Apple Executives Discuss How Apple Silicon Achieves Steve Jobs' Goal of 'Making the Whole Widget'

[StrangeNoises]

I'm still wondering if the Apple Silicon devices will come with discreet graphics down the road. An iGPU cannot compete with discrete graphics for super heavy rendering. Then again, maybe the M1 may not need discrete graphics. Also, how much more can they redesign? Thinner bezels, FaceID, and then what? It'll still be the same aluminum slab. They aren't going to turn it into a triangle or circle laptop.

This is something I've been wondering/thinking for a while. Their current laptop designs are pretty close to the platonic ideal of a laptop. How, actually, would you change the design from here that isn't just sticking on baroque ornamentation? But maybe, not being a product designer, that's just a lack of imagination. 😀 They tried making it thinner of course, but it broke the keyboard. They might have to have a thicker lid to get in a better webcam, but if the lid's that thick you might as well make it a detachable iPad and put the actual computer in there, and they've *consistently* said they're not going in that direction (or, worse, a knobbly camera bump on the back of the lid? I'd like to say that'll never happen but I haven't honestly gotten over them putting a camera bump on the back of their phones)

I suppose they'll go to discrete graphics now when it's powerful enough to outweigh the efficiency benefits you get from having it on the same package as the CPU cores and main memory. which is to say, the threshold at which point it's worth going discrete will have just changed.

 

[MacFan23]

I'll never forget Craig Federighi's failed FACE ID demo. It speaks a lot. And STILL Apple sells no COVID capable cell phone. Steve Jobs definitely would have been in favor of Apple Silicon no doubt and even outsourcing it to non-American workers. Globalists are like that and Steve Jobs was in the forefront of that sadly.

Didn't they later come out and explain that it failed because other people had handled the phone and therefore the pin was required before it would work again, rather than Face ID not working?

 

[anthonymoody]

People are funny.

 

[StrangeNoises]

"how many tasks you can finish on a single battery life," is not my burning question.

My burning question is how well will Apple computers virtualise Windows 10? I rather like having a Windows VM on my MacBook, because it's required for work. A dedicated PC for Windows would be an inconvenience.

Seeing as Microsoft already has Windows for ARM, which they've failed on their own to make into a real thing, I wonder if in fact they might be quite pleased at this. Suddenly, even in virtualisation, there's a much bigger potential marketplace for ARM-Windows systems; enough - if the virtualisation (vmware-style partitioning?) is good enough - to help persuade other devs to build their apps for ARM-Windows too.

 

[G5isAlive]

What a bunch of bull. Apple is increasing removing the differentiators and making, at least, the macOS line nothing more than a much marketed, hobbled PC. Removed MagSafe. Removed lighted Apple logo from laptops. Removed enough ports so that it cannot connect to any standard hardware. Removed reliability. Removed software flexibility. Etc.

Apple has become the Microsoft of the 90s in both hardware and software.

You point would have been better made if you didn't lead with two relatively superficial things... MagSafe and Lighted Apple Logo?! That's why you think Apple no longer makes a good product? Really? Sure I liked MagSafe, but its not why I bought the laptop. And the light? never saw it lol. I tend to look at the front of my screen when working, not the back.

Then you go to ports. Yep, transition to TB3 was painful and costly, but now that I have made it, makes my life so much easier. You have to let go of your legacy cables and just buy the appropriate new ones. Shrugs. Progress costs. And sure I prefer 4 TB3 ports over 2, but again, hubs fix that issue when I need to. I don't often need to when traveling, and on my desk, not a big deal at all.

I agree there does seem to be more issues with bugs than one would expect or hope. But when I think back on the glory days of 'it just works' I realize our expectations were really really low. We got excited if we plugged in a printer and it worked. Nowadays we want seamless integration of not just peripherals but between 4 separate devices with widely different mechanics, my Apple Watch, my iPhone, my Mac, and my iPads... and I guess we can throw iPods into there as well. In simplifying our lives, the underlying technology has become much more complex. I am amazed at what does work. Not making excuses, just acknowledging reality. I could have improved reliability or increased innovation, but not both at the same time. Thats just not realistic. The reliability plays catch up.

or you can scream about someone taking away your nightlight.

 

[CJ Dorschel]

When Apple dropped the ball on a tower Mac Pro a few years back I dabbled in hackintosh systems. I hadn’t bothered in a while but am curious what the future holds for running macOS on non-Apple hardware especially as these won’t be CPU’s you can buy off the shelf. If i understand correctly, you can buy silicon ARM CPU’s from others yet Apple’s have specific architecture that may be required to install macOS.

Assuming I understand: Apple‘s ARM CPU’s are designed in house with specific differences from other ARM CPU’s. Unlike Intel, ARM CPU’s are designed and built by many other companies, each with slightly differing aspects tailored for the devices they will operate.

 

[Brandon42]

Seeing as Microsoft already has Windows for ARM, which they've failed on their own to make into a real thing, I wonder if in fact they might be quite pleased at this. Suddenly, even in virtualisation, there's a much bigger potential marketplace for ARM-Windows systems; enough - if the virtualisation (vmware-style partitioning?) is good enough - to help persuade other devs to build their apps for ARM-Windows too.

That is a chicken and egg situation. Presumably anyone who needs to run windows needs it for apps. ARM windows won’t fill that need properly on day 1 so people won’t use ARM windows. Apple has the advantage that Mac users are for the most part used to a limited ecosystem of apps and drivers.

 

[StrangeNoises]

When Apple dropped the ball on a tower Mac Pro a few years back I dabbled in hackintosh systems. I hadn’t bothered in a while but am curious what the future holds for running macOS on non-Apple hardware especially as these won’t be CPU’s you can buy off the shelf. If i understand correctly, you can buy silicon ARM CPU’s from others yet Apple’s have specific architecture that may be required to install macOS.

Assuming I understand: Apple‘s ARM CPU’s are designed in house with specific differences from other ARM CPU’s. Unlike Intel, ARM CPU’s are designed and built by many other companies, each with slightly differing aspects tailored for the devices they will operate.

Yes, I doubt, for instance, you're ever going to get macOS running on a Raspberry Pi, despite sharing the aarch64 instruction set. Pretty much everything else is different.

I'm actually a bit more worried in the other direction: Apple kit lasts a long time, typically, which creates what I suppose you'd call a nice problem to have: That the hardware is often still very usable after Apple have stopped making or updating operating systems for it. Then what?

Well, since the days of PowerPC, Macs have always been able to have a second life as very fine Linux boxes - in some cases longer than their first life. I only sold my G4 Mac mini a couple of years ago - and I *sold* it, not scrapped or thrown away. It had run Linux for far far longer than it had ever run MacOS X.

As things stand, that second life doesn't seem possible for Apple Silicon Macs. It's not going to actually be a problem for a few years, but... Maybe at the end the last supported macOS for these M1 models will be able to be used as a thin hypervisor-kinda-thing for running a virtual Linux or other as the main OS.

 

[bounty1097]

They don't "make" them in a physical way, but you can be certain that every piece of the Watch, the iPhone, and now probably the Mac is made to Apple's specifications. There are no off-the-shelf components other OEMs use.

Except for the cellular modem, which they are working to make it in-house as well

 

[StrangeNoises]

That is a chicken and egg situation. Presumably anyone who needs to run windows needs it for apps. ARM windows won’t fill that need properly on day 1 so people won’t use ARM windows. Apple has the advantage that Mac users are for the most part used to a limited ecosystem of apps and drivers.

Apple have the benefit of having done two wholesale architecture transitions already. When they say they're going to move to a new hardware platform, you believe them, you know they're *moving*. Yes Intel Macs will be supported for a while, but after not that much more time there won't be any new ones and developers *know* that. Microsoft could never do that with any credibility. Like intel, their legacy is something of a dead weight.

I also think it's ironic that MS have already got a beta Apple Silicon build of MS Office out, when exactly one of the things hamstringing their Windows-on-ARM efforts was the lack of any ARM build of MS Office for Windows.

 

[FightTheFuture]

It all started here...

View attachment 1672292

Goes down in history as one of the best acquisitions ever. Along with Google’s YouTube acquisition in my book.

I'll never forget Craig Federighi's failed FACE ID demo. It speaks a lot. And STILL Apple sells no COVID capable cell phone. Steve Jobs definitely would have been in favor of Apple Silicon no doubt and even outsourcing it to non-American workers. Globalists are like that and Steve Jobs was in the forefront of that sadly.

What are you talking about? You clearly haven’t used an iPhone (or an iPad Pro) in the past 2 years. And social distancing means more than wearing a mask, it means staying home.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I’m just conflicted about getting another smaller screen MacBook Pro after 5 years of using one. I’ll probably wait some more and see if the 16 inch gets upgraded by March.

 

[Spock]

I'll never forget Craig Federighi's failed FACE ID demo. It speaks a lot. And STILL Apple sells no COVID capable cell phone. Steve Jobs definitely would have been in favor of Apple Silicon no doubt and even outsourcing it to non-American workers. Globalists are like that and Steve Jobs was in the forefront of that sadly.

Did they discontinue the iPhone SE?

 

[luvbug]

So, to all those Apple haters here: I suppose Tim Cook is still an incompetent CEO and Apple can't innovate, right?

 

[John Calvin Young]

The specs that are typically bandied about in the industry have stopped being a good predictor of actual task-level performance for a long time. Architecturally, how many streams of 4k or 8k video can you process simultaneously while performing certain effects? That is the question video professionals want an answer to. No spec on the chip is going to answer that question for them.

Sounds great. But while you're planning for discrete functional hardware, how about more than two display pipelines, or the flexibility to use two USB-C ones on the Mini at least? That seems like a very obvious shortcoming that has caught a lot of people by surprise.

 

[Baymowe335]

Joswiak understands all the parts of the widget they still don't make, right?

This is a fundamental misunderstanding. They don’t actually “make” the chips either. They design them and dictate their exact specifications. Apple is wasting their time if they physically manufacture every part and that isn’t what Steve was talking about anyway.

 

[Dekema2]

While I believe it makes sense to build a Windows PC using all AMD parts (what I just did for the first time 3 days ago), I don't think it makes sense at all to buy a PC laptop anymore, unless it's a cheapo Chromebook. The sky is the limit when it comes to building a PC, with the trade off being that you draw as much energy as a central HVAC system in those cases. Otherwise, Apple has the future cornered.

 

[routine_analyst]

Cult of personality strategy on point.

When the excitement dies down, immediately infuse the thoughts of the supreme leader back into the radio waves.

 

[EdT]

It's pretty simple. Spend your money elsewhere.

The rest of the world is going to move on.

If enough people agree with this position Apple will change. If not they won’t. I don’t care about which USB format that Apple uses. Now, I think that they should have more than 2 of those ports but for now that’s a minor quibble.

 

[Morgenland]

People are funny.

My grandma already said that.

Unfortunately, people are still being stirred up against each other at the moment, and that makes things very dangerous.
In the past, statesmen always knew that you have to moderate the people, because otherwise folks would hate each other.
I hope that normalcy will soon return.
Agitators and criminals must answer for their actions. In a tough and uncompromising way.

On all levels.
Then the sentence again becomes its cuddly generalization, which my grandma meant.

 

[now i see it]

they're still not make the whole widget even with the M1 Macs. There's plenty of components on the logic board and elsewhere that are made by other companies.

 

[Digital Skunk]

It all started here...

You beat me to it and I agree 100%

A lot of folks looked at that headline back then and started asking about ARM Macs.

The M1 is definitely going to change the game for the Mac for more good reasons than bad. I hate to see expansion options die in the Mini and possibly the iMac but I'd trade that (and pay Apple's insane price) for the increases in performance that I am seeing.

I'm still curious to see what Apple will do with the Mac Pro. that's the one machine where I really don't see Apple trying to sell us on LESS aftermarket expandability.

 

[npmacuser5]

Tech specs become less important as products become mainstream. Most today, I have these needs, will the product deliver and is the product supported. Most could careless about GPU or clock speed. End of the day mission accomplished the goal.

 

[citysnaps]

Joswiak understands all the parts of the widget they still don't make, right?

Is that really a serious question?

 

[ComRadMac]

I'll never forget Craig Federighi's failed FACE ID demo. It speaks a lot. And STILL Apple sells no COVID capable cell phone. Steve Jobs definitely would have been in favor of Apple Silicon no doubt and even outsourcing it to non-American workers. Globalists are like that and Steve Jobs was in the forefront of that sadly.

Ok, i'll ask... WTF is a "COVID capable cell phone"? A cell phone that is capable of getting covid? A phone capable of working while you have covid? What is it, man?