Apple’s 2020 global developer conference is likely to be known for two things: it was the first time the platform was put into practice, and Apple announced it would begin setting up Macs for its own processor plans.
“Today is a truly historic day for the Mac,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said during the virtual premiere.
"Now is quite a huge leap for the Mac, as today we announce that the Mac is moving to its own Apple silicon content."
Apple pointed out in its presentation that it expects the machines with the new chip to hit the market by the end of the year and the transition will take two years.
During that time, it revealed that it would continue to manufacture Intel-based machines by providing software that would allow programs written for those computers to run on Apple dairy machines.
Apple’s transition plan is very similar to what it did when it switched from the Power PC chip to Intel in 2005, said Ross Rubin, chief analyst at New York’s consumer technology consulting firm Reticle Research.
“They’ve been supporting both architectures for a while and they have Rosetta to emulate the old architecture,” he told TechNewsWorld.
He added, however, that today’s situation is very different from how Apple switched to Intel.
“At the time, the Mac was Apple’s whole business,” he said. "Now that's just a small part of Apple's business."
"Now it 's less of a decision made by the company and more of getting a Mac in the same operating environment they use for their other platforms, the iPhone and iPad, and it allows those platforms to be more cross - pollinated than they have allowed in the past," he added.
Creating uncertainty
The transition period is long and could create uncertainty among Mac buyers, said Bob O’Donnell, founder and chief analyst at Technalysis Research, a technology market research and consulting firm in Foster City, California.
He added that Apple’s announcement also left some unanswered questions about the new machines.
“We don’t know what real-world performance is going to be and what real-life battery life is,” he told TechNewsWorld. "And there are other issues, such as whether external GPUs are supported and whether the new CPU supports old device drivers, which was a problem during the last change."
Kevin Krewell, chief analyst at the California offices of San Jose, a California high-tech research and consulting firm, continued to push Intel-based Macs for the next two years, a tough sale for Apple.
“If you know Apple is transitioning to ARM unless you’re a diehard Intel fan and you have something you need to run on the X86 platform, you’ll have a hard time buying an Intel-based Mac over the next two years,” he told TechNewsWorld.
He added that one thing Apple is getting right during this transition is Adobe’s support for the transition from day one.
During the previous transition, he explained, "For a long time you had to drift into Photoshop with Rosetta, and it worked really badly."
Reassuring developers
The key to the success of the new machines is Apple’s development community.
“They spent a lot of time discussing developers’ concerns during the transition, ”said Mark N. Vena, a senior analyst at technology analysts and consulting firm Moor Insights & Strategy in Austin, Texas.
“They want to make sure that if you buy a new Mac with Apple Silicon, the existing apps will work on them,” he told TechNewsWorld.
He noted that Apple played all possible performance hits due to the use of Intel applications in Apple Silicon.
“Every time you run code in emulation, you usually get a performance hit,” he explained.
He added that the use of Windows on Macs with Apple Silicon is also not mentioned.
"When you run Windows in Boot Camp or Parallels on an Intel Mac, you get the performance you expect because Windows is written for Intel processors," he said. If you're running Windows in an Apple Silicon Mac window, what kind of presentation can you expect? "
One area where Apple’s new chip can give them an advantage is maintaining the privacy of their customers.
“Apple is light years ahead of everyone else in terms of privacy,” Vena pointed out. "Privacy seems to be rooted in everything they do."
“They pointed this out when announcing their own silicon,” he continued. "It gives them an upside in terms of improving safety because they control their own silicon."
Mixing the two worlds
Rubin explained that Apple often brings features to its applications and operating system that may appear elsewhere, but does so in a way that achieves more privacy.
For example, Apple announced a new translation app for iOS. “The translation is done on the device, unlike the Google translation, which is done through the cloud service,” Rubin noted.
During the presentation, Apple announced new features for the iPhone, iPad and Mac operating systems.
“They’re making a lot of small improvements,” Vena said. "They're small and modest on their own, but when you put them all together, it raises the experience dramatically."
O’Donnell added that Apple integrated its operating system in a more consistent way. “macOS has started to look more like iOS than it used to be, and you can run iOS apps on new Macs,” he pointed out, so you can see a mix of two different worlds. "
Mandatory additions
Tuong Nguyen, a senior chief analyst at Gartner, a research and consulting firm based in Stamford, Conn., Observed a reasonable number of OS features that were revealed during Apple’s presentation as a gradual improvement over existing functionality.
“Many of these features have also been available to Android and other users prior to Apple’s announcement,” he told TechNewsWorld.
However, he also found some usable features revealed by Apple, such as App Clips.
Application clips allow a part of an application to run at any time. Both Apple Pay and signing in with Apple can be used as an App Clip app, making both apps even easier and more convenient to use, Nguyen explained.
“This is also an indicator of how Apple’s rumors and potential augmented reality game will appear,” he said. "I strongly believe that Apple's augmented reality initiative includes an e-commerce component. I expect App Clips to play a big role in how this happens."
He also found two new features unique to Apple Maps. One monitors the EV charge of the electric vehicle and suggests a route to a destination that passes through charging stations to meet the vehicle’s power needs during the trip.
Apple maps EV routing
Electric vehicle routing increases charging stops on the planned route based on the vehicle’s current charge and charger types.
Another feature is China, where motorists can only drive on certain days of the week based on their registration entries. Drivers can enter their registration number on their phones, which keep tabs on the days of the week they are entitled to drive.
“This is another simple but very useful feature,” Nguyen said.
0 Comments