[Slartie]

Last time they migrated from a niche instruction set to the dominant instruction set in the PC and server space however. That is not comparable to a migration from the dominant instruction set to a niche instruction set, which a migration from x86 to ARM would be in the current computing landscape.

Last time, the Mac platform basically existed in isolation, thus the only problem was that apps for this platform had to be recompiled. This time, the Mac is no longer isolated - millions of developers write client- and server-side applications on Macs that are to be run on mostly x86-based servers, and their toolchain implicitly relies on the architecture being the same on dev and prod machines. That is not to say that it's impossible to change the architecture of the dev machines to something else - it's just a huge additional drawback that was not to be considered at all back then in the PowerPC->x86 transition.

These two facts tend to get downplayed or overlooked pretty frequently when it comes to the "ARM-based MacBooks" discussion, but I consider them fairly substantial and they dampen my enthusiasm for such a transition quite a lot.

[foepys]

To be fair, how many developers with Macbooks are actually writing platform-specific code? I'm under the impression that most Macbook-wielding developers are web developers and work mostly with JavaScript, Python, Ruby etc. which all have ARM runtimes available. Even the "IDEs" (Atom, VS Code) are written in JavaScript nowadays or at least in Java with minor C parts (Jetbrains), which is also available for ARM platforms. Also, none of the web stuff is ever running on Mac OS, it's almost always Linux, maybe some Windows IIS.

There are also a lot of people only using their Macbook for presentations, text writing, or even only surfing the web. Apple's own office suit will be ported to ARM when they change their CPU architecture, Microsoft has Office for ARM available (or at least in the pipeline for 2019), and LibreOffice is available for ARM as well.

If Apple really wanted to do this, they would release their small Macbook (non-Pro) with ARM first and then describe a plan to change to ARM for the Macbook Pro line within a few years. No need for a transition period where emulation takes place, everything important is already ARM-ready. The iMac Pro is another thing, that might actually be harder but I imagine manageable if Adobe etc. are willing to invest/to be paid to support ARM.

[coldtea]

>To be fair, how many developers with Macbooks are actually writing platform-specific code? I'm under the impression that most Macbook-wielding developers are web developers

There are of course the millions of iOS developers.

And besides that, in any conference, from C to Rust to C++ to Java, you'll see tons of Macbook-wielding developers, often the majority.

And when it comes to keynote speakers at conferences (as opposed to audience) the PC laptop is the exception as opposed to the norm...

[foepys]

> There are of course the millions of iOS developers.

Which already is ARM and switching Mac OS to ARM could even be an advantage, so I don't see your point?

[coldtea]

The point goes to the claim "I'm under the impression that most Macbook-wielding developers are web developers"...

[pjmlp]

Everyone that is targeting OS X, iOS, tvOS and watchOS.

The developers that Apple cares about.

[rpeden]

ARM wouldn't be a niche instruction set in the current computing landscape. It might even be the dominant one, if we consider how many people are carrying around multi gHz ARM computers in their pocket every day.

[Slartie]

But a MacBook is not a smartphone. A MacBook is a laptop, which is a portable version of a PC, which clearly has x86 as the dominant instruction set today.

[rpeden]

That's fair enough.

I've done a fair amount of development work on both an ARM Chromebook and a Raspberry Pi, and I didn't run into any major issues.

It depends heavily on your tech stack, though. I find that developing on ARM and deploying to x86 was no big deal with Node, Python, and Go. Your mileage may vary with other languages and VMs, though.

[mavhc]

1. Apple ARM computers have insanely fast CPU/GPUs in, kinda way more than they need. 2. https://www.theverge.com/2018/10/15/17969754/adobe-photoshop... 3. Apple rewrote all of their apps (or killed them), so they're bound to be cross platform. Why else start from scratch and release with fewer features? Final Cut Pro X, iWork, Logic Pro X.

90% of apple sales are for ARM computers, bet they'd love to only make 1 OS, would save loads of money

[solarkraft]

ARM is not yet dominant in the desktop computing landscape, but it might become so. Apple are notorious early adopters and, developing the chips themselves, have some great insight on the potential.

They are also in a position to isolate themselves again now.

[jchw]

ARM is not niche. It is the dominant platform on mobile.

[Slartie]

But a MacBook is neither a smartphone nor a tablet, which is what the term 'mobile' refers to. A MacBook is a laptop, which is a portable version of a PC, and in that landscape, ARM is a niche instruction set.