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You have a curious definition of openness there.

Most ARM SoCs are the opposite of open - they're proprietary to the max and don't even support an open boot process.

> The M1 chip will go along way to changing that perception as consumers

The M1-chip will change nothing w.r.t. to perception of "openness" - consumers don't care about the CPU inside their devices. What consumers see is a machine that'll last longer on battery, is much quieter and performs outstandingly well.

Openness is important to developers and enthusiasts who want to use the hardware as more than just a commodity.

Apple Silicon will kill the ability to upgrade your Apple device - no more RAM expansion slots, no more external GPU support, no more upgrading of internal storage, no more 3rd party repairs.

Apple Silicon turns laptops and Macs into consoles: closed ecosystems in terms of software and hardware. I wouldn't call that "openness" at all.

The RK3399 inside the Pinebook Pro is also not exactly "open" from a hardware point of view: still no open source drivers for the GPU for example (other than reverse-engineered volunteer efforts).



Raspberry Pi has gradually made their broadcom soc platform more open - I believe they support open boot loaders now?




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