Apple CEO hints at no ARM-based MacBook Air as iPad to "soon satisfy" that niche

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Comments

  • Reply 21 of 73
    orlandoorlando Posts: 601member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    Just like they lost the phone market because they kept a 3.5" screen.



    They clearly haven't lost the phone market, but a few more options on size and maybe a phone with a physical keyboard would have made it much harder for Android to do as well as they have done.



    There were multiple iPod models from the classic all the way down to the shuffle. Laptops have ranged from plastic MacBooks to high end Pros models and ultra portable models, with a variety of screen sizes. The iPhone is the one area where Apple hasn't other much variety, and this helped Android manufacturers.
  • Reply 22 of 73
    asciiascii Posts: 5,936member
    Intel is no slouch. By the time Apple finished a transition from Intel to ARM, the Intel chips would be a lot more power efficient anyway.



    And breaking Windows compatibility would be a big mistake. Based on how quickly software on the Mac App Store is improving, I estimate I will need my Windows partition for 1 more year before I can finally delete it.
  • Reply 23 of 73
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I can touch type on my iPad. Your argument isn't valid.



    I can't touch type on the iPad but with the screen perhaps 3 inches above the fingers it isn't really an issue to me to just look. it's not like I'd be bobbing my head up and down like crazy like I'd have to do if I couldn't touch type on a keyboard
  • Reply 24 of 73
    shompashompa Posts: 343member
    Apple are rumored to merge iOS and OSX. That would lead to ARM macs.



    Performance is the only reason not to use ARM and we are seeing that stuff are "fast enough" according to Apple. Why wouldn't Apple release Mac Pro if they really thought that performance was important?



    Updating the MacPro line is something that is done with minimal work for Apple since Intel designs the motherboards. Everything else is reused.



    2006--2011 Intel have doubled its performance

    2006--2011 ARM have 17 times more performance.

    Intel are "lazy" since they don't have competition on X86.

    We all know that Intel can clock their stuff 30-40% faster if they wanted since 2006. Intel is just maximizing profit since they don't have to bin stuff anymore.



    ARM "needs" 64 bit so programs can use more then 4 gig memory (ARM can already use more then 4gig memory since they have 38bit memory addressing)

    +

    a good interconnect between ARM cores.



    With a great interconnect Apple could stack ARM processors 8 cores, 16 cores. Apples great multithreading with UNIX and Grand central dispatch could use all cores (something Windows cant)



    The insane thing is that you could have 150 ARM cores at the same power envelope as 1 6 core Xeon.



    BTW Nvidia is working on a 64bit ARM SoC that was planned to be release this year, but they are 1 year late at least + they have 8 core ARMs on their road map for this year. Some rumors even about a 16 core ARM.

    A 16 Core ARM15 at 2.5 ghz would draw about 10-15 watt with graphics. This would compete with the Macbook Air processors that Intel have at 1.6-1.7ghz. The ARMs would be much faster in multithreaded, cost 80% less and draw much less energy. Win/Win.
  • Reply 25 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I can touch type on my iPad. Your argument isn't valid.



    I think thats good for you but I write a lot of code and I can do it on an iPad but I won't. It's one of those cases of some thing that you can do but really shouldn't because it makes no sense. Writing hundred of line of code and writing research papers is what I do and it makes no sense to do it on an iPad no matter how big it is.
  • Reply 26 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PBRSTREETG View Post


    …it makes no sense to do it on an iPad no matter how big it is.



    Okay. That's your opinion.
  • Reply 27 of 73
    shompashompa Posts: 343member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by ascii View Post


    Intel is no slouch. By the time Apple finished a transition from Intel to ARM, the Intel chips would be a lot more power efficient anyway.



    And breaking Windows compatibility would be a big mistake. Based on how quickly software on the Mac App Store is improving, I estimate I will need my Windows partition for 1 more year before I can finally delete it.



    You know that its impossible with X86 to be power efficient? The architecture makes the CPU to large. Large CPU leads to heat, more cost and more energy.



    X86 is many things. Not fastest, not most power efficient. X86 have always "won" since

    Windows support it and that processor are cheap compared to RISC processors. Remember that RISC went 64bit in 1995 and that first with Win7 64bit is widespread in the X86 world. And that is with 64bit extensions, not true/pure 64bit.



    The funny thing with X86 64bit is that programs runs slower with it. Programs that don't use more then 4 gig memory are in average 2% slower on 64bit then 32bit. This is something that never have happened before. From 16-->32bit dramatic performance increase. On real 64bit processors. Dramatic performance increase 32--->64bit.



    Intel have the greatest manufacturing process in the world. The competition are 2 years behind. Even with this, Intel cant manufacture a decent low powered SoC that can be used in mobile devices.



    The X86 phones that are introduced in 3-6 month have a singe core 1.3ghz that turbos to 1.6. In single threaded programs its faster then Cortex9. But Intel won't compete with Cortex9 in 6 month. They will have to compete with ARM15.



    At the same power envelope as the Intel SoC at 1.3ghz you get a quod core 1.8-2ghz ARM15 core. We are talking 4 times the power.



    Intel needs to uncripple its SoC and produce it with latest processing node for it to have a chance. But Intel wont do that. They don't want to compete with ARMs 6 cent per core strategy. Intel wants to sell expensive processors. A good, cheap Intel would just hurt Intel's bottom line.



    Apple have a unique edge against Intel/X86/Android

    Since Apple controls its platform and makes its own SoC they can design the SoC to their specification. This leads to that Apple uses NOVA SIMD acceleration. This is something Intel/Android never can use since they don't control the platform. Every single A4+ Apple product have SIMD. An educated guess is that iOS 6 will be A4+ only meaning that everything can be accelerated by SIMD since every device will support it. Google supriced me with their answer. Since not every Android device have SIMD, they accelerated stuff with GPU in Android 4. Apple can use both SIMD and GPU. Something that Apple have lots of experience with since OSX have been accelerated using Altivec and Quartz extreme since 2002.



    Intel have never been good at SIMD extensions. RISC have always lead the way, probably since most RISC vendors control their OS/Hardware and can accelerate stuff.



    Bookmark this:

    Intel will be a niche processor in 5-8 years. They will have the "performance" market, gaming and "fast enough" servers.

    Lowend ARM

    Middle end ARM

    Highend Intel/SPARC/POWER and all other exotic processors.



    Intel will OEM ARM manufacturing with their great fabs.



    People seems to believe that X86/Intel always have been/Will be the greatest. 15 years ago:

    Lowend companies: Diskless clients to Xservers. Home computers X86

    Middle end Intel

    Highend SPARC/IBM/Alpha. (Intel had 10% market share servers in 2000)

    Stuff changes fast in the IT world.



    And last, to put things in perspective.

    ARM license about 20 billion cores each year. That is what Intel have done in all its lifetime. ARM license more high end ARM cores then AMD have sold in its lifetime.

    The averege Ipad costs more the the averege PC.



    Phones and Tablets will replace almost all desktop computers within a couple of years. (many users will have faster Ipads then their PCs starting with A6)
  • Reply 28 of 73
    shompashompa Posts: 343member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by wizard69 View Post


    Seriously the performance difference between ARM and Intel is so massive right now that this isn't even a practicle concern. It will be a couple of years before ARM will have a solid 64 bit platform and at this point there is no sense in even considering 32 bit systems for a Mac OS based device.



    The AIR is a gem no doubt. Mind you IVY BRIDGE will turn that gem into a fine jewel effectively addressing GPU performance issues. Along with the nice GPU boost we will see about an 8% increase in performance from the CPU. ARM is very long way from delivering the sort of performance that comes with Intel Hardware.



    Note that ARM can hit or even exceed the clock rate of Intel hardware used in the AIRs but that is 32 bit hardware with performance no where near the Intel per clock. In any event I think Cook is on thE right track here, people that don't need the laptops performance or capabilities will quickly migrate to an iPad like device. Add a keyboard for desk usage and you are all set. The big limitation with iPad isn't processing power anyways, it is internal storage that limits the device. In the context of storage it is interesting that Apple is looking to coming iOS devices to better take on or replace laptops.



    March is going to be very interesting.



    '



    Raw power. Yes. Intel is faster.

    But you can program stuff better with RISC and SIMD. In 2002 the fastest PC was AMD 1.5ghz. Encoding a DVD took 15 hours on AMD. On Powerbook 667mhz it took 90 minutes thanks to Altivec.



    Intelligence is something that Apple have and elegance is better then raw power. Raw power is for Windows since they cant optimize anything since there are millions of different PC configurations.



    You are also comparing 130 watt Intel to 2 watt ARM.

    Macbook Air have a power envelope of 17 watt. We are talking 1.5-1.8ghz with 2 cores/4 threads.

    ARM 15 2.5 Ghz cod core will match Intel in multithread environment. Probably even beat them. ARM will be a bit slower in single threaded, but not by much.



    In the Macbook Air case: Intel costs 400 dollar. ARM15 costs 30 dollars. Intel draws about 35 watt with motherboard and GPU. ARM draws 2.5 watt.



    I guess that almost no people on these forums have worked with anything else then X86.

    Oracle/Sun with Solaris/SPARC and IBM with Power are in a different league in performance then X86.
  • Reply 29 of 73
    gqbgqb Posts: 1,934member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by PBRSTREETG View Post


    I think thats good for you but I write a lot of code and I can do it on an iPad but I won't. It's one of those cases of some thing that you can do but really shouldn't because it makes no sense. Writing hundred of line of code and writing research papers is what I do and it makes no sense to do it on an iPad no matter how big it is.



    I need to haul tons of gravel, so cars suck for everyone.
  • Reply 30 of 73
    mauszmausz Posts: 243member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Alonso Perez View Post


    I don't know about 13", which seems a little big, but I sure do hope for a slightly larger iPad, about 11.8", 2048 x 1536 (double the current resolution), coupled with a good dock and a keyboard cover like the Zagg (but with full size keys like the 11" Air).



    I hope Apple copies the Asus Transformer concept, that dock is perfect with it's additional battery to charge the tablet and the very sturdy mounting really turning it into a netbook
  • Reply 31 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post


    It makes sense to me. The Mac is growing in market share this is not time to dumb it down. iPad and Mac can grow while PCs decline.



    This baby is here to stay. More like Apple will move towards MacBook Air Pro in the future. The MacBooks with a HHD and one of those DVD thingies will look archaic and a thing of the past.



    Floppy drive - Zip drive - Super drive - iCloud (or equivalent as I'm not convinced with Apple's offering - DropBox for me)



    I'll be retiring my old MacBook and purchasing the new MacBook Air 13" on the next refresh.
  • Reply 32 of 73
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,857member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shompa View Post


    Apple are rumored to merge iOS and OSX. That would lead to ARM macs. ...



    Assuming the first sentence to be true, the second does not necessarily follow.



    Quote:

    The insane thing is that you could have 150 ARM cores at the same power envelope as 1 6 core Xeon. ...



    But, this is an interesting observation.
  • Reply 33 of 73
    mauszmausz Posts: 243member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by anonymouse View Post


    But, this is an interesting observation.



    Like this one from HP with 288 arm cpu's per 4U...
  • Reply 34 of 73
    nvidia2008nvidia2008 Posts: 9,262member
    Hi DED, for the chart, may I suggest update for iPhone 4S re: 14.4mbit down not just iPhone 4 re: 7.2mbit down. It's possible, I can hit ~10mbit down on Telstra "NexG" if I'm within 5km or so from the CBD, which I've seen through tethering to my Mac.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by AppleInsider View Post






  • Reply 35 of 73
    Listening now to Deus Ex: HR soundtrack while reading this... I have to say youve got some good points.



    The killer is this: User Experience for beginners with ARM devices are light years ahead of x86 devices at the moment... Intermediate users are already using ARM devices for "simpler" tasks. The bottom is about to drop out of the desktop PC market, and in five years I can't see ARM not kicking x86 ass for most beginner-intermediate tasks (whatever that may mean to someone).



    I think Intel is too complacent to fab ARM in the next few years though, even though if they started tomorrow you know they will be laughing all the way to the bank throughout this decade. For the next few years Intel will be burning a lot of resources fighting ARM when they could be making lots off it.



    Quote:
    Originally Posted by shompa View Post


    You know that its impossible with X86 to be power efficient? The architecture makes the CPU to large. Large CPU leads to heat, more cost and more energy.



    X86 is many things. Not fastest, not most power efficient. X86 have always "won" since

    Windows support it and that processor are cheap compared to RISC processors. Remember that RISC went 64bit in 1995 and that first with Win7 64bit is widespread in the X86 world. And that is with 64bit extensions, not true/pure 64bit.



    The funny thing with X86 64bit is that programs runs slower with it. Programs that don't use more then 4 gig memory are in average 2% slower on 64bit then 32bit. This is something that never have happened before. From 16-->32bit dramatic performance increase. On real 64bit processors. Dramatic performance increase 32--->64bit.



    Intel have the greatest manufacturing process in the world. The competition are 2 years behind. Even with this, Intel cant manufacture a decent low powered SoC that can be used in mobile devices.



    The X86 phones that are introduced in 3-6 month have a singe core 1.3ghz that turbos to 1.6. In single threaded programs its faster then Cortex9. But Intel won't compete with Cortex9 in 6 month. They will have to compete with ARM15.



    At the same power envelope as the Intel SoC at 1.3ghz you get a quod core 1.8-2ghz ARM15 core. We are talking 4 times the power.



    Intel needs to uncripple its SoC and produce it with latest processing node for it to have a chance. But Intel wont do that. They don't want to compete with ARMs 6 cent per core strategy. Intel wants to sell expensive processors. A good, cheap Intel would just hurt Intel's bottom line.



    Apple have a unique edge against Intel/X86/Android

    Since Apple controls its platform and makes its own SoC they can design the SoC to their specification. This leads to that Apple uses NOVA SIMD acceleration. This is something Intel/Android never can use since they don't control the platform. Every single A4+ Apple product have SIMD. An educated guess is that iOS 6 will be A4+ only meaning that everything can be accelerated by SIMD since every device will support it. Google supriced me with their answer. Since not every Android device have SIMD, they accelerated stuff with GPU in Android 4. Apple can use both SIMD and GPU. Something that Apple have lots of experience with since OSX have been accelerated using Altivec and Quartz extreme since 2002.



    Intel have never been good at SIMD extensions. RISC have always lead the way, probably since most RISC vendors control their OS/Hardware and can accelerate stuff.



    Bookmark this:

    Intel will be a niche processor in 5-8 years. They will have the "performance" market, gaming and "fast enough" servers.

    Lowend ARM

    Middle end ARM

    Highend Intel/SPARC/POWER and all other exotic processors.



    Intel will OEM ARM manufacturing with their great fabs.



    People seems to believe that X86/Intel always have been/Will be the greatest. 15 years ago:

    Lowend companies: Diskless clients to Xservers. Home computers X86

    Middle end Intel

    Highend SPARC/IBM/Alpha. (Intel had 10% market share servers in 2000)

    Stuff changes fast in the IT world.



    And last, to put things in perspective.

    ARM license about 20 billion cores each year. That is what Intel have done in all its lifetime. ARM license more high end ARM cores then AMD have sold in its lifetime.

    The averege Ipad costs more the the averege PC.



    Phones and Tablets will replace almost all desktop computers within a couple of years. (many users will have faster Ipads then their PCs starting with A6)



  • Reply 36 of 73
    A wise move.



    It is similar to Apple delaying the release of mid devices/larger iPhones. There is always that danger that a mid device negates much of the need for having a tablet and a phone.

    They all may arrive when it becomes certain that Apple have little choice in the matter.
  • Reply 37 of 73
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    I can touch type on my iPad. Your argument isn't valid.



    But you can't type a degree symbol, or any Greek letter like micron symbol or theta which we use all the time in science. You can't type an m-dash or superscript or subscript, plus/minus or approx equal. For science the iPad sucks at typing. But then again all one really needs to do in life is post to Facebook.
  • Reply 38 of 73
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by mstone View Post


    But then again all one really needs to do in life is post to Facebook.







    That makes me depressed.
  • Reply 39 of 73
    pokepoke Posts: 506member
    I think Apple probably has more than one plan in place. One would involve converging iOS and OS X and perhaps moving Macs to ARM. The other would involve the iPad replacing the Mac. It's a question of where the market goes. Either way I think that 5 years from now they'll only have one platform.
  • Reply 40 of 73
    mstonemstone Posts: 11,510member
    Quote:
    Originally Posted by poke View Post


    I think Apple probably has more than one plan in place. One would involve converging iOS and OS X and perhaps moving Macs to ARM. The other would involve the iPad replacing the Mac. It's a question of where the market goes. Either way I think that 5 years from now they'll only have one platform.



    I seriously doubt that either of those scenarios will pan out. Given the recent sales figures of both Mac and iOS I can't see Apple consolidating those divisions.



    People need both mobile devices and full computers unless their life is so simplistic that they can get by with just a touch based mobile device.
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