(Almost a copy-and-paste from last year...)
Hi Everyone-
While I'm no longer a big Apple fanboy…
…a lot of us still have Apple equipment, are dependent on Apple Operating Systems, and sometimes do Apple development.
It is clear that Apple is a leader in personal computing, and personal computing is how we access FR, so it behooves us to stay on top of what they're doing.
And for that, the biggest event of the year is the World Wide Developer's Conference, held in San Jose CA, kicking off today. The keynote was fairly newsworthy, especially compared to recent years.
I watched it, and here are the biggest news items for me:
- Apple is moving the Mac away from Intel x86 architecture to - not just ARM - but Apple's custom ARM chips, utilizing Apple custom IP blocks.
-This is huge.
-The move will take place over 2 years;
-Apple is providing a way ("Rosetta 2") to run Intel Mac programs on ARM Macs, showing off an Intel-compiled video game running smoothly;
-$500 Developer kits - including an ARM Mac mini with an A12Z (from the latest iPad Pro) will be available soon.
The Good:
-Apple will once again Be Different.
-Mac programs will be able to pull on the functionality of those custom IP cores, like their "Neural Engine", possibly the "Secure Enclave", the image processor for the camera, etc..
-Instructions per watt will go up (although Intel's "Tiger Lake" will supposedly finally show improvements from them in this critical metric).
The Bad:
-Apple will once again "Be Different".
- they showed a virtualization environment - BUT they didn't say the virtualization environment was for just ARM environments, or if it virtualized X86!
-No examples of running MS Windows was shown
-The MacBook Pro will no longer be the "jack of all trades" that made it such a success in the Silicon Valley engineering circles - being able to competently run the "big 3" of "non-mobile OS" operating systems. - The next MacOS - "Big Sur" - will be available in the fall, and gets a visual refresh
- Apple Watch gets sleep tracking
- IOS and Safari will start offering voice and text translations between languages (the voice version being optimized around conversations.)
- You'll be able to unlock and run your (compatible) car with your iPhone. (Apple says it's working on open standards here.)
Anything else? Due to Coronavirus, there was no live audience. Nothing was live, it was all pre-taped. For Kremlin Watchers, Tim Cook's was de-emphasized, this was very much Craig "Hair Force One" Federighi's show.
All in all, it was a good Keynote. I just want Tim Cook out of Apple and Apple out of China / back in the USA!