The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are getting it wrong, regarding Apple's motives of transitioning Macs from Intel processors to their own Apple Silicon. Maybe they need reporters that understand Apple.
The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are getting it wrong, regarding Apple’s motives of transitioning Macs from Intel processors to their own Apple Silicon. Maybe they need reporters that understand Apple.
I respect and rely on The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal for other types of news, but these 2 articles on complex technology topics gives me pause. Both of them got an important part of the story really wrong, and because they are mainstream news sources it can negatively impact what regular consumers think of these new Macs, and Apple in general.
The gist of what they got wrong is coloring Apple’s motives to be that this move to Apple Silicon is a way to lock down Macs and exert dangerous and unwelcome control over developers and users. And that’s just not Apple, when it comes to the Mac. Mac has always been open and will stay that way.
Read on…
Wall Street Journal “aimed at tightening the tech giant’s control”
Apple Inc. is ditching Intel Corp. technology that rejuvenated the Mac computer over the past 15 years, in a split aimed at tightening the tech giant’s control over its products, customers and software developers.
Apple is transitioning from Intel to Apple Silicon, and will continue to ship Intel based Macs for a while. Ditching implies something else. I’d guess at least through 2021 and maybe 2022. But it will depend more on how good the Apple Silicon Macs are and how they are received, especially by developers.
The worst is the “tightening the tech giant’s control” crap. That is just not how Apple has ever thought about the Mac. And more importantly, not what developers or users want or need.
Washington Post “new processors give it more power over developers”
Developers worry that Arm chips will make Mac computers more like iPhones and iPads, where developers say they get pushed around by Apple
Apple announced new chips for its Macs, which the company said Monday would make the computers more power efficient. But some worried about a different kind of power: the kind Apple wields over its developers.
Same nonsense as WSJ. But oh, there’s more. The article digs the wrongness hole even deeper and deeper. But to preserve my sanity, I’m gonna stop there.
Perhaps the mistake they are both making here is applying what Apple did, and had to do, with the iPhone and iPad, to the Mac’s future. That is, to restrict the iPhone and iPad to the Apple App Store. That was absolutely necessary to keep those products from becoming a security and privacy disaster. It was a brilliant move then. And in today’s world of massive breaches in our security and privacy, it has proven to be genius.
Apple SVP “Mac should be open”
Those were my immediate reactions to the Wash Post and WSJ articles. Then days later I saw John Gruber’s The Talk Show Remote From WWDC 2020 and his guests were Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering and Greg Joswiak, Vice President of Product Marketing. They talked about this a bit and confirmed my thoughts on it. That Apple has absolutely no intention of locking developers or users out of the Mac. That they are not changing anything about macOS on Apple
Here’s some of what Craig had to say.
I think those guys are being total tools. … We think the Mac should be open to hobbyist experimentation.
To be clear, Craig wasn’t calling anyone specific a tool. They didn’t even talk about any source in particular. But, just my opinion… it kinda fits.
They also talked about how SIP (System Integrity Protection) can be disabled. SIP secures, or locks down, macOS. And that you can distribute apps outside the Mac App Store. And that all of that will need be changed.
This part of the conversation starts at about 52:55 in this video.
Apple Silicon Macs: Getting It Wrong – Wash Post & WSJ
The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal are getting it wrong, regarding Apple’s motives of transitioning Macs from Intel processors to their own Apple Silicon. Maybe they need reporters that understand Apple.
I respect and rely on The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal for other types of news, but these 2 articles on complex technology topics gives me pause. Both of them got an important part of the story really wrong, and because they are mainstream news sources it can negatively impact what regular consumers think of these new Macs, and Apple in general.
The gist of what they got wrong is coloring Apple’s motives to be that this move to Apple Silicon is a way to lock down Macs and exert dangerous and unwelcome control over developers and users. And that’s just not Apple, when it comes to the Mac. Mac has always been open and will stay that way.
Read on…
Wall Street Journal “aimed at tightening the tech giant’s control”
There’s almost nothing right in that sentence.
Apple is transitioning from Intel to Apple Silicon, and will continue to ship Intel based Macs for a while. Ditching implies something else. I’d guess at least through 2021 and maybe 2022. But it will depend more on how good the Apple Silicon Macs are and how they are received, especially by developers.
The worst is the “tightening the tech giant’s control” crap. That is just not how Apple has ever thought about the Mac. And more importantly, not what developers or users want or need.
Washington Post “new processors give it more power over developers”
Same nonsense as WSJ. But oh, there’s more. The article digs the wrongness hole even deeper and deeper. But to preserve my sanity, I’m gonna stop there.
Perhaps the mistake they are both making here is applying what Apple did, and had to do, with the iPhone and iPad, to the Mac’s future. That is, to restrict the iPhone and iPad to the Apple App Store. That was absolutely necessary to keep those products from becoming a security and privacy disaster. It was a brilliant move then. And in today’s world of massive breaches in our security and privacy, it has proven to be genius.
Apple SVP “Mac should be open”
Those were my immediate reactions to the Wash Post and WSJ articles. Then days later I saw John Gruber’s The Talk Show Remote From WWDC 2020 and his guests were Craig Federighi, Senior Vice President of Software Engineering and Greg Joswiak, Vice President of Product Marketing. They talked about this a bit and confirmed my thoughts on it. That Apple has absolutely no intention of locking developers or users out of the Mac. That they are not changing anything about macOS on Apple
Here’s some of what Craig had to say.
To be clear, Craig wasn’t calling anyone specific a tool. They didn’t even talk about any source in particular. But, just my opinion… it kinda fits.
They also talked about how SIP (System Integrity Protection) can be disabled. SIP secures, or locks down, macOS. And that you can distribute apps outside the Mac App Store. And that all of that will need be changed.
This part of the conversation starts at about 52:55 in this video.
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