There is no way Apple is going to use an A-series SoC in a Mac - not even a low-end MacBook. Those SoCs were designed specifically for iOS
I concur, and I also concur with your implication that the Mac SoC will need a new name. I had been thinking that Apple would use "M-Series" nomenclature for "Mac SoCs", but they have been using "M" for their Motion Coprocessor names since 2013. They also are using the letters A, S, T, W, H and U for other chips. That leaves 19 available letters to work with. The letters "X" and "I" are probably out since they are associated with Intel chips. AMD used "K" for a long time. That leaves BCDEFGJLNOPQRVYZ. I would pick "D" for "Desktop."
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
Which is why I bought a new iMac a few weeks ago. I have to use Windows at times and it's not a choice. My iMac will be good (and supported) by Apple for at least 5-7 years so by then, the computing environment will probably be much more different than it is today.
I know Apple has been moving towards an almost sealed computer enclosure for some time but have to wonder if they will continue this process or, hopefully, allow the use of SoC sockets at least in the beginning so newer, faster, more powerful SoCs can be added to what might be a basic logic board that only contains IO, WiFi, and ??? circuits and logic chips. If almost everything of value is in/on the SoC then making this component removal, interchangeable and able to be secured in a safe when not in use would be an interesting design change, especially for corporate and government users but also for the rest of us.
Could this even be done? Looking at the iPhone 12, the SoC takes up a large portion of one side of the logic board while all the other logic chips are associated with support features. I could see many of these staying reasonably consistent on future Macs. Apple could include important chips on the same SoC socket (or two) thereby allowing for updates without replacing everything.
Been wondering the same also why stop at 2?
They could have "compute" daughter boards that could be mass produced with there own RAM, then different levels of macs get 1, 2, ...., 8+ sockets and on board platform processor to handle all the common functions and the PCIe network that links it all together. Leaves room for other processors hooked in to the network.
Apple gets to make lots of the same processors in the same bundles that can be tested and build 2 - 3 bins of modules to sell at higher price points.
Still leave the question if they do go this way can your Phone, Mac, Pad connect as a group of ePU's to the device I'm driving right now.
There is no way Apple is going to use an A-series SoC in a Mac - not even a low-end MacBook. Those SoCs were designed specifically for iOS and the need to be highly efficient. There's a reason Apple said they were designing a new family of SoCs for the Mac - different needs. Using an A14X for both the iPad Pro and a MacBook, means one of those is not as optimized as Apple usually prefers.
Nope. Apple will use the “A” variants where it makes sense. That very likely means a Mac Book like device. Think about it they have weak the processor for the iPad Pros and frankly those tweaks are useful on a Mac Book.
As for iOS it is the same OS underneath as Mac OS. The A series is perfectly capable of running Mac OS. Frankly this has already been demonstrated with the development rig.
As for the Mac Book Airs and Mac Book Pros of course they will have better chips for those platforms. For one thing the platform permits such thermally. More importantly to be competitive Apple needs high performance. I’d expect that these chips would be an entirely order of magnitude faster than a Mac Book.
Mac Book conceptually is nothing more than a fast iPad with keyboard running a better OS.
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
You should be at a different stage of grief by now.
melgross said:It used to be, a long time ago, that Apple upgraded its Mac every quarter as slightly faster chips came out. Then it was 6 months, then once a year. It stayed that way, along with pretty much every other computer manufacturer, until Intel had problems with new chips that Apple was designing around. So Apple slowed its iterations to match the chip. They’re not happy about that.
A lie, of course. When Apple switched to Intel chips, there was a great deal of promise that Apple would, since Macs were essentially Intel reference designs, be moving to a more frequent release schedule.
It never happened. Intel released chips, Apple ignored them. Intel released another generation of chips, Apple ignored them. Intel kept releasing, Apple kept ignoring. Apple would occasionally drop some almost out of date hardware, but Apple never lived up to the promise of frequent releases based on new Intel chips.
I know Apple has been moving towards an almost sealed computer enclosure for some time but have to wonder if they will continue this process or, hopefully, allow the use of SoC sockets at least in the beginning so newer, faster, more powerful SoCs can be added to what might be a basic logic board that only contains IO, WiFi, and ??? circuits and logic chips. If almost everything of value is in/on the SoC then making this component removal, interchangeable and able to be secured in a safe when not in use would be an interesting design change, especially for corporate and government users but also for the rest of us.
Could this even be done? Looking at the iPhone 12, the SoC takes up a large portion of one side of the logic board while all the other logic chips are associated with support features. I could see many of these staying reasonably consistent on future Macs. Apple could include important chips on the same SoC socket (or two) thereby allowing for updates without replacing everything.
Been wondering the same also why stop at 2?
They could have "compute" daughter boards that could be mass produced with there own RAM, then different levels of macs get 1, 2, ...., 8+ sockets and on board platform processor to handle all the common functions and the PCIe network that links it all together. Leaves room for other processors hooked in to the network.
Apple gets to make lots of the same processors in the same bundles that can be tested and build 2 - 3 bins of modules to sell at higher price points.
Still leave the question if they do go this way can your Phone, Mac, Pad connect as a group of ePU's to the device I'm driving right now.
Sounds good to me. The size of the iPhone logic boards continue to get smaller. Strip all the cellular stuff from the board and you'll have a very small computing blade. To keep everything in a thin package, the boards could be arranged side by side. A MBP could get away with 2-3 boards which would end up being ~3"x4". There's plenty of room in a MBP and iMac for several boards, just give us a trap door to get to them.
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
I totally understand your situation, I started with PDP-8s back in the early 70's but I changed to Macs and haven't looked back. I run VMWare but only to support one family member who's too old to figure out anything new. As for Microsoft never releasing a version of Windows that could run natively on Apple Silicon, that's for Microsoft's money handlers to figure out. Technically, Microsoft could already have a version ready to go, they just need to determine if it's financially profitable. The vast majority of Mac users could care less about Microsoft-anything compatibility, it's only the technical people and there might not be enough to justify the R&D to do it.
There is no way Apple is going to use an A-series SoC in a Mac - not even a low-end MacBook. Those SoCs were designed specifically for iOS
I concur, and I also concur with your implication that the Mac SoC will need a new name. I had been thinking that Apple would use "M-Series" nomenclature for "Mac SoCs", but they have been using "M" for their Motion Coprocessor names since 2013. They also are using the letters A, S, T, W, H and U for other chips. That leaves 19 available letters to work with. The letters "X" and "I" are probably out since they are associated with Intel chips. AMD used "K" for a long time. That leaves BCDEFGJLNOPQRVYZ. I would pick "D" for "Desktop."
Well they aren’t gonna use G either... remember G3, G4, G5? Haha.
They dropped the “X” out of Mac OS X a while ago and replaced it with just macOS. I’m guessing that happened just after they decided to move the Mac to ASi. So X-series makes the most sense.
What befuddles me is that people seem to assume this decision just happened and all Apple has or can do is suddenly shove an iPad/iOS chip in their Macs. The decision to move Macs away from Intel happened YEARS ago and they’ve been working on custom SoCs for Macs since then. macOS has always been been CPU/ISA agnostic even before it was a “mac”. NestStep was designed to be not only be independent from the CPU it ran on, but the APIs were always independent of the operating system they ran under. There was OpenStep for Windows and SunOS.
So assuming Apple is going to somehow shoehorn macOS on an iOS SoC is extremely short-sighted. Yes... it can obviously be done as the developer Mac mini has demonstrated, but it is not at all optimal. That system is just to get developers familiar with what is possible after the move. It is not all indicative of what is to come. As Craig Federighi said... that is what is possible “without even trying”. That SoC is already as performant as a low-end MacBook Pro and it’s a 2.5 year old chip. Double that, optimize it for macOS, and put it in a MacBook Air. That’s the base line for what is to come.
Nevermind that the Mac SoCs will have disparate RAM, larger and more CPU/GPU cores, higher clock frequencies, Thunderbolt/PCI controllers, etc.
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
I totally understand your situation, I started with PDP-8s back in the early 70's but I changed to Macs and haven't looked back. I run VMWare but only to support one family member who's too old to figure out anything new. As for Microsoft never releasing a version of Windows that could run natively on Apple Silicon, that's for Microsoft's money handlers to figure out. Technically, Microsoft could already have a version ready to go, they just need to determine if it's financially profitable. The vast majority of Mac users could care less about Microsoft-anything compatibility, it's only the technical people and there might not be enough to justify the R&D to do it.
Hah! You have me beat by a few years. For me it was PDP-11/70 and IBM 360/370s in the early 80's. DecWriters, punch cards, vector graphics terminals... Heady days! I think I still have my WYLBUR manual around here somewhere...
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
You should be at a different stage of grief by now.
as I understand it, the intel chips i3, i5, i7, i9 are essentially the same chip; with the “lower grade” chips “simply” being the ones which have tested with flaws or underperforming/cores not functioning.
Is this true, and if so, it would stand to reason that the Apple chips face similar production yields. With Apple’s insane volumes, how does this play out in terms of what is shipped in iPhones and now Macs?
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
Which is why I bought a new iMac a few weeks ago. I have to use Windows at times and it's not a choice. My iMac will be good (and supported) by Apple for at least 5-7 years so by then, the computing environment will probably be much more different than it is today.
Picked up an Apple refurbished 2019 iMac myself (I wanted to be able to upgrade the storage)... Although my stable of older Macs keeps running nicely too.
I’m also curious at what point they decided to start building chips for the Mac. Was it way back at the beginning? My guess is that this was part of the plan all along or at least very early on, and why they went 64bit in a mobile. It caught everyone off guard, but I suspect they were already ramping up for Mac at that point.
I, for one, am not happy about this. Moving away from x86 to something (anything) else will break sooooo much. All of a sudden the ability to run Windows (at CPU speed) goes away, all the programs which rely on Wine stop working (or at least working well). I liked the 6502 (and variants). I liked the 68K series. I liked the PPC series. I (eventually) liked the x86 series. But this change... I just don't feel good about it. That said, perhaps the Apple CPUs will be fast enough to make emulation tolerable (unlike the x86 emulators for the PPC!)... Perhaps.
A silicon atom is only about 0.21 nm, so a 5nm process might be the limit for a while!
Yes, but there's also the issue of how those atomic spheres are packed. It's like packing baseballs in a box, there are different ways to pack them.
At some point, the structures become so small and close together that the electrons won’t stay in their lanes, so to speak, and hop or tunnel to places they shouldn’t go. The ultimate limit for electronics is being approached. However, Spintronics, where electron spins are manipulated with magnetic fields, and valley-tronics, where electrons are manipulated with photons may push further the shrinking of components.
There is no way Apple is going to use an A-series SoC in a Mac - not even a low-end MacBook. Those SoCs were designed specifically for iOS
I concur, and I also concur with your implication that the Mac SoC will need a new name. I had been thinking that Apple would use "M-Series" nomenclature for "Mac SoCs", but they have been using "M" for their Motion Coprocessor names since 2013. They also are using the letters A, S, T, W, H and U for other chips. That leaves 19 available letters to work with. The letters "X" and "I" are probably out since they are associated with Intel chips. AMD used "K" for a long time. That leaves BCDEFGJLNOPQRVYZ. I would pick "D" for "Desktop."
Well they aren’t gonna use G either... remember G3, G4, G5? Haha.
They dropped the “X” out of Mac OS X a while ago and replaced it with just macOS. I’m guessing that happened just after they decided to move the Mac to ASi. So X-series makes the most sense.
What befuddles me is that people seem to assume this decision just happened and all Apple has or can do is suddenly shove an iPad/iOS chip in their Macs. The decision to move Macs away from Intel happened YEARS ago and they’ve been working on custom SoCs for Macs since then. macOS has always been been CPU/ISA agnostic even before it was a “mac”. NestStep was designed to be not only be independent from the CPU it ran on, but the APIs were always independent of the operating system they ran under. There was OpenStep for Windows and SunOS.
So assuming Apple is going to somehow shoehorn macOS on an iOS SoC is extremely short-sighted. Yes... it can obviously be done as the developer Mac mini has demonstrated, but it is not at all optimal. That system is just to get developers familiar with what is possible after the move. It is not all indicative of what is to come. As Craig Federighi said... that is what is possible “without even trying”. That SoC is already as performant as a low-end MacBook Pro and it’s a 2.5 year old chip. Double that, optimize it for macOS, and put it in a MacBook Air. That’s the base line for what is to come.
Nevermind that the Mac SoCs will have disparate RAM, larger and more CPU/GPU cores, higher clock frequencies, Thunderbolt/PCI controllers, etc.
I assume YZ are so out they will be the chip grades as the final part of the name as reserve V just in case.
Will the Mac chips even be SOC in the traditional sense in that they could well still have a platform chip which we assume will keep being part of the Tseries?
Plus I assume there will be grades of Mac chips so that would become a nightmare of naming. Maybe it will be 2 lines. L for Laptop that has all the platform functions built-in and D for desktops that work with a Tchip for platform. Then the x at the end for pro models
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I concur, and I also concur with your implication that the Mac SoC will need a new name. I had been thinking that Apple would use "M-Series" nomenclature for "Mac SoCs", but they have been using "M" for their Motion Coprocessor names since 2013. They also are using the letters A, S, T, W, H and U for other chips. That leaves 19 available letters to work with. The letters "X" and "I" are probably out since they are associated with Intel chips. AMD used "K" for a long time. That leaves BCDEFGJLNOPQRVYZ. I would pick "D" for "Desktop."
Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out.
Well they aren’t gonna use G either... remember G3, G4, G5? Haha.
They dropped the “X” out of Mac OS X a while ago and replaced it with just macOS. I’m guessing that happened just after they decided to move the Mac to ASi. So X-series makes the most sense.
What befuddles me is that people seem to assume this decision just happened and all Apple has or can do is suddenly shove an iPad/iOS chip in their Macs. The decision to move Macs away from Intel happened YEARS ago and they’ve been working on custom SoCs for Macs since then. macOS has always been been CPU/ISA agnostic even before it was a “mac”. NestStep was designed to be not only be independent from the CPU it ran on, but the APIs were always independent of the operating system they ran under. There was OpenStep for Windows and SunOS.
So assuming Apple is going to somehow shoehorn macOS on an iOS SoC is extremely short-sighted. Yes... it can obviously be done as the developer Mac mini has demonstrated, but it is not at all optimal. That system is just to get developers familiar with what is possible after the move. It is not all indicative of what is to come. As Craig Federighi said... that is what is possible “without even trying”. That SoC is already as performant as a low-end MacBook Pro and it’s a 2.5 year old chip. Double that, optimize it for macOS, and put it in a MacBook Air. That’s the base line for what is to come.
Nevermind that the Mac SoCs will have disparate RAM, larger and more CPU/GPU cores, higher clock frequencies, Thunderbolt/PCI controllers, etc.
No grief here. :-)
as I understand it, the intel chips i3, i5, i7, i9 are essentially the same chip; with the “lower grade” chips “simply” being the ones which have tested with flaws or underperforming/cores not functioning.
Picked up an Apple refurbished 2019 iMac myself (I wanted to be able to upgrade the storage)... Although my stable of older Macs keeps running nicely too.
edited for cohesion.