There's no reason why an ARM chip would not allow you to sync devices in the same way though.
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Apple Testing ARM Based Mac Prototypes with Large Magic Trackpad?
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There's no reason why an ARM chip would not allow you to sync devices in the same way though.
My guess is that (if this happens at all) that "Pro" devices would keep using Intel for a quite a while.
That is debatable. In general though there has been an industry wide push to keep code portable.
Could be but who cares? I look at it this way if a platform require specific optimization to work acceptably for me, I have the wrong platform.
Maybe or maybe the optimization was needed to run well on crappy i86 hardware and has stayed around for years after the real need has passed. These days a smart developer keeps as much code as possible in generic C++ and tries to avoid platform specific optimization that isn't handled by the compiler.
Come on this is like somebody whining about not having new hardware to run his old CPM code on. If you can't get away from legacy software you have nobody but yourself to blame.
Think about it this way, if somebody came up to you crying about the lack of coal and water, on modern railroads, to run his steam engines what would you do. Laugh maybe? Sometimes old technology is best left in a museum someplace for future generations to view. This is what all the whining about legacy support in Apples products reminds me of. They are the same people that want to run that steam engine.
Again so! Honestly at this moment in time there is more ARM specific software out there than there ever was for PPC.
There was a time when you had to write in assembly to do just about anything on your 8 bit computer of the day. That has passed and so too has the need to spend lots of optimization time outside of C++.
Again so!
That's what I would do. ARM for the Air and Intel for the MBP. The Air is already geared for people who want battery life and light weight more than performance, so it would be a good fit. The MBP should still have Intel chips because a lot of developers and others need the extra horsepower.
I'll rephrase
This should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Apple, Inc. 1 infinite loop Cupertino, CA. Anyone getting bent out shape about this news: it's been a long time coming. And it will hit eventually. And some people will get screwed. Most people wont even know it happened. And that's just the way Apple rolls. Technology changes. Apple changes with it. They try to skate to where the puck will be. And when ARM has run it's course, they will move on to the next best viable technology. We are in the stone ages of this technology. 100 years from now nothing will be the same as it is now and ARM will be a footnote of computing history. Apple might even be there. But they'll have to move on to whatever is next to get there. They won't get there by sticking with Intel chips forever, that's for sure.
I will go get in my flame suit now.
This should be obvious to anyone who knows anything about Apple, Inc. 1 infinite loop Cupertino, CA. Anyone getting bent out shape about this news: it's been a long time coming. And it will hit eventually. And some people will get screwed. Most people wont even know it happened. And that's just the way Apple rolls. Technology changes. Apple changes with it. They try to skate to where the puck will be. And when ARM has run it's course, they will move on to the next best viable technology. We are in the stone ages of this technology. 100 years from now nothing will be the same as it is now and ARM will be a footnote of computing history. Apple might even be there. But they'll have to move on to whatever is next to get there. They won't get there by sticking with Intel chips forever, that's for sure.
I will go get in my flame suit now.
Unlike windows rt which had barely anything for developer support apple using its arm processors have the entire ipad/iphone ect developers behind them. It wouldn't take much to add that support to their os changes.
That being said I would not want a non intel machine right now. I think apple wants all those ios developers for their main osx development though. If they could somehow get ios developers to easily switch or have them work on both they would have a ton of software that would all be checked and verified by apple.
That being said I would not want a non intel machine right now. I think apple wants all those ios developers for their main osx development though. If they could somehow get ios developers to easily switch or have them work on both they would have a ton of software that would all be checked and verified by apple.
What if it's not really a "Mac"?
What if, unlike Microsoft who's trying to shoehorn regular Windows into pads and phones, Apple is growing iOS into a desktop-class OS?
Thus Apple would offer OS X machines for people who create content and iOS machines for people who only read/listen/watch content?
Then again, if they really switch to ARM-based Macs, we'd probably stop complaining about weak GPUs and just build a gaming PCs instead.
The rumours are about a Mac which has from 4 to 8 quad-core A7 chips in it, I wonder if the performance is equivalent if the OS is properly coded for multithreading? That means from 16 to 32 cores running at who knows which clock speed (probably much faster than inside a thin iPad).
As any Intel vs AMD debate will say, it's better to have a faster single core than multiple slower cores unless the software can use all cores, in which case it's easier to just put more cores in the system in order to gain processing power.
And if it means Apple can lower the price of their Macs by hundreds of dollars, then low-cost "iOS Macs" makes sense. Maybe they're dropping the Mac mini for an ARM-powered, 21" iMac Light.
What if, unlike Microsoft who's trying to shoehorn regular Windows into pads and phones, Apple is growing iOS into a desktop-class OS?
Thus Apple would offer OS X machines for people who create content and iOS machines for people who only read/listen/watch content?
Then again, if they really switch to ARM-based Macs, we'd probably stop complaining about weak GPUs and just build a gaming PCs instead.
The rumours are about a Mac which has from 4 to 8 quad-core A7 chips in it, I wonder if the performance is equivalent if the OS is properly coded for multithreading? That means from 16 to 32 cores running at who knows which clock speed (probably much faster than inside a thin iPad).
As any Intel vs AMD debate will say, it's better to have a faster single core than multiple slower cores unless the software can use all cores, in which case it's easier to just put more cores in the system in order to gain processing power.
And if it means Apple can lower the price of their Macs by hundreds of dollars, then low-cost "iOS Macs" makes sense. Maybe they're dropping the Mac mini for an ARM-powered, 21" iMac Light.
Yeah, that's what I figured too. I think they could get by with it on the MacBook air but there's too much legacy software that would be broken if they did that to the pro with the desktop.
That is like replacing a cat with a cow, because they both can miau, except the cow.
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Maybe one day someone can explain to me why Apple is so obsessed with reducing the form factor and power consumption of the imac. Do they think people carry imacs around and prop them up on their laps?
If it works out, this will finally end the monopoly of wintel PCs. If it fails, nobody will talk about it.
There are over 1 million iOS and iPad apps that could easily get ported or boxed to run on an OS X system with a mouse and trackpad. It's far far easier to port a single/double touch app to a mouse/trackpad PC, than vice-versa. Most linux apps port to OS X, no matter what the CPU. Also, the vast majority of the apps in the Mac App store could be ported to ARM64 with just a few days work (mostly testing and re-optimization).
Note that there may be more total developers these days who are currently developing personal apps for ARM systems, rather than x86 desktops/laptops. So Apple could jump to the future where most developers are going, leaving the dual GPU Mac Pro x86-64 for heavy lifting of legacy stuff.
A number of people seem to think Arm Based Macs = iOS Apps on OS X.
This would make for a terrible experience. Let's keep mouse & keyboard apps on the Mac and touch apps on iPad/iPhone.
This would make for a terrible experience. Let's keep mouse & keyboard apps on the Mac and touch apps on iPad/iPhone.
Yes.
First, you are missing an entire class of software. Drivers. The systems that general OS X users operate tend to involve more than solely Apple hardware and/or Apple drivers.
Push a button and recompile is likely an over simplification.
Second, the majority of software development is not spent pushing the "compile it" button. Much of the process is spent in fixing stuff that is broken. Some failure modes can like in parts that aren't so similar. Generalized enough, all instruction sets are the similar. Developers don't have to write in low level instruction specific assembler, but higher level compilers are much better at isolating developers when everything goes right rather than when things don't.
For customers with limited Internet bandwidth they had to download twice as much stuff if have both x86 and ARM Macs. Developers now has twice as many uploads and applications to test. Apple has twice as many applications to test and approve.
Have you used an iPad with a bluetooth keyboard? Not completely elegant but quite pragmatically useful if largely engaged in writing lots of text.
It isn't like the trackpad has to be highly leveraged in all workloads. An additional trackpad can be largely in the same "boat" as an additional keyboard.
Win8 Metro mouse is more different than inelegant. It is also not particularly necessarily to implement that specific way either.
Windows RT is simply Windows compiled for ARM, which isn't that big of a deal. Especially considering that Windows Phone is also a version of Windows compiled for ARM.
Even if it was a flop in the consumer side, getting Windows to compile on ARM was a necessary move for MS to take.
For the price of a single intel xeon, you can add a substantial number of ARM cores. So pro's might get even more out of a switch. Can think of a couple of technical challenges but theoretically something like a 32 or 64 core ARM based MacPro might not be impossible.
If it commercially all makes sense is indeed a complete different question...
Since the rumor mentions a trackpad, I guess is that these devices would be running OS X with OS X apps, not iOS and iOS apps. But, yes, no bootcamp
(Well, I guess it would be technically possible to boot Windows RT but I don't think anyone would want to do that!
You might get bootcamp back through, in a sense: If this happens, probably MS will copy Apple and release their full Windows OS's for ARM. Then you should be able to boot that on one of these devices. Of course, you'll also have to wait for your Windows software to get ported -- some .NET software will just work and some more will port pretty easily though of course a lot will never be ported.)
for the everyday soho user a reliable device with iCloud would be a win i think.
there are a bunch of people who buy dirt cheap pc-s and run (mostly) pirated versions of ms office/windows stuff, and in reality they only need:
- a web browser (which includes social media as well)
- an email client
- a way to create documents/spreadsheets
- instant messaging/facetime-like (video/audio) comms
and in the same time can't get around with tablets because of the lack of keyboard.
iCloud would be the best shot for them. i've been looking for a feasible solution to provide a small but usable home platform with just web access, and i also tried "chromeOS", but to have usable performance i really require a desktop class cpu, a proper OS to have a proper web browser. then why the fuss if i can run all them apps locally?
if apple can build a better chrome book with unlimited 3g/4g access(similar to amazons kindle) and wifi and icloud/imessage/facetime access only, it could be a win!
I disagree. People buy Apple because of OSX and the overall feel of the system. Anecdotally, I know a lot of Mac users most of whom do not use a VM nor have any desire to go back to Windows. They wouldn't even know what kind of processors a MacBook use or care for that matter; as long as it just works like a Mac.
Been reading through the comments and can't help but be reminded of the fierce debates when Apple first announced the MacBook Air... without an optical drive.
ARM based Air first, then an ARM based Mac mini, then MacBook Pro, iMac and eventually, after more rumors that Apple have ditched the Pro market, an ARM based Mac Pro. By then we will have forgotten what all the fuss was about.
ARM based Air first, then an ARM based Mac mini, then MacBook Pro, iMac and eventually, after more rumors that Apple have ditched the Pro market, an ARM based Mac Pro. By then we will have forgotten what all the fuss was about.
Moto had 60,000 employees as late as 2010. We are talking about the time frame corresponding to the creation of PowerPC, not today. Motorola was a mammoth company.