Exactly. I'm not going through another bought of wasted hardware, software and money. They cannot do this to customers again. I have several macs here that are useless now because I no longer can get software updates. Which means security issues. Plus, modern Mac software just isn't written for PowerPC. This would totally suck the big one if they attempted to pull this off. It would be a very sad day for me but, I would be done with Apple if this came to fruition.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Apple Considering Switch From Intel Chips in Future Macs
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Exactly. I'm not going through another bought of wasted hardware, software and money. They cannot do this to customers again. I have several macs here that are useless now because I no longer can get software updates. Which means security issues. Plus, modern Mac software just isn't written for PowerPC. This would totally suck the big one if they attempted to pull this off. It would be a very sad day for me but, I would be done with Apple if this came to fruition.
The source Bloomberg article mentions 2017. Apple almost certainly have a better insight into ARM and Intel roadmaps than is publicly available. Things could be very different in 5 years time.
Next year ARM have the 64-bit A50 series coming out. Things like out-of-order CPU cores and big.LITTLE look to make a big difference then. What will we be seeing in 5 years?
A switch to ARM would be a bad move now. It may not be in the future, especially with Apple's in-house ARM expertise.
Next year ARM have the 64-bit A50 series coming out. Things like out-of-order CPU cores and big.LITTLE look to make a big difference then. What will we be seeing in 5 years?
A switch to ARM would be a bad move now. It may not be in the future, especially with Apple's in-house ARM expertise.
Meh, nonsense speculation from someone who'd never have to make the decision. Which is good, as it would kill the Mac stone dead.
Laughable, but then your credibility is slightly below Enron's accounts as is.
Laughable, but then your credibility is slightly below Enron's accounts as is.
Intel chips are growing more slowly than ARM. If Apple keeps at it (doubling processor speed every year) then next year it'll geekbench at 3400 (2013), then 6800 (2014), then 13600 (2015), then 27200 (2016). So in 2016, ARM chips might be ready to replace even powerhouses like the Mac Pro, on top of being more power efficient!
How exciting.
Thinness and battery life has always been a forefront priority for Apple. I wont be surprised if they do.
Yes, most people use their computers for rather trivial tasks.
But then there are those who make the software that most people use to do their rather trivial tasks. And those who use Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, etc. Do you really think that ARM will be enough for them?
5 years in the future, Apple will have the power of today? While I seriously doubt that they would even be able to get that, Intel will then be 5 years (probably a lot more) ahead...
So back to PowerPC? Or would it reflect the iOS devices?
I just see Tim Cook on stage announcing.
"Introducing the A10x for the iPhone 7. It is the same chip that runs all of our devices, including our full lineup of Macs."
And then Apple fails, and it got so bad that Tim Cook use the rest of Apple's money, the last 6 billion to resurrect Steve Jobs, naming him, "The 6-Billion Dollar Man"
I just see Tim Cook on stage announcing.
"Introducing the A10x for the iPhone 7. It is the same chip that runs all of our devices, including our full lineup of Macs."
And then Apple fails, and it got so bad that Tim Cook use the rest of Apple's money, the last 6 billion to resurrect Steve Jobs, naming him, "The 6-Billion Dollar Man"
I didn't think it was a big deal either until I drove one day and used my iPhone 5 to find a very popular Starbucks in Seattle. It put me 1 mile away in a dead end road. I had to use my iPad which was still running 5.1.1 to make sure I knew where it was.
so yes, maps sucks and has not been fixed.
John Brownlee isn't the guy you want to take chip advice from. It's really beyond his depth. If Jon "Hannibal" Stokes starts talking about how ARM in a Mac isn't feasible then that's something to read.
Exactly. To reply both to you and the other guy, Apple is in partnership with these companies. That doesn't mean they're neck deep into the fab game themselves. They're leveraging the capabilities of others without having to get too deep into the nitty gritty aspect of it themselves. That's an entirely different situation than attempting to control all aspects of their products from top to bottom. That'd cost billions upon billions more, grow the company to the point they'd have to produce parts for others to justify the cost, and wouldn't net them many benefits in the end.
I didn't think it was a big deal either until I drove one day and used my iPhone 5 to find a very popular Starbucks in Seattle. It put me 1 mile away in a dead end road. I had to use my iPad which was still running 5.1.1 to make sure I knew where it was.
That's because Seattle sucks and rain probably washed the Starbucks a mile away
You're a liar.
POI data in London is 80% incorrect. There are literally millions of corrections required.
That's nonsense. See this is the thing people don't understand. Of course ARM has huge gains right now because with every die shrink they can increase the speed while lowering the TDP. Intel has been doing this with their older chips as well. They had huge architectural jumps but those days are long over since they have an almost "perfect" architecture. Each of the things they do now from one generation to the next is simply improving smaller parts but not the whole processor. This is why there is so little gain in processor speed from Intel lately but huge gains in power efficiency. ARM will run into this wall as well.
IMHO whoever started this whole nonsense rumor about Apple switching to ARM need to go away fast. It is so ridiculous!
Unfortunately single thread performance is still extremely important. You can't just throw in a bunch of cores and expect a corresponding performance increase.
This is why a dual core iPhone 5 is much faster in many tasks than all the quad core phones out there.
I rely on Bootcamp and use it half the time (prefer how OSX handles everything, but need Windows for some applications).
If this happens I'll just keep my current macs until they break as "OSX machines" and buy a Windows machine as my main computer. No skin off my nose, if I get a bit more "bang for my buck" then that'll be nice.
If this happens I'll just keep my current macs until they break as "OSX machines" and buy a Windows machine as my main computer. No skin off my nose, if I get a bit more "bang for my buck" then that'll be nice.
This rumor has been floating around for years. OF COURSE they're working on it. It's the natural order of things. But that doesn't mean it's going to happen. They were working on the PPC G6 processor with IBM & Moto, too. We know how that turned out.
I'm sure a laptop or two at some point in the future will be introduced with ARM processors, but that future will be one where the vast majority of people are using cloud computing almost exclusively for day-to-day tasks. Those of us who need more processing power will still have desktops/laptops with much more powerful/conventional processors.
I'm sure a laptop or two at some point in the future will be introduced with ARM processors, but that future will be one where the vast majority of people are using cloud computing almost exclusively for day-to-day tasks. Those of us who need more processing power will still have desktops/laptops with much more powerful/conventional processors.
No, do not do this. The Intel/x86 platform is the gold standard of all computers, I don't want an ARM processor in a Mac just because Apple supports isolationism.
That's because Seattle sucks and rain probably washed the Starbucks a mile away
Haha seriously it's been raining all month. I'm ready to go back to New York, been here riding out the storm lol. Guess its better than Sandy.
Its an admirable target, just image all iOS apps would instantly run on laptops and there would just be one OS platform basically. I really don't think Apple will do this unless they can really match the performance of a desktop/laptop processor. Replacing the processor in the Mac Pro is no easy task, unless Apple just decides to get out of the whole desktop market (it is just a small percentage of their revenue, so you never know).
Anyway, from an OS point of view, it is a very attractive option to consider.
Anyway, from an OS point of view, it is a very attractive option to consider.
If these custom chips do not allow people to run other OSes on the machines Apple will lose a ton of business, no doubt. If these CPU's can run Windows and the like, I don't see a huge issue. It really doesn't make much sense to me for them to switch but hey, I don't make those decisions for them or know what they might me thinking.