The question remains when will MacBook One do away with Intel entirely. 2020 is my rough estimate. More than anything, I’d be most interested in what battery life they could squeeze for web browsing / YouTube video watching.
They might never do this. When you compare the 12" iPad Pro vs 12" Intel Macbook:
Both 41Wh batteries, both rated at 10 hours wifi browsing. Both Intel and Apple have access to advanced chip fabrication so they will both develop over time.
They will both hit limits in what the fabrication will allow. They will likely use 10nm for 3 years and then 7nm for 3 years. I'd expect the industry to be no further than 7nm until 2022. They may have worked out 4nm by then, which will take them to 2025. By this point (8 years), I'd expect chips to be 8x better than they are now. This is overall, they tend to put the improvement into the internal GPU rather than CPU. So let's say 4x GPU, 2x CPU.
What's the upside in switching to their own chip? It's not like people are struggling with the performance, the demand for high performance is diminishing. When it comes to battery life, the biggest advances in the next 8 years should be in the batteries themselves. While solid state batteries may not improve capacity, they can dramatically improve charging speed to minutes.
I think it could go either way for their own CPU in Macs vs Intel. It's easy for the low-end but would Apple manufacture custom 18-core or more chips for the iMac Pro? It would certainly be a lot cheaper on the high-end so great for their pro line. If they wouldn't do this, would they have a split Mac line with both ARM and x86 and software for both? Buying Intel's chips makes the Mac so much easier for Apple to maintain.
Not sure what will happen when and if MS delivers an ARM powered Surface, again; will it even matter? Would it even make sense for Apple to create a boot system for Windows on A series, even if Apple makes an ARM analog to the Mac Book or Mac Book Air?
If MS can come out with a an ARM-based Surface running Windows 10S, they have a good chance of getting back in the tablet game with a product that's much lower-priced vs their Intel counterparts and one that can seamlessly transition between touch UI & KB / Mouse UI.
I guess that in just a few years, cellphones will be powerful enough to be our main computers in life and by simply connecting a stand-alone screen and a keyboard, it converts into running a full-scale OS system. Separate laptops, iPads and Apple TV will be obsolete.
The only thing that could hamper this evolution would be the decrease in number of items people would need to buy, i.e. loss of sales. However, the mobile device will be more premium and worth a higher price, and the secondary devices like stand-alone screens, Apple Watch and wireless earphones, will be the same. Furthermore, I think this evolution is a reason that Apple is investing heavily in content.
So all in all, the future would be:
A phone with processing power and storage space enough to replace not only our current phones, but also our iPads, laptops, "home computers" and Apple TV
Separate screens to connect wirelessly for when we need larger screen estate or to run full-scale OS. In most households one 10-15" to replace the iPad and one 30" and above to replace the home computer and the TV.
An Apple Watch or similar for the most mobile situations.
Another option, of course, is sharing processors and storage space at a centralized location like a cloud service, and all devices consisting of simply a screen and processing and signal transmission enough to communicate with these. However, speed and privacy would be an issue. The benefit, of course, would be sharing processors and storage space so that none is redundant. Cheaper and more efficient. Plus, no need for backups as this would also be automatic and in much safer hands than our homes – if we can trust the service provider.
"I guess that in just a few years, cellphones will be powerful enough to be our main computers in life and by simply connecting a stand-alone screen and a keyboard, it converts into running a full-scale OS system"
iPhones are already powerful enough to do that. Question is, will Apple implement the technology within iOS to allow that to happen? Samsung has already started going down that path with DEX.
With Continuity built deep into macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS we already use many devices as ONE. It is oxymoron to demand LTE to be everywhere and being stuck at the age of cabled/docked connection.
As much as we live in a mobile-first world, doesn't mean we live in a mobile-only world. Most mainstream users don't need anymore performance and / or features than their smartphone provides. But sometimes when they're at home & their office they want a big-screen experience. I think it's a great idea if you can just dock your smartphone and have a desktop experience when you need it.
If they want that big screen experience with their iPhone, then there is AirPlay. AirPlay makes the smartphone screen big, on TV. If the TV screen doesn't satisfy them, then there is the Mac. If this is browsing photos, then there is iCloud Photo Library, the iPhone photos are also on the Mac to be displayed on whatever monitor attached to it. If this is a document worked out on the iPhone, the same document is ready to be edited on the Mac, and vice versa. Thanks to iCloud, Continuity, macOS and iOS, one absolutely doesn't need to dock anything to anything. Samsung has to write the whole operating system from the ground-up to achieve such level of integration with its dock. The Apple platform offers true multiple-devices-as-one architecture.
Edit: Those "convertibles" are already the incarnation of the dock legend, you know, "tablets" as laptop "screens". Those are called "toaster-fringe" in Apple's jargon and have pushed the PC industry at least five years backward...
The question remains when will MacBook One do away with Intel entirely. 2020 is my rough estimate. More than anything, I’d be most interested in what battery life they could squeeze for web browsing / YouTube video watching.
They might never do this. When you compare the 12" iPad Pro vs 12" Intel Macbook:
Both 41Wh batteries, both rated at 10 hours wifi browsing. Both Intel and Apple have access to advanced chip fabrication so they will both develop over time.
They will both hit limits in what the fabrication will allow. They will likely use 10nm for 3 years and then 7nm for 3 years. I'd expect the industry to be no further than 7nm until 2022. They may have worked out 4nm by then, which will take them to 2025. By this point (8 years), I'd expect chips to be 8x better than they are now. This is overall, they tend to put the improvement into the internal GPU rather than CPU. So let's say 4x GPU, 2x CPU.
What's the upside in switching to their own chip? It's not like people are struggling with the performance, the demand for high performance is diminishing. When it comes to battery life, the biggest advances in the next 8 years should be in the batteries themselves. While solid state batteries may not improve capacity, they can dramatically improve charging speed to minutes.
I think it could go either way for their own CPU in Macs vs Intel. It's easy for the low-end but would Apple manufacture custom 18-core or more chips for the iMac Pro? It would certainly be a lot cheaper on the high-end so great for their pro line. If they wouldn't do this, would they have a split Mac line with both ARM and x86 and software for both? Buying Intel's chips makes the Mac so much easier for Apple to maintain.
Not sure what will happen when and if MS delivers an ARM powered Surface, again; will it even matter? Would it even make sense for Apple to create a boot system for Windows on A series, even if Apple makes an ARM analog to the Mac Book or Mac Book Air?
If MS can come out with a an ARM-based Surface running Windows 10S, they have a good chance of getting back in the tablet game with a product that's much lower-priced vs their Intel counterparts and one that can seamlessly transition between touch UI & KB / Mouse UI.
Microsoft already proved nobody wants to run windows without being able to run windows apps.
I really dont see any significant advantage to running MacOS over iOS for 90% of the common use cases, especially without many of the legacy MacOS apps available, so why would Apple want to change course?
I guess that in just a few years, cellphones will be powerful enough to be our main computers in life and by simply connecting a stand-alone screen and a keyboard, it converts into running a full-scale OS system. Separate laptops, iPads and Apple TV will be obsolete.
The only thing that could hamper this evolution would be the decrease in number of items people would need to buy, i.e. loss of sales. However, the mobile device will be more premium and worth a higher price, and the secondary devices like stand-alone screens, Apple Watch and wireless earphones, will be the same. Furthermore, I think this evolution is a reason that Apple is investing heavily in content.
So all in all, the future would be:
A phone with processing power and storage space enough to replace not only our current phones, but also our iPads, laptops, "home computers" and Apple TV
Separate screens to connect wirelessly for when we need larger screen estate or to run full-scale OS. In most households one 10-15" to replace the iPad and one 30" and above to replace the home computer and the TV.
An Apple Watch or similar for the most mobile situations.
Another option, of course, is sharing processors and storage space at a centralized location like a cloud service, and all devices consisting of simply a screen and processing and signal transmission enough to communicate with these. However, speed and privacy would be an issue. The benefit, of course, would be sharing processors and storage space so that none is redundant. Cheaper and more efficient. Plus, no need for backups as this would also be automatic and in much safer hands than our homes – if we can trust the service provider.
"I guess that in just a few years, cellphones will be powerful enough to be our main computers in life and by simply connecting a stand-alone screen and a keyboard, it converts into running a full-scale OS system"
iPhones are already powerful enough to do that. Question is, will Apple implement the technology within iOS to allow that to happen? Samsung has already started going down that path with DEX.
With Continuity built deep into macOS, iOS, watchOS and tvOS we already use many devices as ONE. It is oxymoron to demand LTE to be everywhere and being stuck at the age of cabled/docked connection.
As much as we live in a mobile-first world, doesn't mean we live in a mobile-only world. Most mainstream users don't need anymore performance and / or features than their smartphone provides. But sometimes when they're at home & their office they want a big-screen experience. I think it's a great idea if you can just dock your smartphone and have a desktop experience when you need it.
If they want that big screen experience with their iPhone, then there is AirPlay. AirPlay makes the smartphone screen big, on TV. If the TV screen doesn't satisfy them, then there is the Mac. If this is browsing photos, then there is iCloud Photo Library, the iPhone photos are also on the Mac to be displayed on whatever monitor attached to it. If this is a document worked out on the iPhone, the same document is ready to be edited on the Mac, and vice versa. Thanks to iCloud, Continuity, macOS and iOS, one absolutely doesn't need to dock anything to anything. Samsung has to write the whole operating system from the ground-up to achieve such level of integration with its dock. The Apple platform offers true multiple-devices-as-one architecture.
Edit: Those "convertibles" are already the incarnation of the dock legend, you know, "tablets" as laptop "screens". Those are called "toaster-fringe" in Apple's jargon and have pushed the PC industry at least five years backward...
"The Apple platform offers true multiple-devices-as-one architecture." I'd say theyare still a ways off this but a lot closer than any other vendor. Still many things they could do to make it seemless.
I have been hearing that same line "It appears that silicon is reaching limits, imposed by the laws of physics." since the mid-1990's. Yet, mysteriously year after year; we see performance improvements in the 30-50% range. Those improvements do not sound anything like hitting a limit, improvements in the 2-5% range sound like you are banging against a limit.
You'll be seeing the 30-50%* for years to come on Apple ICs. Two reasons: 1) Everything owned by Apple so can be optimized for 2) a single line of hardware.
* The only reason not to see that is if they decide to work on lowering TDP (by extension - improving battery life) in an iteration.
Don’t be so sure. The performance increase of Apple’s chips have slowing down. From 100% to 60% to 50% to 40%, and now to 25%. While there may simply design choices for that, recently, we don’t know.
Not the numbers I get. Using Geekbench single core results I get:
A6 to A7 - 67% A7 to A8 - 16% A8 to A9 - 62% A9 to A10 - 45% A10 to A11 - 20% (estimate based on leaked scores).
Seems like their increases are large with the new architecture, then small with refinement, then large again with a new architecture. They might be using the same basic architecture from the A9-A11, which is why we see two consecutive drops.
That’s pretty much what I said. You’re leaving off the 4 to 5 and the 5 To 6. The A7 To A8 was because of consolidation of the chip design after the first 64 bit version the year before.
I think the substantial amount of coprocessing added in this iteration on the SOC (and thermal implications) is why the relatively low IPC jump. Apple by being able/afford to build huge SOC's can really go crazy there in ways nobody can.
Others may eventually come "closer" to Apple's IPC scores but by that time Apple will have a huge multilayed SOCs built in hundreds of millions of devices with tens of coprocessing functions with controllers tightly interwoven with their OS that control the traffic.
That's one hell of a tech moat to bridge for those not vertically integrated, only Samsung has the economic and tech potential to be able to follow but they'll be hampered severely by the fact they don't control the OS (and they kinda suck at software).
The reason why I question it is because you mostly pay for chip area when buying chips. The bigger the chip, the more it costs. When we see the photos and the measurements, we’ll know for sure.
but I keep bringing up the A9X vs the A10X. By going from 145 square mm to 96 square mm with the die shrink, and by also adding another high performance and another high efficiency core while on such a small die - about half the area, Apple is either saving a lot of money, using a lot less power, or, well, I don’t know what else.
the point is that if Apple wanted to use about the same size die, as the past generation, or a bit smaller, they could fit a lot more on it. Even going with the smaller die the A10X uses, without the extra 6 gpu cores, or the extra, large high performance core, they can get a lot on. So the extra 4 high efficiency cores, which purpose I’m still trying to understand, plus the neural chip, which Apple showed us on the slide. So by knowing the die size for the A11, we’ll have some idea as to what Apple can put on it, and how much larger they can go in the future.
The question remains when will MacBook One do away with Intel entirely. 2020 is my rough estimate. More than anything, I’d be most interested in what battery life they could squeeze for web browsing / YouTube video watching.
They might never do this. When you compare the 12" iPad Pro vs 12" Intel Macbook:
Both 41Wh batteries, both rated at 10 hours wifi browsing. Both Intel and Apple have access to advanced chip fabrication so they will both develop over time.
They will both hit limits in what the fabrication will allow. They will likely use 10nm for 3 years and then 7nm for 3 years. I'd expect the industry to be no further than 7nm until 2022. They may have worked out 4nm by then, which will take them to 2025. By this point (8 years), I'd expect chips to be 8x better than they are now. This is overall, they tend to put the improvement into the internal GPU rather than CPU. So let's say 4x GPU, 2x CPU.
What's the upside in switching to their own chip? It's not like people are struggling with the performance, the demand for high performance is diminishing. When it comes to battery life, the biggest advances in the next 8 years should be in the batteries themselves. While solid state batteries may not improve capacity, they can dramatically improve charging speed to minutes.
I think it could go either way for their own CPU in Macs vs Intel. It's easy for the low-end but would Apple manufacture custom 18-core or more chips for the iMac Pro? It would certainly be a lot cheaper on the high-end so great for their pro line. If they wouldn't do this, would they have a split Mac line with both ARM and x86 and software for both? Buying Intel's chips makes the Mac so much easier for Apple to maintain.
The reason why some people are talking about this as something they’re sure will be done is because they’re - fans, and they want to see that, just because.
but a much better reason is scheduling. One reason why Apple left the PPC was because they couldn’t get a mobile G5 from them. Almost a year after Apple left, IBM came up with a mobile version, but it was too late.
using Intel, Apple figured that they would never be behind the herd, and they’re right, they’re never behind, unless they decide to be, which they have recently. But now, with Intel, and we’ll be seeing AMD in the same rut, things are progressing more slowly than ever before, and that won’t speed up. I doubt we’ll see 4nm. The next is supposed to be 5nm, but there are so many problems with that, that there are those in the industry who are skeptical it will happen, or that it it does, it will be a lot further off than currently expected.
what Apple has with their A chips, is predictability. They know that they will have a new chip every year, at the same time, and that it will do what they want. There isn’t that predictably with anyone else. Intel, and AMD need to satisfy differing customer needs. They don’t build specialized chips for any one company, though Intel did, on occasion, redesign the packaging for Apple. But as we saw with Imagination, a company that so depended on Apple that they’re in crisis now that they’re going, that even with owning a part of the company, Apple can’t always persuade that company to design what Apple needs. By the way, Microsoft was also using Imagination, and they also refused to design specifically for their needs. Stupid, really. But I see it all the time.
so if Apple decides that they can’t get what they want, and need, what are they going to do? They may do what they’ve done before, and gather more control over the entire stack. It’s very possible that they’re experimenting, in that R&D fab they own, with larger chips, at higher power levels. It requires a major redesign, because ARM chips, as they are can’t scale too far. So, we’ll see.
The question remains when will MacBook One do away with Intel entirely. 2020 is my rough estimate. More than anything, I’d be most interested in what battery life they could squeeze for web browsing / YouTube video watching.
They might never do this. When you compare the 12" iPad Pro vs 12" Intel Macbook:
Both 41Wh batteries, both rated at 10 hours wifi browsing. Both Intel and Apple have access to advanced chip fabrication so they will both develop over time.
They will both hit limits in what the fabrication will allow. They will likely use 10nm for 3 years and then 7nm for 3 years. I'd expect the industry to be no further than 7nm until 2022. They may have worked out 4nm by then, which will take them to 2025. By this point (8 years), I'd expect chips to be 8x better than they are now. This is overall, they tend to put the improvement into the internal GPU rather than CPU. So let's say 4x GPU, 2x CPU.
What's the upside in switching to their own chip? It's not like people are struggling with the performance, the demand for high performance is diminishing. When it comes to battery life, the biggest advances in the next 8 years should be in the batteries themselves. While solid state batteries may not improve capacity, they can dramatically improve charging speed to minutes.
I think it could go either way for their own CPU in Macs vs Intel. It's easy for the low-end but would Apple manufacture custom 18-core or more chips for the iMac Pro? It would certainly be a lot cheaper on the high-end so great for their pro line. If they wouldn't do this, would they have a split Mac line with both ARM and x86 and software for both? Buying Intel's chips makes the Mac so much easier for Apple to maintain.
Not sure what will happen when and if MS delivers an ARM powered Surface, again; will it even matter? Would it even make sense for Apple to create a boot system for Windows on A series, even if Apple makes an ARM analog to the Mac Book or Mac Book Air?
They have an ARM Surface. It’s called the Surface 3. It’s been out for almost three years, I think. It’s where they’re working their efforts with their universal Win 10 concept.
The question remains when will MacBook One do away with Intel entirely. 2020 is my rough estimate. More than anything, I’d be most interested in what battery life they could squeeze for web browsing / YouTube video watching.
They might never do this. When you compare the 12" iPad Pro vs 12" Intel Macbook:
Both 41Wh batteries, both rated at 10 hours wifi browsing. Both Intel and Apple have access to advanced chip fabrication so they will both develop over time.
They will both hit limits in what the fabrication will allow. They will likely use 10nm for 3 years and then 7nm for 3 years. I'd expect the industry to be no further than 7nm until 2022. They may have worked out 4nm by then, which will take them to 2025. By this point (8 years), I'd expect chips to be 8x better than they are now. This is overall, they tend to put the improvement into the internal GPU rather than CPU. So let's say 4x GPU, 2x CPU.
What's the upside in switching to their own chip? It's not like people are struggling with the performance, the demand for high performance is diminishing. When it comes to battery life, the biggest advances in the next 8 years should be in the batteries themselves. While solid state batteries may not improve capacity, they can dramatically improve charging speed to minutes.
I think it could go either way for their own CPU in Macs vs Intel. It's easy for the low-end but would Apple manufacture custom 18-core or more chips for the iMac Pro? It would certainly be a lot cheaper on the high-end so great for their pro line. If they wouldn't do this, would they have a split Mac line with both ARM and x86 and software for both? Buying Intel's chips makes the Mac so much easier for Apple to maintain.
Not sure what will happen when and if MS delivers an ARM powered Surface, again; will it even matter? Would it even make sense for Apple to create a boot system for Windows on A series, even if Apple makes an ARM analog to the Mac Book or Mac Book Air?
If MS can come out with a an ARM-based Surface running Windows 10S, they have a good chance of getting back in the tablet game with a product that's much lower-priced vs their Intel counterparts and one that can seamlessly transition between touch UI & KB / Mouse UI.
I don’t see it working. All 10S really is, is a basically non upgradable version of win 10 Home. A version with which you have no control over updates whatsoever, and which only allows apps from the Windows App Store. It’s mostly intended to compete with cheap Chrome OS devices.
what Apple has with their A chips, is predictability. They know that they will have a new chip every year, at the same time, and that it will do what they want. There isn’t that predictably with anyone else. Intel, and AMD need to satisfy differing customer needs. They don’t build specialized chips for any one company, though Intel did, on occasion, redesign the packaging for Apple. But as we saw with Imagination, a company that so depended on Apple that they’re in crisis now that they’re going, that even with owning a part of the company, Apple can’t always persuade that company to design what Apple needs. By the way, Microsoft was also using Imagination, and they also refused to design specifically for their needs. Stupid, really. But I see it all the time.
so if Apple decides that they can’t get what they want, and need, what are they going to do? They may do what they’ve done before, and gather more control over the entire stack. It’s very possible that they’re experimenting, in that R&D fab they own, with larger chips, at higher power levels. It requires a major redesign, because ARM chips, as they are can’t scale too far. So, we’ll see.
What Apple wants would be what they want for the buyer. Right now Apple can see needs in mobile computing and wearables that haven't been addressed elsewhere. For laptop/desktop computers, that race has been run. There's a small demand for faster GPUs but the MBP hasn't doubled in CPU power in 6 years and nobody really bothers about it, they are fast enough to handle the tasks most people do:
For power consumption it's important to improve performance-per-watt but there's little demand to go beyond all day battery life and the display limits how far they can go. If they have 10 hour battery life with the components using 10W of power, if the display and storage uses 4W and the computing components 6W, even if they get the components down to 1W, the power consumption is still 5W so they only double the battery life by 6x improvement in performance-per-watt. It may be compelling enough to go from 10 hours battery life to 20 but Apple's advances won't be 6x what Intel can achieve.
The biggest downside to using Intel is the price, especially at the high-end. Apple could build a better $50 chip than Intel for an entry-level machine and a much better value option with lots of cores but they could do the same with a coprocessor, which avoids breaking compatibility. I don't see huge performance or feature demands in the laptop/desktop market any more. People don't even talk about Macs/PCs much any more, it's all mobile devices.
what Apple has with their A chips, is predictability. They know that they will have a new chip every year, at the same time, and that it will do what they want. There isn’t that predictably with anyone else. Intel, and AMD need to satisfy differing customer needs. They don’t build specialized chips for any one company, though Intel did, on occasion, redesign the packaging for Apple. But as we saw with Imagination, a company that so depended on Apple that they’re in crisis now that they’re going, that even with owning a part of the company, Apple can’t always persuade that company to design what Apple needs. By the way, Microsoft was also using Imagination, and they also refused to design specifically for their needs. Stupid, really. But I see it all the time.
so if Apple decides that they can’t get what they want, and need, what are they going to do? They may do what they’ve done before, and gather more control over the entire stack. It’s very possible that they’re experimenting, in that R&D fab they own, with larger chips, at higher power levels. It requires a major redesign, because ARM chips, as they are can’t scale too far. So, we’ll see.
What Apple wants would be what they want for the buyer. Right now Apple can see needs in mobile computing and wearables that haven't been addressed elsewhere. For laptop/desktop computers, that race has been run. There's a small demand for faster GPUs but the MBP hasn't doubled in CPU power in 6 years and nobody really bothers about it, they are fast enough to handle the tasks most people do:
For power consumption it's important to improve performance-per-watt but there's little demand to go beyond all day battery life and the display limits how far they can go. If they have 10 hour battery life with the components using 10W of power, if the display and storage uses 4W and the computing components 6W, even if they get the components down to 1W, the power consumption is still 5W so they only double the battery life by 6x improvement in performance-per-watt. It may be compelling enough to go from 10 hours battery life to 20 but Apple's advances won't be 6x what Intel can achieve.
The biggest downside to using Intel is the price, especially at the high-end. Apple could build a better $50 chip than Intel for an entry-level machine and a much better value option with lots of cores but they could do the same with a coprocessor, which avoids breaking compatibility. I don't see huge performance or feature demands in the laptop/desktop market any more. People don't even talk about Macs/PCs much any more, it's all mobile devices.
It’s more than that. Intel won’t/can’t build into their chips what Apple may want. Apple had the same problem with Imagination, and look what happened. If apple wants a neural processor in the chip, forget it. If they want AR extensions in the GPU, forget it. If they want an ISP in the chip, forget it.
if Apple wants to bring any of this to their Mac line, including Face ID, they likely need their own chips.
your’e thinking too linearly. You’re just talking about iterative improvements. While Apple does want that, and just because Intel hasn’t been able to deliver it doesn’t mean that Apple doesn’t want it, it’s not the only thing. I can see them wanting to bring all of their advances to all their product lines, for ease of use, security, and consistency. They’re bringing Touch ID to,the notebook lines, I don’t see why they won’t want to bring the rest over as well, even though it might take a few years.
i don’t know what people you’re talking about, because there’s a lot of talk about Macs among the people I talk to. Apple sold more than 20 million Macs last year, and while growth is slow, there’s still growth. I doubt very much that Apple has lost interest. There’s a lot of evidence that they’re making, and getting, a big push with Macs in enterprise. So, four years ago, Macs were about 2.5% of the computers in enterprise. This year, it’s over 5%. That’s very good growth. If you read the pro computer journals, you’ll see that there is enthusiasm there. Whenever companies offer a choice, people almost always choose the Mac.
Comments
Edit:
Those "convertibles" are already the incarnation of the dock legend, you know, "tablets" as laptop "screens". Those are called "toaster-fringe" in Apple's jargon and have pushed the PC industry at least five years backward...
I really dont see any significant advantage to running MacOS over iOS for 90% of the common use cases, especially without many of the legacy MacOS apps available, so why would Apple want to change course?
I'd say theyare still a ways off this but a lot closer than any other vendor. Still many things they could do to make it seemless.
but I keep bringing up the A9X vs the A10X. By going from 145 square mm to 96 square mm with the die shrink, and by also adding another high performance and another high efficiency core while on such a small die - about half the area, Apple is either saving a lot of money, using a lot less power, or, well, I don’t know what else.
the point is that if Apple wanted to use about the same size die, as the past generation, or a bit smaller, they could fit a lot more on it. Even going with the smaller die the A10X uses, without the extra 6 gpu cores, or the extra, large high performance core, they can get a lot on. So the extra 4 high efficiency cores, which purpose I’m still trying to understand, plus the neural chip, which Apple showed us on the slide. So by knowing the die size for the A11, we’ll have some idea as to what Apple can put on it, and how much larger they can go in the future.
The reason why some people are talking about this as something they’re sure will be done is because they’re - fans, and they want to see that, just because.
but a much better reason is scheduling. One reason why Apple left the PPC was because they couldn’t get a mobile G5 from them. Almost a year after Apple left, IBM came up with a mobile version, but it was too late.
using Intel, Apple figured that they would never be behind the herd, and they’re right, they’re never behind, unless they decide to be, which they have recently. But now, with Intel, and we’ll be seeing AMD in the same rut, things are progressing more slowly than ever before, and that won’t speed up. I doubt we’ll see 4nm. The next is supposed to be 5nm, but there are so many problems with that, that there are those in the industry who are skeptical it will happen, or that it it does, it will be a lot further off than currently expected.
what Apple has with their A chips, is predictability. They know that they will have a new chip every year, at the same time, and that it will do what they want. There isn’t that predictably with anyone else. Intel, and AMD need to satisfy differing customer needs. They don’t build specialized chips for any one company, though Intel did, on occasion, redesign the packaging for Apple. But as we saw with Imagination, a company that so depended on Apple that they’re in crisis now that they’re going, that even with owning a part of the company, Apple can’t always persuade that company to design what Apple needs. By the way, Microsoft was also using Imagination, and they also refused to design specifically for their needs. Stupid, really. But I see it all the time.
so if Apple decides that they can’t get what they want, and need, what are they going to do? They may do what they’ve done before, and gather more control over the entire stack. It’s very possible that they’re experimenting, in that R&D fab they own, with larger chips, at higher power levels. It requires a major redesign, because ARM chips, as they are can’t scale too far. So, we’ll see.
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/73
https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/419
For power consumption it's important to improve performance-per-watt but there's little demand to go beyond all day battery life and the display limits how far they can go. If they have 10 hour battery life with the components using 10W of power, if the display and storage uses 4W and the computing components 6W, even if they get the components down to 1W, the power consumption is still 5W so they only double the battery life by 6x improvement in performance-per-watt. It may be compelling enough to go from 10 hours battery life to 20 but Apple's advances won't be 6x what Intel can achieve.
The biggest downside to using Intel is the price, especially at the high-end. Apple could build a better $50 chip than Intel for an entry-level machine and a much better value option with lots of cores but they could do the same with a coprocessor, which avoids breaking compatibility. I don't see huge performance or feature demands in the laptop/desktop market any more. People don't even talk about Macs/PCs much any more, it's all mobile devices.
if Apple wants to bring any of this to their Mac line, including Face ID, they likely need their own chips.
your’e thinking too linearly. You’re just talking about iterative improvements. While Apple does want that, and just because Intel hasn’t been able to deliver it doesn’t mean that Apple doesn’t want it, it’s not the only thing. I can see them wanting to bring all of their advances to all their product lines, for ease of use, security, and consistency. They’re bringing Touch ID to,the notebook lines, I don’t see why they won’t want to bring the rest over as well, even though it might take a few years.
i don’t know what people you’re talking about, because there’s a lot of talk about Macs among the people I talk to. Apple sold more than 20 million Macs last year, and while growth is slow, there’s still growth. I doubt very much that Apple has lost interest. There’s a lot of evidence that they’re making, and getting, a big push with Macs in enterprise. So, four years ago, Macs were about 2.5% of the computers in enterprise. This year, it’s over 5%. That’s very good growth. If you read the pro computer journals, you’ll see that there is enthusiasm there. Whenever companies offer a choice, people almost always choose the Mac.
don’t dismiss Macs so quickly.