And note: you didn't answer my question. I asked you if Apple was going to make a range of CPUs that meet a range of price, performance and application needs. That is what Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTEK all do and have been doing for DECADES. That is what Apple has never done at any time and there isn't a bit of evidence that they are capable of it.
I guess if you ignore the fact that they're using that EXACT strategy for pricing and positioning the different models of iPhones and iPads in the market
And I guess you are doing your level best to ignore my main argument. Mobile is not PC
Move the goalposts much? I didn't realize that Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm made PCs. You were talking about a wide range of CPUs for different needs, not complete devices. And Apple does indeed have different A processors for different needs. Even if it's currently only on mobile, there's no reason to believe they won't use the exact same strategy when creating new CPUs for desktop.
And note: you didn't answer my question. I asked you if Apple was going to make a range of CPUs that meet a range of price, performance and application needs. That is what Intel, AMD, Qualcomm, Samsung and MediaTEK all do and have been doing for DECADES. That is what Apple has never done at any time and there isn't a bit of evidence that they are capable of it.
I guess if you ignore the fact that they're using that EXACT strategy for pricing and positioning the different models of iPhones and iPads in the market
And I guess you are doing your level best to ignore my main argument. Mobile is not PC
Move the goalposts much? I didn't realize that Intel, AMD, and Qualcomm made PCs. You were talking about a wide range of CPUs for different needs, not complete devices. And Apple does indeed have different A processors for different needs. Even if it's currently only on mobile, there's no reason to believe they won't use the exact same strategy when creating new CPUs for desktop.
Exactly, they have indeed usually used Ax SoCs in iPhone and usually AxX (and now Z) in iPads, which usually have extra GPU cores to accommodate the larger screen. Since they already go to that trouble for some extra pixels in a slightly larger form factor, it is confounding that some people can't see that they will also extrapolate the same logic and scale for even larger form factors and processing needs, particularly since … uhh … Mobile is not PC, well maybe unless one is fixated on using mobile SoCs in a PC. Of course Apple has had its share of mistakes in the past, but not many really dumb ones.
Intel is blowing it, but AMD is making x86 relevant again. AMD might be the next Intel at the pace they’re going.
Intel is preparing to strike back. Right now Intel is stuck on an old process (14nm) and an old core design (Skylake) across many product lines. But they are slowly clawing their way back. Tiger Lake in laptops and Rocket Lake on the desktop could be a turning point in Intel's competition with AMD. Both products use the long-delayed Willow Cove core, which should make Intel much more competitive with AMD. I don't expect AMD to be wiped out the way they were when Intel came out with Core, but AMD is going to find some very still competition. It's not going to be a cakewalk. It is going to be great for consumers, though -- we might see some real, prolonged competition between Intel and AMD.
But I doubt either will be competitive with Apple Silicon. Apple would have known that their first Apple Silicon MacBooks would be competing against Tiger Lake, and so I'll bet Apple know that they can beat Tiger Lake. And really, they should be able to --- Apple Silicon will be on TSMC 5nm (analogous to Intel's non-existent 7nm process) while Tiger Lake will be on Intel's 10nm process (analogous to TSMC 7nm). And we already know from analysis by Anandtech that Apple's core design is far wider than Intel's, with higher IPC.
Intel's 10nm jump won't be fully there for 18 months. AMD's 5nm path will already be well underway, across its entire lineup. AMD stock will be double it's price now in twelve months or less.
I have no idea what linuxplatform is smoking, but when I go for a coffee almost anywhere here in Prague, I can usually see even one or two PC laptops along all the iPads and MacBooks. I can see a guy playing some game on his whatever branded Android phone in public transport, all around the others holding their iPhones. Or when I get the express city train and heading thru wagons to the dining car.. I can see some new PC laptops too, but all the types and generations of MacBooks prevailing. Hmmm, this MacBook Pro guy is running Cinema 4D on Windows.. is that native boot or?.... Oh, app switcher and there goes Safari with familiar ambient Here I'm talking about relatively poor country in comparison to the west ! What makes PC sales (and usage) so high, are the employees of big corporations. But they are also the people at home - and that's it.
Linuxplatform guy is repeatedly highlighting the expensiveness of the Mac. I would say otherwise! For me, the Mac is less expensive, than almost any PC, due to it's top value preservation. Let me example.. I'm forced to use companys windows PC at work. My wife in another company too. Both companies are buying tons of new laptops all the time.. Lenovo, Dell, whatever. They break alot and maintaining them is not cost efficient for long. Here are the sales! One year old PC notebook (unless some gaming laptops) sells for near nothing. It goes to the landfill with primitive failures. I bought my MacBook Air early 2014 second hand almost 6 years ago for some 800 USD. I can sell it today for 400 USD easily, but why should I? I'm astounded that my original battery still let me do basic stuff and browsing on wifi for 7+ hours after these years, the display lid doesn't creak and hold still.. and my Mac supports actual macOS Catalina.
I should avoid talking in percents. Mac market is huge.. and with Apple Silicon comming, I believe it will grow on steroids! It's time for an upgrade and I'm going to be an early adopter of AS based Mac notebook. My next expensive, value retaining, Earth friendly computer.
You sure are wrong about a lot of fundamentals here.
You have no idea how the A14 — an unreleased iPhone chip — performs. But that doesn't even matter as those aren't going into Macs. Nobody has any clue how their actual Mac processors will perform yet, but the general consensus is there's no way they're not going to be competitive with if not outright surpass existing Intel chips. "Apple essentially acknowledges this" my ass, where did they say anything of the sort? "Apple's only needing to work on a single Ax processor a year" — again, wtf? Apple has already stated they have a whole family of Mac processors across the entire lineup to be revealed over the next two years. Not to mention they already develop several different chips every year for their various products. You're completely dismissing their efforts here based on a false premise, which invalidates most of what you're saying in this massive pile of comments.
Guys, you are going to need to take off the Apple-colored goggles for a second and ask yourselves: "Why do so many people buy Windows PCs instead of Macs and how will Apple adopting ARM change this?" instead of just presuming that 90% of Windows users are cheaper than dirt and not much smarter.
That's not the subject of the article being discussed. Maybe you need to re-read it? You're going on and on about costs and software compatibility and none of that has anything to do with anything in this article.
I say the industry will claim Apple is making a big mistake and those ARM processors will never equal the power of X86 processors although there is nothing stopping Apple from scaling up its ARM processors in core count while having a 5nm node that's more power-efficient and much denser for higher transistor count. There is already an ARM Ampere Altra processor that has 80 cores but costs over $5000. It's a beast of a processor for high-end use. See: https://amperecomputing.com/ampere-altra-industrys-first-80-core-server-processor-unveiled/
So if anyone is going to BS about how no ARM processor can touch an X86 processor, they're lying. I don't know about how Apple Silicon is going to handle GPU processing but I heard Apple is going to be building discrete ARM GPUs along with SoC ARM processors with integrated GPUs. Amazon is using ARM-powered servers on AWS that are equal to their X86 counterparts and require far less cooling. See: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/307498-amazon-launches-a-killer-arm-server-chip-with-the-graviton2
There may be some advantage to having X86 on desktops that have huge amounts of cooling and high-wattage power supplies, but Apple Silicon is going to have a huge advantage when it comes to laptops due to lower TDP and longer battery life. There are going to be plenty of naysayers claiming Apple doesn't know anything about high-end processors or gaming GPUs and such but any company with enough money can at least try to figure it out if the incentive is there. In Apple's case, it's all about profits and they're fed up with paying Intel for sub-par processors. Yeah, let the naysayers believe Apple will fail because that's what the Apple naysayers always believe when Apple brings something new to the table.
Anyway, time will tell if Apple is making a huge mistake moving to Apple Silicon, but I don't think they are. It's about time for ARM processors to shine for consumer use and possibly beyond. I can't wait to get an Apple Silicon Mac later this year. I think I'm done with Intel processor Macs but I'll wait and see how well Apple Silicon Macs perform. I'll still keep my older Intel Macs so I'm not going to be backed into any corner.
I'm a multi-platform software developer, with decades of experience. Yes, Apple can throw lots of transistors to get lots and lots of their custom cores like you mentioned for number of cores, but that makes sense only for a very limited number of use-cases: the typical desktop application with 64 cores (or more, or even 8) is completely unable to make good use of them, if any at all. Huge core counts make great sense with embarrassingly-parallel workloads like raytracing and some other things where there's not much sharing of data between cores, and they share the same instructions for a long period of time that are executed.
For this reason, Apple has had fewer cores in their A series chips than the typical Android smartphones/tablets, but they've focused on making them faster in single-threaded cases, because that's the majority of software in practice: almost always a single thread in use, with minor I/O threads occasionally, because there are too many dependencies between compute A to choose which B needs to be done, etc. that doesn't work with more cores. For more information, search "Amdahl's Law" to understand better. It's quite common that throwing more cores at a task will make it take LONGER!
That said, I've been observing the GeekBench and other benchmark scores for A series processors for a number of years and wondering when Apple would announce a switch, since they've been competing with Intel processors in a phone power/heat envelope, and I've been wondering when they'd push such CPUs (or derivatives) into laptops/desktops/Mac Pro configurations, with power usage being up over what they've had for their mobile devices, but lower than Intel processors.
Agree with this. Don't think Intel is going anywhere soon, but if you have stock I think now is a good time to sell. Intel is vulnerable right now.
There's a lot of laziness and content out there right now. Apple Silicon is going to wake a few business units up at MS and Intel, at least it better for their sake.
This isn't true at all. It doesn't solve the main reason why PC users don't buy Macs.
I think you missed the point here. This really has nothing to do with Apple gaining sales or users, it has more to do with Apple awakening OEMs from their x86-64 induced comas. The writer opines that Apple Silicon will demonstrate just how powerful and efficient ARM-based computers can be while running a real traditional operating system.
This, if anything, will cause a lot of OEMs to take note and wonder why Microsoft hasn't been able to do the same with Windows as Apple has done with macOS... and should light a fire under Microsoft's ass to get ARM-based Windows up to par. Apple's DTK, which runs the iPad Pro SoC (A12Z), is completely capable of translating and executing applications compiled for Intel-based Macs with a slight performance hit. That's a "mobile" ARM-based SoC running native x68-64 code!!! With very usable real world performance. "Why hasn't Microsoft been able to do the same with WindARM? Why is it such a clunky incompatible mess?", they'll ask.
Also, Apple Silicon will essentially allow them to make Mac form factors and have specs that other OEMs will not be able to reproduce with WIntel-based systems.
If the Apple Silicon ran x86-64 code without translation, it would be an emulator. Instead, the majority of the code is translated from x86-64 into ARM instructions during installation, which will definitely slow down the usual installation: the DTK CPU doesn't run anything else natively. That being said, with the available information, it suggests Apple has Rosetta 2.0 performing rather well.
Intel is blowing it, but AMD is making x86 relevant again. AMD might be the next Intel at the pace they’re going.
Intel is preparing to strike back. Right now Intel is stuck on an old process (14nm) and an old core design (Skylake) across many product lines. But they are slowly clawing their way back. Tiger Lake in laptops and Rocket Lake on the desktop could be a turning point in Intel's competition with AMD. Both products use the long-delayed Willow Cove core, which should make Intel much more competitive with AMD. I don't expect AMD to be wiped out the way they were when Intel came out with Core, but AMD is going to find some very still competition. It's not going to be a cakewalk. It is going to be great for consumers, though -- we might see some real, prolonged competition between Intel and AMD.
But I doubt either will be competitive with Apple Silicon. Apple would have known that their first Apple Silicon MacBooks would be competing against Tiger Lake, and so I'll bet Apple know that they can beat Tiger Lake. And really, they should be able to --- Apple Silicon will be on TSMC 5nm (analogous to Intel's non-existent 7nm process) while Tiger Lake will be on Intel's 10nm process (analogous to TSMC 7nm). And we already know from analysis by Anandtech that Apple's core design is far wider than Intel's, with higher IPC.
Intel's 10nm jump won't be fully there for 18 months. AMD's 5nm path will already be well underway, across its entire lineup. AMD stock will be double it's price now in twelve months or less.
If AMD's stock price doubles it will because of a stock market bubble, not because of rational valuation of AMD.
The area where Intel's 10nm jump is most lagging is the desktop. 10nm is already here in laptops (Ice Lake) and Tiger Lake will be arriving by the end of 2020. Ice Lake Xeons will also be arriving by the end of 2020. It's the mobile and server markets where performance/watt matters most, and so 10nm is going first where it's needed most. So that 18 month argument is obscuring some pretty important details.
As for the desktop, AMD's current advantage may be the biggest it ever experiences. Not only is AMD leading by a process node, they are also competing against a 5 year old core design (Skylake). Intel's Core designs didn't stagnate so long because Intel ran out of ideas -- it stalled because Intel's core designs have historically been wedded to specific process nodes. So when 10nm stalled, it stalled everything. Intel has now decoupled core design from process. This means that for the desktop, Intel will be brining out Rocket Lake -- Willow Cove on 14nm. Here are rumors about Willow Cove and successors https://wccftech.com/intel-next-gen-10nm-willow-cove-golden-cove-ocean-cove-ipc-increase-rumor/ .
My point here --- yes, AMD will have a process lead for a while. But it won't be any bigger than what they have now on the desktop. And Intel is going to bring some serious improvements to their Core design. Even if AMD can match those improvements (a huge IF), AMD will not be improving their competitive relative to the margin that exists now.
AMD may very well gain some market share, but if Intel thinks it's too much, Intel can slash prices. And because Intel fabs their own chips, they can cut into manufacturing margin if they have to. AMD can't do that because TSMC will want their profit margin no matter what.
Intel is not doomed. AMD is not doomed. Neither is going to run away with this market. They are going to stand toe to toe and slug it out for the foreseeable future.
The big winner is the consumer. Buy stock in yourself!
How many PC laptops were sold last year? 170 - 190 million or so? And Apple maybe 15 million? But Apple also sold about 50 million iPads. So Apple really has about 1/3 of the portable computing market share, and that is big enough to indicate that there is a truly MASS market for their products and services. It’s not a niche. There may always be a good sized market for certain niches but improving the battery life and speed of its portable products and its ability to refresh its products more frequently can only make them more attractive and sell even better IMO.
In terms of Apple Silicon I'd throw in iPhones and other Apple products into that number to see the shear vastness of the scalable architecture they've been working on for over a decade.
Of course, that will also reduce their percentage of the entire market when you consider every categorical device running an Android-baed OS (and other OSes), but that doesn't matter when you look at how many products running Apple silicon there are. Those that can't see how Apple is going to reduce internal HW costs and increase performance with this move are effectively blind since then those with myopia can now see the benefit after Apple announced and explained the transition at WWDC 2020.
I'm happy that the turn is finally upon us. I've been waiting years for it happen—I knew it was only a matter of time.
I have no idea what linuxplatform is smoking, but when I go for a coffee almost anywhere here in Prague, I can usually see even one or two PC laptops along all the iPads and MacBooks. I can see a guy playing some game on his whatever branded Android phone in public transport, all around the others holding their iPhones. Or when I get the express city train and heading thru wagons to the dining car.. I can see some new PC laptops too, but all the types and generations of MacBooks prevailing. Hmmm, this MacBook Pro guy is running Cinema 4D on Windows.. is that native boot or?.... Oh, app switcher and there goes Safari with familiar ambient Here I'm talking about relatively poor country in comparison to the west ! What makes PC sales (and usage) so high, are the employees of big corporations. But they are also the people at home - and that's it.
Linuxplatform guy is repeatedly highlighting the expensiveness of the Mac. I would say otherwise! For me, the Mac is less expensive, than almost any PC, due to it's top value preservation. Let me example.. I'm forced to use companys windows PC at work. My wife in another company too. Both companies are buying tons of new laptops all the time.. Lenovo, Dell, whatever. They break alot and maintaining them is not cost efficient for long. Here are the sales! One year old PC notebook (unless some gaming laptops) sells for near nothing. It goes to the landfill with primitive failures. I bought my MacBook Air early 2014 second hand almost 6 years ago for some 800 USD. I can sell it today for 400 USD easily, but why should I? I'm astounded that my original battery still let me do basic stuff and browsing on wifi for 7+ hours after these years, the display lid doesn't creak and hold still.. and my Mac supports actual macOS Catalina.
I should avoid talking in percents. Mac market is huge.. and with Apple Silicon comming, I believe it will grow on steroids! It's time for an upgrade and I'm going to be an early adopter of AS based Mac notebook. My next expensive, value retaining, Earth friendly computer.
Absolutely. The upfront cost is only half the story:
Previn also found that macOS users and devices require 7 engineers to support 200,000 macOS devices vs. 20 engineers to support 200,000 Windows devices.
But I have found one way to double your support costs for a Mac overnight: run Windows under Bootcamp.
I am hoping that Apple Silicon results in more frequent updates to their Mac products, especially the Mac mini.
And his name shall be a killing word … or something like that.
My guess is that Macs will update at a slower frequency than the iPads which are updated at a slower frequency than the iPhones. People don’t upgrade laptops as fast, and if Apple upgrade them to quickly then folk will complain that the company is obseleting their computers because greed, pink agenda, loyalty to Sith Lords etc.
LOL Linuxplatform got his ass handed to him. Ouch!
LinuxPlatform starts with what he wants to be true, then builds an argument devoid of facts or research to support it. This is why he wanders around this forum, spouting nonsense, ignoring all attempts to set him straight, carrying the shredded remains of his ass in his hands.
The thing that I think JLG gets wrong is the idea that Wintel needs to be competitive with the Mac.
We see from the smartphone world that Android doesn't need to be competitive with the iPhone in terms of SOC performance. Similarly, I think the Mac could enjoy persistent, large performance (or performance/watt) advantages over Wintel, and it wouldn't mean the end of Wintel domination. It might mean that Mac marketshare rises from 7% to 10, 15, or maybe even 20% (huge gains for Apple!) but Windows would remain dominant in terms of unit volume (maybe not in terms of profit, though).
I expect Apple to dominate the high-end, but not the whole market.
The real threat to Intel, frankly, is Amazon. If Amazon senior management sees what Apple is doing, they might put even more support behind Graviton. If Amazon were to displace x86 from AWS in large volumes, that would be very painful for Intel.
I think JLG would agree with you. What’s he’s talking about is the knock-on effect of Apple moving to ASi. One of these effects is Amazon looking more closely at putting more effort into ARM.
This is why he wanders around this forum, spouting nonsense, ignoring all attempts to set him straight, carrying the shredded remains of his ass in his hands.
Microsoft gave up making smartphones and mobile software early on. Apple will give up the cpu business in couple of years when they realize intel and amd are light years ahead in terms of performance. Apple are attempting to control everything byt with the cpu this will be a failure similar to PowerPC.
on another note, I’m still waiting for the 720p webcam to be replace in the MacBook Pro, and the missing ports. shame on them for crippling the Mac
“On another note” -> On a completely unrelated trolling note, you mean?
And your first paragraph makes no sense. The situation is completely different. First of all, Apple didn’t make PowerPC chips, they bought them. Secondly their SoC business is highly, highly advantageous to Intel, in fact they have demonstrated to be ahead of them on many aspects. Thirdly, they are a 1.5 trillion dollar company now and they have the ability to pull this off & apply their SoC business to all their products. Lastly: who’s gonna be right, this 1.5 trillion dollar company and over a decade of experience with making SoC’s, or some anonymous dude on AppleInsider? They know way more than you and I.
Agree with this. Don't think Intel is going anywhere soon, but if you have stock I think now is a good time to sell. Intel is vulnerable right now.
There's a lot of laziness and content out there right now. Apple Silicon is going to wake a few business units up at MS and Intel, at least it better for their sake.
This isn't true at all. It doesn't solve the main reason why PC users don't buy Macs.
1. Macs cost twice as much as Windows PCs with comparable specs. This means that ChromeOS - whose devices are cheaper than Windows ones - is a bigger threat, and ChromeOS already runs on both ARM and x86-64, even the Linux and Android apps.
2. Macs can't run a ton of software that Windows can, including a lot of specialty and enterprise software, with gaming being a particular example. When Macs switch to ARM, this is going to get worse, not better.
A lot of people seem to think that Apple's clout in mobile translates to PC. It doesn't. No one is going to run out and buy a MacBook that costs twice as much as a Dell and can't run the software that he needs for work or the video games that he wants to play just because it has the same processor in it that is in the iPhone and iPad (which most likely he may not own anyway because Android has an 65% market share in tablets and 80% market share overall). The people who believe this are Apple fans who own and use Apple products anyway and only deal with Windows and Android devices for review purposes. (Yes, this includes most "tech" writers, who regularly get basic stuff about non-Apple products wrong.)
And it isn't laziness. Real tech problems that Apple doesn't have to deal with because Apple only has to support one platform isn't laziness. Apple doesn't have to worry about backwards compatibility because Apple doesn't have an enterprise software unit. Microsoft does have an enterprise software unit, it is a massive part of its business, and Microsoft can't tell those customers that they aren't going to support business applications that their customers wrote in 1997 that will never be meaningfully updated because it will cost them tons of money without generating them a bit of revenue.
As for Intel, they make a wide range of processors - i3, i5, i7, i9, Xeon - that allows their OEMs to make devices at all price points that they need to update at the same time. It is a completely different challenge from Apple's only needing to work on a single Ax processor a year. That is the same with Qualcomm: they have multiple 2x, 4x, 6x and 7x processors a year as well as their flagship 8x.
The hardware and software companies that support a range of devices, platforms and price points all have a harder job than Apple. They can't do what Apple does, but based on the issues that Apple has at times, Apple can't do what they do either.
Not sure what the techno-blathering in the comments section is all about but in losing their biggest high-performance mobile customer (Apple) & their biggest data-centre customer (Amazon) to in-house silicon it’s unclear if Intel will be profitable enough to catch TSMC’s fabrication advances.
I’m pretty sure running legacy corporate Windows Apps in a Rosetta2 Windows VM at 72% native performance is perfectly viable as any real work is done by macOS natives anyway. Remember, Macs are purchased as productivity machines by people who know what that is, not as dogmatic corporate desk accessories.
Jobs used to quote Alan Kay “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware” - I guess it’s finally happening.
Apple Silicon plus macOS, Swift, Metal, and the rest of the stack now provides the most solid and technically advanced (relative to the rest of the industry) foundation in the history of the Mac. The last time the Mac, as an integrated hardware-software platform, was this advanced relative to the rest of the industry might have been when the Mac IIci was introduced.
I can't believe that Apple would have spent so much time and money investing in this strong foundation to just punt on the software that runs on this platform. I anticipate that we are going to see a commitment to building out the app ecosystem on the Mac in a way that we haven't seen in decades. I'm very excited by what Apple Silicon means for the Mac!
"Apple Silicon plus macOS, Swift, Metal and the rest of the stack now provides the most solid and technically advanced (relative to the rest of the industry) foundation in the history of the Mac."
Even if that is true, it doesn't matter as much as you think because of the price of Apple hardware and the general unavailability of most of Windows software on a Mac. As I have said before, you guys are looking at this all wrong. You are thinking: "this makes me more excited than ever to be a Mac owner!" As well it should. But that isn't the issue. The real issue is: "why does this make me - as a Windows user - any more likely to buy a Mac than I was before?"
For you, who loves the Apple ecosystem, the Mac being on the same hardware/software platform as the iPad and iPhone is outstanding. But if you don't own an iPhone (15% market share) or iPad (35% market share) in the first place ... or if you own an iPhone/iPad but also have a Windows computer (as most do!) then why do you care? You don't. You only care about how much your device costs and whether it runs what you want it to run as you did before.
As far as punting on the software that runs on the platform ... when has Apple ever been a software company? They aren't. They are a hardware company. They get involved in software only inasmuch as the competition forces them to. You can basically say that software is to Apple what hardware is to Google.
Also, I can answer your question. Apple doesn't care about competing with Wintel as much as you think. (If they did, it would be a crushing loss. At no time have Macs ever had more than 15% market share, and at times it has been less than 3% market share. More Chromebooks sell than Macs.) Apple cares more about platform convergence. Unifying iOS,iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS and HomeKit. Instead of chasing the people who don't use their products, giving the people who do use their products the best possible experience and performance. People who use Windows (and to a lesser extent Android, ChromeOS and Linux) will be irrelevant. But people who use Apple hardware will be VERY satisfied and much less likely to jump ship.
Apple and Wintel will diverge. The hardware will diverge further. The software will diverge. Apple people will become totally different from Windows people. They may even work in different industries, as you literally may not be able to do the work in an Apple shop on a Wintel machine and vice versa. And Apple is totally fine if that happens.
Hey guy, throughout your rants, you repeat one thing over and over, the importance of the Wintel 'market share'. We've been down this road over and over when it comes to an Apple product versus something else. It isn't as straight forward as just quoting percentages. Just think of the relative percentages of iPhones versus Android phones. That doesn't translate into a comparison of like-pricing/profitability, like-users, like-usage, and certainly not like-income levels. Statistics can and are used to prove anything anyone wants. It doesn't mean they've proved anything.
Comments
Intel's 10nm jump won't be fully there for 18 months. AMD's 5nm path will already be well underway, across its entire lineup. AMD stock will be double it's price now in twelve months or less.
Here I'm talking about relatively poor country in comparison to the west !
What makes PC sales (and usage) so high, are the employees of big corporations. But they are also the people at home - and that's it.
Linuxplatform guy is repeatedly highlighting the expensiveness of the Mac. I would say otherwise! For me, the Mac is less expensive, than almost any PC, due to it's top value preservation. Let me example.. I'm forced to use companys windows PC at work. My wife in another company too. Both companies are buying tons of new laptops all the time.. Lenovo, Dell, whatever. They break alot and maintaining them is not cost efficient for long. Here are the sales! One year old PC notebook (unless some gaming laptops) sells for near nothing. It goes to the landfill with primitive failures.
I bought my MacBook Air early 2014 second hand almost 6 years ago for some 800 USD. I can sell it today for 400 USD easily, but why should I? I'm astounded that my original battery still let me do basic stuff and browsing on wifi for 7+ hours after these years, the display lid doesn't creak and hold still.. and my Mac supports actual macOS Catalina.
I should avoid talking in percents. Mac market is huge.. and with Apple Silicon comming, I believe it will grow on steroids! It's time for an upgrade and I'm going to be an early adopter of AS based Mac notebook. My next expensive, value retaining, Earth friendly computer.
You have no idea how the A14 — an unreleased iPhone chip — performs. But that doesn't even matter as those aren't going into Macs. Nobody has any clue how their actual Mac processors will perform yet, but the general consensus is there's no way they're not going to be competitive with if not outright surpass existing Intel chips. "Apple essentially acknowledges this" my ass, where did they say anything of the sort? "Apple's only needing to work on a single Ax processor a year" — again, wtf? Apple has already stated they have a whole family of Mac processors across the entire lineup to be revealed over the next two years. Not to mention they already develop several different chips every year for their various products. You're completely dismissing their efforts here based on a false premise, which invalidates most of what you're saying in this massive pile of comments.
That's not the subject of the article being discussed. Maybe you need to re-read it? You're going on and on about costs and software compatibility and none of that has anything to do with anything in this article.
For this reason, Apple has had fewer cores in their A series chips than the typical Android smartphones/tablets, but they've focused on making them faster in single-threaded cases, because that's the majority of software in practice: almost always a single thread in use, with minor I/O threads occasionally, because there are too many dependencies between compute A to choose which B needs to be done, etc. that doesn't work with more cores. For more information, search "Amdahl's Law" to understand better. It's quite common that throwing more cores at a task will make it take LONGER!
That said, I've been observing the GeekBench and other benchmark scores for A series processors for a number of years and wondering when Apple would announce a switch, since they've been competing with Intel processors in a phone power/heat envelope, and I've been wondering when they'd push such CPUs (or derivatives) into laptops/desktops/Mac Pro configurations, with power usage being up over what they've had for their mobile devices, but lower than Intel processors.
The area where Intel's 10nm jump is most lagging is the desktop. 10nm is already here in laptops (Ice Lake) and Tiger Lake will be arriving by the end of 2020. Ice Lake Xeons will also be arriving by the end of 2020. It's the mobile and server markets where performance/watt matters most, and so 10nm is going first where it's needed most. So that 18 month argument is obscuring some pretty important details.
As for the desktop, AMD's current advantage may be the biggest it ever experiences. Not only is AMD leading by a process node, they are also competing against a 5 year old core design (Skylake). Intel's Core designs didn't stagnate so long because Intel ran out of ideas -- it stalled because Intel's core designs have historically been wedded to specific process nodes. So when 10nm stalled, it stalled everything. Intel has now decoupled core design from process. This means that for the desktop, Intel will be brining out Rocket Lake -- Willow Cove on 14nm. Here are rumors about Willow Cove and successors https://wccftech.com/intel-next-gen-10nm-willow-cove-golden-cove-ocean-cove-ipc-increase-rumor/ .
My point here --- yes, AMD will have a process lead for a while. But it won't be any bigger than what they have now on the desktop. And Intel is going to bring some serious improvements to their Core design. Even if AMD can match those improvements (a huge IF), AMD will not be improving their competitive relative to the margin that exists now.
AMD may very well gain some market share, but if Intel thinks it's too much, Intel can slash prices. And because Intel fabs their own chips, they can cut into manufacturing margin if they have to. AMD can't do that because TSMC will want their profit margin no matter what.
Intel is not doomed. AMD is not doomed. Neither is going to run away with this market. They are going to stand toe to toe and slug it out for the foreseeable future.
The big winner is the consumer. Buy stock in yourself!
Of course, that will also reduce their percentage of the entire market when you consider every categorical device running an Android-baed OS (and other OSes), but that doesn't matter when you look at how many products running Apple silicon there are. Those that can't see how Apple is going to reduce internal HW costs and increase performance with this move are effectively blind since then those with myopia can now see the benefit after Apple announced and explained the transition at WWDC 2020.
I'm happy that the turn is finally upon us. I've been waiting years for it happen—I knew it was only a matter of time.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/ibm-cio-mac-users-perform-better-more-engaged-than-windows-users/
But I have found one way to double your support costs for a Mac overnight: run Windows under Bootcamp.
And his name shall be a killing word … or something like that.
My guess is that Macs will update at a slower frequency than the iPads which are updated at a slower frequency than the iPhones. People don’t upgrade laptops as fast, and if Apple upgrade them to quickly then folk will complain that the company is obseleting their computers because greed, pink agenda, loyalty to Sith Lords etc.
LinuxPlatform starts with what he wants to be true, then builds an argument devoid of facts or research to support it. This is why he wanders around this forum, spouting nonsense, ignoring all attempts to set him straight, carrying the shredded remains of his ass in his hands.
I’m pretty sure running legacy corporate Windows Apps in a Rosetta2 Windows VM at 72% native performance is perfectly viable as any real work is done by macOS natives anyway. Remember, Macs are purchased as productivity machines by people who know what that is, not as dogmatic corporate desk accessories.
Jobs used to quote Alan Kay “People who are really serious about software should make their own hardware” - I guess it’s finally happening.