As much as I do not want to see another architectural shift, there is a distinct possibility that this rumor is true.
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.
I do remember the transition, especially because I was looking to switch from Windows to OS X at the time but when the Intel transition was announced, I refused to purchased the PPC machines and I had a hunch that the 32-bit Intel chips were a mere stop-gap. (Isn't Lion going 64-bit only?) Thus I was left dangling on Windows for another two years before I was willing to jump to OS X.
However, I am willing to bet that Apple will transition to ARM, much to my chagrin, for the following reasons:
1)
Win 8 will run on ARM. It is slated for release in 2012 or 2013. Apple and Microsoft are no longer engaged in an OS war (if SJ is to be believed), and I would not doubt that both have discussed the possibility of using ARM-based hardware. Is it just coincidence that MS has ported Win 8 to ARM and now Apple appears to be testing OS X on ARM?
2) ARM processors are going to get much faster and are going to gain more cores. According to
a recent article:
"ARM expects to ship dual-core Cortex-A15 SoCs in 2012 . . . the company predicts devices running on the 2.5GHz Cortex-A15 will actually reach store shelves before the end of 2012, with quad-core variants showing up in 2013."
The article mentions that the A15 is expected to perform at a level five fold that of the A9 chip and does state that the "quad-core SoCs expected for 2013 [are] geared towards tablets rather than phones," but Apple now appears to be interested in this technology for its future computers. Consequently, current analysis of A5 processors to current Intel chips is irrelevant with regard to Apple's future plans.
Geekbench processor scores for lulz:
A5 - 747
1.4 GHz Core 2 Duo (Penryn) - 2255
1.4 GHz Core i5 (Sandy Bridge)- 4519
Ivy Bridge will support OpenCL on the IGP.
Based on the article I cited and these scores, the A15 may deliver equivalent performance or even outperform Ivy Bridge and its successors. We will have to wait to see. Again, though, is it coincidence that MS is porting Win 8 to ARM in 2012/2013 and that much more advanced ARM chips are arriving in 2012/2013 or is this indicative of a larger trend?
3) As pointed out, Intel seems open to fabbing custom chips, and even seems willing to fab ARM chips.
What about the rumor that Intel would be pleased to integrate other IPs to their CPU design as long as a Intel CPU is in it.
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/05/2...making-foundry-deals-to-produce-custom-chips/
Was just a few days ago!
The ARM CPU could also gain a big improvement considering Intel's manufacturing process….
4) Apple's emphasis on Cocoa.(?)
The cool thing is Cocoa is so portable, that any Cocoa app will run perfectly on ARM with no extra coding required. Just a quick recompile. Pretty awesome.
I do not understand much about programming, but if the above quote is accurate, then Apple appears to be laying the foundation for a shift to ARM.
5) Apple has already re-written certain of its programs (e.g., iWork, iMovie) for ARM via the iPad. I have not used these apps (yet), so I do not know if they are as full-feature as their X86 counterparts (probably not), but it may represent the beginning of an experiment for Apple.
I personally dread the thought of another transition, but I wonder if this leak isn't intentional in order to provide Apple with advanced feedback without any commitment, much like the leak of the Intel transition the weekend before it was announced. I am a little more skeptical that such a transition would occur this year, but I could see a transition as early as next year (4Q?) depending upon the state of the development of ARM processors. However, I think the key to any transition is WWDC. If this transition will occur with Lion, it will be announced then. Otherwise, the soonest I would expect this transition would be the subsequent OS (after Lion).
