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Arm is nowhere near Intel now and wont be in 2020.

Would you rather have a slower cpu?

First, they aren't going to start by replacing the CPU in the "pro" computers with ARM. They'll start with macbook, then slowly move upstream. Second, comparing ARM *now* to Intel in 2020 makes no sense. It doesn't make sense to compare it to Intel *now* either. I have absolutely no doubt that the engineers at Apple can make an ARM CPU *today* that easily competes with any Intel chip suitable for MacBooks or macbook pros. I know many of those engineers personally, I've worked with them before, and at prior companies they have made CPUs that were faster than Intel chips at the time. And there's nothing in the ARM architecture that inherently makes it slower than x86. In fact, for a given power consumption, ARM is slightly faster than x86.
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If the agreement isn't renewed, Intel won't be allowed to make x86-64 chips. That would be a bit of an issue for them.

No it wouldn't. The only reason Intel makes AMD64 chips is because the existence of AMD forces them to. Intel's big idea was Itanium. They don't want to be selling AMD64 chips. Once they are a complete x86 monopoly they can do what they want.
 
They could just go back to PowerPC with IBM and go with the Power9 chips. There's already a workstation you can buy with Power9. Early benchmarks show it lags behind the fastest Epyc and Xeon chips, but that is probably just due to optimizations since Power9 is so new.

https://www.raptorcs.com/TALOSII/

If they are going to do a transition they are going to do it to ARM. For two reasons: 1) they then completely control their CPU destiny and 2) they then have a single architecture platform for all of their devices.
 
It always comes down to cost...I think they pay perhaps $20 per chip that goes into an iPhone. For everyday use ARM is good enough and would wager the majority of users are not content creators therefore makes sense for apple to produce such a computer for everyone. The content creators or pro users as apple calls them will stick with intel for now. They will make a boatload of cash, when that happens buy apple stock.
 
For everyday use ARM is good enough and would wager the majority of users are not content creators therefore makes sense for apple to produce such a computer for everyone.
OK. $1000 for the everyday computer. $3500 for the computer that's equipped for doing anything just a wee bit outside the everyday.
 
You summed it up nicely and goes to show how much apple is overcharging.

All in all I think people are just upset at the costs for a computer and lack of latest cpu / gnu technology in the windows world.
 
The "significant upside" to all this is for Apple to finally only allow apps onto it's new ARM platform from an app store which it takes 30% of. Apple is a business and (in Apple's eyes) the sooner it ditches user installed x86 code the better.

BTW I see the death of x86 code on the Mac as a bad thing but iOS is where Apple makes all the money nowadays so of course it's going to spread to the Mac like it or not.

There is no requirement that Apple switch architectures to lock the machine, nor is there a requirement that they lock the machine if they switch architectures.
 
I need to know now. I’m going to need to buy a new machine in the next year or so and if it needs to be another platform, the earlier I can do it the better. I don’t have truckloads to throw around on machines that will be quickly superceeded.

Main Machine: 2012 Non-Retina Macbook Pro (2.9 GHZ i7, 16GB of Ram, 1TB 850 Evo) iDevices: iPad Pro 10.5 256GB, iPad 2 64GB 3G, iPhone SE 64GB, Apple Watch S1 Collection: Many 68K and PPC Macs

I am kind of confused. You say your primary machine is a 2012 MacBook Pro, a six year old machine, yet you are worried that Apple might introduce a new machine in 2020, that might not be a machine you want and you need to know now as it will change your purchasing plans. If you can use a six year old machine to do your work, I do not understand why any decision that Apple might make in two year will matter. Based on the two previous transitions, there will be support for today’s architecture for at least 6 or 7 years. Why would some future decision on Apple’s part matter?

I don’t think you quite understand that there isn’t going to be a magic bullet that allows ARM chips to magically run x86 applications with no performance decline.

It is completely believable that a chip released in two years will be able to emulate a chip that is 6 years old at the same speed, however, I am still not clear why that matters in your case. Your old machine will still run all the apps your purchased for it at the same speed for at least 6 years. In the last transition, people released Universal Binaries for quite a few years, so any updated versions of your apps with continue to work as well on the old architecture as they would have with no transition.
 
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I am kind of confused. You say your primary machine is a 2012 MacBook Pro, a six year old machine, yet you are worried that Apple might introduce a new machine in 2020, that might not be a machine you want and you need to know now as it will change your purchasing plans. If you can use a six year old machine to do your work, I do not understand why any decision that Apple might make in two year will matter. Based on the two previous transitions, there will be support for today’s architecture for at least 6 or 7 years. Why would some future decision on Apple’s part matter?

Nup. I'm getting close to a new machine and I don't want to commit to a platform that Apple will quickly abandon. PPC Macs received lacklustre support after the intel transition. One Major OSX release that was very poorly optimised for PPC computers was all we got. I also want to know as soon as possible if I need to transition to Windows. The longer I put it off the more painful a switch, especially since I've used Macs my whole life.

It is completely believable that a chip released in two years will be able to emulate a chip that is 6 years old at the same speed, however, I am still not clear why that matters in your case. Your old machine will still run all the apps your purchased for it at the same speed for at least 6 years. In the last transition, people released Universal Binaries for quite a few years, so any updated versions of your apps with continue to work as well on the old architecture as they would have with no transition.

Um no. I don't believe there will be a 2020 Arm Chip that will emulate a 2020 intel chip. That is the comparison to make. It does matter in my case. And regardless, emulation takes a toll on battery life and performance and erases all the supposed benefits of using Arm to begin with.

Universal Binary Apps didn't stick around for very long and neither did Apple's support for PPC Macs.
 
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Apple wants us all off 32 bit--it doesn't care about maintaining links with the past.

Remember when you lost access to your PowerPC library? It's going to be like that.
 
Apple's initiative, reportedly code named "Kalamata," is part of an effort to make Macs, iPhones, and iPads work "more similarly and seamlessly together" according to unspecified sources that spoke to Bloomberg.
We need to see some true innovation on the Mac platform (like the iMac Pro), not things brought over from mobile iOS devices as an afterthought to make Macs more like them. But the latter seems to be most of what Apple is doing, treating the most expensive products (Macs) as an afterthought, apparent even when looking at the name change from OS X to macOS.
 
"Apple won’t use ARM in the MacBook Air or any other Mac laptops anytime soon, because by the time you’re done making compromises, you’d end up with an iPad"

www.cultofmac.com/144942/why-youll-probably-never-own-a-mac-with-an-arm-processor-feature/amp/

Right, from a 6 year old article saying that this will not be happening in at least the next five years. Apple's ARM SoCs are inching closer to x86 parity. We could be seeing Macs that run the OS on ARM, support iApps, and keep Mac apps on the x86 side FTTB. If they transition to ARM for everything, they might include a quick-slot for adding in x86 compatibility.
 
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Arm is nowhere near Intel now and wont be in 2020.

Would you rather have a slower cpu?
If you’re comparing power sipping chips designed to draw from a tiny 1800mAh battery to something designed to go into a large laptop or desktop, sure they are still not competitive. If you’re comparing like for like, the A series appear to be providing more power than equivalent intel parts.
 
The A11 has a neural net array etched into the SoC, primarily for the face ID function, but I can imagine that it could be useful for accelerating other processes. They have an API that developers can access, so there seems to be quite a bit of highly efficient power potential for anyone who can make optimal use of it. For instance, finding the objects that are in a photograph (a huge reduction for photo manipulators, and perhaps 3D object composition from 2D images).

It also has FPGA logic, which offers enormous potential for accelerating some heavy compute tasks. Apple CPUs are monsters. Single core and multicore benchmarks fall short of their strength compared to what Intel has to offer. Apple look well-positioned to dust the high-end competition, if they decide to pursue that route. But keeping their chips/designs to themself may not be the best strategy for the long term, if they do want to have traction in the serious computing market.
 
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Slower? Arm is RISC while Intel uses a would be like another translator. Therefore being direct with RISC would use less power than Intel, but wouldn't be as fast speed wise. Doubt we're talking that huge a difference.

https://www.androidauthority.com/arm-vs-x86-key-differences-explained-568718/

Yes slower! Name one arm cpu that can perform faster than an intel cpu.

I9 cpus are doing 60k multi scores on geek bench and not even overclocked.

That is 6x faster than the fastest arm cpu today

Screenshot_20180421-231610_Samsung Internet.jpg
 
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I'm old enough also. I think it will be a double-sided sword like it was the last time. We'll probably see the price of Apple products more in line with PCs of comparable power (or even cheaper) but we'll see less compatibility with Mac from hardware developers and maybe software. It might be a little different because of the wide-spread iOS market, especially if they make Mac OS more like iOS—which I think is a mistake for professional use, but who knows.

We may also gain an edge with pro apps because developing for the new architecture might force them to optimize for it by default—something they never really did since the Intel switch—and something else we had back then when Macs trounced PCs in the graphics and pro audio departments short of the very highest end of 3D. Most graphics apps for the past decade have benefitted mostly on Windows, even with GPUs and games.

What I do hope is that Apple hardware is made better. Their profit margin is too high and their non-pro (mostly all) of their hardware is plagued with faults, numerous recalls, etc. The profit boost in manufacturing their own CPUs could theoretically get us back to the "built like a tank" days.

So in my opinion I think we'll see good and bad from it. I think we could all use a dump truck of good from Apple, but I'm not holding my breath.

Wow! I remember the transition from power PC chips to Intel. Yes, I am that old and have been around Apple that long. This will be quite the transition similar to that time.

Frankly put, I’m excited especially with some of the business decisions Intel has been making as of late.
 
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What I do hope is that Apple hardware is made better. Their profit margin is too high and their non-pro (mostly all) of their hardware is plagued with faults, numerous recalls, etc. The profit boost in manufacturing their own CPUs could theoretically get us back to the "built like a tank" days.

Until proven otherwise, I think the facts speak much higher to the notion that Apple likes the idea of planned obsolescence. I mean, come on - It may not be built into their designs, but it's certainly a (internally) welcome side effect.
 
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Until proven otherwise, I think the facts speak much higher to the notion that Apple likes the idea of planned obsolescence. I mean, come on - It may not be built into their designs, but it's certainly a (internally) welcome side effect.

I’m running a 2009 mbp as an iTunes server. I never was able to keep a windows machine from hp or dell running well that long. I think Apple is fine.
 
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