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
Official support for M1 chip is there in Docker Desktop 3.3.13.
Unfortunately no improvement in Docker performance on macOS has been reported.
Docker Desktop, Big Sur and Intel
Docker Desktop runs fine on old Intel-based MacBook Pros with macOS Big Sur. There’s no performance drop.
Since the performance bottleneck for Docker on macOS is the file system, it is important to note that all versions since 2.4.2.0 feature gRPC FUSE for file sharing and are considerably faster than the legacy osxfs, also on Big Sur.
MacBook Pro M1 for developers
With Docker Desktop supporting MacBook Pro M1, it surely serves as a very performant platform for developers who need the mesh of microservices set up locally.