ARM Mac for photography?

[ian87w]

I don't see how it is going to be different, considering Adobe is having Lightroom to be native on it.

The problem is more of software selection, especially in the DAM area. It's bad enough these days with lack of competition to Adobe's Lightroom. It's going to be worse initially on the ARM Macs with Adobe probably being the only native choice at first.

There are plenty of Photoshop alternative, and one can even use an iPad app as a crutch. But Lightroom alternative is going to be hard, probably.

 

[Clix Pix]

I will be VERY upset if DXO PhotoLab doesn't move onward and upward into Apple's native SoC/ARM..... I really like this program and want to continue using it for a long, long time. I had tried Capture One Pro a couple of years ago and never quite got on with it, just didn't feel intuitive to me or to the way I work. Never have tried ON1, though, so not familiar with how it works. I do have Luminar 3 (never got around to moving into Luminar 4 after I discovered DXO Photolab 3) and I still actually use it for a few finishing touches here-and-there when I've completed editing an image and then notice that, oops, I missed some blob or spot that should've been erased out, etc.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

I will be VERY upset if DXO PhotoLab doesn't move onward and upward into Apple's native SoC/ARM..... I really like this program and want to continue using it for a long, long time. I had tried Capture One Pro a couple of years ago and never quite got on with it, just didn't feel intuitive to me or to the way I work. Never have tried ON1, though, so not familiar with how it works. I do have Luminar 3 (never got around to moving into Luminar 4 after I discovered DXO Photolab 3) and I still actually use it for a few finishing touches here-and-there when I've completed editing an image and then notice that, oops, I missed some blob or spot that should've been erased out, etc.

Apple did say they still have more Intel-Macs to announce, so the transition will not be immediate. I suspect there will be some time before developers have to transition.

 

[ian87w]

Apple did say they still have more Intel-Macs to announce, so the transition will not be immediate. I suspect there will be some time before developers have to transition.

Well, they said the same exact thing during the PPC to intel transition, but in reality, no more PPC Macs were released. Instead, they finished the intel transition in a year with the intel Mac Pro.

 

[Darmok N Jalad]

Well, they said the same exact thing during the PPC to intel transition, but in reality, no more PPC Macs were released. Instead, they finished the intel transition in a year with the intel Mac Pro.

Considering they just released the new Mac Pro with Intel, I have to wonder what the long-term plan is. All the other products could transition easily, but I’d be very surprised if they managed to make an ARM design as powerful as the Xeon options. I can totally see the laptop line moving away first, as that’s where the benefits will be maximized.

 

[ian87w]

Considering they just released the new Mac Pro with Intel, I have to wonder what the long-term plan is. All the other products could transition easily, but I’d be very surprised if they managed to make an ARM design as powerful as the Xeon options. I can totally see the laptop line moving away first, as that’s where the benefits will be maximized.

Definitely, the Mac Pro will probably be the last model to transition, just like the PowerMac to intel Mac Pro. The PowerMac G5 got its last refresh in October 2005, and intel Mac Pro was released in August 2006. So less than a year for the last version of the PowerMac G5!! Apple is not afraid ditching old stuff. And we definitely won't see any new intel Macs after the end of this year.

 

[Clix Pix]

I suspect that a lot of people will feel that they need to make a decision now: buy a new Intel-based machine now and be able to use that over the next several years while the transition goes through, or hold off and buy a new Apple SoC/ARM machine when they become available..... Some are adventurous and want to be the first to try out a new thing, while others are more risk-averse and particularly if they are using their machine for something important, don't want to experiment and rock the boat too soon so will stick with the tried-and-true Intel-based machines, maybe buying a new one now in 2020 to cover their bases.

 

[BiggAW]

I'm just a hobbyist, but I want to get a new Mac laptop at some point to replace my 2011 MBP. I've moved my main machine to Windows, but I'm toying with the idea of moving back. One stumbling block would be a replacement for Lightroom. I guess I'll have to wait and see what comes out for ARMacOS, I'd like to move away from Ligthtroom anyway, since they stopped selling it after LR6, so at the moment, I'm forever stuck on LR6, which is a slow pig of a piece of software, and Adobe is a disgusting company. I don't think running LR6 on ARMacOS is a great idea, as it would be a bloated pig of a program running on Rosetta 2. So I would need an alternative. Or I could stay on Windows as my main machine and stick with LR6, but I kind of miss being primarily on Mac.

 

[v3rlon]

Can anyone explain the difference between ARM and x86? I'm a noob in this area

Can anyone explain the difference between English and Spanish? Its like that.
Both are commonly spoken languages in the world.

Lets say the ARM is Spanish and x86 is English (I flipped a coin, there is no analogy beyond using language).

The x86 needs its instructions (programs) to be written in English so that it can understand them.
The ARM needs its instructions (programs) in Spanish for the same reason.

All of the programs that were written in English (x86) will need to be translated so that they can be read by the ARM (which only speaks Spanish). The macOS on the ARM will have a "English to Spanish" dictionary built in, but it isn't as fast as something that was translated professionally beforehand. The "dictionary" (called Rosetta 2, I believe) is an additional application, and the computer has to look up instructions as they are being fed to it. Obviously, it is faster to just get the text in your native language.

Also, if you've ever used one of those online translators, you may notice that some things don't translate well. Let's call those "bugs." It might be a colorful expression or figure of speech. For example, Russians have one about "noodles on your ears" that, translated literally, doesn't make a lot of sense in English. Obviously it is better to have a native application if you have a choice.

When Mac went from PowerPC to x86, they included the built in translator for 10 years, and it usually worked well, in my experience.

In practice, the majority of applications will work on the new ARM Macs using the built in translator. They demoed running Maya (3D rendering software) which is about as CPU intensive as it gets through Rosetta 2. The native Mac Apps like FCP X and Logic Pro X will be translated. There may be applications that do not work, but expect them to be few in number. If they are popular, expect them to be translated. Hardware that requires drivers may have issues early on. If you use some piece of legacy music hardware, I have found those guys really slow to update drivers.

Does that help?