Re:The iPhone XS and XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Se...
by _ph_ on Friday October 05, 2018 @05:18PM
(#18151813)
Yes, the challenge is the software. Not so much the native Mac software created with XCode. That would probably rebuild at a button press. The elephant in the room are VMs. Many Mac users (for example me) are running x86 based operation systems inside VMs on their Mac. This wouldn't work without a dynamic translation like Rosetta. But as Apple is making their own processors, I would consider it a possiblity that they add some hardware accelerators for a Rosetta style software to their chips.
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Re:The iPhone XS and XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Se...
by et2o on Saturday October 06, 2018 @02:48AM
(#18153907)
While I understand running VMs are important for you and many developers, people like us who want to do this have to be a miniscule share of Apple's market. I wouldn't bet on them spending much time on it.
Re:The iPhone XS and XS Max Review: Unveiling the Silicon Se...
by _ph_ on Saturday October 06, 2018 @05:45AM
(#18154323)
You are right that developers are only a small part by volume. However they are the most important users in an environment, as they the ones creating new applications. Same with other power users, who require a VM. Driving them away from the platform could have a much larger net effect. That Macs got much more popular after the switch to x86 hints at that the compatibility isn't quite unimportant.
So I do think that Apple is probably going to ARM, but they need to be very careful in the steps they are taking and they need to have a really compelling offer so that users are willing to go through the transition.