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Apple's Potential Shift from Intel to ARM for Macs Not Implausible, But Faces Hurdles
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Apple did hire ex-AMD Jim Mergard a few weeks back. He seems to be more a low power x86 guru than an ARM expert so I think Apple is investigating in more than the rumoured ARM route towards more efficient desktop chips.
I'm sure Apple co-designed the Intel chipset that went into the MB Air. We'll see more of that before Apple ditches x86 for ARM in it's Macs, perhaps with tighter restrictions on Intel re-sale to competitors. Not sure if Apple is in position to force that upon Intel, but maybe that's what this leak/rumour tries to achieve.
I'm sure Apple co-designed the Intel chipset that went into the MB Air. We'll see more of that before Apple ditches x86 for ARM in it's Macs, perhaps with tighter restrictions on Intel re-sale to competitors. Not sure if Apple is in position to force that upon Intel, but maybe that's what this leak/rumour tries to achieve.
Intel is a pretty advanced company when it comes to powerhouse processors that would be a huge battle for Apple.
Then again just ask RIM what happened when they didn't view Apple as a threat.
Then again just ask RIM what happened when they didn't view Apple as a threat.
I think everyone should look at another avenue.. Since apple is customer designed everything, it would be easy for them to put a A6 or other arm processor on the motherboard + the intel one as well. There could be important advantages of doing this and ways to use both or just one for certain tasks.
ARM based MBP is an no no for me. Apple is stupid if it chooses to adopt ARM for macbook lines.
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It is a rumor level joke written by Bloomberg trying to bring Intel stock price down. that's it.
That was my point in yesterdays discussion which was lost on most people who only made comparisons to the current ARM chips used in phones and such. We will have to wait and see of course, but I doubt that Apple will ever make the switch if it does not present significant advantages to what is currently offered by intel. If that is not possible it will never happen. /end prediction.
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I can see it now, NO multitaskingevery app will take the entire screen now and if you minimaze it will stop working until you resume.
Need to share some files across the system ? Fck that ! They allready started hiding everything on osx
That has nothing to do with what chip that is used, it could happen with intel, it could happen with ARM or any other chip. Nothing is really hidden in OS X btw.
Try to search for ios updates (ipsw) you download in itunes the regular way; and yes osx will go down but what they are trying to do with it, merge the 2 and boom lockdown.
Why not acquiring ARM?
It could harm Samsung more than any lawsuit. And then they could reign all over mobile ecosystem. They only need something like 20 Billion dollars (they have more than 100 in cash) and some other factories than Samsung's (Texas Instruments by the way). It's not a matter of profitability (which it could) but of dominance.
Just wondering...
It could harm Samsung more than any lawsuit. And then they could reign all over mobile ecosystem. They only need something like 20 Billion dollars (they have more than 100 in cash) and some other factories than Samsung's (Texas Instruments by the way). It's not a matter of profitability (which it could) but of dominance.
Just wondering...
That is mere speculation of course, I doubt we will see a merge. What they have done is to take some UI concepts which have proven successful on iOS and applied them in OS X. Personally, I like to see only my files and my user folder in the GUI. For any system related files there is Terminal or other system admin tools available. It's just a natural way to make sure that the clutter of files unrelated to my day to day activities is out of my way. Terminal also provides obfuscation in a very natural way imo, if you do not feel comfortable in it, you probably shouldn't touch it.
That is mere speculation of course, I doubt we will see a merge. What they have done is to take some UI concepts which have proven successful on iOS and applied them in OS X. Personally, I like to see only my files and my user folder in the GUI. For any system related files there is Terminal or other system admin tools available. It's just a natural way to make sure that the clutter of files unrelated to my day to day activities is out of my way. Terminal also provides obfuscation in a very natural way imo, if you do not feel comfortable in it, you probably shouldn't touch it.
I guess you are in favor to make people dumb ? Why will you want to hide "important" files to people and make then resort to "complicated" things (will be for someone that dont handle" if you limit the experience you limit the challenge and with no challenge you limit the brain; i though that in a few years everyone plus the new generation will be capable of handle computers and solve small problems without having to call tech support etc.
Like the comment of someone here that was amazed how hes child could use a ipad
if thats what you want in the future that people will only use a computer to open a browser and do "heavy social network" or watch porn/youtube....Ps. English not native
Btw how do you want people learn how to use terminal or take interest in learning unix code etc if you hide it from then and just tell then that use the apps and let the other stuff to the experts ? Its bs
Nope. The files isn't hidden, they just use an appropriate interface. I use the Terminal daily, all the time actually, in my perspective the GUI is a higher level view of the system. This is of course completely unrelated to the discussion of potential use of ARM chips in future Macs so perhaps we could end this discussion?
Btw how do you want people learn how to use terminal or take interest in learning unix code etc if you hide it from then and just tell then that use the apps and let the other stuff to the experts ? Its bs
It's not hidden! If you do not fully understand the files you mess around with and the consequences it has, you should probably learn that first, I hope you agree.
I watched a documentary about ARM a few years ago on the BBC and they made it clear they are determined to remain independent. If I remember correctly they even include clauses in their contracts which would make it extremely difficult for someone like Apple to take them over.
Of course, but we are not dealing with bananas and towels here. Can we end this now, please and talk about ARM vs intel?
Is ARM even valued that high? I recall it being much lower. Hearing how many companies Apple should buy out is starting to get old. It's just a step backwards for technology companies buy out others solely to limit access to a commodity. As for Samsung, they'd find something different.
I'm still undecided. I think a big part of serious performance these days comes from the GPU though, so a switch to ARM processors might not be all that crazy, since higher end machines could come with ARM CPU's with integrated OpenCL focused GPUs for handling the real heavy lifting.
The question really is whether OpenCL is gaining enough traction that such a move wouldn't just fall flat, or whether the possibility of such a move could get wider OpenCL adoption. Apple pulling some trick to make OpenCL development even easier certainly couldn't hurt either.
I mean, I wouldn't mind a quad processor, quad core 64-bit ARM Mac Pro where each chip also has a decent number crunching GPU on board. Slap in a good graphics card to handle actual rendering and it could be an energy efficient beast.
The question really is whether OpenCL is gaining enough traction that such a move wouldn't just fall flat, or whether the possibility of such a move could get wider OpenCL adoption. Apple pulling some trick to make OpenCL development even easier certainly couldn't hurt either.
I mean, I wouldn't mind a quad processor, quad core 64-bit ARM Mac Pro where each chip also has a decent number crunching GPU on board. Slap in a good graphics card to handle actual rendering and it could be an energy efficient beast.
Apple build X86 chips instead
There is no chance Apple will abandon the X86 architecture. It would be suicide. It would be more likely, and not a bad idea, for Apple to design and build an X86 of its own design.
As they should, Apple is likely tired of the lack of speed and innovation at Intel in the development of newer and more efficient X86 chips for Apple's ever more sophisticated computers.
There is no chance Apple will abandon the X86 architecture. It would be suicide. It would be more likely, and not a bad idea, for Apple to design and build an X86 of its own design.
As they should, Apple is likely tired of the lack of speed and innovation at Intel in the development of newer and more efficient X86 chips for Apple's ever more sophisticated computers.
Unless Apple gets a x86 license from Intel and x86-64 license from AMD, they cannot make their own x86 chips. And this is not going to happen.
As the article mentions on the fly code translation with that russian tech. I suspect it would be invisible to the OS.
but do agree that intel's low power chips are getting better. But as people have mentioned here people want a decent power/speed/battery life tradeoff. I'd rather have 10 hours of usable video editing than 20 of browsing...
And it's still the screen that eats most of the battery life.
It's batteries tech that needs to get better.
Whatever happened to that nano battery tech that could charge a car battery to 90% in 5 mins?
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$11 Billion. And they have been approached by all the big companies and have turned them all down. Was in a video with the MD of ARM
They are not interested one company company limiting the tech
No they are not. The context was how easy/difficult it would be to transition from X86 based hardware to ARM based hardware. I mentioned that most of the frameworks being leveraged in OS X work across Intel and ARM hardware. GLKit was one of many. Knight comes in blustering about shaders and differences between ES and standard OpenGL. While his data may have been of a technical nature and even correct on many levels it was out of bounds in the context of the discussion I was bringing and brought absolutely nothing to the table of whether it's feasible that Apple could easily transition its apps and 3rd party apps across. Note that I didn't say I personally was overwhelmed but I mentioned it as a tactic often used.
If you cannot or will not take the time to processes and understand the question then all the blather in the world, wether it be correct or not, is non-essential.
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I agree with you. Intel's done a lot but I think Apple would be foolish not to look at other opportunities. It doesn't appear that AMD is going to ever be able to bring a credible threat to Intel again so ARM really is the next best challenger. Intel is a great company and I love what they do but I also love the benefits that good competition brings in pricing and performance of products.
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Thanks for the correction. I'll check out this link. I've heard of OGRE is OpenSceneGraph newer?
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We're just getting wires crossed. You right it's not about purpose and more about availability that I was getting at. A Rosetta like technology shouldn't be required if this transition happens again.
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Agreed. I'm in full agreement that before a switch to ARM would be feasible there would have to be some significant changes to OS X. The disagreement here is in the efficacy of moving existing apps to ARM and while the Intel transition came with varying levels of pain the ARM transition would be vastly different because there are what 200 million ARM devices in the field running many of the same API. Had we had the same back in the PPC>Intel transition it would have been less painful for some.
Leverage over Intel. Be nice to us or we're gone.
Again, Apple should just buy Intel and move on.