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Apple's Shifting Differentiation

(stratechery.com)
292 points kaboro | 3 comments | 11 Nov 20 13:21 UTC | HN request time: 0.423s | source
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Shivetya ◴[11 Nov 20 14:29 UTC] No.25058661[source]▶
Software is the key for me. I am by no means a power user but I really am loathe to give up even more of my software library to swap to Apple Silicon after Catalina cratered my gaming library in Steam and some older apps from companies long gone.

I don't expect I am alone in this observation but the number of software companies they highlighted during the M1 debut was very slim and to be honest I have not heard of half of them until then and don't remember them now.

So to me it matters not how much faster AS is, what matters is if I can run want I want to run. I am not going to own two separate machines to do what I want to do. If AS machines cannot do all I need I will keep my current Mac till support runs out and look again

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freeone3000 ◴[11 Nov 20 14:41 UTC] No.25058768[source]▶
Rosetta 2 allows you to run your x86 mac apps on Apple silicon. It's like the PPC->Intel switch again; your software keeps working regardless of the hardware underneath.
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1. hajile ◴[11 Nov 20 15:56 UTC] No.25059377[source]▶
They plainly state that software with AVX, AVX256, AVX512, virtualization, and other nebulous instructions simply won't compile using Rosetta 2.

They seem to be attempting to avoid newer, patented instruction sets (Intel issued a strongly-worded statement about companies that attempt to use their ISA that seemed aimed squarely at Apple), but that means that SSE3+ (and maybe SSE2) are also avoided which could mean a lot more software doesn't work then they'd like to admit.

replies(2): >>25059543 #>>25060756 #
2. cesarb ◴[11 Nov 20 16:14 UTC] No.25059543[source]▶
> and maybe SSE2

For x86-64, SSE2 came with the original x86-64 release in 1999/2000 (according to Wikipedia, it was announced in 1999 and the full specification became available in August 2000), so if patents are limited to 20 years, it's already out of patent.

3. robertoandred ◴[11 Nov 20 17:51 UTC] No.25060756[source]▶
No, they say AVX, AVX256, and AVX512 instructions won't work and to run them in conditionals that verify their availability.