[kwlug-disc] macOS and 3rd party apps

[Doug Moen]

Another trick is that Apple's dev languages and frameworks (Swift and Objective-C) use reference counting, which requires atomic increments and decrements. On Intel, these operations are five times slower than non-atomic operations; on Apple Silicon they run at the same speed. This is something I wish the other CPU vendors would get right, because refcounting has some technical advantages over tracing GC, and I use it in software I write. C++ and Rust, both "performance" languages, provide refcounting but not tracing GC.

On Sat, Dec 12, 2020, at 5:42 PM, Mikalai Birukou via kwlug-disc wrote:
> Actually the whole depth of this only now opened to me. You see, I am not that into Apple, and I didn't realize that story is about desktop/laptop. Holy, moly! By inertia I naturally thought that this security-justified f&&kery happens on the phone. Wow! ... looking for tin foil ... What Microsoft is doing these days, as they have an example?

> Regarding M1. My Understanding is that placement of RAM inside of processor package/silicon is the trick that makes it run fast. Is there anything else?

>> To those that peek under the hood, the last few releases of macOS have clearly shown how Apple is rapidly moving macOS to be a device-like operating system that parallels iOS. Since the introduction of APFS, most of the OS is on an immutable volume. But it's done in a horribly complex way that defies any semblance of the core Unix principles of simplicity (https://eclecticlight.co/2020/09/16/boot-volume-layout/). And Homebrew (the poorly-implemented open source package manager) is regarded like the hackintosh community in the eyes of Apple, who wants complete control over their whole ecosystem. It really is a shame - about 15 years ago, OS X was a decent Unix that was fairly open. Nowadays, it just feels like iOS on a PC that you can't modify.  The Apple M1 looks decent, but since Apple no longer lets you run Linux on their hardware, I have no desire to ever buy one.
>> 
>>> This isn't new behaviour, and MacOS has had telemetry for years. What seems to be new is that the latest MacOS is so locked down that you can no longer block telemetry. The /System folder is immutable and cannot be changed by the owner of the computer, it can only be changed by Apple during an OS update. Firewalls work by using a kernel API, but Apple telemetry and spy services bypass user installed firewalls so that you cannot block them.
>>> 
>>> When I first heard about Apple Silicon, I wondered if Apple would use this as an excuse to further iOS-ify MacOS, so that Macs would cease to be general purpose computers under the control of their users. It seems this is what has happened, at least with respect to MacOS. But there may be technical details I am missing, this impression is just from reading opinionated blog posts.
>>> 
>>> I'd consider buying an Apple Silicon laptop if I could wipe MacOS and install Linux. According to Linus Torvalds, the main barrier to this is that it will likely not be possible to write a GPU graphics driver for the new Macs due to a lack of technical information. That's a deal breaker for me. I've not heard anything to suggest that the hardware will be cryptographically locked to MacOS in a way that prevents Linux installs.
>>> 
>>> > In case you missed it (I did) there is new way Apply is treating its 
>>> > users. Before starting 3rd party app, macOS talks to some server. Every 
>>> > time, or often, instead of once, when app is installed!
>>> > 
>>> > https://www.fsf.org/news/the-problems-with-apple-arent-just-outages-they-are-injustices
>>> > 
>>> > https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/11/macos-leaks-application-usage-forces-apple-make-hard-decisions
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