Apple’s Transition from Intel chips
Apple, at their 2020 WWDC conference announced they are making the switch from Intel processors to their own “Apple Silicon”. Apple has been working towards this announcement for many years. Apple switched to the Intel x86 architecture in 2006 and has been using them since. These are the same processors that are found virtually in all computers. Apple transitioned back then from the PowerPC architecture because it wasn’t able to keep up with the performance and energy efficiency that the x86 architecture was able to provide. Now the story is the same as before; the ARM architecture has outperformed Intel’s offerings and is able to provide better performance especially when compared to its energy consumption. The Apple dubbed “Apple Silicon” is the same mobile processors such as the A12Z that Apple already uses in their iPads and iPhones. These processors have evolved over the course of a decade and can now rival desktop class processors.
For many users the issues found especially in MacBooks will be gone. Arm processors are more energy efficient and allows for a completely fan-less system much like what we see on an iPad. This means no more ‘jet engines’ after opening three tabs on Chrome. Thermal throttling has been an issue with MacBooks for a couple of years which can be drastically improved with the introduction of these chips. We can also start to see the introduction of 5G connectivity built into these processors as their system on chip design already have modems built into them natively.
What does this mean for developers?
Software wise this is a big leap for MacOS and is evident in the name itself; MacOS 11 which is the first . The Mac now shares the same architecture as iPhones and iPads, this means that users can now enjoy more of the apps they use on their mobile devices on their Macs. Apps developed for iOS using Swift will be natively compatible with MacOS 11. That the app store will be more inclusive and will continue to dominate software distribution in this segment.
The ARM architecture uses RISC (reduced instruction set computer) instead of the x86 architecture that uses CISC (complex instruction set). This uses a more specialized and optimized set of instruction; this increases efficiency but reduces the hardware compatibility. This is evident of ARM chips using SoC designs where almost everything is already built into the chip i.e. GPU, modems, memory as opposed to traditional computers where there is more hardware that is compatible with the systems.
Apps that have been developed for the Inter architecture will be compatible without any additional modifications using the Rosetta 2 compatibility layer. This will in realtime translate the instructions that were written for Intel processors into commands that Apple’s chips can understand. This means older apps that might not be updated anymore will still continue to work. It also means that all apps will be supported by Apple Silicon. However, apps run through the Rosetta compatibility layer will have lowered performance This makes sense because Rosetta is basically an emulation of an x86 environment.
Developers with existing apps can recompile their code using Xcode to make it compatible for the ARM architecture. Creating new programs is basically unchanged as all of the same languages are supported and can be used. However, I think most programs will be rewritten to work on an iPad and iPhone, this means we will see a big shift in the way applications are designed as they need to account for both a touch and cursor based interface.
The switch to Apple Silicon is definitely the future and I believe most computers will switch to ARM based processors in the near future. The power efficiency is unbeatable compared to x86 offerings. We will start to see ARM chips in more IoT products mainly due to their simplicity and built in connectivity due to SoC designs. However, Apple biting the bullet early does come with some drawbacks. The performance for the majority of the existing apps just won’t be there. There will be about half the performance for apps run through Rosetta. A lot of the apps that power users use might not be updated on day one. However, due to the rise in popularity of web apps most people don’t use native apps as much as they use to and this transition will continue to make them more popular.