ARM CEO not impressed by Intel's 'Medfield' chips for smartphones, tablets - Page 3

Pages, Numbers, and obviously Keynote. That goes for the desktop, too.

Although I think the idea of a MacBook Air running ARM idea seems unlikely until the raw power of ARM gets a lot better, I'm not as upset or alarmed as some people seem to be by this development. I rather suspect Apple has a branch of iOS running on x86 in their labs. If intel can get its x86 chips into the range where Apple thinks it's the better alternative, they could switch. The 3rd party apps would have to be re-compiled, but that wouldn't be a biggie for most of them.

I'm always for more power & performance. What I worry about is eviscerating the MacBook Air performance by going to ARM. I don't think the extra battery life would justify the loss of power (and loss of apps). I just don't think it's going to happen the way some people think.

You do understand that this is an explanation of why you were wrong and not evidence of why you were right, don't you?

Who the hell in this thread is even SUGGESTING that an iPad will ever be able to compete with a frikkin SLI GPU setup?? Noone is 'kidding themselves' you're just erecting imaginary arguments to argue with. Those GPUs suck up more power and produce more heat than 50 iPads. The point is, the SLI GPU market is an extreme, extreme niche. And this niche is obviously not Apple's priority, nor will it ever be. The point is this isn't a growing market segment that Apple needs to go after at this point, nor should it. It will always exist, but is not meaningful in any way when planning a mainstream approach. I'm more technical than anyone else I know, and have played more games than 95% of people I know, yet I have never considered and will never consider an SLI GPU setup. I can't come anywhere near justifying the expense for the benefit. And if I can't, that means 99% of people won't either. Your argument is non-sensical. The iPad was meant to simplify the computing experience for everyone, especially people who don't particularly like computers. Going after the SLI market was never part of that strategy, which falls on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Yes, I think the MacBook Air will be ARM within a few years. It will probably have equivalent power and performance to the lowest-end MacBook Air 11".

That said, the MacBook Pro 13" should be more like a MacBook Air in form factor but running Intel.

It's hard to say what happens, but we are obviously approaching a hybrid situation. Where the best possible result is running iOS apps on OS X and running OS X/ OS X apps on ARM.

So Apple needs to manage this carefully as this era approaches. By both making sure iOS apps run in OS X on Intel, ARM is as powerful as possible approaching the hybrid model, and by ensuring Unviersal versions of OS X apps on ARM.

If you look at the Xcode environment and the power of iPad, we are actually very close to this.

The underlying stuff is all there, just whether it's optimised for Intel or ARM. It's still OS X underneath everything anyway.

We

Strictly speaking, there is a branch of iOS running on x86 (at least, the important bits that allow apps to run) in every copy of the iOS SDK. The iPhone Simulator runs code targeting the iOS API, but compiled for a native x86 CPU.

On behalf of Apple, I'd like to thank those who have taken the time to write extensive suggestions on our CPU roadmap. Thank goodness our fanboys know what's going on. We are particularly impressed by how those who barely know how our products work would express their opinions on how we should evolve our products with such confidence. Who knew such knowledgeable engineers would spend their time on Appleinsider!

/s (or maybe not)

Unfortunately, of the three, keynote is the only one of value, and even then its barely.

On the desktop.

The mobile versions are of little value.

Sure.

Been playing DC Universe Online on my Samsung Series 7 Slate with a low end Core i5 with Intel GMA 2000 for the past month. It's kinda choppy I agree... now on the other hand, I was playing the same game on my Core i7 2600K with GMA 3000 and the frame rate was high enough to outperform the projector it was connected to.

Oh... in case you aren't entirely clueless, Intel doesn't design the GPU in the Atom, they license it from the same exact guys that Intel uses for the A4 and A5. Same cores too.

So, while I'd love to agree with you, I think you're maybe bantering about how things used to be. Don't get me wrong, the GMA 3000 is nothing compared to the high end NVidia and ATI cards, but it's actually pretty damn good. I have seen a demo of Ivy Bridge's GMA as well and I think your argument is pretty much shot to hell. Now the point you do make in the end is "ARM better watch out" because Intel chugged along on the graphics side for 13 years and while they might not have caught up completely, they have produced a GPU that is more than good enough to ignore add on cards unless you need super high frame rates. ARM should watch out because Intel has been chugging along catching up little by little and if this generation of Atom is "Good enough" as the ARM boss says, we have to recognize that it wasn't that long ago he was saying "Intel is no threat because they'll never be able to pull it off". The next thing he'll be saying is "Well, you should buy ARM because we're not Intel".

ARM has a strong position and won't be losing customers to Intel so long as companies like TI, NVidia and Qualcomm are able to make their own custom chips by licensing ARM cores where with Intel they'd have to buy the chips. But, for vendors that don't want ARM for the many various reasons that x86 is nicer than ARM (don't start, works the other way around too) now they have the choice to go with Intel. Contrary to many peoples whinings, Intel actually does treat their customers really well and frankly, their engineering support and free reference designs make them a pleasure to do business with.