Doesn't Apple have licensing issues with Intel & USB that it has to sort out? Will that affect future Macs with ARM? Or is it all a moot point now?
No issues. Intel has made TB3 free if they need to use it, USB4 is basically a superset of TB3 and it is a formal standards body, not a propriety solution, open to all. All Macs will be moving to USB4 regardless of whether they use Intel or ARM processors.
This is going to suck. Most of you Millenials are too young to remember the Motorola days. Those were some dark days when you found out that the most popular software was not compatible with the Mac. It's kind of like the Discover card. The only thing you discover with the Discover card is that no one takes it.
This is going to suck. Most of you Millenials are too young to remember the Motorola days. Those were some dark days when you found out that the most popular software was not compatible with the Mac. It's kind of like the Discover card. The only thing you discover with the Discover card is that no one takes it.
This is going to suck. Most of you Millenials are too young to remember the Motorola days. Those were some dark days when you found out that the most popular software was not compatible with the Mac. It's kind of like the Discover card. The only thing you discover with the Discover card is that no one takes it.
This is way, way overstating the issue. And yes, I was there.
Nobody's saying that there won't be problems. Of course there will be. But screaming doom and gloom is ludicrous.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Apple reduces the price of the Macs to correspond to the much cheaper ARM CPUs, I bet they won’t.
Wouldn't have thought so.
With Intel, Apple didn't have the R&D costs associated with building its own processor. Now that they're doing the processor themselves, this won't make things necessarily cheaper. Bear in mind that these ARM chips aren't actually ARM. They're custom-designed silicon from the ground-up that just happens to run the ARM instruction set, and have been crafted to bleed the last iota of performance out of MacOS/iOS. Apple will use every trick in the book to surpass what they had with Intel.
Well, if the rumor is correct (big if) then they aren't going after the Intel high end at first since they are aiming for the lower end Macs. And, unlike Intel, what would be the rush for Apple to invest early in user IPs such as PCIe 5.0 if they integrate the GPU and do something for solid state storage. Apple already architects their own ARM SOCs on rather powerful iPads, lots can be leveraged from that without adding so much cost. If you time it right, you can buy a very good iPad for $300 these days, with a decent processor and a tremendous screen. So it is not a stretch to think they could do better on the Mac price. But I also don't expect prices to be reduced, one of the goals is probably to increase margins to sustain the valuation of the company even though the Mac business doesn't seem so big. The ever rising iPhone prices do a better job of achieving that.
I can't help but think one of the main goal is to gain substantial battery life and better cooling solutions. In turn this will improve the form factor a lot. Then throw in lots of hardware IP to give it an edge over the competition which will require years of standard deliberation to come to similar solutions that are universal and necessarily more complex. I see Windows as the Swiss Army knife of computers, whereas Apple aims to do the mainstream simpler and usually gets there faster. The possibilities are endless with their kind of resources.
We all hope that Apple realizes that their product line is not like Highlander. There can be more than one product, with significant overlap in features and customers, at a certain price tier for a certain market, but also have significant differences that drive sales to other customers.
As somebody else noted, ARM drives iDevices, so Apple should use this to bring back an iBook line, not phase out the MacBook. The two can co-exist with developers going forward deploying software using a new universal binary that works with both Intel and ARM.
We all hope that Apple realizes that their product line is not like Highlander. There can be more than one product, with significant overlap in features and customers, at a certain price tier for a certain market, but also have significant differences that drive sales to other customers.
As somebody else noted, ARM drives iDevices, so Apple should use this to bring back an iBook line, not phase out the MacBook. The two can co-exist with developers going forward deploying software using a new universal binary that works with both Intel and ARM.
?
The MacBook is already gone, it was discontinued about a year ago. Are you talking about the entire MacBook * line? We don't expect an immediate MacBook Air or MacBook Pro replacement.
I’m thinking about getting a MacBook for someone - but really not sure about switching to ARM with all the incompatibility (again) and lack of Windows. My apprehension is how long will it be before Photoshop/MS word will be native, and whilst they aren’t, whether there will be some form of emulation such as Rosetta as there was for PPC apps. It’s relatively efficient for a CISC CPU (such as Intel’s) to emulate A RISC (PPC/ARM) CPU, but emulating a CISC CPU on a RISC CPU is very slow - as anyone who ran VirtualPC on a PPC will know.
That said, anything from the App Store will be native because Xcode produces object code that App Store compiles onto the correct architecture for the machine, so a reasonable number of apps will be native from day 1. Not that that helps me much, I have a grand total of 0 non Apple apps from the MAS, and about 25 I use regularly from other sources. I prefer the non-MAS apps because they don't have the "all our customers are thick" sandboxing that the MAS apps do.
It’ll be interesting to see whether Apple reduces the price of the Macs to correspond to the much cheaper ARM CPUs, I bet they won’t.
Of course it was slow, Rosetta was software emulation because Apple wasn’t designing its own processors. It does now so perhaps we’ll see transitional silicon.
But it raises the question of how much better a low-end ARM based MacBook would be over an iPad Pro with the Magic Keyboard and mouse for the average, non-power user consumer?
...
For many, the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard will be the better buy and the best fit for their needs.
That's not to trash the ARM based MacBook, but to point out that it will have a very high bar to clear.
We all hope that Apple realizes that their product line is not like Highlander. There can be more than one product, with significant overlap in features and customers, at a certain price tier for a certain market, but also have significant differences that drive sales to other customers.
The essential driving feature difference is tablet versus laptop. People won't have problem figuring it out and Apple should be happy to offer both products as their respective markets are huge.
True! But it does not address my last statement: "That's not to trash the ARM based MacBook, but to point out that it will have a very high bar to clear. [the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard}"
I could see them offering an Apple designed ARM on a card thing ala "Afterburner" for the MacPro in this transition time so the top of the line Mac can run all the things (natively). And then later, flip the script and have a high end ARM based MacPro with an x86 daughter card for those that still need such a thing. An iMac Pro with even just a single PCI slot (but also decent onboard graphics so you don't have to fill it with a GPU card) would be rad too, but that would be a rather hell-freezy situation I know.
We all hope that Apple realizes that their product line is not like Highlander. There can be more than one product, with significant overlap in features and customers, at a certain price tier for a certain market, but also have significant differences that drive sales to other customers.
As somebody else noted, ARM drives iDevices, so Apple should use this to bring back an iBook line, not phase out the MacBook. The two can co-exist with developers going forward deploying software using a new universal binary that works with both Intel and ARM.
?
The MacBook is already gone, it was discontinued about a year ago. Are you talking about the entire MacBook * line? We don't expect an immediate MacBook Air or MacBook Pro replacement.
The branding on the ARM Macs, if true, is going to be interesting. They may change some of the product names like the last two times.
My impression is that the branding names of MacBook Air/Pro or just MacBook, the Mac Pro and the Mac mini has run its course and branding needs to be changed. The iMac has achieved permanency and can remain the same. Coming up with a new brand name sounds really hard and there is going to be a trademark mine field to traverse, lawsuits to contend with.
Given that, and “Apple” will be part of all these names:
Air Book? Magic Book? Pro Book XDR? Air Pad? Sequoia Book? LightningPad? LightBook? Macman? (Mac mini) GreenBook? Laptop series-1, 2, ...? Laptop Pro series-1, 2, ...? Mac XDR? (Mac Pro) Weed?
Argh. Branding is tough. Like product destroying tough, like the Sony Xperia...
This is going to suck. Most of you Millenials are too young to remember the Motorola days. Those were some dark days when you found out that the most popular software was not compatible with the Mac. It's kind of like the Discover card. The only thing you discover with the Discover card is that no one takes it.
Didn't bother me at all, it was great!
The move from motorola to intel was a great thing.
And if the time has come to move from intel to arm, then bring it on!
If ARM is coming in 2021, I’m not buying a PowerPC... err, an Intel machine this year. No way!
And probably not next year either (first gen).
If Apple has been working since 2010 on moving to ARM, then they only waited 5 years of intel to do so. My guess is it was a skunk works project until the A7 came along and that they’ve had Macs running on OSX for ARM ever since.
Lets see Apple drop Intel and use the additional margin to bring better tech for everything else. Size, screens, materials, etc.
Comments
One of the reasons why, as a serious developer, I love the Mac is that I can run macOS, Windows, Linux and OpenBSD simultaneously.
i hope there will be laptop and Mac Pro options that have both ARM and x86-64 processors.
Nobody's saying that there won't be problems. Of course there will be. But screaming doom and gloom is ludicrous.
Well, if the rumor is correct (big if) then they aren't going after the Intel high end at first since they are aiming for the lower end Macs. And, unlike Intel, what would be the rush for Apple to invest early in user IPs such as PCIe 5.0 if they integrate the GPU and do something for solid state storage. Apple already architects their own ARM SOCs on rather powerful iPads, lots can be leveraged from that without adding so much cost. If you time it right, you can buy a very good iPad for $300 these days, with a decent processor and a tremendous screen. So it is not a stretch to think they could do better on the Mac price. But I also don't expect prices to be reduced, one of the goals is probably to increase margins to sustain the valuation of the company even though the Mac business doesn't seem so big. The ever rising iPhone prices do a better job of achieving that.
I can't help but think one of the main goal is to gain substantial battery life and better cooling solutions. In turn this will improve the form factor a lot. Then throw in lots of hardware IP to give it an edge over the competition which will require years of standard deliberation to come to similar solutions that are universal and necessarily more complex. I see Windows as the Swiss Army knife of computers, whereas Apple aims to do the mainstream simpler and usually gets there faster. The possibilities are endless with their kind of resources.
As somebody else noted, ARM drives iDevices, so Apple should use this to bring back an iBook line, not phase out the MacBook. The two can co-exist with developers going forward deploying software using a new universal binary that works with both Intel and ARM.
The MacBook is already gone, it was discontinued about a year ago. Are you talking about the entire MacBook * line? We don't expect an immediate MacBook Air or MacBook Pro replacement.
"That's not to trash the ARM based MacBook, but to point out that it will have a very high bar to clear. [the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard}"
or make it amazingly powerful and price accordingly above intel chipped MBPs?
Given that, and “Apple” will be part of all these names:
Air Book?
Magic Book?
Pro Book XDR?
Air Pad?
Sequoia Book?
LightningPad?
LightBook?
Macman? (Mac mini)
GreenBook?
Laptop series-1, 2, ...?
Laptop Pro series-1, 2, ...?
Mac XDR? (Mac Pro)
Weed?
The move from motorola to intel was a great thing.
And if the time has come to move from intel to arm, then bring it on!
If ARM is coming in 2021, I’m not buying a PowerPC... err, an Intel machine this year. No way!
And probably not next year either (first gen).
If Apple has been working since 2010 on moving to ARM, then they only waited 5 years of intel to do so. My guess is it was a skunk works project until the A7 came along and that they’ve had Macs running on OSX for ARM ever since.
Lets see Apple drop Intel and use the additional margin to bring better tech for everything else. Size, screens, materials, etc.
You can probably kiss RAM upgrades goodbye, btw.
You prefer a tablet, iPad is for you. Prefer a laptop, then pick an iBook, maybe have a bunch of colour choices.....