There are two really big announcements that Apple will have to make in the next year that will shape the future of both Apple and the entire computer industry: 1. A desktop scale CPU. Thus far all of the CPUs Apple has made have been targeted at mobile devices. They are limited by the power they use and the heat they generate. A desktop scale CPU can draw 100 watts or more (280 for a Threadripper). How will these CPUs compare with ones from Intel and AMD given that Apple's current mobile processors compete well with Intel's laptop processors? 2. A discrete GPU. Apple's current GPUs are built into the processor. They are great for playing games on mobile devices but they are at least ten times slower than current discrete GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA. For ray tracing they are about a hundred times slower than the hardware based ray tracing in the current crop of GPUs. Will Apple integrate AMD GPUs into the Apple Silicon iMac or will they announce their own discrete GPU?
First off, never forget that this is from the same guy that as late as 2015 was claiming that no profits were being made on Android and that Google, Samsung and the rest were going to abandon it. He never took responsibility for those false claims.
Second, please realize that right now Apple has 8% market share in PCs. ChromeOS - which already includes ARM devices like the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet, the #1 selling ChromeOS device this year - has 11%. Were it not for mass shortages of Chromebooks caused by COVID-19 induced supply chain disruptions, ChromeOS would have 13-14% market share.
Third, this fellow writing off the success that is Android is hilarious. It has 75% - 85% market share. And the only reason why Google Play has less revenue than the app store is because Google chooses not to operate in China. In other words, the gap between Google Play and iOS is much closer than the gap between macOS and Windows. Yet he wants us to believe that Android is somehow a failure? That Samsung and the rest would be better off by not manufacturing Android apps? Or that all these developers and software companies have not gained tons of revenue off Android apps?
Fourth, Apple Silicon being so much faster than Intel-based PCs won't matter if:
A) Apple Silicon devices continue to cost far more than Intel and AMD-based PCs with equivalent RAM and storage configurations: they do. if Apple Silicon devices don't run the software that large subsets of the population needs and wants: they don't.
Let me give you an example: PC gaming. The Acer Nitro 5 is a legit 1080p gaming machine with 8 GB of RAM (easily and cheaply expandable to 32 GB), 256 GB SSD (again easily to expand with USB-C port), Intel Core i5 and Nvidia GPU and 16' screen. Cost: $650. The cheapest MacBook with an Intel i5 and a discrete GPU? $1200! And for that $1200 ... you won't be able to play very many games. Though some Steam games are supported, even massive hits like Rocket League are available. So gaming with a Mac requires bootcamp. And that is today. Steam, Origin, EA and Epic are not going to run at all on ARM-based Macs, just as they don't on ARM-based Windows 10. Bootcamp and Parallels? They won't be either.
Also, believing that Intel is going to be at 10nm forever is nuts. They have a 7nm design already, just no way to manufacture it. They were on the verge of getting TSMC to manufacture their 7nm chips but had to back off because of internal opposition, but a final decision will be made in 2021 based on the progress that they have made with their own foundries. (By the way, it is very unseemly for Apple fans - who are totally reliant on other companies to manufacture components for them - to bash companies who make their own components like Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung.) Because Intel uses way more transistors in their chips than anyone else, a 7nm Intel chip is equivalent to a 5nm AMD, Qualcomm or Apple A14 chip. Now Intel is actually capable of paying TSMC to make their 7nm chips at any time. They won't because of business reasons: they want at least 18 months to sell their current 10nm chips first or else they will lose money on that generation. But rest assured that by the time the 2 year transition from Intel to Ax is complete, Intel will have released their 7nm chips and be well on the way to 5nm,
Until then? Another problem is thinking that Microsoft, Windows and ChromeOS only rely on Intel when they absolutely do not. In case you haven't heard, the fastest desktop chip is no longer the Intel i9-10900K. Instead the fastest desktop chip is the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. The Ryzen 9 is on a 7nm process. 5nm process AMD chips are being manufactured right now in the same TSMC foundry that is currently making the 5nm Apple A14 chips. (This is why Qualcomm shifted their 5nm Snapdragon chips to Samsung for this year.) So if Dell, Lenovo, HP and the rest need to surpass what Intel is capable of, they can just use AMD.
So long story short, don't believe anything this guy says. Just do an Internet search on his rants about how Android was NEVER going to catch iOS in market share and Google - who now has a $1 trillion and counting capitalization - was on the verge of going belly up. That will let you know how you shouldn't rely on this fellow for predictions.
The title is about the future, the content about the past.
Here’s a thought about the future — I wonder if “desktop AI/ML” will define the Mac of the 2020s the way desktop publishing did in the 80s.
Combine user friendly tools for training models with your data with uniquely powerful hardware. Train on Mac, deploy on iPhone
Yeah, I read through all that to only get 5nm. But one thing is guaranteed-this is about PROFITS. I'm sure Desktop ARM chips will be cheaper to make and will have greater profit margin. I'm hoping Apple tries to increase its volume but won't hold my breath on this. With the move to an arm based architecture I am expecting macOS to become more iPhone/ipad like as they share a common software base. SuperOS for the future.
DED is usually very good a reiterating the history of Apple's rise to dominance, but doesn't have the same track record with prognostication about the future.
No "SuperOS," as you put it. iOS, iPadOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS will continue to be Darwin-based and use many of the same frameworks, but will be distinct OSes. Not only is Apple not going to use a single OS for all products, but they continue to diverge their OSes.
You didn't mention performance. I think we'll see an above average YoY performance boost but performance per watt is the bigger gain here. I think a reduction in price behooves Apple as it will allow them to sell more Macs, but they could keep the price points the same—just don't conflate that with Apple increasing their profit margins unless you can account for the cost changes of all other components and associated costs, or that increasing profits for a product category relates to increasing profit margins (price drops aren't altruistic moves by companies).
Good grief. The Intel Core i3 chips that Apple puts in the entry level MacBook Air costs less to buy from Intel than it will cost TSMC to make the A14 chip. And the chip cost is only a fraction of the cost of the device. For example, the Qualcomm charged Google only $50 for the Snapdragon 765G that is in the $700 Pixel 5. I know that there are rumors that Apple will sell the ARM laptops starting at $799, but only because they want to sell more of them. The tradeoff is that Apple will have lower margins in return for that increased market share. That will make ARM-based Macs the equivalent of the iPhone SE 2020, for example.
"Huawei has similarly claimed that it is close to introducing its own internal OS platform out of necessity after the U.S. blocked it from using Google's Android. But this has been merely disruptive to Huawei's sales, because existing Android buyers don't want a non-standard, non-compatible Android alternative."
HongMeng/HarmonyOS has been in development for years (long before any U.S intervention). It is already shipping in a version 1.0 form on TVs and routers. Some of its components are already shipping in Huawei's Android phones and its watches too. The OS currently has more APIs than Android, 1,000+ modules and the TEE has received the highest level industry security certifications. It is also being aimed at industry and will make extensive use of 5G technologies and AI.
That is in a different universe to Tizen and WebOS.
The U.S geopolitical situation simply sped the whole development process up and made Huawei show its hand a little earlier than planned.
So now we know it is also already shipping to many car manufacturers and IoT partners and offers a higher level of integration than either Android Auto or Car Play. The cars will have a HiCar 5G Module built into them. It was deployed to manufacturers last year. The OS will reportedly ship on phones next year. It is also already running on custom SoCs (one of which Huawei has even made available to the open market for IoT devices). It will integrate Huawei HiLink connectivity (a protocol that has existed for years for Huawei and partner devices) for integration of devices.
A 'non-compatible Android alternative'? It is a new system. The whole point is to be an alternative to Android. Compatibility didn't come into its design and it is far, far too early to start affirming what users want. Especially as the world's largest handset market can easily shift its focus to a non-Android world (seeing as GMS is basically irrelevant there).
The OS foundation will also be open sourced and Huawei is a manufacturer itself and already has thousands of HiLink partner devices on the Chinese market.
Thanks to HarmonyOS/HMS many of those devices will become available outside China with regionally localised apps. On top of that, Huawei is signing up western partners to deploy HarmonyOS compatible devices. Just this week they signed a deal with Spanish appliance manufacturer Cecotec and it is rumoured that Siemens/Bosch/Audi/BMW etc are also on board. Of course, in addition to industry giants like Haier.
The only 'current' issue is (once again) geopolitical and concerns chipset fabrication but that is merely an obstacle not an permanent impediment. Huawei has apparently set itself a goal of two years to eliminate dependency on U.S technology, something which will tie in nicely with HarmonyOS 4.
It is also worth remembering that Huawei also has ARM based solutions for HPC/AI /Servers and more recently, Desktops.
As for PowerPC, it should also be noted that Apple's PowerPC issues were related to its niche of desktop/laptop computing. Away from that niche, PowerPC was a force to be reckoned with in low power embedded industries (such as within the automobile industry). And of course 'PowerPC' actually lives on under a different guise and enjoys a very good reputation due to its maturity as a platform and the tools available for it.
This article paints a too rosy picture of the transition. The fact of the matter is that moving away from x86 will end Mac’s “best of both worlds” status. That means no more running Windows software.
Nobody cares any more. Back in 2008 I actually thought that that was important in my decision to switch to a MBP. Come to find out it wasn't a capability I really used. The only other OS I ran was Linux and Linux has been on ARM for some time.
Even more obvious is that ARM has never hurt software on iPhone nor iPad. Basically x86 is not a concern any more.
This article paints a too rosy picture of the transition. The fact of the matter is that moving away from x86 will end Mac’s “best of both worlds” status. That means no more running Windows software.
In over 20 years and Thousands of both Mac & Windows Users I have serviced, I have yet to meet ONE person who wants or needs to run Windows on a Mac. It's two separate Worlds plain and simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise is FUBAR.
I run Windows on my Mac. There, "20 years and Thousands of both Mac & Windows Users" not needing Windows and I've blown your run. Sorry. I know plenty of people who use Windows on their Mac.
Edit: I see many other people here also use Windows. Damn that's embarrassing for you isn't it?
If Microsoft develops the complete office suite included Teams to Apple ARM-iOS there will be no need for Windows for a lot of people. iOS with Office is a nice corporate setup that will suffice a lot of users, including me. By the way, I use Parallels to run Windows 10 on my MacBook Pro, and I find it a truly nice operating software. I would not mind to work in a Windows environment. I would not have said this years ago, but nowadays yea, I could do it.
Apple please just make sure the pro audio software, drivers and IO remains stable and seamless... you can’t afford to lose the lucrative niche of recording artists and studios... they all use Macs. Windblows is still riddled with bad drivers and frustrating instability.
I hope the transition isn't another reversion back to obscurity and proprietary Apple-only standards. Post-Jobs 1.0 Macs gradually became more proprietary, but then things started to use common standards once Jobs 2.0 arrived, with USB, DVI, PCIe, AGP, etc. But ever since Cook took over things have slowly become less compatible and more closed. Apple begrudgingly posts the open source parts of mac/iOS, and is making their Macs less compatible - one of those incompatibilities being the inability to run Windows.
This article paints a too rosy picture of the transition. The fact of the matter is that moving away from x86 will end Mac’s “best of both worlds” status. That means no more running Windows software.
Nobody cares any more. Back in 2008 I actually thought that that was important in my decision to switch to a MBP. Come to find out it wasn't a capability I really used. The only other OS I ran was Linux and Linux has been on ARM for some time.
Even more obvious is that ARM has never hurt software on iPhone nor iPad. Basically x86 is not a concern any more.
Except all the people that use Windows on macOS, and as demonstrated above, that is not "nobody". Just because you can't see the merits in a particular use case, doesn't mean that case doesn't exist.
The title is about the future, the content about the past.
Here’s a thought about the future — I wonder if “desktop AI/ML” will define the Mac of the 2020s the way desktop publishing did in the 80s.
Combine user friendly tools for training models with your data with uniquely powerful hardware. Train on Mac, deploy on iPhone
Yeah, I read through all that to only get 5nm. But one thing is guaranteed-this is about PROFITS. I'm sure Desktop ARM chips will be cheaper to make and will have greater profit margin. I'm hoping Apple tries to increase its volume but won't hold my breath on this. With the move to an arm based architecture I am expecting macOS to become more iPhone/ipad like as they share a common software base. SuperOS for the future.
DED is usually very good a reiterating the history of Apple's rise to dominance, but doesn't have the same track record with prognostication about the future.
You should actually look into my "track record in prognosticating the future" and then issue a humble apology.
ARM recent vulnerabilities (incl. Checkm8, Spectre and Meltdown) surfacing in past Apple silicon efforts, including the currently pervasive T2, are concerning indeed.
Hope Apple is finally reacting to such Achilles’ heel in its Apple Silicon strategy. Which, if appropriately handled, could turn into a strategic advantage on competing mainstream silicon.
Checkm8 could affect T2 Macs with an intel processor, but Spectre and Meltdown are vulnerabilities that relate to branch processing, which isn't something a T2 would be doing and says nothing about Apple's silicon itself. These vulnerabilities affected all modern CPUs, and Apple was best positioned to protect users with OS-level fixes.
One point in the PowerPC to x86 transition that you forgot to mention is that the NeXT OS was already running in x86 hardware. The Motorola to PowerPC was a ‘new writing.’ This is the same situation in x86 to ARM on Macs: the OS is already written-at-large in iOS. This makes this transition more similar to the 2005 transition that to the 1990.
NeXT ported to x86 in 1995 but Apple didn't actually use any of that x86 port until 2006 (it did ship early DR releases shortly after buying NeXT). So that wasn't very relevant to the development of OS X that initially shipped for PPC. NeXT also ported its OS to PPC, which did end up being useful for Apple in shipping OS X. None of that was very relevant to the point of this article, which is detailing the strategic reasons Apple made various processor transitions and the outcomes.
Also, the port of Classic Mac OS from Motorola to PPC largely continued to use emulated, not new, code. From 94 thru the early 2000s, Macs dragged a lot of 68k code along that wasn't entirely let go until the OS X transition to x86!
There are two really big announcements that Apple will have to make in the next year that will shape the future of both Apple and the entire computer industry: 1. A desktop scale CPU. Thus far all of the CPUs Apple has made have been targeted at mobile devices. They are limited by the power they use and the heat they generate. A desktop scale CPU can draw 100 watts or more (280 for a Threadripper). How will these CPUs compare with ones from Intel and AMD given that Apple's current mobile processors compete well with Intel's laptop processors? 2. A discrete GPU. Apple's current GPUs are built into the processor. They are great for playing games on mobile devices but they are at least ten times slower than current discrete GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA. For ray tracing they are about a hundred times slower than the hardware based ray tracing in the current crop of GPUs. Will Apple integrate AMD GPUs into the Apple Silicon iMac or will they announce their own discrete GPU?
Apple has already detailed why putting CPU and GPU cores on the same SoC using a shared memory architecture is an advantage, not a problem.
The fact that historical "integrated GPUs" from CPU vendors like Intel have been lessor performers is not intrinsic to the GPU not sitting on its own chip.
Any time you have separate chips linked by an interconnect you're going to have more of a bottleneck between them vs putting both on the same wafer with direct access to the same shared data.
In over 20 years and Thousands of both Mac & Windows Users I have serviced, I have yet to meet ONE person who wants or needs to run Windows on a Mac. It's two separate Worlds plain and simple. Anyone who thinks otherwise is FUBAR.
Perhaps you need to get out more?
Up until I changed jobs in January, I literally ran Windows in a VM every day. Now I don’t have the need for Windows very often, but I do run Linux-based applications inside Docker containers every single day.
A large percentage of developers do the same on their Macs, so you can’t discount the need to virtualization technologies.
Comments
1. A desktop scale CPU. Thus far all of the CPUs Apple has made have been targeted at mobile devices. They are limited by the power they use and the heat they generate. A desktop scale CPU can draw 100 watts or more (280 for a Threadripper). How will these CPUs compare with ones from Intel and AMD given that Apple's current mobile processors compete well with Intel's laptop processors?
2. A discrete GPU. Apple's current GPUs are built into the processor. They are great for playing games on mobile devices but they are at least ten times slower than current discrete GPUs from AMD and NVIDIA. For ray tracing they are about a hundred times slower than the hardware based ray tracing in the current crop of GPUs. Will Apple integrate AMD GPUs into the Apple Silicon iMac or will they announce their own discrete GPU?
Second, please realize that right now Apple has 8% market share in PCs. ChromeOS - which already includes ARM devices like the Lenovo IdeaPad Duet, the #1 selling ChromeOS device this year - has 11%. Were it not for mass shortages of Chromebooks caused by COVID-19 induced supply chain disruptions, ChromeOS would have 13-14% market share.
Third, this fellow writing off the success that is Android is hilarious. It has 75% - 85% market share. And the only reason why Google Play has less revenue than the app store is because Google chooses not to operate in China. In other words, the gap between Google Play and iOS is much closer than the gap between macOS and Windows. Yet he wants us to believe that Android is somehow a failure? That Samsung and the rest would be better off by not manufacturing Android apps? Or that all these developers and software companies have not gained tons of revenue off Android apps?
Fourth, Apple Silicon being so much faster than Intel-based PCs won't matter if:
A) Apple Silicon devices continue to cost far more than Intel and AMD-based PCs with equivalent RAM and storage configurations: they do.
Let me give you an example: PC gaming. The Acer Nitro 5 is a legit 1080p gaming machine with 8 GB of RAM (easily and cheaply expandable to 32 GB), 256 GB SSD (again easily to expand with USB-C port), Intel Core i5 and Nvidia GPU and 16' screen. Cost: $650. The cheapest MacBook with an Intel i5 and a discrete GPU? $1200! And for that $1200 ... you won't be able to play very many games. Though some Steam games are supported, even massive hits like Rocket League are available. So gaming with a Mac requires bootcamp. And that is today. Steam, Origin, EA and Epic are not going to run at all on ARM-based Macs, just as they don't on ARM-based Windows 10. Bootcamp and Parallels? They won't be either.
Also, believing that Intel is going to be at 10nm forever is nuts. They have a 7nm design already, just no way to manufacture it. They were on the verge of getting TSMC to manufacture their 7nm chips but had to back off because of internal opposition, but a final decision will be made in 2021 based on the progress that they have made with their own foundries. (By the way, it is very unseemly for Apple fans - who are totally reliant on other companies to manufacture components for them - to bash companies who make their own components like Intel, Qualcomm and Samsung.) Because Intel uses way more transistors in their chips than anyone else, a 7nm Intel chip is equivalent to a 5nm AMD, Qualcomm or Apple A14 chip. Now Intel is actually capable of paying TSMC to make their 7nm chips at any time. They won't because of business reasons: they want at least 18 months to sell their current 10nm chips first or else they will lose money on that generation. But rest assured that by the time the 2 year transition from Intel to Ax is complete, Intel will have released their 7nm chips and be well on the way to 5nm,
Until then? Another problem is thinking that Microsoft, Windows and ChromeOS only rely on Intel when they absolutely do not. In case you haven't heard, the fastest desktop chip is no longer the Intel i9-10900K. Instead the fastest desktop chip is the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X. The Ryzen 9 is on a 7nm process. 5nm process AMD chips are being manufactured right now in the same TSMC foundry that is currently making the 5nm Apple A14 chips. (This is why Qualcomm shifted their 5nm Snapdragon chips to Samsung for this year.) So if Dell, Lenovo, HP and the rest need to surpass what Intel is capable of, they can just use AMD.
So long story short, don't believe anything this guy says. Just do an Internet search on his rants about how Android was NEVER going to catch iOS in market share and Google - who now has a $1 trillion and counting capitalization - was on the verge of going belly up. That will let you know how you shouldn't rely on this fellow for predictions.
HongMeng/HarmonyOS has been in development for years (long before any U.S intervention). It is already shipping in a version 1.0 form on TVs and routers. Some of its components are already shipping in Huawei's Android phones and its watches too. The OS currently has more APIs than Android, 1,000+ modules and the TEE has received the highest level industry security certifications. It is also being aimed at industry and will make extensive use of 5G technologies and AI.
That is in a different universe to Tizen and WebOS.
The U.S geopolitical situation simply sped the whole development process up and made Huawei show its hand a little earlier than planned.
So now we know it is also already shipping to many car manufacturers and IoT partners and offers a higher level of integration than either Android Auto or Car Play. The cars will have a HiCar 5G Module built into them. It was deployed to manufacturers last year. The OS will reportedly ship on phones next year. It is also already running on custom SoCs (one of which Huawei has even made available to the open market for IoT devices). It will integrate Huawei HiLink connectivity (a protocol that has existed for years for Huawei and partner devices) for integration of devices.
A 'non-compatible Android alternative'? It is a new system. The whole point is to be an alternative to Android. Compatibility didn't come into its design and it is far, far too early to start affirming what users want. Especially as the world's largest handset market can easily shift its focus to a non-Android world (seeing as GMS is basically irrelevant there).
The OS foundation will also be open sourced and Huawei is a manufacturer itself and already has thousands of HiLink partner devices on the Chinese market.
Thanks to HarmonyOS/HMS many of those devices will become available outside China with regionally localised apps. On top of that, Huawei is signing up western partners to deploy HarmonyOS compatible devices. Just this week they signed a deal with Spanish appliance manufacturer Cecotec and it is rumoured that Siemens/Bosch/Audi/BMW etc are also on board. Of course, in addition to industry giants like Haier.
The only 'current' issue is (once again) geopolitical and concerns chipset fabrication but that is merely an obstacle not an permanent impediment. Huawei has apparently set itself a goal of two years to eliminate dependency on U.S technology, something which will tie in nicely with HarmonyOS 4.
It is also worth remembering that Huawei also has ARM based solutions for HPC/AI /Servers and more recently, Desktops.
As for PowerPC, it should also be noted that Apple's PowerPC issues were related to its niche of desktop/laptop computing. Away from that niche, PowerPC was a force to be reckoned with in low power embedded industries (such as within the automobile industry). And of course 'PowerPC' actually lives on under a different guise and enjoys a very good reputation due to its maturity as a platform and the tools available for it.
...
http://epaper.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202009/16/WS5f613c92a31099a2343505af.html
https://device.harmonyos.com/en/docs/security/sec-guides/oem_security_guide-0000001050032745
https://en.arabgt.com/the-worlds-first-car-with-hicar-system-by-huawei-supports-5g/
https://androidcommunity.com/huawei-hicar-display-runs-harmonyos-promises-unified-in-car-ecosystem-20201103/
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190624005257/en/Huawei-Has-Combined-It’s-Market-Leading-NB-IoT-Device-Soc-With-NOWI’s-Energy-Harvesting-PMIC-to-Enable-New-Internet-of-Things-Applications-Requiring-Ultra-low-Power-Autonomous-Operation
Even more obvious is that ARM has never hurt software on iPhone nor iPad. Basically x86 is not a concern any more.
Edit: I see many other people here also use Windows. Damn that's embarrassing for you isn't it?
This article is outlining the future in view of the past.
You should actually look into my "track record in prognosticating the future" and then issue a humble apology.
Checkm8 could affect T2 Macs with an intel processor, but Spectre and Meltdown are vulnerabilities that relate to branch processing, which isn't something a T2 would be doing and says nothing about Apple's silicon itself. These vulnerabilities affected all modern CPUs, and Apple was best positioned to protect users with OS-level fixes.
None of this is "concerning indeed."
NeXT ported to x86 in 1995 but Apple didn't actually use any of that x86 port until 2006 (it did ship early DR releases shortly after buying NeXT). So that wasn't very relevant to the development of OS X that initially shipped for PPC. NeXT also ported its OS to PPC, which did end up being useful for Apple in shipping OS X. None of that was very relevant to the point of this article, which is detailing the strategic reasons Apple made various processor transitions and the outcomes.
Also, the port of Classic Mac OS from Motorola to PPC largely continued to use emulated, not new, code. From 94 thru the early 2000s, Macs dragged a lot of 68k code along that wasn't entirely let go until the OS X transition to x86!
The fact that historical "integrated GPUs" from CPU vendors like Intel have been lessor performers is not intrinsic to the GPU not sitting on its own chip.
Up until I changed jobs in January, I literally ran Windows in a VM every day. Now I don’t have the need for Windows very often, but I do run Linux-based applications inside Docker containers every single day.
A large percentage of developers do the same on their Macs, so you can’t discount the need to virtualization technologies.