Qt and next Apple generation
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wrote on 24 Dec 2020, 22:09 last edited by jeanmilost
As everybody probably known, there is a new incoming generation of Apple computers. This next gen is planned to replace the actual Intel architecture by their more closed ARM architecture. On the other hand, Apple is replacing few by few the currently available open and cross-platform technologies by their closed own solutions, as e.g the depreciation of OpenGL and the deny of Vulkan, in favor to their own proprietary Metal library.
I'm curious to know how these changes may impact Qt and the development in a general way on this new architecture.
Especially, Apple seems to present a more and more closed ecosystem, and to force the developers to specialize themselves exclusively for the Apple world. What are the impact on Qt, will it be still possible to develop cross-platform Win-Linux-Apple applications with Qt in the future, or even simply to develop an Apple application with Qt?
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As everybody probably known, there is a new incoming generation of Apple computers. This next gen is planned to replace the actual Intel architecture by their more closed ARM architecture. On the other hand, Apple is replacing few by few the currently available open and cross-platform technologies by their closed own solutions, as e.g the depreciation of OpenGL and the deny of Vulkan, in favor to their own proprietary Metal library.
I'm curious to know how these changes may impact Qt and the development in a general way on this new architecture.
Especially, Apple seems to present a more and more closed ecosystem, and to force the developers to specialize themselves exclusively for the Apple world. What are the impact on Qt, will it be still possible to develop cross-platform Win-Linux-Apple applications with Qt in the future, or even simply to develop an Apple application with Qt?
Hi,
@jeanmilost said in Qt and next Apple generation:
This next gen is planned to replace the actual PowerPC architecture by their more closed ARM architecture.
You are 14 years late, Apple has ditched PowerPC for Intel in 2006.
In any case, support for Metal is already available in Qt since several releases and the new RHI backend will make use of that. It's the default in Qt 6.0 and you can test drive it since Qt 5.14 IIRC.
There are some bugs that are being worked on for Big Sure.AFAIK there's currently no pre-built binaries for macOS ARM but Apple provides Rosetta2 to run x64 code on their new ARM machines.
In the long run we will likely see multi-arch Libraries Bundle since it was already the case before during the PowerPC/Intel transition.
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wrote on 27 Dec 2020, 03:20 last edited by jeanmilost
@SGaist said in Qt and next Apple generation:
You are 14 years late, Apple has ditched PowerPC for Intel in 2006.
I mentioned the previous technology to describe the current Apple architecture, please forgive me. I wrote this question just before going to weekend, and I was quite tired. What I mention above is described in the following article:
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-transition-to-apple-silicon/I also corrected my post, thank you very much
3/3