Apple Expected to Announce Arm-Based Mac Plans at WWDC, Transition Away From Intel to Begin in 2021

[tubular]

I'd imagine the Mac Pro will be the last of the machines to be transitioned to ARM, if only because it's the one that's been comprehensively redesigned the most recently.

In terms of new models per year, the iMac is where the churn is, the desktop environment is more forgiving than portables, and an iMac is what I'd expect to see first.

 

[darkslide29]

I guess my Mac Mini 2018 will be the last Mac I use to bootcamp windows, connected to an eGPU to play high-end games. Too bad for me.

 

[butcherbird]

Apple just isn't the company it pretends to be. There's always been a bit of mindfuggery going on with them, and that reality distortion field just isn't working for Cook like it did for Jobs.

I know this is true ... 2 MacBook Pros (15" & 16") and 1 MacBook all had to be returned within the 1st year warranty for covered repair work that fixed defects. Only my iMac was spared from required warranty repairs.

We still love our iPhones, though. I used Android for years before switching to iPhones. The same old fragmented ecosystem, only 1 year (maybe 2 years if you were lucky) of major OS updates ... just ruined Android for me. I became so tired of buying a new Android phone every year.

 

[Azrael9]

Which laptops, do you have the numbers to back it up. For instance, is the iPad Pro faster then my i7-9750h Razer Blade using a RTX 2070?

But what you're using isn't 'most' laptops?

Apple did say 90% of laptops out there. ANd to be fair the cheap laptop market £299-ish is what most kids have and people who don't want to fork out £1500 for a 13 inch Macbook or a £2k+ Macbook Pro 16 incher.

The premium laptop market. How big is that?

Azrael.
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I guess my Mac Mini 2018 will be the last Mac I use to bootcamp windows, connected to an eGPU to play high-end games. Too bad for me.

Well, if the 2020 iMac lasts as long as my last one. 7.3 years. That takes me to 2027 with Bootcamp.

There can still be mileage in Mac Intel purchases. But don't expect Apple to support them with more than 4 OS updates.

Azrael.

 

[hwojtek]

Hackintosh community: somebody screwed us up here!
Also Hackintosh community: buys all the Raspberry Pi's in the neighborhood.

 

[Ray2]

If this transition means more affordable Macs across the board, I’m in!

It means more profitable Macs. Which means more executive comp.

 

[Azrael9]

Likely, unless Microsoft starts selling Windows on ARM as a standalone product (right now it is licensed only to OEMs for shipping products, and I doubt Apple would license it). However, virtualization existed under PowerPC, and would likely continue under ARM.

There will always be markets for Virtualisation. We can't rule out good products on Mac ARM.

Ironic if M$ and Apple catch Intel in a pincer movement re: cpus.

I never thought I'd see the day M$ did their own hardware. And Mac did their own CPUs.

What's the world coming to...?

Azrael.

 

[Doug0915]

Just imagine how different a world it would be today IF instead of Commodore buying MOS technologies in the 70's, Apple had instead....

 

[aednichols]

All in on this. My personal 12” MacBook only runs Apple’s built-in apps, Firefox, and Sublime Text. Hoping the first ARM model is a suitable replacement.

 

[tranceking26]

I hope it works out okay. Will be interesting to see how performance is.

 

[techwhiz]

I hope they only do this for low end macs. I use too many virtual machines for this ever to work for me professionally.

Same here it won't work for me.

 

[turbineseaplane]

I'll never understand why some of us blindly agree with everything Apple does no matter what the cost

Me either.

If this doesn’t have significant performance and ultimately software quality advantages, presumably due to more tightly integrated software/hardware, it is not a win for the consumer.

And people thinking this is going to make things cheaper… LMAO

 

[HackMacDaddy]

You seem to think that Apple cares about Pro users. Their „Pro“ MacBooks have been consumer electronics for a long time now. Also they won‘t give 2 cents about being able to bootcamp into windows on a Mac. If they can raise profits, they will do it!

 

[inimeg81]

Great just as I’ve been fighting with the 16” being connected to an external
Display.. guess that seals this return.

 

[faust]

This. Yeah, I dropped a bunch of cash on mine assuming to spread the cost out over a 7+++ year lifespan. Like the last 2 Mac Pro's proceeding it, i assumed it would be a beast for many, many years. Would be frustrating if this wasn't the case.

Realistically, i'd guess that ARM chips that can replace the Xeon chips will be a long way off, and that music plugin developers will take a long while to transition as well. But perhaps this will all go faster than I expect.

When you bought the 7.1 Mac Pro, you made a deal with the devil. It's processors were overly expensive and not top of the line. Their RAM offerings were decent but realistically overly expensive, and their anemic base dGPU offering was incredulous. They're giving "professionals" a Radeon 580? A card that was not top of the line even in 2017? Good God. It's not like the 5700XT wasn't out and about when they pumped out the Mac Pro to the market, so what gives? Apple totally crapped on the professional with it's distastefully expensive and underwhelming Mac Pro 7.1, and I urge you to rid yourself of it and buy or build a Windows/Linux workstation.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Corporate Mac Usage 2006-2020 RIP

This is a real factor… You are absolutely correct

 

[techwhiz]

Yeah this unlikely. Transition from x86 to ARM will break a lot of software. Nobody has time for that.

Now if they put both into the same computer, so there is a low power mode, I will buy it; otherwise no more Macs for me.

No more for me either.
I need to run x86 Linux.

 

[butcherbird]

This has to be the best news Microsoft has heard all year. (or, is going to officially hear later this month)

 

[firewood]

This is my hope as well - a dual CPU machine, ...

A dual CPU architecture machine is both a hardware and OS software nightmare, a container for a host of nasty bugs.

The best way to do this is easy: Run an ARM MacBook and Remote Desktop to a Intel NUC or Alienware in your server closet or a Windows server in the cloud. Or buy some x86 laptop with a decent display and Remote Desktop to a Mac Mini or Mac Pro under your desk.

I currently run x86 code on my MacBook, and run ARM code on 2 Raspberry Pi's on my local LAN.

 

[techwhiz]

I rely on being able to run Parallels all day as I need a Windows environment for work.. Probably stupid question but would Parallels (or Bootcamp) still work on an ARM machine ?

Not the same way it does now,
VMWare and Parables work well because they run the other OS natively.
There is no translation of instructions, etc.
For the CPU it looks like another walled off process.That would not be the case with an ARM processor.
You would need to do translation, just in time recompilation and maybe cache the application after recompilation/translation.
A mess.

 

[dspdoc]

This. Yeah, I dropped a bunch of cash on mine assuming to spread the cost out over a 7+++ year lifespan. Like the last 2 Mac Pro's proceeding it, i assumed it would be a beast for many, many years. Would be frustrating if this wasn't the case.

Realistically, i'd guess that ARM chips that can replace the Xeon chips will be a long way off, and that music plugin developers will take a long while to transition as well. But perhaps this will all go faster than I expect.

Same identical boat here. Very concerned...

 

[maflynn]

But what you're using isn't 'most' laptops?

The CPU is, I get that the GPU is a high-end

 

[jimbobb24]

I think Apple has done well with their computers not needing to play the game of who has the fastest processor. Don't want to go back to that nonsense.

 

[macsplusmacs]

Hackintosh community: somebody screwed us up here!
Also Hackintosh community: buys all the Raspberry Pi's in the neighborhood.

I wonder if the and i would bet the new MacOS will talk to a T2 / T3 chip which may effectively block all ARM based hackinstoshes.

 

[DVD9]

Arm co-processors please. Intel chips are too good for so many tasks. I don’t want to have to drop macOS for Linux.

Remember when Apple used the PowerPC chips and claimed they were faster even when you could easily see they were much slower than PC powered by Pentium chips. Apple was being mocked for this in tech media for at least three years before they bailed and adopted Intel.

Pepsi is back in charge.
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Hell, Microsoft has an ARM based Surface and Windows can run on it as well.

And they suck. ARM chips are a joke compared to Intel/AMD.

This is a fact.