What do you guys think about apples move to arm chips? As a cubase user.... does it even make sense to buy apple at this point?

There are no Apple arm machines (Macs) released nor announced. You know squat and are assuming what you've read must be true. Intel won't be abandoned for many years even if Apple release a few macOS machines with ARM so your premature worrying is pretty much a waste of mental energy and doesn't really matter. Buy what you want, use what you want. Who cares? I suppose if you think every computer one builds/buys must last 15 years and support new versions of the OS in question one needs to worry.

If Apple does make such a transition it will be when new ARM CPUs would be outperforming Intel's ditto and they also have a viable migration strategy that developers can embrace.

That said, of course Apple already have macOS running on ARM, probably since years (That's obviously an assumption of mine). That doesn't mean they will release such a product. It's just how they do things.

Your very question seems to also assume no-one else will transition their OSes to ARM even when the time is right. Big mistake.

Wow Mikael
you really seem to have some issues with anger management. I did too in the past. I suggest you go look for a good therapist and explore your childhood. Until then, please do not post in my threads. Thanks a lot

In actual reality we could instead focus on "the fact" that all Samsung laptops will be ARM-based, as by the laws of assumption, we must believe will be the case as Samsung released, as in built, shipped and and sold, such a thing last year running Windows 10.

But I suppose it's more meaningful to focus on unannounced and unreleased machines from a company with a fruity name. It's a choice one can make and I'm not against that, but it would be more constructive to openly accept such a kind of discussion is based on assumptions.

That I see the reality differently from you doesn't mean I'm angry nor am I following your example to be attacking you personally. With more assumptions at that.

You want me off your case, then stay with the facts. I'm all about facts and emotional outbursts make no difference to me.

I don't want you not to express your thoughts here. But I think I should be free to point out that Apple hasn't released nor announced an ARM Mac.

What do you guys think about cubase not supporting apples move to arm chips? As an apple user... does it even make sense to use cubase at this point?

Hmmm....

Really there are too many unknowns at this point.

Apple is known for secretly experimenting with many technologies and never releasing them. It’s pretty certain they are toying with the possibility of running both iOS and MacOs on a unified platform ( ARM ), but it doesn’t mean it’s going to happen soon, if ever.

I think your anger management course did not work.

Yes we can not be certain. But for this discussion, lets just assume it will happen.... there were lots of leaks lately and we should know by the end of may. im just wondering if its a bad time investing in an apple system.

I have absolutely no problem with you disagreeing. I really dont. Its about tone and attitude. Not a fan of the passive aggressive.... Its all good man. Lets just stay on the topic.

I think some of the negative response you got might be because it's a bit "old" to see headlines on topic that state something categorically and then you read the first post and it's just a nothing-burger. I mean, either it's just sloppy writing or it's calculated to get more views of the thread. Either way it's misleading and that gets 'old' after a while.

And no, supposed leaks don't count.

Why don't you just wait until the end of may then? It's less than a month. I mean if you really think about it you're saying that one should take really vague and questionable leaks into account when investing in computers. That doesn't sound reasonable to me.

- If you're a business doing this professionally then you don't want to buy equipment while taking leaks and rumors into account. You want solid data and a healthy business plan.

- If you're a hobbyist then again you don't need to take this into account, because now you no longer have to invest, and can instead choose to wait until the information is out there.

I just wrote a headline without overthinking anything... why does everybody try to pick a fight? I dont have any agenda. I just asked a question. I honestly dont get it. But again, its all good i guess ill ask this elsewhere.

I agree with matthiasnyc answer. You should always base your purchase on your actual needs. Do you need to buy a Mac right now ? Or is it something you can wait a few years for ?

IF Apple decides to move to ARM, it probably won’t happen until they can make sure the speed /energy consumption ratio really beats all available Intel processors. Also, just like they did for their transition from Motorola/PowerPc processors to Intel, they will have developped an Intel emulator that will be able to run all previous software, for a few years until all developpers recode their apps to run on ARM.

But all this is really just a big assumption. For all we know, Apple may even be leaking this themselves just to put more pressure on Intel to get more favorable deals from them.

Hey spaceman,
thanks for a friendly reply. I do need a laptop by end of the month and im trying to decide between apple or a windows system. i was just scared to invest in an osx system if maybe support gets dropped. thats all. im no it-freak so maybe this is a stupid thing to worry about.

I answered your question though.

I don’t think you should worry about that. You should just decide whether you want a Windows or Mac computer.

Like I said , if they move to ARM, it’s not going to happen this year or even next year. And they’ll likely pursue the same strategy for their previous transition : require all software to be released in a “Universal” format PowerPc/Intel , or in this case Intel/Arm. Once they feel a significant number of their users are now running ARM Macs, then that’s where they’ll drop support for Intel. By the time all this happens ( if it happens) it will take at least 5 or 6 years to get to this stage. By then, you will likely be tempted to get a new machine anyways.

Sounds like folks are forgetting that the PowerPC was a RISC chip, and it had better performance than comparable Intel chips at the time. IIRC, it was IBM’s inability to produce a chip that could run cool in laptops that steered Apple away from them. I’d bet that the move to ARM for MacOs could happen really quickly with a compatibility box for Intel similar to the move from OS 9 to X.

I bought a PowerMac G5 in 2004. Less than a year later they announced they're moving to Intel chips.
But they still released 10.4 and 10.5 that worked with PowerPC and Intel chips until they went all-Intel with 10.6 in 2009.
After that I bought a new iMac in 2010 so I still got 6 years out of it.

So for how long do you usually own a computer?
What computer do you have today and how do you use?

What is it lacking today and what do you want a new computer to do?

I don't agree, it'll be when the performance is acceptable for 80(ish)% of their users - given the enormous difference in architecture there's no such thing as "outperforming" anyway as each type of processors will have niche area where they will perform a particular type of task faster than the other camp.

I suspect Apple will want to transition as fast as they can simply to increase profits, I reckon they'll end up with mid-range Intel processors as a coprocessor just for compatibility's sake (they won't want to go down the emulation avenue again, which was a a disaster.) Desktop machines are becoming increasingly rare anyway - will they even care about the DAW market? The big hitting desktop machine users are video and ray-tracing - both use-cases that scale well with numbers of cores (a ARM strength) it will be interesting to find out - but I think the path will be a rocky one for DAW users.

What do you guys think about the new Apple Car? That thing looks so cool.

Apple's EFI, RDF, and ARM technologies trigger my NOT reflex.

For others though, hey, yeah....go buy a new one every year.

If you have enjoyed the macOS up to this point...

Get a new MacBook Pro 16".... create music with it + Cubase for the next 5 years.

5 years from now... get something else.

Perhaps in 2025, you'll be salivating over the power and the glory of what an ARM based MacBook Pro + Cubase 2025 can do.

Sounds like a plan to me.

Thanks guys,
that sounds assuring. i wont use a laptop longer than five years. i still have to weigh pros and cons for apple (on windows atm). but its good to know that support should last that long. the mbp 16 is not an option for me. i was super close to buying it. but it seems there are lots of issues when using external screens, which i do a lot.
Ill take a look at the (please dont shoot me) supposedly upcoming 13 or 14 refresh without dedicated gpu. And if thats not a fit i will most likely get a razer blade stealth. I do like a smaller footprint. The stealth looks great but im kind of scared by the low base clock on the 1065g7 cpu. Its only 1.3ghz - supposedly running stable at 2.5ghz though. This is for cubase by the way.

Architecture changes happen all the time, some more disruptive than others. Apple is pretty ruthless about giving up on tech it sees as becoming obsolete, and that does tend to cause disruption for people who switch to Apple's new products early. As for ARM, lots of people already run cloud workloads on ARM. Windows has run on ARM for a long time now. Apple's got extensive experience with the architecture through iOS, and a lot of groundwork has been laid already to make software portable between the two architectures. It won't be all rosy when it happens, but I don't think it'll be as disruptive as the internet thinks.

I'd say two things about this particular move:

1). It is unlikely that high-end machines will move to ARM in the near future (2-3 years). Think Mac Pro/iMac Pro and corporate mini customers. Intel CPUs aren't going anywhere any time soon in these machines.

2). Now's a good time to take stock of your software vendor's reputation for keeping its products up to date. I tell my customers that buying software isn't like buying a refrigerator. You don't plug it in and expect it to keep your food cold for 15 years without any intervention. If your vendor isn't willing to put in the effort to keep up with hardware changes, I don't see good things in that company's future. I'm looking at you Akai (Ak.Sys) and Line 6 (still can't get the software tools for my POD Pro running). On the other hand, MOTU's ClockWorks still runs on the latest Mac and Windows OSes.

If the move happens, we're all gonna blame Apple when we should really be blaming our software vendors.

Not to be personal, but I also don't read anything specific angry or anything. It's very factual. But let's stick to the topic.

I'ts been posted on various tech forums that ARM indeed has passed a couple of times for possible technologies.

I am not sure if it would be ever a problem.

The unix operating system could as well work on x86 as Arm. If Apple could make it easy to translate its code to either of these processors, it wouldn't be a complete issue. Not sure if programs then need to support it. Questionable could be the performance.

But I think it is too early to say anything proper about this. Audio companies always lag a bit behind the technology. And that's not an issue per se (it's not that renewing to be honest). I believe we are kinda safe for now.

And to be frank, person opinion, I love Macs, but I would't want to pay a premium for an Arm processor. So I would skip it.

They just released the new macbook 13“ kind of tempting

But after checking the specs i kind of have the decision taken off my shoulders. I find the specs pretty dissapointing and will try the razer.

Yes that's sound advice - pick a DAW that "does" Windows and Mac and start with Mac if that floats your boat. Though I suspect Linux will outlive both desktop Macs and Windows as a desktop OS. Both OSs may be a dead end coz I wouldn't bet against Windows becoming an alternative shell for Linux within 10 years. Maintaining an OS is mighty expensive which is why Apple are converging their hardware platforms and OSs to a single entity – where are Microsoft's future revenue streams? The commercial world is switching over to Linux as quickly as it can, when Windows Server revenue dries up there will be no cash to keep the consumer OS going.

IMHO The future will be lightweight front-ends with internet based servers hosting your audio processing (plugins, soft-synths etc.) The only plugins you host locally will be those required during tracking.

I already had him on ignore due to past transgressions, so no wow factor, par for the course.

I switched to windows a few years ago. If one is committed to apple, I see no reason not to buy the arm based device if it meets one's needs. I presume this would only thward hack builders, and I doubt the arm stuff will be powerful enough to challenge high end intel chips in any case.

I've been a Logic guy since version 4 (gold) or something...

- was very happy when we switched to mac (g4) from pc, it had a bit less jam but by goodness it worked

- was a bit sad when apple bought Emagic

- picked up a g5 and was very happy with the jam

- then sad we ran out of jam and couldnt upgrade anything

- happy at the switch to Intel, though it broke compatibility with UAD

- sad that apple slowed down the updates

- sad that apple refused to upgrade hardware

- starting building my own hardware, and was happy

- sad that apple's software quality has severely dropped, though Logic still works

That's about 20 years of use for Logic there. The program is advanced enough to not really need anything new, new hardware is available.

New chip architecture will surely break a lot of things, and there would be a major transition stage undoubtedly. Something tells me Apple is more likely to leave developers scrambling to recode, rather than provide another Rosetta. However Tim's style at Apple has been to seriously fragment the product lines, which may leave several models out there for quite a while.

Oh, the jokes, if after so many years of waiting for a Mac Pro update, we get an architecture change a year later.... Personally I'll be very disappointed to lose control over upgrades or experience a big upheaval to workflow, but we really aren't adequately using multicore processing right now. Floating point calculations in audio are 100% made for multicore, yet the design is extremely inefficient. Perhaps a switch, and a new plugin protocol will let you get 10yrs out of your hardware without needing an upgrade, or to turn off oversampling.

Audio software today is in a funny spot: You have Apple's Logic, a sidenote to the company for practically no money, which they could discontinue without a thought. Avid's competent but cashgrab PT, and the company is a bit of a mess. Steinberg is standalone, tough go for a company longterm.

Starting fresh, I'd jump on Reaper and Ableton, and not look back.