Apple wants to move Macs away from Intel chips - report - Page 2

http://www.techpowerup.com/158480/AMD-Demonstrates-Trinity-APU-Its-Own-Thunderbolt-Alternative.html

Of course they “deliberate” about the processors for their “trucks." They look far ahead and plan for every contingency. They’ve got plans for staying with Intel, going AMD, switching to ARM, switching to Atom, designing their own x86 chips, designing new ARM chips, etc. etc. Whatever realities arise in the years ahead, they won’t be caught off guard with their processor choices. That doesn’t mean they “want to” move from Intel.

Sooo, facts are meaningless, distorted generalized opinions are better. Got it. 

 

Then it's not using a mouse.

 

Then it's not iOS.

 

Bet you're sort of right, though. Bet they're definitely working on a fully touch successor to OS X, not a bigger iOS.

what a lot of people don't know is that AMD uses licensed Intel tech known as x86 architecture. And Intel has told AMD that they can't compete with them on the high end.
So if Apple tries going with AMD Intel would make sure the best stuff won't get into their machines. So Apple's only move is to use their own swag.

Of course they have an iOS powered iMac somewhere in R&D.  So what?  That's what R&D does.  They continue research to stay ahead.  Do you expect Apple to simply sit on its laurels and be comfy and stodgy now that they are on top?

I know everyone is saying "Ultrabooks" but that wasn't in the mix when they were choosing processors for the new mobile devices.  

 

Intel chips just didn't have what it takes to power mobile devices and they still don't.  This is not an "Apple getting back at Intel" situation at all, Intel just dropped the ball, didn't have the right stuff or whatever other euphemism you want to use.  Atom chips suck (power) and were essentially an afterthought by Intel whereas ARM has been working on mobile solutions since forever. 

 

Hey, I took the trouble to explain it all to you and then you just cut out all the facts I mentioned and reply this way?  

F*ck you too.  Welcome to the ignore list. 

 

Wasn't there also an issue with the graphics chipset, where Apple was saddled with inferior Intel graphics, rather than being able to use faster NVidia graphics because of some licensing spat?  For a time they had to use Intel on low end macbooks, and two graphics processors for top end. My memory is rather hazy as to the details, but this can't have pleased Apple.

I don't think that discussions about a topic indicate a direction.  I am sure that all sorts of things are discussed at Apple that never see daylight, it's part of the process.  

Apple should buy AMD! With AMD's manufacturing capability they could drop Samsung as a manufacturer of the A6 and future CPU's as well as use AMD's x86/64_x86 in their iMacs and laptops.

Current market cap is only 2.3b with a 1.5 premium that would only be about 3.5b. A drop in their current cash bucket!

Krreagan

Abandoning Intel, or more broadly, abandoning x86, would be idiotic. The current situation makes Apple the most flexible computing platform in terms of operating system support, and that's vital for professional and corporate use, and besides Intel continues to make very good progress with their chip design.

I can see a situation where further improvements in ARM processors or Apple derivatives thereof gets us to a point where many home users will be quite happy with a couple of generations-improved iPad as their only computer. For lighter home users, we're really already there except perhaps on photo and movie storage capacity. A higher-capacity iPad, a WIFi NAS device and a WiFi multifunction printer is a good, solid computing system, especially if you can set it up for running an HD TV off the iPad and operating with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse for those occasions when you want to run it more like a conventional computer. Gives you the best of all worlds for home computing. And if this country ever truly gets its act together on broadband, perhaps the cloud can replace the NAS device.

People have joked about ARM in a Mac Pro.  But what if this turns out to be something:

Parallela

 

And several companies are making ARM based servers now. Like Harbinger said, it would imprudent to not look at some of these possibilities.

I know for a fact that Apple wants to switch to clear crystal cubes instead of chip made by any company. Apple cares about the design aesthetics of their innards as well as their case designs. Think of how cool the Apple Cube could have looked if it was totally clear.

Both Superman's people from Krypton and Star Trek's federation use this technology, and Apple has always wanted to be more like those guys than like Microsoft.

 

have you seen what most corp desktops run?  Office and maybe one or 2 fat apps that are 90% cruft and web apps.

 

Those fat apps will die in 10 years (or move to a virtual desktop farm).    Virtualization on the local desktop goes away with cloud virtualization.

obtw, if you go ask Microsoft, Office will be 100% html5 by 2017, and the primary delivery will be via Office365.com.

 

And most consumer class hardware needs less. in my corp, non IT desktops only require Java and a smattering of Photoshop and design tools, and (I run the configuration monitoring, so I know).

 

 

Sounds like a 13" octocore iPad with a keyboard and mouse and a 100baseT adaptor.

It's a fair assessment.  But again, until there is an OS that Samsung can run on the chip, and apps that run on that... they don't have a product.

 

I don't think they want chip facilities, but I do think they could make AMD an offer to build chips for Apple.

Keeping Macs compatible with Windows should not be the major design point. The expense of running Windows on a Mac is nearly equivalent to running two computers if you truly pay for the software - the software for Windows is the major cost. You might as well just have two machines.

It would really be nice to have someone seriously challenge the Intel architecture. Intel does not push themselves very hard to produce a better personal computing device. I am not say they do nothing. Yes, there is the "tower of babel" issue on communications and file compatibility. Right now MS Word and Excel are standards, but pretty lousy standards.

Apple was known for it's slogan, "Think Different!"

With recent miscues such as, reduction of store staff, there was no reduction of store staff, doubling up on security when iP5 parts images leaking daily, maps app, non-apology apology, here use our competitors maps, blah, blah, blah...

Now that slogan needs to be, Think Twice!™

So with this Intel news, Apple, Think Twice!

The ultrabook thing is more like the google maps debacle, in that you're getting stuff on Atom (power management) that isn't available on the mid range chips that Apple wants .  The problem with Apple is that they depend on Intel to build great chips... The Atom wasn't a great chip for them, and any expertise diverted from the Sandy Bridge and Ivy Bridge chipsets to Atom was effectively telling Apple 'you're not a priority.'   Oh, and partnering with Google on Android/Atom development... yeah, That's what pissed Apple off.  

 

Also, In another thread it was brought up where the iMac, Mini and Mac Pro upgrades are... my educated guess is that Intel came to market slow with those (due to the rest of the market stagnating), and they aren't dropping the prices (again, because general desktop/laptop demands are low).  To me, that's the line that was crossed, as Apple explicitly went to Intel on the promise of met timelines and price points.

 

Moving to an custom ARM chip that Apple can balance it's OS performance (remember when companies like DEC and SUN and IBM built their own chips and their own OSes and compilers, Those were heady days, lads) and power curve on would put them into a spot where they can tune every aspect of their experience, and with 'interactivity' the key requirement, this becomes even more an issue. 

 

Apple wants to optimize very low on the stack... and  is getting big enough that they will probably start their own School of Hardware/SW engineering at Cal or Stanford or SJSU;-) (Given the fact they have their own hedge fund investment, this is not farfetched).

Edited by TheOtherGeoff - 10/3/12 at 10:02am

History repeats itself. Here we go again no software for macs and every upgrade requires all new software. PC's were popular because you didn't have to constantly buy new software.

for me too- as I look around the lab - i see 11 MBPro - including rwo retina, - a couple running win 7 bootcamp, but all needing vmware / parallels for some programs - it would end the apple system here - unless of course the new processor could run intel code at native speed

As many others have said, I can't see Apple moving away from x86. Windows and legacy are too important right now.

I do wonder though, if perhaps Apple has been working on custom chips on the x86 platform.

Getting rid of excess features and streamlining for OS X might make this a compelling idea.

I have no idea if such a thing is likely or plausible, but I kind of hope it happens.
Edited by LTMP - 10/3/12 at 10:11am

I seriously doubt that Apple would take the cheap route and go AMD.  They will either stick with Intel CPUs or they'll develop their own like the A series.
 

Big mistake.

i didn't buy retina MPP just so I could carry around another windows machine - maybe the Virtualization people are in the minority - but a long long time ago -i decided to try out mac (bought a couple of iMacs) with the knowledge that if they didnt work out - I would just put windows on them.... now apart from this business buying a lot of macs, iPhones, and almost 40 iPads, that decision has helped friends etc go apple.

Well apple will do whatever - but they should consider the virtualization people too

 

I don't believe switching to AMD would break any compatibility with Windows so long as the chips were X86/X64 compatible.  Mac sales took off once you could run Windows on them.  Whether Apple still needs that compatibility is debatable, but I believe it is something Apple will think about long and hard about.  The fact that the rumor is they're moving to AMD and not their own chips is possibly evidence that they still see that Windows compatibility as important for the short term.

 

Microsoft is releasing an ARM version of Windows for the first time, now Apple is considering AMD processors.  For me the real news is the industry is starting to drift away from Intel.  

 

 

The Mac Pro towers in our graphics department have Windows on them for running Autodesk apps.  It's more convenient than having to set up additional workstations.

 

That's true if you're talking about a generic Windows consumer box, but not if you're talking about workstation performance machines.  The cost of running Windows on a Mac is not in the thousands of dollars.

 

There is also the issue of working space. Separate machines means either tying up two seating positions instead of one or dealing with KVM headaches.

I'm no virtualization expert but if Windows is running in a VM what is stopping the VM from being compatible with whatever new architecture Apple might introduce? The VM is not running on bare metal. The people who want to boot directly into Windows are the ones who will face incompatibilities. The VM people will just have to wait for an update to the software. Not knowing how VM software actually works, I'm guessing that perhaps there might be an advantage to running on x86 instruction set but as along as the CPU has enough power to emulate then I can see it not being a huge issue.

 

Mac sales have gone up since I put a new roof on my house, too. Do you think if I change my roof again sales will be affected? I mean, it happened last time.

Again, I'll take a wait and see attitude though I like Intel's future plans so I see myself shifting away from Apple down the line if this is true.

Workstation performance machines?  what are those?  What % of the market buys those?  Radiologists?  Physicists? Stock Traders? Developers?

Is a 15" MacProRD a Workstation class machine?

 

If you look at Mac Minis, and iMacs, they fall out of that definition...  Even MacBookPros fall out due to lack of connectivity and screen support (I'm assuming a peripheral bus).   

 

if just the Mac Pro, At this point, Apple I think has NOT spoken volumes... either they don't care, or Intel is killing them with missed deadlines or chip costs or both.

 

 

a vast (I would gather 80%) of PCs don't require anything more than Office/Web and 1 corporate app (if 20% of the world are doctors, traders and programmers on all their desktops, I would be quite surprised).  The better model is a VDI for that one app, and in 5 years most desktops can be Windows free (other than corporate standard).   I'm sure apple sees this trend.

Back?  I thought Macs started with Motorola chips.  What am I missing?

Well, when / if Apple replaces Intel I say you should replace your roof at the same time just to make sure.

You must be living on another planet. About 99 percent of all businesses use Windows.

Therefore by extension if you own a MAC computer and want to work from home and connect to your company'sWindows only world the only way to do that on a MAC is to use Parallels or Boot Camp.

 

No.

 

Mac. And no, that's completely wrong.

 

Funny, but not unprecedented.  Apple sacrificed cost-effective storage just to make the RMBP thinner.

 

 

 

I'm less excited by that notion than I might once have been.  Apple's recent attempts at re-inventing the wheel haven't been exactly smooth so I'm afraid of a product that can't have its "growing pains" patched with software.  (Speaking of that, has anyone else found that iMessage is not doing a very good job of staying in sync between Mac and iPhone?)

 

Besides, I imagine there's gotta be a big difference between designing a chip capable of running a telephone-level computer and one that can replace a Xeon.  That doesn't mean they CAN'T, but might mean not YET.  Then again, they didn't let lack of readiness stop them from releasing Maps, so who knows? :)

I think the problem was having chip design partners that had their own fabs. Apple might not have had the clout or money then to buy out those designs and shop them out to other fabs. Now they should have the ability to design their own chips and shop it to anyone with adequate facilities. They still would have to pay patent and licensing fees to whatever subcomponents they use, but it could give them a fair amount of freedom.

I won't say this is likely, but there is some plausibility there. I recall that Apple did buy a PPC company that designed its own CPUs from scratch, and they're having a customized design of their own made for them.

The problem is that switching to AMD buys Apple little, a smaller less advanced chip designer for their Macs (though there might be potential for some models of Macs to use AMD chips, e.g. Future models of the Air), and switching away from x86 altogether loses them the Windows compatibility that has helped them convince many to switch from Windows and thus boosted Mac sales considerably.

The most likely non-x86 choice is ARM of course and while that is great for portable devices it's not competitive performance-wise for desktop or laptop computers (particularly running x86 binaries as it would have to do until ARM-native Mac apps appeared). Forcing Mac users into a *third* architecture switch would be risky and would seem to offer them no performance or technology advantages (though it might well have economic advantages for Apple) over the current x86 world, so why do it?

What you're really saying is, 99% of corp disk is a NTFS disk, and 99% of network authentication and access management is AD managed (likely not true).  

 

From my seat (desktop config management),  almost all have or are  moving to Web App development in house.   Microsoft itself said that in 10 years it won't release a Windows compiled version of Office, and will be actively selling Office365.com to all businesses, either as a hosted solution or an inhouse served web solution.

 

Again, if you're a developer, or a physician or a rocket scientist, you can leave the room.  Most people in the corporation need a place to send email, plink spreadsheets, and build powerpoint, and run the corporate timesheet, and the 1 or 2 apps that their business does.  VDI is actually a better solution for most of the VDI (more secure, easier to provision and scale).

 

Oracle, SAP and most of your enterprise vendors are saying the same thing.  The reason: Mobile apps and Cloud.  they need to get a app/HTML5 solution that is not Windows based, lest their competitors beat them to the game.

 

If Apple can build a midrange desktop computer for $400 that is better than Lenovo or Dell, and is tightly integrated with iOS apps (like can just run them), then I think they would be in first mover space back into the enterprise, again, by a consumer (BYODesktop) movement driving the need.