[bt3]

Without directly commenting on the performance of the M1 chip, I still believe the biggest hurdle is software compatibility. Apple's "universal binary" seems dubious, and I don't believe Rosetta 2 is anything more than emulation software which will have performance ramifications.

Microsoft has faced this same problem themselves. Releasing the Surface Pro X is a great example of a machine that is limited by software.

As others have noted in other threads, Apple's ability to run iOS apps natively on the M1 chip seems like a great mechanism to lower the switching costs, though I maintain the chasm left to cross is software.

This is all of course, notwithstanding the "locked down OS" concerns from the front page for the past day or so. Does an M1 Macbook Air with BigSur make a competent development machine?

[xsmasher]

"universal binary" is just a binary with multiple executables for multiple CPUs inside. Hardly unusual, it's been used for 32+64 bit before, and to package multiple flavors of arm.

Rosetta 2 is emulation in once sense, but it precompiles applications in to M1 code for speed.

Running all x86-64 mac apps plus iOS apps plus any updated / universal apps is pretty far from a software shortage.

[matthewmacleod]

Apple's "universal binary" seems dubious

There is absolutely nothing even remotely dubious about universal binaries. They were used during the PPC->Intel transition and again for x86->amd64. You can create them right now.

[myrandomcomment]

NeXT shipped a single binary that supported 68000, Sparc, HP and Intel CPUs. This is nothing new.

[kzrdude]

They also used a version of that in the 68k -> PPC transition.

[john_alan]

Wat.

They’ve done universal bins before. They work. What’s dubious?

Rosetta is translation not emulation.