MacBook Pro M1 looks like a developer machine
Apple’s new MacBook Pro delivers more than the new M1 chip. Something good is back for the developers.
MacBook Pro’s keyboard
Having tested the first MacBook Pro with Touch Bar back in 2017, it felt like MacBook was dropping developers. Some essential ergonomics got disrupted esp. for the Vim-based devs.
Today, not only has Apple made a prominent switch to their own M1 chips and tripled the performance12 by doing so, they’ve also brought back the Esc
key. Did Apple’s designers listen to the critique? Perhaps.
Docker Desktop
Docker and Apple Silicon
Following the M1 chip launch, Docker wasn’t there to support Docker Desktop on macOS Big Sur yet3.
Since then Tech Preview of Docker Desktop for M1 has been released4 and first sightings on Apple Silicon have also been made:
Full productivity restored on Apple Silicon pic.twitter.com/eHltmYz4eF
— Dave Scott (@mugofsoup) November 27, 2020
Whether or not the new version also improves Docker performance on macOS remains to be seen.
Docker Desktop, Big Sur and Intel
Docker Desktop runs fine on old Intel-based MacBook Pros with macOS Big Sur. There’s no noticeable performance drop.
Important to add that version 2.4.2.0
from Docker’s edge channel features gRPC FUSE
for file sharing and is considerably faster than the legacy osxfs
, also on Big Sur.
MacBook Pro M1 for developers
Lack of Docker Desktop support will not see too many MacBook Pro M1 based developers anytime soon, but it could serve as a very performant platform for a developer who does not need the mesh of microservices set up locally.