Apple's software and hardware teams are absolute monsters compared to when they made the transition from PowerPC to x86. The toolset and maturity for cross-platform compilation is dramatically more advanced and mature. They could absolutely do this, and it seems eminently likely that they will in the near future.
I would also bet the already have full macOS running on ARM internally. I think we are seeing the proof of this in the new libraries being released to support the iOS like apps (News and Stocks) on the Mojave.
You don't need to rewrite them from scratch. They've had those companies for years and it's a good bet that they've done work to make it more portable. It was already available back when Macs were using PPC, so the code is obviously somewhat portable.
AFAIK, they essentially "just" maintained the x86 port of NeXTSTEP throughout the entire migration from NeXTSTEP to Mac OS X.
I wouldn't be amazed if they supported big-endian PPC still for the sake of maintaining portability, though I feel that's less likely than little-endian ARM.
AppKit is now very old, and maintaining backward compatibility through annual release cycles is extremely complicated and challenging. And that complexity doubles when you add a new platform in the mix.
Porting AppKit to ARM is easy. It's another thing entirely to commit to supporting parallel versions of AppKit for the next 8+ years.
It would be a colossal waste of Apple's software engineering resources, which many people believe are already stretched too thin. And for what, a little better battery life? It's just not realistic.
And for what, a little better battery life? It's just not realistic.
Having entire vertical control, with the flexibility and profitability that entails. Apple is paying hundreds to thousands per processor to Intel, and worse (for Apple) they are beholden to Intel for their product map. This is the antithesis of what Apple is about.
Perhaps, but these are the same folks (for political reasons) who can no longer build a workstation tower or laptop for "professionals." If it wasn't for the iPhone rocketship business they'd be dead.
Imagine if Dell didn't have a competitive workstation/pro laptop in the lineup for five years.
You've got it the wrong way around. Apple is neglecting their Mac line becuase it's paltry compared to their phone business. It's just as much, if not more, work with a fraction of the profits. They would be negligent to do otherwise.
Wouldn't be very smart reasoning on their part, but let's assume true. Supports the up-thread assertion that they are not able to do it for political reasons however.
So given two jobs, you'll focus on the one that pays you the least per hour? Apple isn't just being smart, it has a fiduciary duty to maximize shareholder returns.
I'm not sure what you mean by "political reasons" but it does still make billions from Macs, and the Macs contribute in indirect ways to the phones and the overall brand. Maybe that's what you mean.
>And nobody wants a stripped-down, locked-down version of MacOS-Lite.
That's what everyone was saying before the iPad launch and look how that turned out. Personally, I would hate an iPadBook, but I can see it selling really well. Especially among students.
I've had both a Chromebook and most recently and Android tablet with a magnetically attached keyboard, and it's great as a "I don't quite feel like bringing my proper laptop" device crossing over to a tablet, and it fits in my coat pockets.
It's a bit on the heavy side, but have pretty much supplanted my Android tablet. The Chromebook had a similar position, but then I still ended up bringing my (smaller) tablet with me.
For me at least it will never supplant a "proper" laptop because I want a full size keyboard and a much bigger screen, but it's a great complement for travels and meetings etc. or just to bring along in case of emergency.
Apple has a track record of successfully transitioning to a new architecture, they have done it several times. Not only that but they already produce ARM based devices.
And nobody wants a stripped-down, locked-down version of MacOS-Lite
Yet in iOS that is exactly what Apple sells the most.
> And nobody wants a stripped-down, locked-down version of MacOS-Lite.
There's nothing inherent in an ARM transition that would lead to such a thing, and there's nothing in the current x86 architecture that's preventing it.
Mmmm, with two previous examples of similar transitions, as well as the fact that lots of the tech that makes up MacOS already runs on aarch, I’m not sure there’s much to back up that view.
Why? I moved from a MacPro to a MacBook because I travel to much and I did not want the extra weight. If there is something that I need to do that is CPU intensive I can just ssh to my works racks and racks of build servers and let them do the work. Laptops today for most people are nothing more then email, web, and presentation & documentation machines. Given the ability to punt the hard stuff to the cloud or remote access to your corporate systems if you are a dev, battery life, screen resolution and weight seems to be the largest driving factor in design. Also to be fair some of the benchmarks for the last Apple ARM based CPU have it beating the Intels in a few task. It is important to realize not everyone has your particular set of needs. Apple is after all a mass market company and will focus on the largest set of users.