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How, on macOS, does apple lock you into their ecosystem when you can run whatever you want?


You can't run whatever you want.

e.g. I used to install qlplugins on every new macos device as our company bought them. Then one day Apple refused to run any 32-bit library despite the fact that 32 bit code still runs natively on x86-64 chips (this when everything still ran on x86-64 btw).

Designers still ask me: "Hey, how do I see the dimensions of this picture when pressing spacebar to preview it?" And I have to say: "Sorry, Apple said you can't do that anymore".


Because maintaining 32 bit libraries when most of the world is 64 bit doesn’t make sense.

This is not the same as apple actively forcing you into their ecosystem. This is apple not supporting old technology.


> Because maintaining 32 bit libraries when most of the world is 64 bit doesn’t make sense.

64bit code is the extension, not the base case.

32bit (x86) code just straight up runs on an x86-64 (64-bit) processor.

It's an artificial limitation that just doesn't make sense, and it can also be worse for performance too.

> This is not the same as apple actively forcing you into their ecosystem.

No?

Apple prevents 32bit libraries from running. This effected almost all the common cross-platform layers from running on MacOS.

In a single action, Apple eliminated the libraries that Steam games on MacOS used. Games would now have to be recompiled and were pushed to be downloadable through the Mac App Store, giving Apple their 30% cut.

> This is apple not supporting old technology.

If it's old then apple shouldn't support it? By that logic, we shouldn't be using ints in our code, we should only use 64-bit quaternions.

There is a difference between old and outdated. 32bit code is old. 32bit code is not outdated.


I didn’t read but the first sentence because you clearly don’t know that an OS must have both 32 bit libraries and 64 bit libraries to run both. Apple chose to leave 32 bit behind to stop maintaining it.




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