I'm not talking about migrating their computers. In the past I've mentioned this as being for budget traditional "PCs" which may or may not include Mac in the name, but that last part is about marketing.
I think the benefits would be significantly outweighed by the loss of compatibility with Windows which, despite its low popularity ratings, remains a formidable force in the enterprise and some specific industries, as well as PC gaming.
I don't see that as a problem for those buying budget Mac-like devices. I don't see these people are saying, "I need 16GB of RAM so I can run VMs with my Windows and Linux OSes," or "I need to play the latest blah blah," which Macs have never been the top choice for gamers. This category sounds like a way or building the Apple traditional "PC" into a less expensive tier, which would have plenty of SW options right from the Mac App Store (or something similarly named), with what I hope assume would likely be an option to side-load other apps. Apple "PCs" for the masses, not the gamers, not the video and audio editors, not the people reading tech sites daily.
I don't see that as a problem for those buying budget Mac-like devices. I don't see these people are saying, "I need 16GB of RAM so I can run VMs with my Windows and Linux OSes," or "I need to play the latest blah blah," which Macs have never been the top choice for gamers. This category sounds like a way or building the Apple traditional "PC" into a less expensive tier, which would have plenty of SW options right from the Mac App Store (or something similarly named), with what I hope assume would likely be an option to side-load other apps. Apple "PCs" for the masses, not the gamers, not the video and audio editors, not the people reading tech sites daily.
But then you would have this new class of Apple device that could neither run iOS nor OS X apps, but only a new breed of apps developed for an in-between platform. Prospective buyers would be unable to use any software they already owned for either PC or Mac, and would be confronted with a new app store with a very limited selection.
Picture a family on a tight budget looking to replace their family PC. The computer may be currently shared by mom and kids ranging in age from elementary to high school. The kids would no doubt have some games they expect to be able to play, and they might need Windows for some school-based application. What would be the selling point for this family to buy this niche product for the same or higher price as a budget PC that, while crappy, would be widely compatible with everything they currently use?
Apple got away with this with the first iPhone, but that was a unique case, where the device itself was so revolutionary that it was a must-have product out of the box before an App Store even existed.
I don't think Apple needs to make a low priced device just to serve a market with no profit margins. They will create a new class of device only if they feel it will solve a problem that can't be solved by one of their existing products. I think it more likely they would produce an "iPad Pro" than an ARM-based budget Mac.
But then you would have this new class of Apple device that could neither run iOS nor OS X apps, but only a new breed of apps developed for an in-between platform. Prospective buyers would be unable to use any software they already owned for either PC or Mac, and would be confronted with a new app store with a very limited selection.
You mean like how Mac apps couldn't be run on Intel chips when they made the switch? Apple has done that sort of move many times so I have no doubt they could make it easy for developer to adapt their Intel apps to be universal desktop-class apps that would work on both ARM and Intel.
And considering we're talking about a less expensive product it's not unreasonable to see 3rd-party developers work quickly to adapt their apps because it allows so many more potential customers; perhaps even more than x86_64 Mac customers.
I don't think Apple needs to make a low priced device just to serve a market with no profit margins. They will create a new class of device only if they feel it will solve a problem that can't be solved by one of their existing products. I think it more likely they would produce an "iPad Pro" than an ARM-based budget Mac.
I don't see this as a profit-less market. I see this as potentially having an even higher profit margin than their current Mac lineup.
You mean like how Mac apps couldn't be run on Intel chips when they made the switch? Apple has done that sort of move many times so I have no doubt they could make it easy for developer to adapt their Intel apps to be universal desktop-class apps that would work on both ARM and Intel.
I don't see this as a profit-less market. I see this as potentially having an even higher profit margin than their current Mac lineup.
Well, Apple's switch to Intel was a huge effort for developers, but the upside was crystal clear since a) it opened the door for natively running Windows apps and games on a Mac and b) it eliminated the perception that PCs were faster because their Intel CPUs had higher clock speeds. Plus Apple did a great job easing the transition with Rosetta. But even with these benefits, major developers like Adobe and Microsoft took years to port their Mac apps to run natively on Intel, forcing mac users to endure poor performance on their apps throughout that time.. Moving away from Intel would reverse those benefits and some companies probably wouldn't bother to create native versions of their apps for them .
The reason I said there was no money in it for Apple is because any market defined by a low price point inevitably results in a race to the bottom, eliminating margins.
Well, Apple's switch to Intel was a huge effort for developers, but the upside was crystal clear since a) it opened the door for natively running Windows apps and games on a Mac and b) it eliminated the perception that PCs were faster because their Intel CPUs had higher clock speeds. Plus Apple did a great job easing the transition with Rosetta. But even with these benefits, major developers like Adobe and Microsoft took years to port their Mac apps to run natively on Intel, forcing mac users to endure poor performance on their apps throughout that time.. Moving away from Intel would reverse those benefits and some companies probably wouldn't bother to create native versions of their apps for them .
The reason I said there was no money in it for Apple is because any market defined by a low price point inevitably results in a race to the bottom, eliminating margins.
Anybody who took years has to transition from carbon to cocoa. That's done. These days it's a recompile.
The reason I said there was no money in it for Apple is because any market defined by a low price point inevitably results in a race to the bottom, eliminating margins.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
I don't really disagree with most of your reasoning but I guess my main question is what would be the key selling point for this new class of computer? What would make me want one? Apple doesn't create product categories to fill a price point without offering some uniquely desirable feature. A Macbook Air is cheaper than other MacBooks, but it's also crazy thin and light with insane battery life.
I don't really disagree with most of your reasoning but I guess my main question is what would be the key selling point for this new class of computer? What would make me want one? Apple doesn't create product categories to fill a price point without offering some uniquely desirable feature. A Macbook Air is cheaper than other MacBooks, but it's also crazy thin and light with insane battery life.
It would be able to sell more Mac-like devices which would increase their install base, revenue, and profits. The 13" MBA is cheaper, lighter, thinner and has a higher battery life than the HDD-less and ODD-less13" MBP, but not by much at this point, which is why I've been keen on a 12" MBA well before there were any rumours for its existence.
Using ARM over Intel is just moving that even further to be able to replace a very expensive commodity chip with one that is 1/20th the price that is also ultra-low-power that is designed to work specifically with OS X without sacrificing performance per watt for that budget class. Do people buying the $899 11" MBA really go for the expensive TB connected accessories or need the VM aspects of Intel's Core chips? I don't think so. I think a lot of what Apple is buying in those chips serve zero purpose for the typical user Mac user (which isn't us).
It would be able to sell more Mac-like devices which would increase their install base, revenue, and profits.
No, that's not it at all. That's what any business schmuck at Dell or Microsoft might say. That's not Apple.
Regardless of their financial motives, Apple will not create a new product category unless they can sell it based on its benefit for users, and "cheap price" doesn't cut it. Even the Mac Mini, which is clearly a low price point product, is promoted as a powerhouse that packs the entire Mac experience into a 7.7-inch-square frame and lets you use your own display, keyboard, and mouse. They could have just dropped it into a plain, white plastic case and labeled it as an entry level computer but they didn't. As another example, every iPod model has some unique quality that makes it desirable regardless of its price point.
No, that's not it at all. That's what any business schmuck at Dell or Microsoft might say. That's not Apple.
Sure it is. We're not talking about unit sales for the sake of unit sales or racing to the bottom with profit-less devices. We're talking about a removing a chip that costs hundreds of dollars for something that costs tens of dollars and is designed specifically around Apple's codebase thereby resulting in better performance per watt. We're not talking about Apple making cheap machines, just a lower-cost entry level model.
If you don't believe Apple is interested in such a thing just look at the MBA's original starting price and where it is today.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
The device, and I will bet $1, will be a very minimalist device for a specific market. If it has one port, fine. For a lot of people, if that is the case. Yes, more ports are useful, but if they can do an Apple-like-thing and make it very minimal, great. it will be fine for a good chunk of the population who *don't care* if it has 10 ports or 3.
The question is, how often do 50% of the population use their ports? Like the old DVD/CD drive question.
Hopefully, Apple is pushing and leading in minimalism. If you do need some extra port monkeying, someone is going to be selling expensive adapters. But most people won't care.
I have and old MacBook Pro, but only use one port (and not the DVD/CD drive at all) for printing. And people are moving to wireless printing. My ancient Brother laser printer: can print over wireless. Our newerish (not new) inkjet printer, is wireless and supports Cloud drive.
We need to move to a cableless society. And less ports means smaller computer.d
Of course, people will say, I can't use it here or there or on this trip or that business trip. But it's evolution and becomes the norm after while.
Yea, just recompile it. To run at native x86 speed. Just click Recompile and select Turbo. If you could go ahead and come in Saturday and do that, that'd be great mmmk. Oh, and one more thing. If you could go ahead and come in Sunday, that would be really great. Mmkk?
Yea, just recompile it. To run at native x86 speed. Just click Recompile and select Turbo. If you could go ahead and come in Saturday and do that, that'd be great mmmk. Oh, and one more thing. If you could go ahead and come in Sunday, that would be really great. Mmkk?
Always amused that there is a strong correlation between argument du sneer and not knowing your arse from your elbow
Yea, just recompile it. To run at native x86 speed. Just click Recompile and select Turbo. If you could go ahead and come in Saturday and do that, that'd be great mmmk. Oh, and one more thing. If you could go ahead and come in Sunday, that would be really great. Mmkk?
It's true that it would be easier now than before though. The bigger hurdle is changing APIs because you have to rewrite code. Changing architecture for the same APIs should only need a recompile. Just look at code like Javascript that runs on dozens of architectures without being rewritten.
The transition from PPC to x86 for some developers also involved a migration from Carbon to Cocoa and that was the bigger transition. Plug-ins caused problems because they had to be deployed in two versions during the transition and this was a problem as not all developers had both platforms to test on. Capable hardware is much cheaper now.
If you were to develop an app in a high-level language like Swift, compiling for two target architectures, I'd expect it to be pretty seamless. If Apple put hardware instruction translation in so that x86 binaries actually ran, it wouldn't even be essential to recompile every app. This wouldn't be like an app taking 15 seconds to load like it did under Rosetta, we have SSDs now and apps load in under 1 second, even a 100% performance hit would be unnoticeable.
The Mac line is doing well so there's no urgency to throw Intel out at all. I don't think there would be any harm in having a low-end ARM laptop though. This would be useful in education and for people on lower budgets who would only otherwise go the Wintel route or with Chromebooks. It would allow native development of iOS apps so the simulator wouldn't run in software mode.
$699 12" Retina Macbook Air, 4-8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, passively cooled, superthin and light, comes with all the standard Mac apps and runs x86 code through binary translation with a minor performance hit. If you want to run Windows, use Thunderbolt etc, get a higher-end x86 model.
It does push ASP down but they can probably improve margins and definitely increase market potential. Look how many iPads they sell (~70m) at an ASP of $445. They only sell 19m Macs at an ASP of $1270. They might not double their marketshare with a $699 Air because the biggest manufacturers manage about 3x Apple's units per quarter and their margins are crazy low with ASPs under $500 but there's a lot of room to grow unit share. That has a knock-on effect for other device ownership as well as software purchases, iTunes, apps, peripherals.
Good point. Apple could meet halfway on the ChromeBook/HP $200 Windows machines with something compromised and cheaper.
And people are buying keyboards for iPads to get a lot of work done, so...we'll have to stay tuned. Who knows what these machine will be. I would suspect ARM-based chip for longevity, weight, size, price, usefulness as a cheaper, niche product. $599?
Maybe Apple would then be looking at what greater market share they could capture without going too low like the HP Windows machine or Chrome. Still make a healthy product and create a "new" product category of an iPad-ish laptop running iOS.
It would run Windows - via the website.
As long as people don't get confused by what the different laptops would and would not be able to run, if this is the case. The MS tablets confused a lot of people. They didn't know RT was not full Windows.
I would suspect ARM-based chip for longevity, weight, size, price, usefulness as a cheaper, niche product. $599?
I don't think it would be cheaper than an equivalent iPad. A 128GB Retina 10" iPad Air 2 with 2GB RAM is $699. The cheaper Chromebooks ship with 16GB SSDs and cheap displays. Maybe they could get away with a 64GB model at $599 but OS X will take up 15-20GB of space so it doesn't leave much room for local storage.
Cloud-based VMs are a possibility, I suspect a lot of people install Windows for the games though. Even emulated Windows would be fine for standard apps. It's a shame Windows games are so tied to the whole Windows system.
With Apple's cash, I'd actually pay developers to port apps over. 100 of the best games and apps that aren't on the Mac, $1m each = $100m investment. Pocket change but it would add so much value to the platform and they'd make back the cash from their App Store sales.
As long as people don't get confused by what the different laptops would and would not be able to run, if this is the case. The MS tablets confused a lot of people. They didn't know RT was not full Windows.
If they did binary translation like Rosetta, they'd behave just like normal Macs.
There is no need for swift. There is no need for rossetta. There is no need for paying people to recompile. Devs recompile tens of times a day. Apples compilers will take existing ios code and run it on os x. That's how the simulator works. You can write significant chunks of common code into a fat static library and use those libraries on iOS and OSX already. Mach binaries can be fat binaries ( or for apps on the Mac store can strip out as needed.)
There is no need for what is being discussed here but a Swift should make developer lives easier on all platforms.
There is no need for rossetta. There is no need for paying people to recompile. Devs recompile tens of times a day. Apples compilers will take existing ios code and run it on os x. That's how the simulator works. You can write significant chunks of common code into a fat static library and use those libraries on iOS and OSX already. Mach binaries can be fat binaries ( or for apps on the Mac store can strip out as needed.)
See lipo
Actually people should look at XCode and decelop an understanding about how the IOS emulator works. If they understood what is going on in XCode most of this discussion wouldn't be happening.
Comments
I'm not talking about migrating their computers. In the past I've mentioned this as being for budget traditional "PCs" which may or may not include Mac in the name, but that last part is about marketing.
See my edited post...
I don't see that as a problem for those buying budget Mac-like devices. I don't see these people are saying, "I need 16GB of RAM so I can run VMs with my Windows and Linux OSes," or "I need to play the latest blah blah," which Macs have never been the top choice for gamers. This category sounds like a way or building the Apple traditional "PC" into a less expensive tier, which would have plenty of SW options right from the Mac App Store (or something similarly named), with what I
hopeassume would likely be an option to side-load other apps. Apple "PCs" for the masses, not the gamers, not the video and audio editors, not the people reading tech sites daily.I don't see that as a problem for those buying budget Mac-like devices. I don't see these people are saying, "I need 16GB of RAM so I can run VMs with my Windows and Linux OSes," or "I need to play the latest blah blah," which Macs have never been the top choice for gamers. This category sounds like a way or building the Apple traditional "PC" into a less expensive tier, which would have plenty of SW options right from the Mac App Store (or something similarly named), with what I hope assume would likely be an option to side-load other apps. Apple "PCs" for the masses, not the gamers, not the video and audio editors, not the people reading tech sites daily.
But then you would have this new class of Apple device that could neither run iOS nor OS X apps, but only a new breed of apps developed for an in-between platform. Prospective buyers would be unable to use any software they already owned for either PC or Mac, and would be confronted with a new app store with a very limited selection.
Picture a family on a tight budget looking to replace their family PC. The computer may be currently shared by mom and kids ranging in age from elementary to high school. The kids would no doubt have some games they expect to be able to play, and they might need Windows for some school-based application. What would be the selling point for this family to buy this niche product for the same or higher price as a budget PC that, while crappy, would be widely compatible with everything they currently use?
Apple got away with this with the first iPhone, but that was a unique case, where the device itself was so revolutionary that it was a must-have product out of the box before an App Store even existed.
I don't think Apple needs to make a low priced device just to serve a market with no profit margins. They will create a new class of device only if they feel it will solve a problem that can't be solved by one of their existing products. I think it more likely they would produce an "iPad Pro" than an ARM-based budget Mac.
You mean like how Mac apps couldn't be run on Intel chips when they made the switch? Apple has done that sort of move many times so I have no doubt they could make it easy for developer to adapt their Intel apps to be universal desktop-class apps that would work on both ARM and Intel.
And considering we're talking about a less expensive product it's not unreasonable to see 3rd-party developers work quickly to adapt their apps because it allows so many more potential customers; perhaps even more than x86_64 Mac customers.
I don't see this as a profit-less market. I see this as potentially having an even higher profit margin than their current Mac lineup.
You mean like how Mac apps couldn't be run on Intel chips when they made the switch? Apple has done that sort of move many times so I have no doubt they could make it easy for developer to adapt their Intel apps to be universal desktop-class apps that would work on both ARM and Intel.
I don't see this as a profit-less market. I see this as potentially having an even higher profit margin than their current Mac lineup.
Well, Apple's switch to Intel was a huge effort for developers, but the upside was crystal clear since a) it opened the door for natively running Windows apps and games on a Mac and b) it eliminated the perception that PCs were faster because their Intel CPUs had higher clock speeds. Plus Apple did a great job easing the transition with Rosetta. But even with these benefits, major developers like Adobe and Microsoft took years to port their Mac apps to run natively on Intel, forcing mac users to endure poor performance on their apps throughout that time.. Moving away from Intel would reverse those benefits and some companies probably wouldn't bother to create native versions of their apps for them .
The reason I said there was no money in it for Apple is because any market defined by a low price point inevitably results in a race to the bottom, eliminating margins.
Anybody who took years has to transition from carbon to cocoa. That's done. These days it's a recompile.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
I don't really disagree with most of your reasoning but I guess my main question is what would be the key selling point for this new class of computer? What would make me want one? Apple doesn't create product categories to fill a price point without offering some uniquely desirable feature. A Macbook Air is cheaper than other MacBooks, but it's also crazy thin and light with insane battery life.
It would be able to sell more Mac-like devices which would increase their install base, revenue, and profits. The 13" MBA is cheaper, lighter, thinner and has a higher battery life than the HDD-less and ODD-less13" MBP, but not by much at this point, which is why I've been keen on a 12" MBA well before there were any rumours for its existence.
Using ARM over Intel is just moving that even further to be able to replace a very expensive commodity chip with one that is 1/20th the price that is also ultra-low-power that is designed to work specifically with OS X without sacrificing performance per watt for that budget class. Do people buying the $899 11" MBA really go for the expensive TB connected accessories or need the VM aspects of Intel's Core chips? I don't think so. I think a lot of what Apple is buying in those chips serve zero purpose for the typical user Mac user (which isn't us).
It would be able to sell more Mac-like devices which would increase their install base, revenue, and profits.
No, that's not it at all. That's what any business schmuck at Dell or Microsoft might say. That's not Apple.
Regardless of their financial motives, Apple will not create a new product category unless they can sell it based on its benefit for users, and "cheap price" doesn't cut it. Even the Mac Mini, which is clearly a low price point product, is promoted as a powerhouse that packs the entire Mac experience into a 7.7-inch-square frame and lets you use your own display, keyboard, and mouse. They could have just dropped it into a plain, white plastic case and labeled it as an entry level computer but they didn't. As another example, every iPod model has some unique quality that makes it desirable regardless of its price point.
Sure it is. We're not talking about unit sales for the sake of unit sales or racing to the bottom with profit-less devices. We're talking about a removing a chip that costs hundreds of dollars for something that costs tens of dollars and is designed specifically around Apple's codebase thereby resulting in better performance per watt. We're not talking about Apple making cheap machines, just a lower-cost entry level model.
If you don't believe Apple is interested in such a thing just look at the MBA's original starting price and where it is today.
Why is it a race to the bottom? No one is talking about Apple competing with budget WinPCs that have no profit margin. except what vendors can sell to 3rd-party developers to get their carper placed on these systems at the factory. We're talking about a Mac-like device that can start around $700-800, which is the range of the average WinPC, not the low-end of the WinPC, market.
When you've saturated a market segment you need to find ways to grow into new market segments or attract new people to your current market segment. Apple did this buy keeping older iDevices on the market as lower-tier devices that turned a profit, but that doesn't seem like it would work for a traditional Apple "PC," especially when the Intel chip already costs around $300 at minimum, according to Intel's cost-per-thousand price list. ARM could give Apple leverage with Intel while at the same time marketing to people who think $1000 for a 13" notebook is too much to make the transition, and do with the same performance users are getting from those entry-level CULV processors from Intel.
Again, I'm not saying Apple will go that route (I'm neither psychic nor have any people on the inside leaking info to me), but it's in no way out of the range of possibilities for what I perceive as Apple's goals.
The device, and I will bet $1, will be a very minimalist device for a specific market. If it has one port, fine. For a lot of people, if that is the case. Yes, more ports are useful, but if they can do an Apple-like-thing and make it very minimal, great. it will be fine for a good chunk of the population who *don't care* if it has 10 ports or 3.
The question is, how often do 50% of the population use their ports? Like the old DVD/CD drive question.
Hopefully, Apple is pushing and leading in minimalism. If you do need some extra port monkeying, someone is going to be selling expensive adapters. But most people won't care.
I have and old MacBook Pro, but only use one port (and not the DVD/CD drive at all) for printing. And people are moving to wireless printing. My ancient Brother laser printer: can print over wireless. Our newerish (not new) inkjet printer, is wireless and supports Cloud drive.
We need to move to a cableless society. And less ports means smaller computer.d
Of course, people will say, I can't use it here or there or on this trip or that business trip. But it's evolution and becomes the norm after while.
Cheers!
Yea, just recompile it. To run at native x86 speed. Just click Recompile and select Turbo. If you could go ahead and come in Saturday and do that, that'd be great mmmk. Oh, and one more thing. If you could go ahead and come in Sunday, that would be really great. Mmkk?
Always amused that there is a strong correlation between argument du sneer and not knowing your arse from your elbow
It's true that it would be easier now than before though. The bigger hurdle is changing APIs because you have to rewrite code. Changing architecture for the same APIs should only need a recompile. Just look at code like Javascript that runs on dozens of architectures without being rewritten.
The transition from PPC to x86 for some developers also involved a migration from Carbon to Cocoa and that was the bigger transition. Plug-ins caused problems because they had to be deployed in two versions during the transition and this was a problem as not all developers had both platforms to test on. Capable hardware is much cheaper now.
If you were to develop an app in a high-level language like Swift, compiling for two target architectures, I'd expect it to be pretty seamless. If Apple put hardware instruction translation in so that x86 binaries actually ran, it wouldn't even be essential to recompile every app. This wouldn't be like an app taking 15 seconds to load like it did under Rosetta, we have SSDs now and apps load in under 1 second, even a 100% performance hit would be unnoticeable.
The Mac line is doing well so there's no urgency to throw Intel out at all. I don't think there would be any harm in having a low-end ARM laptop though. This would be useful in education and for people on lower budgets who would only otherwise go the Wintel route or with Chromebooks. It would allow native development of iOS apps so the simulator wouldn't run in software mode.
$699 12" Retina Macbook Air, 4-8GB RAM, 128GB SSD, passively cooled, superthin and light, comes with all the standard Mac apps and runs x86 code through binary translation with a minor performance hit. If you want to run Windows, use Thunderbolt etc, get a higher-end x86 model.
It does push ASP down but they can probably improve margins and definitely increase market potential. Look how many iPads they sell (~70m) at an ASP of $445. They only sell 19m Macs at an ASP of $1270. They might not double their marketshare with a $699 Air because the biggest manufacturers manage about 3x Apple's units per quarter and their margins are crazy low with ASPs under $500 but there's a lot of room to grow unit share. That has a knock-on effect for other device ownership as well as software purchases, iTunes, apps, peripherals.
Good point. Apple could meet halfway on the ChromeBook/HP $200 Windows machines with something compromised and cheaper.
And people are buying keyboards for iPads to get a lot of work done, so...we'll have to stay tuned. Who knows what these machine will be. I would suspect ARM-based chip for longevity, weight, size, price, usefulness as a cheaper, niche product. $599?
Maybe Apple would then be looking at what greater market share they could capture without going too low like the HP Windows machine or Chrome. Still make a healthy product and create a "new" product category of an iPad-ish laptop running iOS.
It would run Windows - via the website.
As long as people don't get confused by what the different laptops would and would not be able to run, if this is the case. The MS tablets confused a lot of people. They didn't know RT was not full Windows.
I don't think it would be cheaper than an equivalent iPad. A 128GB Retina 10" iPad Air 2 with 2GB RAM is $699. The cheaper Chromebooks ship with 16GB SSDs and cheap displays. Maybe they could get away with a 64GB model at $599 but OS X will take up 15-20GB of space so it doesn't leave much room for local storage.
Cloud-based VMs are a possibility, I suspect a lot of people install Windows for the games though. Even emulated Windows would be fine for standard apps. It's a shame Windows games are so tied to the whole Windows system.
With Apple's cash, I'd actually pay developers to port apps over. 100 of the best games and apps that aren't on the Mac, $1m each = $100m investment. Pocket change but it would add so much value to the platform and they'd make back the cash from their App Store sales.
If they did binary translation like Rosetta, they'd behave just like normal Macs.
And then there is this:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2876251/intels-vpro-core-chips-advance-wire-free-computing-with-wireless-dock-pro-widi-tech.html
Intel pushing for cable-less world. This could help confirm the one port laptop.
Hopefully, it's a big surprise when the new laptop is released!
Yes, a Rosetta-like world would be slick. Or paying developers to port their software (although it doesn't seem that's what Apple would do).
See lipo
Actually people should look at XCode and decelop an understanding about how the IOS emulator works. If they understood what is going on in XCode most of this discussion wouldn't be happening.