Apple Testing ARM Based Mac Prototypes with Large Magic Trackpad?

[Alcibar]

Dual Boot

Two alternatives I would welcome both based on a dual CPU machine

1) Thin and Lite

Add a A8 chip and allow booting into mouse friendly iOS 8 pro for web browsing, email, MS Office and lite computer work with 24 hr battery life. Boot into Intel for truck work.

Or preferred case.

2)

Number 1 above plus reduced battery for 12 hr operation on A8 and 3 hr operation in truck mode.

I would pay more for this machine! Note hrs operation are speculative and meant as examples.

Is this even possible - I am not a hardware engineer?

 

[leman]

Yep! However a personal computer these days seldom runs just one process so cores are extremely valuable.

I don't know about the specifics here but in general programs like these are highly threaded. Spell checkers, download or even uploads, can run as threads and thus leverage cores.


Well what a MBA user cares most about varies but let's take the common apps, EMail and Safari. Both of these are highly threaded or make use of supporting processes so they are advantaged by having more cores.

That's not as true anymore as it used to be.
1. apps are more parallelized than previously (modern APIs make it a lot easier to do correctly than in the past)
2. modern ARM CPUs haven't been standing still and are now fast enough for the single core tasks that remain. E.g., Gmail works great on my iPad with A7 processor. Office runs OK on Surface RT devices which use ARM processors and would run better on an A7 much less on whatever CPU an ARM-based laptop would use. (Not to mention Office for iPad which runs great on an A7 according to the reviews I've seen.)

When I wrote about potential issues with single-threaded performance, I was first and foremost thinking about web applications. JavaScript is essentially single threaded — yes, you can parallelise some stuff with WebWorkers — but most of the code, especially the one which handles the DOM changes, event responses, animation etc., is still going to be single threaded. With modern web applications, which heavily rely on advanced DOM manipulation and model binding (such as things built with AngularJS or EmberJS), the single-threaded performance is the deciding factor in perceiving how smooth the website will be. Of course, it might very well be that an A7/A8 is able to execute all the JavaScript fast enough so that no latency is perceivable. Until this is clear, the single threaded performance remains a concern. As of now, the current MBA is more than twice as fast in browser benchmarks.

 

[holydude]

This is the point isn't it. An ARM only OSX would never work. It's not going to have the power to run Say FCPX or dozens of other Pro apps. So everything going to ARM... .well it's just not going to happen is it.

But what people are not considering here is what if this is NOT OSX or some form or ARM RT thing at all ... but iOS in a laptop form. Perhaps touch screen / with a trackpad control too. could even be a hybrid device with a removable keyboard etc.

This is MacRumors after all and the actual source is not exactly spot on very often or infact....ever!

Wat ? The point of going with ARM is that they can develop their "ARM" or even outsource it to SAMSUNG or anybody else.
The other thing is scalability and power consumption control.

With x86 they are stuck with intel / amd.

 

[leman]

Two alternatives I would welcome both based on a dual CPU machine

...

Is this even possible - I am not a hardware engineer?

Well, minimalism and certain elegance is what Apple has always been about. it would be completely against their spirit to build a Frankenstein like this

 

[Sy7ygy]

Not for another 5 years, at least.

 

[holydude]

When I wrote about potential issues with single-threaded performance, I was first and foremost thinking about web applications. JavaScript is essentially single threaded — yes, you can parallelise some stuff with WebWorkers — but most of the code, especially the one which handles the DOM changes, event responses, animation etc., is still going to be single threaded. With modern web applications, which heavily rely on advanced DOM manipulation and model binding (such as things built with AngularJS or EmberJS), the single-threaded performance is the deciding factor in perceiving how smooth the website will be. Of course, it might very well be that an A7/A8 is able to execute all the JavaScript fast enough so that no latency is perceivable. Until this is clear, the single threaded performance remains a concern. As of now, the current MBA is more than twice as fast in browser benchmarks.

Wat ? multithreading is not the alpha and omega. Ever heard of forking ?

 

[ONH]

Not to worry guys.

The ARM experiment will be restricted to MacBook Airs for casual users..for now.

Wouldn't bet on that, a A7 in the 5s is eye on with z3770 or in front of it. Lets look at the 4770k it is 4 to 8 times faster than the z3770 depending on workload.

The mobile CPU are all slower than that, so with the assumtion of an 4 core ARMv8-A CPU with double the frequensy or more could match at least all mobile i3, if not even moste i5.

On the GPU side the A7 doesent stand much back against the Intel HD 4x00 Apple could add +50% to they GPU with no much effort.

Depending on when Apple draws the ARM Macbooks, they could match Intel Performance wise at launch day.

If they go up to 8 Core ARM there is just the question, broadwell will be first yust the 2 Core Version if hney launch in Fall Apple could match Intel then if they configure the ARM at the right points for almost the entire mobile linup.

Even more if Apple decides to put more SW optimisation effort for ARM instead of the new features in the Intel CPU. They could even aquire GPU ip form Nv or AMD, a thing Intel can't, that would make Apple beeing able to set more effort in optimizing the CPU core while accellerate the GPU even more.

If Apple wants Intel is history for then current generation HW in 2-3 years.

 

[firewood]

If iOS systems already do it ..... need for OS X system goes up? Not particularly.

That's just the point. The need for desktops/laptops has been going down. Why not migrate the hardware of some of these form factors closer to the market success, where's there's tons of current software and system investments, mobile devices?

The CPU architecture should no longer be the differentiator. Just UI/UX. One for a tiny mouse pointer and huge (dual) monitors while sitting in a comfy desk chair. Another for a tiny pocket-sized display and fat fingers on a bumpy train ride.

 

[ucantgetridofme]

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


French site MacBidouille revives rumors that Apple is actively developing ARM processor based Macs. According to a source that they describe as reliable, Apple has prototypes of several ARM-based machines, including an iMac, Mac mini, and 13" Notebook with 4-8 64-bit ARM Quad-core processors.

Image​

These machines are reportedly far along in development, and come with a new keyboard that incorporates a large-format Magic Trackpad. Apple might even be ready for an announcement but is reportedly hesitant to make the move.

MacBidouille isn't a frequent source of rumors, so its hard to gauge its source's credibility, but rumors of ARM-based Macs have been circulating for years. It seems likely that Apple has prototyped such devices, but many have doubted the feasibility of moving forward with such a plan.

The first inklings of such a plan might have come when Apple threatened to abandon Intel's chips if they didn't work to slash power consumption. While AMD might have been one way to go for Apple, the first rumors of an Apple migration from Intel to ARM processors appeared earlier that year. Later, a report claimed that Apple already had an ARM (A5) powered MacBook Air in their labs back in 2011.

An analysis in 2012 suggested that Apple shifting from Intel to ARM wasn't implausible but it faced several hurdles. The most significant one was Apple's own ARM chips being able to keep a pace with Intel's future roadmap.

Apple, however, has been making great strides in performance in their ARM processors. The A7 is described as desktop class even in an independent analysis. In fact, the A7 chip is currently being underutilized in Apple's iPhone and iPad devices, leaving some of its power untapped.

Article Link: Apple Testing ARM Based Mac Prototypes with Large Magic Trackpad?

Apple's going to release the new Macbook Air even thinner than before with Apples own A8 processor and the little fan boy and girls will lineup to buy their overpriced and underpowered machines like gerbils in a maze looking for a pellet.. Then Joni Ive will will make a commercial using big words and the fanboys and girls will go online and proclaim it the greatest device ever made because Apple said so.

 

[holydude]

Two alternatives I would welcome both based on a dual CPU machine

1) Thin and Lite

Add a A8 chip and allow booting into mouse friendly iOS 8 pro for web browsing, email, MS Office and lite computer work with 24 hr battery life. Boot into Intel for truck work.

Or preferred case.

2)

Number 1 above plus reduced battery for 12 hr operation on A8 and 3 hr operation in truck mode.

I would pay more for this machine! Note hrs operation are speculative and meant as examples.

Is this even possible - I am not a hardware engineer?

You can have multiple chips but what would be the point ?
Add scalability to A8 and you can as powerful machine as you would get on intel.


The other thing is a problem of not being able to run windows. But i don't think that would stop apple.

 

[Tech198]

if its not a true source, or even regular source, why trust it ?

A7 would be good for laptops, low power consumption..

I wonder how good this will be then with encoding, running VM's etc. ?

lower power = faster chips...

Its a battle waiting to happen !!

Then again... why would Apple switch to intel chips in 2006, only to switch in short term to ARM ?

They already have Bootcamp and did that for this purpose... why would they eliminate it ? Maybe when it get as old as "Rosetta", but its far from that yet.

Either that or, MS has better make future versions of Windows ARM-compatible.

 

[pragmatous]

So here's why you're wrong.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-2635QM-vs-Apple-A7

Benchmarks, numbers, that prove it.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is 10 times faster than the Apple A7.

So no the A7 is not half the speed of your Mac.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is old tech too so it's probably more than 10 times faster than the A7. The current processors in the current macs are the 4000 series. Intel Core i7-4950HQ.

Even if Apple doubled the speed for 10 years it'll still be slower than Intel ad infinitum.

Apple has doubled the performance of their ARM chips on an annual basis. Nobody can know where that will level off, but if it leveled off right now and they had a 2.6Ghz A7 core running with good yields at fabs then they could easily double core count to 4 cores and outperform Intel in the TDP they operate in. I'm not an ARM fanatic.. But when Apple has chip designers they hired away from AMD working for them and doubling performance so that my iPad with last year's A7 is almost half the speed of my Macbook Pro, you have to acknowledge this is more than likely. In addition, Apple could drop Macbook prices by $200 and still increase their profit margin by $100. That's huge.

 

[prowlmedia]

Wat ? The point of going with ARM is that they can develop their "ARM" or even outsource it to SAMSUNG or anybody else.
The other thing is scalability and power consumption control.

With x86 they are stuck with intel / amd.

Sure but people on here are getting all heated up that they will REPLACE intel with ARM. It's impossible. The chipset is incapable of the sort of horsepower that intel can do.

Arm is a reduced instruction set which is partly why its more efficient and doesn't have many of the more advanced features of x64 processors. There is almost no way to get current high end apps running on a ARM as is.

It's the same reason that you cannot just have the way more powerful GPUs that AMD and Nvidia run OSX or any other OS. They are not designed the same way. And don't forget it's not actually apple that defines the A7 it's the ARM company. They adapt the design.

This is just another balerdash rumour.

 

[weckart]

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?

Dude...

 

[holydude]

So here's why you're wrong.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-2635QM-vs-Apple-A7

Benchmarks, numbers, that prove it.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is 10 times faster than the Apple A7.

So no the A7 is not half the speed of your Mac.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is old tech too so it's probably more than 10 times faster than the A7. The current processors in the current macs are the 4000 series. Intel Core i7-4950HQ.

Even if Apple doubled the speed for 10 years it'll still be slower than Intel ad infinitum.

You are comparing a mobile class chip with a desktop chip.
Also SPARC t5 2 chips / 32 cores is faster than Intel with 8 chips/80 cores. What is your point ?

 

[leman]

Wat ? multithreading is not the alpha and omega. Ever heard of forking ?

Care to explain how forking can magically parallelise a web application? I was using multithreading in the broad sense, as in parallel execution. Whether its achieve by spawning an additional thread or forking the process, I don't see any principal difference to the argument. The amount of work involved in both of these is comparable.

 

[JohnnyGo]

No ARM for now

The redesigned Macbook Air isn't coming until the late fall, which happens to be the time that Broadwell will be available which is fanless.

It is without question that Apple has an OS X version on an Arm processor. Go back to the Intel transition...Jobs stated alongside every release they had an intel compatible version in the labs "just in case."

Will it get released is a different story. They would need a reason to go ARM and there doesn't seem to be enough benefits at the current moment.

I don't think it is happening yet. Don't expect the Macbook Air at WWDC, they just updated it.

I guess people have to calm down and remember how Apple does things: 1000 nos for every yes. They are creating alternatives, testing products, checking performance, etc

Why ? IMO they see a market for a cheaper Mac and/or a threat from chromebooks. The education market is still significant for Macs and for Apple (iPads). An ARM basec macbook could run Safari pretty well.

For me, the key is the ability to run iOS apps alongside some basic OSX software at first. That along with the browser and a touchscreen would a nice alternative to chromebooks at a more reasonable $500-700 price range vs current MBA at $899.

 

[Alcibar]

Dual boot

I don't see the dual chip as a Frankenstein machine. Seems judgmental. Seems rather elegant to me - well ymmv.

I see it as an operating mode saving power. I think with th A8 boot I could do a lot of work off the grid with a 2-3 lb laptop in a more elegant manner than a detachable key board for the Air. Still have the ability to run in truck mode for a couple of hrs or when near a plug. With MS Office and a good keyboard I can do a lot - only occasionally entering truck mode.

This would let Apple reduce the battery even further/make even thinner and not piss off people who occasionally boot into windows or use virtual machines. Seems at the core of Apples current strategy. Then someday the intel chip vanishes.

 

[subsonix]

Sure but people on here are getting all heated up that they will REPLACE intel with ARM. It's impossible. The chipset is incapable of the sort of horsepower that intel can do.

Why do you assume this is an A7, a chip made for the desktop would probably perform better. Even Intel is bound by limitation of physics and costs. Moore's law is exponential, nothing exponential can go on forever.

There's an interesting talk about it from the Hotchip symposium last year, called "the chip design game at the end of Moore's law" by Robert Colwell, former Intel guy:

http://www.hotchips.org/archives/hc25/hc25-keynotes/

 

[holydude]

Sure but people on here are getting all heated up that they will REPLACE intel with ARM. It's impossible. The chipset is incapable of the sort of horsepower that intel can do.

Arm is a reduced instruction set which is partly why its more efficient and doesn't have many of the more advanced features of x64 processors. There is almost no way to get current high end apps running on a ARM as is.

This is just another balerdash rumour.

********. Intel chips are more RISC these days than CISC ...also i would like to point out that reduced instructions are faster than cisc (also you would like to know that intel uses risc micro-instructions internally...and guess what..they can be processed more efficiently.)


The only valid argument in this discussion is that you will be not able to run windows. That's it.

----------

Care to explain how forking can magically parallelise a web application? I was using multithreading in the broad sense, as in parallel execution. Whether its achieve by spawning an additional thread or forking the process, I don't see any principal difference to the argument. The amount of work involved in both of these is comparable.

It is an alternative to threading not a replacement.

 

[Tech198]

If any good thing comes from this,

at least the Track pad will be huge. Fill that wasted space.

Dude...

Image

I'm over-whelmed..... the limited places for this though, just make sure u have a desk near at all times.

 

[leman]

So here's why you're wrong.

http://cpuboss.com/cpus/Intel-Core-i7-2635QM-vs-Apple-A7

Benchmarks, numbers, that prove it.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is 10 times faster than the Apple A7.

So no the A7 is not half the speed of your Mac.

The Intel Core i7 2635QM is old tech too so it's probably more than 10 times faster than the A7. The current processors in the current macs are the 4000 series. Intel Core i7-4950HQ.

Even if Apple doubled the speed for 10 years it'll still be slower than Intel ad infinitum.

Your argument is flawed on many levels. First of all, the benchmark scores are wrong. Looking at the Geekbench 3 results, an iPad Air with A7 reaches 1478 points while a 2635QM reaches 2597 in single-core performance. So the difference is 'just' 2x per core. And Apple has doubled the speed of their ARM CPU — at least when we go with Geekbench — within last two years. Intel only managed a 10% increase. Continuing the trend, ARM will outperform Intel within few years Still, another problem with your argument is that you can't extrapolate the current trends like this. These things are not linear.

----------

It is an alternative to threading not a replacement.

It is a different tool with a different purpose in mind. Still, what relevance does the discussion of forking have to what I wrote about web application performance?

 

[mtneer]

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.

You make a valid pitch for your use case. But the retort would be that not everyone has/ or wants a PhD. A vast majority of ma-and-pa kettles who buy computers would have even heard of a citation (other than the one that makes them go to court)

In fact even in 2013; only about a third of the US population has even a bachelor's degree - Educational_attainment_in_the_United_States

 

[firewood]

When I wrote about potential issues with single-threaded performance, I was first and foremost thinking about web applications. JavaScript is essentially single threaded .

And most companies are now requiring that their web site designers make sure that their sites and web apps run properly on mobile devices... ARM-based mobile devices.

 

[apolloa]

$2000? Where did you dream up that figure? If Apple release anything ARM-based, it's going be sat between an iPad and an Air.

If ARM is sufficient for a server ( FWIW, Linux has been on ARM for quite a while, so it's hardly custom ) it's more than capable in a "desktop" running Safari or playing a movie. Seeing as Google isn't working well for you today, try this, this, or this.

Have a read of some of the articles on Ars or Anandtech about the performance of the A7.

Where did you get $2000 from?

Because $2000 is the cost of the top end iMac before tax, and they will put an ARM in the iMac if they do it to the MacBook Air, also you are wrong if you think they are going to place these computers between the MacBook Air and iPad.

Ill re-quote part of the story I assume you read?

According to a source that they describe as reliable, Apple has prototypes of several ARM-based machines, including an iMac, Mac mini, and 13" Notebook with 4-8 64-bit ARM Quad-core processors.

And this IS Apple, Apple's ENTIRE business model is to NOT do cheap, it is to do maximum premium mark up pricing, always has been and always will be, you are just fooling yourself if you believe otherwise.
And kudos to AMD making opteron servers using ARM but as said, I bet they use specialised customer built OS. Not really a comparable market to a desktop costing $2000.

Wat ? ARM is more flexible than x86. You are mixing 2 different things. A cpu and specialized gpu chip. But again ever heard of CELL ?

Ok, I would like to see an ARM CPU code video next to a Core i7 quad core, because I bet it is not as good, also CELL?? What does that have to do with anything?
The PS3 had a dedicated GPU from Nvidia as well as the CELL CPU which was renowned for being very difficult to code for, the CELL has nothing to do with this argument because it was only successful in a home games console.

So far as computers go and the CELL it only lasted 4 to 5 years in servers and so far as I know never made the jump to desktop computers.