By "what they are" do you mean the architectural details, or just that they're very specialized ARM architectures? If the former, could you share a link?
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Yea, well.... the Mac Mini update team's offices are in the bathroom, apparently.
We bring this up as evidence that Apple knows how to do these transitions, and knows how to do them well. Apple is many things, stupid is not one of them. If they decide to transition from Intel to ARM, you can be damn sure they'll do it as seamlessly and painlessly as possible... Just like the transition from PowerPC to Intel.
I expect a deep emoji search function will fully exploit that brutal cpu overcapacity, at some point
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Agreed. I think it’s clear that a major focus for iPhones will be with imagining - for the photo & video cameras, Face ID and then their application with AVR. Oh and Siri now that they have a new AI chief.
The purportedly increase of performance in older devices is accomplished by overclocking the CPU faster rather than any underlying core code optimization. This means that battery life will be impacted negatively for those older devices... It all plays in the favor of selling new devices.. 
I am not lacking about ARM to ARM comparisons. I am talking about an ARM cpu designed by apple and produced by TSMC, compared to a x86 intel cpu developed and produced by intel. High end intel cpu’ s can run as high as $1000+, and because apple can buy them in bulk, it will of course be a little cheaper.
I am sorry but no way that a cpu builder like intel, with a huge staff for design, marketing , fabs , real estate, sales representatives has lower overhead costs, than an apple design team working together with an engineering team from TSMC and have TSMC do their core businesses of producing chips.
And apple can make better deals with TSMC because they are already producing 200 million socs a year for apple, instead of the 16-20 million cpu’ s that apple buys from intel in a year.
I guess there are a lot of pro’ s opposing the idea of arm based macs.
I see a lot of advantages if apple would do this for the entire apple ecosystem.
If you have powerful arm based macs, there would be a lot more scalability in apps between devices .
For example: the Mac based app will have a different way to control the app(keyboard/mouse) , nicer graphics, more options and faster data processing.
But the developer could also release an iPad version, but with touchscreen control, tuned down graphics, slower operation or data processing , etc without changing the source code. And they could alter the app for the iPhone , etc, etc.
Is a great possibility for better and more complex apps on your iPhone, iPad, etc.
And with the yearly hw updates of the iPhone and iPad , all the developers have to do is to add a hw profile that makes more use of the newer , more powerful hw and close the gap between the Mac app and iPad app(faster, better graphics, handling of more data streams at the same time, etc)
Could also work the other way around , though, and have apps on your Mac, that don’ t take full advantage of the more powerful Mac.
But the scalability of software between macOS and IOS , without the need of compiling, etc, sounds very interesting.
I see a lot of advantages if apple would do this for the entire apple ecosystem.
If you have powerful arm based macs, there would be a lot more scalability in apps between devices .
For example: the Mac based app will have a different way to control the app(keyboard/mouse) , nicer graphics, more options and faster data processing.
But the developer could also release an iPad version, but with touchscreen control, tuned down graphics, slower operation or data processing , etc without changing the source code. And they could alter the app for the iPhone , etc, etc.
Is a great possibility for better and more complex apps on your iPhone, iPad, etc.
And with the yearly hw updates of the iPhone and iPad , all the developers have to do is to add a hw profile that makes more use of the newer , more powerful hw and close the gap between the Mac app and iPad app(faster, better graphics, handling of more data streams at the same time, etc)
Could also work the other way around , though, and have apps on your Mac, that don’ t take full advantage of the more powerful Mac.
But the scalability of software between macOS and IOS , without the need of compiling, etc, sounds very interesting.
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Great post. I’d add that to those that oppose Marzipan apps...
...Imagine the Mac in 5 years time when (let’s say) the iPad has got way more powerful and (presumably) trackpad/mouse support & the iPad’s market share has got to be higher than the Mac.
Who then is going to develop Mac apps when you could stay on iOS and hit the iPhone, iPad & the watch etc and the mythical Apple glasses?
Apple maybe. Adobe & Microsoft I guess plus all of the stalwart app devs who’ve been on the platform for decades.
But no one is going to develop new Mac apps.
The TLDR version of this is that Apple is developing marzipan to save the Mac.
If Apple doesn’t develop marzipan, the Mac in 5 years time is basically going to be a legacy platform (for most users) and a highly specialised one for pro users.
However, Apple makes mass market products. It just won’t be worth their while to keep developing the Mac platform.
Well I certainly don’t, I have a large screen 4K TV for things like that, a PC/Mac and who the hell uses Safari? I gave up on Safari years ago.Or maybe also use the power of the chip for Smart HDR, faster browsing in Safari due to processing javascript, rendering videos with imovie. I'm sure nobody uses the features.
Well there it is. You’ve been staring at the screen for too long... you have “I” strain.
This is false.
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None of this has to do with CPU architectures.
Porting your app to a different architecture isn't that big a hurdle any more. Architecture-specific optimizations in apps have become rare.
The big obstacle is designing UIs that make sense on a smartphone, a tablet, and a laptop/desktop computer. A CPU architecture isn't going to make that any easier. A framework like Marzipan might.
"If Apple doesn’t develop marzipan, the Mac in 5 years time is basically going to be a legacy platform (for most users) and a highly specialised one for pro users."
As the iPad Pro becomes more powerful and takes on more tasks designed for the Mac, the future of the Mac is as a specialized device for Pro users. I could be wrong, but I still Marzipan as nothing more than a way to run iOS / iPad apps on your Mac.
These Apple Ax chips have been amazing for years.
One thing I don't understand though - many speed tests on youtube actually show modern android phones (i.e. S9) launching apps faster than the iPhone.
Any idea how this is possible? Is iOS that bloated? It seems like Android should have no chance given much slower cpu's and the overhead of java.
One thing I don't understand though - many speed tests on youtube actually show modern android phones (i.e. S9) launching apps faster than the iPhone.
Any idea how this is possible? Is iOS that bloated? It seems like Android should have no chance given much slower cpu's and the overhead of java.
I don't understand why a smartphone needs so much computing power. Is it because of mobile gaming?
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That will end usage of apple hardware in IT (except for ios devs, of course).
The evidence points to yes. What evidence do you have otherwise?
Uh, they have done it, let's see, how many times:
- Mac: M68K to PPC to Intel (and two 32 bit to 64 bit, once PPC, once Intel)
- iPhone: 32 bit to 64 bit (now 64 bit with PAC)
- aWatch: 32-bit to 64-bit (by using ILP32 and bitcode they didn't even need a developer rewrite)
Not to mention ISA-like changes you aren't even aware of, like GPU changes (upgrades from the same company, and nV vs AMD), or ISA-like changes (like dynamic compilation of JS).
Yeah, I think they kinda know the in's and out's of pretty much every permutation of moving ISAs...
I totally agree, that’s going to be a key use for the Mac. As Jobs memorable said, it’ll be a ‘truck’.
My point is is that I feel that it’s goong to be hard for Apple to justify continuing investment in the Mac unless it shares the ARM tech stack that it’s built out wit the iPhone.
So sure, I suspect that in 5 (ok maybe 5-10 is probably more realistic for what I’m about to say) years time, pros (creatives, scientific researchers & business people) will be the prime users of the Mac - but they’ll be using pro software on ARM macs.
A Hackintosh is hardware running MacOS without Apple's approval/blessing. So an iPad would be included.