Apple Testing ARM Based Mac Prototypes with Large Magic Trackpad?

[jlc1978]

yes man but what is happeninig for those americans who play WOW/Starcraft etc on their macs...there are apps only Intel/Amd. And lets not forgot that are still apps on MAC that dont worl and you need windows

Despite all the angst about possibly losing VM/Bootcamp if Apple migrates to ARM, I'd bet the percentage of Mac users who use a VM is small, and the percentage that really need it is smaller yet. Of those, most are probably using a VM for non-graphics/processor intensive tasks, such as running Visio or other work type application; as a result, Apple can safely ignore them or simply build a software layer to allow VM's to run since most users wouldn't notice a performance hit.

 

[anomie]

PPC was an inferior platform, built by a small company and IBM. Intel is the undisputed market leader in chips.

Intel also sells an ~8 watt processor (Y class) that no one appears to be using. So that would fit just fine in a device like this.

Call Apple and tell them what their "brillant" engineers weren't able to find out!

 

[Crosscreek]

I was wondering if any one Knows if the A8 chip supports DDR4?

 

[yeah]

Everyone, calm your tits. Apple won't completely abandon x86. It's suicide. Instead, they will likely introduce an ARM product and name it something other than "mac"

I honestly thought computers today are x64, since everything is 64-bit now.

 

[robjulo]

.....but its Apple and they just test and test things and unless they are fabulous they don't see the light of day.

.....

Really? Maps fabulous?

 

[tevion5]

Please no. I can't take another processor transition...

MOS 6502 -> Motorola 68K -> IBM PPC -> Intel x86 ( -> ARM)

I'd say it's about time by their track record!

 

[theluggage]

Sad to say but if Apple starts mainlining ARM I'm likely out of their Desktops.
<<snip>>
The reasons to switch from PowerPC to x86 were many. The reasons to switch from x86 to ARM are 1, mobile.

...and 2, complete flexibility over processor design, rather than dependency on Intel producing the exact chip they need. ARM's real Unique Selling Point is the way ARM licenses their technology. A large player like Apple can license individual 'building blocks' from ARM and build their own, custom, system-on-a-chip with the exact blend of CPU cores, graphics, i/o, cache etc. that they need - which is exactly what Apple did with the A7.

I did read it, and I'm not sold that its a trivial move for developers since the cpu structure is so different. The same thing was said about PPC...

Depends entirely on the application. Something developed from scratch in xcode that uses existing OS X subsystems like Core Image will likely recompile at the flick of a switch. Something with lots of legacy code, or that relies on specific Intel features to bake its own image processing etc. may need a rewrite. Hopefully, after 68k->PPC and PPC->x86, Apple developers should have got the message by now and really not make assumptions about architecture.

Anyway folks, don't panic. What would be strange and worrying is if Apple were not hedging their bets and experimenting with OS X on ARM. A wholesale switch to ARM is possible, but not probable. Seems to me that these ARM laptops have two possible purposes:

1. Memo to Intel: Other processors are available - please remember that in future negotiations and make sure we're first on the waiting list for Broadwell.

2. Its the Apple answer to Chromebook, should Chromebook take off - in which case, legacy OS X software is probably irrelevant.

 

[S.B.G]

There's been a few rumors of apple moving along to an ARM architecture, at least for one model. I don't understand it, look at the failure of the windows rt. I'd avoid it like the plague.

Why would you avoid it?

I'm sure someone else has already thought of it and mentioned it, but what if Apple introduces OS XI and it runs on ARM or a hybrid of ARM and Intel and brings some crazy new innovative features with it?

 

[wizard]

It wouldn't surprise me because the trend has been moving toward Apple supplying more of its own components for its most popular device lines (AX, MX, etc.) but I wonder just how smooth a transition it would really be on the user end for a lot of people. I also love being able to dualboot Windows 8 for some things on my MacBook Pro and I definitely count that as a plus, so there would be at least one big bonus capability out the window for me and a lot of others.

Then these machines wouldn't be for you then would they? I really don't see Apple leaving Intel behind on their professional platforms.

What is their ostensible reason for doing this? Would it make a substantial dent in the price points for these machines if they were to nix Intel for their own chipset?

I could see Apple saving $300 in parts costs. You could have an entry level machine (laptop) coming in at $500-600 with most of the capabilities of the current AIRs.

That is cost. The real advantage is freeing yourself from Intels silicon and thus engineering the SoC to your exact needs. I've mentioned this in other threads but today and into the future silicon is effectively the fiberglass printed circuit board of the 80's. Silicon is now where you build the whole computer, more or less, instead of adding functionality via different ICs on a fiberglass motherboard. Just look at how the A series chips have evolved or look at some of the latest AMD chips such as Kaveri. Very little functionality these days is implemented or needs to be implemented off chip. With each process shrink it just makes more and more sense to pursue SoC technology.

 

[tevion5]

I see ARM-based MacBooks facing some of the very same hurdles as Surface RT products. Mainly, what apps would run on one, besides Apple applications? Unless an emulator was provided, but that would be inefficient as hell in terms of battery consumption.

Apple will go all ARM, or no ARM. No pick and mixing like Microsoft.

A total conversion with the Apple developer environment would force devs to adapt just as they did with the intel transition, and that was pretty clean all things considered.

 

[bommai]

Compared to intel or IBM, they are tiny. They are even smaller now than they were then.

You got your facts wrong. Back in 1992 when the partnership started, Motorola was pretty big and bigger than intel. It was all downhill after that. Check out historic data.

 

[balamw]

• Tighter control of chip development
• Better integration between chip and OS X
• Potential cost savings for Apple and maybe customer
• Perhaps potential for some new innovative features

• Battery life!
• Multiple vendors

For a typical i3-ish box, an ARM equivalent should be more efficient.

If Windows RT had taken off we might be having a very different discussion here. It really looks like the transition to ARM will happen whether Intel likes it or not.

B

 

[skaertus]

But Windows is rooted in the PC era.

The world is moving on to the post-PC era.

Does Apple need to accommodate people who are tethered to an increasingly anachronistic method of working? Or should Apple concentrate on the future?

Versions of Office and iWork already work on ARM processors...versions that are good enough for the vast majority of users, versions that can and will be improved in time.

Increasingly, people are moving to cloud based services and apps...where the processor is irrelevant.

If ARM processors can meet 99% of the needs of 99% of users, then the PC era really is dead.

This whole "post-PC" era is a market gymmic which Apple did not create, but used it to its benefit. It's purely Apple's sales pitch, because the Mac was never as popular as the PC and Apple tries hard to push to devices where it has leverage. It's marketing.

Should I consider myself tethered to an anachronistic method of working just I use a PC/Mac and prefer it over an iPad or any other of these so-called post-PC devices? I do have an iPad and I hardly use it because I think it doesn't do what I need. Yes, there are versions of Office and iWork for iPad. But these office suites lack the power features found in the office suites available for Windows and Mac. There is Microsoft Office for Windows RT, but it won't support add-ons.

If Apple changes the processor to an ARM-based processor, the Mac will still be a PC, and not a post-PC device, just with a different processor. This is bad because it will break compatibility with every program written for Mac. If Apple changes the processor to an ARM-based processor and make it a post-PC device such as the iPad, then it's even worse because the Mac will lose its power features.

Let me give you an example of what a post-PC device cannot do. A real-life example.

Last year, I finished my PhD thesis. It was a 250-page piece with over 1,000 footnotes and countless references. To do this, I used Microsoft Word and Endnote. Both are available for Windows and Mac. The Endnote add-on was very useful, as I could manage my references easily and include citations in the Word file. Word was also very handy because I made use of features such as cross-references. I could have used different software, though.

There are other word processors that I could have used. OpenOffice/LibreOffice Writer can do this for free on Windows, Mac and Linux. For Mac, there is Mellel and Nisus Writer Pro as well. For Windows, there is WordPerfect.

There are other reference managers too. Zotero and Mendeley are two free software, and work on both Windows and Mac. Papers is also available on Windows and Mac. On Mac, there is Sente and Bookends as well. And on Windows, there is Citavi and Biblioscape. And there are several others.

What about the iPad?

Well, there is Microsoft Office Word and iWork Pages available. But they don't have advanced features such as cross-references.

Even if they did, what about integration with a reference manager? iOS doesn't support add-ons. I could not insert citations.

So, while a post-PC device may be beautiful and nice, it won't replace a real PC. I don't think my method of working is anachronic as it saves me time. I would have spent triple the time if I were to write my dissertation on a post-PC device.

 

[balamw]

Apple will go all ARM, or no ARM. No pick and mixing like Microsoft.

A total conversion with the Apple developer environment would force devs to adapt just as they did with the intel transition, and that was pretty clean all things considered.

Devs that work on both OS X and iOS apps have been dealing with Intel and ARM happily for the past 7 years.

I suspect that they'd market this as something that is a third way.

While the Ax SoCs are powerful, they won't displace the Mac Pro any day soon.

B

 

[MisakixMikasa]

This should be an obvious move. Look at the benchmarks and their progress. We'll use geekbench for simplicity, not perfect, but it's well rounded. The A7 scores about 2,600, double the A6's 1,200-1,300. Even if Apple did nothing to improve the ARM architecture, the A8 is expected to have a quad core with the die shrink to 20nm. Doubling the die size to fit the power availability in a laptop would yield 8 cores. 8 x 1,300 (per core) is about 10,400. That easily beats the performance of the current Retina Macbook Pro with about 7,000. If they double the core clock to 2.6Ghz, like some rumors say they have, they could beat the Core i7 with the same number and only 4 cores, giving good single-threaded performance. That's all assuming Apple hasn't done anything to improve their architecture, which they most certainly have.

Intel's days are numbered at Apple.

The multicore performance isn't simply number of core times single core performance. You know that right?

 

[S.B.G]

I think in this case it highlights the mistake apple is making. In my company its call lessons learned. We go through a project and see what worked and what didn't work.

In apple's case they can see how MS dropped the ball on RT and how the consumers are not buying it. I think the argument that an ARM based version of OSX is the same and Apple will be making a huge mistake to offer such a product $.02

I don't have anything to back this up, but I tend to think the failure of RT isn't because of the chip, but just a poor product and/or marketing by Microsoft. I doubt the average consumer, who makes up the majority of a company's sales, would know or understand the differences. Only folks like us who are more involved know these things and I bet there are fewer of us than the normal consumer.

• Battery life!
• Multiple vendors

For a typical i3-ish box, an ARM equivalent should be more efficient.

If Windows RT had taken off we might be having a very different discussion here. It really looks like the transition to ARM will happen whether Intel likes it or not.

B

Ah yes, battery life, of course!

What do you mean by multiple vendors though?

 

[Tiger8]

It is clear to me that an ARM-based laptop will happen. Timing is everything and will only be introduced when it is ready. In this date and age, it doesn't make sense to have laptops that still get so hot. ARM solves that issue.

I hope Apple does not do Microsoft's mistake; the whole 'Windows RT' mess was for that reason, as Surface RT and Asus RT tablets both have ARM processors.

A year later Intel releases new lower power lower heat ATOM processors that literally render the whole thing useless

 

[balamw]

What do you mean by multiple vendors though?

Most of these SoCs are multi-chip modules where they take components or designs from different sources and combine them in different ways.

They can also take the design to different fabs.

This is actually what Tim Cook's strength is, supply chain management.

B

 

[Tanegashima]

Only if

a) They were manufactured by Intel (best manufacture by far)
b) They were powerful enough to emulate windows x86-64 as fast as intel processors run.

Not likely, IMO.

 

[jlc1978]

The ARM chip PC if true is being built for the Asian market that can't afford a Apple pc. It will bring one hell of a lot of people into the Apple eco system.

While a lot of comments focus on Apple using the ARM in a low cost machine, when was the last time Apple came out with a truly low cost machine that was significantly cheaper than its regular models or competed in the low end market for computers?

The closest to that is the iPhone 5c which hasn't exactly been a huge success nor particularly cheap for that matter.

They haven't produced a cheap iPad to compete with the $200 tablets; despite using their own chips. The Mac Mini, the least expensive Mac, still starts at $599; a price where you can get a PC with keyboard and monitor and still have $150 in your pocket.

Apple doesn't do low end nor produce cheaper models for some markets. If they do go to ARM it is because they can retain the performance they want while controlling more of the supply chain and having more certainty over the roadmap for the their devices. They might lower costs a bit but probably will simply enjoy a larger profit margin.

 

[wizard]

For many cases that might be enough computer; like for my wife: Safari, Twitter, email, iTunes. That's it. For her a lower power MBArm is nice.

It is certainly the case that most users have modest needs. All of this hand twisting about compatibility with the past is only a consideration for a few. However your characterization of the ARM based notebook as being low powered may be a stretch. We really don't know what the ARM chip can do un throttled.

For me: not enough power (I fear): I need Xcode, VMware, FCP, raw file processing, ....

Aren't you jumping the gun here? For one XCode is highly threaded so that core are a positive thing and frankly compiling is one of those so called embarrassing simple parallel problems. As for virtualization we simply don't know if the hardware Apple would use has support for virtualization but if they did there are a number of ARM based Linux distros coming on line. FCP would need a native binary and would likely suffer performance wise even the

In the end you can't categorically say that the performance won't be good enough if you haven't seen the hardware nor the software targeted to the machine.

Important would be that Apple keeps enough hardware with Intel chips for power users. MBP, iMac, MB.

Absolutely! This would not be a machine to target the users of the Mac Pro. However I suspect that many current Mac users, even a few professionals would be very happy with such a machine from the performance standpoint. Hell we have professionals now running significant businesses on iPads.

The MBA and mini they could be split up in ARM and intel, if they like.

I'm almost thinking that Apple will need to market two different brands of hardware. Macs would be i86 and XYZ would be ARM based. That would completely eliminate confusion and keep current Mac users happy. Un least untill they realize that the ARM machines are actually better machines. The ARM machines won't be better immediately of course but I think many people underestimate just how capable Apple is now with CPU design.

 

[bennibeef]

I kinda get apple for trying to switch to ARM processors for the consumer market.

But dont forget why their computers exist today anyway. The "pros" specifically the ones used software in the media side which was the only real thing that time. Audio/Video/designing there where all the applications you wanted to use. Today all the applications are on windows and osx. And Apple is going to all consumer. Well, the good thing was that all the "hipster" people that time who got some apple products had the chance to get into these applications for good performance. Nowadays everyone gets a Macbook for the design because its nice to look at and if you look at any design company there have to be macs, even if there is no reason to.

If you now abandon this market no "pro" will use a mac and any content will created on windows machines. Well thats nice but it will destroy the whole content creation market. Content creation today is cool and up to date, lets say you are some guy or woman want to get into top web designing companiess, printings companiess or whatever you are going to use macs, macs are still kinda there but going to fade away.

I myself coming from a developer side of applications (doing much of my work core audio related) there are still awesome things in coreaudio which would make me always to choose coreaudio over windows audio computing (driver, latency wise) but the big thing is to keep it that way. Today everything is going to be cpu processed, with cpus capable of doing everyday tasks in all the products nothing will be capable of doing processing the pro tasks.

And even if its up to todays standards. There is already some line. You can get much easier a windows computer doing these tasks with better cpus at less cost and not everyone who needs the raw cpu processing power is going to build a hackintosh or buy a mac pro with gpu's which arent not used. (well in the audio department gpu processing is kinda growing but when there is no big shot anytime soon)

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

It is clear to me that an ARM-based laptop will happen. Timing is everything and will only be introduced when it is ready. In this date and age, it doesn't make sense to have laptops that still get so hot. ARM solves that issue.

That's an ISSUE? In what Universe? I don't give a crap how hot the thing gets so long as it keeps working. Having an ARM CPU will make a Mac that doesn't work since it won't have JACK for software available for it anymore. Moving to Intel is probably the biggest single reason the Mac is still around next to the iPhone coming out as the hottest product ever invented since sliced bread.

Going to ARM would mean less cross-platform software with Windows developers. It would be the equivalent of going back to PPC. We would lose all the current 3rd party code-base and probably "gain" iOS garbage (99% of which is pure junk, which is why everything costs $1 or is free. I don't need fart apps on my Mac). Aspyr would go from new games every month to one or two a year once again because they're job to convert Windows games to the Mac would be made ten fold more complicated once again. In short, the Mac would become a desert for quality software and a haven for garbage apps.

If Apple goes ARM, I'm going AWOL. I will never buy a Mac again if that is the case and I think a lot of Mac users would follow suit. There are ZERO reasons to switch to ARM that are legitimate (i.e. Intel is making lower power CPUs as time goes on). The ONLY reason Apple would want to move to ARM is *CONTROL*. They ultimately want to make OSX just like iOS where you buy everything from their App Store and they get to decide what you can and cannot use on your computer plus get a 30% cut of EVERYTHING sold for the Mac. Right now developers can sell direct and Apple wants that money even though they didn't do a damn thing to deserve it. Apple is GREEDY.

But if the Mac does go ARM, I'm sure it will go well with their decision to buy Beats (i.e. like Bose, it's high-priced JUNK being sold on the coat tails of someone famous rather than quality merchandise). They will lose their high-end user base that is willing to pay thousands for Macs and gain a lot of iOS type users that don't know how to use a real computer and think it's normal to post when you take a dump on Twitter and tell the world when you're going on vacation on Facebook so you can be robbed, etc. Kids today strike me as knowing less because their smart phones and calculators do all the work (and perhaps thinking) for them.

 

[jlc1978]

So, while a post-PC device may be beautiful and nice, it won't replace a real PC. I don't think my method of working is anachronic as it saves me time. I would have spent triple the time if I were to write my dissertation on a post-PC device.

While what you say is true, your basic assumption is non-PC devices won't become more powerful and evolve, just as the PC has. There was a time when laptops were viewed as an adjunct, not a replacement, for much more powerful desktops. Today, laptops are often the only PC a person uses.

As for tablets, when some of the early ones were very limited. The Newton was neat but even in its 2K incarnation it wasn't still an adjunct to a PC, not a replacement. Tablets, while still an adjunct in many cases, have evolved to the point for many things they can replace a PC. I can watch Netflix on on, stream it to my TV if I want., logon to mainframes or websites and do everything I can on my PC.

PowerPoint, OTOH, isn't yet powerful enough to replace a PC running a presentation. Word, as you point out, is best suited for simple tasks or text entry for later use on the PC version.

As tablets evolve you'll see more and more tasks performed primarily on them; just as laptops started repaving desktops.

 

[yusukeaoki]

Apple, remember what happened to PowerPC?