Reply to post: Re: Rosetta-a-like is absolutely necessary

Apple to dump Intel CPUs from Macs for Arm – yup, the rumor that just won't die is back

Richard 12 Silver badge

Re: Rosetta-a-like is absolutely necessary

Sorry, but you genuinely have no idea what you're on about, diodesign.

How does that help run any of the thousands of existing applications on this new architecture?

Unless the software developers spend the time to port the x86 application to ARM, there will never, ever be an ARM version.

Rosetta made it possible for existing PowerPC binaries to run on x86, which meant you could buy an x86 Mac and still have all your existing software, even if the developers didn't update.

Fat binaries merely made it easier for developers to ship a single "installer" for both architectures. They don't magically cause x86 or ARM versions of applications to come into existence.

Porting a commercial x86 application to ARM is not just a case of recompiling it, unless it's really quite trivial. It often costs thousands of pounds to port - who's going to pay for that?

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