Riccardo Mori

Andy Ihnatko’s article for Fast Company, The Fifth Age Of Macintosh: What Happens If Apple Dumps Intel?, is perhaps the best I’ve read on this particular subject. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, the first paragraph of Ihnatko’s piece should be enlightening enough:

Apple uses its own purpose-designed CPUs for its iPhones and iPads, built around the ARM architecture. An article reported by Ian King and Mark Gurman, published by Bloomberg yesterday [2 April], says that the company wants to do the same for Macs and could start shipping computers with the new CPUs instead of Intel chips as soon as 2020.

The core section of the article is called “True Disruption”; Andy’s analysis and observations are lucid and I can hear that ‘sound of inevitability’ Agent Smith mentioned to Neo in The Matrix:

See, disruptive change is an opportunity to consolidate a lot of unrelated pain into a single, horrifying ball and get it all over with at once.

Which is why I can easily picture a plan to build ARM-based Macs that’s part of a bigger plan to change the whole character of the Mac. For years, MacOS has looked decidedly frumpy and unloved, and its few significant improvements (such as TouchID) have been iOS’s hand-me-downs. Maybe that’s because Apple has been sitting on some huge and wonderful ideas that’ll boost the Mac into a higher orbit, and they’ve put off rebuilding MacOS until they had a good reason to tear it all down first.

Or…maybe Apple’s longterm goal isn’t to transition MacOS into the next decade (or, hell, even just our present one). Maybe its goal is to transition Mac users to iOS. Apple’s obsessive love for the iPad has been made clear to me by both my observations of the product line and my conversations with people inside the company (present and former). It doesn’t seem ridiculous that Apple might push the Mac much closer to the character of the iPad, with the iPad Pro picking up enough of the Mac’s character and functions that the whole consumer Mac line would become redundant.

As you may have guessed, it’s this last paragraph what most concerns me. It’s something I’ve been pondering as well since reading that Bloomberg article, but Andy — amazing tech writer as he is — was able to put it all down in such a way as to actually fill this veteran Mac user with dread.

I’ve experienced all the transitions the Mac has gone through. The first one in 1994 — from the Motorola 68K architecture to PowerPC — was perhaps the most painless for me as a user. The Mac-oriented businesses I was collaborating with at the time had upgraded most of their machines, so I was always given rather up-to-date Macs to work on — and in 1994–95 they were all PowerPC Macs (I remember a Power Macintosh 7100 and an 8500). My personal Macs were still 68K machines, instead: a Macintosh Classic and a PowerBook 150. But they were still capable machines for my needs, and I had plenty of 68K software to choose from that was still working well. 

I remember that in those years (at least in my corner of the world) the 68K-to-PowerPC transition felt like something that was mandatory for professionals who needed the cutting-edge Macs, the latest and greatest, and most importantly who could really afford the upgrade ($4,000 for a Power Macintosh 8500 in 1995 was already a lot of money, something like $6,500 today, and in Europe Macs were sold at even higher prices). While home users weren’t really pushed to upgrade as it would happen nowadays. Even the ‘affordable’ Macs of the mid-1990s weren’t exactly affordable; peripherals and software applications used to cost much more; a Mac ecosystem was a much more pondered investment in general, and for consumer/prosumer users in particular. I remember purchasing that PowerBook 150 second-hand, and I paid a lot of money for it nonetheless, not to mention the investment for a StyleWriter, a scanner, an external SCSI hard drive and CD-ROM drive. I wasn’t about to drop everything and get a PowerPC Mac. I finally upgraded in late 1998, when PowerPC Macs had been around for four years already, and somehow I didn’t feel I was late to the party. The pace was slower at the time, kids.

The second transition — in 2001–2002 — was an operating system transition, from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X. This I remember to be more of a bumpy ride for some friends, mostly because certain software they depended on wasn’t yet being ported to Mac OS X and they were forced to either configure their Macs to dual-boot in Mac OS 9 and X, or to open those applications in the Classic environment. But again, this transition took long enough not to be abrupt, despite how some people felt at the time. Mac OS X 10.1 (Puma) was released in September 2001, the last update for Mac OS 9 came out in December 2001, and in 2003 there were still Macs capable of booting into Mac OS 9. On the software side, Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, introduced in April 2005, was the last release to include the Classic environment; and since Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard was introduced in October 2007, those few users who still relied on very few, very specific tools not updated to Mac OS X, could still run them in Classic as late as 2007, six years after the first usable iteration of the new operating system.

The third transition — in 2006 — was again a CPU architecture transition, from PowerPC to Intel x86; and again, it wasn’t smooth for everyone. I was concerned at first: my then main machine was a somewhat recent PowerBook G4, and I worried that maybe it was already time to save my hard-earned money for yet another Mac with an Intel CPU. Thankfully, by focussing on my needs and being patient, I was able to make that PowerBook last for much more than anticipated. It also helped that in 2007 I was able to acquire a Power Mac G4 Cube for a really low sum: having a second Mac that was powerful enough to take care of secondary tasks, I managed to hold on to my PowerPC setup until 2009, three years after the transition. 

From a software standpoint, I still contend that the PowerPC-to-Intel transition was undoubtedly smooth. In the 2006–2009 period, Universal Binary apps were plenty, and when Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard came out in August 2009, it was indeed an Intel-only software, but thanks to Rosetta, Intel Macs running Snow Leopard could still run PowerPC applications. That was particularly useful because it helped extend the life of a few software suites I had regularly purchased, which weren’t exactly cheap: Adobe CS2, Microsoft Office 2004, and Quark XPress 6. PowerPC software was definitely left behind with the release of Mac OS X 10.7 Lion, which didn’t contain the Rosetta interpreter, and Lion was released in July 2011, giving to PowerPC software a five-year grace period. (Even more, since a lot of people preferred to stay on Snow Leopard rather than update to Lion right away).

All these major transitions have common characteristics:

1. They were all rather user-friendly and customer-friendly.
2. They weren’t particularly rushed: there was both preparation and confidence on Apple’s part, and they unfolded over a long period of time and at an acceptable pace. Users had to update eventually, but they were given plenty of time to do so.
3. All these transitions were for the better. PowerPC Macs (except maybe the first generation) displayed a noticeable performance leap compared with 68K machines. Mac OS X had a more robust foundation than Mac OS 9, and especially from Mac OS X 10.3 Panther to 10.6 Snow Leopard, its stability was remarkable. After the initial growing pains, it was clear that Mac OS X would turn out to be much better than Mac OS 9. And Intel Macs were simply much better performers than PowerPC machines almost from the start. Even the 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo CPU in the Early 2006 Mac mini was twice as fast as the 1.5 GHz PowerPC G4 in the Late 2005 Mac mini. Added benefits of having the same Intel x86 architecture as PCs allowed installing Windows on Macs and configuring dual-boot Mac OS X/Windows Macs via Boot Camp; people who needed to work with both systems were quite happy about that. Oh, and the Mac became a better gaming platform, since more PC titles were more easily ported to work on Macs. (These are just the first things off the top of my head).

This rumoured next transition — from Intel-based Macs to ARM-based Macs — is once again for the better, at least on paper. In his piece, Andy Ihnatko rightly points out that having custom, Apple-designed chips inside Macs could bring the same beneficial effects we’ve all seen in iOS devices: stellar performance, great optimisation of the internal components, even tighter integration between hardware and software. But things have changed in the meantime. For one, today Mac OS evidently isn’t the primary focus of the company. Those past transitions were all done to benefit the Mac; the idea was The Mac shall advance. We’re changing and improving things under the bonnet, but the Mac is still the Mac and its identity won’t change. Instead, this theoretical Intel-to-ARM transition doesn’t feel as such. It feels as there are impending changes to the Mac operating system and platform that are clearly influenced by iOS. This makes me uneasy.

Let me tell you a couple of things straight away: One, there is nothing wrong with the Mac platform, except what Apple has been doing to it in recent years. Two, since Steve Jobs’s passing, my impression is that Apple has been progressively unable to properly handle their two major platforms, Mac OS and iOS. It’s like they can’t keep a balance of resources, development, and attention between Mac OS and iOS. Instead of envisaging a plan where the two platforms progress in parallel, and flourish by making the most of their respective strengths, what I’ve seen is a clear preference for iOS, and a clear progressive neglect of Mac OS. As a Mac user, this frustrates me. Apple’s secrecy, mixed with vague statements from the company’s top executives, is making me more and more anxious about the Mac’s future.

The signals couldn’t be more mixed. Apple seems interested in pleasing again their pro users (the iMac Pro, the new Mac Pro hopefully next year, the Pro Workflow Team, etc.). Tim Cook recently said in an interview that We don’t believe in sort of watering down one for the other. Both [The Mac and iPad] are incredible. […] And if you begin to merge the two… you begin to make trade offs and compromises. So maybe the company would be more efficient at the end of the day. But that’s not what it’s about. […] So this merger thing that some folks are fixated on, I don’t think that’s what users want.

And yet this doesn’t fully reassure me. It’s like watching someone nod vigorously while also saying “No.” Cook’s words tell me that the Mac is not going away. Good. But in what state the Mac is going to stick around — that’s my concern. For both the hardware and the operating system. The ideal scenario for this possible Intel-to-ARM transition could be a new generation of powerful Macs that can run both Mac OS and iOS applications. 

Now, this can run both Mac OS and iOS apps is something that can take many forms and directions. If the year were 2011, for example, such new direction would probably be framed as an advantage for the Mac, essentially. Imagine being able to develop and test an iOS app running natively on a Mac instead of inside a simulator. Or imagine playing that iOS game on the Mac directly, taking advantage of the more powerful Mac hardware. Or the benefits of the Mac/iOS integration, where the Mac can run iOS widgets and little utilities as extensions that, for example, can directly interface with another iOS mobile device. If this were 2011, the narrative would probably be, Here’s what iOS can do for the Mac.

But it’s 2018, and seeing where things are going, I worry that the narrative is going to turn out as this: Here’s what iOS will do to the Mac. Because I have the distinct feeling that if iOS is allowed to run on Macs, it will be the end for Mac OS. Maybe not entirely, maybe not overnight, but who’s going to develop Mac OS apps when one can develop a iOS universal app that can work on iPhones, iPads, and Macs? Sure, the Mac version will have to adapt to the non-touch, keyboard + mouse (or trackpad) user interface and interaction, but perhaps it will be less of a headache than having a separate SuperGroovy Text Editor for iOS and SuperGroovy Text Editor for Mac OS.

The only cases where I see Mac OS development survive is a) thanks to the tireless work of long-time, die-hard Mac developers; b) to make very complex Mac professional applications that take advantage of the sheer power of the Mac family of pro machines, and whose tasks and UI design require the non-touch desktop paradigm of a Mac instead of the iPad’s multi-touch interface and relatively small screen real estate. And so maybe Ihnatko is not wrong when he predicts:

I can see a near future in which the only Apple hardware that behaves anything like what we’d recognize as a Mac today are the Mac Pros. These are the pricey workstation-class machines that benefit the most from Intel’s top horsepower; I don’t want to even take a guess as to how long it would take for Apple to build CPUs strong enough to do what an iMac Pro does. So if you use Macs for making movies, apps, visual effects, and machine learning models, rest easy: I think your Macs are safe from the red banner of revolution.

The rest of us are in an itchy spot. The functions of a basic laptop such as the MacBook Air could easily be met by an ARM chip, I reckon. And the latest generation of consumer MacBooks already look like iPads (and involve painful sacrifices, at least if you aren’t a fan of their almost-zero-travel keyboards). Why wouldn’t Apple make them act like iPads, too? In the absence of any visible sign of Apple’s eagerness to make great consumer Macs, it’s a tough question.

Going back to the afore-mentioned three main common characteristics of the previous major transitions — they were customer-friendly, they weren’t particularly rushed, they were all for the better ultimately — while I think the possible Intel-to-ARM transition will be for the better, I sincerely hope it will also be customer-friendly, and that Apple won’t rush things, or approach this transition with the attitude I’ve seen too often in recent times, the “let’s try this and see if it sticks”, make-it-up-as-we-go-along kind of plan. I can stomach another transition, provided it’s done properly.

As a closing consideration, I have to reiterate just how silly and disheartening all the recent treatment of the Mac has become. That it’s inadequate, and has to be phased out, is just empty talk by all-too-eager iOS-only pundits. Obviously, everyone is free to use what’s best for them and speak about their preferences, but things like The Mac is too cumbersome and difficult to use, or that it’s inadequate for modern tasks, or that iOS is a superior platform are very subjective opinions, and not statements of facts. It’s also a bit hypocritical to invite Mac users to be more open-minded towards iOS as a professional tool, while iOS-only proponents aren’t similarly inclined to maybe get to know the Mac better before dismissing it as inadequate and awkward. As I’ve previously, repeatedly said, this iOS vs. Mac OS debate is toxic; Mac OS doesn’t need to be put aside to make iOS shine. It’s not a zero-sum game.^[1]

This insistence that, between iOS and Mac OS, ‘only one shall prevail’ is so misplaced. Both platforms have a specific kind of versatility and a specific set of strengths. If you ask me, the smart position is Better both worlds than the best of both worlds — but both worlds need to be taken care equally. Currently, that doesn’t seem to be happening, with the Mac losing ground, and Apple executives not giving very strong signals that they love the Mac as much as they say they do. This rumoured next transition will be crucial and revealing in this regard. As Ihnatko concludes, either Apple has a big, revolutionary plan in store for the Mac, or it’s preparing for the last season of Mac OS. 

Never before has a rumour made me so anxious, though.