This would only occur if the price were low enough to justify the poor performance, which I don't see coming from Apple. Or an amazing solution coming out in WWDC.
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Apple Testing an ARM (A5) Powered MacBook Air?
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Almost all apps use GCD to one extent or another. The number of cores an app can leverage depends upon how the code is written and what the data models can support. Some apps are inherently single threaded but most can find some level of concurrancy.
I'm not sure where all your negativity with respect to GCD comes from. GCD provides one approach to leveraging modern hardware that works in hand with other approaches.
blow45 said:
Almost all apps use GCD to one extent or another. The number of cores an app can leverage depends upon how the code is written and what the data models can support. Some apps are inherently single threaded but most can find some level of concurrancy.
I'm not sure where all your negativity with respect to GCD comes from. GCD provides one approach to leveraging modern hardware that works in hand with other approaches.
Aren't this things scallable? What if there is not only one A5 but 4 or more A5 working together...?
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My mind is totally blown! Do you guys actuall know what GCD is?
As to that Mail app you are whining about it got a fairly significant speed up when Snow Leopard was released. That was directly due to GCD being enabled in SL. Many apps that had used NSOperation prior to SL got a speed up with zero to little effort on the developers part when SL arrived. That again due to high level abstractions making use of GCD.
You guys seem to have jumped on this GCD is shlt bandwagon without having a clue as to it's usage. You really need to read up on things a bit.
blow45 said:
My mind is totally blown! Do you guys actuall know what GCD is?
As to that Mail app you are whining about it got a fairly significant speed up when Snow Leopard was released. That was directly due to GCD being enabled in SL. Many apps that had used NSOperation prior to SL got a speed up with zero to little effort on the developers part when SL arrived. That again due to high level abstractions making use of GCD.
You guys seem to have jumped on this GCD is shlt bandwagon without having a clue as to it's usage. You really need to read up on things a bit.
This sounds like it would resemble the performance of PC "Netbooks", which Apple has explicitly stated they don't want anything to do with. I agree 100% with those who say that, if this rumor is true, it was for purely experimental purposes and no implementation will be possible until ARM performance comes close to that of Intel with significantly lower power usage... otherwise, what's the draw (no pun intended).
Apple refused to do netbooks because they know that a poorly performing Apple branded device (i.e. poor/choppy video playback, constant "rainbow wheels", etc) is only going to hurt their reputation... they would gain nothing from this in the long run.
Apple refused to do netbooks because they know that a poorly performing Apple branded device (i.e. poor/choppy video playback, constant "rainbow wheels", etc) is only going to hurt their reputation... they would gain nothing from this in the long run.
Pardon? I think you're getting confused (much like in that discussion regarding games). I only said I wouldn't buy a MBA with an A5. What conclusions were I jumping to?
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This might very well be where they are going. LLVM is one of the most interesting open source projects going with a lot of great brains behind it.
I do wonder if it is ready for prime time though. It would be a big jump for Apple. That and the lack of rumors or leaks has me thinking Lion won't get it. The other issue is with developers some whom might object to the distribution of IR code. This would eliminate the emulation problem though. Of course optimizing for a platform won't be easy this way.
FvL said:
This might very well be where they are going. LLVM is one of the most interesting open source projects going with a lot of great brains behind it.
I do wonder if it is ready for prime time though. It would be a big jump for Apple. That and the lack of rumors or leaks has me thinking Lion won't get it. The other issue is with developers some whom might object to the distribution of IR code. This would eliminate the emulation problem though. Of course optimizing for a platform won't be easy this way.
...
I called this a year ago, and yes Apple will eventually do it. It will run iOS not OSX its just a matter of getting iOS to be close enough to a desktop OS that it is acceptable...I think that will only take a year or two more. Then it will basically be an ipad with a real keyboard and a small mirrored LCD touchscreen instead of a trackpad so you don't have to touch on the vertical surface. In a laptop that thing would have days and days of battery life (but still no flash lol)
I called this a year ago, and yes Apple will eventually do it. It will run iOS not OSX its just a matter of getting iOS to be close enough to a desktop OS that it is acceptable...I think that will only take a year or two more. Then it will basically be an ipad with a real keyboard and a small mirrored LCD touchscreen instead of a trackpad so you don't have to touch on the vertical surface. In a laptop that thing would have days and days of battery life (but still no flash lol)
Correct. I'm a journalist and author and while I love the iPad for taking notes (yes, typing on the screen -- which isn't nearly as bad as everyone says it is) for long form writing I'd prefer a physical keyboard.
Perhaps these A5 MBA's are just a testing platform for a whole new class of notebook positioned below the Air. They're just using Air hardware -- or something that resembles Air hardware.
There's a big difference between poor performance and low power, though. I wouldn't say the iPad has poor performance, but it certainly does last a long time on a single charge. Those Atom netbooks couldn't even play YouTube videos and were cheaply made. A theoretical ARM Air would almost be slotted north of $500.
Nope, just pointing out that a SSD is only an advantage in a disk I/O heavy workflow.Which was my initial and still is my point really. You went off on a tangeant about main computer components (again, network is as much a main component in today's boxes as HDDs) and assumptions about my own workflow.
We're not talking about you, we're talking about the OP who I quoted and you chimmed in on. So by talking about your own personal needs, who went off on a tangeant?
Apple needs to get their ducks in a row first. Mac OS X and iOS have to share the same core functionality, the hardware has to be powerful enough, and Apple needs to get their apps (iLife, iWork) running on anything from an iPad to a dual, 8-core Mac Pro with hyper-threading. The minimum requirements to make this happens are:
- iOS 5 and OS X "Lion"
- 1.5GHz, quad-core processor (at least for the MacBook Air)
To make this a seamless as possible, Apple might combine iOS and OS X into one OS which would need Xcode 5 to create the binaries.
I sprinkled a bit of Apple magic on my Dell Mini 9 netbook, allowing it to run Mac OS X. Not only can it play YouTube videos, it can play them full screen without dropping frames. Running Windows XP on the same netbook causes it to take about 3x longer to boot and YouTube videos drop frames like crazy.
It's all about the software. The hardware existed for a long time. I think Apple could do some amazing things with the combination of ARM and Mac OS X. Hell, if Microsoft can get Windows running on ARM (albeit poorly from the reports I heard), Apple can make OS X sing on ARM.
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You aren't the only one! I've seen many posts from people using AIRs in advanced or demanding ways.
Personally I don't have an AIR (yet) but I'm tempted to replace my old 15" MBP with one. Being an old fart the biggest thing keeping me from doing so is the small screen followed by the lack of storage. These are things Apple could easily address in the future.
Sometimes people mix up the concepts here. A power user in my mind is anyone conversant with his machine and the tools required for whatever he is working on. Frankly there are not many power users out there with most people having a casual relationship with their machine.
Back in the day there where many HP calculator power users out there. That is a tiny device compared to the AIR but the same concept applies. For every one HP calculator power user there where tens of more casual users.
In the end the new AIRs are very capable. With a Sandy Bridge implementation they will simply attract more users.
KnightWRX said:
You aren't the only one! I've seen many posts from people using AIRs in advanced or demanding ways.
Personally I don't have an AIR (yet) but I'm tempted to replace my old 15" MBP with one. Being an old fart the biggest thing keeping me from doing so is the small screen followed by the lack of storage. These are things Apple could easily address in the future.
Sometimes people mix up the concepts here. A power user in my mind is anyone conversant with his machine and the tools required for whatever he is working on. Frankly there are not many power users out there with most people having a casual relationship with their machine.
Back in the day there where many HP calculator power users out there. That is a tiny device compared to the AIR but the same concept applies. For every one HP calculator power user there where tens of more casual users.
In the end the new AIRs are very capable. With a Sandy Bridge implementation they will simply attract more users.
There is no reason why ARM can't blow the doors off of X86. There is no reason why Intel might not be thinking of moving to an ARM based architecture.
X86 is getting old. It needs to die someday. Now is as good a time as any.
X86 is getting old. It needs to die someday. Now is as good a time as any.
Checkmate to Intel
I think it will take 2 to 3 years to go ARM in any laptop with considerable performance and battery life.
Intel CPU is the expensive part in $999 MacBook Air (almost $250 to $300), I was surprised Apple gotta good discount on LV/ULV CPUs and making profits on the MBA (35% margin).
so this rumor is doing checkmate to Intel and see how the industry plays out in next 24 to 36 months.
of course these are prototypes are on the work to see how ARM performs in a laptop form
remember there was a rumor Samsung working on Desktop class ARM CPUs
give it a few years we will be there, not now
I think it will take 2 to 3 years to go ARM in any laptop with considerable performance and battery life.
Intel CPU is the expensive part in $999 MacBook Air (almost $250 to $300), I was surprised Apple gotta good discount on LV/ULV CPUs and making profits on the MBA (35% margin).
so this rumor is doing checkmate to Intel and see how the industry plays out in next 24 to 36 months.
of course these are prototypes are on the work to see how ARM performs in a laptop form
remember there was a rumor Samsung working on Desktop class ARM CPUs
give it a few years we will be there, not now
This is a great idea for the A5 and what better way to this on a Macbook air. The only problem I see is a release date & what about pricing. Shouldn't it be a little less.
Think outside the box
Many people are speculating that the Macbook Air will ONLY run on the A5. But what if they add an A5 and offload things like audio/video playback or iOS apps to it? This could lower the Intel chip usage and increase battery life...
Many people are speculating that the Macbook Air will ONLY run on the A5. But what if they add an A5 and offload things like audio/video playback or iOS apps to it? This could lower the Intel chip usage and increase battery life...
Or think 2 boxes...
The 2 different Air lines would be for different classes of users.
I do think it would need a name differentiation if they did have both.
Or Apple could release an A5 Air as a new machine and not a replacement for the Intel Air.
The 2 different Air lines would be for different classes of users.
I do think it would need a name differentiation if they did have both.
They were testing Intel processors since basically the first release of OS X, Apple wants to keep it's options open. If they made the switch to ARM it wouldn't be for another 2 years most likely
Yes there is a reason why intel blows the door off of ARM based processors. They're orders of magnitude faster. ARM is great low powered mobile devices, not for desktop computing needs. How many cores does the typical ARM processor currently have 2? How many does the core i7 have with hyper-threading 8. Additionally Sandy Bridge has shown to be incredibly faster over the prior edition, never mind ARM based products.