the SC has three pins, which aint much. sure you could increase the number of contacts and make them smaller, but while I'm no electrical engineer, having them exposed on the outside of device would seem more prone to dirt & damage that a port. just my guesses tho.
But isn’t it more of a waterproof, flat-sided seal? And how is it more prone to getting dirty than a port, which is literally a HOLE where dirt can form?
Compare innies and outies and the dirt gathered within them.
ports work because of friction -- you cram a plug into a port and the force of the long pins/male plug ensures the contacts are made inside the port. "dirt" is not an issue as you likely experience every day with usb and lightning...the small port protects the contacts and a little dust is insignificant. I believe exposed contacts on something like an iPhone would leave them more vulnerable to gunk on the copper and without the friction of plugging into a port would lessen the strength of the connections.
I am afraid to say anything because everyone will be jumping on my back calling me an Apple "basher." I do not believe anything Apple says anymore especially concerning with the Mac computer line up. The main concern for Apple is the iOS devices mainly the iPhone. Despite poor sales, Apple is still pushing the iPads by falsely marketing it as a PC replacement but it still can not run computer programs and can not plug in external hard drives for media access. Apple does not care about the Mac line up because of it's lack of consistent updating. Apple will update part of a notebook line up then months later update the iMacs. The Mac Pro has become the black sheep of the computer line up by it's lack of updates since 2013. I think Apple is riding the iPhone craze for now but now is worried because of it's sales hiccup. I just do not believe Apple.
iPads can't run computer programs? tell that to all the programmers who write software for iPad.
Am just happy i dont read the comments on macrumors. What a lost site and lost audience... all soaked up in negativity. Sad.
You mean they've lost they're absolute, fanatical Apple can do no wrong lunacy POV that many here have (likely due to not being homeless on retirement is dependent on the APPL stock price)... then yeah.
What's been going on with the Mac is a disgrace... I've been heavy into Apple from a industry, employee, stock and personal friends perspective since 1977 and even I'm willing to call them out when they've lost it (remember the first post-Jobs era?)
it's not lunacy. what trolls on MR and now AI say -- "Apple doesn't know what it's doing! Apple is greedy! Apple is doomed!"
what rational people say -- "Apple is smarter than you or I. Apple knows it's customer data better than you or I. Apple is privy to all sorts of engineering data that you or I are not. Apple knows what it's doing."
but it congrats on hitting some common troll tropes:
- pro-Apple username - first post, shits on Apple - been an apple fan say way back when - I'm a stockholder, dammit - doomed without Steve jobs
I've often wondered if the day will come when an Intel CPU is an optional BTO or perhaps even an optional extra (as in as well as an Apple CPU) for those that want to run Windows. It would be kind of coming full circle for me and those of us who remember adding in a peripheral card to their Apple ][ so as to run CP/M!
Am just happy i dont read the comments on macrumors. What a lost site and lost audience... all soaked up in negativity. Sad.
You mean they've lost they're absolute, fanatical Apple can do no wrong lunacy POV that many here have (likely due to not being homeless on retirement is dependent on the APPL stock price)... then yeah.
What's been going on with the Mac is a disgrace... I've been heavy into Apple from a industry, employee, stock and personal friends perspective since 1977 and even I'm willing to call them out when they've lost it (remember the first post-Jobs era?)
Omg, they haven't updated the Mac in a year. Is that the new definition of disgrace?
Am just happy i dont read the comments on macrumors. What a lost site and lost audience... all soaked up in negativity. Sad.
You mean they've lost they're absolute, fanatical Apple can do no wrong lunacy POV that many here have (likely due to not being homeless on retirement is dependent on the APPL stock price)... then yeah.
What's been going on with the Mac is a disgrace... I've been heavy into Apple from a industry, employee, stock and personal friends perspective since 1977 and even I'm willing to call them out when they've lost it (remember the first post-Jobs era?)
it's not lunacy. what trolls on MR and now AI say -- "Apple doesn't know what it's doing! Apple is greedy! Apple is doomed!"
what rational people say -- "Apple is smarter than you or I. Apple knows it's customer data better than you or I. Apple is privy to all sorts of engineering data that you or I are not. Apple knows what it's doing."
but it congrats on hitting some common troll tropes:
- pro-Apple username - first post, shits on Apple - been an apple fan say way back when - I'm a stockholder, dammit - doomed without Steve jobs
Final AI Troll Score: 3.3.
The colorful language is unnecessary, weakens your position on any issue. A troll like myself would simply say that Apple doesn't know what it's doing in at least several areas, but I'm usually specific about it, as a user of Apple's technology, and the points are with basis. I would also agree that Apple is greedy, that's pretty well universally agreed upon, and demonstrated by their tax avoidance maneuvers. We "real" US citizens don't get such luxuries of tax avoidance schemes. Lastly, this troll, and I wear the term proudly, as a skeptic of all fawned-over multi-national corporations, doesn't suggest that "Apple is doomed". I think they have lost their way as a gadget design and manufacturing "expert" under Tim Cook's leadership. If they had proper leadership, they would have partnered with a handful of companies when they released HomeKit, or produced their own set of security gadgets to release with HomeKit, instead of this grandiose release of a HomeKit API, while allowing so many 3rd parties of questionable quality to flounder and produce buggy products. Apple could have owned this segment, if they had stuck to their original competency. So, your angst and whining about "trolls" was a fun emotional release for you, but your reactionary response fails to recognize the reality of Apple's mission.
Apple could do a lot more here, and show a lot more 'courage' than ditching a headphone connector. Apple could 'plug' the Intel money drain and use its own chip tech for the entire Mac.
what rational people say -- "Apple is smarter than you or I. Apple knows it's customer data better than you or I. Apple is privy to all sorts of engineering data that you or I are not. Apple knows what it's doing."
That depends on the 'you' and 'I' (you know that Apple consists of people having an opinion?). They have a lot of data, but from a certain perspective; interpretation is mostly a matter of opinion and politics (so it might not be helpful). When your an engineer (or know engineers) you know that everyone has his (sorry I hate political correct sentences) own opinion, even when contradicting hard data.
Am just happy i dont read the comments on macrumors. What a lost site and lost audience... all soaked up in negativity. Sad.
You mean they've lost they're absolute, fanatical Apple can do no wrong lunacy POV that many here have (likely due to not being homeless on retirement is dependent on the APPL stock price)... then yeah.
What's been going on with the Mac is a disgrace... I've been heavy into Apple from a industry, employee, stock and personal friends perspective since 1977 and even I'm willing to call them out when they've lost it (remember the first post-Jobs era?)
So, what is it that current Macs can't do? Please, provide a list of your current tasks that modern Macs handle in a "disgraceful" manner. What exactly do you do, and what exactly is your Macs or Macs incapable of doing? I'll be waiting.
Also, comparing the Apple of today with the "1st post-Jobs era" really rips away any credibility you may think you had. Such a false, sensational, asinine comparison without even a shred of similarities, in any sense whatsoever. Apple is at the top of their game, and offers better and more robust products than it ever has. If anything, Apple today is more dominant, and is in a better position, than it has EVER been, regardless of your very niche views on Macs, which will most probably almost all be updated within a month.
That being said, I'm running a 2014 MBP thats cuts through anything I throw at it like a knife through hot butter, and is still the most solid, sleek, and reliable laptop on the market today, which is why it is still at the very top of pretty much every single recommendation list. So yeah, your use of the term "disgrace" as well as your characterization of those that don't agree with your rabid sensationalism (homeless people dependent on Apple stock) really reveals you for the troll that you are.
It's all about the processors. The sooner Apple moves to its own chips the better....
We have their M chips for the iPhones, A chips for the mobile devices, S chips for the watches, and now the W chip for the wireless Air Pods. We're seeing Apple design their own chips rather than taking things off the shelf more and more. It would seem to me that creating an entirely new chip (non x386 architecture) would be something they are contemplating considering the slowdown with Kaby Lake, and all. It's been a good long while since we've had a shakeup in the processor world, and x386 has been great for us all, but the time might be right for Apple to create their own chips and have Intel manufacture them.
It's not going to happen, People have been saying Apple will do this for several years (just like removing the headphone jack, switching to OLED's, adopting the "edge screen", bigger phablet screens, and so forth) there is no evidence that Apple is going to do this.
The A10 is not equal to any 2016-era CPU in performance. The A9 last year wasn't either. Apple can NOT pull a Microsoft here and create a parallel ARM laptop platform and then admit failure. Microsoft failed on this front because Windows is not designed to be used with a single input.
Apple would rather improve the performance of the A-series chip until the iPad Pro beats whatever Intel puts out in the sub-15watt sub-stupidly-thin-laptop market, and then quietly discontinue all low-end Macbook Pro's. Because at that point the iPad Pro essentially is better than any possible laptop that is possible. Apple will still put out x86 laptops, but the best performance will be in the iPad Pro and whatever high-end laptop with a dedicated GPU that is still available. The iMac/MacMini and Mac Pro will always remain x86 because those devices are simply not used that way. You're not going to get someone to connect a cintiq to an iPad. You're not going to plug in your video editing equipment into an iPad. It's just not possible to do any "pro" stuff with an iPad that involves any other hardware.
As it is, for Apple to scale the A10 up to the performance of an i7-4790 it needs to become 55% faster without using any more power. Even Intel's highest-end Xeon's don't do this well, overclock a 3.6Ghz processor to 4.0Ghz and it goes from 150 watts to 280 watts and risks melting the socket. To scale the A10 up to the performance of a 22-core Xeon would require only a 20% increase in clock speed, but 22 cores, which means you'd have to imagine a PCB 11 times larger that what is in the iPhone. Currently that is not going to happen either.
People quickly forget the circumstances of why Apple switched from 68K to PPC and PPC to Intel in the first place. The 68K to PPC was fine because the PPC could run the 68K software, which included the OS 8.5 itself. NextStep/OSX was built to run on anything. So can Windows NT. However Microsoft's mistake in trying to get an ARM version of Windows was that NONE of the software works on ARM, as there has never been a requirement for "fat binaries", and Micrsoft's legacy software all requires two-button mouse input or meta-key keyboard shortcuts. Neither are available on a touch-screen, hence an entirely new UI is needed. For OS X however Apple has never required more than a 1-mouse button (this might actually be a long-con game with the eventual goal of touch-screens, who knows) and OS X has the Launchpad which functions identical to iOS's way of launching software. Yet it remains a full OS and doesn't try to shoe-horn you into something unfamiliar.
Apple could, but it won't. It leaves "Switching to it's own CPU's" as leverage over Intel. If Apple ever wanted to switch to it's own chips, it would still end up coming back to Intel for chip-fabrication, and likely wouldn't get the latest fabrication that Intel makes it's own chips on. This is always the risk for Apple, that it wants to use it's own chips but can't find enough capacity to produce enough of them.
And that is why Apple will continue to use Intel's chips, they have no reason to switch unless the Intel-Apple relationship sours.That is why they switched away from IBM/Motorola in the first place. Apple will not be able to produce better chips for the laptops and desktops than Intel, and if the laptops run different chips than the desktops, then people simply won't buy the laptops at all.
It's all about the processors. The sooner Apple moves to its own chips the better....
We have their M chips for the iPhones, A chips for the mobile devices, S chips for the watches, and now the W chip for the wireless Air Pods. We're seeing Apple design their own chips rather than taking things off the shelf more and more. It would seem to me that creating an entirely new chip (non x386 architecture) would be something they are contemplating considering the slowdown with Kaby Lake, and all. It's been a good long while since we've had a shakeup in the processor world, and x386 has been great for us all, but the time might be right for Apple to create their own chips and have Intel manufacture them.
It's not going to happen, People have been saying Apple will do this for several years (just like removing the headphone jack, switching to OLED's, adopting the "edge screen", bigger phablet screens, and so forth) there is no evidence that Apple is going to do this.
The A10 is not equal to any 2016-era CPU in performance. The A9 last year wasn't either. Apple can NOT pull a Microsoft here and create a parallel ARM laptop platform and then admit failure. Microsoft failed on this front because Windows is not designed to be used with a single input.
Apple would rather improve the performance of the A-series chip until the iPad Pro beats whatever Intel puts out in the sub-15watt sub-stupidly-thin-laptop market, and then quietly discontinue all low-end Macbook Pro's. Because at that point the iPad Pro essentially is better than any possible laptop that is possible. Apple will still put out x86 laptops, but the best performance will be in the iPad Pro and whatever high-end laptop with a dedicated GPU that is still available. The iMac/MacMini and Mac Pro will always remain x86 because those devices are simply not used that way. You're not going to get someone to connect a cintiq to an iPad. You're not going to plug in your video editing equipment into an iPad. It's just not possible to do any "pro" stuff with an iPad that involves any other hardware.
As it is, for Apple to scale the A10 up to the performance of an i7-4790 it needs to become 55% faster without using any more power. Even Intel's highest-end Xeon's don't do this well, overclock a 3.6Ghz processor to 4.0Ghz and it goes from 150 watts to 280 watts and risks melting the socket. To scale the A10 up to the performance of a 22-core Xeon would require only a 20% increase in clock speed, but 22 cores, which means you'd have to imagine a PCB 11 times larger that what is in the iPhone. Currently that is not going to happen either.
People quickly forget the circumstances of why Apple switched from 68K to PPC and PPC to Intel in the first place. The 68K to PPC was fine because the PPC could run the 68K software, which included the OS 8.5 itself. NextStep/OSX was built to run on anything. So can Windows NT. However Microsoft's mistake in trying to get an ARM version of Windows was that NONE of the software works on ARM, as there has never been a requirement for "fat binaries", and Micrsoft's legacy software all requires two-button mouse input or meta-key keyboard shortcuts. Neither are available on a touch-screen, hence an entirely new UI is needed. For OS X however Apple has never required more than a 1-mouse button (this might actually be a long-con game with the eventual goal of touch-screens, who knows) and OS X has the Launchpad which functions identical to iOS's way of launching software. Yet it remains a full OS and doesn't try to shoe-horn you into something unfamiliar.
Apple could, but it won't. It leaves "Switching to it's own CPU's" as leverage over Intel. If Apple ever wanted to switch to it's own chips, it would still end up coming back to Intel for chip-fabrication, and likely wouldn't get the latest fabrication that Intel makes it's own chips on. This is always the risk for Apple, that it wants to use it's own chips but can't find enough capacity to produce enough of them.
And that is why Apple will continue to use Intel's chips, they have no reason to switch unless the Intel-Apple relationship sours.That is why they switched away from IBM/Motorola in the first place. Apple will not be able to produce better chips for the laptops and desktops than Intel, and if the laptops run different chips than the desktops, then people simply won't buy the laptops at all.
Thanks for the lengthy reply, depressing though it may be. We've already seen the GHz increases plateau, we haven't seen much by way of progress with increased cores for hyperthreading, and the current tech is bringing in 10 nanometers. There's only so much more they can shrink things before it becomes impossible to go smaller. Given these limitations, the question becomes rather obvious. What could possibly be next? Are processors basically done? I suggested in my prior post that it might be time for the world to move to something other than x386 architecture. I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that I didn't believe the A series would replace them. I don't think the A series would ever do that. But it seems to me that all of the magic tricks in the processor world are basically done. We're not going to get much smaller, so what do we have left? More cores at the existing size? I love my 2014 5k iMac, but the graphics certainly aren't its strong suit. I shoot 4k video just for fun and send videos to friends and family and iMovie could benefit from some more processing power in my opinion. Perhaps it's just optimization that needs to happen? Not being an engineer, I don't know the limits to what we have coming at us. I was with Apple when PowerPC hit the wall. I have a feeling I'll be with Apple when x386 hits the wall. The question I think we all have to ask is, what comes next? I'm not suggesting that it's ARM. I just can't imagine that x386 is the end of the road. There has to be a NextStep (pun intended). I'm just wondering what comes after x386. It can't be that far ahead of us. Once again, thanks for your response.
We've already seen the GHz increases plateau, we haven't seen much by way of progress with increased cores for hyperthreading, and the current tech is bringing in 10 nanometers. There's only so much more they can shrink things before it becomes impossible to go smaller. Given these limitations, the question becomes rather obvious. What could possibly be next? Are processors basically done? I suggested in my prior post that it might be time for the world to move to something other than x386 architecture. I'm sorry if I didn't clarify that I didn't believe the A series would replace them. I don't think the A series would ever do that. But it seems to me that all of the magic tricks in the processor world are basically done. We're not going to get much smaller, so what do we have left? More cores at the existing size? I love my 2014 5k iMac, but the graphics certainly aren't its strong suit. I shoot 4k video just for fun and send videos to friends and family and iMovie could benefit from some more processing power in my opinion. Perhaps it's just optimization that needs to happen? Not being an engineer, I don't know the limits to what we have coming at us. I was with Apple when PowerPC hit the wall. I have a feeling I'll be with Apple when x386 hits the wall. The question I think we all have to ask is, what comes next? I'm not suggesting that it's ARM. I just can't imagine that x386 is the end of the road. There has to be a NextStep (pun intended). I'm just wondering what comes after x386. It can't be that far ahead of us.
Processors are being limited by heat. They can shrink components a little more but they really need a new material:
I don't think the CPU is as important as the GPU these days. Heavy computation is moving to the GPU because the performance gains are huge:
The GPUs in the new Macs should almost double in performance, though not all workflows will run twice as fast. CPUs will hardly improve at all. Fixed function hardware improvements can make a big difference, Kaby Lake adds some improvements for handling 4K video in certain codecs but these will be for next year's Macs:
It depends on the software too. FCPX might be faster than iMovie. The performance level that computers and phones have reached is satisfying more and more people to the point that it's becoming a less important factor for new purchases. This has a financial impact on component suppliers so it results in longer update cycles. There's still no sign of low power Pascal or Polaris mobile GPUs. It looks like NVidia's lowest mobile model will be the 1060 notebook model around 65W so aimed at gamer laptops.
Apple's not going to abandon their next highest earning category after the iPhone, the updates will come eventually but long term, computers are going to become like home appliances. They are getting there already but they still have faster upgrade cycles. The slower people buy upgrades, the slower manufacturers will put out new models.
It's all about the processors. The sooner Apple moves to its own chips the better....
We have their M chips for the iPhones, A chips for the mobile devices, S chips for the watches, and now the W chip for the wireless Air Pods. We're seeing Apple design their own chips rather than taking things off the shelf more and more. It would seem to me that creating an entirely new chip (non x386 architecture) would be something they are contemplating considering the slowdown with Kaby Lake, and all. It's been a good long while since we've had a shakeup in the processor world, and x386 has been great for us all, but the time might be right for Apple to create their own chips and have Intel manufacture them.
It's not going to happen, People have been saying Apple will do this for several years (just like removing the headphone jack, switching to OLED's, adopting the "edge screen", bigger phablet screens, and so forth) there is no evidence that Apple is going to do this.
The A10 is not equal to any 2016-era CPU in performance. The A9 last year wasn't either. Apple can NOT pull a Microsoft here and create a parallel ARM laptop platform and then admit failure. Microsoft failed on this front because Windows is not designed to be used with a single input.
Apple would rather improve the performance of the A-series chip until the iPad Pro beats whatever Intel puts out in the sub-15watt sub-stupidly-thin-laptop market, and then quietly discontinue all low-end Macbook Pro's. Because at that point the iPad Pro essentially is better than any possible laptop that is possible. Apple will still put out x86 laptops, but the best performance will be in the iPad Pro and whatever high-end laptop with a dedicated GPU that is still available. The iMac/MacMini and Mac Pro will always remain x86 because those devices are simply not used that way. You're not going to get someone to connect a cintiq to an iPad. You're not going to plug in your video editing equipment into an iPad. It's just not possible to do any "pro" stuff with an iPad that involves any other hardware.
As it is, for Apple to scale the A10 up to the performance of an i7-4790 it needs to become 55% faster without using any more power. Even Intel's highest-end Xeon's don't do this well, overclock a 3.6Ghz processor to 4.0Ghz and it goes from 150 watts to 280 watts and risks melting the socket. To scale the A10 up to the performance of a 22-core Xeon would require only a 20% increase in clock speed, but 22 cores, which means you'd have to imagine a PCB 11 times larger that what is in the iPhone. Currently that is not going to happen either.
People quickly forget the circumstances of why Apple switched from 68K to PPC and PPC to Intel in the first place. The 68K to PPC was fine because the PPC could run the 68K software, which included the OS 8.5 itself. NextStep/OSX was built to run on anything. So can Windows NT. However Microsoft's mistake in trying to get an ARM version of Windows was that NONE of the software works on ARM, as there has never been a requirement for "fat binaries", and Micrsoft's legacy software all requires two-button mouse input or meta-key keyboard shortcuts. Neither are available on a touch-screen, hence an entirely new UI is needed. For OS X however Apple has never required more than a 1-mouse button (this might actually be a long-con game with the eventual goal of touch-screens, who knows) and OS X has the Launchpad which functions identical to iOS's way of launching software. Yet it remains a full OS and doesn't try to shoe-horn you into something unfamiliar.
Apple could, but it won't. It leaves "Switching to it's own CPU's" as leverage over Intel. If Apple ever wanted to switch to it's own chips, it would still end up coming back to Intel for chip-fabrication, and likely wouldn't get the latest fabrication that Intel makes it's own chips on. This is always the risk for Apple, that it wants to use it's own chips but can't find enough capacity to produce enough of them.
And that is why Apple will continue to use Intel's chips, they have no reason to switch unless the Intel-Apple relationship sours.That is why they switched away from IBM/Motorola in the first place. Apple will not be able to produce better chips for the laptops and desktops than Intel, and if the laptops run different chips than the desktops, then people simply won't buy the laptops at all.
Am i missing anything here in context? Apple's A10's pref / watt if roughly the same as 2016 Macbook, Manufactured with TSMC at a slight node disadvantage. It is lacking in Multi Core, but remember Intel's CPU are 2 Core 4 Thread. Where Apple SoC are 2 Core 2 Thread. Geekbench 4 is actually much better at evaluating general performance then Geekbench 3. And if you count the Mackbook has a cTDP of up to 7W while the iPhone only goes up to 4W, it is quite possible Apple is, conservatively speaking already in the same league as Intel.
I am not suggesting Apple will get an ARM Macbook out, and it is likely as you have said Apple will use it as negotiation against Intel saying their $200+ SoC simply isn't worth the price apart from x64 compatibility. I am sure the AMD Zen card will also be played here.
Comments
iPads can't run computer programs? tell that to all the programmers who write software for iPad.
it's not lunacy. what trolls on MR and now AI say -- "Apple doesn't know what it's doing! Apple is greedy! Apple is doomed!"
what rational people say -- "Apple is smarter than you or I. Apple knows it's customer data better than you or I. Apple is privy to all sorts of engineering data that you or I are not. Apple knows what it's doing."
but it congrats on hitting some common troll tropes:
- pro-Apple username
- first post, shits on Apple
- been an apple fan say way back when
- I'm a stockholder, dammit
- doomed without Steve jobs
Final AI Troll Score: 3.3.
In my case saved me '2010' times ....
4. Apple keyboard with OLED strip replacing the function keys.
Apple could 'plug' the Intel money drain and use its own chip tech for the entire Mac.
They have a lot of data, but from a certain perspective; interpretation is mostly a matter of opinion and politics (so it might not be helpful). When your an engineer (or know engineers) you know that everyone has his (sorry I hate political correct sentences) own opinion, even when contradicting hard data.
So, what is it that current Macs can't do? Please, provide a list of your current tasks that modern Macs handle in a "disgraceful" manner. What exactly do you do, and what exactly is your Macs or Macs incapable of doing? I'll be waiting.
Also, comparing the Apple of today with the "1st post-Jobs era" really rips away any credibility you may think you had. Such a false, sensational, asinine comparison without even a shred of similarities, in any sense whatsoever. Apple is at the top of their game, and offers better and more robust products than it ever has. If anything, Apple today is more dominant, and is in a better position, than it has EVER been, regardless of your very niche views on Macs, which will most probably almost all be updated within a month.
That being said, I'm running a 2014 MBP thats cuts through anything I throw at it like a knife through hot butter, and is still the most solid, sleek, and reliable laptop on the market today, which is why it is still at the very top of pretty much every single recommendation list. So yeah, your use of the term "disgrace" as well as your characterization of those that don't agree with your rabid sensationalism (homeless people dependent on Apple stock) really reveals you for the troll that you are.
The A10 is not equal to any 2016-era CPU in performance. The A9 last year wasn't either. Apple can NOT pull a Microsoft here and create a parallel ARM laptop platform and then admit failure. Microsoft failed on this front because Windows is not designed to be used with a single input.
Apple would rather improve the performance of the A-series chip until the iPad Pro beats whatever Intel puts out in the sub-15watt sub-stupidly-thin-laptop market, and then quietly discontinue all low-end Macbook Pro's. Because at that point the iPad Pro essentially is better than any possible laptop that is possible. Apple will still put out x86 laptops, but the best performance will be in the iPad Pro and whatever high-end laptop with a dedicated GPU that is still available. The iMac/MacMini and Mac Pro will always remain x86 because those devices are simply not used that way. You're not going to get someone to connect a cintiq to an iPad. You're not going to plug in your video editing equipment into an iPad. It's just not possible to do any "pro" stuff with an iPad that involves any other hardware.
As it is, for Apple to scale the A10 up to the performance of an i7-4790 it needs to become 55% faster without using any more power. Even Intel's highest-end Xeon's don't do this well, overclock a 3.6Ghz processor to 4.0Ghz and it goes from 150 watts to 280 watts and risks melting the socket. To scale the A10 up to the performance of a 22-core Xeon would require only a 20% increase in clock speed, but 22 cores, which means you'd have to imagine a PCB 11 times larger that what is in the iPhone. Currently that is not going to happen either.
People quickly forget the circumstances of why Apple switched from 68K to PPC and PPC to Intel in the first place. The 68K to PPC was fine because the PPC could run the 68K software, which included the OS 8.5 itself. NextStep/OSX was built to run on anything. So can Windows NT. However Microsoft's mistake in trying to get an ARM version of Windows was that NONE of the software works on ARM, as there has never been a requirement for "fat binaries", and Micrsoft's legacy software all requires two-button mouse input or meta-key keyboard shortcuts. Neither are available on a touch-screen, hence an entirely new UI is needed. For OS X however Apple has never required more than a 1-mouse button (this might actually be a long-con game with the eventual goal of touch-screens, who knows) and OS X has the Launchpad which functions identical to iOS's way of launching software. Yet it remains a full OS and doesn't try to shoe-horn you into something unfamiliar.
Apple could, but it won't. It leaves "Switching to it's own CPU's" as leverage over Intel. If Apple ever wanted to switch to it's own chips, it would still end up coming back to Intel for chip-fabrication, and likely wouldn't get the latest fabrication that Intel makes it's own chips on. This is always the risk for Apple, that it wants to use it's own chips but can't find enough capacity to produce enough of them.
And that is why Apple will continue to use Intel's chips, they have no reason to switch unless the Intel-Apple relationship sours.That is why they switched away from IBM/Motorola in the first place. Apple will not be able to produce better chips for the laptops and desktops than Intel, and if the laptops run different chips than the desktops, then people simply won't buy the laptops at all.
https://www.wired.com/insights/2015/01/the-rise-of-diamond-technology/
http://wccftech.com/intel-abandoning-silicon-7nm/
I don't think the CPU is as important as the GPU these days. Heavy computation is moving to the GPU because the performance gains are huge:
The GPUs in the new Macs should almost double in performance, though not all workflows will run twice as fast. CPUs will hardly improve at all. Fixed function hardware improvements can make a big difference, Kaby Lake adds some improvements for handling 4K video in certain codecs but these will be for next year's Macs:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/3113457/components-processors/intels-kaby-lake-chip-is-a-must-have-for-4k-video-fiends.html
It depends on the software too. FCPX might be faster than iMovie. The performance level that computers and phones have reached is satisfying more and more people to the point that it's becoming a less important factor for new purchases. This has a financial impact on component suppliers so it results in longer update cycles. There's still no sign of low power Pascal or Polaris mobile GPUs. It looks like NVidia's lowest mobile model will be the 1060 notebook model around 65W so aimed at gamer laptops.
Apple's not going to abandon their next highest earning category after the iPhone, the updates will come eventually but long term, computers are going to become like home appliances. They are getting there already but they still have faster upgrade cycles. The slower people buy upgrades, the slower manufacturers will put out new models.
Geekbench 4 is actually much better at evaluating general performance then Geekbench 3. And if you count the Mackbook has a cTDP of up to 7W while the iPhone only goes up to 4W, it is quite possible Apple is, conservatively speaking already in the same league as Intel.
I am not suggesting Apple will get an ARM Macbook out, and it is likely as you have said Apple will use it as negotiation against Intel saying their $200+ SoC simply isn't worth the price apart from x64 compatibility. I am sure the AMD Zen card will also be played here.