As someone who used to work in computer sales, I understand and applaud Apple’s marketing. This is not blind praise, but

Web app development — this implies you’re heavily relying on the Node ecosystem, you use libraries such as React, Angular, Vue and all the other craziness that comes with linting, building and deploying web apps to the web. You may get away with running your React app locally. I certainly managed to do that, but for instance I had to rebuild node-sass. My gut feeling says, the more complex your web app is, the more you’ll run into problems. Docker support is also not there yet. Homebrew is another potential major blocker. If you absolutely need it, here’s where they’re at with it.

I would also like to highlight that technically none of this is a hardware issue. In terms of the Pro M1 hardware specs, it’s a beast even at its lowest, and I would be very-very surprised to see it struggle with any of the development types I touched on. The hardware capability is absolutely there. The software compatibility is however lagging behind.

It is also blatantly obvious now that ARM processors are very mature and completely viable for both laptops and desktops. A stage dominated by Intel and to some extent by AMD, is getting more fragmented now. But me thinks, not for long. While I have a deep respect for both of these companies as they enabled and supported for decades the current industrial revolution, Apple with TSMC has shown the world that ARM can do more and do so in a way that is both cost-efficient and has genuine benefits for everyone who picks up one of their machines.

I left development for last, because there’s a lot to unpack here. It’s one thing to write simple HTML and CSS websites, and a totally different thing to build Apple or Flutter apps. The need for a virtual machine, like Docker, can also change the scene dramatically. I am fairly certain I will not cover all, heck, not even half the development types one would want to do on a machine like this, so I would love to hear the thoughts of those in the comments who focused testing out other types of dev workflows than mine.

The OEM market will likely struggle to convince both the general consumers and the professionals to buy a machine that’s similar in price, but 5 to 10 times slower. Me thinks, Apple’s move could seismically shift a lot of the professional community to Apple devices and thus Apple-centric development. Microsoft relies on OEMs to sell its software and provide many of its services, but if people will start opting for a relatively cheap yet powerful Mac Mini or Air, instead of a DELL, HP, Lenovo, etc, the results could be monumental. Apple seems to play a different game, one that has at its core what people can achieve with technology rather than meaningless numbers.

There are essentially three major developer types that can currently pick up this machine and be productive on day one. Apple developers, Python developers and full-stack website developers.

It’s a loaded question for a number of reasons. Apple with launching the M1 machines on the 17th of November 2020 has done something revolutionary, and I say this objectively. The Pro M1 for me, redefines what a computer means and even more so what a portable professional computer means. While it’s not the first time I experience a fanless hardware package running some semblance of a desktop OS, neither the dumbed down Windows 8 version running on a DELL tablet, or various distros of Linux running on a Raspberry Pi felt such a defining moment in history. The former was still a tablet, while the latter seemed to be forever hindered by the OS’ incapabilities and the focus on keeping hardware costs below 50 bucks.

Apple development — a resounding yes. And of course it is. If Apple didn’t make sure developers building apps for their ecosystem weren’t happy, their ARM move would have been dead in the water on day one. If you’re planning to use the M1 Pro for developing MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, TvOS or WatchOS apps, then this machine is fantastic, and likely THE machine you should get. Unless of course you want to support an existing Intel based app, in which case, you kinda need to hang on to your old machine too for those bug-fixes.

http://team.vidrio.org/myp/v-ideos-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1wwk-6.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/jph/Video-Kometa-Brno-Aukro-Berani-Zlin-v-en-gb-1mxg-.php

http://team.vidrio.org/myp/Video-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1kdq-14.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/jph/videos-Kometa-Brno-Aukro-Berani-Zlin-v-en-gb-1bjq-22.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/tgq/v-ideos-brynas-v-oskarshamn-v-sw-sw-1mzv-4.php

http://startup.munich.es/mlt/Video-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1cfc-15.php

http://www.ectp.org/mdt/v-ideos-sparta-warriors-v-gruner-v-no-no-1dbk-13.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/tgq/Video-brynas-v-oskarshamn-v-sw-sw-1tnw-9.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/jph/video-Kometa-Brno-Aukro-Berani-Zlin-v-en-gb-1cku-6.php

http://old.cocir.org/media/cdz/video-Tsmoki-Minsk-Cholet-Basket-v-en-gb-1fut-.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/tgq/Video-brynas-v-oskarshamn-v-sw-sw-1irb-11.php

http://www.ectp.org/mdt/video-sparta-warriors-v-gruner-v-no-no-1zvm-20.php

http://team.vidrio.org/myp/Video-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1qqx-2.php

http://startup.munich.es/mlt/videos-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1ecd-11.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/tgq/video-brynas-v-oskarshamn-v-sw-sw-1wlo-17.php

http://www.ectp.org/mdt/videos-sparta-warriors-v-gruner-v-no-no-1oli-4.php

http://main.ruicasa.com/tgq/videos-Rodovre-Mighty-Bulls-Aalborg-Pirates-v-en-gb-1geo30122020-.php

http://molos.bodasturias.com/jph/v-ideos-kometa-brno-v-aukro-berani-zlin-v-cs-cs-1mkw-4.php

http://startup.munich.es/mlt/videos-baskonia-v-alba-berlin-v-es-es-1oed-24.php

http://www.ectp.org/mdt/Video-sparta-warriors-v-gruner-v-no-no-1qrw-26.php

d, let’s take a quick look at what we have covered during the previous articles. If you have not read my previous articles, you should cover these articles first. To get more details on how to draw Bollinger Bands and to get live market data with your API. (Link at the end of this article).

Those of you who are just as big fans of Flutter as I am, this thread is worth reading and following closely! Worth noting that once either VSCode or Android Studio have an M1 optimised variant out there, as long as you’re developing your apps with a physical device connected as the build target, you should be fine. Another interesting note: on the M1 Pro, building the demo Flutter app took about 5 times less than on my 15' 6-core Intel MacBook Pro.

Android development — this is similar in some ways to Flutter development, mainly because it relies on the same IDE, Android Studio to enable development. In other ways however, it’s actually much worse than developing with Flutter, and it comes down to the emulators. When installing Android Studio, you’ll realise the Intel HAXM acceleration support for Android is gone, because well, you’re not running on an Intel machine any more! The Android simulator is based on QEMU and M1 or Apple Silicon support in general does not seem to be a priority. Will it ever be? Your guess is as good as mine. You might just have to permanently move to keeping your build target an actual Android device.

What about everyone else? Well everyone else should wait. I am not saying don’t get the machine, especially if you can get it during a Black Friday or a Christmas deal, go for it, but keep the Intel machine too, as M1 can become a showstopper even if for a month or two.

Cross-platform development — and what I am really talking about here is Flutter. This for me was actually quite important to find out and test. It’s a mixed bag, but the good news is, not for long. Android Studio while runs under Rosetta 2, it is as sluggish as a comatose sloth. Running Flutter with Visual Studio Code improves things somewhat, but I’d probably get a bit frustrated after a few hours of coding. There is an experimental ARM64 version that Microsoft is working on, but I did not install it. I managed to run the demo apps in the emulators, but running in the emulators pretty much any of my own apps I built over the last few months that rely on Flutter plugins, would have resulted in defeat.

Website development — if you are developing sites that use HTML, CSS and JavaScript in a way that it does not rely much or at all on Node and Node packages managers, you’re in luck. All of that works fine. Webstorm works, and so does Visual Studio Code. I’m clearly talking front-end development here. If you’re a full-stack developer relying on PHP or Python, these also work well. The former is unoptimised at the time of this writing, but the latter is fully supported by M1, both versions 2 and 3.

Starting the 17th of November 2020, the need for a fan in a powerful machine is not intrinsic, and those that have one do so to keep performance up rather than keep your machine from bursting into flames or your CPU attempting kamikaze. The assumptions that only an Intel or AMD processor can rule the professional and creative world are out the window. The association of endless cryptic specs with performance and the ability to deliver results is now all but unnecessary. The correlation between price and performance is also less of a point now. The M1 Mac Mini for instance can do everything a recent 15' or 16' Pro can and more at a fraction of the latter’s price.