Apple Plans to Ditch Intel and Use Custom Mac Chips Starting in 2020

[pankajdoharey]

I think people are forgetting one thing about transition of Apps, when we moved from PowerPC to Intel chips, Apple licensed a high performance app interpreter technology for the OSX called Rosetta Stone. The same can and probably will be done again for this transition. So App availability wont be an issue, and over a period of time Most apps will be recompiled using the new XCode, it has worked in the past it will work in the future.
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How do you come to that conclusion? To run virtual machines on an ARM processor would require emulation rather than virtualisation, which comes with a huge performance overhead so you'd probably need ARM chips 5 - 10 times faster than the Intel ones to achieve faster performance via emulation than native. When Apple made the transition to Intel, Rosetta had around a 30% performance hit over the native PowerPC machines and that was on processors that were far more powerful than the ones they were emulating

I use to play games on it. Even Photoshop before the actual native Intel apps arrived. But you do have a valid point we havent seen a processor from Apple that can blow the socks off of Intel Chips.
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Costs will be negligible. The transition will probably take 3 years on the consumer side and 5-6 years on the professional workstation side and most of the software updates will be free just like they were when we moved from PPC to Intel. Software pricing is very different these days too. People who use subscription software won't be paying an extra penny.

Again I hope everyone remembers the Emulation tech that we used back in the PowerPC to Intel transition days, it was called "Rosetta Stone" and it was good. Good enough to play OpenGL games.

 

[trebbelito]

As already stated, a lot of people dual boot into Windows for Windows-only games. Me included. Most games will not perform good if played from inside a virtual environment.

Let's hope more game creators moves on to support more platforms than just Windows, then this will be a non issue.

 

[CodeJoy]

Well you will still be able to run Virtual Machines, probably with better performance than Intel chips.

No, you wouldn't. That is a misunderstanding. You would lose the ability to run X86 VM's. You could maybe run ARM VM's, but what would be the point of that?

 

[Phil A.]

I think people are forgetting one thing about transition of Apps, when we moved from PowerPC to Intel chips, Apple licensed a high performance app interpreter technology for the OSX called Rosetta Stone. The same can and probably will be done again for this transition. So App availability wont be an issue, and over a period of time Most apps will be recompiled using the new XCode, it has worked in the past it will work in the future.

Yes, I remember it (I even mentioned it in the post you quoted) and as I said, it was slower than native and that was on processors that were more powerful than the ones that were being emulated. If you want to emulate another processor then there will be an unavoidable performance hit: The only way to mitigate that is to make the processor that is doing the emulator far more powerful than the one it is emulating - if you have enough extra power then you can achieve the same or higher performance than the processor you are emulating
However, an Arm processor that's even 2 or 3 times faster than an 18 core Xeon (or even a quad core i7) is a long, long way off (and by that time, the speed of the Intel processors will have increased too)

 

[Falhófnir]

As already stated, a lot of people dual boot into Windows for Windows-only games. Me included. Most games will not perform good if played from inside a virtual environment.

Let's hope more game creators moves on to support more platforms than just Windows, then this will be a non issue.

If you want to game in any significant way you are much better off having a separate windows computer than speccing up a mac for it though, so I think this will be a bit of a niche concern

 

[pankajdoharey]

No, you wouldn't. That is a misunderstanding. You would lose the ability to run X86 VM's. You could maybe run ARM VM's, but what would be the point of that?

I think you are referring to the fact that, the current VM's are not true VM's because they use what is known as Intel VTEx extension that uses the actual processor to execute the target instruction than emulating it. Which is the reason for great performance on VM's these days. But that doesnt mean Emulation would seize to work. You could still use Bochs which is pure emulator unlike say Virtualbox.

 

[Delgibbons]

Yes, I remember it (I even mentioned it in the post you quoted) and as I said, it was slower than native and that was on processors that were more powerful than the ones that were being emulated. If you want to emulate another processor then there will be an unavoidable performance hit: The only way to mitigate that is to make the processor that is doing the emulator far more powerful than the one it is emulating - if you have enough extra power then you can achieve the same or higher performance than the processor you are emulating
However, an Arm processor that's even 2 or 3 times faster than an 18 core Xeon (or even a quad core i7) is a long, long way off (and by that time, the speed of the Intel processors will have increased too)

not to mention that Intel's lawyers are watching Qualcomm/ARM and their x86 emulation attempts via Microsoft's Windows On ARM - which runs x86 code on a Snapdragon mobile chip - VERY closely

"the reigning desktop and data center server CPU king (AMD, you know it's true) said it would not hesitate to sic its lawyers on any competitor whose emulation tools got too close to copying the patented portions of its x86 instruction set architecture (ISA).

"Intel welcomes lawful competition, and we are confident that Intel's microprocessors, which have been specifically optimized to implement Intel's x86 ISA for almost four decades, will deliver amazing experiences, consistency across applications, and a full breadth of consumer offerings, full manageability and IT integration for the enterprise," general counsel Steven Rodgers wrote on Thursday.

"However, we do not welcome unlawful infringement of our patents, and we fully expect other companies to continue to respect Intel's intellectual property rights."

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www....2017/06/09/intel_sends_arm_a_shot_across_bow/

 

[Sydde]

• Moving macOS to a new CPU -- all else being equal -- is not the biggest challenge. You can be pretty darn sure that they've had macOS running on ARM in labs for several years already.

No, they have not. Not in a lab, at least. On a few million devices, though. iOS is macOS. The architectural difference is nonexistent. They could have an ARMBook up and running in a few days.

 

[pankajdoharey]

Yes, I remember it (I even mentioned it in the post you quoted) and as I said, it was slower than native and that was on processors that were more powerful than the ones that were being emulated. If you want to emulate another processor then there will be an unavoidable performance hit: The only way to mitigate that is to make the processor that is doing the emulator far more powerful than the one it is emulating - if you have enough extra power then you can achieve the same or higher performance than the processor you are emulating
However, an Arm processor that's even 2 or 3 times faster than an 18 core Xeon (or even a quad core i7) is a long, long way off (and by that time, the speed of the Intel processors will have increased too)

Apologies i didnt read your whole post completely before jumping the guns earlier, I think you have a point here, this decision might be a disaster, unless Apple Produces Chips which are way faster that 18 Core Intel Xeon and cheaper like super cheao to produce, which is questionable.

 

[CodeJoy]

Yes, I remember it (I even mentioned it in the post you quoted) and as I said, it was slower than native and that was on processors that were more powerful than the ones that were being emulated. If you want to emulate another processor then there will be an unavoidable performance hit: The only way to mitigate that is to make the processor that is doing the emulator far more powerful than the one it is emulating - if you have enough extra power then you can achieve the same or higher performance than the processor you are emulating
However, an Arm processor that's even 2 or 3 times faster than an 18 core Xeon (or even a quad core i7) is a long, long way off (and by that time, the speed of the Intel processors will have increased too)

For me, the main question would be licensing. That was not an issue at all in the previous transition, but I could well see it being a major problem now. Maybe Apple has some solution for that, it's possible. As far as tech, emulation has come a long long way since the mid noughties and I wouldn't hold it for impossible that emulated performance could be on a whole different level today. But they'd still need ARM processors that are at least 2x as fast as Intel chips for it to make sense from a tech perspective, and I just don't see that happening by 2020.

 

[Heineken]

Not really. Just a little over a year ago, many if not most Apple aficionados still didn't think it's possible. https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ouchscreen-macs.2040426/page-17#post-24479386
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Couldn't find the MacRumors post where you called it. Would be awesome if you did. I thought I was one of the very first to call it.

I saw this coming years ago.

 

[Sakellaris]

what is the reason that they call it Kalamata ?

 

[CodeJoy]

I think you are referring to the fact that, the current VM's are not true VM's because they use what is known as Intel VTEx extension that uses the actual processor to execute the target instruction than emulating it. Which is the reason for great performance on VM's these days. But that doesnt mean Emulation would seize to work. You could still use Bochs which is pure emulator unlike say Virtualbox.

Right. Technically you can run Windows on a C64, but that doesn't mean it's something you want to do professionally.

 

[crsh1976]

I can't see how ARM will ever match high-end i7/Xeons by 2020, which means Apple will either keep their pro market on X86 or they're going to sacrifice it altogether - it would be suicidal to expect pros to transition if performance takes such a dramatic hit.

ARM and iOS apps are fun and bring in lots of money for Apple, but this is not what I want from a pro computer so I can do my job adequately. While I totally understand being dependant on Intel can be a major PITA, switch over to AMD for all I care but don't think you can make me buy an iPad to do serious work.

 

[Delgibbons]

what is the reason that they call it Kalamata ?

is it Greek for calamity?

 

[pankajdoharey]

The

Right. Technically you can run Windows on a C64, but that doesn't mean it's something you want to do professionally.

It has been pointed out by @Phil A. That the only way to mitigate this problem is for Apple to build ARM processors that have to be 2X faster than the then (2020) would be Intel Chips.

 

[maflynn]

Well you will still be able to run Virtual Machines, probably with better performance than Intel chips.

Sorry that is wrong on so many levels. Software is always slower then hardware. I was using Macs long before they transitioned over to Intel, and we had an app called virtual PC, that was an emulator and that was dog slow on the Mac. There was a time when Motorola/IBM's PowerPC chip rivaled the performance of the then current Intel CPUs and even then running windows on the mac through an emulator was an exercise in patience.

 

[pankajdoharey]

Sorry that is wrong on so many levels. Software is always slower then hardware. I was using Macs long before they transitioned over to Intel, and we had an app called virtual PC, that was an emulator and that was dog slow on the Mac. There was a time when Motorola/IBM's PowerPC chip rivaled the performance of the then current Intel CPUs and even then running windows on the mac through an emulator was an exercise in patience.

Yes i have been pointed that out by @Phil A. and @CodeJoy

 

[Rokkus76]

Doesn't anyone think it strange that, this being a site with "Mac" in it's name, there are 400-odd comments about how people are going to miss Microsoft Windows?

Not at all. Some of us can't get rid of Windows (for working and other reasons) and having 2 machines is rarely most viable and convenient option

 

[maflynn]

You can achieve pretty much everything using Windows which ultimately could be the deal breaker should Apple ditch Intel and catapult the Mac back to the dark ages. Upon which there would most likely be wholesale adoption of Windows 10.

That's my situation, luckily I have a fairly current iMac and I'll be looking to buy a new MBP laptop this year. That will only kick the can down the road, where I have to make some decisions.

Let me also say, I have a big problem paying almost 3k for laptop that does less then the prior version, so I would hope with a homegrown processor, we'll see some pricing relief.

 

[Sakellaris]

is it Greek for calamity?

No in greek calamity is Συμφορα Simfora.
Kalamata
is the second most populous city of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece

 

[pankajdoharey]

It seems that the most important thing for most people on Macrumors forum is Windoze? But i get it, i know the pain of Missing games and getting some games through Steam after 2-3 yrs.

 

[maflynn]

It seems that the most important thing for most people on Macrumors forum is Windoze? But i get it, i know the pain of Missing games and getting some games through Steam after 2-3 yrs.

Not everyone uses windows to play games. Perhaps you do, but I use it for work. Also you need to consider whether developers will make the transition over to an ARM processor. I'm rather doubtful we'll see the full blown creative suite being transitioned over to ARM, but rather we'll see Adobe just port their iOS apps because they're already written for the ARM processor.

 

[G4DPII]

I don't think it would be a massive challenge to convince Adobe and Microsoft to re-write their desktop apps for the Mac. Not that I think that moving away from Intel would be all that great of an idea.

Really? Re-writing all the code again? How many more bits of software will get left by the wayside. Adobe dropped so many good bits of kit during the PowerPC to Intel transition.

This will give Tim Cook nowhere to turn when they don't update systems regularly. Apple have always blamed someone else. This will not end well for Apple. Let's be honest Apple have been a pretty crap customer. Intel will continue to grow.

If this transition is due to start in 2020, that's 20 months away, they should have pre-production test samples already for every Mac model. Unless it's going to be a damn slow and stupid transition they should have awarded the contracts for the mass production by now. That would have leaked.

Moving to Intel made sense PPC was then at a stand still. Intel aren't. Apple are the ones skipping generations of chips. Claiming the move will be due to Intels lack of development is just a crock.

Tim wants a complete lock down of the Apple ecosystem. Once you are in you are buggered. Watch the prices go up and up for anything with a fruit on it. This could be the end of a successful Apple. Sadly.

 

[pankajdoharey]

Not everyone uses windows to play games. Perhaps you do, but I use it for work. Also you need to consider whether developers will make the transition over to an ARM processor. I'm rather doubtful we'll see the full blown creative suite being transitioned over to ARM, but rather we'll see Adobe just port their iOS apps because they're already written for the ARM processor.

Actually as far as developers are concerned most developers would be oblivious, an App written in Swift or Objective C compiles and works the same, the only place it would matter is when people are getting down to the nuts and bolts and writing inline assembly. Which i doubt anybody(read Many) does, and if they do then a large body of people should exist who regularly write ARM assembly on iPhones, iPads etc... ARM Assembly on a Mac wouldnt be any different, but such optimizations are rarely seen in commercial application software.