Apple move from Intel to Apple Silicon

Just wondering what you guys all think of the transition away from x86 to the Apple-designed ARM processors...

With macOS and iOS merging slowly into a unified hardware base platform and apps eventually being universal across devices, just curious what Matt & Jay (and everyone else) thinks about the future for Indigo and the apps that make it up...server, macOS client, iOS client, etc.

Seeing Microsoft, Adobe and Apple apps running full speed on the demo unit using the A13Z CPU....seems pretty much comparable.

Should we crowdfund an Apple Dev Machine for Indigo?

Ross

I’m excited. Kinda feels like the next big piece of the puzzle.

I’m sure m&j are like “oh no”.


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I am very excited too. Happy to contribute to a crowdfund. But Tim Cook did say (quote): "We plan to continue to support and release new versions of MacOS for Intel-based Macs for years to come. In fact we have some new Intel-base dMacs in the pipeline that we are really excited about" so it looks like people will not need to rush to ARM. At some point the OS updates for Intel-based Macs will end I presume. That could still be in 10 years though, assuming you have a recent Mac that will support new MacOS for Intel-based Macs.

Also it's worth pointing out that Indigo Server and Client may be able to run in Rosetta 2 without much fuss, we will have to see. Indigo doesn't need much performance so I am guessing the key issue will be IO: how does Indigo interact with USB interfaces and whether those Z-Wave sticks work in the new Macs or not...

[jay (support)]

See our post about OS betas and Apple Silicon.

See our post about OS betas and Apple Silicon.

Very prudent!


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[jay (support)]

My personal opinion (and no reflection on Indigo Domotics or the direction the company will take): I fear (and have for a couple of years now) that this will greatly accelerate the reduction in quality Mac apps that's been going on for the past couple of years. You know the ones: they look, feel, behave like, well, Mac apps. I believe this is going to continue reduce the number of really nice, polished, Mac apps, and we'll end up with the thousands of crappy wannabe iOS apps, with no consistency in user experience because they are designed only for iOS with a single app at a time, touch-based mentality and with absolutely no concern for how they will behave alongside other apps.

Apple's relatively feeble (IMO) attempts with Catalyst has shown that even the company itself is less concerned with making great Mac apps. Not unlike how Windows app ports to the Mac looked years ago. Or how React Native apps look and behave. Most Java apps on the Mac are like that as well, very jarring: Jetbrains has done an admirable job with PyCharm, but it still doesn't really have a native Mac UX. Take multiple windows as just one example - you can have them for a single project, but any window that's not THE project window doesn't show up in the Windows menu, so if it gets hidden you have to kinda dig for it (and with multiple monitors, one often wants multiple code windows on separate monitors). Just one of many nits that add up to a non-Mac experience.

We'll see how it goes, but my guess is that we'll see a bunch of iOS apps suddenly billed as "Mac apps" without putting much if any effort into making them work well in a standard desktop experience (resizable windows, useful menus, keyboard shortcuts, etc). And that's a sad thing, because it's one of the primary reasons I've been a Mac user since 1988.

My personal opinion (and no reflection on Indigo Domotics or the direction the company will take): I fear (and have for a couple of years now) that this will greatly accelerate the reduction in quality Mac apps that's been going on for the past couple of years. You know the ones: they look, feel, behave like, well, Mac apps. I believe this is going to continue reduce the number of really nice, polished, Mac apps, and we'll end up with the thousands of crappy wannabe iOS apps, with no consistency in user experience because they are designed only for iOS with a single app at a time, touch-based mentality and with absolutely no concern for how they will behave alongside other apps.

Apple's relatively feeble (IMO) attempts with Catalyst has shown that even the company itself is less concerned with making great Mac apps. Not unlike how Windows app ports to the Mac looked years ago. Or how React Native apps look and behave. Most Java apps on the Mac are like that as well, very jarring: Jetbrains has done an admirable job with PyCharm, but it still doesn't really have a native Mac UX. Take multiple windows as just one example - you can have them for a single project, but any window that's not THE project window doesn't show up in the Windows menu, so if it gets hidden you have to kinda dig for it (and with multiple monitors, one often wants multiple code windows on separate monitors). Just one of many nits that add up to a non-Mac experience.

We'll see how it goes, but my guess is that we'll see a bunch of iOS apps suddenly billed as "Mac apps" without putting much if any effort into making them work well in a standard desktop experience (resizable windows, useful menus, keyboard shortcuts, etc). And that's a sad thing, because it's one of the primary reasons I've been a Mac user since 1988.

I get your point and partially agree with you. No doubt the simplicity of iOS apps will somehow pollute the Mac a bit. But it will be up to us, users, to determine what's acceptable and act accordingly. Personally I don't currently have any iOS apps that I really want on MacOS. I can see the appeal for developers but like you said if they don't do any UI/UX work the apps won't be that good in the Mac. I think perhaps the big benefit is not that you can install iOS apps without changing them but you can easily get your app's code working in MacOS to bootstrap porting the app to a new platform. How much rework Developers are willing to do should be a factor of the chances of them monetising the App on MacOS.

The other positive thing I think is that this is not iOS/iPadOS taking over MacOS (or the other way around). Apple seems to be picking the best solutions in each area and closing the gap between the OSes with each release. I was afraid MacOS was going to be replaced with iOS as part of the move to ARM and it is now clear this is far from that.

Another thing to highlight is that ARM seems to have plenty of room for performance growth, unlike Intel. Intel has been been and is clearly on a big hole and while I have been an Intel customer for decades I just upgraded my daughter's Windows PC to a AMD Ryzen 7. Intel it's clearly going to struggle in the next 2-3 years perhaps even longer so Apple had to ditch them now doubt. Even on laptops AMD now is the king (see here). I think there is a misconception that ARM can't deliver on the mid to high performance range. We will have to see what Apple comes out with but in the meantime this article surprised me.

PS: I am not going to jump to the ARM ship yet but anything that goes against the Wintel duopoly it's a good thing for me!

My view is that overall this is a good move for the users.

In theory, I do have concerns about Apple being able to lock down Mac as it did IOS, where only app store applications are allowed. And I believe that part of their push to ARM is also a push for that. Monopoly of this kind is generally bad, although I must say, that apple is making it work mostly well in IOS for the users. As it stands, I still would prefer to buy from Apple store then directly from many varied developers even if I have to pay more. I really like the idea of trusting one company rather then many with my information. Especially company that seems to take user privacy seriously.

Apple has proven that they can get many things right and I think they will get ARM right as well. I for one, will definitely buy the first ARM iMac 27 that they release. (I had my finger on the buy button in case they announced it yesterday . At this stage of my life, I don't go out and download gizilion apps and games to try out, so compatibility will not be an issue for me. I'm also willing to pay good money for good software, and I like to find it in a reputable marketplace like app store.

I suspect indigo will stay with intel binaries initially, but if moving to ARM will be as simple as apple says (recompile) then even they will move.

Either way, I hope Indio will stay around for a long time.

In theory, I do have concerns about Apple being able to lock down Mac as it did IOS, where only app store applications are allowed. And I believe that part of their push to ARM is also a push for that. Monopoly of this kind is generally bad, although I must say, that apple is making it work mostly well in IOS for the users. As it stands, I still would prefer to buy from Apple store then directly from many varied developers even if I have to pay more.

I am with you there but the issue is that most of the apps I want are not in the App Store. Due to my distrust of what Apple might do with regards to non App Store apps I keep a detailed list of all the apps I install and use in my Mac. And at the moment 80% come from outside the store and that's not counting Homebrew packages, Docker containers and Parallels VMs that I use and that would probably never be allowed in a model where only App Store apps can be installed. So less advanced users might be OK with the App Store model but any professional user, software developer or advanced user will not fit the bill.

I think a lot of people will drop the Mac if Apple went with the App Store model only approach. I have more confidence now that's not where Apple wants to take the Mac. The reason I say that is the fact that they announced that Parallels and Docker were already running in the ARM Mac. Those are two big ways to bypass the App Store in a Mac so I think it wouldn't make sense to allow those two but don't allow non App Store apps (even if Parallels and Docker could be App Store apps, which they will never be).

So to me the plan is not to make MacOS as iOS but to make the iPad slowly more like MacOS (and MacOS slowly more like iOS/iPadOS) so they can converge. Once they converge the iPad can replace entry level and mid range devices and MacOS can stay as the midrange to high range level.

Based upon being in the developer community and a very similar experience with Chrome OS, I have an educated guess on what will happen...

I would equate this to being somewhat similar to Chrome OS and Android application support. Now, I am not at all comparing Chrome OS to macOS, they are intended for completely different uses and audiences, but instead look at what happened when Android support was first added to the majority of Chromebooks. It basically went through a few stages:

1. Android developers felt great - their apps were now available in a desktop form factor with keyboards, mice, and touchscreens! All they had to do was make sure they had the Play Store listing configured to be available. Except, well, to be honest it was very not a good experience. Applications designed for phones and even tablets just didn't work well in a large screen format. Users, and developers, were pretty disappointed.

2. Developers realized that they could improve things; some would require a complete rewrite while others could get by with some tweaks. Those that chose to make the effort could develop a passable application that was usable on both desktop formats and tablets, and even phones. The UI would simply respond as required.

3. Problems would crop up with features not expected on the original app development -- windowed views, scaling of screen sizes, etc. Some were fixed, some not. But those that were, again, proved passable.

4. FINALLY we are getting applications designed from the ground up to support all features on all platforms. It came, it works well, but it took time.

I expect the same thing will occur with Apple's ecosystem but on a much faster time scale - although Android has many times the user base as IOS, for most app developers IOS overall is a more lucrative and attractive development platform. This should encourage a faster adjustment and/or rewrite.

Now from the hardware perspective... I'm skeptical. Are we going to get the "good" Apple or the same ones that designed the trashcan MacPro? Based on recent quality... I'm not holding my breath. I haven't seen any ARM devices that will keep up with the best of the Intel chips, but then again I can't say I have seen many that have tried (with active cooling and all that jazz). They are all playing catch up to AMD at the moment with the Threadripper line. I really think the quality of that product line took Intel by surprise and they realized they couldn't sit on their hands and coast like they had been for years. I have both AMD and Intel boxes and I can say Intel is a bit disappointing lately -- perhaps that played a little into Apple's decision, but who knows because this had to have been a long time in discussion and planning.

Adam

I must admit that I would prefer a greater degree of standardization across the line. I like being able to move what I'm doing between devices and use that a lot--but it could be even better. I'm really surprised there hasn't been more 'low-effort' standardization of things like naming, and 'look and feel' conventions like,

• it's called 'Settings' on iOS and 'System Preferences' on MacOS--pick one
• the calendar icon on iOS says 'Wednesday 24' and on Mac it's Jun 24 (and they look different)--pick one
• swipe right in news app article on iOS and you go back to the headlines. On Mac you go to the previous article in the list--pick one

The list is obviously long. I would generally be in favor of having have this kind of standardization across platforms within reason. What I don't want is for Mac to become the closed platform that iOS is. I've come to accept the way my phone works (closed architecture) but moving Mac to the same type of thing would drive me away completely. I generally care much less about what processor is driving it so long as it works well.

.... or is this the catalyst for porting Indigo to a more cost effective, dedicated single board computer (like the raspberry pi 4)?


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.... or is this the catalyst for porting Indigo to a more cost effective, dedicated single board computer (like the raspberry pi 4)?
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I hate to say this, but that would be FANTASTIC....

My 2013 won't be able to upgrade to Big Sur, and I'll have to make a decision on it I'm continuing with Macintosh in the future... (Spoiler, probably yes...)
But being able to dedicate a smaller (eg RPI4) device to home automation would make my life a lot easier...

--edit---
Just an extremely humorous thought. If Jay & Matt do move this to Apple Silicon native, does this eventually lead to an iPad / iPod Touch/iPhone that is running Indigo. No More iMac's or desktops, just pick up the iOs device, and there's your indigo server running on it. Sure, it'd need an Lightning to USB adaptor to connect up to the Powerline / zWave / etc.

Is this likely, no. But considering I have an *OLD* iMac in the corner running just running Indigo, I'd love to downsize it and eliminate it.