I’m sure no one is surprised when I was wrong yesterday when I made my predictions about Apple’s new silicon transition. We don’t know anything about what’s going to be the first Mac to receive an Apple Silicon chip, and what I did predict - that there would be no compatibility layer for original apps, was clearly wrong.
Hilariously, Apple showed today that its new computers are going to be capable of doing much better, and I suspect we’ll be quite surprised when we actually see the new devices hit the market later this year (they did promise by the end of the year).
I also wonder about the future of macOS, especially given the new design of macOS and the fact that we’ll be able to run iOS and iPadOS apps on the Mac. Maybe down the line, when this transition is all over, we’ll have an Apple OS instead, capable of running whatever we want.
I’m sure we’ll hear more about this throughout the week, but colour me impressed.
Facts about the Apple Silicon Transition
- New devices will use Apple Silicon
- Transition will take 2 years
- ARM64e-based (see also: dev kits based on A12Z)
- Intel will remain supported
- Powerful emulation, i.e. Rosetta 2
- macOS Big Sur is macOS 11
If there’s one take-away we shouldn’t ignore here is that Apple is flexing their muscles. There’s practically no competition for this stuff, and anyone interested in the Apple ecosystem will have an even better experience than ever before. Fascinating. It’s also very interesting that Apple has decided to employ emulation, and choosing to make their own version of VMWare Fusion / Parallels.
I also presume that Boot Camp is dead.