Ya know... It really doesn't matter how anybody spins this. It is remarkable and it is a game changer. The wall between laptops and mobile devices continues to crumble.
By adding a keyboard, pointer and file system to the iPad Pro Apple has already challenged low and medium powered laptops. All they really need now is: 1) A mouse or touchpad replacing the pencil/pointer and let the pencil serve for drawing and markup. 2) Replace the lightening connector with Thunderbolt/USB-C.
At that point, the MacBook and MacBook Airs would be obsolete and irrelevant.
I think this is more likely what Apple might do, rather than port macOS to their A-series chips. A laptop that is very, very lightweight, very fast, runs a simple and elegant operating system which is already used by 100s of millions of people. Isn't that more likely? This way they can continue to sell Intel computers at a premium for people who require macOS (which isn't a growing segment of the population but rather a niche use case for power users, which Apple can exploit beautifully with machines and an OS for their needs).
Regarding the pointer, all they need is a touchpad that mimics the shape of the screen, then wherever you place a finger, it appears as a "touch" by blurring a finger sized shape on the screen in the same location. No arrow or other pointer needed, the OS is already designed around a "touch" which can be mimicked with a touchpad. The pointer doesn't float, it only appears when you touch the touchpad, just like iOS and the way it receives input. No need to train people on the new OS, it's not new, it's simply the same with additional pointing help - we're already some way there with tvOS and it's input device and paradigms. Imagine a laptop like this, it'd sell way more than laptops with macOS on them.
There's no need to or desire to "port macOS to their A-series chips". First, MacOS was ALREADY ported to the A-Series chips. That's where iOS came from. But, more importantly, all Apple has to do in order to fulfill their promise of making the iPad Pro a laptop killer is add a mouse or touchpad. Everything else is already there: the keyboard, the file system, the pointer and an actually more powerful processor than that of the MacBook. (And, at some point, improve connectivity & expandibility by switching from a lightening port to a thunderbolt.)
You know, it’s the full macOS Desktop they want, with regular macOS apps.
Huh? Who wants it? And why? iOS can already run the most commonly used MacOS apps -- or valid substitutes. OK, so it won't run high end photo editing software -- at least not for a long time. <shrug> Most people don't even know what those apps are -- or care.
But, an iPad that is as efficient at maintaining a calendar, generating a presentation, producing a term paper or maintaining spreadsheet as a MacBook -- or watching YouTube....
No, the MacBook is going to same place as the iPod...
Man, you’re of it. There are lots of people who would want this. It’s been talked about for years. I know a lot of people who would want one. I would buy one.
i’ve been using iPads from the very first one, and I have every one except the 4. I know the iPad very well, and use some fairly heavy software with it. But does that mean I’m going to abandon my Macs? No, that would be crazy. My Macs still do things my iPad can’t. There is software for my Mac that doesn’t exist for my iPad, and may never exist. Hardware too.
I say that for many people, an iPad can take over for their computer, so I don’t disagree with that. But not always. And there are people who simply don’t want a tablet. I have a friend, who, despite having used my iPads every Friday for three years, still doesn’t feel comfortable with it. He’s not the only one. And a lot of people say that if they’re going to get a keyboard, they may as well get a Windows or macOS machine. I understand that.
a lot of us thought that by now, Apple would be selling over 100 million iPads a year. That didn’t happen. Hopefully, with the bifurcation of the lines, sales will continue to increase again. But it should give us some pause that there just might be a limitation to what people are going to want, and that many may not want tablets.
so if Apple is looking at their processor teams, and what can be done, I wouldn’t be surprised if they weren’t looking at this. It would be shirking their duty not to. With Apple looking for more vertical controll, it just makes sense to do this, if they think they can.
Of course there will always be a few a hold-outs & special situations. That's why Apple still sells the iPod. And, we will continue to see MacBooks just as we see iPods.
But, Apple has said that they intend for the iPad Pro to kill the laptop. And, I believe them - at least for the low end MacBook stuff. I don't think it will kill the high end stuff like the MacBook Pros -- at least not for a long time.
But, for the average user who just wants something that works as a switch hitter functioning either as a tablet (for games) or in laptop mode (for spreadsheets and heavy typing), the IPad Pro is already most of the way there. Currently, all they have to do is set it up on its keyboard and start typing and, if they don't want to use the touch screen (which Apple has predicted), then they can use the pencil -- at least for pointing and selecting. But, the last major piece in becoming a true switch hitter and a laptop killer is the touchpad. For Apple, that should be no big thing.
But currently, people have to continue buying two devices... Or decide on one or the other and have to deal with its limitations.
I don’t remember anywhere that Apple said that they intend the iPad to kill off the laptop. They have said that under certain conditions, an iPad is a better choice than a laptop.
do you have an iPad Pro 12.9”? Because I have last year’s, and this year’s. There are a lot of things I can do with it, now that it’s large enough, and powerful enough, that before were doable, but felt too cramped doing. But, despite that, there are going to be a lot of people who won’t want one. You have to wrap your head around that, because even if Apple did want to kill the laptop, unless their customers also want to, it’s not happening. And right now, it ain’t happening.
There’s a lot more to making an ARM Mac than just slipping a new SoC in. While some keep dismissing it, the fact is that ARM doesn’t run x86 software. Yes, Apple likely has macOS running on ARM. It makes sense for them to keep playing with it. And if they wanted to, they could bring their mainstream apps over. But big software packages are something else. FCP, Logic Pro and software from Adobe, Microsoft and others are a good 100 million lines of code. You really can’t fix this with a compile, which some people naively think.
All Apple ARM devices since the first iPhone were always running MacOS X. The kernel is the same, although the OS has different modules, for different purposes e.g. 'Cocoa Touch' instead of 'Cocoa'. If they wanted to, they could bring a MacBook Air like device tomorrow. I am pretty sure they are already working on the big applications, since they are forced to make this step sometime in the future, when Intel CPUs do no longer make sense in terms of energy efficiency and speed. Just like they did with the PowerPC.
so the question is what Apple would do here. Could they convince small developers to go with it? Probably. But large developers would really have to,have a very good reason to go through this again. And as it’s nkt likely that Apple could use this for anything other than a Macbook, AMD just maybe, but not likely, a Mini, there might not be enough a market for all of this software.
so we would have to go back to the premise I first brought up a few years ago. That is that experts have found that about 80% of the slowdown when running emulation is due to a small number of chip instructions, somewhere around a dozen, or a bit more, depending on which chip families are being emulated by which other families. As Intel doesn’t have patents on individual instructions, Apple could take those few and incorporate them into their ARM chip. When xu6 software requires them, the chip would switch over to them for these calculations.
if Apple could get an A12X perhaps 40% faster than this A11, then with those extra instructions, that could work out about as well as a mid range i5 low power mobile chip for much less money that Apple pays Intel.
i could see that working.
Apple will make the switch, when they feel that the time has come, and whoever wants to stay relevant will have to do the same, or will lose out the most powerful PC platform. And this is not fanboy talk here: the ARM64 architecture has way more potential than Intel's x64 architecture. Intel would have to create a new, binary incompatible architecture, to catch up to Apple and lacks the software, the OS and the customers.
The problem is that Apple can only do this for the lower end x86 chips. Don’t be fooled into thinking that the A series can be jacked up to a Desktop i7. One reason why Apple has been so successful for years now was because ARM was starting at a pretty low level to begin with. That’s because no one cared to produce a more powerful device. When Apple decided to, there was a lot of low hanging fruit. Now Apple is stretching more to get more fruit. We see the improvement this year -25% increase in performance for the high performance cores. By previous standards, that’s not much. And with their own GPU, just 30%. I’m sure they have their reasons, and maybe next year, specs will improve more.
but to get to the level of Desktop chips, with their 100-140,watt ratings, is a different thing. You can’t just pour power into a chip and watch it zoom. It has to be designed for that. I’m not saying Apple can’t do it, but that would be an entirely different direction for them. I can possibly see Apple modifying their SoC, and using two. That could work.
The lower improvement this year is likely linked to the restriction in the power enveloppe linked to the addition of the other cores. More cores means heat dissipation is harder and more heat generated (even if they're much smaller). That's why CPU with a lot of cores often have a lower max clock. Not to mention the SOC is getting really crowded with a hell of a lot of stuff that may be working while the CPU also is working.
So, I'd argue that this is the main reason we didn't get say 40% this year in the IPC.
But, considering that the SOC is doing less and less tasks that are directly user driven (like UI) and more and more that are either going in the background , or have specialized processing (AI, all those communications going on with external devices and internal sensors). The high performance cores are so powerful these days that waking them up for background tasks that run near constantly would be a battery killer.
I think its obvious Apple thinks they've got the main thread covered already and they need to offload those functions somewhere else. Contrary to Android were the other cores seem to woefully underused anywhere but in benchmarks, Apple by controlling the OS and the HW can use those side resources fully.
We don’t know if that’s true. I tend to doubt it. Let’s look at the A9X vs the A10X. I’ve done that here before. The A9X is 145 square mm at 16nm. The A10X is 96 square mm at 10 nm. Yet, they were able to put an extra, large, high performance core and another high efficiency core on board.
we don’t yet know the size of the A11 die, but what’s the size compared to last year’s A10 die? If the difference is about the same, then there plenty of room for the extra, small, high efficiency cores, without affecting anything they may do for the high performance cores. I’m just wondering why so many high efficiency cores. Obviously Apple finds them to be very useful. Bluetooth I can figure out why. These cores were being used for low power use, and how many cores do you really need for that?
one thing that I’m interested in finding out is what Apple has done with the GPU. It’s only 30% better in performance, where every year it’s at least 50% better. This is Apple’s own GPU. But normally, the smartphone variant has 6 cores, and this has 3. So, depending on how much silicon each core takes up, the result is either a heck of a lot better per core, or meh, because each core is so much larger.
i am eagerly awaiting the die photos, and anandtech’s analysis.
I got a 404 on that, so try again. From what I know of that, it’s a development fab, not a production fab. When we speak of fabs, we talk about production fabs.
Ya know... It really doesn't matter how anybody spins this. It is remarkable and it is a game changer. The wall between laptops and mobile devices continues to crumble.
By adding a keyboard, pointer and file system to the iPad Pro Apple has already challenged low and medium powered laptops. All they really need now is: 1) A mouse or touchpad replacing the pencil/pointer and let the pencil serve for drawing and markup. 2) Replace the lightening connector with Thunderbolt/USB-C.
At that point, the MacBook and MacBook Airs would be obsolete and irrelevant.
I think this is more likely what Apple might do, rather than port macOS to their A-series chips. A laptop that is very, very lightweight, very fast, runs a simple and elegant operating system which is already used by 100s of millions of people. Isn't that more likely? This way they can continue to sell Intel computers at a premium for people who require macOS (which isn't a growing segment of the population but rather a niche use case for power users, which Apple can exploit beautifully with machines and an OS for their needs).
Regarding the pointer, all they need is a touchpad that mimics the shape of the screen, then wherever you place a finger, it appears as a "touch" by blurring a finger sized shape on the screen in the same location. No arrow or other pointer needed, the OS is already designed around a "touch" which can be mimicked with a touchpad. The pointer doesn't float, it only appears when you touch the touchpad, just like iOS and the way it receives input. No need to train people on the new OS, it's not new, it's simply the same with additional pointing help - we're already some way there with tvOS and it's input device and paradigms. Imagine a laptop like this, it'd sell way more than laptops with macOS on them.
There's no need to or desire to "port macOS to their A-series chips". First, MacOS was ALREADY ported to the A-Series chips. That's where iOS came from. But, more importantly, all Apple has to do in order to fulfill their promise of making the iPad Pro a laptop killer is add a mouse or touchpad. Everything else is already there: the keyboard, the file system, the pointer and an actually more powerful processor than that of the MacBook. (And, at some point, improve connectivity & expandibility by switching from a lightening port to a thunderbolt.)
You know, it’s the full macOS Desktop they want, with regular macOS apps.
Huh? Who wants it? And why? iOS can already run the most commonly used MacOS apps -- or valid substitutes. OK, so it won't run high end photo editing software -- at least not for a long time. <shrug> Most people don't even know what those apps are -- or care.
But, an iPad that is as efficient at maintaining a calendar, generating a presentation, producing a term paper or maintaining spreadsheet as a MacBook -- or watching YouTube....
No, the MacBook is going to same place as the iPod...
Man, you’re of it. There are lots of people who would want this. It’s been talked about for years. I know a lot of people who would want one. I would buy one.
As long as they are wishing for unicorn ponies from Uncle Tim they can also wish for the xMac.
It doesn’t matter. If Apple did produce this, there would be people lining up in the street. I’m talking about interest levels, not whether Apple would make it.
But can the amazing multithreaded Geekbench performance be sustained long term, or will the Apple A11 chip throttle, since ALL cores are active with this new chip?
Perhaps the amazing multitasking performance can only be sustained for a few minutes before the phone overheats, or, maybe it kicks butt all around.
Comments
do you have an iPad Pro 12.9”? Because I have last year’s, and this year’s. There are a lot of things I can do with it, now that it’s large enough, and powerful enough, that before were doable, but felt too cramped doing. But, despite that, there are going to be a lot of people who won’t want one. You have to wrap your head around that, because even if Apple did want to kill the laptop, unless their customers also want to, it’s not happening. And right now, it ain’t happening.
We don’t know if that’s true. I tend to doubt it. Let’s look at the A9X vs the A10X. I’ve done that here before. The A9X is 145 square mm at 16nm. The A10X is 96 square mm at 10 nm. Yet, they were able to put an extra, large, high performance core and another high efficiency core on board.
we don’t yet know the size of the A11 die, but what’s the size compared to last year’s A10 die? If the difference is about the same, then there plenty of room for the extra, small, high efficiency cores, without affecting anything they may do for the high performance cores. I’m just wondering why so many high efficiency cores. Obviously Apple finds them to be very useful. Bluetooth I can figure out why. These cores were being used for low power use, and how many cores do you really need for that?
one thing that I’m interested in finding out is what Apple has done with the GPU. It’s only 30% better in performance, where every year it’s at least 50% better. This is Apple’s own GPU. But normally, the smartphone variant has 6 cores, and this has 3. So, depending on how much silicon each core takes up, the result is either a heck of a lot better per core, or meh, because each core is so much larger.
i am eagerly awaiting the die photos, and anandtech’s analysis.
It doesn’t matter. If Apple did produce this, there would be people lining up in the street. I’m talking about interest levels, not whether Apple would make it.