Apple looking to develop custom ARM chips for future Macs, cutting out Intel - report

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  • Reply 21 of 159
    thttht Posts: 5,421member
    MacPro said:
    Does this mean going back to the days of most programs being incompatible with Mac like with the Power PC? No bootcamp anymore? 
    My guess would be there will be two types of Macs for a few years, with and without Intel.

    There are a few ways they can go. 

    1. Competition: offer macOS/ARM and macOS/x86 machines concurrently. If Apple is good with ARM, x86 machines sales will dry up and people won't notice their retirement. Long term commitment with basically 2 teams.

    2. Forced Migration: basically what Apple did with PPC to Intel. This only works if Apple can provide clearly faster, and cheaper, ARM machines than x86 ones. 

    3. Asymmetric: offer iOS laptops and desktops. iOS will have to be expanding to have overlapping windows, shell access, same feature set as macOS. Then apps need to be ported.

    Number 3 is interesting as it means AppKit can be retired and most apps will be on the more modern UIKit or UXKit, or a new superset developer kit. All this iOS apps and games could be used. Xcode, FCPX, Logic, etc have to be ported, and there would be automated tools for it. 


    doozydozen
  • Reply 22 of 159
    smalm said:
    Apple replacing Intel with ARM? Must be the first time ever we hear about that  :p
    What you missing here is stats on how Apple A-chips started to perform recently. Combining that with the fact that Intel is kind of stagnant and Apple doing its own R&D on their own A-chips, I think they will get there eventually. They are not happy with the fact that some company have their IP in Apple's products which they can sell to other companies too. 
    Ignore the benchmarks.  ARM chips are a long way from competing with Intel parts.  In a couple of years, the generally underpowered MacBook will probably make the transition, but even if Apple could guarantee that Adobe and MS would release their stuff for ARM in short order, the ARM chips simply don't have the grunt for the kinds of work that people expect to be able to do on mid-spec iMacs, and MacBook Pros.
    radarthekat
  • Reply 23 of 159
    Here we go again. Apple is NOT abandoning Intel on the Mac! I wouldn't be surprised however to see an AMD processor show up, in the Mac, at some point.

    MacOS = Intel/x86
    iOS = ARM

    Any questions?
    ksec
  • Reply 24 of 159
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    sog35 said:
    Here. We. Go.

    I think we will be seeing an iOS desktop very soon..

    Hopefully in 5 years Apple is almost 100% vertically integraded and does not have to rely on any vendor to provide parts.
    Welcome to seeing reports of all the hundreds (if not more) of patent lawsuits filed against Apple the day that this is announced especially in the Radio space where there are literally thousdands of applicable patents. Buying from Broadcom takes a lot of that pain away.
    This could tie Apple up in legal knots for years and years. Sometimes it is cheaper and easier just to pay Broadcom.

    I'd also expect real estate prices in East Texas (close to the courthouse) will rise significantly if Apple does this.
    The “venue shopping” type of lawsuits commonly filed in Texas are going to disappear. Apparently you missed this huge development.

    http://fortune.com/2017/05/22/texas-patent-supreme-court/
    They still allow most of 'em to go thru as long as the company filing can prove to the court's satisfaction there's an active business presence. In fact there's only been one denied so far, tho Judge Gilstrap disagreed with the Fed Circuit''s reasoning. Gilstrap was really stretching too, I believe accepting "business presence" as one single salesman in Texas. Fed trumps so they win. :)
    edited September 2017
  • Reply 25 of 159
    Intel is SO SLOW in developing its CPUs that we have been stuck at 4-core CPUS for more than 10 years in MacBooks. MacBook Pros in 2017 are actually slower than 2016 models and are not not faster than 2011 models. 

    I would LOVE Apple to create its own Intel-Based CPUs. I'm sure Apple would create faster and more capable CPUs than Intel could. 
    kruegdudecornchip
  • Reply 26 of 159
    I'm no fool (at least today)  if Apple delivers an ARM based Mac I'd expect it to be 
    basically a Mac mini form factor at $399 and the current Macbook form factor at roughly $699. 

    What's going to make this plausible is, as one poster mentioned, Apple's move into becoming a more 
    vertically integrated company.  

    Apple now 

    1. Designs their own ARM chips including custom GPU 
    2. Is pursuing Micro LED for displays (LuxView acquisition of 2014)
    3. Apple consortium of companies that just acquired Toshiba's NAND business (which Apple wanted so badly it strong armed WDC) 
    4. Calls out their services portfolio and revenues.  Services are going to be huge for their future growth

    Apple's becoming more like an Asian company and diversifying.  Their future is no longer tied to Mac and pretty soon it won't even be tied 
    to how many iPhones they sell.  


    cornchipdoozydozen
  • Reply 27 of 159

    Apple is just moving to everything being under one roof, and what I mean is Apple will put all the various chips they use into one chip, if you at what take up most of the room in product beside Power (batteries or power supplies) it all the silicon chips, Apple have been moving more and more of the silicon under their control and inside their own ship. The more they can put in their own chip the smaller and faster they can make the product. Look at the Watch this is where Apple is heading. Imagine if Apple control all the silicon on the laptop, it could be all Battery and a few chips, all of sudden you have laptop which can run days without a recharge.

    BYW, this is concept that has been a round for well over 30 yrs, we are just now getting to the point where it can happen, CPU, Memory, GPU, display driver, analog and digital all on the same chip in one package.

    edited September 2017
  • Reply 28 of 159
    Does this mean going back to the days of most programs being incompatible with Mac like with the Power PC? No bootcamp anymore? 
    Yes - no Boot Camp until MS ports MS Windows to ARM.

    It makes sense for Apple to move to ARM SoC/SoM as Apple will no longer be dependent on other companies with competing priorities - e.g. Hey - Foundry XXX - we want to produce 150M of this chip in XX weeks and pay USD XX per chip with a yield of XX percent - we will guarantee payment on that production run. 

    A guaranteed production run over a period shoiuld be advantageous to the Foundry as they can maximize efficiency [and profits] when just running one chip versus starting and stopping varying amounts for different companies.

    If MS does not port MS Windows to ARM then I suspect that Apple-branded desktop hardware will still use x64 chips with the Apple-branded portable hardware moving to ARM.
  • Reply 29 of 159
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    sog35 said:
    Imagine a desktop running on A-chips?

    They would be amazing. And amazingly cheap.

    Throw a A11 and 128GB in a small package.  You basically have a PC replacement for $199.

    **Come on TIMMY. CHANGE THE GAME.**

    A cheap $199-$299 Apple A-class desktop would DOMINATE the home/office PC market. 
    Forget what the naysayers on this site are saying, especially when you look at the inroads Apple has been making with enterprise systems. Someone mentioned a netbook and this is all many government and enterprise installations would need. The "cloud" is where it's at, again. Remember when we had client-server systems, then along came the Mac and made (individual) desktop publishing the in thing? I do, because I lived through it, having to transition from a large client server publishing system to supporting a bunch of Macs. After a few months, I totally agreed with the transition because Macs had the software and ability to handle publishing. Fast forward twenty years and we're seeing more and more applications being hosted on servers with ever more powerful computers accessing them. Throw in the security aspects of a properly configured and secured enterprise local-cloud (remember, we've done this before) and you have the ability to offload processing onto the local system while maintaining all data on the servers. This also allows systems to be run "diskless" so no persistent data is stored locally. Apple is pushing for everything to go through iCloud or through its partner servers (IBM and other specialized systems). When you look at a base iPhone 8 Plus with the ability to drive an HD level monitor (1920x1080), what more do enterprise desk jobs really need? The A11 and extra chips already have the ability to secure local storage so go ahead and load the OS and keep just about everything else on the servers. Turn your enterprise desktop system off when you leave, which is what people are supposed to do but rarely do, and you have the makings of a top-flight system without spending a ton of money. $199 might be a little low but not when purchased in bulk while adding the cost of input devices (keyboard/mouse/touchpad) and a monitor (touchscreen or not). Remember, 99% of office users don't need a 4 or 5K monitor. You can get a 1920x1080 Viewsonic 22" IPS LED HD monitor for $110. This would be an upgrade for many office workers. Apple could sell a complete all-in-one office network system for under $500 and that would dominate the market. 
    doozydozen
  • Reply 30 of 159
    adbe said:
    smalm said:
    Apple replacing Intel with ARM? Must be the first time ever we hear about that  :p

    Ignore the benchmarks.  ARM chips are a long way from competing with Intel parts.  In a couple of years, the generally underpowered MacBook will probably make the transition, but even if Apple could guarantee that Adobe and MS would release their stuff for ARM in short order, the ARM chips simply don't have the grunt for the kinds of work that people expect to be able to do on mid-spec iMacs, and MacBook Pros.

    Most people are simply surfing the internet.  You do realize Microsoft has already ported windows to ARM 
    http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Windows_RT

    There is very little that Intel does that cannot be replicated with ARM hardware.  
    doozydozen
  • Reply 31 of 159
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    sog35 said:
    Imagine a desktop running on A-chips?

    They would be amazing. And amazingly cheap.

    Throw a A11 and 128GB in a small package.  You basically have a PC replacement for $199.

    **Come on TIMMY. CHANGE THE GAME.**

    A cheap $199-$299 Apple A-class desktop would DOMINATE the home/office PC market. 
    I thought Apple didn't do cheap. And why is the Mac so cheap when that configuration in the iPhone is not cheap. 
    charlesatlasdoozydozen
  • Reply 32 of 159

    karmadave said:
    Here we go again. Apple is NOT abandoning Intel on the Mac! I wouldn't be surprised however to see an AMD processor show up, in the Mac, at some point.

    MacOS = Intel/x86
    iOS = ARM

    Any questions?
    I'd be surprised.  Apple gains nothing by going with AMD.   I don't think Apple abandons Intel entirely but they are likely going to shift a majority of their high volume hardware running Mac OS to ARM within a couple of years. 


  • Reply 33 of 159
    tipootipoo Posts: 1,141member

    1) Dooo it, dooo it. I want to see if they could do any better than Intel, at least start with some trial products like an ATV sized Mac Mini, or the 12" Macbook (so the 'pros' still have a year of x86 higher end macs at least). 
    2) These rumours always come roaring back whenever re-negotiations with Intel start, so take them for what they are.

    I think their homemade GPU would be an easier inflection point, GPUs follow API standards rather than having problems porting ISAs like processors.

  • Reply 34 of 159
    sog35 said:
    Here. We. Go.

    I think we will be seeing an iOS desktop very soon..

    Hopefully in 5 years Apple is almost 100% vertically integraded and does not have to rely on any vendor to provide parts.
    Welcome to seeing reports of all the hundreds (if not more) of patent lawsuits filed against Apple the day that this is announced especially in the Radio space where there are literally thousdands of applicable patents. Buying from Broadcom takes a lot of that pain away.
    This could tie Apple up in legal knots for years and years. Sometimes it is cheaper and easier just to pay Broadcom.

    I'd also expect real estate prices in East Texas (close to the courthouse) will rise significantly if Apple does this.
    The “venue shopping” type of lawsuits commonly filed in Texas are going to disappear. Apparently you missed this huge development.

    http://fortune.com/2017/05/22/texas-patent-supreme-court/
    Unfortunately, I believe you're misinterpreting that ruling.  Apple has a legal presence in Texas, so they are fair game to be sued there.  If Apple were some mom-and-pop company without stores and employees in Texas, it would be a different story.
    I think it's you that's misinterpreting. Here's the operative quote "In that decision, the top court had found the specific rules of the Patent Act, which require a plaintiff to sue companies where they are incorporated, applied despite rules to the contrary in the general venue law."

    It matters not where the defendant (Apple) is incorporated. The plaintiff must be incorporated in Texas to file suit in Texas.
    doozydozen
  • Reply 35 of 159
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member
    adbe said:
    smalm said:
    Apple replacing Intel with ARM? Must be the first time ever we hear about that  :p

    Ignore the benchmarks.  ARM chips are a long way from competing with Intel parts.  In a couple of years, the generally underpowered MacBook will probably make the transition, but even if Apple could guarantee that Adobe and MS would release their stuff for ARM in short order, the ARM chips simply don't have the grunt for the kinds of work that people expect to be able to do on mid-spec iMacs, and MacBook Pros.

    Most people are simply surfing the internet.  You do realize Microsoft has already ported windows to ARM 
    http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Windows_RT

    There is very little that Intel does that cannot be replicated with ARM hardware.  
    For surfing the internet there are tablets. Apple has even increased it's prices there. It is not going to come in low on the Mac. Apple will try that experiment once - the Mac and iPad mini - but if there is no real movement they will abandon it.  I do expect them to reduce prices on the iPhone where service revenue is so important.

    Desktops and laptops have stagnated for years. The next big Apple thing will be a new device. Maybe ARKit related. 
  • Reply 36 of 159
    asdasdasdasd Posts: 5,686member


    karmadave said:
    Here we go again. Apple is NOT abandoning Intel on the Mac! I wouldn't be surprised however to see an AMD processor show up, in the Mac, at some point.

    MacOS = Intel/x86
    iOS = ARM

    Any questions?
    I'd be surprised.  Apple gains nothing by going with AMD.   I don't think Apple abandons Intel entirely but they are likely going to shift a majority of their high volume hardware running Mac OS to ARM within a couple of years. 


    It depends on how many dual boot or use VMWare or parallels. The Mac book is becoming increasingly the dev machine of choice as you can use it to build iOS, Android and Windows products. Lots of people in fact like the hardware and run Windows primarily. Intel is not going away on the high end, and at the moment it is all high end. 

    Will they re-introduce the Mac mini with ARM? Possibly. 
  • Reply 37 of 159
    gatorguygatorguy Posts: 24,176member
    bsimpsen said:
    sog35 said:
    Here. We. Go.

    I think we will be seeing an iOS desktop very soon..

    Hopefully in 5 years Apple is almost 100% vertically integraded and does not have to rely on any vendor to provide parts.
    Welcome to seeing reports of all the hundreds (if not more) of patent lawsuits filed against Apple the day that this is announced especially in the Radio space where there are literally thousdands of applicable patents. Buying from Broadcom takes a lot of that pain away.
    This could tie Apple up in legal knots for years and years. Sometimes it is cheaper and easier just to pay Broadcom.

    I'd also expect real estate prices in East Texas (close to the courthouse) will rise significantly if Apple does this.
    The “venue shopping” type of lawsuits commonly filed in Texas are going to disappear. Apparently you missed this huge development.

    http://fortune.com/2017/05/22/texas-patent-supreme-court/
    Unfortunately, I believe you're misinterpreting that ruling.  Apple has a legal presence in Texas, so they are fair game to be sued there.  If Apple were some mom-and-pop company without stores and employees in Texas, it would be a different story.
    I think it's you that's misinterpreting. Here's the operative quote "In that decision, the top court had found the specific rules of the Patent Act, which require a plaintiff to sue companies where they are incorporated, applied despite rules to the contrary in the general venue law."

    It matters not where the defendant (Apple) is incorporated. The plaintiff must be incorporated in Texas to file suit in Texas.
    RandomIntenetPerson is pretty close to correct. It is your understanding of it that is incomplete.  Where you are incorporated is not necessarily limiting...
    The SCOTUS ruling adds this: or have a "regular and established place of business" in that court's jurisdiction. Apple stores fulfill that requirement, as do the Texas research facilities, and the Apple Austin data-mining division.

    edited September 2017
  • Reply 38 of 159
    I have it on fact that ARM-powered portables currently roam the Apple campus, running the version of OS X that will be powered by the mobile chipset: OS X Carmel. As in cARMel. Get it? You heard it here first.
  • Reply 39 of 159
    sog35 said:
    Here. We. Go.

    I think we will be seeing an iOS desktop very soon..

    Hopefully in 5 years Apple is almost 100% vertically integraded and does not have to rely on any vendor to provide parts.
    Welcome to seeing reports of all the hundreds (if not more) of patent lawsuits filed against Apple the day that this is announced especially in the Radio space where there are literally thousdands of applicable patents. Buying from Broadcom takes a lot of that pain away.

    Some patent holders require that Apple obtain a separate patent license before using chips based on that patent. Qualcomm in particular. Sometimes described as "double dipping." Simply buying from a vendor who has acquired a patent license from a patent holder does not protect Apple from patent litigation from the same patent holder.
  • Reply 40 of 159
    asdasd said:


    karmadave said:
    Here we go again. Apple is NOT abandoning Intel on the Mac! I wouldn't be surprised however to see an AMD processor show up, in the Mac, at some point.

    MacOS = Intel/x86
    iOS = ARM

    Any questions?
    I'd be surprised.  Apple gains nothing by going with AMD.   I don't think Apple abandons Intel entirely but they are likely going to shift a majority of their high volume hardware running Mac OS to ARM within a couple of years. 


    It depends on how many dual boot or use VMWare or parallels. The Mac book is becoming increasingly the dev machine of choice as you can use it to build iOS, Android and Windows products. Lots of people in fact like the hardware and run Windows primarily. Intel is not going away on the high end, and at the moment it is all high end. 

    Will they re-introduce the Mac mini with ARM? Possibly. 
      
    VMware and Parallels are passé running VM on your local machine still happens but all the movement in development is in containers which often are accessible in the cloud (Docker, Kubernetes etc).  The Cloud has never really been the driver it's the fast broadband access to the cloud that is propelling new ways of development.   Where I live they've been rolling out Gigabit internet speeds which makes accessing containers fast and flexible. 
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