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Tim Cook: No ARM MBA since iPad will eventually fill all the needs of a MBA

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Cheebo

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Jan 13, 2012
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Thought this was interesting. Cook sees no need to invest in going ARM on the MacBook Air's because how rapidly iPad and iOS is evolving it will eventually fulfill every need a ARM based MacBook Air could provide:

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...k_air_as_ipad_to_soon_satisfy_that_niche.html
Citi analyst Richard Gardner reported Cook reiterating his comment, originally made during the quarterly earnings conference call, that the market for tablets would eventually grow larger than the conventional PC market.

Apple doesn't refer to iPad as a PC, but as a "post-PC device," leaving the ARM-based tablet distinct from the company's Intel-based Macs. Gardner further indicated the meeting dispelled the notion that Apple might introduce ARM-based Macs, countering rumors that a new MacBook Air featuring an ARM processor might appear sometime soon.

Gardner cited Cook as alluding to "rapid innovation on the iOS platform" that will "significantly broaden the use case for tablets," and stated he "walked away from this meeting with the impression that Apple feels iPad satisfies—or will soon satisfy—the needs of those who might have been interested in such a product" as an ARM-based MacBook Air.

Speculation about a MacBook Air or other low end Mac models beginning to incorporate ARM processors has been fueled by rapid advances in ARM's chip designs as well as Microsoft's Windows 8 strategy that envisions future tablet and clamshell PC devices built around ARM chips rather than Intel x86 compatible processors that Windows has historically been tied to as a platform.

While Apple could deliver ARM based Macs, it appears the company is more focused on increasing the desirability of its existing iPad and leaving Macs as a higher end alternative rather than bringing them into directly overlapping use scenarios.
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that makes sense. Think about a different platform and the increase in complexity to support that and for what benefit?

The iPad is extending apple's reach and bringing more consumers. An ARM based laptop will require a lot of development and support on the software side. Produce another product line that overlaps other existing lines and would only have limited appeal - imo.
 
The title of this thread is misleading... OP, this all makes sense, but Tim Cook didn't say so ARM for MBA. It's reasonable to infer that of course but that's not what he said.


gentlefury said:
Unless they put a full OS on the iPad it will NEVER fill the need of a MBA.
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Well, that's the point of the story. What do you think "significantly broaden the use case for tablets," is supposed to mean?
 
He said that iPad will fill all the needs of a theoretical ARM-equipped mba (explanation: a theoretical very weak mba for basic computer usage), not the mba as it is now. And actually that's not new. That's exactly what Steve Jobs said when introduced iPad at first place, talking about the small gap between a laptop and an ipod/iphone.

MBA will get stronger in every release, and it's not targeting to the same needs as the iPad.
 
Cheebo said:
Thought this was interesting. Cook sees no need to invest in going ARM on the MacBook Air's because how rapidly iPad and iOS is evolving it will eventually fulfill every need a ARM based MacBook Air could provide:
Click to expand...
Does that mean they are planning to realease an "iPad Transformer" with an actual physical keyboard? Otherwise an iPad can never replace a need for a MBA.

Would I love such a device? Oh hell yeah!
Actually, that's what I'm waiting for.
 
ZirkMan said:
Does that mean they are planning to realease an "iPad Transformer" with an actual physical keyboard? Otherwise an iPad can never replace a need for a MBA.

Would I love such a device? Oh hell yeah!
Actually, that's what I'm waiting for.
Click to expand...

A MBA with a removable touchscreen would be awesome!....Best of both worlds.
 
The iPad is extremely limited. It didn't need to be, but Apple did it anyways. If they honestly expect the iPad to meet people's needs, they're either thinking about grandmas, or they have a plan to give iOS more functionality/create iOS X or something of the sort.
 
With the iPad it is important to remember that it is only a little over a year old. Only on the 2nd generation of hardware.

If you think 3 years out the iPad could be the equal of today's Air minus the keyboard, maybe even more powerful.

How many iPad iterations will it take to expand the hardware to 128GB and 256GB options?

This year will probably see the introduction quad core processors running above 1.2Ghz.

If "retina" actually comes to the iPad then the display will be higher quality than the one that ships on the current lineup of Airs.

But with that said think about where the Air will be in 3 years.
 
Cynicalone said:
With the iPad it is important to remember that it is only a little over a year old. Only on the 2nd generation of hardware.

If you think 3 years out the iPad could be the equal of today's Air minus the keyboard, maybe even more powerful.

How many iPad iterations will it take to expand the hardware to 128GB and 256GB options?

This year will probably see the introduction quad core processors running above 1.2Ghz.

If "retina" actually comes to the iPad then the display will be higher quality than the one that ships on the current lineup of Airs.

But with that said think about where the Air will be in 3 years.
Click to expand...

The thing I don't understand tho, is, they keep on adding more power and storage, but refuse to up the ram....making it useless.
 
gentlefury said:
The thing I don't understand tho, is, they keep on adding more power and storage, but refuse to up the ram....making it useless.
Click to expand...

Apple tries hard to balance power and battery life.

The RAM will likely be increased to 1024MB (1GB) this year. In 3 years would it be inconceivable for the iPad to have 4GB?
 
The quote does NOT mention that Tim Cook SAID anything like this. Instead, the ANALYST had the IMPRESSION that Apple feels that the iPad will eventually fulfill the needs one could have for an ARM-based MBA.

So it's NOT Tim Cook saying anything like what the thread title implies but instead an analyst who interpreted an interview. Fine, but very important difference!
 
RAM is irrelevant as long as they include enough

gentlefury said:
The thing I don't understand tho, is, they keep on adding more power and storage, but refuse to up the ram....making it useless.
Click to expand...

I'm an iOS developer and we are building for iOS and Android. On iOS we have no memory problems, while our Android team is having all sorts of problems keeping their memory under the max per process limit of 48MB. Even with Android devices that have 1Gig of RAM it makes no difference.

We did have memory footprint issues to solve on the first gen iPhone & the iPhone 3G, but on iOS we haven't run into any memory footprint issues sense the 3GS came out with 256MB; let alone the current generation devices with 512MB or a potentially Gig in an iPad 3.
 
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