I think there is a very significant difference between the situations in 2005 and now.
The processor transition in 2005 was forced by two factors which putted Appel onder huge pressure to find quick solutions: 1) Motorola announced that it wil stop supplying Apple with their RISC processors 2) The financial situation of Apple was far from good. It was not coincidence that Bill Gates and Microsoft were also involved.
IBM was supplying PowerPC chips, not Motorola. Motorola bailed long before that. Apple wasn't forced. The PowerPC roadmap was not good for laptops or desktops because of the cooling and power requirements. A G5 in a laptop was impossible and the fastest G5 required liquid cooling in a desktop. The Intel switch was not a quick solution because all versions of OS X were both native for Intel and PowerPC since 2000. Apple's financial situation was very strong in 2005 because the iMac and iPod were enormous successes. Apple was a very profitable company at that time. Microsoft's investment in Apple was back in 1997 and they mistakenly sold their Apple stock after the 5 year agreement. Microsoft had nothing to do with switching to Intel.
Obviously no one but Apple knows the answer to this. But I’m curious, what do you think the first Apple Silicone model will be? I’ve been wanting to purchase a MacBook Air but am holding off for now, since I would definitely prefer to go for an Apple Silicone one with a brand new design.
Unless these new products also feature, say, surgically enhanced breasts, it's silicon.
I’m blaming autocorrect for that one. Yup, autocorrect. Because I never make mistooks...
"Apple is championing this Apple silicon and you don't champion something by making its design be a copy of previous machine."
Apple did exactly that in 2006. The first Intel iMac and Intel MacBook Pro were clones of the iMac G5 and PowerBook G4 that they replaced. Why? Because they were a design that people loved! It worked.
Apple released the last iMac G5 in October 2005 and then replaced it with the Intel iMac in January 2006 with a model that was 3x faster. You could expect the same this time around. Apple could easily repeat history with a new Apple Silicon iMac and Apple Silicon MacBook Pro that exceed the performance of the Intel models. The keynote discussed the scalability of the A-chip and how they were working on a desktop-class chip. The development Intel Mac was an Intel Pentium 4, just like the development A-chip Mac mini is an existing A12Z. Apple released a much faster Intel Mac when the machines were ready. My iPad Pro (2018) with the 8-core A12X is faster than my 2015 2.8 quad i7 MacBook Pro.
Apple did not support PowerPC 'for years'. Don't expect the same with Intel. Apple cut off PowerPC support with Snow Leopard, only releasing PowerPC/Intel versions of Tiger and Leopard (Tiger being the first commercially available Intel version, but only shipped with the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro. Leopard was the first and only retail version of OS X for both PowerPC and Intel). You can likely expect the same with Big Sur and the version to follow Big Sur. After that, Intel support would likely be dropped in favor of Apple Silicon. You can also expect the Apple Silicon Macs to have more 'supported features' than the Intel Macs.
It would be awesome if the new Apple Silicon iMac would be available in Space Grey, and not only available on the 3-year-old iMac Pro, which is on its way out since it hasn't been updated in 3 years, and the new 2020 iMac 10-Core i9 beats the base model 10-Core Xeon.
As I recall the intel transition, we went from a loud locomotive sounding iMac G5 which was well laid out internally and an absolute doddle to open up, service and replace parts (it even had a set of diagnostic lights to help work out what was wrong), to the first intel iMac which was definitely quieter but was an absolute nightmare to open up and try to replace anything, even things like the PRAM battery. I don’t think it was noticeably faster though.
i also remember the transition to PowerPC. That memory is tied up in my transition to the PowerBook G3, the most amazing and incredible laptop on the market at that time. Nobody had anything like it. Before that I had been using an Apple Portable. While it too was ground breaking when launched, It was embarrassing and bad for posture lugging that thing around.
So what does those experiences back then lead to my prognostications of the ASi transition? I suspect in the ASi transition the iMac will become basically a giant iPad on a stick. Completely unable to be upgraded and can only be serviced by Apple, and probably forever in port poverty.
You can see some initial signs of this in Mac OS11. And performance may not be as great as people hope, as Apple only needs to beat intel.
But I also worry that the iOSification of the Mac will lead to reduced versatility and limitations in file management, services like printing and how well it plays in office networks. I can only hope some flows the other way to help iPad be more versatile.
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
I remember waiting eagerly for the PowerBook G5 announcement. For years. And years. And years.
There were a few leaked photos of the prototype taken in the corner of a dark industrial warehouse lift as I recall.
Looking back there might have been one or two limitations, but at least it had no port poverty.
... I can't tell if that's a joke or you're being serious. If you're selling portable computers with no portability then you're not selling portable computers.
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
He doesn't mean the Apple Silicon iMac will be a big iPad. He means it will look like an iPad Pro per the rumors. So, a 24" display with rounded display corners, thinner bezels, integrated components. Basically like the iMac 4K of today, which isn't user upgradeable without serious surgery, but in a much thinner frame with iPad Pro industrial design. No touchscreen layer. It will likely have Face ID, much improved front cam, instant on (or instant wake from standby, possibly different aluminum finishes, USBC/TB ports only, and of course much much better CPU performance than current, probably better GPU, and all at half the power consumption.
I bet Apple Silicon will outperform both AMD and Intel at every power consumption tier, or perhaps you can say that Apple Silicon will have a perf/watt of 2x over AMD and Intel. Eg, a 15 W Apple Silicon SoC will perform like a 30 W AMD APU. The big question will come down to whether they want to ship a 150 W to 250 W chip like AMD or Intel does. Doubtful. It's going to be 100 W or less, even for the Mac Pro. Both of them actually have 300 to 400 W server MCM package options, which Apple just isn't going to compete in.
And the Powerbook G5 is indeed a joke, but from my perspective, also funny from another angle. There are "laptops" with desktop hardware in it not that far removed from that Powerbook G5 picture. It's one those Homer Simpson "it's funny because it's true" comments. I used to carry a 17" HP laptop during that time frame that had desktop hardware and weighed 10 lbs. Suffice it to say, Apple is definitively not going to do this. It's going to be cool, quiet, but perform like these laptop monsters.
As great as 64-core sounds, it doesn’t mean it’s a better processor for the workstation.
The end goal for AMD is just lay a dozen more cores to outperform, while they’re winning the spec war, there are tons of things that hold them back: memory, stability, IPC...
I just wanted to push back on this notion that it will be hard for Apple to develop Apple Silicon that will outperform what's in the Mac Pro. It's really the easiest one. People only think it's hard because Intel has been the top dog so long and they are attributing the wrong reason why, as in they think it is because of some technical mountain that will be hard to climb, and Intel has had the right boots to do it.
Intel could achieve what they did because they had the best fabs in the world for about 3 decades running. That's an advantage that ca not be overcome with great chip design. Nobody could catch up or compete with Intel because they had the best fabs and were half node to a full node ahead all that time. Well, the tables are turned now. TSMC is a full node ahead. Anyone fabbing on TSMC N5 has a huge advantage over Intel and will be able to crush them in performance and power.
I'm am fully betting on Apple Silicon MacBooks to crush sales to students and people needing to work from home. However, Apple will need to set some reasonable prices to attract the cheapskates who are willing to settle for Chromebooks. Apple absolutely must gain laptop market share against Windows laptops running Intel processors. A powerful, super-slim MacBook design with all-day battery life should be extremely attractive to consumers. Apple better not blow this opportunity. It would be too much to hope for if Apple can upset the entire X86 processor laptop market with its Apple ARM processors. Those power-sucking Intel chips have just about hit a wall but the AMD chips have a much better chance.
The ARM chips used in the Developer's units are probably too expensive to use in a Chromebook killer, at least the $200 to $300 models. I don't know if Apple's going to ever go after the no profit business model. I think they are just going to use the iPad Air to cover that crowd and just add more functionality to iPad OS instead..
As I recall the intel transition, we went from a loud locomotive sounding iMac G5 which was well laid out internally and an absolute doddle to open up, service and replace parts (it even had a set of diagnostic lights to help work out what was wrong), to the first intel iMac which was definitely quieter but was an absolute nightmare to open up and try to replace anything, even things like the PRAM battery. I don’t think it was noticeably faster though.
i also remember the transition to PowerPC. That memory is tied up in my transition to the PowerBook G3, the most amazing and incredible laptop on the market at that time. Nobody had anything like it. Before that I had been using an Apple Portable. While it too was ground breaking when launched, It was embarrassing and bad for posture lugging that thing around.
So what does those experiences back then lead to my prognostications of the ASi transition? I suspect in the ASi transition the iMac will become basically a giant iPad on a stick. Completely unable to be upgraded and can only be serviced by Apple, and probably forever in port poverty.
You can see some initial signs of this in Mac OS11. And performance may not be as great as people hope, as Apple only needs to beat intel.
But I also worry that the iOSification of the Mac will lead to reduced versatility and limitations in file management, services like printing and how well it plays in office networks. I can only hope some flows the other way to help iPad be more versatile.
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
I remember waiting eagerly for the PowerBook G5 announcement. For years. And years. And years.
There were a few leaked photos of the prototype taken in the corner of a dark industrial warehouse lift as I recall.
Looking back there might have been one or two limitations, but at least it had no port poverty.
... I can't tell if that's a joke or you're being serious. If you're selling portable computers with no portability then you're not selling portable computers.
Having owned both the iMac G5 and the intel iMac, I liked the G5 better. The G5 was actually faster in some things but its downside was it was very noisy. While they looked similar the G5 was very easy to service and upgrade whereas the intel one was definitely not. A nightmare in fact. The G5 insides were neatly designed and laid out, the intel was a nightmare wire nest with a confusing logic board layout.
also the pulsing white ambient light in the iMac G5 when it was asleep was nice. Kind of like the MBA and MBP glowing logos of old.
By the next iMac probably being a giant iPad I mean it will be the same design philosophy as the iPad Pro: an squared off aluminium slab with a couple of USB cable ports and Face ID at the top, with a single legged stand. It would be thirty inches and weigh heaps. I did not dream I was implying it was something to carry around. I Also meant there would be no access or expansion possible without using an external case. I would prefer some ports in the stand as otherwise I could see the ports around the edge like an iPad so the cables stick out very unflatteringly. Ok for temporary connections but would suck if you had an external drive to boost capacity,
And yes. Was jesting about the PowerBook G5. Sheesh.
I think there is a very significant difference between the situations in 2005 and now.
The processor transition in 2005 was forced by two factors which putted Appel onder huge pressure to find quick solutions: 1) Motorola announced that it wil stop supplying Apple with their RISC processors 2) The financial situation of Apple was far from good. It was not coincidence that Bill Gates and Microsoft were also involved.
Today’s situation is completely different. In 2020 Apple is much more prepare for the new transition.
In all recent years, Apple has been working systematically and without pressure on the new own processor,. In this way they are able now to decide self, without any pressure from outside factors, when the new transition will occur. And for the today’s financial situation of Apple, I think there are no words for....
Nobody's saying that the parallels are a dependency. But, they exist, and they're clear.
Additionally: 1) IBM said that they'd be able to more than cover what Apple needed even without Motorola and... 2) In 2004-2005? Apple's bad years were well, well behind it at this point. Gates had zero to do with the Intel shift. In fact, NeXTStep had been running on Intel for about seven years at this point.
What IBM couldn't do, is the same thing that Intel isn't doing. It isn't keeping promises, and is stalling on power increases. I do agree that Apple has been involved in its own silicon for some time, though.
I don’t deny the parallels, I just tried to point it out why a transition was needed at all
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
He doesn't mean the Apple Silicon iMac will be a big iPad. He means it will look like an iPad Pro per the rumors. So, a 24" display with rounded display corners, thinner bezels, integrated components. Basically like the iMac 4K of today, which isn't user upgradeable without serious surgery, but in a much thinner frame with iPad Pro industrial design. No touchscreen layer. It will likely have Face ID, much improved front cam, instant on (or instant wake from standby, possibly different aluminum finishes, USBC/TB ports only, and of course much much better CPU performance than current, probably better GPU, and all at half the power consumption.
I bet Apple Silicon will outperform both AMD and Intel at every power consumption tier, or perhaps you can say that Apple Silicon will have a perf/watt of 2x over AMD and Intel. Eg, a 15 W Apple Silicon SoC will perform like a 30 W AMD APU. The big question will come down to whether they want to ship a 150 W to 250 W chip like AMD or Intel does. Doubtful. It's going to be 100 W or less, even for the Mac Pro. Both of them actually have 300 to 400 W server MCM package options, which Apple just isn't going to compete in.
And the Powerbook G5 is indeed a joke, but from my perspective, also funny from another angle. There are "laptops" with desktop hardware in it not that far removed from that Powerbook G5 picture. It's one those Homer Simpson "it's funny because it's true" comments. I used to carry a 17" HP laptop during that time frame that had desktop hardware and weighed 10 lbs. Suffice it to say, Apple is definitively not going to do this. It's going to be cool, quiet, but perform like these laptop monsters.
I understand he didn't mean that hence the quotation, whether it will get slim down remains to be seen. You obviously want to have RAM bay at least on the larger sibling, though.
There's also no reason to cut ports unless necessary. Most iMac remains to have nine of them, those with one more is all about modems.
As for those laptops...let's say if you can achieve 80% of the performance within 50% or less volume. I think most consumers (including many professionals) will make their choice for the latter. Surpassing larger boxes is great but not a requirement.
As great as 64-core sounds, it doesn’t mean it’s a better processor for the workstation.
The end goal for AMD is just lay a dozen more cores to outperform, while they’re winning the spec war, there are tons of things that hold them back: memory, stability, IPC...
I just wanted to push back on this notion that it will be hard for Apple to develop Apple Silicon that will outperform what's in the Mac Pro. It's really the easiest one. People only think it's hard because Intel has been the top dog so long and they are attributing the wrong reason why, as in they think it is because of some technical mountain that will be hard to climb, and Intel has had the right boots to do it.
Intel could achieve what they did because they had the best fabs in the world for about 3 decades running. That's an advantage that ca not be overcome with great chip design. Nobody could catch up or compete with Intel because they had the best fabs and were half node to a full node ahead all that time. Well, the tables are turned now. TSMC is a full node ahead. Anyone fabbing on TSMC N5 has a huge advantage over Intel and will be able to crush them in performance and power.
I do think it's easier than most people would predict. That said, IPC wise, Zen isn't having the upper hand against Skylake. The notion that "AMD will overtake everything" got overblown and core wars is going to end. Not that many people would buy a 64-core to begin with but it sure is a great show-piece.
I'm am fully betting on Apple Silicon MacBooks to crush sales to students and people needing to work from home. However, Apple will need to set some reasonable prices to attract the cheapskates who are willing to settle for Chromebooks. Apple absolutely must gain laptop market share against Windows laptops running Intel processors. A powerful, super-slim MacBook design with all-day battery life should be extremely attractive to consumers. Apple better not blow this opportunity. It would be too much to hope for if Apple can upset the entire X86 processor laptop market with its Apple ARM processors. Those power-sucking Intel chips have just about hit a wall but the AMD chips have a much better chance.
The ARM chips used in the Developer's units are probably too expensive to use in a Chromebook killer, at least the $200 to $300 models. I don't know if Apple's going to ever go after the no profit business model. I think they are just going to use the iPad Air to cover that crowd and just add more functionality to iPad OS instead..
An 8th gen iPad with an A12 an 4GB of RAM will outperform the vast majority of Chromebooks. The 7th gen iPad outperforms most Chromebooks. Performance is not where Chromebooks win in schools. They win in schools because Chromebooks are great for IT departments. Software is cheap, mostly free and the hardware is disposable. IT departments love that. Whether they are good for the kids or not, who knows?
Grr... nothing more frustrating than doing math by web browser.
As I recall the intel transition, we went from a loud locomotive sounding iMac G5 which was well laid out internally and an absolute doddle to open up, service and replace parts (it even had a set of diagnostic lights to help work out what was wrong), to the first intel iMac which was definitely quieter but was an absolute nightmare to open up and try to replace anything, even things like the PRAM battery. I don’t think it was noticeably faster though.
i also remember the transition to PowerPC. That memory is tied up in my transition to the PowerBook G3, the most amazing and incredible laptop on the market at that time. Nobody had anything like it. Before that I had been using an Apple Portable. While it too was ground breaking when launched, It was embarrassing and bad for posture lugging that thing around.
So what does those experiences back then lead to my prognostications of the ASi transition? I suspect in the ASi transition the iMac will become basically a giant iPad on a stick. Completely unable to be upgraded and can only be serviced by Apple, and probably forever in port poverty.
You can see some initial signs of this in Mac OS11. And performance may not be as great as people hope, as Apple only needs to beat intel.
But I also worry that the iOSification of the Mac will lead to reduced versatility and limitations in file management, services like printing and how well it plays in office networks. I can only hope some flows the other way to help iPad be more versatile.
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
I remember waiting eagerly for the PowerBook G5 announcement. For years. And years. And years.
There were a few leaked photos of the prototype taken in the corner of a dark industrial warehouse lift as I recall.
Looking back there might have been one or two limitations, but at least it had no port poverty.
... I can't tell if that's a joke or you're being serious. If you're selling portable computers with no portability then you're not selling portable computers.
Having owned both the iMac G5 and the intel iMac, I liked the G5 better. The G5 was actually faster in some things but its downside was it was very noisy. While they looked similar the G5 was very easy to service and upgrade whereas the intel one was definitely not. A nightmare in fact. The G5 insides were neatly designed and laid out, the intel was a nightmare wire nest with a confusing logic board layout.
also the pulsing white ambient light in the iMac G5 when it was asleep was nice. Kind of like the MBA and MBP glowing logos of old.
By the next iMac probably being a giant iPad I mean it will be the same design philosophy as the iPad Pro: an squared off aluminium slab with a couple of USB cable ports and Face ID at the top, with a single legged stand. It would be thirty inches and weigh heaps. I did not dream I was implying it was something to carry around. I Also meant there would be no access or expansion possible without using an external case. I would prefer some ports in the stand as otherwise I could see the ports around the edge like an iPad so the cables stick out very unflatteringly. Ok for temporary connections but would suck if you had an external drive to boost capacity,
And yes. Was jesting about the PowerBook G5. Sheesh.
You need more than hundreds of watts in order to call it a regular desktop, otherwise what's the point? Why not just buy a mini and mounted behind the monitor? With that power budget, you have no choice but to put a more powerful processor that requires bigger cooling, while we're at it, throw some more ports. This is why I don't think it will get slim down as much people would expect. Yes, the 24" is only running at 40W but that's only the CPU.
upgradability wise, it sucks to have a soldered SSD, I think Apple is mainly going for some profits where you're forced choose to maxing it out. That said there's no reason to block user adding their own RAM. There are decent external storage solutions so long you don't use it as an expansion. A more ideal situation IMO will be open their flash modules as a standard so third-party could build something similar.
The big difference with this transition is that Apple has been designing CPU's (ok SOC's) and knows how to get the best out of the technology.
Being in control of the whole thing is just the logical next step for Apple.
As has been said many times, it is more than likely that internally with Apple, there has been a good number of sample chips around ande undergoing lots and lots of testing. As the CPU technology has improved over the years there will now be a good idea of where the tech will take the Mac in the next 3-5 years.
To have made the announcememt on this mad/crazy year is either a stroke of genius or total madness. It could be that we'll look back on 2020 and wonder what all the fuss was all about.
Personally, I'm in two minds about buying a 16in MBP (32Gb/2TB) or waiting for a Arm replacement. My 15in MBP is still going strong (famous last words) so I might just wait.
Coming out of this in two years, or less, Apple will be USB 4, excepting, more or less, Qi chargeable devices, WiFi 6, 5G, and A series/ASi, across the board.
That's a pretty efficient hardware ecosystem for users to play in, and for Apple Developers to maximize their product footprint.
What's missing?
A wireless router, and a home theater / HomeKit configuration of Apple TV, which at the worst, might be derived from a next generation Mac Mini, and the Modular Mac, which should it arrive, would likely have limited 3rd party expansion options.
I'm thinking that there will be a lot of purchases over the next three years as Apple users transition to full ASi ecosystems.
One can not extrapolate what happened during the transition of PowerPC to Intel, the similar might happen from Intel to Apple Si. I can say that when MAC with Apple Si comes out, they will be better in all respect from features to price/performance. Apple seems serious about growing MAC product line and wanting more market share. Besides making revenue on selling lots of MACs, additional revenue from service always tag along.
"Macintosh" is not an acronym.
MAC is a cosmetic line or a hardwired address of a device.
Obviously no one but Apple knows the answer to this. But I’m curious, what do you think the first Apple Silicone model will be? I’ve been wanting to purchase a MacBook Air but am holding off for now, since I would definitely prefer to go for an Apple Silicone one with a brand new design.
Unless these new products also feature, say, surgically enhanced breasts, it's silicon.
Imagine that product announcement: "Can't innovate any more my, uh, boobs"
The switch from Intel to Apple Silicon is monumental. Is there any chance that Apple could take this monumental moment to rebrand the Mac lineup? What word could replace “Mac”? Applebook? iApple? Mack? Apple PC? Apple Pro? MacPad? Apple SiliconBook? Silicon iMac? Silicon Mini? SuperMac? Emacs? Mac Express? Ace? Wiz? Hero? Gold? Force?
Seems Cook himself pretty much told us how this is going to go: - Intel chips for “many more years”. - Apple already have A-series chips that outpace their existing laptop offerings.
So that pretty much leaves the highest performance pro devices staying on intel for the time being - which is useful while the software plays catch up.
More interesting is how Apple will market the chips. For example: will all devices each year get the same chip ‘bump’ as we see with iPhones and iPads. With the higher performance devices getting additional speed from “-X” variants of the chip and secondary hardware (eg AfterBurner, high-end video graphics, dual chips etc.) It would be an opportunity to breakaway from intel’s approach of MHz and cores, and instead look at it from a function-first approach.
"Apple is championing this Apple silicon and you don't champion something by making its design be a copy of previous machine."
Apple did exactly that in 2006. The first Intel iMac and Intel MacBook Pro were clones of the iMac G5 and PowerBook G4 that they replaced. Why? Because they were a design that people loved! It worked.
Apple released the last iMac G5 in October 2005 and then replaced it with the Intel iMac in January 2006 with a model that was 3x faster. You could expect the same this time around. Apple could easily repeat history with a new Apple Silicon iMac and Apple Silicon MacBook Pro that exceed the performance of the Intel models. The keynote discussed the scalability of the A-chip and how they were working on a desktop-class chip. The development Intel Mac was an Intel Pentium 4, just like the development A-chip Mac mini is an existing A12Z. Apple released a much faster Intel Mac when the machines were ready. My iPad Pro (2018) with the 8-core A12X is faster than my 2015 2.8 quad i7 MacBook Pro.
Apple did not support PowerPC 'for years'. Don't expect the same with Intel. Apple cut off PowerPC support with Snow Leopard, only releasing PowerPC/Intel versions of Tiger and Leopard (Tiger being the first commercially available Intel version, but only shipped with the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro. Leopard was the first and only retail version of OS X for both PowerPC and Intel). You can likely expect the same with Big Sur and the version to follow Big Sur. After that, Intel support would likely be dropped in favor of Apple Silicon. You can also expect the Apple Silicon Macs to have more 'supported features' than the Intel Macs.
It would be awesome if the new Apple Silicon iMac would be available in Space Grey, and not only available on the 3-year-old iMac Pro, which is on its way out since it hasn't been updated in 3 years, and the new 2020 iMac 10-Core i9 beats the base model 10-Core Xeon.
Couple of things here...
I don't think Apple had the same amount of time to make the Power PC to Intel transition as they do with this latest transition. Intel isn't exactly causing Apple to "fall behind" with other competing systems as they were with the Power PC, especially in laptops. I'd be willing to bet that Apple started planning for this transition not long after the introduction of their extremely powerful A9X SoC, when performance starting catching up to Intel in the mobile space. (And Intel started showing signs of disfunction.)
Moving to Intel was a huge deal, since it meant compatibility with the industry de facto standard Intel x86 platform and Windows, which most people were familiar with and understand what that meant. So using the same computer designs was less important. Today, with consumers (iOS device buyers) so used to seeing (and desiring) something new, it is more important for Apple to create a new design in order to get people interested in the new Apple silicon based systems. Most users aren't going to care what CPU is inside the computer, nor would even know what that means. If Apple wants the masses to "upgrade" to their new Apple silicon based systems, they're more than likely going to have to give them something different and new.
Also, as you mentioned, support for Power PC based Macs was dropped with Snow Leopard in 2009. So that last Power PC based Mac, released at the end of 2005 was supported for 4 years. Furthermore, you have to consider that Apple's Intel Mac user base is 4-5 times the size the Power PC base was. So it would be in Apple's best interest to support those systems (to give those users) more time to upgrade to the new systems.
Comments
IBM was supplying PowerPC chips, not Motorola. Motorola bailed long before that. Apple wasn't forced. The PowerPC roadmap was not good for laptops or desktops because of the cooling and power requirements. A G5 in a laptop was impossible and the fastest G5 required liquid cooling in a desktop. The Intel switch was not a quick solution because all versions of OS X were both native for Intel and PowerPC since 2000. Apple's financial situation was very strong in 2005 because the iMac and iPod were enormous successes. Apple was a very profitable company at that time. Microsoft's investment in Apple was back in 1997 and they mistakenly sold their Apple stock after the 5 year agreement. Microsoft had nothing to do with switching to Intel.
There were a few leaked photos of the prototype taken in the corner of a dark industrial warehouse lift as I recall.
Apple did exactly that in 2006. The first Intel iMac and Intel MacBook Pro were clones of the iMac G5 and PowerBook G4 that they replaced. Why? Because they were a design that people loved! It worked.
Apple released the last iMac G5 in October 2005 and then replaced it with the Intel iMac in January 2006 with a model that was 3x faster. You could expect the same this time around. Apple could easily repeat history with a new Apple Silicon iMac and Apple Silicon MacBook Pro that exceed the performance of the Intel models. The keynote discussed the scalability of the A-chip and how they were working on a desktop-class chip. The development Intel Mac was an Intel Pentium 4, just like the development A-chip Mac mini is an existing A12Z. Apple released a much faster Intel Mac when the machines were ready. My iPad Pro (2018) with the 8-core A12X is faster than my 2015 2.8 quad i7 MacBook Pro.
Apple did not support PowerPC 'for years'. Don't expect the same with Intel. Apple cut off PowerPC support with Snow Leopard, only releasing PowerPC/Intel versions of Tiger and Leopard (Tiger being the first commercially available Intel version, but only shipped with the Intel iMac and MacBook Pro. Leopard was the first and only retail version of OS X for both PowerPC and Intel). You can likely expect the same with Big Sur and the version to follow Big Sur. After that, Intel support would likely be dropped in favor of Apple Silicon. You can also expect the Apple Silicon Macs to have more 'supported features' than the Intel Macs.
It would be awesome if the new Apple Silicon iMac would be available in Space Grey, and not only available on the 3-year-old iMac Pro, which is on its way out since it hasn't been updated in 3 years, and the new 2020 iMac 10-Core i9 beats the base model 10-Core Xeon.
1). There's no reason for Apple to build a giant "tablet", you're not carrying it everywhere and it doesn't have space constrains. With that it means there will always have room for other ports, I don't think they'll do anything to change the current configuration.
Yes they soldered the SSD. They're likely solder their ASi on but so does the old G5. The only thing that remains to be a module it's the Power Mac which they can still do.
The Intel iMac you're talking about only missed out the modem port compared to the old G5. I doubt 99% of the people need that.
2). Will ASi surpass AMD's flagship? I think yes but maybe there's no point. Rumor suggests the ASi on the 24" can achieve the same performance as the 10700K with almost 1/3 of the consumption. They don't have to join the competition with that level of ratio. AMD's 16-core also facing many other issues that no one like to mention: It costs $999 on a consumer platform, take a ton of power and bottlenecked by their memory bus. Most people only bought their 6-core processors because the sweet price-to-performance ratio.
... I can't tell if that's a joke or you're being serious. If you're selling portable computers with no portability then you're not selling portable computers.
I bet Apple Silicon will outperform both AMD and Intel at every power consumption tier, or perhaps you can say that Apple Silicon will have a perf/watt of 2x over AMD and Intel. Eg, a 15 W Apple Silicon SoC will perform like a 30 W AMD APU. The big question will come down to whether they want to ship a 150 W to 250 W chip like AMD or Intel does. Doubtful. It's going to be 100 W or less, even for the Mac Pro. Both of them actually have 300 to 400 W server MCM package options, which Apple just isn't going to compete in.
And the Powerbook G5 is indeed a joke, but from my perspective, also funny from another angle. There are "laptops" with desktop hardware in it not that far removed from that Powerbook G5 picture. It's one those Homer Simpson "it's funny because it's true" comments. I used to carry a 17" HP laptop during that time frame that had desktop hardware and weighed 10 lbs. Suffice it to say, Apple is definitively not going to do this. It's going to be cool, quiet, but perform like these laptop monsters.
Intel could achieve what they did because they had the best fabs in the world for about 3 decades running. That's an advantage that ca not be overcome with great chip design. Nobody could catch up or compete with Intel because they had the best fabs and were half node to a full node ahead all that time. Well, the tables are turned now. TSMC is a full node ahead. Anyone fabbing on TSMC N5 has a huge advantage over Intel and will be able to crush them in performance and power.
The G5 insides were neatly designed and laid out, the intel was a nightmare wire nest with a confusing logic board layout.
also the pulsing white ambient light in the iMac G5 when it was asleep was nice. Kind of like the MBA and MBP glowing logos of old.
There's also no reason to cut ports unless necessary. Most iMac remains to have nine of them, those with one more is all about modems.
As for those laptops...let's say if you can achieve 80% of the performance within 50% or less volume. I think most consumers (including many professionals) will make their choice for the latter. Surpassing larger boxes is great but not a requirement.
I do think it's easier than most people would predict. That said, IPC wise, Zen isn't having the upper hand against Skylake. The notion that "AMD will overtake everything" got overblown and core wars is going to end. Not that many people would buy a 64-core to begin with but it sure is a great show-piece.
Grr... nothing more frustrating than doing math by web browser.
upgradability wise, it sucks to have a soldered SSD, I think Apple is mainly going for some profits where you're forced choose to maxing it out. That said there's no reason to block user adding their own RAM. There are decent external storage solutions so long you don't use it as an expansion. A more ideal situation IMO will be open their flash modules as a standard so third-party could build something similar.
That's a pretty efficient hardware ecosystem for users to play in, and for Apple Developers to maximize their product footprint.
What's missing?
A wireless router, and a home theater / HomeKit configuration of Apple TV, which at the worst, might be derived from a next generation Mac Mini, and the Modular Mac, which should it arrive, would likely have limited 3rd party expansion options.
I'm thinking that there will be a lot of purchases over the next three years as Apple users transition to full ASi ecosystems.
- Intel chips for “many more years”.
- Apple already have A-series chips that outpace their existing laptop offerings.
More interesting is how Apple will market the chips. For example: will all devices each year get the same chip ‘bump’ as we see with iPhones and iPads. With the higher performance devices getting additional speed from “-X” variants of the chip and secondary hardware (eg AfterBurner, high-end video graphics, dual chips etc.)
It would be an opportunity to breakaway from intel’s approach of MHz and cores, and instead look at it from a function-first approach.
Couple of things here...
I don't think Apple had the same amount of time to make the Power PC to Intel transition as they do with this latest transition. Intel isn't exactly causing Apple to "fall behind" with other competing systems as they were with the Power PC, especially in laptops. I'd be willing to bet that Apple started planning for this transition not long after the introduction of their extremely powerful A9X SoC, when performance starting catching up to Intel in the mobile space. (And Intel started showing signs of disfunction.)
Moving to Intel was a huge deal, since it meant compatibility with the industry de facto standard Intel x86 platform and Windows, which most people were familiar with and understand what that meant. So using the same computer designs was less important. Today, with consumers (iOS device buyers) so used to seeing (and desiring) something new, it is more important for Apple to create a new design in order to get people interested in the new Apple silicon based systems. Most users aren't going to care what CPU is inside the computer, nor would even know what that means. If Apple wants the masses to "upgrade" to their new Apple silicon based systems, they're more than likely going to have to give them something different and new.
Also, as you mentioned, support for Power PC based Macs was dropped with Snow Leopard in 2009. So that last Power PC based Mac, released at the end of 2005 was supported for 4 years. Furthermore, you have to consider that Apple's Intel Mac user base is 4-5 times the size the Power PC base was. So it would be in Apple's best interest to support those systems (to give those users) more time to upgrade to the new systems.