techconc

"As an example, he cites the transition to 64-bit computing on the consumer-level. Microsoft began the shift around 2003 and continues to support 32-bit to this day. Apple, on the other hand, started requiring developers to make 64-bit apps in 2017 and dropped support for 32-bit apps in 2019 alongside the release of macOS Catalina."

This comment is a bit disingenuous.  Apple started their transition to 64bit in Mac OS back in 2005 and only in 2019 did it drop support for 32bit.  Yes, that's better than Microsoft's record but not what Sinofsky appears to imply. 

braytonak said:

While a new ARM-based MacBook is logical, I would think it would also reinforce the expectation that %desktopOS%-on-ARM = slow. Apple’s confidence in ARM would be clearer if they put it in a MacBook Air, which we already know is a capable machine. 

Either way, I would replace my 2015 and 2017 MacBooks with an ARM-based model if they ditched the butterfly keyboard in them. If this comes to fruition this year I will find it a very fascinating time, indeed. 

I really don't understand why there is this perception that ARM is on desktop would be slow.  What leads you to think that?  The single core performance of Apple's A13 chip is within 6% of the performance of Intel's fastest i9 core.  That's with a low wattage mobile chip running on a phone as compared to a much higher wattage desktop based chip from Intel.  The A14 will likely exceed what Intel can do at single core performance and they'll do it on a phone.  On the desktop, it's just a matter of Apple providing a chip with more cores.   Also, as it stands now, the 2 year old A12x based iPad pro is more powerful than a brand new Core i5 based MacBook Air.  Provided we have native applications, performance will not be an issue.

Also, Apple has already moved away from the butterfly keyboard in all of their models, so that concern is completely a non-issue.

elijahg said:

Another point no one seems to have factored is that Intel has tons of extensions to x86 which are essentially never compared in benchmarks against ARM. SSE1/2/3, AVX, MMX, Quicksync etc. Lots of cross-platform software uses these extensions to speed things up, and the code can be directly ported from the huge market that is Windows to the smaller Mac market. Software that makes use of those extensions is much much faster than that which uses general x86 instructions because they come with much less legacy cruft. If Apple switches, cross platform devs aren't going to waste time optimising their software to double the speed on the tiny Mac market, Mac users will just get an inferior experience, again.

For starters, you should understand that ARM has the same kind of SIMD extensions (called NEON).  I don't think you understand how they are accessed though.  Apple has an accelerate framework that leverages these functions natively.  Developers on Apple platforms aren't writing for Intel or ARM instructions specifically.  If they have an application that can leverage this sort of thing, they are using Apple's Accelerate framework and they are getting this huge performance improvement.  Apple abstracts the CPU specific details, so applications can simply be recompiled and they will also be tuned to leverage the SIMD instructions of ARM processors. 

mdriftmeyer said:

Apple switched to Intel because PowerPC was dead for the consumer space. They had to bet the farm on it.

Apple isn't switching to ARM. They are augmenting their product lines with other ARM designs.

Not likely.  Apple needs to set a direction for the platform.  Previous transitions were successful because they were actual transitions. Developers got onboard because they had to.  Making support for ARM optional is a recipe for failure.  Just ask Microsoft about that. 

Intel has become stagnant and uncompetitive.  Nobody can really deny that.  Apple’s cores are already on par with Intel designs on devices that are extremely constrained for power.  Imagine what Apple can do on devices where that constraint is removed.  Apple has a competitive advantage on their mobile platforms because of their excellent chip design team.  Apple can now gain a competitive advantage on the desktop by moving to their own custom ARM processors.  

davgreg said:

Is it possible that Apple is going to in-house CPUs, just not made by Intel?

Apple has the resources and market scale to get custom x86 chips done.

To what end?  Supporting the legacy Intel x64 instruction set is part of the baggage that Apple wants to leave behind.  The ARMv8 instruction set is a much better foundation to build off of these days.  Apple could probably do better than Intel is doing today with that architecture, but they wouldn't be able to match what they can do with ARM.