Apple just Sherlocked Docker

Published on , 439 words, 2 minutes to read

EDIT(2025-06-09 20:51 UTC): The containerization stuff they're using is open source on GitHub. Digging into it. Will post something else when I have something to say.

This year's WWDC keynote was cool. They announced a redesign of the OSes, unified the version numbers across the fleet, and found ways to hopefully make AI useful (I'm reserving my right to be a skeptic based on how bad Apple Intelligence currently is). However, the keynote slept on the biggest announcement for developers: they're bringing the ability to run Linux containers in macOS:

Containerization Framework

The Containerization framework enables developers to create, download, or run Linux container images directly on Mac. It’s built on an open-source framework optimized for Apple silicon and provides secure isolation between container images.

This is an absolute game changer. One of the biggest pain points with my MacBook is that the battery life is great...until I start my Linux VM or run the Docker app. I don't even know where to begin to describe how cool this is and how it will make production deployments so much easier to access for the next generation of developers.

Maybe this could lead to Swift being a viable target for web applications. I've wanted to use Swift on the backend before but Vapor and other frameworks just feel so frustratingly close to greatness. Combined with the Swift Static Linux SDK and some of the magic that powers Private Cloud Compute, you could get an invincible server side development experience that rivals what Google engineers dream up directly on your MacBook.

I can't wait to see more. This may actually be what gets me to raw-dog beta macOS on my MacBook.

The things I'd really like to know:

  1. What is the battery life impact when you have an nginx container that's doing nothing?
  2. What is the support for things like the GPU APIs?
  3. How does it handle Rosetta?
  4. Can you run Kubernetes (or even k3s) on it?
  5. Can I use any Docker/OCI image or do I need to use the Mac Container Store or whatever?

I really wonder how Docker is feeling, I think they're getting Sherlocked.

Either way, cool things are afoot and I can't wait to see more.

Facts and circumstances may have changed since publication. Please contact me before jumping to conclusions if something seems wrong or unclear.

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