That's because the Air has an SSD. Throw an SSD in your old Core2Duo MacBook Pro and the MBP would be faster. I can understand if you prefer the Air, it's very portable... but it ain't faster than an '09 MacBook Pro. It's the SSD that's making the difference.
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Apple Testing an ARM (A5) Powered MacBook Air?
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That's because the Air has an SSD. Throw an SSD in your old Core2Duo MacBook Pro and the MBP would be faster. I can understand if you prefer the Air, it's very portable... but it ain't faster than an '09 MacBook Pro. It's the SSD that's making the difference.
How can you come to this conclusion ? For all you know, OS X runs on Intel, PPC, ARM, MIPS, Alpha, PA-RISC, Acorn, SPARC and other architectures.
Linux does. BSD does. Having a source tree compatible to dozens of CPU architectures is quite feasible, open source projects do it all the time. If a bunch of basement dwelling volunteers can write architecture independent code, I bet Apple can to.
Only in disk I/O operations. The SSD has no impact on anything else in the system. If anything, that means rdlink's workflow is highly disk I/O dependent (and in this day and age, CPU bound tasks are getting much, much rarer).
Yes and AMD's Bulldozer and their GPU/APU options will run circles around it and AMD's already full support for OpenCL 1.1 on the CPU and GPU.
Well that's not a machine I could buy. The reason why Macs are so appealing to me now, the reason why I just bought the top of the line iMac model, was because of Intel chips. They're powerful and run both main consumer OS's and are compatible with all my applications.
This rumor is about MBA specifically and jumping to wild conclusions is your own problem.
Maybe Apple will include an ARM processor as well as an Intel chip on future machines. This way you could run OSX or iOS. I could see being able to start the computer in iOS (or OS X) first with OS X loading in the background, ready to switch into should you want to switch. Some people would stay in the iOS environment most of the time, others in OS X. That could be an immediate use of ARM processors with a gradual switch to them as they become faster and more powerful.
What wild conclusions ? He said he would not buy that machine. He didn't say he would never buy another Mac again.
Is it not you that's jumping to conclusions in this case ?
You wouldn't have it on this either...all software would have to be recompiled as ARM binaries.
"Universal" Mac apps would have to make a comeback.
I could still see this happening, but probably not for another year or two.
Haha, I understand how computers work dude. I'm explaining to him that the performance increase he's seeing is from the SSD. A regular HDD is the single biggest bottleneck to a modern computer. They simply can't keep up with the processor and ram. I guarantee you it has less to do with his tasks being overly disk intensive, and more to do with the snappy response he gets from any user requests that require the SSD to deliver information.
Really ? Because based on my workflow, it's the 802.11n that's the biggest bottleneck, I rarely hit the hard drive.
Really ? Because based on my workflow, it's the 802.11n that's the biggest bottleneck, I rarely hit the hard drive.
That's because all you do is surf the web and check your e-mail
Edit: Also a wireless card is not required to run a computer, I said main component. So your point is completely moot.
ARM gets annihilated by anything intel. Yes battery life is good, but so is processing power, power is more important to me anyways.
That's because all you do is surf the web and check your e-mail
No, I VPN into work and run all my media off a network based NAS mostly. The other bottleneck is my typing speed, as about the only other main tasks I do on my computer is write code or type out Unix commands.
In fact, about the only web browsing I do is Mac Rumors, Slashdot and a Harley-Davidson forum.
A computer without a network connection is worthless to me. The network connection is about as main a component as it gets in 2011. On another note, I could boot off iSCSI for all I care and have no hard drive at all in my machines. In fact, at work we essentially do that, no local storage at all, all done over the network (except there we have budget and run the stuff over a dual fabric FC SAN).
Would it be possible to have both a A5 and and intel chip on board? Imagine being able to run both OSX and iOS
The question is why would we want to ? OS X is instant on already (has been for years on laptops with the sleep mode) and offers all the same functionality iOS does.
iOS on a Mac is redundant if that same Mac is running OS X.
This story is much ado about no too much. It seems some here forget that Apple is experimenting with Intel chips in Macs well, well before it dumped PPC out of necessity.
Apple's decision to go Intel was not random. PPC as far as desktop computing goes was at the end of the line, it was a sinking ship. Evidence of Apple toying with ARM in laptops means nothing other than Apple isn't sitting on its laurels.
If Apple does ever jump to ARM it will not be on a whim, or at the expense of damaging the Mac brand or aliening consumers tired of bi-decade transitions. Like going Intel (something many here screamed would doom Apple), if Apple goes ARM it will be with a specific purpose to strengthen the brand.
Apple's decision to go Intel was not random. PPC as far as desktop computing goes was at the end of the line, it was a sinking ship. Evidence of Apple toying with ARM in laptops means nothing other than Apple isn't sitting on its laurels.
If Apple does ever jump to ARM it will not be on a whim, or at the expense of damaging the Mac brand or aliening consumers tired of bi-decade transitions. Like going Intel (something many here screamed would doom Apple), if Apple goes ARM it will be with a specific purpose to strengthen the brand.
I like the idea of having an ARM and Intel CPU in one machine. But I think it's more likely OSX runs on ARM. iOS support would be a nice feature on an OSX machine, but including an ARM CPU only for IOS, I don't think so.
Concerning the Universal binaries or recompilation problems, there should be a huge battery improvement solely from running OSX parts on the ARM chip, perhaps Safari too. So if you only use Mail and Safari you get a nice battery life and if you need Photoshop, this runs on the Intel CPU. This way Apple gets a nice migration pattern over time.
Concerning the Universal binaries or recompilation problems, there should be a huge battery improvement solely from running OSX parts on the ARM chip, perhaps Safari too. So if you only use Mail and Safari you get a nice battery life and if you need Photoshop, this runs on the Intel CPU. This way Apple gets a nice migration pattern over time.
For the MBA then it makes sense, an ultra portable lightweight laptop with a proper keyboard. Think iPad but with a proper keyboard.
If portability, battery life are the main criteria, then it makes sense, you can always find someone who has different needs, ( over at the efi-x forums there was a guy wanting to build a dual cpu portable computer ), so it won't work for everyone however for the people that Apple target at (not necessarily everyone that buys MBA's is in that target) then it is likely a good move
If people want to do heavy processsor intensive work then they would/should be looking at the MB or MBP anyway so if people using the Air that need the extra grunt don't but an ARM air but an MB or MBP instead Apple are hardly going to lose sleep over it.
Of course it also helps encourage Intel to get more power efficient on their CPU's, and Intel do seem to be trying to get that on there Atom series chips. I believe there was even a story recently about some exec at Intel saying that the roadmap we influenced by Apple.
However I wouldn't expect to see until at least Lion launches, and possibly even later.
If portability, battery life are the main criteria, then it makes sense, you can always find someone who has different needs, ( over at the efi-x forums there was a guy wanting to build a dual cpu portable computer ), so it won't work for everyone however for the people that Apple target at (not necessarily everyone that buys MBA's is in that target) then it is likely a good move
If people want to do heavy processsor intensive work then they would/should be looking at the MB or MBP anyway so if people using the Air that need the extra grunt don't but an ARM air but an MB or MBP instead Apple are hardly going to lose sleep over it.
Of course it also helps encourage Intel to get more power efficient on their CPU's, and Intel do seem to be trying to get that on there Atom series chips. I believe there was even a story recently about some exec at Intel saying that the roadmap we influenced by Apple.
However I wouldn't expect to see until at least Lion launches, and possibly even later.
i just want ivy bridge MacBook Airs. the power efficiency increases for those should be good enough for me.
So you're assuming that everyone's needs is similar to your own then? I told you a single regular HDD is the biggest bottle neck of the main components that are required for the computer to run. Nothing you're describing is required hardware. Not to mention you're trying to defend your point, but describing your completely unique situation that you and about 1% of the population are in. Read any review on an SSD, almost every reviewer will tell you it was the single most significant improvement added to their computer. I'd bet $100 that you're not even coming close to capping the bandwidth speeds that your Network Connection is capable of. More than likely, you're reaching the cap of your VPN connection. And in the rare likely hood that you are... get a Dual Gigabit LAN connection like someone in your field should have in the first place.
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I love watching the posters get twisted and confused over such reports.
And there you go. The intelligent post of the day. Excellent.
And there you go. The intelligent post of the day. Excellent.
We probably won t see an MBA on ARM this year and maybe not even the next but I sure am glad they are testing it...
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The ARM CPUs simply don't have the performance to emulate an i86 processor, especially considering that much of today's software is going 64 bit.
I'm still of the opinion that if Apple goes this route the machine will be an IOS device. The other point here is the phrase "better than expected" I'm certain the Apple engineers where not expecting much out of the experiment, so better than expected tells us nothing about how the platform performs under load. It could easily be ten times slower than a Sandy Bridge based AIR and still perform better than expected.
In any event I honestly think Apple would need another spin on it's "A" series processor to get performance up a bit. Not so much via clock rate but via more cores. It would not make any sense to loose the thermal advantage of low clock rates.
In the end I guess it depends upon ones personal needs. I find the current AIRs desirable but just a little to little performance wise so I don't see myself in the market for an ARM based AIR. t least not today where my light weight portable needs are handled pretty well by the iPad.
Speaking of iPad they could be using this machine for prototyping others iOS devices. An iPad with a slide out keyboard or a convertible tablet might be in the works. I don't care much for convertibles but an iPad with a programmable slide out key board would be interesting. How they would make it programmable and at the sometime more suitable for touch typing is a mystery. The reality is we don't know why this machine was built, it is likely one of hundreds of prototypes built every year.
uncle.zed said:
The ARM CPUs simply don't have the performance to emulate an i86 processor, especially considering that much of today's software is going 64 bit.
I'm still of the opinion that if Apple goes this route the machine will be an IOS device. The other point here is the phrase "better than expected" I'm certain the Apple engineers where not expecting much out of the experiment, so better than expected tells us nothing about how the platform performs under load. It could easily be ten times slower than a Sandy Bridge based AIR and still perform better than expected.
In any event I honestly think Apple would need another spin on it's "A" series processor to get performance up a bit. Not so much via clock rate but via more cores. It would not make any sense to loose the thermal advantage of low clock rates.
In the end I guess it depends upon ones personal needs. I find the current AIRs desirable but just a little to little performance wise so I don't see myself in the market for an ARM based AIR. t least not today where my light weight portable needs are handled pretty well by the iPad.
Speaking of iPad they could be using this machine for prototyping others iOS devices. An iPad with a slide out keyboard or a convertible tablet might be in the works. I don't care much for convertibles but an iPad with a programmable slide out key board would be interesting. How they would make it programmable and at the sometime more suitable for touch typing is a mystery. The reality is we don't know why this machine was built, it is likely one of hundreds of prototypes built every year.
Sigh
Some of you don't have a very long memory.
The PPC to Intel was a huge pain for the userbase.
Those of us who had PowerMac G5s were sort of kicked to the curb when the Intel switch was announced. Two years after the switch the writing was on the wall that our stuff was not only obsolete but support for that machine in most software was quickly ushered out.
Another switch so soon? Ugh. I'd rather go off to the PC and Windows and be done with it rather than leaping architectures again anytime some incremental improvement in battery life appears.
My uses are power uses, not some "I need 12 hours of battery life so I can watch movies on my next transatlantic plane flight".
Now if the thing benches over 10,000 in geekbench and then still gets 12 hours of battery life I'd consider it but this "you need to rebuy all of your expensive pro apps every 5 years because Apple wants to make more money and inconvenience and fragment their userbase" forget it.
Plus, I discount the rumor: Thunderbolt is an Intel technology. They're not going to license it to run on an Arm processor even as a lab experiment since ARM would technically be considered a competitor.
Now there's no doubt there's oddball lab machines out there but if they go "yay, we're changing again". I can't say I'll be onboard this time. That PPC to Intel debacle was unbelievably annoying.
Some of you don't have a very long memory.
The PPC to Intel was a huge pain for the userbase.
Those of us who had PowerMac G5s were sort of kicked to the curb when the Intel switch was announced. Two years after the switch the writing was on the wall that our stuff was not only obsolete but support for that machine in most software was quickly ushered out.
Another switch so soon? Ugh. I'd rather go off to the PC and Windows and be done with it rather than leaping architectures again anytime some incremental improvement in battery life appears.
My uses are power uses, not some "I need 12 hours of battery life so I can watch movies on my next transatlantic plane flight".
Now if the thing benches over 10,000 in geekbench and then still gets 12 hours of battery life I'd consider it but this "you need to rebuy all of your expensive pro apps every 5 years because Apple wants to make more money and inconvenience and fragment their userbase" forget it.
Plus, I discount the rumor: Thunderbolt is an Intel technology. They're not going to license it to run on an Arm processor even as a lab experiment since ARM would technically be considered a competitor.
Now there's no doubt there's oddball lab machines out there but if they go "yay, we're changing again". I can't say I'll be onboard this time. That PPC to Intel debacle was unbelievably annoying.