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

[pankajdoharey]

Exactly.

I don't know why people are expecting Apple to put a smartphone processor into a laptop or desktop.

What I gathered from this announcement is that Apple will expand their chipmaking skills beyond phones and tablets... and will create new chips that are appropriate for higher-wattage Mac laptops and desktops.

I think the Fundamental Question people are asking is does Apple have the necessary CPU Design Skills to produce a Desktop Class processor that could rival and Outperform Intels? And Other people are trying to defend that A11 Bionic is already Desktop Class so designing new chips wont be a difficulty. Thats the whole battle. I am not sure if Apple has the skills but i am confident that Apple would have thought something before taking this decision, afterall Tim's reputation is at stake here and i dont think he would take any decision where his ass is handed out to him by Intel, if Apple is not confident of the outcome they probably wont do it.

 

[Heineken]

I think the Fundamental Question people are asking is does Apple have the necessary CPU Design Skills to produce a Desktop Class processor that could rival and Outperform Intels? And Other people are trying to defend that A11 Bionic is already Desktop Class so designing new chips wont be a difficulty. Thats the whole battle. I am not sure if Apple has the skills but i am confident that Apple would have thought something before taking this decision, afterall Tim's reputation is at stake here and i dont think he would take any decision where his ass is handed out to him by Intel, if Apple is not confident of the outcome they probably wont do it.

Yes, that remains to be seen, but even if you look at A11 and put it in an actively cooled system with fewer power and heat restrictions it will perform much better than in an iPad.

 

[Falhófnir]

Um no, because if I'm already overpaying for a Mac, I'd like to be able to run everything on it. I didn't have to over spec my Mac to run Windows. Why on earth would I want a seperate crappy computer when I can have one well designed machine that can run both?

Nice soundbite, but care to come back with a specific point of contention about what this will disrupt for you, or is this just about grumbling because you've become used to a specific feature that's possibly going away? There's plenty of perfectly good windows machines that can be had for little more than the cost of upgrading a MBP to 1TB of storage (pretty much the minimum if you want a functionally large windows partition with space enough left over on the mac side).

Clearly you don't do any cross development. If I was developing on a Mac and did not have a Windows machine nearby, I can either A) run VM or B) bootcamp.

See what I did there? I didn't need to have a Windows machine nearby to get my job done.

The current Macbook line with x86 is practical for a developer.

Does your programming job really have you on the go so much that having a dedicated windows computer isn't easier than rebooting into Windows? You could get two cheap Windows computers for the cost of upgrading a MBP to 1TB of storage. Have one at home and one at your office, if you get a laptop then take it with you when you need to go somewhere.

 

[cmaier]

What revisionism? Steve started making major changes towards open standards as soon as he came back; the switch to USB (which I did mention in my post) was easy and quick. The switch of an entire CPU architecture was more complex and took Steve years to pull off.

So certainly it "started thriving" with the earlier changes in the sense it started improving right away which only goes to show how bad proprietary is, but the switch to Intel was a major part of opening up the Mac and without that it would have floundered with low computer power, expensive, inefficient CPUs.



I don't agree with that; it ignores a lot of history. I agree they owe much of their current profit to the iPhone. But they very much market the iPhone as a fashion accessory which is a very fickle market. It's clear that Timmy would rather run Burberry than Apple, and he's running Apple accordingly.
[doublepost=1522852125][/doublepost]

Way to get condescending; I'm talking stores like Electrosonic, Active Electronics, and a few others (all local versions of digikey of the day -- they did most of their sales to large businesses via catalog).

And not to be flippant, but you designed one what? Not clear at all what you're talking about.

I designed a powerPPC microprocessor.

 

[Heineken]

I asked around about that whole rewrite thing and one of my friends who has an app he started in the PPC days said that moving to Intel took minutes to tinker little bit and then just recompile, moving to ARM would be the same and he hopes Apple moves to ARM.

That must have some weight i think.

 

[cram501]

Does your programming job really have you on the go so much that having a dedicated windows computer isn't easier than rebooting into Windows? You could get two cheap Windows computers for the cost of upgrading a MBP to 1TB of storage. Have one at home and one at your office, if you get a laptop then take it with you when you need to go somewhere.

He/she has a valid point. I work on multiple operating systems simultaneously. I choose to do that on a Mac. I could do it on a Windows or Linux box if necessary but I would lose the work flow I have now. It's not the end of the world but it would be the end of using a Mac.

An answer of "buy multiple pc's" then... really isn't practical and isn't an answer. That would be a major pita.

 

[oldmacs]

Nice soundbite, but care to come back with a specific point of contention about what this will disrupt for you, or is this just about grumbling because you've become used to a specific feature that's possibly going away? There's plenty of perfectly good windows machines that can be had for little more than the cost of upgrading a MBP to 1TB of storage (pretty much the minimum if you want a functionally large windows partition with space enough left over on the mac side).

I paid $1200 for my MacBook in 2012. It came with 500GB of HDD which was more than enough to have both side by side at the time. In 2015 I upgraded to a 1TB SSD for about $350 - total cost of $1550. Where can I get a magical Windows Machine for less than this?

My most recent job involved managing both Windows device and Mac devices and also educating users on how to use both.I can't tell you how useful it was to have both on one machine. Same goes at the moment as I have returned to university. I prefer using Mac OS, but plenty of software I require for my course is Windows only. Again maintaining one machine is less expensive and there is no way in hell I'd take two Laptops to uni. The tech support I provide as my current 'job' (self employed) also involves supporting clients on Mac and Windows, again making dual boot so good.

I don't know what to say if you can not see the convenience of having two machines in one. It is more cost effective and simple. I know 4 others who have bought MacBooks in the past year and a bit who only did so because they were also able to run Windows as well, a spread between casual gaming requirements and work requirements.
[doublepost=1522857249][/doublepost]

The value for me? I hope Apple can bring some of the benefits I see of using an iPad to the Mac. Performance, stability, security, privacy, apps/app choices, battery life, flexibility, core technologies, etc.

Macs already have better performance, stability is mainly down to the Operating System, going to arm destroys App choice and they can still add in iOS apps on the Mac anyway without switching to arm. Not sure how Arm would make a Mac more flexible. iOS devices are so much more limited so of course they will have better battery life, and even then iPads don't have that battery life that is that great.

The 'benefits' of the iPad come mainly from the locked down nature of iOS - the security benefits, the speed benefits etc. People who want the Mac to become this would be better served by the iPad improving rather than destroying the Mac.

 

[cram501]

I asked around about that whole rewrite thing and one of my friends who has an app he started in the PPC days said that moving to Intel took minutes to tinker little bit and then just recompile, moving to ARM would be the same and he hopes Apple moves to ARM.

That must have some weight i think.

Simple applications should be easy to port over. I think the concern here is the more complex applications that may take optimization at a lower level or algorithmic level. At that point the vendor/developer has to determine if it is worth investing in a development environment, worth it to re-optimize the application, and/or worth the time required to invest in the learning curve that comes with a new instruction set.

Depending on the application, that may not be worth it. It also may be delayed to see if the number of target customers is large enough.

 

[DNichter]

I paid $1200 for my MacBook in 2012. It came with 500GB of HDD which was more than enough to have both side by side at the time. In 2015 I upgraded to a 1TB SSD for about $350 - total cost of $1550. Where can I get a magical Windows Machine for less than this?

My most recent job involved managing both Windows device and Mac devices and also educating users on how to use both.I can't tell you how useful it was to have both on one machine. Same goes at the moment as I have returned to university. I prefer using Mac OS, but plenty of software I require for my course is Windows only. Again maintaining one machine is less expensive and there is no way in hell I'd take two Laptops to uni. The tech support I provide as my current 'job' (self employed) also involves supporting clients on Mac and Windows, again making dual boot so good.

I don't know what to say if you can not see the convenience of having two machines in one. It is more cost effective and simple. I know 4 others who have bought MacBooks in the past year and a bit who only did so because they were also able to run Windows as well, a spread between casual gaming requirements and work requirements.
[doublepost=1522857249][/doublepost]

Macs already have better performance, stability is mainly down to the Operating System, going to arm destroys App choice and they can still add in iOS apps on the Mac anyway without switching to arm. Not sure how Arm would make a Mac more flexible. iOS devices are so much more limited so of course they will have better battery life, and even then iPads don't have that battery life that is that great.

The 'benefits' of the iPad come mainly from the locked down nature of iOS - the security benefits, the speed benefits etc. People who want the Mac to become this would be better served by the iPad improving rather than destroying the Mac.

I have found performance, stability, and app choice to be much better on my iPad than when I had a Mac. You're correct though, I am happy with an iPad as my only computer and don't need a Mac at all. I don't need to handle any operational tasks.

 

[Heineken]

Simple applications should be easy to port over. I think the concern here is the more complex applications that may take optimization at a lower level or algorithmic level. At that point the vendor/developer has to determine if it is worth investing in a development environment, worth it to re-optimize the application, and/or worth the time required to invest in the learning curve that comes with a new instruction set.

Depending on the application, that may not be worth it. It also may be delayed to see if the number of target customers is large enough.

I understand that, but some devs are just lazy or have hacked together an app that is impossible to recompile or whatever.

What's the name of the PPC accounting or whatver app that took years to move to Intel? I'm pretty sure it needed no low level assembly code.

 

[oldmacs]

I have found performance, stability, and app choice to be much better on my iPad than when I had a Mac. You're correct though, I am happy with an iPad as my only computer and don't need a Mac at all. I don't need to handle any operational tasks.

Yes, and thats mainly due to the OS, not the hardware.

If an iPad does the job, then why do you want Apple to ruin the Mac for those of us who actually need Macs for our workflows?

 

[techwhiz]

Explain what you mean by “threads”. Because iOS is definitely a multi-threaded system with PMT. I remember Mac OS 7-8-9, which were not threaded, and you can tell from experience that iOS is. It even goes beyond threading, with GCD.

Do you mean hyperthreading?

Threads in hardware or hyper threading. I was not talking OS.

 

[DNichter]

Yes, and thats mainly due to the OS, not the hardware.

If an iPad does the job, then why do you want Apple to ruin the Mac for those of us who actually need Macs for our workflows?

That's great, hopefully they can bring iOS to the desktop (point and click) environment. It's not my decision, it's up to Apple. I don't think it would ruin the Mac, I just think people are too lazy to adapt their workflows.

 

[techwhiz]

Some tools may not be available currently, but that doesn't mean it could never happen. I don't think the plan is to slap iOS onto a Mac, but create a potentially new OS made for point and click that shares the advantages of both macOS and iOS. Ultimately it will come down to developer support.

Or... you'll just have to move to windows for your specific needs.

Can we get off this thing about iOS and MacOS merging.
The GUI requirements for a phone and Laptop/Desktop are vastly different.
The user experience is different.
iOS and MacOS share BSD underpinnings.
The GUI and API layer are different and aren't going to merge.

 

[DNichter]

Can we get off this thing about iOS and MacOS merging.
The GUI requirements for a phone and Laptop/Desktop are vastly different.
The user experience is different.
iOS and MacOS share BSD underpinnings.
The GUI and API layer are different and aren't going to merge.

I didn't say anything about iOS or macOS merging. I think Apple would be better off building a new OS made for the desktop environment (point and click).

 

[techwhiz]

I asked around about that whole rewrite thing and one of my friends who has an app he started in the PPC days said that moving to Intel took minutes to tinker little bit and then just recompile, moving to ARM would be the same and he hopes Apple moves to ARM.

That must have some weight i think.

Apparently your friend's app has no inline assembly.
For code that is compute intensive, it is not uncommon, even now to have inline assembly.
It's not uncommon to lock down a cache line.
It's not uncommon to do some very hardware specific things to get the job done.
Audio plug-ins come to mind.

 

[Altis]

I have found performance, stability, and app choice to be much better on my iPad than when I had a Mac. You're correct though, I am happy with an iPad as my only computer and don't need a Mac at all. I don't need to handle any operational tasks.

App choice better on iPad? You can run decades worth of software from Mac/Windows/Linux on the Mac... the iPad is pretty well limited to what's currently available on the App store (filtered by Apple) and supported for your (permanent) version of iOS.

Many of the Apps people use on iOS are just tailored versions of their desktop browser websites to make it easier to use with touch + small screens.

 

[oldmacs]

That's great, hopefully they can bring iOS to the desktop (point and click) environment. It's not my decision, it's up to Apple. I don't think it would ruin the Mac, I just think people are too lazy to adapt their workflows.

No, some people's workflows depend on things that iOS can not do. Some tasks will never be achievable on iOS due to the limitations which make it work for other people. Please recognise that people have different requirements and workflows, that are not really that easy to adjust. It is not about laziness.

And yes, bringing iOS to the Mac would ruin a Mac. There is no point turning the Mac lineup into giant iPads... because Apple already sell iPads.

Again, if the iPad works for you, then I'm glad. How about you recognise that the Mac also works for others.
[doublepost=1522859916][/doublepost]

I didn't say anything about iOS or macOS merging. I think Apple would be better off building a new OS made for the desktop environment (point and click).

And your idea of a better OS seems to be one that is locked down like iOS, so essentially would be iOS, thus ruining the advantages that the Mac has over iOS devices.

 

[ipponrg]

Does your programming job really have you on the go so much that having a dedicated windows computer isn't easier than rebooting into Windows? You could get two cheap Windows computers for the cost of upgrading a MBP to 1TB of storage. Have one at home and one at your office, if you get a laptop then take it with you when you need to go somewhere.

Yes.

The nature of my work requires me to have a laptop. I work on connected devices where most of our environments are unix based. However, some devices require you to deploy via Windows because they did not develop a Linux/Unix/Mac solution for deployment. In addition, devices are spread throughout the building and floors. You may need to walk around to meet and demo to clients, or you may work with devs in other departments to troubleshoot code issues. Granted, I don't reboot via Bootcamp. I just use VirtualBox.

Just having this flexibility is awesome. Prior to Macbooks having x86, we'd use Linux laptops. The bonus you get with Macs today is that people like me can develop solutions that work well across environments.

It makes complete sense why many devs/engrs have laptops and not desktops.

 

[dirt_farmer]

Most people don't drive BMW or Mecedes Benz but they seem to doing all right. Britain got a head start in the industrial revolution but was later eclipsed by Germany but they seem to be doing all right too. ARM architecture makes both financial and technological sense. Just wait and see.
.

There's nothing wrong with a participation prize; especially if you separate people from their money and get a bonus and stock options.

I remember a different Apple -- one that was brilliant and different and passionate and owned every segment it touched.

I just miss those days and it makes me wistful when the new accountant-run (literally) Apple sits on its' butt and milks what remains of Steve's amazingness.

They are almost a trillion dollar company with a quarter trillion in cash. They literally have hundreds of billions in cash that they could use to enter any space they wanted.

Instead, their big innovations this decade have been issuing a corporate bond (no kidding) and taking the iPad down market.

Now they are going to dump the most advanced and powerful silicon in the world in favour of something they can make themselves for cheaper. Sticking their finger in the eye of their small group of loyal users plus their tiny group of loyal developers.

Enjoy your stock options, Tim.

 

[cmaier]

There's nothing wrong with a participation prize; especially if you separate people from their money and get a bonus and stock options.

I remember a different Apple -- one that was brilliant and different and passionate and owned every segment it touched.

I just miss those days and it makes me wistful when the new accountant-run (literally) Apple sits on its' butt and milks what remains of Steve's amazingness.

They are almost a trillion dollar company with a quarter trillion in cash. They literally have hundreds of billions in cash that they could use to enter any space they wanted.

Instead, their big innovations this decade have been issuing a corporate bond (no kidding) and taking the iPad down market.

Now they are going to dump the most advanced and powerful silicon in the world in favour of something they can make themselves for cheaper. Sticking their finger in the eye of their small group of loyal users plus their tiny group of loyal developers.

Enjoy your stock options, Tim.

Only the marginal cost of arm chips will be cheaper. They have to pay for the R&D. It may actually cost them more in the end. but the resulting chips will be more powerful than Intel's garbage, burn less power, and will actual advance year-to-year instead of being stagnant for generations. We kicked Intel's ass in the 90's by using a simpler architecture and Apple is going to do the same thing with the same chip designers.

 

[MacsRuleOthersDrool]

If Apple wants a large market share they need to:

1) Drop the price significantly.

2) Create a better file browser than Finder. Check out Path Finder or Windows Explorer.

3) Include a supported VM by default, so you can easily run Linux and Windows (embrace and extend). Even if few uses Linux, power users are the ones who recommend computers to others.

4) Support NVIDIA and work for better compatibility with (Windows) games and GPU acceleration (AI etc)

5) Switch to a robuster / faster Web browser by default, or make Safari on par with Firefox,Chrome or Edge.

Switching to a new CPU architecture will not help, and it's not what customers are asking for.

1. Nope. No Race-to-the-Bottom for Apple.

2. Finder has significantly improved over the past few releases. And I don't happen to like Windows Explorer, thankyouverymuch!

3. Nope. Not their core compentency. Leave it to the Experts like Parallels and VMWare. they're pretty cheap, anyway.

4. That will be coming as eGPU starts getting some wider adoption.

5. I have no gripes with Safari. I happen to like it better than the alternatives. "...on par with EDGE?!?" Do you even HEAR yourself???

6. It may not be what customers are asking for; but in a way, it is; since it is Intel's foot-dragging with LPDDR4 Support and flatlined processor throughput that is primarily causing Apple to consider this radical move.
[doublepost=1522861653][/doublepost]

Because MS does lots of stuff just to see what people want. Some of it works and some of it doesn't.

The existence of Windows for ARM does not mean that those who use Windows on a mac now will be able to use Windows on a mac with ARM processors. It's one more nail in the enterprise coffin and one more way to drive away users. Stupid.

I didn't imply that you made the processor -- just that you bought it.

You just want to argue.

Goodbye.

 

[dirt_farmer]

Only the marginal cost of arm chips will be cheaper. They have to pay for the R&D. It may actually cost them more in the end. but the resulting chips will be more powerful than Intel's garbage, burn less power, and will actual advance year-to-year instead of being stagnant for generations. We kicked Intel's ass in the 90's by using a simpler architecture and Apple is going to do the same thing with the same chip designers.

Uh huh.

Apple did not make chips in the 90's; they were part of a consortium that included IBM.

In the end, even the combined resources of the consortium could not keep pace. Apple gave up so hard that they had to screw over their users and developers with an architecture switch.

Now Apple will go it alone and somehow beat Intel in Intel's market. In a way that AMD, IBM, Qualcomm, Samsung, etc. never could.

Do you really think that's true, or do you think that Apple will do what Apple is good at? Produce a demonstrably mediocre product but use their insane marketing engine to convince consumers that mediocre is the best.

I will not bet money that Apple is going to somehow become the best processor maker in the world just by wishing that they are.

I bet they will convince themselves and their users that those so-called "high-power" chips just aren't needed.

 

[KoolAid-Drink]

I understand that, but some devs are just lazy or have hacked together an app that is impossible to recompile or whatever.

What's the name of the PPC accounting or whatver app that took years to move to Intel? I'm pretty sure it needed no low level assembly code.

I believe it was Quicken 2007.

 

[techwhiz]

I think the Fundamental Question people are asking is does Apple have the necessary CPU Design Skills to produce a Desktop Class processor that could rival and Outperform Intels? And Other people are trying to defend that A11 Bionic is already Desktop Class so designing new chips wont be a difficulty. Thats the whole battle. I am not sure if Apple has the skills but i am confident that Apple would have thought something before taking this decision, afterall Tim's reputation is at stake here and i dont think he would take any decision where his ass is handed out to him by Intel, if Apple is not confident of the outcome they probably wont do it.

That is exactly what I have been saying since the thread started.
A11 is not a competitor to an i9, no matter what Geekbench says.

From Geekbench
Nov 16, 2017 iMac19,1Intel Core i9-7900X 3312 MHz (10 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 5644 42660
Oct 26, 2017 MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2017)Intel Core i7-7920HQ 3100 MHz (4 cores) Mac OS X 64-bit 4969 16999
Apr 04, 2018 iPhone XApple A11 Bionic 2390 MHz (6 cores) iOS 64-bit 4262 10529

Now Geekbench gives a number for single and multicore workloads.
They claim real world workloads but I haven't seen the code.
But normalizing the multicore performance and just scaling speed; that gives
(1.29 x 10529)/6 = 2263 - A11
(1.06 x 16999)/4 = 4504 - i7
42660/10 = 4266 - i9

Clearly that's not how we evaluate performance but even normalizing for speed; the multicore performance of the A11 needs double the performance per core to be in the class of an i7 or i9.
For a single core normalizing for clock speed gets you in the ballpark, but that makes a lot of assumptions and none of them include the I/O for a balanced laptop/desktop system that the A11 does not have.

Once again, I didn't say Apple can't do it.
The ROI needs to make sense to invest the billion dollars in people, tools, silicon characterization, packaging research, etc. that it's going to take to even start to get a family of processors.

Ask Sun, HP, HAL and others how much money it takes to go head to head with Intel.