All MacOS versions of their windows counterparts above are inferior to the windows versions on the exact same hardware. Now figure that one out.
Not hard to figure: Apple/Adobe et. al. "invented" (or at least copied from The Mother of All Demos) - DTP, photographic work, music production (well, nod to Atari there) and non-linear video editing back in the 80s and 90s. CAD and 3D modelling were older, already established ideas - albeit on hyper-expensive graphical workstations - that even Macs couldn't hack in the 80s and came to PCs when the Mac was already on the wane (ISTR it was the Amiga, with Lightwave etc. that "broke" 3D on personal computer hardware).
So, even if its technological lead is gone, Apple is still widely used in the areas where it has an historical foothold, so developers have an incentive to do a proper job of supporting those areas.
Apple haven't sold a credible, up-to-date Pro Mac since the original "cheesegrater" Mac Pro was left to go to seed about 2010. The "cylinder" was a washout, the iMac Pro had "dead end" written all over it (why do you want your hyper-expensive Xeon workstation sealed inside a glossy pro-sumer display?) and the new Mac Pro's business model is "If you're totally locked in to FCPx or Logic Pro, look how much money we can wring out of you for a grotesquely over-engineered Xeon tower". They're really not lifting a finger to sell "pro" Mac equipment to new customers or expand out of their traditional photo/video/audio niche.
Bottom line: outside photo/video/audio there probably just isn't the customer base to make it worth developers' while to spend
too much time and effort on optimising their products for Mac, if at all... and for 3D, that's especially true given the limited choice of graphics hardware on Macs (along with Apple's feud with NVIDIA and depreciation of anything that isn't Metal). If your Mac version is good enough to let the Boss in the Corner Office look at the files on their MacBook Air, then you're probably sorted.
...but then, what's the problem? If your primary requirement is CAD or 3D software that is better supported on PC, getting a PC is absolutely the sensible decision. Why pay a premium for Apple hardware - who's Unique Selling Point is the ability to run MacOS - and then have it spend all its time running Windows, with all the added hassle of Bootcamp or virtualization software? Also, the more "pro" you get then the more likely is that the CAD machine will spend its days doing CAD. The scenario where the same person might produce some plans in CAD, render them to a 3D walkthough... then switch over to FCPx to add captions and effects, then fire up Logic to write the musical score... probably isn't that common.
None of this is really relevant to Apple Silicon. The major effort in porting software is
changing operating system - especially if you want a native-looking UI and support for Metal, the Accelerator framework etc. Only a small subset of the code in a small subset of apps actually cares about the CPU type (esp. when all the targets are 64 bit, little-endian and built using the same compilers). Any applications which will never make the jump to AS probably had one foot in the grave anyway (if they haven't already been killed by the dropping of 32 bit in Catalina).
What Apple Silicon
does represent is a
chance of improving things: it is now over to Apple to deliver MacBook Air-sized machines that outperform full-sized laptops, Mac Minis and iMacs with integrated GPUs that run rings around on-board discreet GPUs and a Mac Pro with supercomputer-level performance from zillions of cores packed with on-die acceleration technology. Oh, and at lower prices, too
We haven't seen that yet, but (unless you bury your head in the sand) there's plenty of evidence from the performance of the A12Z and Amazon et. al's forays into server-class ARM chips to suggest that it is feasible.
If Apple succeed - then they'll have a Mac platform that can offer genuine technical advantages over PC and might even be able to start tempting new customers into the fold. If they don't
try - then they'd be stuck selling Intel- or AMD-based PC clones in shiny aluminium boxes with no hardware advantage over the competition.
Is it a pity that AS Macs won't run x86 windows? Of course... but if AS lives up to its promises then that could be a price worth paying. Besides - it's not 2006 any more and "buying a PC" to run PC software doesn't mean another big sweaty beige box - it could be a tablet, a NUC, or a remotely-accessed PC anywhere between your basement and the far reaches of the cloud...
