Originally posted by lucrus
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The M1 is not such a beast of performance or whatever when you consider its price (and when you run something on it other than just Apple benchmarks) and compare it with other offerings at the same pricetag, so why bother making your own hardware when there already are equivalent or better choices out there?
Because that's the only way to keep the ecosystem closed enough.
Take for example old Windows-only GDI printers: it was a whole different story. In that case the goal was to make a printer cost less than its ink cartridge, so almost no RAM, almost no CPU, almost anything onboard: just the bare minimum to talk to a Windows-only GDI driver. It took reverse engineering to have those paperweights somewhat working outside of Windows, but the hardware maker didn't get in the way on purpose, they just targeted a specific market that wasn't Linux users in order to cut production costs.
Apple is different. They think different, you know. They think how to keep their users from using anything non-Apple.
Apple is different. They think different, you know. They think how to keep their users from using anything non-Apple.
From my point of view you have many non arguments here or complete misunderstandings about Apple Silicon. M1 isn't perfect and frankly has significant short comings for much of Apples hardware needs (thus the low end machines), but the hardware and software combo is far better than you are alluding too. In fact I'm rather stunned at just how well Apple has been able to pull off this platform change. The volume of software that is already ARM native is surprising and the stuff that isn't often runs very well on the machines. Objectively it is hard not to be impressed by what Apple has achieved.
Now would I prefer an ARM based laptop running Linux with all native drivers - most likely I would. In fact this M1 based Apple hardware has me salivating at the thought. If Apple drags the rest of the industry over to ARM, I will be very happy indeed. The reality is that I've never had an x86 platform, with the required performance, that has the battery life these systems have. Never! More so I don't see such a machine coming anytime soon. Though it has become a bit of a joke, x86 laptops only run cool when doing nothing, they are otherwise power hogs.
I can actually see Apple adding a strip of solar cells along the top of the keyboards and actually getting useful power relative to the rest of the system. They will not be able to eliminate batteries anytime soon but should be able to offer real run time extension in many situations. That is how good Apple Silicon is and will only get better moving forward. Even if that strip only offered one watt of power it would positively impact battery run time per charge. In a very real sense we have a new generation of hardware that can lead to a new way of looking at devices. I just want to see such capabilities in the Linux world, so if somebody hacking drivers, for M1, can help lead to that I'm all for it. Would I prefer a more open ARM chip with better software support from the vendor - certainly (I hope AMD is listening) - but sometime companies need a kick in the virtual pants to step outside of their comfort zones. Who knows maybe AMD collaboration with Samsung (I think) will lead to an ARM based SoC with open GPU hardware. Of course we still need to get a builder to put that chip in a laptop.
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