A11 Bionic Chip vs MBP/ Intel?

[MichaelThwaite]

I wonder if there's a space in the market for a 12/13" MacBook that uses an A11 chip (I'm not calling it Bionic, that's silly) but only supports application installation from the Mac App Store and hence binaries that are auto-compiled for ARM.

It would be the first full-function laptop with "sufficient" performance, multi-day battery life, no malware, cool running, very easy support and would represent the unification of iOS and macOS.

Imagine how many Grandmas, CEOs, and even normal folk that just want a computer that reads emails, surfs the web, displays spreadsheets, checks facebook, plays music and movies, plays handheld games, backs itself up, never gets ransomed and, basically, just works... All the time.

I'd not be opposed to that at all and I'd be very happy if everyone else I knew/supported had one too!

Is this the next MacBook Air?

 

[thefriendshipmachine]

I think apple will definitely stop selling machines with intel CPUs at some point. Apple's whole game is to control the entire ecosystem of a computer. They want to produce totally closed systems where they have full control over the experience. Steve Jobs always said stuff like that as well.

So why wouldn't they switch to ARM chips one day for MacOS?

Pros:

1. Apple gets full control over hardware. Apple has always had painful relationships with IBM and Intel where they've been blocked or limited by their release dates or technical ability to provide results. This no longer happens if Apple produces and manufactures the chips themselves

2. Better battery life and fanless designs for low-end macs. Because you could just take the iPad pro, put it in a macbook air form factor and ship it with OS X.

3. Cut overhead. Because now instead of a mobile devices team and a desktop device team working on two separate projects, you could just combine everyone into one team. Have one hardware and software build target, and streamline everything much better.

Cons:

1. Cant execute x86 instructions (although this is hardly a big deal as they would obviously ship with a transparent translation layer much like rosetta in 10.5 and 10.6).

2. Performance. We're basically at a point where in synthetic benchmarks Apple is able to best intel. Largely helped by Apple going 64bit, adding cache layers, and adding true quad core support (execution on high/low cores simultaneously). But for sustained performance I'd wager that intel still has the advantage. At least for now.

3. Could no longer do boot camp. Although maybe in some crazy universe we still can. Microsoft is working on getting full W10 on ARM right now. Who's to say they wouldn't partner with Apple on getting it running on an ARM based Mac?

----

In any case we've started seeing a lot more momentum towards desktop class computing shifting away from x86 in general:

1. Microsoft is shipping Windows 10 for ARM in Q4 '17

2. Apple released their open source kernel code this year for the ARM architecture

3. Apple added ARM support to Sierra kernel

4. The touch bars in the new MacBooks already ship with embedded ARM chips and the plan is to offload some tasks onto these chips moving forward

5. I forget what it's called right now but I think when you submit apps in xcode the default setting now doesnt submit binary, it submits some sort of intermediate byte code which apple could theoretically compile down to run on whatever architecture they want. Microsoft does something similar too in the Windows store.

 

[thizisweird]

I wonder if there's a space in the market for a 12/13" MacBook that uses an A11 chip (I'm not calling it Bionic, that's silly) but only supports application installation from the Mac App Store and hence binaries that are auto-compiled for ARM.

It would be the first full-function laptop with "sufficient" performance, multi-day battery life, no malware, cool running, very easy support and would represent the unification of iOS and macOS.

I think there is plenty of room for one, but that the market would be heavily limited with the processor capabilities we have at the moment. There's a reason tablets and smartphones have kinda replaced the entire netbook concept (still have my old HP Mini 1000 laying around, but that was a linux machine lol), which I think is what you're in the realm of. The MacBook Air is probably the best indication of the power "light" users will want, and they're sporting i5 chips right now.... so I doubt we'll see anything in the ARM area really competing with Intel any time soon.

Also, the whole "no malware" thing is never going to be a reality. It's a marketing gimmick, a bad one, and a complete lie at that. The App store is not a security haven, and it already offers antivirus apps... so simply offering these apps implies there's a potential lack of security... which there is (but regardless)... and if anyone installs the security software available "just in case" you're immediately taking away the perceived benefit by thinking you need the extra security...... which makes my head spin in wonder that people listen to the marketing. People have terrible computer habits, and hackers and malware coders exploit that. Man-in-the-middle attacks anyone? You also can't design a software that won't be vulnerable because people are programming it, running it, and bypassing security measures constantly for some sort of "convenience" or whatever, which only opens your system up to attack. Even better still, good luck securing your computer from a micro controller attack from that discounted memory card you bought off of eBay (Bunnie and Xobs are truly badass for that find), but that's entirely beside the point, even if you're not "that guy".... point being, it's false advertising at its core, and they can get away with it only because no one really cares *eye roll*

Imagine how many Grandmas, CEOs, and even normal folk that just want a computer that reads emails, surfs the web, displays spreadsheets, checks facebook, plays music and movies, plays handheld games, backs itself up, never gets ransomed and, basically, just works... All the time....

Is this the next MacBook Air?

Nope, at best the next iPad processor with some awesome apps to showcase it... which I'd be all over if I'm honest. The market is catered to, just not exactly how we want it yet. And given I've seen more people complain over recent years about operating systems and software not being refreshed and updated enough (over being fully stable and established), I doubt we're nearing the end of the line with major products any time soon. Would be nice to be wrong though.
[doublepost=1507509355][/doublepost]

4. The touch bars in the new MacBooks already ship with embedded ARM chips and the plan is to offload some tasks onto these chips moving forward

Sounds like basic hardware acceleration, which would be awesome...... although I doubt many professional users would really benefit in the grand scheme of things...... hmmm

 

[MichaelThwaite]

"Also, the whole "no malware" thing is never going to be a reality. It's a marketing gimmick, a bad one, and a complete lie at that."

I'm not nearly young enough to think there's ultimate security or no malware at all, ever and, btw, Apple doesn't really tout that - that's probably analogous to poking a sleeping bear - but, in a sandboxed world with curated software and some non-repudiation back to the author, well, given the choice between deploying a hundred fully managed laptops, be they MacBook 'ARM lites' or iPad 'heavies' with keyboard and trackpad wouldn't you feel happier if they were iOS or macOS 10.13 'ARM lockdown edition' rather than say Windows, Android or even macOS 10.13? I certainly don't lie awake wondering if my sister-in-law or 78 year-old mother-in-law has loaded malware onto her iPad Pro - something that they routinely did with their PCs.

 

[Olganech]

Just to be clear, Apple's A11 chip may not outperform Intel's 45W TDP Kaby Lake processors in real world use cases.
Synthetic benchmarks paint a very different picture than real world sustained loads where heat robs you of performance.

Furthermore, to my knowledge, that's not how computing works. You cannot just have an Operating System running on two processors with very different ISAs (instruction set architectures) ... Even if you could, the A11 chip would need to support x86 emulation, at which point any alleged performance gains would probably be lost.

Long story short, it's all just hype. Laptops are designed with a very different workload in mind.

Sure you can have an OS running on different architectures and ISA's.

Windows runs on intel, Alpha and MIPS over 20 Years ago and it runs on ARM now as well.

You are selectively comparing a synthetic benchmark across processors without real world meaning.

Can you scale the A11 to handle 2TB of RAM and do the workload of a Xeon based server let alone a 140W desktop i9. The answer is no.

The A11 is gimped by the amount of RAM and iOS.

 

[thizisweird]

"Also, the whole "no malware" thing is never going to be a reality. It's a marketing gimmick, a bad one, and a complete lie at that."

I'm not nearly young enough to think there's ultimate security or no malware at all, ever and, btw, Apple doesn't really tout that - that's probably analogous to poking a sleeping bear - but, in a sandboxed world with curated software and some non-repudiation back to the author, well, given the choice between deploying a hundred fully managed laptops, be they MacBook 'ARM lites' or iPad 'heavies' with keyboard and trackpad wouldn't you feel happier if they were iOS or macOS 10.13 'ARM lockdown edition' rather than say Windows, Android or even macOS 10.13? I certainly don't lie awake wondering if my sister-in-law or 78 year-old mother-in-law has loaded malware onto her iPad Pro - something that they routinely did with their PCs.

I can see your point... but this is something that Apple has touted in their advertising in the past (even if not directly, like in this ancient commercial, this was the underlying message they tried to pass on). I also frequented the Apple store in my area back when the first iPod Touch came out, and all the way into the 3rd generation. I had conversations with most of the staff over those years, and they all proudly, and boldly, claimed there was not a single virus for the Mac... which I then asked, "Why bother selling an anti-virus?" (which they did at the time), and they claimed "For the people who want to feel extra safe." Factually speaking, they were flat out wrong; there was documented malware when they made that claim to me. I simply didn't feel an urge to argue it further after I did some digging later that night.

The huge surge in Mac sales didn't help either. AV Comparatives "used 687 malicious Mac malware samples collected in 2017" for their latest test of security software. We're not really that much safer unless we use the computer smarter. In fact, I was recently forced to install MBAM and Bitdefender on my dad's cMP because they had a huge problem with malware during their first couple months. Their OS is still quite compromised, with malware registering on either one at random times, and some malware programs appearing "on their own"... which I don't believe.

But, to answer your question: In all honesty, I wouldn't feel much safer on a Mac compared to Windows. The only reason we have so much malware for Windows is due to their popularity. Since Windows 10, itself, is 4x more popular than Mac... I doubt we'll see the same number of attacks on our precious fruit boxes any time soon. But now I'm derailing the thread entirely..... just felt like I should have cleared that up... though I have no clue why >.>

 

[leman]

Still, Apple uses mandatory code signing as a default option, which makes the system inherently safer, as the chance to execute malicious software is reduced. Also, after rootless was introduced, you run no risk that your core system is infected. And now we also have firmware checks. All this does make the system safer. Of course, the user remains the weak point, but that is hardly fixable as long you want to retain write access to your computer

 

[Michael Scrip]

Apple has pretty good engineers working on silicon.

I wonder what they could do if they didn't have the restrictions of a tiny phone body?

Or imagine what they could do with a giant laptop battery?

 

[thizisweird]

Apple has pretty good engineers working on silicon.

I wonder what they could do if they didn't have the restrictions of a tiny phone body?

Or imagine what they could do with a giant laptop battery?

You know, both these questions have entered my mind a number of times. I'd like to see what they're fully capable of. I guess I'll just have to wait lol.

Still, Apple uses mandatory code signing as a default option, which makes the system inherently safer, as the chance to execute malicious software is reduced. Also, after rootless was introduced, you run no risk that your core system is infected. And now we also have firmware checks. All this does make the system safer. Of course, the user remains the weak point, but that is hardly fixable as long you want to retain write access to your computer

I understand the whole MAS and code signature safeguard; then again, we should also recognise that iPhones are often jailbroken for a reason, and many people like to use software that isn't always signed. Hell, the same goes for Android platforms, but instead of a jailbreak it's obtaining SU. There's also a number of ways an attack can be written to bypass these simple safeguards (if you're so inclined, and there's a real payoff). All it ultimately takes is social engineering and an uneducated user. But again, this will only become a higher demand in the malware community when the computer count is high enough to demand this kind of malware attack. We're really banking on security through rarity as the real safeguard..... but I'm just a guy who loves hacker cons, and has known a few really smart computer people, so I am heavily biased lol. They don't like my questions because they end up teaching me stuff lmao

 

[codingrhythm]

I wonder if there's a space in the market for a 12/13" MacBook that uses an A11 chip (I'm not calling it Bionic, that's silly) but only supports application installation from the Mac App Store and hence binaries that are auto-compiled for ARM.

It would be the first full-function laptop with "sufficient" performance, multi-day battery life, no malware, cool running, very easy support and would represent the unification of iOS and macOS.

Imagine how many Grandmas, CEOs, and even normal folk that just want a computer that reads emails, surfs the web, displays spreadsheets, checks facebook, plays music and movies, plays handheld games, backs itself up, never gets ransomed and, basically, just works... All the time.

I'd not be opposed to that at all and I'd be very happy if everyone else I knew/supported had one too!

Is this the next MacBook Air?

are you talking about iPad

 

[thunng8]

Benchmark is done for very specific thing. It does not generalize what the performance is as a whole.

ARM chip is far behind what X86_X64 is capable.

The news about how A11 is more powerful than a MBP CPU is complete misleading and junk news.
These editor need some basic engineering background before they make any of these stupid statements.

That is just not true. I have a 2017 13” MacBook Pro and a 2017 iPad Pro 12.9”.

Affinity photo on the iPad is faster at processing large raw files. Adobe Lightroom is also faster especially with viewing changes to raw images.

The clincher to say that Apple CPUs can outperform Intel was running civilization VI. There now is the full version of it running on iPad. Civ vi is notorious for requiring a fast cpu to calculate turns. My iPad Pro runs civilzation Vi faster than my MacBook Pro. Ive basically stopped playing civ vi on my MacBook

 

[Macintoshrumors]

Hi there

Apparently iPhone X's A11 Bionic CPU is more powerful than the 13'' MBP CPU from Intel. Or is that just on single core benchmark? Any idea?

If it is more powerful what's stopping Apple to put in the 'Bionic' chip in MacBook's in near future?

It’s not powerful to run macs over a long period of time. It’s great for Mobile use for short burst of power. On macs performance will suffer during the duration of a demanding task session.

 

[alex00100]

Can someone tell if it would be technically possible to have 2 processors like we have with gpu and have arm run macOS and arm apps and x86 run a virtual stripped-down second OS with all the stuff needed for x86 apps when needed?

 

[thunng8]

It’s not powerful to run macs over a long period of time. It’s great for Mobile use for short burst of power. On macs performance will suffer during the duration of a demanding task session.

Not true. Many demanding tasks run faster on my iPad Pro than my MacBook Pro.

There are many obstacles to making a MacBook running on an Apple cpu but speed is not one of them.

 

[orthorim]

100% this. I cannot believe how this FUD gets spread around. Yes, A11 is a marvel of engineering for a $40 very low power RISC CPU. It is NOT however in the same league as a modern CISC Intel laptop-class or above CPU. All these silly benchmarks being run on completely different OSes, different workloads, thermal constraints, etc. are misleading at best.

And no, you cannot simply take an A11, and increase core count and TPW. That's part of the design complexity.

You don't need to worry about this at all.

Only one thing you need to know: Intel processors have seen only very marginal improvements for the past 6 years. ARM processors have been getting faster exponentially in this time, basically doubling speed every 18 months.

If you draw two curves, we are getting really close to the point when ARM outperforms Intel. Apple being a bit ahead of the ARM competition thanks to their chip geniuses and iOS ownership.

My guess is that ARM will eventually hit the same 3Ghz wall that Intel has hit, and their speed increases will slow. But it is very likely that ARM will be just as fast or slightly faster than Intel at that point. How much faster they end up being is anyone's guess, but given that they have a better architecture it could be up to 50% faster. Which would be significant enough for Apple to put these chips in their computers.

I mean the 3Ghz wall isn't exactly a 3Ghz wall but that's when the processor speed increases at Intel suddenly changed from getting exponentially faster to a very flat looking linear curve. My 6 year old core i7 is still competitive with the latest MBPs... that's crazy!