Dan_Dilger

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

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    mretondo said:
    Completely disagree, the ARM chip could have been compared to a Mac mini or whatever Mac they saw fit but they didn’t! They showed FCP and said it’s fast but didn’t even say it’s X times faster than XXX. I’ve been with Apple since 1980 and been an Apple ][, Mac and iPhone develop. They are definitely hiding real speeds. The ARM MAC would be great for a low end Mac Book to get the better battery life buts that’s it. 
    You can provide your real name and the basis for believing your authority as an insider, and then if you're right we can cite you as having known all along. Or if you are wrong we can point out how much people overthink the value of their opinions before there's enough information to really say. Your call. 
    fastasleepFidonet127muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra

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

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger

    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!
    Apple has no reason to benchmark its transition kit hardware, and it isn't selling any Apple Silicon Macs for months. Trying to establish that "ARM is faster" would be futile now, and would open things up to allow Intel and PC makers to spend months denigrating Apple's work before it goes on sale.

    If you pay attention, you'll note that Apple doesn't generally overbrag and underdeliver. There is a reason for that. Demanding to be coddled now is just naive to how Apple works. 
    fastasleepGeorgeBMacFidonet127muthuk_vanalingamwatto_cobra

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

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    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.   
    fastasleepFidonet127watto_cobra

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

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    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".
    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.
    The original iPad had an external keyboard. And while the trackpad cursor is an interesting development, it hasn't materially changed the usefulness of the platform. The core value of iPad is its mobility and the fact that it can be used without setting up any "desktop" to work from. 

    Apple is obviosuly not trying to "challenge" MacBooks. On what planet does that even make sense?

    And lots of people buy a MacBook to use it as a conventional, light & thin notebook used for typing. That's not new either.  
    fastasleepmacpluspluschiaviclauyycmwhitejony0watto_cobra

  • Why the Mac's migration to Apple Silicon is bigger than ARM

    Dan_DilgerDan_Dilger
    imat said:
    Nice and well written article.


    My wonder is how Apple will manage feature parity. Apple announced Intel models of Mac are in the pipeline, I imagine Mac Pros and some high end configuration of other MacBook Pros for the time being.

    But the question is how will Apple introduce the benefits of Apple Silicon on some models and leave the Intel ones out.
    Imagine a MacBook Pro with Apple Silicon and FaceID, bionic processor, W1 processor and the rest. And the "higher performance model" with Intel CPU and none of the previous features. Because, if Apple adds them on Intel based Macs it will do a ton of work for 24 months only (which is the timeframe it provided for the switch to be complete).

    The same goes for "universal 2" software. Some tasks can only be performed on Apple Silicon based machines, forcing developers to think about workarounds which might or might not be possible.
    Since Apple Silicon, differently than the switch between PowerPC and Intel, is not only about the CPU, some software features might be tied to Apple Silicon leaving the nominally more powerful machines out in the cold.

    Yeah will be interesting to see how that works out. 

    Apple is already putting some of its SoC elements into the T2 chips on modern Macs to provide support for features coming from iOS. It's likely that future Intel Macs will get an expanding set of these features in a "T3" etc. But with all the dev tools in place and Universal binaries, it might even be cost-effective for Apple to replace the T2 with an actual A13 alongside the Core i5, providing a full set of Apple Silicon features. 

    The cost of silicon is mostly related to the design and initial production of each chip; cranking out volume copies makes each copy that much cheaper. 

    So it could end up being cheaper to mass-produce a few million extra copies of a full "A14 Bionic" SoC and use them in new Intel Macs vs. developing a custom T3 and T4 chip that would only end up being used in a few million Intel Macs over the next couple years. 

    Apple pays a lot of money to use Intel and Qualcomm chips, but those chips are mostly pure profit for the vendor. Same as software. 


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