APPLE SILICON
MacBooks Finally Have Competition
Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Elite lives up to the hype
After thirteen years of writing iOS apps, I felt the urge to write a cross-platform app for Macs and PCs. This would be a low-priority project with long periods of idle time. Being comfortable writing Swift in Xcode on the Mac, I naturally started with macOS, hitting pause after writing the core functionality in a mix of SwiftUI and C.
When I came across the Lenovo IdeaCentre Mini last year, I decided it was time to develop the Linux version of my app. Following a quick install of Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the IdeaCentre, I ported my project to Visual Studio Code and implemented a GTK front-end. After ping-ponging the code base between Mac and Linux to implement additional functionality, it was time to once again hit pause.
Fast forward to today, when I’m finally adding Windows support to the project. The impetus for this next phase of development was Qualcomm’s May 20th announcement that its Snapdragon X Series chips would be available on June 18th in laptops from Acer, ASUS, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft, and Samsung:
“Copilot+ PCs powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon X Series deliver performance per watt leadership to the Windows ecosystem while also powering groundbreaking AI…