Apple MacBook Pro massive problem

Updated July 27. Article originally published on July 25.

The move from Mac to ARM is exciting for Apple, but it does have some major issues along the way. One of the biggest problems is the existing user base of Intel machines. Apple needs to retain support for the Intel platform. And that will lead to an awkward few years with some substantial issues around every corner on the road to ARM.

July 27 update: Moving to ARM offers Apple many benefits, but one of the key areas it believes it can take advantage of is ARM’s performance over Intel. The latest benchmarking figures confirm this. Chance Miller reports:

“Today new benchmarks have been leaked showing the Developer Transition Kit running Geekbench 5 Pro natively on Mac mini …

“The results show a single-core score of 1098 and a multi-core score of 4,555. This compares to the non-native of 800 in the single-core test and 2,600 in the multi-core test. For comparison, the entry level of $ 999 2020 MacBook Air achieves a Geekbench score of 1005 single core and 2000 multi core. “

This is an improvement on the initial Geekbench results, where the Mac mini-based Developer Transition Kit was using a virtual machine to run the benchmarking app. These numbers, from a native application, show significant progress from Intel. Many factors will affect the performance of a MacBook in ARM, but the headline numbers look good to Apple as it moves away from Intel.

While Intel machines won’t go away overnight, Apple has clearly stated that its future is based on ARM. Engineering efforts will focus on the new architecture, designers will work with the new freedom offered by greater chip efficiency, and marketing will focus on the new frontier. Apple’s main focus will not be on Intel. Maintenance? Yes. Push the envelope? Unlikely.

The developers will also be looking towards the new platform. Although they will be so aware of their existing customer base and the need to support them, as Apple expands the MacOS platform and presumably incorporates iOS and iPadOS features, hooks may be restricted to the ARM platform. In other words, older apps can be kept, but full capabilities will only be unlocked on ARM hardware.

Finally there is the loss of value on Intel machines. Apple hardware has traditionally held its value for a much longer period than equivalent PC hardware. Selling an older Mac in order to buy a new Mac is a traditional tradition in the community.

As the years go by, the current rate for Intel hardware is likely to drop much faster than in previous years, subtly raising the price of a switch to an ARM-based machine (something Apple has already begun to do) .

A big mitigating factor here is Apple’s past performance and long-term support for older devices.

MacOS 11 is supported not only on current Mac machines, but can be installed and run on Mac machines from early 2013 in the case of that year’s MacBook Air. Apple is not going to suddenly give up on a seven-year support window and existing user base.

What may happen is that the 2021 iteration of MacOS can make the drawbridge rise a little bit faster, maybe it only goes back to 2015 instead of 2014. Any retreat, in my opinion, is going to be on a curve instead of a cliff.

Apple has handled this transition before, as it switched from the PowerPC platform to Intel.

Announced in 2005 to start in June 2006, it was completed in late 2007 (a two-year project, hmm, that sounds familiar …). Although the full Mac range had changed, PowerPC machines continued to be supported until MacOS 10.6 Snow Leopard.

That was a four-year window of official support. Apple will have had a high turnover since then, corporate memory and knowledge remain.

The transition period is full of dangers and there are big problems along the way. Apple has worked hard to minimize the risk, but it’s there. No matter how simple the process is, users will find it incredibly difficult to find the right balance.

On one side is the ‘top speed ahead’ crowd, get on the ARM train as soon as possible. ‘ On the other hand, I suspect, there is a much larger crowd that will remain with Intel for years to come. They could be companies with a fixed IT budget and a fleet of Mac machines; business users with a specific workflow that requires third-party applications that may or may not be ported to ARM in the future; And people will have invested a lot in their personal Mac hardware.

Apple’s biggest problem may not be the technicalities of the new architecture, but keeping all members of the Mac community satisfied with their Apple product as the background transition progresses.

Now read three from MacOS about the great advantages of ARM …