I can still remember way back when Steve Jobs announced that Apple is transitioning from the PowerPC to Intel processors. Back in 2005, I wasn’t quite the Apple product evangelist as I am now, so my initial reaction was one of fancying the idea that I can finally run Windows on a Mac. Even in those days, Apple had the edge over PC makers in terms of aesthetics and build quality (titanium Powerbook, anyone?), but the Mac lineup was woefully underpowered compared to the PCs I can build running on Pentium processors. The switch to Intel allowed me to finally seek out a Mac computer, and during my second year of college in 2007, I bought my first Macbook.
Funny enough, to this day I’ve yet to run an instance of Windows on any of my Apple computers. I didn’t know it in 2005, but MacOS (or OS X as it was then called) offers a vastly superior experience to the Microsoft operating system.
These days, strong rumors are circling around that during this year’s WWDC, Apple will announce a transition to the ARM architecture for its Mac, a seismic shift similar to the change to Intel some 15 years ago. Who could’ve thought that Intel will suffer the same fate as the PowerPC, and become abandoned by Apple because of failure to innovate at as quickly as Apple wants. Apple’s engineering on the ARM processor for its illustrious iPhones and iPads have so surpassed Intel’s development on their own chips that Apple seems to have finally pulled the plug on the partnership - it sees no future with the chipmaking icon.
Especially not when Apple’s own A series chips are soundly beating Intel processors in synthetic benchmarks, and for a fraction of the costs, one presumes (vertical integration and whatnot).
What a time to be alive that I get to witness another revolutionary switch to the Mac architecture. It will be interesting to see how Apple will handle the change from the x86 instruction set to ARM. If history is anything go by (hello, headphone jack), legacy apps are going to get swiftly left behind with no mercy. However, I reckon software makers are quite ready for the transition, because so many are already used to coding for the iPhone platform that’s been on the ARM architecture for over a decade. Surely Apple will do the most to help make the conversion to ARM as quick as possible. I bet when the first Mac is released with Apple chips, there won’t be an emulator for x86 apps in MacOS.
MacOS running on ARM; imagine that!
Rural Chinese village life.