There is a question mark on Apple Arm Macs

Apple finally introduced its first Macs with processors it designed itself: a 13-inch MacBook Air, a 13-inch MacBook Pro and a Mac mini. Apple promises significant performance advantages over Intel processors and, for laptops, a huge increase in battery life. (To give you an idea of ​​the level of improvement Apple is touting, Apple says the new MacBook Pro can achieve 20 hours of autonomy.)

They’ll also be able to run iOS apps natively, meaning Macs will theoretically have a lot more software options right off the bat. But before you turn those exciting promises into pre-order, know that there’s still a big question mark hanging over new computers.

Image: Apple

The reason they can natively run iOS apps is that the new Apple M1 is based on the Arm instruction set just like your smartphone, instead of the x86-64 instructions used in Macs and Windows PCs. But the reverse is also true: we currently believe that existing Mac apps will perform well when they are born run natively. Yesterday was the second presentation in a row where we saw pre-built demos and unlabeled graphics instead of actual benchmarks and performance comparisons.

We know what we’re getting with Intel. With Arm, we don’t. And while there’s good reason to think Apple figured it out, the story hasn’t always been kind to other manufacturers who have tried Arm-based computers.

In 2012, Microsoft released an Arm-based version of its new Surface tablet, dubbed Surface RT. It was a slim PC / tablet hybrid, and at $ 499 it looked like a promising new Arm-based device.

Photo by Chris Welch / The Verge

However, the Surface RT didn’t run the Windows 8, which was also new at the time, it was running Windows RT, which was a lite version of Windows 8 that couldn’t run traditional Windows programs. Even Microsoft’s tech support reps struggled to explain what would and wouldn’t work on Windows RT. This confusion likely contributed to the eventual failure of the Surface RT. In its fourth quarter fiscal 2013 results, Microsoft recorded a loss of $ 900 million due to Surface RT’s “inventory adjustments”.

The Surface RT failure, however, didn’t stop Microsoft from making more runs on Arm-based Surface computers. The company released the Surface Pro X last year, which features an Arm processor co-developed by Microsoft and Qualcomm. We thought the hardware looked great, and once again the Arm processor allowed Microsoft to make it thinner than the Intel-powered Surface Pro. But while Windows itself was well optimized for Arm, many applications were slower than they would be on an Intel computer, and some didn’t work at all.

Tom Warren found that a newer second-generation Surface Pro X had fewer app compatibility issues than the original, but some apps still didn’t work, including Adobe’s Creative Cloud (with Photoshop and Lightroom) .

Photo by Cameron Faulkner / The Verge

It’s not just Microsoft that has struggled with Arm-based computers. Samsung released the Surface-type Galaxy Book 2 in 2018, but you probably won’t be shocked to hear that The edgeDan Seifert had problems running some apps. My colleague Cameron Faulkner encountered similar issues when reviewing the Lenovo Flex 5G in July. Microsoft is still working to improve the compatibility of Windows applications on Arm with x64 emulation. We’re optimistic, but we’re nowhere near recommending Windows over Armer over Windows over Intel options. And while low-budget Google Chromebooks can often perform perfectly well on Arm, most have embraced Intel and AMD these days.

However, Apple seems extremely confident in its transition to Arm-based processors. Apple has already removed all Intel-based MacBook Airs from its product line – despite introducing a new Intel-based Air in March. While Microsoft, Lenovo, Samsung and others have always offered a choice between Arm and Intel, Apple expects a transition the full range of Mac products to Apple silicon in about two years.

The company is sending a clear message that Arm is the future of Mac, and big software companies like Microsoft and Adobe are already listening: Photoshop is coming next year, Lightroom next month, and Microsoft Office is on the way. Other developers who want to build Mac apps will also need to participate.

Apple may be able to avoid some of the same app compatibility pitfalls that other manufacturers have encountered. Microsoft, for example, assumed that developers would embrace its Windows Store by releasing universal apps that would work at both Arm and Intel. This is also an option for Apple developers, but the company also has its Rosetta 2 which can translate applications designed for Intel chips into arming when you first install them, or on the fly afterwards if needed. . Apple says some Intel apps can even run faster on its new chip, at least compared to Intel chips in its previous generation Macs.

And again, M1 is capable of running the vast library of iOS apps natively, giving users access to a huge potential volume of working apps – although you do have to use a pointer because Macs don’t have touch screen.

I’m very interested to see if these new Macs are as good as Apple promises they will be, because I think I’ll be in the market for a new Apple laptop soon. My personal Mac is an 11-inch MacBook Air early 2014. Love it, but it’s starting to shake up on basic internet browsing and the battery can’t hold a charge for much longer than an hour or two.

If the new MacBooks are as capable as Apple says they are and can run most apps without too much trouble, they might be hard to pass up. The MacBook Air, in particular, caught my eye, as I currently use my old MacBook Air primarily for surfing the web and writing.

But if there are as many app compatibility issues as other Arm-based PCs, I might try to get another year out of my beloved personal machine and wait for the developers to catch up. However, I would no longer consider an Intel-based Mac, as Apple seems to be fully engaged in this transition to its own silicon.