Former Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky says the new Macs powered by Apple silicon will become the “ultimate developer PC.” According to Sinofsky, Apple’s shift to Apple-designed ARM-based Macs is the death knell for Intel and potentially Windows too, with the all-new Macs set to become the preferred platform for software developers.
“In two years, there is only Arm hardware and in four Intel will be ancient memory. The ecosystem will have rolled over. And Mac will be the ultimate developer PC. iPad will be used for more and more ‘work’,” he said in a Twitter post, sub-tweeting a comment about Arm-based Macs from well-known developer Steve Troughton-Smith.
https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/1276589588308357120
Troughton-Smith raised the issue of Apple’s macOS laptops and desktops lacking iOS touchscreen support. With the transition to Arm, it’s an open question whether Apple will release a MacBook or iMac with a touchscreen.
MacDailyNews Take:
With the Mac moving to Apple silicon there is now nothing, technically, preventing an iPad Pro from acting like an iPad (running iPadOS) when used as a tablet and magically transforming into a Mac (running macOS) when attached to a Magic Keyboard. https://t.co/wc1qpmaSIS pic.twitter.com/LQsttMv7rx
— MacDailyNews (@MacDailyNews) June 23, 2020
Of course, he would say that, given he was responsible for Windows 7, Windows 8 and Windows RT for Arm-based PCs – the first versions of Windows that enabled touchscreen interaction.
Sinofsky left Microsoft in late 2012, a few weeks after Microsoft commercially released Windows 8 and shortly after the release of the Surface RT, Microsoft’s first answer to Apple’s iPad, which would lead to a $900m write-down a year later.
MacDailyNews Take: Sinofsky is right that Macs powered by Apple silicon will become the ultimate developer personal computers, but he’s as wrong about touchscreens on computers that already have keyboards, mics, and trackpads for input.
Apple is approaching this correctly — as opposed to Microsoft’s Surface toaster-fridge — exactly as we suspected Apple would many years ago:
To us longtime Apple watchers, Cupertino seems to be saying, “Multi-Touch on the screen only when trackpads are not part of the device.” – MacDailyNews, November 19, 2008
Does it make more sense to be smearing your fingers around on your notebook’s screen or on a spacious trackpad (built-in or on your desk) that’s designed specifically and solely to be touched? Apple thinks things through much more than do other companies. The iPhone’s and iPad’s screens have to be touched; that’s all they has available. A MacBook’s screen doesn’t not have to be touched in order to offer Multi-Touch. There is a better way: Apple’s way. And, no Gorilla Arm, either.
The only computers using Multi-Touch properly, using device-appropriate Multi-Touch input areas are Macintosh personal computers from Apple that run OS X (and Linux and can even slum it with Windows, if need be) and iOS even more personal computers (EMPCs), namely: iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, and iPad mini. — MacDailyNews, May 4, 2013
Think code convergence (more so than today) with UI modifications per device. A unified underlying codebase for Intel, Apple A-series, and, in Apple’s labs, likely other chips, too (just in case). This would allow for a single App Store for Mac, iPhone, and iPad users that features a mix of apps: Some that are touch-only, some that are Mac-only, and some that are universal (can run on both traditional notebooks and desktops as well as on multi-touch computers like iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and – pretty please, Apple – Apple TV). Don’t be surprised to see Apple A-series-powered Macs, either. — MacDailyNews Take, January 9, 2014