The M1 Macs are astonishingly good and Rosetta is the exemplification of “it just works”, but the iOS app experience ranges from terrible to OK, at best
Better necessarily implies different. — That's one of my favorite axioms. It's both intuitively and undeniably true.
Daring FireballJohn Gruber
Context & Ripple Effects
Apple's first M1 Macs landed with an unusual split verdict: the hardware transition is smooth because Rosetta translates Intel software transparently, yet running iPad apps directly on the Mac — the other half of the compatibility story — ranges from terrible to merely OK. That lands one year after critics argued that porting iPad apps via Catalyst can't produce a cohesive Mac UX, and five years after coverage of gradual degradation in Apple's own app quality set the stage for skepticism about polish.
First-order effects
Early M1 buyers get excellent performance on translated Intel apps but a second-class experience with the iOS apps Apple made available in the Mac App Store.
Developers whose iPad apps were surfaced on the Mac now face immediate reputational exposure: their touch-first interfaces are being judged as Mac software whether they opted into scrutiny or not.
Second-order effects
Developers must choose between pulling their iOS apps from the Mac App Store, investing in native Mac versions, or accepting the criticism — a decision Catalyst's skeptics predicted would be forced.
Apple faces pressure to tighten curation or tooling around iOS-on-Mac apps, since the gap between Rosetta's 'it just works' and the iOS app experience undercuts the unified-platform pitch that sells the M1.
Third-order effects
If the pattern holds, Apple's silicon unification will keep outrunning its software unification: one architecture across devices while input models and UX conventions stay divided, making cross-platform app quality — not chip translation — the long-term bottleneck of the merged ecosystem.
The trend: Apple's transition to its own silicon is succeeding through binary translation even as its iOS-to-Mac software convergence lags behind the hardware.
My Apple Silicon puzzle: hugely impressive, and Disruptive, and Apple will take a huge chunk of market share from PCs. But does it matter to anyone than Apple, Intel and maybe Dell shareholders? It doesn't change product or company creation. It doesn't change what we can do.
@ukandrewtaylor
Andrew Taylor on x
Trying not to buy in to Apple silicon hype but @gruber makes a compelling argument https://daringfireball.net/...
@alexbrooks
Alex Brooks on x
These are some of the best words @gruber has ever laid down. The Mac is his thing after all. Captures the sentiment of how much of a monumental paradigm shift the M1 Macs represent. https://daringfireball.net/...
@lukemiani
Luke Miani on x
I was typing up the script for my M1 MacBook Pro video on the Intel 2020 MacBook Pro and it ran hotter with JUST Pages open than the M1 running Cinebench, Blender, AND Final Cut back to back for over 90 minutes! Apple Silicon is simply magical
@jonmasters
@jonmasters on x
“Boring” is my favorite word, and not just because I like business computing 😉 when I call a thing boring I mean it “just works”. If I were in the @Apple Rosetta team I would be immensely proud of making a thing so dull that it just works like magic. These folks are awesome! http…
@gassee
Jean-Louis Gassée on x
Best Apple Silicon Macs (extensive) review by John Gruber. https://daringfireball.net/...
@mkbhd
Marques Brownlee on x
@ijustine @DetroitBORG The question is are we gonna regret it when they finally make an Apple Silicon iMac Pro with the first new design in an eternity and it's the greatest all-in-one ever
@danallen46
Dan Allen on x
A very good read, including a Steve Jobs story at the end that I have never heard before. It is the final footnote by Gruber. https://twitter.com/...
@detroitborg
@detroitborg on x
If you have any generation of MacBook Air before M1, just put it straight into the garbage, that's about what it's worth now. BTW, anybody want to buy mine? ;)
@dcseifert
Dan Seifert on x
they should have called it Apple Silly-con because the performance is just silly! send tweet
@apas
@apas on x
“The defining characteristic of a Macintosh computer is that it's nice. Beautiful in the way that an elegant mathematical proof is.” https://daringfireball.net/...
@detroitborg
@detroitborg on x
Should I replace my iMac Pro with a maxed out M1 Mac mini and XDR Display?