Apple Silicon Mac mini dev kit looks like a desktop iPad Pro

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Comments

  • Reply 61 of 76
    GG1GG1 Posts: 483member
    The GPU side of things
    ...
    We always have the belief that a dedicated GPU will always be better than an integrated GPU. But what about if we are witnessing an industry transition?
    ...
    Great first post and observation.

    The Apple Silicon GPU is still a big unknown, but the demo hinted at graphics performance much better than Intel's inbuilt GPU.

    Imagine if Apple Silicon can achieve close to RX580 performance with an inbuilt GPU. Only the video editors and gamers would complain, but prosumers should be ok. Apple Silicon will be on 5nm (RX580 is on 14nm), so I think you may be correct that an integrated GPU could be much better than people realize. And the iPad Pro graphics is no slouch (and with no active cooling).
    fastasleepwatto_cobraSkylightActive
  • Reply 62 of 76
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member
    eriamjh said:
    I look forward to the “developer” who breaks the agreement and does a tear down on the Apple silicon mini.  

    I want to see just how they shoehorned 16gb of RAM onto an iPad.  
    There’s nothing to be gained by examining the internals of these development machines. Apple could easily have sent developers bare boards with all kinds of cobbled together hardware and connectors to serve the same purpose that these devices are providing. That’s pretty much what most non-Apple companies would do. But Apple doesn’t do things like that. So even what Apple product managers would consider a “cobbled together” dev prototype puts some company’s “production quality” fabrication and packaging to shame. Apple’s software prototypes and betas are much the same, much more polished than what you’d expect from other suppliers, but still not up to Apple production quality. 

    Not sure how familiar you are with hardware packaging technology and memory in particular, but putting 16 GB of memory into an iPad frame, much less a Mac mini sized enclosure is not even a mildly trivial challenge. 
    GeorgeBMacfastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 63 of 76
    dewmedewme Posts: 5,335member

    ...
    However, the more we learn about Apple's existing SoCs, and the Apple Silicon effort as a whole, the more confidence we have that Apple is indeed beating Intel in many respects already. The idea that Apple's custom silicon can only handle "mobile" workloads is the same sort of disparaging presumption that fueled the dismissive notion that iPads were only "media consumption devices" and not "real" on some level.



    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an output device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Fortunately, that is no longer the case -- iPad is wearing big boy pants now -- and ready to challenge MacBooks.  In fact, with yesterday's announcements, one wonders why one would choose a MacBook over the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.
    Huh.

    This assumes that there is some kind of predefined definition for what constitutes “real work.” Since iPad 1, with Steve on the couch, the iPad has been an amazing personal computing device, with emphasis on “personal.” The iPad was never an office productivity tool forcefully repurposed for home or personal use. It was created specifically for doing many of the jobs that you encounter in your personal life, your real life where you get to be yourself, not the life where you strap on a tie and don your office khaki uniform to work for “the man” so you can feed yourself and your family.  

    The “real work” that I assigned to my iPad 1 involved reading books, listening to music, email, web browsing, personal navigation (driving and walking), managing my schedule, keeping notes, and entertainment. When I saw Steve sitting there with an iPad and walking through its features, I immediately realized that all of the things that made “home computers” a thing were all lies. Imagine people with “computer rooms” in their homes, like they really needed to create a mini facsimile of their daily grind office space inside their home just so they could bring all the joys of working home with them, and keep track of their golf league standings. These PC things were actually placing demands on us, making us transform our lives and our homes to fit their needs, not ours.

    With the advent of the iPad we suddenly realized that the “P” in PC that had persisted for decades was a ruse to sell office equipment to unsuspecting citizens. The iPad was truly “personal” in a way that no big box of claptrap that came before it ever could have been. The iPad conformed to our needs, not the other way around. The iPad sat with us on the couch, and served us, just like Steve showed us. If that’s not the “real work” of a computer serving its owner, I don’t know what is real. 

    Almost immediately after I acquired my iPad 1 I spent two months in Asia with a work computer and my iPad. My work computer helped me serve my employer and my iPad served all of my personal “computing” needs and kept me plugged into my real life outside of my job, i.e., the real work of my real life. It worked wonderfully, and especially so with a persistent GSM connection and the ability to totally separate my personal life/work from my job life/work. I’d never felt comfortable mixing personal and job related work on the same tool, e.g., using a work computer for personal email, browsing, messaging, gaming, etc., or installing company IP on your personal computer. The iPad severed those interdependencies completely for me long before corporate policy dictated that the two streams shall never cross.

    Did I mention keyboard, mouse, or trackpad? No, because I never needed these things for the iPad to fulfill the real work of my real life, which most definitely involved inputs and outputs. Those things are conveniences but they haven’t fundamentally changed my relationship with iPad. Newer iPads certainly have the ability to take on more job related work and will undoubtedly be used in that capacity. But the iPad will always be the best manifestation of what a truly personal computer, or digital companion, can ever be, at least until Apple comes up with some sort of brain implant that renders the need for a physical device obsolete.

    My iPad, like Porky, isn’t wearing any pants. But if it were, they would likely be like Bob’s.  
    bikerdudechiafastasleepmuthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra
  • Reply 64 of 76
    chiachia Posts: 713member
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an output device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Fidonet127fastasleepwatto_cobra
  • Reply 65 of 76
    MplsPMplsP Posts: 3,911member
    sflocal said:
    MplsP said:
    In another thread people were discussing the significance of the absence of thunderbolt On the developer Mac mini. My initial assumption was that Apple surely would be including it since leaving it off would be too big of a compromise In functionality, but as I’m reading this story I’m wondering about it again - if the Mac mini is meant for developers to get their software going, doesn’t the absence of TB hamstring that goal? Of perhaps it’s just because they ‘crammed an iPad into a mini box’ because that’s all they have ready right now? 
    Not necessarily.  Thunderbolt is a hardware solution, not software.  Apps for the most part don't care if a mounted drive is via USBc or TB, so I'm not sure what "compromise" you're referring to.

    Now, does that mean that I will not be able to connect my two Promise RAID TB2 arrays into an ARM Mac?  I'd be concerned as there is a huge ecosystem of Thunderbolt drive/dock options.  I would be surprised if Apple left those vendors out in the cold by not including Thunderbolt in the ARM Macs.
    That makes sense; not being a software developer I wasn’t sure how critical it was for developing software to have all of the hardware in place. 

    Your last point is why I was/am fairly certain that Apple has some sort of TB solution planned. 

    melgross said:
    An error in this article. TB doesn’t not come with USB4. It’s optional. It required Intel TB controller chips, and work to get them to function. Having USB4 doesn’t not automatically mean you have TB. I hope Apple will do it. We’ll see, it’s not a slam dunk.
    That's not an error. If Apple implements USB 4 it will obviously support TB. Intel has provided the TB spec to the USB org so that expensive licensing isn't required. Sure, USB 4 on another device doesn't mean that it supports TB, the same way USB-C doesn't mean TB3 is supported.   
    That’s my guess/assumption - Apple will incorporate USB 4 with TB support in their new machines. It seems to be the most logical way to solve all the problems. They’re already put TB with USB 3 c in the MacBooks, so USB 4 is the next logical step. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 66 of 76
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    dewme said:

    ...
    However, the more we learn about Apple's existing SoCs, and the Apple Silicon effort as a whole, the more confidence we have that Apple is indeed beating Intel in many respects already. The idea that Apple's custom silicon can only handle "mobile" workloads is the same sort of disparaging presumption that fueled the dismissive notion that iPads were only "media consumption devices" and not "real" on some level.



    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an output device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Fortunately, that is no longer the case -- iPad is wearing big boy pants now -- and ready to challenge MacBooks.  In fact, with yesterday's announcements, one wonders why one would choose a MacBook over the iPad Pro with Magic Keyboard.
    Huh.

    This assumes that there is some kind of predefined definition for what constitutes “real work.” Since iPad 1, with Steve on the couch, the iPad has been an amazing personal computing device, with emphasis on “personal.” The iPad was never an office productivity tool forcefully repurposed for home or personal use. It was created specifically for doing many of the jobs that you encounter in your personal life, your real life where you get to be yourself, not the life where you strap on a tie and don your office khaki uniform to work for “the man” so you can feed yourself and your family.  

    The “real work” that I assigned to my iPad 1 involved reading books, listening to music, email, web browsing, personal navigation (driving and walking), managing my schedule, keeping notes, and entertainment. When I saw Steve sitting there with an iPad and walking through its features, I immediately realized that all of the things that made “home computers” a thing were all lies. Imagine people with “computer rooms” in their homes, like they really needed to create a mini facsimile of their daily grind office space inside their home just so they could bring all the joys of working home with them, and keep track of their golf league standings. These PC things were actually placing demands on us, making us transform our lives and our homes to fit their needs, not ours.

    With the advent of the iPad we suddenly realized that the “P” in PC that had persisted for decades was a ruse to sell office equipment to unsuspecting citizens. The iPad was truly “personal” in a way that no big box of claptrap that came before it ever could have been. The iPad conformed to our needs, not the other way around. The iPad sat with us on the couch, and served us, just like Steve showed us. If that’s not the “real work” of a computer serving its owner, I don’t know what is real. 

    Almost immediately after I acquired my iPad 1 I spent two months in Asia with a work computer and my iPad. My work computer helped me serve my employer and my iPad served all of my personal “computing” needs and kept me plugged into my real life outside of my job, i.e., the real work of my real life. It worked wonderfully, and especially so with a persistent GSM connection and the ability to totally separate my personal life/work from my job life/work. I’d never felt comfortable mixing personal and job related work on the same tool, e.g., using a work computer for personal email, browsing, messaging, gaming, etc., or installing company IP on your personal computer. The iPad severed those interdependencies completely for me long before corporate policy dictated that the two streams shall never cross.

    Did I mention keyboard, mouse, or trackpad? No, because I never needed these things for the iPad to fulfill the real work of my real life, which most definitely involved inputs and outputs. Those things are conveniences but they haven’t fundamentally changed my relationship with iPad. Newer iPads certainly have the ability to take on more job related work and will undoubtedly be used in that capacity. But the iPad will always be the best manifestation of what a truly personal computer, or digital companion, can ever be, at least until Apple comes up with some sort of brain implant that renders the need for a physical device obsolete.

    My iPad, like Porky, isn’t wearing any pants. But if it were, they would likely be like Bob’s.  

    Ok, so you define "real work" based on your own needs.  OK, That's your privilige.  But that's not what those who use the term are referring to.
    muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 67 of 76
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    edited June 2020 muthuk_vanalingam
  • Reply 68 of 76
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    I do plenty of work on my iPad Pro with just the Pencil 2 and my fingers. This stubborn clinging to what you think defines "real work" is just a stupid as the arguments about what a "real professional" is. Just wait 'til people start doing "real work" in XR and aren't actually touching any input devices at all, your head will explode.
    chiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 69 of 76
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member
    melgross said:
    rob53 said:
    After watching the WWDC video "Explore the New System Architecture of Apple Silicon Macs" I'm beginning to understand just how powerful the A-series SOCs really are and how the will change the way Macs work in the future. The graphic showing multiple components in an Intel-based Mac while everything is on a SOC (not sure about all RAM) demonstrates how the AS SOC can run faster and more efficiently than the Intel configuration. Graphic is over-simplistic but AS SOC uses the same memory for both the CPU and GPU. No more having to worry about specifying a GPU with more memory since its able to use as much shared-memory as it needs. The video didn't mention PCIe memory in regards to the AS drawing, it uses whatever internal memory bus the SOC has. I don't know how the SOC will connect to external devices like SSDs, (probably?) RAM, and all I/Os but the more information that comes out about the AS Mac the more it looks like it's going to be much more powerful than Intel Macs.

    As for discrete GPUs with their huge heatsinks, I wonder how many GPUs Apple will be able to add to their SOC and whether they will create specialized GPU-only "SOCs" that work with the main CPU SOC over some kind of ultra fast bus. When I look at a traditional slot-mounted GPU, I see a reasonable size GPU chip with a lot of other electronic components all hidden by a heatsink the size of a Mac mini (just joking but not by much). I'm sure the GPU manufacturer is overclocking the GPU, creating enough heat to heat a small house and definitely your office. Will Apple be able to create a GPU with the same number of cores as something like the high end Nvidia TITAN RTX with 4608:288:96:576:72 (72) (6) cores (That's Main Shader Processors : Texture Mapping Units : Render Output Units : Tensor Cores (or FP16 Cores in GeForce 16 series) : Ray-tracing Cores (Streaming Multiprocessors) (Graphics Processing Clusters)) without needing a refrigerator to cool it?


    I certainly hope that on a high performance Mac, the gpu will NOT share RAM with the rest of the SoC. Shared RAM is always going to be slower than graphics RAM. It’s not just a faster version of regular RAM. It’s different.
    Apple will be heavily limited in designs for GPUs due to the minefield of patents by AMD and Nvidia. There is a reason even Apple patents every aspect of their research. The lead time of all said advancements requires licensing and ImgTec doesn't hold a fraction of the IP that AMD and Nvidia owns.

    What incentive does Nvidia and AMD have to license that IP to Apple?
    Don’t be so sure about that. There are many way to do this. There’s no one best way. Also, several years ago, Apple bought a small GPU chip development company. At the time we thought that Apple was going to build their own GPU then, but they didn’t. I imagine they just wanted the patents and talent. They’ve done plenty of their own R&D on graphics, and have patents too. This isn’t like a cell modem.
    fastasleepchia
  • Reply 70 of 76
    melgrossmelgross Posts: 33,510member

    mretondo said:
    Apple made it perfectly clear that ARM is slower than Intel. In fact they screamed it out load if you were listening. There wasn’t a single side by side demo of FCP X running on two Macs doing a long task like rendering. Intel takes 2 minutes while ARM takes 1.5 minutes. That’s all it would’ve taken to show how fast ARM is. The reason, ARM is slower!
    They said nothing of the sort. They said the opposite. The only chip they have for public display is the A12z, designed around what will soon be a two year old design. Several Apple people stated that performance would be high, and power draw low. There wasn’t even the slightest hint that performance would lag. They made it clear that the A12z wouldn’t appear in any selling products, and that they have a special line of chips just for Macs with much higher performance.

    are you just trolling, because this was easily seen, if you had watched it.
    GeorgeBMacfastasleepmuthuk_vanalingamchiawatto_cobra
  • Reply 71 of 76
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    I do plenty of work on my iPad Pro with just the Pencil 2 and my fingers. This stubborn clinging to what you think defines "real work" is just a stupid as the arguments about what a "real professional" is. Just wait 'til people start doing "real work" in XR and aren't actually touching any input devices at all, your head will explode.

    Sorry, but people who do real work know what it means and what it takes.   But, perhaps you do -- the pencil can act as mouse.  Its more awkward, but its possible
  • Reply 72 of 76
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    I do plenty of work on my iPad Pro with just the Pencil 2 and my fingers. This stubborn clinging to what you think defines "real work" is just a stupid as the arguments about what a "real professional" is. Just wait 'til people start doing "real work" in XR and aren't actually touching any input devices at all, your head will explode.

    Sorry, but people who do real work know what it means and what it takes.   But, perhaps you do -- the pencil can act as mouse.  Its more awkward, but its possible
    Again with the "real work" gatekeeping after I just told you I do "real work" with it. It acts like a stylus, not like a mouse, and I haven't used a mouse at all for the past decade or so. Are you really this obtuse?
    edited June 2020 chiajdb8167watto_cobra
  • Reply 73 of 76
    ...

     The pattern here is Apple realizes that they can't keep pissing PROSUMERS off.
    ....
    Neither can Apple survive depending on their miniscule contribution to sales.
    Apple, running its own software house and extensive ecosystem, has enormous fixed costs going into every machine.   Those fixed costs can only be covered by either a high selling price or high volume.  But, if the volume is low enough, the price will be forced to be too high even for so called ProSumers.  That was one of Steve's problem in the early days:  great machines that only a few could afford.  It's also the problem that took down OS2 -- nobody could afford the hardware it took to run it.

    Yeah I agree. Moving to ARM isn’t gonna drive the retail prices of the MacBook pros down either. I don’t think Apple will do that. However, the premium that Intel charges is also hefty. For minuscule performance gains to say the least. Which is why AMD is stealing it’s market share. The gap in terms of CPU / GPU prices between Intel vs. Apple Sillicon Could go into supporting R&D costs that Apple has to buck out. For all their custom chip solutions like GpU and Neural network etc. 


    watto_cobra
  • Reply 74 of 76

    jdb8167 said:
    This makes it pretty clear that the developer transition kit isn't a Mac mini outfitted with an Apple Silicon SoC, but rather an iPad Pro logic board hooked up to multiple USB ports, Ethernet, and HDMI for convenience. It sports the same Bluetooth 5.0 and 802.11ac WiFi, and can attach to an SSD for storage using USB-C.

    This jumped out at me. The 2020 iPad Pro does not have 802.11ac WiFi but instead the latest standard 802.11ax WiFi 6. It is weird that this Developer Transition Kit doesn't support WiFi 6 when clearly Apple has the silicon to support it. It must be a driver problem. They have an iOS driver for whatever chipset they are using but not a macOS 11 driver.

    Obviously, this isn't a serious lack on the DTK. I just found it interesting.

    Yes - Apple just added WiFi 6 (80211.ax) support to iPhone 11 a few months ago, and to the A12Z this year. No Macs support it it yet. But beyond support in the SoC, WiFi 6 also needs the right supporting hardware and antennas to actually call itself WiFi 6. If the DTKit is just a temporary hack to enable non-public development for a few months, that would certainly explain why Apple shipped it with only "802.11ac" even if the SoC itself could support ax. Why would Apple develop and certify a temporary Mac Mini design it will never ship just to slightly improve WiFi on a test box that most developers will be using over Ethernet anyway?   
    I suspect the A12Z-based Mac mini has been around internally at Apple for a couple of years since the A12Z became available. In fact, it probably has some extra features to make it useful as a Mac development device. They've needed a platform for internal MacOS development over that time, and it's probably not the first version they've done. Two years ago when it was probably developed, 802.11ac was what was available and there was no reason to upgrade it for a development platform.

    I spent decades (retired a year ago) working on teams that developed custom state-of-the-art SOCs not much different than what Apple is doing. When you're developing a chip for a specific use case and have access to all the resources you could possibly need (Apple doe$), it's amazing what can be done. Also, Apple has cleared the decks with moves like only 64b apps to streamline the Mac AS chips. Intel doesn't have that luxury, they have to try to satisfy a variety of customers and platforms as well as include the baggage to be backward compatible to the beginning of time. Most Intel chips are still on a 14nm process, and Apple will be on 5nm. That means they can put about four times more functionality on a chip of similar size and power, worst case. Even against Intel's barely available 10nm process, Apple has about a 2x advantage. I expect to be blown away by what Apple produces for their new AS Macs.
    chiajdb8167watto_cobra
  • Reply 75 of 76
    GeorgeBMacGeorgeBMac Posts: 11,421member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    I do plenty of work on my iPad Pro with just the Pencil 2 and my fingers. This stubborn clinging to what you think defines "real work" is just a stupid as the arguments about what a "real professional" is. Just wait 'til people start doing "real work" in XR and aren't actually touching any input devices at all, your head will explode.

    Sorry, but people who do real work know what it means and what it takes.   But, perhaps you do -- the pencil can act as mouse.  Its more awkward, but its possible
    Again with the "real work" gatekeeping after I just told you I do "real work" with it. It acts like a stylus, not like a mouse, and I haven't used a mouse at all for the past decade or so. Are you really this obtuse?

    Obtuse? not at all.  Perhaps you just need to reread my last post a little more carefully.
  • Reply 76 of 76
    fastasleepfastasleep Posts: 6,408member
    chia said:
    GeorgeBMac said:

    Sorry, but without an external keyboard and mouse or trackpad the iPad WAS mostly just an outpVM sut device and not a "real computer" capable of "real work".
    Elementary computer lesson: keyboards, mice and trackpads are optional peripherals which allow a human to interact with a connected computer.
    The computing is done by the box with the CPU inside it, not by the peripherals in the periphery.

    By your logic, no server in a server farm is a real computer as they have no mouse or keyboard attached.
    Also by your logic, if you take a desktop computer from an office, then disconnect the screen, keyboard and mouse, it has ceased to be a real computer doing real work, even when continuing to do the work that had been set before the peripherals were disconnected.

    Also consider, were there no computers until Douglas Engelbart created the computer mouse in the sixties?  If so, just what did he connect the computer mouse to?
    Without a mouse and keyboard attached directly or indirectly (through another box like a KVM switch or a networked computer) none of the computers you sited would be doing any work at all.

    And, you are correct that we have moved on since the punch card days of computers.

    And iPad without a keyboard and mouse is mostly a computer restricted to outputting information.   It can do some real work, but it is slow, cumbersome and awkward at it -- if, for no other reason, than the finger makes for a very crude mouse that doesn't have the accuracy (or a right click) needed for fine and complex tasks..

    For myself, when working on spreadsheets, I won't even use the trackpad on my MacBook -- its too awkward and slow.   I always attach a mouse.

    I do plenty of work on my iPad Pro with just the Pencil 2 and my fingers. This stubborn clinging to what you think defines "real work" is just a stupid as the arguments about what a "real professional" is. Just wait 'til people start doing "real work" in XR and aren't actually touching any input devices at all, your head will explode.

    Sorry, but people who do real work know what it means and what it takes.   But, perhaps you do -- the pencil can act as mouse.  Its more awkward, but its possible
    Again with the "real work" gatekeeping after I just told you I do "real work" with it. It acts like a stylus, not like a mouse, and I haven't used a mouse at all for the past decade or so. Are you really this obtuse?

    Obtuse? not at all.  Perhaps you just need to reread my last post a little more carefully.
    I don't think I do.
    jdb8167watto_cobra
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