Johny Srouji says the Apple Silicon strategy challenged Apple
Apple's transition away from Intel to Apple Silicon was a difficult gamble to undertake, with a profile of Johny Srouji revealing challenges including an internal debate over designing components, as well as the timing of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Apple's resurgence of the Mac and MacBook lineup is largely down to its creation and implementation of the M1 chip lineup, with its Apple Silicon components able to outpace its rivals. In a profile of Johny Srouji, Apple's SVP of Hardware Technologies, more light is shed on the design thinking behind the creation of Apple Silicon.
Apple had built a team up to include thousands of engineers working on the company's silicon for iPhone and iPad. Limited by the constraints of working from a battery, the team's designs also enabled deep integration with the hardware, to complete tasks that designers wanted its ranges to do.
However, a flashpoint occurred in 2017 when tech bloggers talked to executives, reports the Wall Street Journal, with Apple apologizing for shortcomings in its professional Macs. After continued complaints about low performance through using Intel chips, Apple stepped up its efforts to shift away from the chip maker.
The change prompted debate within Apple, Srouji confirmed, since computer producers don't tend to design such important components in-house. The move was considered risky, in part because the team had to design a chip architecture that would work from the cheapest Mac mini to the most expensive Mac Pro.
"First and foremost, if we do this, can we deliver better products?" said Srouji about the debate. "That's the No.1 question. It's not about the chip. Apple is not a chip company."
The team then had to work out whether it could deliver the chip, at the same time as increasing its numbers to deal with other projects and technological changes. "I don't do it once and call it a day, "Srouji adds. "It is year after year after year. That's a huge effort."
The process prompted Apple to expand its chip strategy to Macs, complete with a scalable architecture. A former engineer told the report Srouji's team had suddenly become a central point of product development, increasing Srouji's influence over time.
COVID-19 became a potential issue for Apple Silicon's development, with remote-work mandates impacting chip validation before production commenced. Rather than the usual process of having engineers view chips through microscopes in a facility, Srouji helped implement a process where cameras were used to perform the inspection remotely.
The rapid deployment was necessary to avoid any delay in production, but was quick due to the size and spread of Srouji's team. Spread around the world, the group was very familiar with working via video calls across time zones.
"What I learned in life: You think through all of the things you can control and then you have to be flexible and adaptive and strong enough to navigate when things don't go to plan," said Srouji in an interview. "COVID was one for example."
Apple is currently preparing to hold its WWDC event in June, one that could see the company introduce the next generation of its Apple Silicon strategy. Rumors have proposed Apple is working on introducing M2 chips in an updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro later in 2022, which Apple may tease at the developer conference.
Read on AppleInsider
Apple's resurgence of the Mac and MacBook lineup is largely down to its creation and implementation of the M1 chip lineup, with its Apple Silicon components able to outpace its rivals. In a profile of Johny Srouji, Apple's SVP of Hardware Technologies, more light is shed on the design thinking behind the creation of Apple Silicon.
Apple had built a team up to include thousands of engineers working on the company's silicon for iPhone and iPad. Limited by the constraints of working from a battery, the team's designs also enabled deep integration with the hardware, to complete tasks that designers wanted its ranges to do.
However, a flashpoint occurred in 2017 when tech bloggers talked to executives, reports the Wall Street Journal, with Apple apologizing for shortcomings in its professional Macs. After continued complaints about low performance through using Intel chips, Apple stepped up its efforts to shift away from the chip maker.
The change prompted debate within Apple, Srouji confirmed, since computer producers don't tend to design such important components in-house. The move was considered risky, in part because the team had to design a chip architecture that would work from the cheapest Mac mini to the most expensive Mac Pro.
"First and foremost, if we do this, can we deliver better products?" said Srouji about the debate. "That's the No.1 question. It's not about the chip. Apple is not a chip company."
The team then had to work out whether it could deliver the chip, at the same time as increasing its numbers to deal with other projects and technological changes. "I don't do it once and call it a day, "Srouji adds. "It is year after year after year. That's a huge effort."
The process prompted Apple to expand its chip strategy to Macs, complete with a scalable architecture. A former engineer told the report Srouji's team had suddenly become a central point of product development, increasing Srouji's influence over time.
COVID-19 became a potential issue for Apple Silicon's development, with remote-work mandates impacting chip validation before production commenced. Rather than the usual process of having engineers view chips through microscopes in a facility, Srouji helped implement a process where cameras were used to perform the inspection remotely.
The rapid deployment was necessary to avoid any delay in production, but was quick due to the size and spread of Srouji's team. Spread around the world, the group was very familiar with working via video calls across time zones.
"What I learned in life: You think through all of the things you can control and then you have to be flexible and adaptive and strong enough to navigate when things don't go to plan," said Srouji in an interview. "COVID was one for example."
Apple is currently preparing to hold its WWDC event in June, one that could see the company introduce the next generation of its Apple Silicon strategy. Rumors have proposed Apple is working on introducing M2 chips in an updated MacBook Air and MacBook Pro later in 2022, which Apple may tease at the developer conference.
Read on AppleInsider
Comments
One thing is certain for those of us who keep riding the Apple log flume, it’s a thrilling ride and you never know what’s around the corner, just like an Indiana Jones movie.
Apple languished for decades under the "control" of Motorola, IBM, Intel & others.
Jobs coming back with NeXT & helping push the end of the "Classic" Macintosh operating system is not to be underestimated.
In the same way having a decade or so to see the 68k to PowerPC switch as well as the PowerPC to Intel switch means that Apple as a company had a handle on the intricacies of large platform switches & maintaining support for older software along the way.
Apple's history of frustration with chip suppliers says otherwise.
Go ahead & roll your own https://amd-osx.com
•dirty 32 bit (Mode32)
•promise of G3 PowerPC processors developing into the joy of the G4
•the devastating frustration of the dead end of the G5
•wholesale Intel switch
i am more than happy that Apple has been able to build a successful internal team to create what they want. No more disappointments because their patterns did not want to/could not provide them with what Apple wanted.
Why should Apple rely on ANOTHER CPU manufacture when they've been burned multiple times over the decades?
Neil Cybart from Above Avalon is theorizing that Apple changed its product development strategy from a pull model - the iPhone pulled all products in its wake and got the biggest attention - to a push everything model, where all product lines are advanced simultaneously, starting sometime in 2017. From the outside it really looks like they did, like the product announcements in late 2018 with the MBA, Mac mini and iPad Pro, and they have been rolling ever since.
But the chips are still very much a pull. All the core logic units: CPU, GPU, ML all start from the iPhone. Those units than fan out to all the other products.
From a practical standpoint at this point from this seat the GPU base line for software I use is Vega 56 or Nvidia 3060, and as far as I can tell the only seeming option that betters that so far is a Studio Ultra (or a pro) - how will the Ultra fair in a year or two? Offering baseline in a portable is compelling as of today, but to add to the challenge the vertical apps I use are not yet compatible with Monterey, and no upgrade or eGPU seems available...
Do the alternatives remain Intel macs, with perhaps a 6900XT eGPU (other than a pro) or a PC with Nvidia...?
As I understand it Apple offered multiple GPU threading in its own apps such as FCP as far back as the 2013 Pro, arguably with D700 being a Vega equivalent long before the iMac Pro for the broader macOS ? Could that have been offered in macOS from 2013 on ? Was support (v56) for the 2010/12 mac pro potentially more effective than the 2013 ?
So I guess we will have to wait and see to quote Lkrupt "you never know what’s around the corner, just like an Indiana Jones movie"...
... where should the balance (or roadmap) be for economic or business reliance ...?
...what is the world mac users want...?