Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
I'm not much of a gamer, but, I can see a continuation of desktop gaming. The primary reason, to me, is that desktop gaming allows for larger screens and seriously loud sounds. I believe many gamers enjoy the expansive visuals on large screens and the thundering vibrations of a good sub-woofer. Now, if someone builds a cool "Game Dock" for mobile devices...
All this talk about how Apple is uniquely positioned to deliver the best mobile graphics has got me excited to see what they come out with next! Think about it, other companies have been juggling their priorities, sinking money into the low-end. Apple has not only sunk money into the high end hardware side with its chip development, but the software, too, with swift which increases performance, metal which increases performance, and a 64-bit OS. Those four elements give Apple the best position in mobile performance. Apple has been on a warpath in one area in particular, utilizing their strengths. Health book and Apple pay are very security sensitive apps, so Apple deployed them across their massive user base knowing Android is not as prepared in security. So, they won't be able to address those markets as easily. In the area of performance, Apple has focused on swift etc., with android having a hard time because of the fragmentation. I have seen this coming for a little over a year, Apple is the best positioned player in mobile. Mobile is the future of gaming, computing, pay, health, social networks… At this pace, it will outpace the desktop and video game market with ease. I can't wait to see what Apple comes out with over the next few years, they aren't showing any signs of slowing down.
. . .It is probably expecting too much to expect Apple to worry about the Mac Pro market segment though.
I don't think so.
Why would they set up a factory in Texas and dump all that R&D and design $$$ into the new machine and not invest more to take it further.
The obvious missing element is an up-to-date Thunderbolt display. But also obvious is that the technology is changing rapidly. So they're most likely hedging their bets as well as spending more design $$$ to "get it right."
Apple is doing great with existing markets, so it behooves them to take their time to get the Pro geared up to grab the various high-end markets once they get their GPU act together. Perhaps their mobile chip development will provide valuable knowledge to utilize with the Pro.
Why would they set up a factory in Texas and dump all that R&D and design $$$ into the new machine and not invest more to take it further.
The obvious missing element is an up-to-date Thunderbolt display. But also obvious is that the technology is changing rapidly. So they're most likely hedging their bets as well as spending more design $$$ to "get it right."
Apple is doing great with existing markets, so it behooves them to take their time to get the Pro geared up to grab the various high-end markets once they get their GPU act together. Perhaps their mobile chip development will provide valuable knowledge to utilize with the Pro.
Well I would certainly like to believe that. I was meaning that perhaps the volume didn't warrant the investment. Then again flag ships are flag ships.
Why not write an article on how Apple beatand be done with it?
I the areas Apple has, DED has. Apple's not 'beating' everyone in the same tech sector perhaps, but a lot if not most. That's the whole point. Look at the financials of all concerned. What's your problem with that? Would you prefer others were beating Apple?
Why do app developers even bother with Android? With piracy rates on Android around 90% for popular apps it's like throwing your development dollars away. Even if Google provides a way to clean up the screen resolution and functional capabilities challenges in their fragmented ecosystem, until they clean up their act on allowing blatant and unobstructed thievery, any businesses who value their intellectual property and business investments are foolish to support Android. Sorry Google, but I much prefer a walled garden over an open cesspool.
There are so many Android devices. Even though a much smaller percentage of Android users are profitable, the baseline is so large it's still worth doing.
That said, we are still 80%+ iOS users and Android only happened much later. Small teams with limited resources should definitely stick with iOS-first.
Why not write an article on how Apple beatand be done with it?
Never going to happen.
Like other tech rumor sites, AppleInsider worships the Almighty Pageview. They can wring out thousands of extra pageviews by dragging this sort of thing along.
Ever run into a "Top n" list that is just a photo slideshow, forcing you to click to see the next number rather than putting them all on the same page? Same annoying concept.
This article could have been succinctly summarized in one or two paragraphs in a complete Apple mobile analysis. Instead, AppleInsider chose to write this as a separate windy post, three-quarters have been covered before.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Amhran
So is this going to be a weekly feature?
"How [X] Chipmaker Lost Buisness To Apple"?
Well, we are clicking through and commenting on it. The ploy seems to be working.
Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
Almost-as-good will win out in the short term because currently mobile and desktop are both just games on a screen.
But once VR kicks in, it won't be safe to be out and about while in virtual reality, so you will have to game at home, and that's when the swing back will happen.
I the areas Apple has, DED has. Apple's not 'beating' everyone in the same tech sector perhaps, but a lot if not most. That's the whole point. Look at the financials of all concerned. What's your problem with that? Would you prefer others were beating Apple?
I was being facetious. I thought use of that photo would indicate that.
I still have an Amiga 2500 laying around, which still boots although the monitor I had for it died. It was a fantastic machine for the time, and it is quite mind boggling to think that the A7 in my phone is nearly 100 times faster. The jump in GPU performance is probably even bigger. I remember thinking how insane it was that the Amiga could display 4096 colors at the same time.
Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
I'll be honest myself, I still get confused as to why such a question comes up, no offense.
The desktop as a gaming platform has been growing consistently for about 5 years now(Both hardware and software revenues). Windows may have not, but PC gaming itself is entirely different from the PC market, something which, I'm guessing that a few people here and on other sites miss sometimes. PC gaming has been "dying" since 1985 so...Gaming hasn't left the desktop for a while and it it probably won't.
Hopefully it leaves Windows though, 900 Linux games and counting has me excited. Huge thanks to the mac folks over at Aspyr and Feral.
Now if only Khronos wasn't slow as all hell with regards to standardizing OpenGL next.
What about TV's, going to 4K 5K and higher will also require a lot of processing power. Android is moving to the TV arena, so probably hardware will have to go with that. There is still no competition of APPLE on TV's.
AMD provide the GPUs for both the Xbox One and Playstation 4, so they're not going anywhere. And Nvidia is favored by PC owners which, due to sheer computing power, is still the best experience for game lovers. "PC Master Race" as they say. So Nvidia aren't going anywhere either. Unless gaming goes fully mobile of course.
Revenue is an important factor. Although Imagination Technologies secures a lot of the business, they don't make a lot of income:
Apple only pays the license and builds the chips so Imagination only made £170m revenue last year with an operating loss despite 1.2 billion units sold. NVidia made $4.1b revenue with $440m net income. AMD's revenue is a bit higher at around $5b as they sell CPUs too but low net income (<$50m per quarter).
Intel is eating away at NVidia and AMD. I think on the PC side that dedicated GPUs will be gone in a few years. It's possible that mobile GPUs can take over the laptop/desktop space. The current iOS devices are around the performance of the Intel HD 4000. Double that and you're at the level of the 650M/750M in the MBP. Triple that and you get a desktop 680. Not even double that again is the fastest GPUs available today:
50% increase in 2016 and another 100% in 2017 and you get an iPad with graphics like a GTX 680. 2018/2019 and it's at 980 level.
There are other factors like memory bandwidth but that's really high performance in passively cooled hardware. Intel will come close to an 850/950M this year with the Skylake Iris Pro but that's 45W. PowerVR will be like Haswell Iris Pro at under 5W.
GPUs are extremely parallel products. Just keep increasing the core count and performance will go with it so PowerVR could be used all the way up to the high-end.
That supports virtualized GPUs too. If there could be efficient x86 translation at the hardware level, that would give full software compatibility and great performance at a very low cost and as Apple has demonstrated with mobile products, it's hard for other manufacturers to compete. Whatever route technology ultimately goes, computers in the next 5 years are going to be amazing, I would even say they already are but you can still see areas for improvement.
I totally disagree. Until a portable device has active cooling systems and power supplies capable of hundreds of watts (or however many are needed in the future), 20+ inch displays, keyboards and everything else a desktop uses now, the day of the desktop will not end.
The place we haven't seen Apple leverage all this GPU wonderfulness is the ?TV. Their approach has been to put all the smarts in the iDevices and use the ?TV as a dumb screencast receiver. I'd like to see that change. Attach a big drive to an A8(9?) based ?TV, use Bluetooth for a controller interface, and I think you'd have a mean game machine.
Comments
I'm no gamer, so this is an honest question.
Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
I'm not much of a gamer, but, I can see a continuation of desktop gaming. The primary reason, to me, is that desktop gaming allows for larger screens and seriously loud sounds. I believe many gamers enjoy the expansive visuals on large screens and the thundering vibrations of a good sub-woofer. Now, if someone builds a cool "Game Dock" for mobile devices...
I do agree, the days of the desktop are over.
All this talk about how Apple is uniquely positioned to deliver the best mobile graphics has got me excited to see what they come out with next! Think about it, other companies have been juggling their priorities, sinking money into the low-end. Apple has not only sunk money into the high end hardware side with its chip development, but the software, too, with swift which increases performance, metal which increases performance, and a 64-bit OS. Those four elements give Apple the best position in mobile performance. Apple has been on a warpath in one area in particular, utilizing their strengths. Health book and Apple pay are very security sensitive apps, so Apple deployed them across their massive user base knowing Android is not as prepared in security. So, they won't be able to address those markets as easily. In the area of performance, Apple has focused on swift etc., with android having a hard time because of the fragmentation. I have seen this coming for a little over a year, Apple is the best positioned player in mobile. Mobile is the future of gaming, computing, pay, health, social networks… At this pace, it will outpace the desktop and video game market with ease. I can't wait to see what Apple comes out with over the next few years, they aren't showing any signs of slowing down.
Me, too!
. . .It is probably expecting too much to expect Apple to worry about the Mac Pro market segment though.
I don't think so.
Why would they set up a factory in Texas and dump all that R&D and design $$$ into the new machine and not invest more to take it further.
The obvious missing element is an up-to-date Thunderbolt display. But also obvious is that the technology is changing rapidly. So they're most likely hedging their bets as well as spending more design $$$ to "get it right."
Apple is doing great with existing markets, so it behooves them to take their time to get the Pro geared up to grab the various high-end markets once they get their GPU act together. Perhaps their mobile chip development will provide valuable knowledge to utilize with the Pro.
Well I would certainly like to believe that. I was meaning that perhaps the volume didn't warrant the investment. Then again flag ships are flag ships.
I the areas Apple has, DED has. Apple's not 'beating' everyone in the same tech sector perhaps, but a lot if not most. That's the whole point. Look at the financials of all concerned. What's your problem with that? Would you prefer others were beating Apple?
"How [X] Chipmaker Lost Buisness To Apple"?
There are so many Android devices. Even though a much smaller percentage of Android users are profitable, the baseline is so large it's still worth doing.
That said, we are still 80%+ iOS users and Android only happened much later. Small teams with limited resources should definitely stick with iOS-first.
Why not write an article on how Apple beat
Never going to happen.
Like other tech rumor sites, AppleInsider worships the Almighty Pageview. They can wring out thousands of extra pageviews by dragging this sort of thing along.
Ever run into a "Top n" list that is just a photo slideshow, forcing you to click to see the next number rather than putting them all on the same page? Same annoying concept.
This article could have been succinctly summarized in one or two paragraphs in a complete Apple mobile analysis. Instead, AppleInsider chose to write this as a separate windy post, three-quarters have been covered before.
So is this going to be a weekly feature?
"How [X] Chipmaker Lost Buisness To Apple"?
Well, we are clicking through and commenting on it. The ploy seems to be working.
I'm no gamer, so this is an honest question.
Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
Almost-as-good will win out in the short term because currently mobile and desktop are both just games on a screen.
But once VR kicks in, it won't be safe to be out and about while in virtual reality, so you will have to game at home, and that's when the swing back will happen.
I was being facetious. I thought use of that photo would indicate that.
The jump in GPU performance is probably even bigger. I remember thinking how insane it was that the Amiga could display 4096 colors at the same time.
I'm no gamer, so this is an honest question.
Do you really see a return to the desktop for gaming -- once people have experienced the freedom and flexibility of almost-as-good mobile gaming?
I would think that the economies of scale would drive enhancements to mobile gaming hardware/software/apps/accessories much more rapidly than on the desktop. Consider the advances in mobile phone photography and video capture, for example.
I'll be honest myself, I still get confused as to why such a question comes up, no offense.
The desktop as a gaming platform has been growing consistently for about 5 years now(Both hardware and software revenues). Windows may have not, but PC gaming itself is entirely different from the PC market, something which, I'm guessing that a few people here and on other sites miss sometimes. PC gaming has been "dying" since 1985 so...Gaming hasn't left the desktop for a while and it it probably won't.
Hopefully it leaves Windows though, 900 Linux games and counting has me excited. Huge thanks to the mac folks over at Aspyr and Feral.
Now if only Khronos wasn't slow as all hell with regards to standardizing OpenGL next.
Revenue is an important factor. Although Imagination Technologies secures a lot of the business, they don't make a lot of income:
http://www.imgtec.com/investors/AnnualReports/IMGAnnualReport2014.pdf
Apple only pays the license and builds the chips so Imagination only made £170m revenue last year with an operating loss despite 1.2 billion units sold. NVidia made $4.1b revenue with $440m net income. AMD's revenue is a bit higher at around $5b as they sell CPUs too but low net income (<$50m per quarter).
Intel is eating away at NVidia and AMD. I think on the PC side that dedicated GPUs will be gone in a few years. It's possible that mobile GPUs can take over the laptop/desktop space. The current iOS devices are around the performance of the Intel HD 4000. Double that and you're at the level of the 650M/750M in the MBP. Triple that and you get a desktop 680. Not even double that again is the fastest GPUs available today:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/8549/short-bytes-nvidia-geforce-gtx-980-in-1000-words
I could see the S-series of iOS devices in 2015 matching the 650M/750M, Imagination says more 730M:
http://www.tomshardware.fr/articles/powervr-series7,1-54829.html
50% increase in 2016 and another 100% in 2017 and you get an iPad with graphics like a GTX 680. 2018/2019 and it's at 980 level.
There are other factors like memory bandwidth but that's really high performance in passively cooled hardware. Intel will come close to an 850/950M this year with the Skylake Iris Pro but that's 45W. PowerVR will be like Haswell Iris Pro at under 5W.
GPUs are extremely parallel products. Just keep increasing the core count and performance will go with it so PowerVR could be used all the way up to the high-end.
http://blog.imgtec.com/powervr/powervr-series7xt-gpus-push-graphics-and-compute-performance
That supports virtualized GPUs too. If there could be efficient x86 translation at the hardware level, that would give full software compatibility and great performance at a very low cost and as Apple has demonstrated with mobile products, it's hard for other manufacturers to compete. Whatever route technology ultimately goes, computers in the next 5 years are going to be amazing, I would even say they already are but you can still see areas for improvement.
I do agree, the days of the desktop are over.
I totally disagree. Until a portable device has active cooling systems and power supplies capable of hundreds of watts (or however many are needed in the future), 20+ inch displays, keyboards and everything else a desktop uses now, the day of the desktop will not end.
Ok, missed the facetious mark. LOL
You are obviously very smart, welcome to AI ...
The place we haven't seen Apple leverage all this GPU wonderfulness is the ?TV. Their approach has been to put all the smarts in the iDevices and use the ?TV as a dumb screencast receiver. I'd like to see that change. Attach a big drive to an A8(9?) based ?TV, use Bluetooth for a controller interface, and I think you'd have a mean game machine.