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Apple Testing an ARM (A5) Powered MacBook Air?

SockRolid said:
Agree that full-blown Mac OS X needs more than just one A5 to run well. So maybe Apple could put two A5s in a MacBook Air and use Grand Central Dispatch to coordinate tasks among the 4 cores on the two chips.
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my understanding is that gcd is open to developers to implement, if and when they can, but very few have implemented it, so to use a dual A5 scenario would take a lot of engineering, and it's just not ripe for compatibility issues as well.

I would say give it 1-2 years and then we can start talking about arm in macbooks.
 
I don't know all the technical challenges, but exactly how many "power users" buy a MacBook Air? MBA owners want something light with an insane amount of battery time. If you wanted something more "powerful," you would've bought a MacBook Pro.

I tested out the latest MBA when it came out. As far as speed goes (don't confuse this with power), on basic tasks it flies. No old-school spinning hard disk, just fast flash storage. If ARM processors can get iPad-like 10-hour battery life, you'll probably have plenty of buyers. It would also create a little more market separation between the MBA and MBP.

I personally like my iMac at home, iPad on the go setup about 95 percent of the time. I do wish I had desktop apps like Photoshop and a full keyboard from time to time, but mostly the unique abilities of an iPad make up for that. You can't have EVERYTHING you need without buying five or six different devices.

Now if Apple will just put a damn Blu-ray Disc drive on desktops and the capability to even use them in the OS, I WILL BE ONE HAPPY CAMPER.
 
This might sound dumb - can ARM run OS X? Or does this mean that the next MBA could be running iOS?
 
Perhaps a second boot option which keeps your files but boots into iOS with a user accessible file system that runs on the A5? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple shoves two or four of the A5 processors into the Macbook. They're certainly small and power efficient enough.
 
w00t951 said:
Perhaps a second boot option which keeps your files but boots into iOS with a user accessible file system that runs on the A5? I wouldn't be surprised if Apple shoves two or four of the A5 processors into the Macbook. They're certainly small and power efficient enough.
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I think that would be too complicated and unapple like, seeing as they are already attempting a unification of sorts for the oses (ios, os x) for them to add an other layer of complexity just for the airs, and at this moment. All the more so since the new airs are selling like hotcakes. Which of course hasn't stopped apple in the past from making radical changes (see ipod mini) but to something simpler and better, not to a configuration that isn't just there yet.
 
kjjnk said:
Only QuickTime X to my knowledge as of right now but Final Cut Pro X will support it so I'd expect Apple's other apps to follow suit soon.
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oh ok, as I expected. Actually I thought it was a bit better and that adobe where on the gcd bandwagon too (yeah right...). If the pro apps are switching to GCD now I think one can safely assume that most non pro apple apps will go to gcd in a couple of years, if ever, cause of course, I wouldnt think that adding e.g. gcd to mail.app would be something really productive and apple will be up for it.
 
blow45 said:
oh ok, as I expected. Actually I thought it was a bit better and that adobe where on the gcd bandwagon too (yeah right...). If the pro apps are switching to GCD now I think one can safely assume that most non pro apple apps will go to gcd in a couple of years, if ever, cause of course, I wouldnt think that adding e.g. gcd to mail.app would be something really productive and apple will be up for it.
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GCD is only useful for tasks that use a lot of CPU like rendering video. Putting GCD in something like TextEdit would have absolutely no value.
 
when are all the "anonymous" sources going to get an actual clue?

Thunderbolt and A5 are completely different companies. There is NO way Intel is going to license a chipset technology if they aren't selling the CPU chip, that would be stupid. If the A5 chip was built on top of the IA architecture, maybe, but that something they haven't even DESIGNED yet.

Get a real rumor and find something else to talk about.
 
johneaston said:
This might sound dumb - can ARM run OS X? Or does this mean that the next MBA could be running iOS?
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If you have a compiler and the source code for OS X then you can recompile. The problem is that *all* programs would need to be recompiled (unless you want to do emulation, but this would cause a large performance hit, on an already low CPU-power device)

All programs would need recompilation... Bootcamp would not work.

I hope that this is not true - Im considering to replace my MBP15 with a MBA13 at the next refresh. I'm a semi power user, but travel quite a bit and the 1kg lighter weight and lower bulk of the air is tempting.
 
wow, thats gonna be total ********. (-> so apple will def. make it happen!)
 
kjjnk said:
GCD is only useful for tasks that use a lot of CPU like rendering video. Putting GCD in something like TextEdit would have absolutely no value.
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sure, it's expected. Few apps actually lend themselves to parallelism well.
 
Smells like LLVM!

I guess that starting with Lion, Apple will force Apps submitted to the Mac App Store to be compiled with LLVM and distributed in LLVM-IR format. Then the OS will JIT compile to the target processor. This would not only make the Apps mostly processor-independent, but also automatically make use of the most efficient instruction set for the target processor.
 
tmuller said:
when are all the "anonymous" sources going to get an actual clue?

Thunderbolt and A5 are completely different companies. There is NO way Intel is going to license a chipset technology if they aren't selling the CPU chip, that would be stupid. If the A5 chip was built on top of the IA architecture, maybe, but that something they haven't even DESIGNED yet.

Get a real rumor and find something else to talk about.
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lol, I like the cut of your jib! :D
 
FvL said:
I guess that starting with Lion, Apple will force Apps submitted to the Mac App Store to be compiled with LLVM and distributed in LLVM-IR format. Then the OS will JIT compile to the target processor. This would not only make the Apps mostly processor-independent, but also automatically make use of the most efficient instruction set for the target processor.
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how come they 've not done it already, I am wondering...maybe they were waiting to establish a developers market place under their control first so they could enforce programming directives better.
 
According to Geekbench, iPad 2 compares roughly to iBook G4 form mid 2005 (http://browse.geekbench.ca/geekbench2/compare/413743/417221).

Probably in a year or two, ARM will double it’s performance. Then the performance is comparable to current 11" Macbook Air.

It seems that for everyday computing the ARM will be good enough, but the real problem is software. I would need Firefox and Zotero, MS Office, Omnigraffle, Check Point VPN, STATA etc do get my job done. For instance, I doubt that MS would port Office for Mac to ARM quickly and in quality.
 
Could it be a combination of two CPU one for low power need and a regular CPU like an i5 for bigger needs, still who is really cracking much real power user work on an Air. ;)
 
silverz said:
Seems cool, when will it release?
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Apple had MacOS X running on Intel processors four years before it was released.


FvL said:
I guess that starting with Lion, Apple will force Apps submitted to the Mac App Store to be compiled with LLVM and distributed in LLVM-IR format. Then the OS will JIT compile to the target processor. This would not only make the Apps mostly processor-independent, but also automatically make use of the most efficient instruction set for the target processor.
Click to expand...

Nonsense. Just build for three architectures (Intel 32 bit, Intel 64 bit, ARM) instead of two (Intel 32 bit, Intel 64 bit).


kjjnk said:
GCD is only useful for tasks that use a lot of CPU like rendering video. Putting GCD in something like TextEdit would have absolutely no value.
Click to expand...

I suppose you don't write multithreaded code. GCD is a godsend for anything talking to a server with long latency to avoid the hated beach balls.


johneaston said:
This might sound dumb - can ARM run OS X? Or does this mean that the next MBA could be running iOS?
Click to expand...

You can bet that Apple has a machine with an ARM processor running MacOS X somewhere and has had one for quite a while. Unlikely that they went to the pain of squeezing one into a MacBook Air case as this rumour says.
 
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Not surprised this is being tested; however, I'd say it's a little incorrect to say Apple is moving from Intel to ARM. Wouldn't it be x86 to ARM? I get what they mean, but with Apple's future A5's (etc, etc) possibly (and more than likely) being manufactured by Intel, I'd say the article's wording is a little misleading.

Granted, I'm just nitpicking and one could easily argue both sides. But anywhoooooooooo, I don't think ARM is ready for this sorta debut yet (though it's quickly getting there). I'd say unless Intel blows the competition outta the water in the future years (seems as if Ivy Bridge will be a good start), ARM could be a viable option.
 
blow45 said:
my understanding is that gcd is open to developers to implement, if and when they can, but very few have implemented it, so to use a dual A5 scenario would take a lot of engineering, and it's just not ripe for compatibility issues as well.

I would say give it 1-2 years and then we can start talking about arm in macbooks.
Click to expand...

If the time frame is realistically two years then...
We are talking the OS after Lion (and iOS5 Lion cub) has run it's course.
If we are talking major major system change that would seem to be needed.
So we should expect that they would have been testing A4 machines before the A4 was even public on top of A5 prototypes, there may even be an A6 prototype in the super secret lab already.

Also expect that this new OS gets previewed this WWDC and dominate the next two.
 
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