Apple’s M1 chip is all about platform control

With the dust settling on Apple’s first arm-based Macs and new announcements of M1 chips, it’s time to take stock of what this means for one of the largest computing ecosystems in the industry. The transition to arm CPUs is a big change that will be felt across the industry in the years to come. The energy efficiency benefits for consumers are obviously big, but the change is likely to be a headache for software developers who have to go back and rebuild their apps.

While Apple appears to have made very high-performance silicon based on initial engineering reviews and tests, the need for emulation means we should add a pinch of salt to its performance claims. After all, software emulation affects both performance and power consumption. We’ll be putting the chip and one of Apple’s new laptops through their paces very soon to find out for sure.

What we can say, however, is that this transition is already proving to be a pretext for better control of the ecosystem.

Continue reading: What is the difference between Arm and x86 CPUs?

Increasing dependence on the app store

Switching the CPU architecture that powers your app ecosystem is no small feat. To help developers make the transition, Apple introduced a new Xcode 12 developer toolset. To quote Apple, Xcode produces a binary “slice” for Apple Silicon and one for Intel. They are then combined as a single app bundle to be shared or sent to the Mac App Store.

This is pretty handy as you can just hit “Install” from the Store without worrying about downloading the correct version. However, there is a clear push for developers to get their newly compiled apps published in the Apple Store. Especially for older apps that might not have considered store deployment a few years ago. Microsoft has a similar solution that uses Visual Studio to build Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps for the Microsoft Store.

Everyone likes a good app store for the sake of simplicity. However, developers have to follow more rules if they want to publish to storefronts. Disagreements about the terms and conditions led to a legal battle between Apple and Epic games in early 2020. We shouldn’t forget that Apple makes 30% of all sales in both mobile and Mac stores. Microsoft Office’s launch in the Mac App Store was delayed while the two companies found issues with app bundling and subscription. In the past, Apple’s tight control over store ecosystems was against the interests of app developers and users.

Apple generates 30% of sales with mobile and Mac app stores.

However, arm versions of Adobe Photoshop and Blizzard’s World of Warcraft will still be installed through their respective launcher. Large companies can certainly exist outside of business. Apple isn’t forcing developers to break with self-hosted app installs. At least not now. The lure of in-store presence, however, can lead smaller developers to abide by Apple’s rules.

Additionally, Apple wants to improve cross-compatibility between its macOS and the much more closed iOS ecosystems. Arm-based iOS applications can already run natively on M1 Macs. The future goal is certainly apps that run seamlessly on both platforms. However, there is no .dmg or .pkg for iOS, only the App Store, and Apple is not suitable for jailbreaking. Cross-platform developers targeting iOS and Mac OS have no choice but to sign Apple’s terms and conditions and pay the 30% tax.

Goodbye Boot Camp and Hackintosh

Apple’s latest hardware announcement also impacts two niche use cases of the laptop platform – – Boot Camp and Hackintosh. Both are unlikely to continue to work if Apple deviates from x86.

Apple has confirmed that Boot Camp support is not available for Arm-based Macs. Microsoft only licenses the arm version of Windows 10 to PC manufacturers. As a result, there is little chance of running native Arm Windows on Apple hardware. Instead, those who want to work with both operating systems on a single device limit themselves to virtualization. However, it appears that the popular virtualization software does not work with Apple’s Rosetta 2 emulation and therefore needs to be rebuilt from scratch.

Apple has confirmed that Boot Camp support is not available for Arm-based Macs.

The transition will have a similar impact on users who want to run Mac OS on non-Apple hardware. Mac OS currently still supports x86, so Hackintosh builders will be safe in the medium term. However, the distant picture suggests support for guns only before the turn of the decade. Securing compatible hardware is likely to be much more difficult when Apple’s Intel support runs out. Of course, we may have a lot more arm-based PC platforms by then. Support for off-the-shelf parts, however, depends on how deeply the company ultimately integrates critical Mac OS features into its custom hardware.

Moving to Arm was certainly not meant to kill Boot Camp and Hackintosh. It’s just a side effect that further limits consumer options for interacting with the Apple ecosystem.

Disconnecting from Intel means killing apps

Apple’s desire to end its dependence on Intel is no secret. Rumor has it that the company has not been happy with Intel’s chip advancement for years, and Apple is bearing the cost. For the Cupertino company, it makes economic sense to use its team for mobile silicon for laptops. The move away from x86, however, requires emulating legacy applications built for that architecture. Apple’s solution is Rosetta 2. However, it is highly unlikely that the company intends to keep the emulation going for very long. Rather, it’s a tool to simplify the transition from Intel to its own silicon.

A deadline, even an unofficial one, encourages developers to compile native Arm apps instead of relying on emulation for years. However, older applications at the end of the support roadmaps may never be recompiled. Likewise, Rosetta cannot interpret a number of Intel CPU extensions, which means some high-performance apps may not even work on Arm Macs.

Using internal processors instead of Intel will improve Apple’s bottom line.

Either way, the clock is ticking for x86 applications on Mac OS. Apple comes in the form of killing emulators in just a few short years. The original Rosetta, released with OS X Tiger for PowerPC emulation during the move to Intel, was retired from OS X Lion. Apple considered the transition to be complete after only three generations of operating systems, even though emulation support lasted six years.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, old x86 applications will no longer run on Macs either. This will be a headache for developers in the medium term. However, Apple will benefit from internal chip sales with both a firmer grip on hardware and software and healthier bottom line.

Are there any advantages to platform control?

Apple abandoned PowerPC in 2006 due to a combination of lower clock speeds, slow innovation, and the cost of IBM processors. Today, Intel has prevailed on similar pricing and innovation issues. Although for consumers the main benefit is the improved performance per watt from switching to arm.

That slight improvement, however, hardly seems worth it to disrupt the entire Mac OS developer and consumer software ecosystem. Intel Macbooks have decent battery life and, ultimately, great performance. It’s also strange that the company didn’t seem to consider AMD’s increasingly potent chip portfolio.

The switch to poor silicon is about platform control as well as promoting innovation.

What Cupertino really wants more control. First about the development roadmap and the inner workings of his silicon. With internal processors, Apple can steer built-in vision, machine learning, and security capabilities in the right direction. A deeper integration of hardware and software seems inevitable. At the same time, the switch to arm architecture offers Apple greater leverage in the software area. Tighter integration with the security APIs, app verification, biometrics, credit cards and payment information is possible with new silicon and software APIs. As a result, developers are not being gently nudged into the App Store to ensure product compatibility and take advantage of cross-platform support with iOS.

We are a few years away from the full transition to arm. However, Apple’s endgame is a tightly controlled, unified hardware and software ecosystem for wearables, mobile devices, and PCs. It remains to be seen whether this is in the best interests of consumers.

Next: Does Google have an answer for Apple’s all-in-one ecosystem?