Apple ARMs Itself and Prepares For The Future

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Apple seem to be in the spotlight for a number of reasons and it’s a pretty exciting time with iOS 14 on the horizon. One of the most interesting announcements to emerge is the transition of Macs to ARM architecture. Say goodbye to x86, the unification of everything Apple goes one step further as they seek to completely transform the Apple computing experience that slots in with everything currently portable. ARM is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) and features many benefits such as smaller production size, energy consumption and general efficiency. I have a number of ARM devices and you probably do too. Tablets, game consoles (Nintendo Switch) and many others have seen great benefit from adopting ARM in favour of portability at some expense of computing power. With Apple pouring in efficient software and maximising return from their chips, computing power may have reached performance on ARM chips sufficient for a new generation of Macs.

For years, x86 and Intel have been the core of Macs and this is to continue for at least a couple of years but change is coming, and ARM based Macs are sure to be the norm in the years ahead. With an OS overhaul, computing on Macs is proposed to be a refreshing yet easy transition that iOS has been most praised for. Developers will receive support to port their applications over to this new architecture and virtualisation via Rosetta 2 is planned for extended support in the interim. The software industry as a whole are ready to embrace Apple’s move and I am highly interested to see just how different the Mac vs PC experience becomes in the coming years.

I recently came across some information regarding Huawei’s approach to their own operating system too. Harmony OS is planned to connect everything from the tech manufacturer in a similar way to what Apple are trying to get at here but whether Huawei MateBooks go the extra mile with new Kirin processors remain to be seen. Both companies seem to be aiming for a new computing experience that is all encompassing, if you own their collection, everything should work and communicate seamlessly. At least, that is the proposed intention. MacOS is definitely going to be looking different with Big Sur coming out for public release next month. Developers already have their hands of on it as of today and I am very interested to see the next leap that Apple are taking with both software and hardware.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/apple-confirms-mac-to-arm-macos-will-look-more-like-ios/

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