Rumor: Apple plans to move laptops from Intel to ARM processors - Page 3

AIR, the top PASC talent left Apple when they didn't get big stock options.

I suspect that, for practical reasons, Intel will have to participate in creating an architecture that will subsume the x86.

Let's look at the facts. Intel's x86-64 CPUs run significantly hotter than ARM processors. True, ARM processors trail Intel's x86-64 ULV processors (used by MBA) by a great deal. Specifically, iPad 2 is about 3 times slower than entry level MBA. Although I wouldn't go far and say the performance gap is closing, it is certainly narrowing.

Meanwhile, at 18W of TDP, Intel's Sandy Bridge ULV processors (which are destined for MBA) is even hotter than Core 2 ULV used on MBA (10W). iPad 2 has mere 0.5W TDP.

At some point, Apple's ARM processors will be fast enough for mainstream notebooks, starting with MBA. It would be foolish of Apple to not invest in ARM-flavor Mac OS X, just as it invested in both PowerPC and Intel Mac OS X nearly a decade ago.

Apple could seriously under clock the i3 and match ARM's power envelope and still blow it away on performance. And when Ivy Bridge comes out, Intel's power consumption drops by 50%.

If Apple wanted a slow laptop that didn't use much energy, they could get there without having to switch at ARM.

How about a laptop with an ARM AND x86 CPU.

Perhaps as Apple do with dual, optional graphics systems now in MBPs, there is a possibility Apple plan to 'include' an ARM as well as whatever main CPU is in use. This might allow iOS to run at full speed in a window along with OS X.

Great minds ...

Now that would be more sane. A quick boot/uber low power consumption mode running iOS for quick tasks, and OSX on a beefier processor for heavier tasks.

Interesting read -- but they gave no reasons to support their claim.

It may be that article and this thread are based on the concepts:

1) much laptop and some desktop usage will evolve to be what is being done on the iPad -- not use heavy lifting apps

2) use of something like the Chrome OS combined with cloud apps -- to approach/approximate heavy lifting

3) rewrite a few, key, high-use apps (Word, Excel, etc.) for ARM to satisfy all needs for many users.

4) write (or rewrite) specialized apps to exploit the ARM acrhitecture for specific industries.


As to the latter -- it appears that some existing iPad (ARM) apps already satisfy many of the needs of medical, education, etc.


Here's a hypothetical case:

Apple is rewriting Final Cut Studio from the ground up (non-standard UI, Carbon code).

What if the FCPX replacement to FCS can be made to run as well * on current ARM as on current x86?

* AFAIK, there is nothing in FCS that requires x86 power -- rather it needs GPU, Cores/Threads and h264 encoding capability.

Then it is possible that the needs of an industry segment (Video Post) can [largely] be satisfied by ARM based tablets, laptops and desktops.


It is interesting that a pretty good iMovie is already available for the iPad.

It's not too far fetched to think that the next Mac iMovie will run on both x86 and ARM.


So what you might ask -- Apple can build some ARM laptops and Desktops that can run iMovie and Final Cut (as well as or better than x86)?

What if that could satisfy an industry segment?

You laugh...


A friend who is an executive for one of the broadcast networks -- told me this (emphasis mine):

This is why Intel wont supply Apple with chips.

It's a conflict of interest for them. By making chips for Apple, Intel is indirectly killing its own market share in the PC business.

Let's see now. Microsoft ported Windows NT to several RISC platforms. But failed to bring Windows to the mass market on RISC. Why? Because Office, their other cash cow, had pervasive data alignment issues thanks to being developed on the weird, hackish x86 legacy architecture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_NT

On the other hand, Mac OS X was (and its apps were) written on RISC and later ported to CISC. Yes, it took years, but Apple has years until ARM chips are ready to run Mac OS X. Or whatever its successor will be called.

If any company can plan ahead, it's Apple. I'm sure the Mac OS X-on-ARM scenario was mapped out even before the PA Semi acquisition. There can be no doubt that Apple's Holy Grail is a unified OS for Macs and iDevices. (No, not multi-touch iMacs. That will never happen.) A common core OS that can drive UIs for display sizes from iPod to HDTV and a single unified App Store would give Apple a huge advantage.

(You'll note that I said "Holy Grail." I didn't say "future plans." Just wanted to deflect any knee-jerk reactionary "keep the status quo" comments.)

So if Apple were to quit making Macs right this minute, you think Intel would sell more chips?

No, I think Intel is killing their 2020+ business by sticking with x86.

Probably, but please stop trying to bring practicality into my dream world. Intel's participation in
design wouldn't be my first choice, because then the new architecture would be something that Intel would sell to everyone. I would prefer that the new architecture be developed by Apple, so that their optimization of hardware with OS could begin at the architectural level, giving them a huge advantage over users of commodity processors with other operating systems. If Apple wanted to use Intel as a dumb foundry, that would be fine.

Um, no. Because even at idle, Sandy Bridge ULV processors consume more power than iPad's A5 running at maximum.

Each iteration of ARM is quickly approaching the level where it would be entirely suitable for general mainstream notebooks. ARM Cortex-A9 isn't there obviously, but 64-bit version of whatever succeeds ARM Cortex-A15 could be entirely suitable for MacBook Air.

I am not saying ARM will be the only CPU architecture for Mac OS X. But Mac OS X had supported dual binaries since 10.4 (when it added Universal Binary). 10.6 drops support for PowerPC and 10.7 will drop support for 32-bit Intel (x86). It won't be as major challenge to introduce another target as you think.

I believe that the NextStep OS Apple got when it bought NeXT was already running on x86.

They ported it to PPC and released it as OS X.

I believe that Apple did parallel development, behind the scenes, to the x86 version to keep it consistent with the PPC version.

I suspect that Apple would do the same with an ARM version of Mac OS X -- if they chose to implement it.

Fixed that for you.

AMD's had this trigate technology for several years and will be introducing it before Intel.

Both NEXTSTEP and NeXTStep are correct.

That isnt what I fixed.

Ha!

All this talk of running Mac OS X on ARM...

Through the years, one of the biggest issues with OS X has been:

FFFinder!

In the iOS implementation of OS X, Apple resolved this in typical Apple fashion -- they got rid of it!

Ha!

...Now, if iOS 5 can only find a way to share/access files among apps.

If they can do this elegantly...

They could port the solution back to Mac OS X and FFFinder!

Some good posts, Dick.

I noted the earlier post when someone noted Arm starting life out on the Acorn computers. Yes. Desktop computers. It pretty much kicked the snot out of Amiga and PC computers back then. It was very, very fast.

The stuff in the iPad 2. A 'second gen' chip...is what? 'Four' times faster? Twice as fast? Take your pick. It's significant. Try to imagine that evolution to 2013. The gpu power is 9 times faster now? Imagine PVR in 2013?

It's pretty academic saying what Intel is now or will be then. It's more a case of where Apple is heading with the iOS platform and frankly, the Mac OS platform is going to blow bubbles keeping pace with the growth of the iOS platform. And we clearly haven't seen the next few cards of Apple's iOS hand played yet. A tv? A bigger tablet? An expanded range of sizes... An iOS 'Air' or 'iMac'. Who knows.

An iPad can already do nine tenths of what I use my computer for...and do it very, very quickly. Having played with an iPad 2...it's very quick. Imagine this with a retina display in 2012? With yet another leap in cpu and gpu performance? Gulp.

Double it's size and you have a very workable iOS 'mini iMac' that takes iOS and Apple into the unchartered territory.

You only have to look at the video effects on the latest iPad 2. It's pretty astonishing in something so thin. The gpu performance is impressive. It's closing in on the PS3/xbox 360.

You could pretty much stick a keyboard on it now. Oh. You can dock with with a keyboard.

With the 'concurrent' WWDC in June featuring Mac Os X and iOS development in tandem...

You'd have to be in serious denial to see this is classic Apple at work here.

I can easily see a super thin iMac tablet equivalent. iOS apps dwarf those of the Mac OS. (Same thing but with the 'fat' cut off?)

Just look at how many iPod, iPhone, iPads have been sold. Getting on for 200 million? More? It eclipsed Mac total sales and installed base some time ago.

Never say 'never' with Apple. I remember when the Intel news dropped. They'll flog the Mac for all it's worth. But I think the ongoing amalgamation is happening before our eyes.

It will be very interesting to see where we end up in two years time.

The writing is on the wall.

Lemon Bon Bon.

HaHaHa!

But the real question is not about chip performance. The iPad has made it clear that optimizing hardware and software can give users an experience that is much better than regular software that is not similarly optimized.

As an example, even the best i7 chip might struggle to run Safari on a machine with 256MB RAM and regular Mac OS X Snow Leopard. Whereas the first iPad managed this easily. Without any appreciable performance impact.

In 2 years the successors to the A5 would likely be several times faster. The benefits of tightly optimized software would be even higher. And with low power usage, it is conceivable that we have a better implementation of multiprocessing - with multiple independent processors running different processes using their integrated RAM.

If Apple adds filesystem management to the iPad, the iPad is pretty much a full fledged computer.

I remember Virginia Tech created the worlds cheapest supercomputer by tying together XServes, and then Mac Minis. They could hypothetically do this by stringing together hundreds of A5 Apple TVs. Would be cheap, low cost, low power, and massively scalable solution. And they just need an iOS version of GCD to get going.

Give this guy a cigar.

Apple have already ported certain ideas from iOS into Lion. Apple are betting the farm on the iOS platform/iPhone/iPad. It's where the future is.

I can easily see there being no Mac OS 11. It will probably be iOS! (With the Mac finder drop kicked by then...)

I'm sure Apple will find ways to take the power tools into iOS and 'iOS' them. Didn't they hire a few ex-BeOS file engineers a while back? I wonder if they were working on a new file system for iOS? And maybe port it back to the Mac?

Let's face it. Mac's file system and finder are pretty clumsy and cludgy reminders of 1984.

I play on my iPhone. I press something and it just works. There's not alot of clutter. And the iPad seems elegant also.

I guess the next step is to take more of the power features and harness them in similar elegant ways.

Can I imagine a day when I'll be 'Photoshopping' or doing 'Lightwave' or 'Final Cut Pro' or 'Poser' on iOS.

Er. Yes. 2013 is a long way away...but not so long...

Lemon Bon Bon.

*nods, Yoda like. 'Mmm...'

Lemon Bon Bon.

RISC chips were way more expensive in those days. it's the reason Intel won on the server as well. DEC Alpha was faster along with others, but Compaq servers were cheap and good enough for most workloads. Just like the iPad today.

Were IOS to become the main OS there would have to be a gui for the filesystem. For powerusers it is an essential part of file management. But there would be an app for that, of course. (The Finder as we now know it is an App, no?) For most people this would perhaps not be needed. I suspect that most people use the finder very little - they just open the app they want to use and find their files there.

I agree with everything...

I haven't JailBroken an Apple TV 2 -- so I don't know what iOS equivalent it runs...

But, iOS 4 has GCD!


So it should not be too difficult to string together A4 Apple TV 2s...

The file structure isn’t’ going away but I can see Apple moving to a more app centric system like in iOS.

Still, it seems like it’s far off when the only icon that Apple doesn’t let you remove from the Dock is the Finder app. Maybe in Mac OS X 10.8 “Mountain Lion” we’ll see Finder replaced with Desktop that is your "dropbox” and we’ll have to jump through some hoops to access the hierarchal file structure but I have a hard time picturing that when Lion hasn’t begun migrating from using various folders (e.g.: Documents, Downloads, Movies) within your Home folder.

iPhoto and iTunes structures are app based from the average user’s PoV but that I have trouble seeing how the entire OS could migrate to such a setup.



According to Wikipedia it’s iOS 4.3, Darwin 10.3.1.

Precisely. 64 bits addressing is one thing, but it's not a measure of compute performance like a SpecMARK or anything.

They could triple the performance of the A5... and imagine using Maya on it.

This is pure silliness.

Don't forget we are not talking here about the current ARM processor but a future version. Maybe Apple knows something about their potential that we don't.

If they brought out an iOS based MBA with ARM processor it would have access to the thousands of iPad Apps. Maybe a hybrid tablet/laptop? Or maybe the MBA will morph into a tablet format in the future. iPad for entertainment & MBA Tablet for pro/business users willing to pay more for a larger screen?

What about TriGate?

This is not likely and would be a big mistake. Not only would all the software written for OS X instantly become unusable (at least without an emulation layer) but they would lose a comparative edge when it comes to the rest of the PC world. A lot of the Mac success as of late is it's ability to run not only OS X but any other x86 OS as well.

Now if Apple is planning on abandoning OS X in favor of iOS then this rumor has more credibility. Though I can't see anyone buying a Mac running iOS. I certainly wouldn't.

I agree that it is dubious, for now. Mac OS can likely work or be made to work on an these processors but they are no where strong enough to be useful regardless of OS.

When they are equal in power to Intel then this rumor might come true

Ya know...

FFFinder -- A GUI for the file system -- File Management for iOS...


1) Apple's biggest "heavy-lifting" apps are the Pro Apps -- e.g. Final Cut.

These generate lots of links to files -- lots of versions of lots of really big files.

Final Cut's file management Sucks.

Last month, at NAB, Apple previewed the new Final Cut to good reviews -- but missing was any discussion of file management.

FCP X will be released in July.


2) Apples next tier of power apps are the ProSumer Apps e.g. iMovie

These, also, generate links to lots of big files.

iMovie does a better job (though not perfect) of managing large files than the Pro Apps.

Rumors suggest a new iMovie in the 2nd half 2011,


3) iOS apps have no visible file system

There is no [Apple provided] sharing of files among apps except Copy/Paste and email

There is a kludgey sharing of files between a Mac and an iDevice

iOS file management sucks -- but only if/when you need it.


4) Mac OS X Lion is in the hands Mac developers

It doesn't address any of the above problems -- and still the same old, same old FFFinder



So Apple is going to have this WWDC on June 6 -- D-Day, on the Beaches of Mosconi -- and introduce a new Mac OS X, may be a new iOS version...

What if they could resolve the above file management problems across apps and OSes.


How would they do that?


1) keep the FFFinder so current users could still do things the way they are currently doing them

2) introduce a new GUI (and programmable/scriptable) File Manager

3) Update all the Apple Mac and iOS apps to use the new File Manager by default

4) Mac apps could override the default and revert to the FFFinder


The new File Manager would be responsible for:

1) storing a single master copy of a file

2) managing expendable work copies of files

3) versioning files

4) file interchange and sync among devices

5) backup and recovery

6) staging to and from secondary cloud storage


It's 10 o'clock -- do you know where your files are?

Yes, Virginia... there is [could be] an App for that!

agreed


9

I like the idea of that...

But how would that work -- Isn't the A5 RAM part of the PoP SoC?

I agree. Bootcamp/vmware/paralells/intel inside makes it very easy to buy a Mac.

But Apple would only have to hide the Finder by default, allowing it to become visible through prefs settings. I really think an awful lot of people never use the file structure (gui) at all. At best they use the Documents folder. The desktop is the thing that everybody does use (and make a huge mess of). That is the one part of the visible file structure that users will not like to see go (remember the first iteration of OSX? Wasn't it impossible to place anything on the desktop?)
I don't think Apple will ever improve the file structure as such. I think the file structure is logical and as good as it is going to get. The fact that people have a hard time organizing files and folders is because it is bloody DIFFICULT and tedious. The way Apple will deal with this (they are doing it) is through the apps themselves.

It is a long way off being unified and easy to use however. I sometimes attach images to emails by going the Photo Browser route. It is a pain in the arse but you can see how this could be a great way to access photos. So we are talking app media browsers.

But keeping track of thousands of media files - is difficult at the best of times.

The most shocking is not this senseless rumour from a long time BS provider, no. It is the reaction of some of Apple Insider readers who actually think this could happen.

Are. You. Nuts? According to you, yes, you, Apple would cut the performance of Macs manyfold while bringing software incompatibility for the sake of... lower power bills?

ARM won't have desktop level performance, not now, not 2 years later, not ever. To reach where Intel soars ARM would have to create new chip architecture from the ground up, and there's no way to keep it compatible with ARMs of today AND have that level of performance at the same time. No amount of magic would help either.

no thats benchmarks.... i would hope that it eventually smash's intel, as I find the countless shit they have done to AMD... they deserve an upcoming, also:

If ARM cpu's could be used in a basic macbook to lower price while keeping performance enough for basic usage (word, video streaming, light gaming, etc) i would love it