Monday, June 22nd 2020
Apple announces Mac transition to Apple silicon
In a historic day for the Mac, Apple today announced it will transition the Mac to its world-class custom silicon to deliver industry-leading performance and powerful new technologies. Developers can now get started updating their apps to take advantage of the advanced capabilities of Apple silicon in the Mac. This transition will also establish a common architecture across all Apple products, making it far easier for developers to write and optimize their apps for the entire ecosystem.
Apple today also introduced macOS Big Sur, the next major release of macOS, which delivers its biggest update in more than a decade and includes technologies that will ensure a smooth and seamless transition to Apple silicon. Developers can easily convert their existing apps to run on Apple silicon, taking advantage of its powerful technologies and performance. And for the first time, developers can make their iOS and iPadOS apps available on the Mac without any modifications.
To help developers get started with Apple silicon, Apple is also launching the Universal App Quick Start Program, which provides access to documentation, forums support, beta versions of macOS Big Sur and Xcode 12, and the limited use of a Developer Transition Kit (DTK), a Mac development system based on Apple's A12Z Bionic System on a Chip (SoC).
Apple plans to ship the first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years. Apple will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-based Macs in development. The transition to Apple silicon represents the biggest leap ever for the Mac.
"From the beginning, the Mac has always embraced big changes to stay at the forefront of personal computing. Today we're announcing our transition to Apple silicon, making this a historic day for the Mac," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "With its powerful features and industry-leading performance, Apple silicon will make the Mac stronger and more capable than ever. I've never been more excited about the future of the Mac."
Family of Mac SoCs to Deliver Powerful New Features and Best-in-Class Performance
For over a decade, Apple's world-class silicon design team has been building and refining Apple SoCs. The result is a scalable architecture custom designed for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that leads the industry in unique features and performance per watt, and makes each of them best in class. Building upon this architecture, Apple is designing a family of SoCs for the Mac. This will give the Mac industry-leading performance per watt and higher performance GPUs—enabling app developers to write even more powerful pro apps and high-end games. And access to technologies such as the Neural Engine will make the Mac an amazing platform for developers to use machine learning. This will also create a common architecture across all Apple products, making it far easier for developers to write and optimize software for the entire Apple ecosystem.
macOS Big Sur Enables Transition to Apple Silicon
In macOS Big Sur, Apple is offering a range of technologies to make the transition to Apple silicon smooth and seamless. With everything built into Xcode 12, such as native compilers, editors, and debugging tools, most developers will be able to get their apps running in a matter of days. Using Universal 2 application binaries, developers will be able to easily create a single app that taps into the native power and performance of the new Macs with Apple silicon, while still supporting Intel-based Macs. With the translation technology of Rosetta 2, users will be able to run existing Mac apps that have not yet been updated, including those with plug-ins. Virtualization technology allows users to run Linux. Developers can also make their iOS and iPadOS apps available on the Mac without any modifications.
Quick Start Program Lets Developers Get Started Today
Apple Developer Program members can start moving their apps to Apple silicon today by applying for the Universal App Quick Start Program. The program provides access to documentation, forums support, beta versions of macOS Big Sur and Xcode 12, and includes the limited use of a DTK, which will enable developers to build and test their Universal 2 apps. The DTK, which must be returned to Apple at the end of the program, consists of a Mac mini with Apple's A12Z Bionic SoC inside and desktop specs, including 16 GB of memory, a 512 GB SSD, and a variety of Mac I/O ports. Developers can apply to the program at developer.apple.com, and the total cost of the program is $500.
Apple today also introduced macOS Big Sur, the next major release of macOS, which delivers its biggest update in more than a decade and includes technologies that will ensure a smooth and seamless transition to Apple silicon. Developers can easily convert their existing apps to run on Apple silicon, taking advantage of its powerful technologies and performance. And for the first time, developers can make their iOS and iPadOS apps available on the Mac without any modifications.
Apple plans to ship the first Mac with Apple silicon by the end of the year and complete the transition in about two years. Apple will continue to support and release new versions of macOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come, and has exciting new Intel-based Macs in development. The transition to Apple silicon represents the biggest leap ever for the Mac.
"From the beginning, the Mac has always embraced big changes to stay at the forefront of personal computing. Today we're announcing our transition to Apple silicon, making this a historic day for the Mac," said Tim Cook, Apple's CEO. "With its powerful features and industry-leading performance, Apple silicon will make the Mac stronger and more capable than ever. I've never been more excited about the future of the Mac."
Family of Mac SoCs to Deliver Powerful New Features and Best-in-Class Performance
For over a decade, Apple's world-class silicon design team has been building and refining Apple SoCs. The result is a scalable architecture custom designed for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch that leads the industry in unique features and performance per watt, and makes each of them best in class. Building upon this architecture, Apple is designing a family of SoCs for the Mac. This will give the Mac industry-leading performance per watt and higher performance GPUs—enabling app developers to write even more powerful pro apps and high-end games. And access to technologies such as the Neural Engine will make the Mac an amazing platform for developers to use machine learning. This will also create a common architecture across all Apple products, making it far easier for developers to write and optimize software for the entire Apple ecosystem.
macOS Big Sur Enables Transition to Apple Silicon
In macOS Big Sur, Apple is offering a range of technologies to make the transition to Apple silicon smooth and seamless. With everything built into Xcode 12, such as native compilers, editors, and debugging tools, most developers will be able to get their apps running in a matter of days. Using Universal 2 application binaries, developers will be able to easily create a single app that taps into the native power and performance of the new Macs with Apple silicon, while still supporting Intel-based Macs. With the translation technology of Rosetta 2, users will be able to run existing Mac apps that have not yet been updated, including those with plug-ins. Virtualization technology allows users to run Linux. Developers can also make their iOS and iPadOS apps available on the Mac without any modifications.
Quick Start Program Lets Developers Get Started Today
Apple Developer Program members can start moving their apps to Apple silicon today by applying for the Universal App Quick Start Program. The program provides access to documentation, forums support, beta versions of macOS Big Sur and Xcode 12, and includes the limited use of a DTK, which will enable developers to build and test their Universal 2 apps. The DTK, which must be returned to Apple at the end of the program, consists of a Mac mini with Apple's A12Z Bionic SoC inside and desktop specs, including 16 GB of memory, a 512 GB SSD, and a variety of Mac I/O ports. Developers can apply to the program at developer.apple.com, and the total cost of the program is $500.
61 Comments on Apple announces Mac transition to Apple silicon
I'm well aware x86 instructions are broken down to uops, since ages!
Suffice it to say, they may have very well built a custom piece of silicon that can do what they need it to do just like how the A13 Bionic in the iPhone 11 Pro pretty much whips the ass of any Android equivalent SoC. There's something to be said about a custom piece of silicon instead of relying on brute force computing. It's the same as how modern GPUs have specific areas of the GPU that are made to do certain things and others for other things.
A few other notes: github.com/fujitsu/A64FX/blob/master/doc/A64FX_Microarchitecture_Manual_en_1.1.pdf
A64FX, and many other ARM designs, split designs into simpler uOPs, just as x86 does. RISC vs CISC is dead, the ideal CPU has merged elements of both. We're pretty much living in the age of load/store CISC machines. All of which recompile assembly into uOPs and then executes them out of order. There are multiple dozens of "renaming registers" in the A64FX chip, just as x86 has renaming entries for out of order execution.
Honestly, the only designs I can call "RISC-like" are maybe GPUs these days. In-order, simple register machines (without renaming or out of order facilities). But the SIMD element kinda makes the GPU architecture more SIMD than RISC. Even "RISC-V" is a CISC design with register renaming, out of order execution, and microops.
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Now with that said, Intel has been resting on their laurels too long. Apple has extremely good benchmarks coming from their custom ARM chips (which btw: no on else can make). A64FX is another custom ARM design, but its actual design is close to the UltraSPARC chips that Fujitsu made for supercomputers. Apple has done lots of good work improving and optimizing their uncore and cache to finally be competitive.
The question is if Apple's design really can scale up from phones into laptops. Maybe, maybe not. We'll find out in a year. I don't expect A64FX to be very widespread outside of the Japanese supercomputer (its a cool piece of silicon, but Fujitsu's HPC chips don't really see much use outside of supercomputers).
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With that being said, the A12x chip in iPads / iPhones is incredible. They probably can scale it up, but I reserve judgement until they actually have a product with 3rd party reviews.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_%28software%29
But more importantly, I trust Apple when it comes to software and their hardware support almost blindly. They do make mistakes there too and bugs happen, but Apple is by far the best at sorting the right things out in reasonale time. It's almost like they have one single ecosystem and not just a frankenstein monster of 20 different chinese companies rolled in one product among hundren other ones. Does anyone actually believe that Lenovo or Dell or name any other brand like that puts as much effort into every single product like Apple does consitently? That's why I trust they can pull this off, if they haven't already done so. I meant to say they wouldn't be announcing this so soon, if they hadn't seen it working and competing with Intel already. Unlike other companies that have tried ARM like this (Microsoft), I don't believe Apple would go into this without really thinking it through or preparing it as much as possible. Nobody questioned that this could be done, but for a company to pull it off it needs to be prepared exceptionally well. I believe Apple at this point is maybe the only one capable of doing exactly that. This may also move other companies like Microsoft to try it again. Qualcomm could also move into the desktop space as well and seriously compete with Intel / AMD, there have been rumors for many months now.
Btw. I liked typing on the Butterfly Keys a lot, it feels amazing. The problem was that they were prone to some defects but I never had any problems with it that I couldn't solve myself. I remember a key got stuck once and I googled that you can blow with your mouth on it from the side to get it unstuck and it actually worked. People used to send their MacBooks in for that and Apple used to give people new Macs for stuck keys. Something they could have probably solved themselves without using any tools.
Dell and Lenovo have lower quality ~$700 products. But based on my social circle, that's how much money a lot of people are willing to spend. Actually serving the need with a bit weaker parts and some lower quality is a benefit, in that some people cannot afford a higher cost computer. (Or, a higher priced computer won't offer much benefit to them).
Dell in particular puts a lot of design effort into ease of replaceable parts and service. topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/precision-m4800-workstation_owners-manual_en-us.pdf . Dell also provides a supply chain to support these operations, with easy to buy replacement screens, batteries, etc. etc.
I actually have a general preference for high-end Dell workstations for this reason.
I still think Apple has way better built quality since they don't use plastic (or fake Carbon) like Dell and Lenovo does and what you get out of the box is immaculate build quality every time for me. The QA in production for Apple products must be the best in the world, you really get what you pay for. Although I get that people can't afford or don't want to pay that much for something like this, you can't really blame Apple for charging those prices for their level of quality and effort they put into it. You also get highly functional and practical custom software that takes literally millions of hours to code. Everybody else just chooses to put a copy of Windows on it and call it a day. That alone should be a reason to charge way more than others, but I'd argue they don't.
But... "premium feel" is very, very, very low on my list of priorities. Furthermore, I recognize that Aluminum is highly rigid, but has very low elasticity. You can bend and dent Aluminum far more easily than plastic (which "bounces back"). Ironically, Aluminum has higher plasticity than plastic (Plasticity is defined as deforming permanently). From a practicality perspective, I think plastic wins over in the long run. I do have an accident or two, dropping my laptop from modest heights or maybe children sitting on the darn thing accidentally... and plastic frankly handles that kind of abuse best out of all materials.
Honestly, the chassis material is almost 100% fashion choice and almost subjective. Aluminum, carbon fiber, plastic, magnesium alloys, are all very lightweight, decent enough rigidity (metals are better), decent enough plasticity (but plastic is better). Its far more important to get the darn thing into the correct shape. Aluminum in the wrong shape creates BendGate: it doesn't matter how strong or weak a material is if its in the wrong shape.
A lot of laptops are laughably thin and poorly shaped now. Sticking with slightly thicker workstation-class laptops helps out a lot, an extra 1/8th of an inch helps not only rigidity and strength, but also provides more room for cooling, battery, and makes replacing parts much easier. For that reason, I more or less stick with HPs or Dell workstation computers, as both companies have good replacement part supply chains, good design manuals, and good designs (on the higher end $1000+ equipment anyway)
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Well, this is getting a bit off topic, now that I think of it. Ultimately, I don't think Apple necessarily will make an Intel-competitive chip. I think they have a chance, but I'll wait for benchmarks before judging.
Re hackintosh -- did anyone else notice the note about custom kernel extensions? I thought this was really interesting. What does it mean for hackintosh/peripherals makers? Macs that are finally expandable?
As for MacOS Big Sur, when it comes to the changes in the UI Microsoft should be embarrassed.
Developers don't need Apple PC hardware to develop dominant Android apps.
Developers don't need Apple PC hardware to develop dominant Windows apps.ARM is not pure RISC when it has two instruction length. x86 has variable-length instructions which are decoded into 1-to-many fix length RISC like instructions.Removing Apple as an Intel CPU customer helps with Intel's supply issue for other PC vendors.
Historically stackoverflow’s numbers have been higher with Apple, but have dipped in recent years. I think it was the keyboard problems, but what do I know, I’m just a lowly developer :shrug:
insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019#technology-_-developers-primary-operating-systems
insights.stackoverflow.com/survey/2019?utm_content=launch-post&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=dev-survey-2019#technology-_-most-loved-dreaded-and-wanted-platforms
www.jetbrains.com/lp/devecosystem-2019/
recruit-c7ff.kxcdn.com/recruit/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/he-developer-survey-2020.pdf
Wish the statista data had a source :(
Edit: it did and it was jetbrains so it’s gone now