In November 2020, Apple introduced the M1 processor – an Arm-based chip that marks the beginning of the transition from Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon. Apple M1 machines, despite the steep price tag, can represent good value if they save developers time, and the combination of excellent performance and high efficiency – resulting in long battery life for laptop users – is a strong draw .
A high-end Mac Studio with the M1 Ultra chip has a maximum power consumption of 215 W Apple’s specifications – modest for a system that is among the most powerful workstations on the market.
However, there are some issues with the move away from Intel. Rosetta 2 is a translation layer that allows x86 applications to run on macOS, but while it works well for many macOS applications, M1 is not well suited for running x86 virtual machines. Virtualization is important for developers because it is ideal for…
