It's naive to think that Apple needs Docker more than Docker needs Apple.

If Docker didn't support Apple devices going forward, they would lose a significant amount of users.

If Apple doesn't support docker going forward, they lose a tiny percentage point.

That being said, its mutually beneficial, so Apple should be putting their best effort to making the transition smooth (which I think, at least from an outsiders perspective, they are)

Apple should care more about this - web developers are a huge part of their brand

... And yet Apple refused flash support on iOS. It didn't hurt Apple, and only strengthened web development by forcing new solutions to appear. Flash, once a big chunk of the web, is now a little more than a footnote.

Apple killed flash. If they will be able to kill x86 remains to be seen. I don't think web users won out because flash is dead though. Web games never recovered. Video making switched from animation to people filming themselves talking to the camera. What will we loose with x86, I wonder?

> Apple killed flash.

Apple didn’t kill Flash. Adobe did.

By failing to deliver a performant and secure version of Flash (under any architecture, but especially mobile), Adobe ensured Flash would be not be viable for the web as it evolved.

Security was indeed an issue, but I feel flash’s performance reputation was largely undeserved. Yes, it was cpu-hungry, too intense to run on the mobile hardware of the day, but that’s because it did things html5 couldn’t. You could do smooth animations and complex games in flash easily that were hard to impossible to do with regular web tech (pre-webgl). When flash died, web animation and web gaming mostly died along with it. Some of that is the engine itself, and some is the flash authoring tools, which don’t have an open web equivalent. Maybe that sort of power never belonged in a browser, but I still feel like we lost something that didn’t fully get replaced.

I still largely blame Adobe here -- they were the ones who should have been responsible for fixing Flash's performance. The complaints about it being a CPU hog weren't limited to mobile; even in the early 2000s, Mac users, at least, generally hated being forced to deal with Flash-based UIs. Adobe never seemed real concerned with optimization, I suspect precisely because of the advantages you listed, e.g., things that were hard-to-impossible to do without Flash.

At this point, at least, I'm pretty sure WebGL can do most or all of what you could do in Flash. It's possible that the tools have never caught up, but it also seems possible to me that the space that used to be occupied by Flash games has largely been filled, ironically, by mobile gaming.

They where poor stewards of the platform, to be sure. The security situation was very bad, and they did little to discourage people from using Flash for all of the wrong reasons. But you could just as easily turn around and blame Apple for the depressing state of mobile gaming.

Flash has an HTML5 equivalent. Alongside the Animate rebrand (years ago) they released HTML5 tooling that lets you export animations for the web.

> Video making switched from animation to people filming themselves talking to the camera.

Youtube was completely built around Flash, the FLV format hit a sweet spot between "not looking like trash" and "not needing more bandwidth than the average user had" that else had before. I'm pretty sure we would be seeing a shit-ton of people filming themselves talking to the camera even if Flash was still a going concern - animation is a ton of work.

> Youtube was completely built around Flash

Youtube exists because of Flash. They were are the right time and place to have a flash object sitting on a webpage that could play video in a reasonably cross platform way.

> Video making switched from animation to people

Not sure this is entirely due to the flash web player being phased out. Kids just watched their friends play from the couch, or watched more generic broadcast television. Now they still watch and play together but remotely.

Edit: 'due' not 'sure', 'play' not 'pay'

> web developers are a huge part of their brand

Are they? Maybe in HN's niche community—and it is niche—but I suspect the vast majority of Apple's customers don't remotely associate web developers with the brand.

I think it would be accurate to say web developers are a part of their market more than a part of their brand. I don't know if I'd say "huge," but I suspect a financially significant chunk of MacBook Pro sales, specifically, go to design and engineering groups in tech companies.

Using Apple computers is a part of some web developers' brands. Web developers are at best a tiny niche aspect of Apple's brand.

You don’t need docker to develop web apps.

There might not be an absolute need but the advantages of Docker are enough that, when removed, the pain is real.

> Apple should care more about this - web developers are a huge part of their brand

They demoed Docker on stage at WWDC. They've donated equipment to Docker. Apple built a significantly better virtualization framework for Big Sur/ Apple Silicon.

What makes you think they don't care about it?

This transition is in baby steps right now. It takes time to migrate software.

I dream that at some point, everyone will get their heads out of their asses and abandon this abusive relationship.

The abusive relationship trickles down no matter which platform you choice. Even on Linux you don’t have full control of all the driver binaries, control of the silicon of everything running on your rig. Even if you were to go RISC V chances are you are going to have to rely on some binary blob for things like your WiFi card.

And even if we over come all those hurdles we still have to convince the avg joe to adopt them too otherwise it will just live in a small costly niche that the wider community just don’t bother supporting.

All we can do is try and pick the least abusive relationship we can afford and is practical to run.

My point is, I don’t it against people for using platforms others may find abusive. Sure us on HN are more likely to be in the position where we can switch platforms for fun just to see how they work out. But for most they simply don’t have the time or patience to swap and learn a new platform (let alone the cash).

Maybe this is a bad example because of what exactly happened with one manufacturer, but it’s why airlines like plane manufacturers to not go too far with design changes because it requires them to retrain their polits on the new aircraft.

If every time you purchased a new car you had to take into consideration that the control system was different between each manufacturer which may even require you to retrain in order to drive it you may very well consider with sticking with what you already know.

So I don’t hold it against anyone who simply wants to keep with what they know. They just want to fire up the platform at get to using it.

Anyways sorry for the rant, just my thoughts on the matter.

Agreed. We should all standardize on the most open systems that permit the most users to use the machines as we see fit. For example, on an open system, you can make special systems for Mac users. Or for Windows users. Or LSARS users.

That way we don't duplicate effort for an ever closing dictated by one greedy body.

How about the malware aspect? The most open system could be the most vulnerable as well.

It's a tool not a religion.

One is a toy, the other is a tool.

Docker does run on Apple silicon already by the way :)

This whole line of argument is just weird.

> Why is it their responsibility? Apple has literally billions in the bank, they should be running an incentive scheme if they want more native ports.

Because they want to sell software and/ or hardware.

> This reminds me of people complaining that Docker doesn't run on Apple ARM yet. Why should it? Apple are the ones that changed the architecture.

Docker is getting migrated for the same reason it was originally ported to MacOS. Because the developers either run Macs or work for companies that support people who run Macs. It's the same reason any software is getting ported.