since they killed off the old tower Mac Pros the "pro" offerings have been completely underwhelming. The trash can and the iMac Pro just didn't make sense for 3D in any way. And the laptops and iMacs just can't handle extended rendering because of the thermal designs, I've seen iMacs that are literally falling apart because their CPUs have been running for extended periods and the glue melts.

The new towers are a step in the right direction but the prices are insane. And they still don't have the option of Nvidia cards. Basically they're offering AMD GPUs and Intel CPUs when the market is in the exact opposite direction: Nvidia for the GPU and AMD Threadripper for the CPU.

That’s why I’ve still got a 2009 Mac Pro tower in everyday use, ssd, RAID and nvidia card make it almost as powerful as the new stuff, best two grand I ever spent

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

That'd be good, and stop the inevitable backlash from existing Intel customers feeling locked-out from all the new shiny things. Some kind of emulator, maybe.

Since they've announced there's still new Intel machines in the pipeline to be released, it'd be weird doing this with the knowledge customers will be buying an unsupported product.

WWDC has left me in a quandary now.

Was raising the courage to get a MBP 16 but am not so sure now. 3 grand for a laptop, I would expect nearly a decade of usage for that kind of moolah. Could wait for an ARM but that is going to be a year and they may be a bit ropey, the earlier models anyway. Decisions, decisions..

When I bought this one, it was at the start of the virus stuff, and my work machine had died. I couldn't face Windows, didn't want to be faced with lugging an iMac around on an 80 mile round trip if it went wrong, and couldn't cope with another ten years of Windows. As you know I hate spending money, so it pained me to shell out this amount on a laptop, but I had work to get on with and a lethal virus waiting around the orner.

As it happens it's turned out good. The screen is the best I've ever had ( previously non-retina MBP, and crappy Dell monitors), and that extra 1" + hi res makes it more usable than my old 15" non-retina. So much so I don't bother with an external monitor. Keyboard's good, speakers are great, battery amazing, base model speed is absolutely fine, and everything runs like poo off a shovel. It didn't break into a sweat when I loaded up Live and Logic.

I think it really boils down to what you intend using it for. For me this is a work/graphics/business machine, though like the old one no doubt in a few years it'll be semi-retired for music. The old one has worked out at £200 per year so far over 8 years - less than £4 per week. If this one lasts as long it'll be just over £300, and tax deductable. I'm happy to 'freeze' my machines, so as long as the hardware keeps going I can keep using it for years to come. I doubt I'll be spending much on desktop music software in future as I'm happy now with what I have, so freezing that too isn't a problem.

If I was in the same situation and knew about the ARM changes, I'd still get one of these as they're just brilliant laptops. The ARM transition could be hell, in which case these will be like gold dust. Or maybe it'll go really well. Impossible to predict, but my guess is it's going to be a bumpy ride, as they've themselves admitted.

Depends how long you're preared to wait I guess.

Carnbot

Yeah I'm only interested in a mac as a secondary device if I can afford it because I'm also needing nVidia graphics as I do real time visuals as well as a lot of mixed rendered 2d and 3d post production as well as audio. But if the arm Macs are more competitively priced than the intel macs they could be more appealing for doing some work.

[Deleted User]

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

Jocphone

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

Jocphone

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

That'd be good, and stop the inevitable backlash from existing Intel customers feeling locked-out from all the new shiny things. Some kind of emulator, maybe.

Since they've announced there's still new Intel machines in the pipeline to be released, it'd be weird doing this with the knowledge customers will be buying an unsupported product.

WWDC has left me in a quandary now.

Was raising the courage to get a MBP 16 but am not so sure now. 3 grand for a laptop, I would expect nearly a decade of usage for that kind of moolah. Could wait for an ARM but that is going to be a year and they may be a bit ropey, the earlier models anyway. Decisions, decisions..

When I bought this one, it was at the start of the virus stuff, and my work machine had died. I couldn't face Windows, didn't want to be faced with lugging an iMac around on an 80 mile round trip if it went wrong, and couldn't cope with another ten years of Windows. As you know I hate spending money, so it pained me to shell out this amount on a laptop, but I had work to get on with and a lethal virus waiting around the orner.

As it happens it's turned out good. The screen is the best I've ever had ( previously non-retina MBP, and crappy Dell monitors), and that extra 1" + hi res makes it more usable than my old 15" non-retina. So much so I don't bother with an external monitor. Keyboard's good, speakers are great, battery amazing, base model speed is absolutely fine, and everything runs like poo off a shovel. It didn't break into a sweat when I loaded up Live and Logic.

I think it really boils down to what you intend using it for. For me this is a work/graphics/business machine, though like the old one no doubt in a few years it'll be semi-retired for music. The old one has worked out at £200 per year so far over 8 years - less than £4 per week. If this one lasts as long it'll be just over £300, and tax deductable. I'm happy to 'freeze' my machines, so as long as the hardware keeps going I can keep using it for years to come. I doubt I'll be spending much on desktop music software in future as I'm happy now with what I have, so freezing that too isn't a problem.

If I was in the same situation and knew about the ARM changes, I'd still get one of these as they're just brilliant laptops. The ARM transition could be hell, in which case these will be like gold dust. Or maybe it'll go really well. Impossible to predict, but my guess is it's going to be a bumpy ride, as they've themselves admitted.

Depends how long you're preared to wait I guess.

I was the same except my MBP was from 2008. No Apple updates anymore but it still worked fine for most things I played with. Then there was an incident with a sloping laptop stand, a cup of coffee and a raspberry magnum. Still worked afterwards but had to use external mouse and keyboard and vigorously massage the built-in keyboard before use.

I do have me work mac, a 2018 15 inch but the amount of work stuff and warnings we get, makes it difficult to do anything of my own on there. Tried creating a bootable external drive but they must have some hook in lower level because it still installed all the work stuff.

The main reason I want to get another Mac is because I have Ableton Live, Reason, Max 8, Reaktor etc.. licenses sitting doing nothing but also I would like to do more with video.

With this transition phase about to start I'm loathe to buy something now but then I guess you could say, if the virus had hit harder, then we might not be here to have this conversation. Time is short, etc.. If anything happened to the company I work for I would need a laptop to work with.

Think I'm just talking myself into it. Maybe. Those 16 inchers are tempting..

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

That’s cool then, I’ll still be able to join in the app fun with my ‘old’ Intel MBP 😄

[Deleted User]

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

That'd be good, and stop the inevitable backlash from existing Intel customers feeling locked-out from all the new shiny things. Some kind of emulator, maybe.

Since they've announced there's still new Intel machines in the pipeline to be released, it'd be weird doing this with the knowledge customers will be buying an unsupported product.

WWDC has left me in a quandary now.

Was raising the courage to get a MBP 16 but am not so sure now. 3 grand for a laptop, I would expect nearly a decade of usage for that kind of moolah. Could wait for an ARM but that is going to be a year and they may be a bit ropey, the earlier models anyway. Decisions, decisions..

When I bought this one, it was at the start of the virus stuff, and my work machine had died. I couldn't face Windows, didn't want to be faced with lugging an iMac around on an 80 mile round trip if it went wrong, and couldn't cope with another ten years of Windows. As you know I hate spending money, so it pained me to shell out this amount on a laptop, but I had work to get on with and a lethal virus waiting around the orner.

As it happens it's turned out good. The screen is the best I've ever had ( previously non-retina MBP, and crappy Dell monitors), and that extra 1" + hi res makes it more usable than my old 15" non-retina. So much so I don't bother with an external monitor. Keyboard's good, speakers are great, battery amazing, base model speed is absolutely fine, and everything runs like poo off a shovel. It didn't break into a sweat when I loaded up Live and Logic.

I think it really boils down to what you intend using it for. For me this is a work/graphics/business machine, though like the old one no doubt in a few years it'll be semi-retired for music. The old one has worked out at £200 per year so far over 8 years - less than £4 per week. If this one lasts as long it'll be just over £300, and tax deductable. I'm happy to 'freeze' my machines, so as long as the hardware keeps going I can keep using it for years to come. I doubt I'll be spending much on desktop music software in future as I'm happy now with what I have, so freezing that too isn't a problem.

If I was in the same situation and knew about the ARM changes, I'd still get one of these as they're just brilliant laptops. The ARM transition could be hell, in which case these will be like gold dust. Or maybe it'll go really well. Impossible to predict, but my guess is it's going to be a bumpy ride, as they've themselves admitted.

Depends how long you're preared to wait I guess.

I was the same except my MBP was from 2008. No Apple updates anymore but it still worked fine for most things I played with. Then there was an incident with a sloping laptop stand, a cup of coffee and a raspberry magnum. Still worked afterwards but had to use external mouse and keyboard and vigorously massage the built-in keyboard before use.

I do have me work mac, a 2018 15 inch but the amount of work stuff and warnings we get, makes it difficult to do anything of my own on there. Tried creating a bootable external drive but they must have some hook in lower level because it still installed all the work stuff.

The main reason I want to get another Mac is because I have Ableton Live, Reason, Max 8, Reaktor etc.. licenses sitting doing nothing but also I would like to do more with video.

With this transition phase about to start I'm loathe to buy something now but then I guess you could say, if the virus had hit harder, then we might not be here to have this conversation. Time is short, etc.. If anything happened to the company I work for I would need a laptop to work with.

Think I'm just talking myself into it. Maybe. Those 16 inchers are tempting..

When I bought mine there was talk of food shortages, and millions dead. Part of my motivation was I might not be around long enough to worry about paying for it!

I think with the experience of this virus thing, and the history of Mac bungled hardware updates, I’m happy to have jumped - though it looks like I’ll live long enough to make the payments!

If you need one now, get it. If you don’t, wait and see how the land lies in 12 months time. And give the raspberry Magnums to me, for safe keeping.

Jocphone

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

That'd be good, and stop the inevitable backlash from existing Intel customers feeling locked-out from all the new shiny things. Some kind of emulator, maybe.

Since they've announced there's still new Intel machines in the pipeline to be released, it'd be weird doing this with the knowledge customers will be buying an unsupported product.

WWDC has left me in a quandary now.

Was raising the courage to get a MBP 16 but am not so sure now. 3 grand for a laptop, I would expect nearly a decade of usage for that kind of moolah. Could wait for an ARM but that is going to be a year and they may be a bit ropey, the earlier models anyway. Decisions, decisions..

When I bought this one, it was at the start of the virus stuff, and my work machine had died. I couldn't face Windows, didn't want to be faced with lugging an iMac around on an 80 mile round trip if it went wrong, and couldn't cope with another ten years of Windows. As you know I hate spending money, so it pained me to shell out this amount on a laptop, but I had work to get on with and a lethal virus waiting around the orner.

As it happens it's turned out good. The screen is the best I've ever had ( previously non-retina MBP, and crappy Dell monitors), and that extra 1" + hi res makes it more usable than my old 15" non-retina. So much so I don't bother with an external monitor. Keyboard's good, speakers are great, battery amazing, base model speed is absolutely fine, and everything runs like poo off a shovel. It didn't break into a sweat when I loaded up Live and Logic.

I think it really boils down to what you intend using it for. For me this is a work/graphics/business machine, though like the old one no doubt in a few years it'll be semi-retired for music. The old one has worked out at £200 per year so far over 8 years - less than £4 per week. If this one lasts as long it'll be just over £300, and tax deductable. I'm happy to 'freeze' my machines, so as long as the hardware keeps going I can keep using it for years to come. I doubt I'll be spending much on desktop music software in future as I'm happy now with what I have, so freezing that too isn't a problem.

If I was in the same situation and knew about the ARM changes, I'd still get one of these as they're just brilliant laptops. The ARM transition could be hell, in which case these will be like gold dust. Or maybe it'll go really well. Impossible to predict, but my guess is it's going to be a bumpy ride, as they've themselves admitted.

Depends how long you're preared to wait I guess.

I was the same except my MBP was from 2008. No Apple updates anymore but it still worked fine for most things I played with. Then there was an incident with a sloping laptop stand, a cup of coffee and a raspberry magnum. Still worked afterwards but had to use external mouse and keyboard and vigorously massage the built-in keyboard before use.

I do have me work mac, a 2018 15 inch but the amount of work stuff and warnings we get, makes it difficult to do anything of my own on there. Tried creating a bootable external drive but they must have some hook in lower level because it still installed all the work stuff.

The main reason I want to get another Mac is because I have Ableton Live, Reason, Max 8, Reaktor etc.. licenses sitting doing nothing but also I would like to do more with video.

With this transition phase about to start I'm loathe to buy something now but then I guess you could say, if the virus had hit harder, then we might not be here to have this conversation. Time is short, etc.. If anything happened to the company I work for I would need a laptop to work with.

Think I'm just talking myself into it. Maybe. Those 16 inchers are tempting..

When I bought mine there was talk of food shortages, and millions dead. Part of my motivation was I might not be around long enough to worry about paying for it!

I think with the experience of this virus thing, and the history of Mac bungled hardware updates, I’m happy to have jumped - though it looks like I’ll live long enough to make the payments!

If you need one now, get it. If you don’t, wait and see how the land lies in 12 months time. And give the raspberry Magnums to me, for safe keeping.

I'll give you my Raspberry Magnum when you can prise it from my dead cold hands!

Ha ha, good advice though, probably could be shortened to YOL.

wim

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

There are two different things being talked about here.

One is the dual binary, which will be native code for both platforms in one binary and will require developers to do the code migration (which they say will be "easy"). There will be no performance hit for dual binary.

The other is an emulation layer to allow non modified intel code to run on the new chips. There will be some performance hit there, but they claim it will be minor. They demoed a game with heavy 3d rendering and automation running on it. I believe that, and that for most people and apps the performance hit will be negligible.

Jocphone

@wim said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

There are two different things being talked about here.

One is the dual binary, which will be native code for both platforms in one binary and will require developers to do the code migration (which they say will be "easy"). There will be no performance hit for dual binary.

The other is an emulation layer to allow non modified intel code to run on the new chips. There will be some performance hit there, but they claim it will be minor. They demoed a game with heavy 3d rendering and automation running on it. I believe that, and that for most people and apps the performance hit will be negligible.

Yes I understand that, was simply mentioning dual binaries in relation to @Samu's point about running ARM apps on Intel hardware. If apps are compiled to Dual Binary then, in theory, they should perform as best they can for each processor.

Samu

@Jocphone said:

@wim said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

There are two different things being talked about here.

One is the dual binary, which will be native code for both platforms in one binary and will require developers to do the code migration (which they say will be "easy"). There will be no performance hit for dual binary.

The other is an emulation layer to allow non modified intel code to run on the new chips. There will be some performance hit there, but they claim it will be minor. They demoed a game with heavy 3d rendering and automation running on it. I believe that, and that for most people and apps the performance hit will be negligible.

Yes I understand that, was simply mentioning dual binaries in relation to @Samu's point about running ARM apps on Intel hardware. If apps are compiled to Dual Binary then, in theory, they should perform as best they can for each processor.

But iOS/iPadOS apps are likely not compiled for Intel at all so I suspect running those apps on macOS will be exclusive to the coming ARM Macs making it a unique selling point to protect the prior app investments

Jocphone

@Samu said:

@Jocphone said:

@wim said:

@Jocphone said:

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

There shouldn't be a performance hit as that is most likely dual binary like with the switch to Intel.

There are two different things being talked about here.

One is the dual binary, which will be native code for both platforms in one binary and will require developers to do the code migration (which they say will be "easy"). There will be no performance hit for dual binary.

The other is an emulation layer to allow non modified intel code to run on the new chips. There will be some performance hit there, but they claim it will be minor. They demoed a game with heavy 3d rendering and automation running on it. I believe that, and that for most people and apps the performance hit will be negligible.

Yes I understand that, was simply mentioning dual binaries in relation to @Samu's point about running ARM apps on Intel hardware. If apps are compiled to Dual Binary then, in theory, they should perform as best they can for each processor.

But iOS/iPadOS apps are likely not compiled for Intel at all so I suspect running those apps on macOS will be exclusive to the coming ARM Macs making it a unique selling point to protect the prior app investments

Ah I just saw you mention ARM apps. That makes more sense, I guess it will soon leak out whether iOS apps can be recompiled for Intel as well to run on a newer MacOS. Otherwise, it may be possible with the emulation layer, as @wim mentioned.

Samu

Don’t know how well ARM AChips can be emulated on Intel and I suspect no bigger effort will be made by Apple. It was never possible to run native Intel apps on PowerPC...

So I think the priority here will be ‘Legacy Compatibility’ for ARM Macs with an added bonus being able to run iOS/iPadOS apps without too much weirdness...

wim

@Jocphone said:
Ah I just saw you mention ARM apps. That makes more sense, I guess it will soon leak out whether iOS apps can be recompiled for Intel as well to run on a newer MacOS. Otherwise, it may be possible with the emulation layer, as @wim mentioned.

yeh, I missed Samu's point too. That does make more sense now.

I suspect though that minimal if any modification would be needed to get an iOS app to run on the new chips. Binaries interact with chips through instruction sets (actually, primarily through the OS, but forget that for now). Those instruction sets are designed by the chip designer. If Apple has maintained compatibility between processor instruction sets there should be no reason to have to re-compile an iOS app to run on the new Mac CPU. They have every reason to keep instruction sets compatible up and down the line ... or at worst, to add features while maintaining backward compatibility.

As for Intel apps being able to be compiled to run on Apple Silicon (their term for what we're calling ARM), that was addressed in the keynote. They claim that the process should be easy for most cases. They said most apps should be up and running with about a day's work. Yeh ... we'll see on that one. But time and effort aside, yes, apps developed for the Intel architecture will be able to be recompiled to Apple Silicon, and I presume dual binary.

The emulation layer is there to smooth the transition and for programs which the developers decline to bring forward for the new chips.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

ErrkaPetti

@Clueless said:

@tja said:
I did not watch the Apple video, just skipped over some summaries on webpages and there was nothing about Xcode for iPad.

So, all hope lost?
Or did i just read the wrong websites?

Logic will come to iOS next week!.......Not.....Also no X-code and no FCPX.
So the rumors were all just about the ARM macs. Who was that guy said 100% sure, lol.

Boys, hold on...
Xcode for iPad will certainly come, but, probably Apple want it to be ready first...
So, it could be this summer, or perhaps this fall, nobody knows...

The same goes for updated Garageband for iPad/iPhone, with a real mixer, subgroup/groups etc etc - someday it will happen!
Logic Pro for iPad? Perhaps the Garageband thing above is more likely before LPX on iPad...

ErrkaPetti

If, Logic Pro for iPad ever come, I really hope they do a better job than Adobe and the iPad version of Photoshop (useless almost)...
Adobe promised a real Photoshop for iPad, but released a version almost without any feature and functionalities...

wim

@ErrkaPetti said:

@Clueless said:

Boys, hold on...
Xcode for iPad will certainly come, but, probably Apple want it to be ready first...
So, it could be this summer, or perhaps this fall, nobody knows...

Why on earth do you say that? What do you think Xcode is? And why do you think anyone would even want it on iOS or that Apple would bother?

Sorry, I don't mean to be provocative. I'm genuinely curious why you say this so confidently about Xcode.

[Deleted User]

@Samu said:
Don’t know how well ARM AChips can be emulated on Intel and I suspect no bigger effort will be made by Apple.

It certainly seems to be their intention: “Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.” But I guess we’ll have wait and see whether that’s just for the benefit of the new ARM things, or whether they’ll allow us old timers to run apps too.

There will be a greater percentage of Intel users for quite a few years after ARM is released, so they’ll have some tricky PR to do if they’re not going to be supported. People are still complaining about the headphone socket, which will be a storm in a teacup in comparison.

Maybe I’m just weird, but I can’t see a great attraction to running apps on my Mac - most are designed for a touchscreen, and apps like Touchscaper, Borderlands, Sampler, etc. will be pants on a Mac. The only advantage for me would be running fx apps as VST plugins in a desktop DAW, apart from that I can’t see the point - since I can already record MIDI and digital quality audio in via IDAM.

Use an iPad for iOS apps, desktop software on the desktop.

cian

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:

>

The interesting thing will be if we can run ARM apps on Intel even if it would mean a big performance hit

Just seen this, so looks like it’s certainly their intention:

“ Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.”

I suspect that this is more a format where you submit something that is using somekind of bytecode, and then that gets compiled to either Intel/ARM for each of the types of supported machine. I think that's kind of what happens today on IOS, so newer machines can take advantage of newer intrinsics, vectorization, etc.

This would probably require that you use Apple's newer libraries, so I doubt it would be a solution for legacy software (essentially all audio/graphics stuff).

ErrkaPetti

@wim said:
I never bought the Xcode on Mac rumor. I can't even see why that would be a good thing. Who in their right mind would try to do any serious development on an iPad? I mean, maybe some scripting, but the stuff you do now in Xcode? I can't imagine that.

Better Playgrounds support (on both iPad and Mac), would be really nice for experiments and prototyping though.

@wim - what do you mean with that?
Why not Xcode for iPad? Hold in mind that we got pencils, mouses, keyboards AND external 4K screens for iPad Pro nowadays...

With an external hires screen, a mouse and a really nice keyboard, what’s missing then (if Xcode for iPad is the same as on Mac)?

I think you and a lot of users here a little negative here ;-) I just see the lights and a bright future!

wim

@MonzoPro said:

@Samu said:
Don’t know how well ARM AChips can be emulated on Intel and I suspect no bigger effort will be made by Apple.

It certainly seems to be their intention: “Apple is pushing a new Universal 2 format that allows developers to produce one app that runs on both existing Intel Macs and new ARM Macs.” But I guess we’ll have wait and see whether that’s just for the benefit of the new ARM things, or whether they’ll allow us old timers to run apps too.

Not that it's hugely important, but just to clarify: The universal binary will be one app package that is complied to run natively on both Apple Silicon and Intel. Apple will supply the tools to do this for new or adapted programs. Developers will need to adapt and recompile their apps to take advantage of this.

For programs that have only been compiled to run on Intel, they will have an emulation layer that will emulate the Intel architecture on Apple Silicon (not the other way around). This will be the way that the newer Macs can apps that haven't been recompiled for Apple Silicon. There will be a (probably negligible) performance hit for that, but the apps should run transparently with no modification by anyone.

There will be a greater percentage of Intel users for quite a few years after ARM is released, so they’ll have some tricky PR to do if they’re not going to be supported. People are still complaining about the headphone socket, which will be a storm in a teacup in comparison.

That's safe to say. There's no way they can do this without a solid compatibility layer for many years to come.

cian

@wim said:

The other is an emulation layer to allow non modified intel code to run on the new chips. There will be some performance hit there, but they claim it will be minor. They demoed a game with heavy 3d rendering and automation running on it. I believe that, and that for most people and apps the performance hit will be negligible.

Yeah... There are definitely apps where you won't notice the difference, but that's more because of one of two things:

• modern computers are more than fast enough to run them even with the emulation tax.
• It's a 3D app, so the graphics card is doing most of the work so again the processor isn't going to affect things very much.

The idea that a modern game that pushes the hardware (not the video card, but the CPU and memory) to the limit will perform well under emulation is laughable.

But it doesn't really matter as Macs stopped being used for high performance stuff a while back.

cian

I don't want to use XCode, or any ID, on a laptop if I can help it. Good god it would be awful on an iPad. Also, no desire to have a touch screen. The less I have to use a mouse, the better.

wim

@ErrkaPetti said:

@wim said:
I never bought the Xcode on Mac rumor. I can't even see why that would be a good thing. Who in their right mind would try to do any serious development on an iPad? I mean, maybe some scripting, but the stuff you do now in Xcode? I can't imagine that.

Better Playgrounds support (on both iPad and Mac), would be really nice for experiments and prototyping though.

@wim - what do you mean with that?
Why not Xcode for iPad? Hold in mind that we got pencils, mouses, keyboards AND external 4K screens for iPad Pro nowadays...

With an external hires screen, a mouse and a really nice keyboard, what’s missing then (if Xcode for iPad is the same as on Mac)?

I think you and a lot of users here a little negative here ;-) I just see the lights and a bright future!

What I mean is there's no advantage to it. Are you a developer? The other stuff, Logic Pro, etc. I can see. I just can't fathom any developer even wanting to mess with Xcode on an iPad. I also can't think of a single motivation for apple to do that. It would gain them nothing and require a HUGE interface re-think.

Doesn't matter. I get sick of idle speculation, especially my own, very, very quickly.

I am curious though about what you think Xcode is and does, and why you think it would be advantageous to anyone to have it working on iPad.

dendy

@ErrkaPetti

more i think about xCode on ipad more it looks unrealistic to me There was moment (mostly because of leaks before of WWDC) when i was ready to believe it is real thing, but i was fooled ...

until iPads will not have 16GB of RAM and fast SSD drive, the using xCode on iPad for anything other than simple app with 2-3 view controllers will be act of selfpunishment ))
i can see how compiling larger project on iPad with 3 GB of ram and current flash drive would be like - you hit "build" and then you can take day off until all compilation is done... )

And in the middle iOS kills xCode because of out of memory ))

iOS in it's current state os totally not usable for development using advanced IDE. No way.

cian

One misconception I keep seeing is that ARM is competitive for performance with Intel because it can reach the same number of instructions per second. But actually there's a lot more to performance than this. An awful lot of the work that Intel has put into high performance stuff has been on things like effective caching (these days typically the biggest thing that affects performance), handling multicore code, vectorization (effectively doing the same instruction on multiple bits of data simultaneously) and improving IO performance between the motherboard and the CPU.

On small laptops that stuff isn't hugely effective as it consumes a lot of power. But on desktops, where you care less about power usage it can make a huge difference to performance. There's a reason that consoles use AMD, rather than ARM. ARM really hasn't put a lot of R&D into performance, as this hasn't fit their niche. It will be interesting to see if Apple has the money/resources to make up for that.

I am genuinely curious as to how this will play out in audio. I can see Apple computers with ARM chips falling behind windows, which would be a shame.

Clueless

Here you go:https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/23/21300097/fugaku-supercomputer-worlds-fastest-top500-riken-fujitsu-arm

dendy

@cian
am genuinely curious as to how this will play out in audio. I can see Apple computers with ARM chips falling behind windows, which would be a shame.

This is exactly something i'm afraid of. Just watch developement of iOS cpus in last 2 years - A12 - A12x - A13 - A12Z ... Almost no progress in high performance CPU cores (which is important for audio apps). They are improvimg mostly just low performance cores and GPU/ML chips in first place - this is where most of improvement is happening.

So i'm very skeptical about audio performance. Obviously GFX a machine learning is for Apple main topic.