ARM rules ...

This blurb's a bit wonky but worth a read as Apple's taking the ARM plunge and tech will never be the same. In one way, yours truly is channeling David's Brin's Earth, a brilliant SF novel written back in 1990 predicting what the world would be like in 2040. Yours truly recommends anyone trying to get a handle on what tech is doing to society, along with global warming waxing poetic, should read Earth as it's that good but ... 2040 is now 2020 as the envisioned tech is already here. :)

Microprocessor-based system on a chip

RISC ...  reduced instruction set computing (RISC) architectures for computer processors goes primetime and Apple's taking the lead by designing really fast 5nm chips using the original ARM concept as start point.

1. The ARM transition. Within two years, all of Apple’s new Macs will use Apple’s own silicon. Intel Macs will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future — and some new ones will even be released this year. The ARM transition presents a series of complicated decisions for both users and developers.

2. iOS apps running natively on the Mac. Apple spent surprisingly little time on this given what a monumental shift it could be for the Mac ecosystem. The iOS app ecosystem absolutely dwarfs the number of apps on the Mac. And, crucially, they don’t work like Mac apps.

Since we are still years away from ARM-based Macs becoming a majority of the current install base, some of this complexity won’t come into play for a while. iOS apps just won’t work on Intel Macs, after all.

But look four or five years out when there is a plurality of Macs running on Apple’s silicon. Say you’re a developer. Do you make a “native” Mac app that looks, acts, and feels like a traditional Mac app? Do you make a web or Electron app (Apple, after all is contributing to the Electron project to help optimize it for ARM)? Or do you simply see that you can make an iPad app and you’ll get it in the Mac App Store for free, no extra work required at all?

4. macOS Big Sur, which is also macOS 11. Apple characterized it as the biggest change since at least the OS X transition and therefore deserving of a new number. I don’t think that’s hyperbole. Particularly relevant for this discussion isn’t the ARM support but the redesign. Big Sur looks different. Big Sur looks very iPad-y.

Control Center on macOS Big Sur.
Tell me these buttons and sliders weren’t designed for your fingers.

The notifications look just like iPhone notifications. There’s a Control Center in the menu bar that is full of buttons and sliders hand-to-god look like they’re designed for touchscreens instead of mouse pointers. From the iconography to the size of window navigation bars, the whole thing feels like it was designed to make iPad and iPhone apps feel a little more at home.

Are macOS and iPadOS merging? “No.” macOS isn’t merging with iPadOS, it’s subsuming it — just like Chrome OS did with Android (well, hopefully better).

Engame ...

The OS = It is, as the old Steve Jobs saying goes, a truck. Trucks are designed to haul stuff.

Any questions?

Endgame ...

"We make the whole widget. - Steve Jobs