As everyone knows by now Apple is officially launching macOS 11 which means the end of the line for OS X. Apple also announced a shift from Intel to its own ARM chip. While many people in computing today do not remember the 1990's and how big and ambitious OS X was starting with Rhapsody I certainly do. I was a NeXT guy and was with Apple until they mutilated the OpenStep development environment I look at this in reflection. In some ways, I feel like Apple is going back in time to the same screwups that almost killed the company in 1997. Apple is a much stronger company today then it was back then. It's now worth over a trillion dollars has plenty of cash on the books and is well-positioned to try to be a trendsetter that it couldn't be in 1997. For those of you, that remember how PowerPC was supposed to change the game, and people were placing the bets that PowerPC was supposed to be the future well we saw how that turned out.
Can Apple do the same thing twice and expect a different result? In this case, it might be able to pull it off. In some developers that I have spoken to there is certainly some tension in the air. The painful reminder of having to maintain two separate code bases for a few years is definitely a nightmare. A lot of you Apple fans are right now screaming at your computer screen as you read this "ROSETTA!!!!!!!!" let's be real. Rosetta SUCKED during the PowerPC to Intel transition how well do you think it's going to fare here? Emulation technologies even as cost-efficient as they are, are great for testing but running high-end productivity software on a regular basis? C'mon now let's get serious. The other half of you that agreed with what I just said are going to come back with, "Well most development houses have iOS versions of their software so they can just use that right" and yes they can. But, Tablets, Phones, and PC's are totally different creatures. macOS 11 is not going to have touch capabilities. This means that developers are going to have to write in features that are not found in Phones and Tablets which means more complexity and more dollars spent. Now let's go beyond developers to the consumer and more importantly Apple's pro customers. ARM-based systems have not been used as a primary platform for high-end graphics, music, and video production. The most serious ARM-based supercomputer has over 158 thousand nodes, let's say that again; over 150,000 nodes. What is Apple's plan? To bring back an ARM-based Xserve and force customers to buy another system that has 500 nodes just so people can do the comparable work that was achieved using a Xeon based system?
Yes, there is uncertainty about what's going to happen here. Will the 27 inch iMac just turn into a 27 inch iPhone with a keyboard and mouse? Only time will tell. As someone who has devoted his life to technology, I do appreciate the fact that Tim Cook is trying to push Apple to "Think different" again which was one of its most endearing qualities back in 1998. But do you really think doing the same thing twice will achieve a different result? But, this is the problem when stock price dictates a companies direction and should Tim Cook screw this up. Well, there is no Steve Jobs to save them.
