If serious, you are both crazy not to have owned AAPL. It has been obvious to anyone following tech news, since APPL was $50-$100 (pre split!) that is was a ride worth taking ... and holding on tight for the long run ... :smokey:
Actually, I got in as soon as I was able to, on my birthday earlier this year. I have this forum (largely) to thank for giving me the courage to consider it. Onward and upward...!
another unsubstantiated creative writing from DED.
Another resident troll comment bashing an article while offering NOTHING to counter what was said.
What's the problem? Can't discuss technology or microprocessor architecture? Please enlighten us with your great wisdom and point out all the flaws in this article, and why Apple isn't the world's most advanced mobile processor company.
I don't think Apple is gunning for anybody. Apple's 'target' is developing the best product they can. Sometimes (a lot of times) off the shelf components do not satisfy Apple's performance needs. Rather than have Intel et al develop a custom chip that meets Apple's requirements, Apple has chosen to go internal, thereby getting exactly what it wants, at a lower cost. Denying competitors access to Apple's superior designs is a benefit that has value, but isn't the motivation behind Apple's component development efforts.
I don't think we'll ever see an A Series processor in a Mac.
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture, despite Apple efforts to make it easier to port code (developers writing OS X and iOS Apps, for example). An OS is several orders of magnitude more work to convert than an App.
- OS X on an A Series would also cause headaches for developers. They won't be simply "re-compiling" their Apps so they can run on the new processor. It will require effort to port their Apps over, and increase their work load by now having two products to test/debug/support.
- Despite the huge gains in performance the last couple of years for A Series processors, they are still severely underpowered compared to an Intel processor. OS X would be terrible on an A8X (or A9).
- Apple is still firm in that it will never merge iOS and OS X. The paradigms are too different (keyboard/mouse vs touch) as is the intended market/use. Apple is smart keeping them separate while bringing features to make common tasks easy to do (and switch between) on both platforms. This is as far as Apple will "integrate" iOS and OS X.
- Macs and MacBooks are already great devices. Switching to A Series will only offer a slight reduction in device cost (while sacrificing performance). I don't see Apple willing to save a few dollars if it impacts the customer experience in any way (and it will for many reasons).
The thing I most hear is someone gleefully claiming how Apple's tablet business if failing and how they're losing massive amounts of tablet market share to Android devices. Some articles are claiming Apple's tablet sales will fall by as much as 45% this quarter. Forget all that other just as important stuff and just focus on market share which seems to be the most important thing to the news media and Wall Street. Anything Apple has or does simply doesn't matter to the industry because they think Apple's small market share is laughable. I haven't seen any articles saying how other companies tablet sales are collapsing (maybe because there wasn't much to collapse). It's usually just Apple's tablet business being overturned by the myriads of white box tablet manufacturers where 30% of them are lumped together as Others. If those charts actually used slices for others there would probably be 100 more slices.
Everyone claimed Apple's A-series processors were nothing special and just built up using marketing gimmicks. I guess they were wrong. There's one thing most of those other chip manufacturers can always do and that's just boost their clock speeds to match or exceed Apple's A-series benchmarks. Nobody cares one way or the other except tech-heads who drool over large benchmark numbers.
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture
- OS X on an A Series would also cause headaches for developers. They won't be simply "re-compiling" their Apps so they can run on the new processor. It will require effort to port their Apps over, and increase their work load by now having two products to test/debug/support.
Look, Apple would most certainly prefer to install the upcoming AMD K12 based APU or FX that Keller and company are developing than they would cripple their Macbooks or Macbook Airs with ARM solutions.
The real question for both the ARM and AMD options is whether Apple has the license to develop it's own compatible Thunderbolt Controller to interface with PCH freeing it to use either AMD or ARM.
Without Thunderbolt licensing, Apple either has to convince AMD to use something other than Hypertransport 3.x and ARM has to redesign its solutions to be compatible with Thunderbolt.
I don't think we'll ever see an A Series processor in a Mac.
Possibly, but what about an Apple notebook or desktop machine that runs on ARM that isn't labeled as a Mac, but has a Mac OS X-like OS?
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture, despite Apple efforts to make it easier to port code (developers writing OS X and iOS Apps, for example). An OS is several orders of magnitude more work to convert than an App.
Sure, but they've done that several times before with great success, including bringing OS X to ARM. Remember that iOS is born from Mac OS X and was labeled OS X iPhone by Apple at one point. I'm guessing they migrated Aqua to ARM a long time ago, and then probably after that built an entirely new desktop OS UI for ARM.
- OS X on an A Series would also cause headaches for developers. They won't be simply "re-compiling" their Apps so they can run on the new processor. It will require effort to port their Apps over, and increase their work load by now having two products to test/debug/support.
Again, previously something Apple has done with remarkable ease. Of course, moving to PPC to Intel had a major performance boost that PPC apps running in Rosetta likely felt faster on the Intel-based systems, but now we have the Mac App Store, which means many apps might be able to be ported with very little effort.
I would imagine that a desktop 'PC" from Apple running on ARM for the budget-market would likely require the App Store, like with iOS, and I would imagine the store would be bountiful in no time at all.
- Despite the huge gains in performance the last couple of years for A Series processors, they are still severely underpowered compared to an Intel processor. OS X would be terrible on an A8X (or A9).
1) What about when you increase the Wattage of the A-series chips to match, say, the performance of the Intel chipset in the 11.6" MacBook Air? How fast is that A-series chip now?
2) Apple builds their bespoke A-series chips for iDevices, as well as their M-series chips, and soon to be S-series SIP. I see no reason Apple couldn't make an n-series chip that is idealized for a budget desktop "PC."
- Apple is still firm in that it will never merge iOS and OS X. The paradigms are too different (keyboard/mouse vs touch) as is the intended market/use. Apple is smart keeping them separate while bringing features to make common tasks easy to do (and switch between) on both platforms. This is as far as Apple will "integrate" iOS and OS X.
I agree with that, but I don't think running a desktop OS on ARM would be merging these two disparate OSes into a single platform. There will be cross pollination that has benefited both OSes, and likely the upcoming WatchOS, but they will remain separate, even if they are run on the same architecture.
- Macs and MacBooks are already great devices. Switching to A Series will only offer a slight reduction in device cost (while sacrificing performance). I don't see Apple willing to save a few dollars if it impacts the customer experience in any way (and it will for many reasons).
It's a HUGE reduction in cost. Price those Intel chips. Apple could likely knock at least a couple hundred off the price even whilst getting ballpark performance for a specialized ARM-based chip for a low-cost notebook or desktop.
Possibly, but what about an Apple notebook or desktop machine that runs on ARM that isn't labeled as a Mac, but has a Mac OS X-like OS?
Sure, but they've done that several times before with great success, including bringing OS X to ARM. Remember that iOS is born from Mac OS X and was labeled OS X iPhone by Apple at one point. I'm guessing they migrated Aqua to ARM a long time ago, and then probably after that built an entirely new desktop OS UI for ARM.
Again, previously something Apple has done with remarkable ease. Of course, moving to PPC to Intel had a major performance boost that PPC apps running in Rosetta likely felt faster on the Intel-based systems, but now we have the Mac App Store, which means many apps might be able to be ported with very little effort.
I would imagine that a desktop 'PC" from Apple running on ARM for the budget-market would likely require the App Store, like with iOS, and I would imagine the store would be bountiful in no time at all.
1) What about when you increase the Wattage of the A-series chips to match, say, the performance of the Intel chipset in the 11.6" MacBook Air? How fast is that A-series chip now?
2) Apple builds their bespoke A-series chips for iDevices, as well as their M-series chips, and soon to be S-series SIP. I see no reason Apple couldn't make an n-series chip that is idealized for a budget desktop "PC."
I agree with that, but I don't think running a desktop OS on ARM would be merging these two disparate OSes into a single platform. There will be cross pollination that has benefited both OSes, and likely the upcoming WatchOS, but they will remain separate, even if they are run on the same architecture.
It's a HUGE reduction in cost. Price those Intel chips. Apple could likely knock at least a couple hundred off the price even whilst getting ballpark performance for a specialized ARM-based chip for a low-cost notebook or desktop.
That is an absolutely huge waste of engineering resources to tailor OS X lite for a laptop, to save a few bucks, when the AMD APUs post Bulldozer architecture will crush any Intel iGPU and the SMT structure Keller is putting in for SP/DP makes the cost of the Intel product a waste of time.
Your best bet is Apple helps AMD roll out their architecture for late 2015/early 2016 and forces Intel to drop their CPU pricing or lose a massive customer in Apple. Apple invests ZERO in software optimizations as it won't have to redesign a single bit of OS X to work.
It's almost scary, how proficient Apple's gotten at semiconductor design. And if you look at the specs and design of the A7 and A8, it's clear their team is gunning for Intel, not the other ARM manufacturers. And they're beating the pants off of everyone on a performance-per-watt basis.
And...I still think we may see Macs with A-series chips one day. The A9 should be a tick, bringing us an all new CPU core (Swift>Cyclone>Hurricane?) on a 20nm process. Its not as hard to emulate X86 code on ARM as you might expect, especially since Intel's chips haven't even processed true CISC instructions since the Pentium Pro. But an Intel chip retails for hundreds of dollars, vs much less for their own chips. And Apple is one P&L, they wouldn't have to sell them to themselves for a profit.
The Pro Macs might stay with Intel chips, no reason a MacBook SuperAir couldn't be ARM based though.
That's what I've been wondering - whether Apple would drop Intel for its own chips, not just in the lower-end Macs, but in all Macs. If they can achieve both the performance and software compatibility, there's really no reason not to. Wouldn't want to be the owner of Intel stock if that ever happens (wait a minute...my mutual funds do hold Intel stock), although from a unit standpoint, Macs are a relatively small part of Apple's game these days.
Among the many advantages of their own chip, I think it would be a tremendous differentiating marketing advantage - something which was lost when Apple started using Intel processors. The competition could no longer advertise that they're using the same processor as Apple. Although would this mean you could no longer run Windows on a Mac? (Not that I do.)
I knew from the headline alone who wrote this article
I was just going to say the same thing.
I also disagree with his premise. With Apple only using their chips, and not selling them to others, they aren't threat to Qualcomm, or any other manufacturer who does sell chips. Unfortunely, most tablet sales increases are now for tablets costing less than $250. Because of that, the most advanced chips will be selling in a smaller percentage of devices as time goes on. It's one reason Apple didn't include this new (and more expensive) chip in the Retina Mini this year.
I'm seeing estimates that Apple may not sell more than about 10 million iPads this quarter, just half of last's year's sales. I hope that's not true, but with Apple tablets now considerably more expensive than competing tablets, which in many cases are "good enough" for what people are using them for, Apple is restricting their market significantly.
So DED's usual rant isn't making too much sense, as he often misses the big picture, and is certainly doing so here.
Performance metrics ignoring performance/watt is a failed game in mobile, so by definition, A8X is > than K1. Sure, throw a bigger battery at the K1 and there's performance equivalence, but that won't facilitate the K1 moving into smartphones, and hence the small volumes aren't going to provide much profit for Nvidia. While you boast of multiple background apps in your Android device, Apple has of Metal and Swift which together will provide a substantial increase in the gaming experience.
Now you could argue that Apple "cheats" by designs with much larger die comparative to the competition, but that comes with winning the profit game. Lather/rinse/repeat, Nvidia is losing this game.
Sorry but I just dont see this massive power drain your talking about with the K1, my Nexus 9 has a 6,700mAh battery and I consistently get between 7.5 to 8 hours of life, my Pad Air 2 has a 7340mAh and I get beween 8 and 8.5, seems fairly similiar to me. When playing a game, the iPad Air 2 drains quicker.
Why does a Mac need to be x86? It doesn't It's nice to be x86 for those few people who want to run BootCamp or PC emulators.
Apple switching to x86 was key to Macbook penetrating the high tech industry. Outside of Microsoft, that's pretty much the laptop to own. You can easily develop code on your laptop that'll eventually run on the farms of x86 machines that power pretty much everything. At the same time, you have these tech workers that are developing for the Apple eco system.
This is such a weird timing for the article. iPad sells are on a decline while the Windows tablets/hybrids are finally picking up. If Windows 10 is only half decent, it'd be harder & harder to stay with a non-touch enabled OS X for the computer professionals (iOS is fine on a phone but is already starting to become inadequate on tablets as they get more powerful).
Go back to pure consumer oriented and I predict Apple will slowly decline like the pre OS X days.
I also disagree with his premise. With Apple only using their chips, and not selling them to others, they aren't threat to Qualcomm, or any other manufacturer who does sell chips. Unfortunely, most tablet sales increases are now for tablets costing less than $250. Because of that, the most advanced chips will be selling in a smaller percentage of devices as time goes on. It's one reason Apple didn't include this new (and more expensive) chip in the Retina Mini this year.
I'm seeing estimates that Apple may not sell more than about 10 million iPads this quarter, just half of last's year's sales. I hope that's not true, but with Apple tablets now considerably more expensive than competing tablets, which in many cases are "good enough" for what people are using them for, Apple is restricting their market significantly.
So DED's usual rant isn't making too much sense, as he often misses the big picture, and is certainly doing so here.
Good post, agreed fully. I don't think we will ever see Apple selling their ARM chips to others, nor do I think we would see the kinds of speeds that iOS produces if they were used in say an Android or Windows 8 tablet, their too customized to their target group. Mobile devices are also not the only thing ARM chips are used for, the K1 for instance is now being used in hospital imaging equipment and cars. Why did Ded leave out the absolutely huge market for none mobile device usage.
<span style="line-height:1.4em;">[...]know this: X86 is toys. They break. I know of zero PPC macs that broke but every single X86 mac breaks within 3 years...</span>
I think that latter statement is less about the cpu chip and more about the tradeoffs between lightness and toughness.
As for your first point... I think everyone is missing a key point, but you are closest
Why does a Mac need to be x86? It doesn't It's nice to be x86 for those few people who want to run BootCamp or PC emulators.
But ARM can emulate x86 (much like current Intel really emulates 486)... and with Apple's efficiencies in xMP computing (grand central) it can easily use 2-4 SoCs and run OSX just fine.
In a few years, there will be more iPads and iPhones than WintTel PCs. At that point, the value proposition for 'backwards compatibility' will be backwards to your iPad Air 3. or your iPhone Xs+.
I've argued that a underlying value of the A series is that there is a Mac OSX laptop or 5 built using Aseries chips... and they are brought out every time Intel stops by and asks for Apple's Chip order. Apple then gets a better discount and more design input into the x86 roadmap.
But like the Power Series, I think that Apple's demands will outpace its suppliers, and in about 3 years, the Macbook Air or Mac Mini will be sold with an Aseries chip.
And in about 7 years, the entire concept of CMOS and RISC will need to be refactored anyway. By 2025, we'll be hitting the 'nanometer' wall, where you won't be able to get your etches any smaller, and either quantum or some other manner of transistor construction will need to be employed. Will Apple be able to buy a company to transform them into this new world?
Good stuff ... I don't know all I understand about it ...
Just to add some more spice(s) to the pot(s):
ARM isn't the only alternative -- for example there is the MIPS RISC CPU architecture, * which seems to be getting some press of late.
MIPS was used in SGI graphics workstations -- which ran circles around everything else in the late 1980s-1990s
Interesting -- the MIPS CPU IP is owned by Imagination Technologies -- whose GPU IP is used in the A8X chip.
MIPS Warrior Processor Cores
In August 2013, Imagination announced the new MIPS Series5 Warrior CPU cores. These cores incorporate new architectural features and provide best-in-class performance and efficiency for a wide range of applications.
The Warrior generation of cores includes 32-bit and 64-bit variants with a focus on superior performance efficiency across the high-end, mid-range and entry-level/microcontroller CPUs. Building on the true 32-bit and 64-bit instruction set compatibility of MIPS, Warrior cores provide binary compatibility from the entry-level to the high-end.
Key Warrior features
Hardware virtualization across the entire range of cores, providing compelling benefits for applications from compute-intense enterprise environments to energy efficient mobile platforms.
MIPS hardware multi-threading technology, enabling better overall throughput, quality of service (QoS), and power/performance efficiency in select Warrior cores.
Imagination’s unique, extensible and highly scalable security framework for applications including content protection on mobile devices, secure networking protocols and payment services.
MIPS SIMD architecture, built on instructions designed to be easily supported within high-level languages such as C or OpenCL for fast and simple development of new code, as well as leverage of existing code.
A consistent and comprehensive toolchain across the Warrior series for fast, easy development and debugging.
MIPS Warrior comes in classes of performance and features
Warrior M-class: entry-level MIPS cores for embedded and microcontroller applications
Look, Apple would most certainly prefer to install the upcoming AMD K12 based APU or FX that Keller and company are developing than they would cripple their Macbooks or Macbook Airs with ARM solutions.
The real question for both the ARM and AMD options is whether Apple has the license to develop it's own compatible Thunderbolt Controller to interface with PCH freeing it to use either AMD or ARM.
Without Thunderbolt licensing, Apple either has to convince AMD to use something other than Hypertransport 3.x and ARM has to redesign its solutions to be compatible with Thunderbolt.
I always forget about that, thunderbolt being an intel development.
I wouldn't be surprised if apple moves away from thunderbolt all together. It seems like it never took off as much as they were hoping it would.
I also disagree with his premise. With Apple only using their chips, and not selling them to others, they aren't threat to Qualcomm, or any other manufacturer who does sell chips. Unfortunely, most tablet sales increases are now for tablets costing less than $250. Because of that, the most advanced chips will be selling in a smaller percentage of devices as time goes on. It's one reason Apple didn't include this new (and more expensive) chip in the Retina Mini this year.
I'm seeing estimates that Apple may not sell more than about 10 million iPads this quarter, just half of last's year's sales. I hope that's not true, but with Apple tablets now considerably more expensive than competing tablets, which in many cases are "good enough" for what people are using them for, Apple is restricting their market significantly.
So DED's usual rant isn't making too much sense, as he often misses the big picture, and is certainly doing so here.
Good post, agreed fully. I don't think we will ever see Apple selling their ARM chips to others, nor do I think we would see the kinds of speeds that iOS produces if they were used in say an Android or Windows 8 tablet, their too customized to their target group. Mobile devices are also not the only thing ARM chips are used for, the K1 for instance is now being used in hospital imaging equipment and cars. Why did Ded leave out the absolutely huge market for none mobile device usage.
Look, Apple would most certainly prefer to install the upcoming AMD K12 based APU or FX that Keller and company are developing than they would cripple their Macbooks or Macbook Airs with ARM solutions.
The real question for both the ARM and AMD options is whether Apple has the license to develop it's own compatible Thunderbolt Controller to interface with PCH freeing it to use either AMD or ARM.
Without Thunderbolt licensing, Apple either has to convince AMD to use something other than Hypertransport 3.x and ARM has to redesign its solutions to be compatible with Thunderbolt.
I always forget about that, thunderbolt being an intel development.
I wouldn't be surprised if apple moves away from thunderbolt all together. It seems like it never took off as much as they were hoping it would.
Correct me If I'm wrong ... AIR, Apple Developed Thunderbolt tech and licensed it to Intel!
Comments
Actually, I got in as soon as I was able to, on my birthday earlier this year. I have this forum (largely) to thank for giving me the courage to consider it. Onward and upward...!
another unsubstantiated creative writing from DED.
Another resident troll comment bashing an article while offering NOTHING to counter what was said.
What's the problem? Can't discuss technology or microprocessor architecture? Please enlighten us with your great wisdom and point out all the flaws in this article, and why Apple isn't the world's most advanced mobile processor company.
I don't think we'll ever see an A Series processor in a Mac.
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture, despite Apple efforts to make it easier to port code (developers writing OS X and iOS Apps, for example). An OS is several orders of magnitude more work to convert than an App.
- OS X on an A Series would also cause headaches for developers. They won't be simply "re-compiling" their Apps so they can run on the new processor. It will require effort to port their Apps over, and increase their work load by now having two products to test/debug/support.
- Despite the huge gains in performance the last couple of years for A Series processors, they are still severely underpowered compared to an Intel processor. OS X would be terrible on an A8X (or A9).
- Apple is still firm in that it will never merge iOS and OS X. The paradigms are too different (keyboard/mouse vs touch) as is the intended market/use. Apple is smart keeping them separate while bringing features to make common tasks easy to do (and switch between) on both platforms. This is as far as Apple will "integrate" iOS and OS X.
- Macs and MacBooks are already great devices. Switching to A Series will only offer a slight reduction in device cost (while sacrificing performance). I don't see Apple willing to save a few dollars if it impacts the customer experience in any way (and it will for many reasons).
The thing I most hear is someone gleefully claiming how Apple's tablet business if failing and how they're losing massive amounts of tablet market share to Android devices. Some articles are claiming Apple's tablet sales will fall by as much as 45% this quarter. Forget all that other just as important stuff and just focus on market share which seems to be the most important thing to the news media and Wall Street. Anything Apple has or does simply doesn't matter to the industry because they think Apple's small market share is laughable. I haven't seen any articles saying how other companies tablet sales are collapsing (maybe because there wasn't much to collapse). It's usually just Apple's tablet business being overturned by the myriads of white box tablet manufacturers where 30% of them are lumped together as Others. If those charts actually used slices for others there would probably be 100 more slices.
Everyone claimed Apple's A-series processors were nothing special and just built up using marketing gimmicks. I guess they were wrong. There's one thing most of those other chip manufacturers can always do and that's just boost their clock speeds to match or exceed Apple's A-series benchmarks. Nobody cares one way or the other except tech-heads who drool over large benchmark numbers.
- It would be a huge undertaking to port over OS X to a different processor architecture
- OS X on an A Series would also cause headaches for developers. They won't be simply "re-compiling" their Apps so they can run on the new processor. It will require effort to port their Apps over, and increase their work load by now having two products to test/debug/support.
Like PPC->x86?
Absolutely. What about an A16?
The real question for both the ARM and AMD options is whether Apple has the license to develop it's own compatible Thunderbolt Controller to interface with PCH freeing it to use either AMD or ARM.
Without Thunderbolt licensing, Apple either has to convince AMD to use something other than Hypertransport 3.x and ARM has to redesign its solutions to be compatible with Thunderbolt.
Possibly, but what about an Apple notebook or desktop machine that runs on ARM that isn't labeled as a Mac, but has a Mac OS X-like OS?
Sure, but they've done that several times before with great success, including bringing OS X to ARM. Remember that iOS is born from Mac OS X and was labeled OS X iPhone by Apple at one point. I'm guessing they migrated Aqua to ARM a long time ago, and then probably after that built an entirely new desktop OS UI for ARM.
Again, previously something Apple has done with remarkable ease. Of course, moving to PPC to Intel had a major performance boost that PPC apps running in Rosetta likely felt faster on the Intel-based systems, but now we have the Mac App Store, which means many apps might be able to be ported with very little effort.
I would imagine that a desktop 'PC" from Apple running on ARM for the budget-market would likely require the App Store, like with iOS, and I would imagine the store would be bountiful in no time at all.
1) What about when you increase the Wattage of the A-series chips to match, say, the performance of the Intel chipset in the 11.6" MacBook Air? How fast is that A-series chip now?
2) Apple builds their bespoke A-series chips for iDevices, as well as their M-series chips, and soon to be S-series SIP. I see no reason Apple couldn't make an n-series chip that is idealized for a budget desktop "PC."
I agree with that, but I don't think running a desktop OS on ARM would be merging these two disparate OSes into a single platform. There will be cross pollination that has benefited both OSes, and likely the upcoming WatchOS, but they will remain separate, even if they are run on the same architecture.
It's a HUGE reduction in cost. Price those Intel chips. Apple could likely knock at least a couple hundred off the price even whilst getting ballpark performance for a specialized ARM-based chip for a low-cost notebook or desktop.
but wait for some stupid Wall Street fake-gate event or analyst comment to occur to buy.
That is an absolutely huge waste of engineering resources to tailor OS X lite for a laptop, to save a few bucks, when the AMD APUs post Bulldozer architecture will crush any Intel iGPU and the SMT structure Keller is putting in for SP/DP makes the cost of the Intel product a waste of time.
Your best bet is Apple helps AMD roll out their architecture for late 2015/early 2016 and forces Intel to drop their CPU pricing or lose a massive customer in Apple. Apple invests ZERO in software optimizations as it won't have to redesign a single bit of OS X to work.
It's almost scary, how proficient Apple's gotten at semiconductor design. And if you look at the specs and design of the A7 and A8, it's clear their team is gunning for Intel, not the other ARM manufacturers. And they're beating the pants off of everyone on a performance-per-watt basis.
And...I still think we may see Macs with A-series chips one day. The A9 should be a tick, bringing us an all new CPU core (Swift>Cyclone>Hurricane?) on a 20nm process. Its not as hard to emulate X86 code on ARM as you might expect, especially since Intel's chips haven't even processed true CISC instructions since the Pentium Pro. But an Intel chip retails for hundreds of dollars, vs much less for their own chips. And Apple is one P&L, they wouldn't have to sell them to themselves for a profit.
The Pro Macs might stay with Intel chips, no reason a MacBook SuperAir couldn't be ARM based though.
That's what I've been wondering - whether Apple would drop Intel for its own chips, not just in the lower-end Macs, but in all Macs. If they can achieve both the performance and software compatibility, there's really no reason not to. Wouldn't want to be the owner of Intel stock if that ever happens (wait a minute...my mutual funds do hold Intel stock), although from a unit standpoint, Macs are a relatively small part of Apple's game these days.
Among the many advantages of their own chip, I think it would be a tremendous differentiating marketing advantage - something which was lost when Apple started using Intel processors. The competition could no longer advertise that they're using the same processor as Apple. Although would this mean you could no longer run Windows on a Mac? (Not that I do.)
I was just going to say the same thing.
I also disagree with his premise. With Apple only using their chips, and not selling them to others, they aren't threat to Qualcomm, or any other manufacturer who does sell chips. Unfortunely, most tablet sales increases are now for tablets costing less than $250. Because of that, the most advanced chips will be selling in a smaller percentage of devices as time goes on. It's one reason Apple didn't include this new (and more expensive) chip in the Retina Mini this year.
I'm seeing estimates that Apple may not sell more than about 10 million iPads this quarter, just half of last's year's sales. I hope that's not true, but with Apple tablets now considerably more expensive than competing tablets, which in many cases are "good enough" for what people are using them for, Apple is restricting their market significantly.
So DED's usual rant isn't making too much sense, as he often misses the big picture, and is certainly doing so here.
Sorry but I just dont see this massive power drain your talking about with the K1, my Nexus 9 has a 6,700mAh battery and I consistently get between 7.5 to 8 hours of life, my Pad Air 2 has a 7340mAh and I get beween 8 and 8.5, seems fairly similiar to me. When playing a game, the iPad Air 2 drains quicker.
Originally Posted by TheOtherGeoff
Why does a Mac need to be x86? It doesn't It's nice to be x86 for those few people who want to run BootCamp or PC emulators.
Apple switching to x86 was key to Macbook penetrating the high tech industry. Outside of Microsoft, that's pretty much the laptop to own. You can easily develop code on your laptop that'll eventually run on the farms of x86 machines that power pretty much everything. At the same time, you have these tech workers that are developing for the Apple eco system.
This is such a weird timing for the article. iPad sells are on a decline while the Windows tablets/hybrids are finally picking up. If Windows 10 is only half decent, it'd be harder & harder to stay with a non-touch enabled OS X for the computer professionals (iOS is fine on a phone but is already starting to become inadequate on tablets as they get more powerful).
Go back to pure consumer oriented and I predict Apple will slowly decline like the pre OS X days.
Good post, agreed fully. I don't think we will ever see Apple selling their ARM chips to others, nor do I think we would see the kinds of speeds that iOS produces if they were used in say an Android or Windows 8 tablet, their too customized to their target group. Mobile devices are also not the only thing ARM chips are used for, the K1 for instance is now being used in hospital imaging equipment and cars. Why did Ded leave out the absolutely huge market for none mobile device usage.
Good stuff ... I don't know all I understand about it ...
Just to add some more spice(s) to the pot(s):
ARM isn't the only alternative -- for example there is the MIPS RISC CPU architecture, * which seems to be getting some press of late.
MIPS was used in SGI graphics workstations -- which ran circles around everything else in the late 1980s-1990s
Interesting -- the MIPS CPU IP is owned by Imagination Technologies -- whose GPU IP is used in the A8X chip.
http://www.imgtec.com/mips/warrior/
Then, there's this new S1 APU used in the AppleWatch -- which needs to be super-efficient (power, size) ... possible 32 bit?
Then there's this thing(s) called llvm/clang -- which is used for all Apple software implementation.
Then there's this thing called Swift which scales from writing simple interactive scripting apps to writing entire Operating Systems ...
Oh, then there's this need for Apple to deliver a compelling device for $0-$50 to run ApplePay, Phone, Mail, Browser ...
I always forget about that, thunderbolt being an intel development.
I wouldn't be surprised if apple moves away from thunderbolt all together. It seems like it never took off as much as they were hoping it would.
You both make good points here.
Thanks.
Correct me If I'm wrong ... AIR, Apple Developed Thunderbolt tech and licensed it to Intel!