Apple Diversifies Chip Orders for iOS Device and Apple Watch Amid Predictions of ARM Macs

[cfedu]

huh? why?

people probably said the same thing with PPC.

Moving to ARM gives them a whole lot more flexibility and they're not tied to Intel's timeline.

When they switched from PPC, the G5 powerbook was never going to happen.. Intel is making some pretty good chips these days, so a switch to A chips would have to have at least the same performance.

They will eventually switch but not anytime soon. I think once the blend iOS and Mac OS, that will be the time for A chip Macs.

 

[jrswizzle]

So the A8X is as fast because it has more cores than Intel (isn't this the same argument we used against Android folks when talking about quad core parts vs dual core?)

I'm simply presenting the benchmarks. It's a general comparison - nothing incredibly concrete as the platforms are very different.

I would like to see the transition just to see how the market reacts. Can the market afford to lose the folks that would go with an ARM OS X computer? Will the market just port OS apps over to make a quick buck?

It would be interesting for sure. Which is why I think Apple will attempt it with the MBA line first. They won't just plunge the whole Mac line into ARM. It will take time but there are benefits.

Especially for Apple - using the same ARM chips they use in the iPad would cut costs. It could also help push the development of more powerful iOS/ARM-based apps for both iPads and Macs. There's still quite a bit of power in this iPad Air 2 that's un-tapped.

 

[JeffyTheQuik]

An interesting approach would be to have a dual-CPU system, with an Intel chip and an Ax chip in them, and the chips to assign instructions appropriately to the proper one. Then, after 3-4 years, drop Intel.

Possible? Yes.
Practical? Not Really.
Far-Sighted? Definitely.

One other thing: In the heyday of the AMD/Intel war of the early 2000's, there was a time when AMD had (If I remember correctly) close to 50% of the x86 orders, and Intel was scared. That's when they came out with the Core chips, and the rest is history.
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/market_share.html

If Apple decides to challenge Intel, it will be interesting...

 

[Marx55]

Disaster ahead. It seems that Apple did not learn past lessons. We need x86 for full true and real compatibility with the world (read Windows).

 

[subsonix]

So the A8X is as fast because it has more cores than Intel (isn't this the same argument we used against Android folks when talking about quad core parts vs dual core?)

It's also clocked at 1.5Ghz, perhaps compare single core performance, but then also keep in mind the difference in clock frequency.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1806549/

 

[gmanist1000]

✓ Apple Said to Upgrade iPad Air With Gold Option and Anti-Reflective Laminated Display



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/04/ipad-air-2-anti-reflective-display/


✓ iPhone 6 May Lose Sapphire Display Cover, Gain 128 GB Storage Option



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/04/iphone-6-128gb/


✓ Apple's iWatch Pegged for 2015 Debut in Two Sizes With 8 GB Storage, Multiple Material Options



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/04/iwatch-8gb/


✓ Apple Not Expected to Ship Reversible USB-Lightning Cable or New Adapter Alongside iPhone 6




https://www.macrumors.com/2014/09/01/apple-not-expected-reversible-cable-new-adapter/


✓ Apple's iWatch May Not Launch Until 2015



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/08/19/apples-iwatch-may-not-launch-until-2015/


✓ Optical Image Stabilization May Be Differentiating Factor for 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 [Updated]



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/06/24/optical-image-stabilization-iphone-6/


X Apple May Introduce 8GB iPhone 5s and Lower-Cost iMacs at WWDC



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/28/wwdc-iphone-5s-8gb/


✓ iWatch to Come in Two Sizes With 'Fashionable Appearance', Top End to Cost 'Several Thousand' Dollars



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/iwatch-2014-predictions/

✓ iPad Air and Retina iPad Mini to Get Touch ID This Year



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/ipad-air-retina-ipad-mini-touch-id/


✓ iPhone 6 Could See Sleep/Wake Button Move, 401 ppi in 5.5" Model



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/04/09/kgi-iphone6-predictions/


✓ Apple Predicted to Adopt NFC in iPhone 6 as Core Technology for Mobile Payments System



https://www.macrumors.com/2014/05/20/nfc-mobile-payments/


X Apple Predicted to Release Ultra-Slim 12-Inch MacBook with Retina Display in Mid-2014



https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/1...inch-macbook-with-retina-display-in-mid-2014/



✓ Apple Looking to Launch Lower-Cost iMac in 2014




https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/13/apple-reportedly-looking-to-launch-lower-cost-imac-in-2014/


X iPad 5 and iPad Mini 2 to Be Equipped with 8-Megapixel Rear Cameras



https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/0...to-be-equipped-with-8-megapixel-rear-cameras/

I wish MacRumors kept a log on all rumors. Would be awesome to check out!

 

[projectle]

Think about this for a second... This guy is saying that *EVERYONE* who buys an iPhone next year will buy an accompanying Apple Watch... Every. Single. Person.

Is that not worthy of a slight pause?

 

[name99]

I'm sorry but once they stop making Intel mac, is the day I stop buying them

I think its a really bad idea to drop x86 platform, I can only see bad things from this shift including a more locking down of OS X. Think walled garden for OS X as well.

Oh yes, "Going Galt". The most frequently uttered and least frequently executed threat in the history of humanity...

When you and people like you offer a justification for this action (refusing to ever buy another Mac) that's based on solid technological complaints, AND that obviously extends to a large part of the population, Apple may care. Until then, good luck...

[A solid technological complaint is something like: "I make extensive use of Windows virtualization" or "I utilize apps that are built on optimized x86 assembly code".
It is NOT something like "they will be too slow" (based on your knowledge of how these future A CPUs will perform against your knowledge of how future Intel CPUs will perform?
It is also NOT something like "they will be more locked down", which is completely orthogonal to the issue of x86 vs ARM CPUs.]

 

[vpndev]

I'm sorry but once they stop making Intel mac, is the day I stop buying them

I think its a really bad idea to drop x86 platform, I can only see bad things from this shift including a more locking down of OS X. Think walled garden for OS X as well.

That's valid only if the ARM won't run x86 binaries. If Apple does a "Rosetta2" then that would be OK for me.

I don't see any "locking down". And I certainly don't see an iOS-style Mac. Now that would be a disaster - purely for the filesystem differences.

 

[smulji]

If the application is written in a high level language (C, Objective-C, Swift, etc.) like probably at least 99% of applications are, it does not need to be rewritten. It only needs to be recompiled to the architecture. And the .app file can contain binaries for multiple architectures like they did for PowerPC/Intel already in OSX. For example Android runs fine in both ARM and Intel platforms, there are many phones with Atom processors.

I'm not saying the switch would be a great idea at the moment, but it would be totally possible in the future and most users wouldn't notice anything.

Probably the ARM model would only install apps from the Mac App store to reduce confusion by users.

"Probably the ARM model would only install apps from the Mac App store to reduce confusion by users."

Exactly.

 

[vpndev]

Disaster ahead. It seems that Apple did not learn past lessons. We need x86 for full true and real compatibility with the world (read Windows).

Did you have a problem running your PPC stuff under Rosetta? I didn't.

 

[thejadedmonkey]

I don't understand why people, especially people who are supposedly technologically-savvy, aren't willing to change up their work flows a bit for enhanced efficiency and portability.

So ask any linux geek, and they'll tell you that if you know how to use a command line, it's infinitely faster and easier to deal with than a mouse. Then the mouse came to the masses, but the linux geeks kept their command line, because it was more efficient, if less popular.

Now, the mouse was replaced by the touchscreen. And ask any baby, it's easier to push an object on the screen than it is to use a mouse. The masses love their touch screens for inefficient yet logical input, but power users stick to their keyboard and mouse because devices with a keyboard and mouse are better suited for more complex things.

Sure I can pull up code on an iPad and edit with a web based IDE, save and push my changes, and get things published via a touch screen. But it's so much easier to type code with a keyboard. And if I'm going to have a keyboard and monitor, what purpose is there to carry around 2 pieces when a single laptop will suffice?

It's not that people hate "enhanced efficiency and portability", rather it's that the iPad doesn't offer "enhanced efficiency and portability" for the majority of complex tasks.

There are a few times I've used a tablet instead of a pen and paper, or even an excel like program, but those uses are few and far between, and if push comes to shove I'd rather carry an extra 1lb, and have the freedom of "enhanced efficiency and portability" for more demanding tasks.

 

[smulji]

Every time Apple switches to TSMC, they have problems with quality or supply volume and consistency and they end up going back to Samsung. I know Apple hates Samsung, but I mean if you fail with another supplier over and over and over again this is something Apple has to get over eventually.

TSMC has been doing a bang up job supplying 20nm SoC's for Apple's iPhone 6 line. This is more about diversifying their suppliers.

 

[KPOM]

Emulating other platforms is very slow, there is a reason why Apple doesn´t emulate the iPhone or iPad on XCode

There's another way to look at it. There is a library of 1 million iOS apps, some of which could form the basis of a new library of OS X apps.

Anyway, Apple handled the 68K to PPC transition pretty smoothly, and Rosetta worked decently enough in the transition from PPC to x86. I'm not saying everything would be perfect, or that there aren't drawbacks to a switch to ARM, but it would be irresponsible for Apple NOT to at least experiment with the idea. They are getting to be pretty good at customizing ARM for mobile devices. If they ramp up power consumption to the levels NVIDIA is using for the Tegra K1 they may be able to get a notebook running at decent speeds in the near future.

 

[smulji]

When Yosemite was announced, they said the new naming system would last for the next 10 years. I don't see a ARM based Mac happening until OS X is dropped, and it seems that won't happen for a good long time. In 10 years the world will be a lot different, I don't think we realize that.

Maybe it's iOS that gets dropped and OSX keeps on going. So you have a version of OSX that runs on iPhone, iPad, Macs with the only differentiation being the UI and types of apps that the device can run - basically like Windows 10.

 

[Oletros]

Did you have a problem running your PPC stuff under Rosetta? I didn't.

Apart of being slow as molasses?

 

[opeter]

If we start to see reports of OS XI then you will know ARM will be in a Macbook Air.

If I remember correctly, MacOS X 10.4 Tiger was the first OS, that had a PPC and an Intel version.

So who knows, if Apple doesn't have already a version of Yosemite made for ARM?

I can eventually see, that the Macbook and Mac mini line (even the iMac) can be ARM based in the next years.

About the Mac Pro ... who needs that? How much money does Apple make from the "pro" section? If they would, they didn't drop Aperture altogether. So I can see a future, when there will be no more Mac Pro, nor any of these so called "Pro Apps".

 

[VMukhtarov]

Nice. I want something special, not just a good laptop with OS X and crappy games with hidden Wine wrapper or buggy cross-platform software from lazy developers.

 

[Even Longer]

Exactly...

Oh Yeah, ARM-based Mac:


Introducing the new and marvellous MacBook RT: it comes with preinstalled iWork Suite and can run apps only from the Mac AppStore...


Sounds kind of familiar...

 

[Makosuke]

I honestly don't care that much what chip is in my next Mac so long as it does what I need it to do.

What I think is interesting is that this is even a theoretical possibility at this point, and that, given the iPad Air 2's CPU performance, it's not out of the question from a performance standpoint.

It's interesting because of how much the world has changed since the PPC transition. Leaving aside the Windows compatibility thing, back then the issue was that Apple had a decent architecture that wasn't really used in the same way anywhere else, and they just weren't buying enough volume of to make it worth it for the IP owner to keep the chip line competitive. Switching to the ubiquitous chip gave them access to the leverage afforded by tens of millions of devices with the same chips.

Skip forward almost exactly a decade, and Apple now has its own chip line; they don't manufacture it, and it's based on a standardized instruction set, but the IP is entirely in-house. And unlike a decade ago, if you look at the raw number of desktop and laptop CPUs intel shipped last year, it's on the same order of magnitude--maybe only double, if that--the number of custom-designed CPUs Apple itself shipped in the same period in iPhones and iPads.

Obviously Intel is more than just x86, and the computing market is more than just desktops and laptops, but that statistic is sort of astounding when you think about it. If you had claimed around the time of the PPC-Intel transition that in a decade Apple would be shipping half as many of its own, custom-designed chips as Intel does in the entire PC market, no one would have believed you. They're not in Macs, of course, but they are perfectly viable general-purpose 64-bit CPU/GPU combo chips. (Of course, people would probably also have been skeptical if you'd claimed that Apple would be vying for the most valuable company on Earth and have twice the market cap of Microsoft.)

If they do eventually put an A-series chip in a Mac, it's somewhat amusing that the Mac would again be leveraging the economies of scale of another platform. It's just that this time the platform would be Apple's own.

 

[kalsta]

KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has frequently offered accurate information on Apple's product plans based on supply chain information, has released a new report outlining his expectations for the company's chips over the next several years.

Kuo certainly does not have a perfect track record with his claims over the years, but he is reliable enough that his predictions are followed closely. Given muddled rumors of Apple's chip partnerships for future devices, it will be interesting to watch how these supplier deals play out over time.

Make up your minds Mac Rumors!!!

'Frequently' does not equal 'perfect'. I don't see how the writer could have made it any clearer—he gets it right frequently but not always. But I get it—picking on MacRumors writers is a popular pastime here.

 

[layte]

Multi Core - most of those lower powered Intel chips are dual core so that single core score would be a bit higher.

I'll find the equilibrium point....where the A8X meets Intel.

Seems like the 2011 MBA with the i7-2677M is the eqaul point based on multi-core scores.

The 2013 11" MBA with the i5-4250U comes in at roughly 2500/5000....whereas the A8X hits 1850/4500. Not too far off.

And that's comparing one of Intel's Core U chips....

The new Core M in that Lenovo hit some terrible benchmark scores - like in the 1800/3500 range.

*DISCLAIMER* I understand Geekbench isn't the end-all-be-all, but its a simplistic comparison of chipsets and really the only cross-platform comparison tool I have at my disposal. I take the results with a grain of salt.

Geekbench is a terrible cross architecture test. A better one would be application tests that can be performed on both platforms. Let go for a pretty basic one, web browsing. As we can see from the below image, the i3 still carries a significant performance advantage, even within a thermally compromised chassis like the Surface 3.

ARM chips have additional performance penalties compared to x86 that these benchmarks do not take into account. x86 has far superior memory and storage subsystem performance.

 

[kramerdude]

We don't know.

Anybody consider that maybe this new 12" MacBook thing is actually maybe the iPad pro? ios based (tweaked) in a clamshell form. More powerful than iPad air 2 with monster battery life, keyboard, who knows - maybe even trackpad. This could be the "Arm-based laptop". Basically, we don't know what is coming, so they could throw us a lovable curve ball.

 

[AlecZ]

"This prediction is based on the assumption that Apple’s self-developed AP performs at a level between Intel’s Atom and Core i3 and is good enough for Mac."

What about the new Core M?

 

[sailmac]

If Apple does a "Rosetta2"

The phrase "Rosetta 2.0" was forming in my mind then I saw you wrote it. The transition from PPC to Intel wasn't painless, but Rosetta certainly eased my suffering.

Allegiances and alliances in the tech world certailny fluctuate. Apple is more powerful now than when they transitioned from PPC to Intel. If Apple moves to Arm-based Macs and their customized ARM cores are not "standard" enough to support a bootcamp mode with off-the-shelf Windows, I wonder if there's any chance Microsoft would partner with Apple in advance to make Windows run natively on the AARM (Apple ARM)?…

I'm sure the Apple strategic roadmap is an intriguing chart to behold!