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Why is Apple Rosetta 2 fast? (2022)

(dougallj.wordpress.com)
172 points fanf2 | 1 comments | 19 Nov 24 21:42 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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leshokunin ◴[19 Nov 24 22:35 UTC] No.42188818[source]▶
Super interesting. Putting my PM hat on, I wonder: how many x86 apps on Apple still benefit from this much performance? What's the coverage? The switch to M1 happened 4 years ago, so the software was designed for hardware nearly half a decade old.

Excellent engineering and nice that it was built properly. Is this something that Linux / Wine / the Steam compatibility layer already benefit from?

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1. spockz ◴[19 Nov 24 22:39 UTC] No.42188849[source]▶
I think it is less of numbers game and more of a guarantee thing. As a user of a new Apple silicon machine you do not have to worry about running x86 software. (Aside from maybe specific audio software and such that are a pain to run on any other hardware and software combination.)

As such it may very well be a loss leader and that is fine. Probably most development has been done and there is little maintenance needed.

Also, while most native macOS apps that I encounter have an Apple silicon version now, I still find docker images for amd64 without an arm64 version present. Rosetta2 also helps with these applications.