Apple Silicon (Arm Cpu / 'System On A Chip') MacS

[Waldo]

Apple are now selling (in a few days, but you can order now) new ARM based Macs (Macbook Air / Pro and Mac mini). From the limited research (half a dozen YouTube videos) I've done so far, performance is excellent and blowing away Intel based Macs.

 

I'm considering potential downsides before splurging; for me, software compatibility is a concern; I have a number of older (compiled for Intel processors) applications; and while there is Rossetta 2 (seems to be some kind of x86 emulator, that converts Intel code to ARM code before execution) I'm not sure how well Intel compiled applications will perform under it.

 

Thoughts?

[altus]

Apple are old hands a switching CPU architectures. They've successfully moved from 68K to PowerPC and then PowerPC to x86 in the past. I have no doubt they'll manage x86 to ARM successfully too.

 

Compatibility is unlikely to be a problem. Apple have strict developer guidelines designed, in part, to limit porting to new architecture problems. Performance may be a problem depending on what your existing applications do. If the applications spend most of their time calling the OS they will run fast because the moment they call the OS Rosetta 2 will switch to ARM code. If they do lots of heavy number crunching they'll still be emulating an x86 CPU and so will be slower.

 

The new Macs are likely to be difficult to get hold of for a while so in the meantime keep an eye out for reviews of how your applications run on the new systems. Updates to ARM versions of the apps will probably require buying new versions.

[the_bloke]

It's all part of the plan for iOS apps to run natively on MacOS.  The end goal is to have apps that run on any Apple product.

[Waldo]

On 12/11/2020 at 21:25, altus said:

Performance may be a problem depending on what your existing applications do. If the applications spend most of their time calling the OS they will run fast because the moment they call the OS Rosetta 2 will switch to ARM code. If they do lots of heavy number crunching they'll still be emulating an x86 CPU and so will be slower.

Thanks altus, good info there.

 

I think emulation could be quite good. I heard, once an x86 application is launched, its first converted to ARM code, which is then executed. Rather than being interpreted on the fly.

 

Cant see why such a scheme wouldn’t work, rather than an application being compiled for an ARM target from source, it’s ‘compiled’ from x86 code; probably won’t produce as efficient ARM code as compiling from source, but would imaging it quite a bit faster than interpreting on the fly.

 

I’m 99% set on getting either a Mac mini or a Macbook Air. Also debating if to get the 16gb ram version. Will be interested to find out what performance implications are of 8gb v 16gb ram vesrsions.

[soopah]

There's a lovely little feature in the new OS 11, where every single application you open has to go via Apple's servers for logging and approval.  If you're offline, it works fine.  Just stores them up to send on when you're next online.

If you're online and it can't see the server, no apps for you.  Try and block it?  No apps for you.

https://sneak.berlin/20201112/your-computer-isnt-yours/

 

The problem now is Mac zealots are saying "ooh, this isn't a privacy issue" or "it's not as bad as it seems"

Well it is, and I'd take the word of a security researcher over some Apple  fanboy blog anyday.
Apple like to screw over their customers at every step, but for some reason their users just say "oh well" and buy another computer from them.
No-one else does this!

 

Quote

 

 

 

On modern versions of macOS, you simply can’t power on your computer, launch a text editor or eBook reader, and write or read, without a log of your activity being transmitted and stored.

It turns out that in the current version of the macOS, the OS sends to Apple a hash (unique identifier) of each and every program you run, when you run it. Lots of people didn’t realize this, because it’s silent and invisible and it fails instantly and gracefully when you’re offline, but today the server got really slow and it didn’t hit the fail-fast code path, and everyone’s apps failed to open if they were connected to the internet.

Because it does this using the internet, the server sees your IP, of course, and knows what time the request came in. An IP address allows for coarse, city-level and ISP-level geolocation, and allows for a table that has the following headings:

Date, Time, Computer, ISP, City, State, Application Hash

Apple (or anyone else) can, of course, calculate these hashes for common programs: everything in the App Store, the Creative Cloud, Tor Browser, cracking or reverse engineering tools, whatever.

This means that Apple knows when you’re at home. When you’re at work. What apps you open there, and how often. They know when you open Premiere over at a friend’s house on their Wi-Fi, and they know when you open Tor Browser in a hotel on a trip to another city.

“Who cares?” I hear you asking.

Well, it’s not just Apple. This information doesn’t stay with them:

1. These OCSP requests are transmitted unencrypted**. Everyone who can see the network can see these, including your ISP and anyone who has tapped their cables. - **encrypted as of 16th November

2. These requests go to a third-party CDN run by another company, Akamai.

3. Since October of 2012, Apple is a partner in the US military intelligence community’s PRISM spying program, which grants the US federal police and military unfettered access to this data without a warrant, any time they ask for it. In the first half of 2019 they did this over 18,000 times, and another 17,500+ times in the second half of 2019.

This data amounts to a tremendous trove of data about your life and habits, and allows someone possessing all of it to identify your movement and activity patterns. For some people, this can even pose a physical danger to them.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2020 by soopah

[Waldo]

Thanks for sharing your insights soopah.

 

Doesn't really bother me to be honest; unless you can point out tangible practical reasons why I should be concerned, i.e. how in reality it's going to cause me financial (or other) harm etc?

 

Anyhow...

 

I've had my M1 Mac mini for over a week now; and I'm massively impressed so far. Extremely fast, zippy and quiet (haven't heard a peep from the fan yet). I went for the 8gb version in the end; which I'll perhaps keep for a couple of years and then buy a later generation Apple Silicon Mac.

 

Anyone else on an M1 Mac?

[soopah]

9 hours ago, Waldo said:

Thanks for sharing your insights soopah.

 

Doesn't really bother me to be honest; unless you can point out tangible practical reasons why I should be concerned, i.e. how in reality it's going to cause me financial (or other) harm etc?

 

Anyhow...

 

I've had my M1 Mac mini for over a week now; and I'm massively impressed so far. Extremely fast, zippy and quiet (haven't heard a peep from the fan yet). I went for the 8gb version in the end; which I'll perhaps keep for a couple of years and then buy a later generation Apple Silicon Mac.

 

Anyone else on an M1 Mac?

Well the main one that jumps out at me is that Apple decides that it has fallen out with a developer and blocks it's application hash from the watchguard server and you can't run it anymore.  Or they decide although its a perfectly usable application, but it's old and now you have no ability to use the software you own.
Other than basement dwellers attacking that server with DDOS attacks and similar meaning that you also can't use any applications as although you're online the apps can't talk to that server and therefore they won't run.

Just a couple of practical, realistic scenarios there.
And the whole privacy thing, which is becoming less and less of a concern for most people as they carry around a tracking device in their pocket all day anyway.