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

[turbineseaplane]

You forget that Apple are aware of this and will ensure that whatever solution they put in place enables you to still use VMs etc.

Apple will routinely do things that go against power user interests or needs if it suits their own interests.

VM users have a right to be concerned here.

 

[KPOM]

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.
[automerge]1591721713[/automerge]


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

This is a fact.

They aren’t any good at running 32-bit x86 code, because 32-bit x86 is notoriously difficult to emulate. To the extent that Apple will rely on emulation, they will focus on x64 since Catalina requires all apps to be 64-bit, anyway. That’s not really a viable option for the Surface, since Microsoft touts backward compatibility.

 

[Azrael9]

FANLESS MACS FASTER THAN INTEL CHIPS.

I'd bet big money that is what is going to happen.

I'm ignoring all these negative nathans like I ignored this review:

No wireless. Less space then a Nomad. Lame.

I wouldn't bet against Apple doing that. The iPad A12x/z is pretty close now as is in terms of 90% of laptops 'most' people buy. iPad is proof of concept. The new Mac ARM chip will bury the A12X/z.

Azrael.

 

[KPOM]

TB will go the way of Firewire.

I doubt it. TB3 has some traction. HP and Dell have largely phased out their proprietary notebook docks for TB3-based docks.

 

[butcherbird]

Apple will routinely do things that go against power user interests or needs if it suits their own interests.

VM users have a right to be concerned here.

Wasn't this the case in Hollywood years back? I was learning video editing back then and heard a lot about editors who were ditching Final Cut Pro for other platforms.

Apple isn't always as brilliant as fanatics claim.

 

[dgdosen]

I was just thinking the exact same thing. Arm Macs would be a disaster for my workflow.

If Apple is building the chips, maybe they're building in hardware virtualization... I hope so. I wonder if they're working someone like the Docker Desktop team to make sure their app works on ARM macs.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Apple isn't always as brilliant as fanatics claim.

Very true and it’s honestly almost an understatement.
The support group for Apple has basically become basically a cult

 

[DotCom2]

If this really happens, I'll probably buy a few of the last Intel Macs so I can keep enjoying MacOS for a few more years before moving away from Apple computers. I need an x86 machine for my work (I rely heavily on VMs). Sad times if true.

Maybe Apple has been working on its own VM sofftware?

 

[windowsblowsass]

Wasn't this the case in Hollywood years back? I was learning video editing back then and heard a lot about editors who were ditching Final Cut Pro for other platforms.

Apple isn't always as brilliant as fanatics claim.

Depends what you mean by this. In the past ten years FCP market share may have been reduced but Apple is brining in record profits and the stock has become the most valuable in the world.

 

[macduke]

I've been calling this for years. So glad that it's finally happening! I'm also glad I have resisted the urge to buy a new MacBook Pro even though I could really use one because all I have is an iMac right now. Hopefully Intel Macs are still supported for a long time because I have a high-end 2019 5K iMac that I would like to not become obsolete in a couple years.

Are they going to be building their own GPUs as well?

Just imagine having a MacBook Pro that is nearly as fast as a Mac Pro and has 12 hour battery life! That's what I'm hoping for.

 

[turbineseaplane]

In the past ten years FCP market share may have been reduced but Apple is brining in record profits and the stock has become the most valuable in the world.

Those two points are not related ....at all

I have one word for you - “iPhone”

 

[Rigby]

Maybe Apple has been working on its own VM sofftware?

It would have to use emulation on an ARM CPU. I have not seen any good x86 emulation on ARM. Microsoft is trying, but the results are pretty bad so far.

 

[cmaier]

Except that move was toward the industry standard. A move to ARM would be the opposite direction. It was never possible to run x86 VMs with good performance on PowerPC Macs (there was only Microsoft's terrible Virtual PC), and it likely again won't be possible if they move to ARM.

How is ARM not the industry standard? There are billions more ARM computers than x86 computers, and dozens of companies manufacturing ARM cpus and only 2 (plus a couple minor others) manufacturing x86?

 

[Rigby]

How is ARM not the industry standard? There are billions more ARM computers than x86 computers, and dozens of companies manufacturing ARM cpus and only 2 (plus a couple minor others) manufacturing x86?

It is an industry standard for IoT devices and phones, but not for laptops, workstation-type computers or servers.

 

[hudson1]

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.
[automerge]1591721713[/automerge]


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

This is a fact.

Doesn't that depend on which ARM chips are in that Surface Pro? It's probably nothing like what goes into an iPad Pro.

 

[jerwin]

and this is just the beginning expect new AMD Generation to give you even higher clocks and maybe 128 cores in the very near future ... ARM cant do that not in 20 years.

Arm Unveils Neoverse N1 Platform with up to 128-Cores

Of course, just because something is theoretically possible doesn't mean that Apple will provide.

 

[09872738]

I'm not intrinsically opposed to a switch to ARM chips but it just means that all of the software that you've been using probably won't work, or will only work for a limited time before they deprecate the backwards compatibility (like Rosetta).

This is almost certainly a false assumption. Since most software on the mac somehow depends on Apple‘s toolchain - which is available of course on ARM as well including Metal - in most cases its probably rather easy to build ARM versions.

 

[cmaier]

It is an industry standard for IoT devices and phones, but not for laptops, workstation-type computers or servers.

Arbitrary distinction. Where do tablets fall on that spectrum?

Look, it's all going ARM. The only thing holding it back is inertia.

 

[MikeZTM]

As a nerd, I'm excited by this. Judging by the pace of ARM progression, Apple seems to have excellent hardware teams, so for the first time they're designing (almost) the entire box, not being reliant on 3rd parties to keep up chip development.

As a user though, it worries me. Using virtualisation all the time at work; if Apple does go ARM-only the Macs in our office are gone.

ARM support virtualization and it's in fact much better than x86 with multiple layers of security.

You can run windows on a Raspberry Pi in KVM today.

 

[smulji]

iPadOS isn't handling over 1000 threads constantly that x86 processors do for macOS. Sorry, but this ``ARM Mac'' won't replace their x86 line.

Then why do it? Why only have a consumer-grade Mac laptop running ARM, which will be targeted at the same audience doing the same tasks as the iPad Pro?

 

[butcherbird]

Depends what you mean by this. In the past ten years FCP market share may have been reduced but Apple is brining in record profits and the stock has become the most valuable in the world.

The original comment was essentially that Apple has a knack for ditching Pro users.
I provided an example of that.

Sure, Apple is happy to build for & attract regular users, who have the money to over-spend on a machine on which they do very basic tasks; they could do the same for a lot less money with other systems. Apple hopes they can replace 1 power user with 4 regular users & profit.

The cycle appears to be happening again. It's the power users who appear to be most concerned about this.

 

[smulji]

iPadOS isn't handling over 1000 threads constantly that x86 processors do for macOS. Sorry, but this ``ARM Mac'' won't replace their x86 line.

 

[jonblatho]

Well, appleOS can be modular — scaleable, like I said earlier. The Watch component of the OS will only load Watch-related assets, runtimes, etc., and the Mac portion will contain all Mac-related runtimes, etc. This is already possible, as iOS/iPadOS/watchOS are all variants of the macOS code. They all run the same kernel, it'd be a naming simplification and perhaps easing up code-sharing and asset-sharing.

So basically what they’re already doing then. Neat.

 

[smulji]

Nope, they're unable to transition off 14nm, while AMD is on 7nm. They're just not on their game lately.


Agreed, I moved away from Macs for a number of reasons, such as price/value, but the rumors of ARM certainly helped my decision

Intel is actually starting to get their game back beginning with Tiger Lake. Initial performance numbers look very promising.

 

[Apples Apples Everywhere]

This happened with the PowerMac G5 back in the day too. The Intel switch was announced not long after the latest model G5 was announced, basically pissing off people who had just invested in new machines. Apple said they weren't leaving older machines behind just yet, but they did, very quickly. In less than a year nobody gave a **** about PowerPC anymore.

Yes. I was a Linux user back then and I had to look it up in Wikipedia. Exactly as you said. Very quickly.