[MacTUG] DO NOT Buy the New Apple Silicon M1 Macs... (as a Software Engineer) - YouTube

[Glenn Anderson]

I think it likely depends upon what type of software one is engineering, as to whether it would make sense to purchase one of these now. I would expect that anyone that is developing Mac apps and such would be testing them out on a M1 Mac, rather than just trusting they worked after compiling them.

One of the commenters to this video states

"As a software engineer myself, there are a few things to also consider here.  One is that not all software engineering is alike.  I mainly work on iOS apps for my job and these new M1 based Macs are amazing for that.  Not only do you get better build times over the Intel versions, you also choose to run your iOS apps directly on macOS for an environment that is a little closer to an iOS device is than the Simulator under x86.”

——————

One point made in the video that might impact our users is that there isn’t any PC/Windows virtualization (VMWare Fusion, Parallels Desktop, VirtualBox) software for these Silicon Macs and no time line as to when such software will become available. So if we have users running Windows on their Mac, they should stick to Intel based ones for a while.



> On Nov 22, 2020, at 9:42 PM, Marlon Griffith <m3griffi at engmail.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:
>
> """
> The benchmarks for these systems are really impressive, but I still think that most software engineers should not rush to the Apple store to pick one up. Here are the four reasons that as a software engineer you shouldn't buy one of these new ARM-based macs:
>
> 1) Limited virtualization support
> 2) Docker currently unavailable
> 3) Many Homebrew packages are not yet compatible
> 4) The laptop form factor only supports a single external monitor
>
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ji9j-JWbgAo
> """
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