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Apple Transitioning Macs to Custom Chips With 'Incredible' Performance Starting Later This Year
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That’s 10 “utility” type app purchases or maybe 2-5 “pro” type app purchases. It’s not exactly targeted at the makers of iOS fart apps
with the way ryzen cpus are going, there is a strong consideration here that maybe leaving apple could be a thing in the name of performance.
but who knows what the landscape will look like when we're around the time of release and seeing benchmarks.
and oh boy i wonder how devs are going to handle this when it comes to games. so far there has been pretty nice support directly through steam and gog, with bootcamp for the rest if you care enough.
here's to hoping that concernedape gets a hold of a devkit and make stardew valley compatible =X
but who knows what the landscape will look like when we're around the time of release and seeing benchmarks.
and oh boy i wonder how devs are going to handle this when it comes to games. so far there has been pretty nice support directly through steam and gog, with bootcamp for the rest if you care enough.
here's to hoping that concernedape gets a hold of a devkit and make stardew valley compatible =X
Exactly me on the same boat, my new custom 2020 MBP 10th gen i7 13 is set to arrive this week after I ordered it two weeks ago as the model is barely 1.5 months old. I didn't expect this, now I will return it and wait for the ARM processors because I don't want to be caught up in-app / incompatibility / unsupported issues just 3-5 years down the line, and who knows how long/well Rosetta 2 is going to work, so its a gamble during this transition phase but hope its for the better.
But if I am planning long term back in the day, Apple announced PPC to Intel transition in 2005, finished transition in 2006, and just in 2009, they stopped providing Mac OS X updates as Snow Leopard isn't compatible with PowerPC architecture. Therefore I imagine you could have bought a fully specced out PowerPC Laptop in 2006, just to have it be unable to run the latest version of Mac OS X barely 2-3 years later. I don't want to fall for that when I am making a longterm investment on a new MacBook Pro, especially when it's fully decked out. Just picture 3 years down the line all Macs will be Intel-Free, and all-new app developers (even MS Office, Mac apps, maybe even MacOS) will naturally shift away from intel support.
My sinciere condolences to people who have purchased fully decked out, expensive MBPs, Mac Pros, etc. this year and just hearing this announcement being unable to return their 'new' devices.
I think it will be unlikely we will see many if any dGPU’s for the Silicon macs. With active cooling there is no reason why they can’t progress towards an all in one solution for CPU & GPU. They got 3 4K ProRes streams on an A12 as it stands. I’m sure we will see some great chip developments from them over the next couple of years. They wouldn’t be going down this route if they didn’t have a plan.
I'm not talking about PPC software on Intel (backward compatibility), but the amount of time the current MacOS releases worked on PPC hardware (forward compatibility). PPC forward compatibility was dropped with Snow Leopard, announced four years after the switch to Intel (2005-2009). Backward compatibility remained though.
The A12Z is what powers the iPad Pro. We can run benchmarks on native iPad software to get a general sense.
Easy spend $1k on an entry level pro/air that should last two years easily and invest the other $1k into a conservative index fund or high yield savings account buy another entry level machine in 2-3 years and you still get 6+ years of life for the same cost.
Yes because all apps on windows already run on X86, they can be easily ported to intel Macs. But even more about that is true today. All major software houses already write their software for intel and for ARM. We have an ARM photoshop for a year now. This time the transition will be even easier for developers I think.
I’m starting to be a bit of an old guy, been around sinds os 7 and made all of the transitions Craig mentioned: first to powerpc, then to os x (As a beta tester, but felt more like alfa back then), later to intel. I remember being quite excited when the announcement came that we were going Intel, towards a business standard that was. I don’t post a lot, but I do feel we’re back in exciting times.
First, have a look over at Anand what arm is up to lately. It is very impressive, promising and intriguing. If Apple can ride on this wave and put their special sauce over it, we actually might be up for quite a ride.
A couple of links (you can click through several more over on Anand).
Secondly, after reading some of the above articles, you’ll realize just like me (if you don’t already) that not all software “Likes” the same cpu’s the same. Some cpu’s have deeper pipelines, larger instruction sets, etc, than others. Software will have to be rewritten significantly and even then some software will continue to run (much) better on let’s say Intel cpu’s vs Arm cpu’s. It will depend (Among many other things) on the instruction sets they call upon whether they will port well enough to other platforms, or not. There will be choices, and we’ll all have to make them.
The way I see it now, there are 2 major ways this story can go :
1. Apple-arm hits the home run and makes a cpu that is 50% faster than anything Intel or AMD. Even with a limited instruction set it will then be fast enough to even run professional software that has not been ported adequately (As fast or faster than Intel/AMD). In this ideal world ALL developers will run on the opportunities to develop for Mac OS and software will be ported fast. Apple will soon be richer than ever before...
Unfortunately, history is not completely with Apple on story no 1, so here goes story no 2 :
2. Apple-arm is competitive, it might even be a bit faster than Intel/AMD. Unfortunately, because most apps have not been ported yet, they run (quite a bit) slower than on Intel/AMD. Developers hesitate; how will this play out ? Do I invest my time in porting, or will I just wait and see a bit longer ? Can I really spare the resources to develop on both platforms ? Is there money to be made ? Maybe better be safe than sorry And don’t take the risk ? In this world porting will be slow. Professional apps will continue to run better on Intel/AMD, and they will step up their game too. The professionals might jump ship completely, unless they depend on Logic or some other Apple software. Games will be developed for iOS and run on mac OS, but the really fancy ones that are compiled for PC/PS5/Xbox will not be ported (Btw: let’s not forget our graphics guys either : arm gpu’s are powerfull, but nvidia/amd still play in a different league here). In this scenario, Apple will continue to struggle in the PC market, and it will be a bit like the Power PC era all over.
Whatever the results, we’ll all get better computers in the end, because one thing is sure : Intel/AMD/nvidia will look for ways to react to ARM and up their game as well.
Exciting times for sure !
First, have a look over at Anand what arm is up to lately. It is very impressive, promising and intriguing. If Apple can ride on this wave and put their special sauce over it, we actually might be up for quite a ride.
A couple of links (you can click through several more over on Anand).
Secondly, after reading some of the above articles, you’ll realize just like me (if you don’t already) that not all software “Likes” the same cpu’s the same. Some cpu’s have deeper pipelines, larger instruction sets, etc, than others. Software will have to be rewritten significantly and even then some software will continue to run (much) better on let’s say Intel cpu’s vs Arm cpu’s. It will depend (Among many other things) on the instruction sets they call upon whether they will port well enough to other platforms, or not. There will be choices, and we’ll all have to make them.
The way I see it now, there are 2 major ways this story can go :
1. Apple-arm hits the home run and makes a cpu that is 50% faster than anything Intel or AMD. Even with a limited instruction set it will then be fast enough to even run professional software that has not been ported adequately (As fast or faster than Intel/AMD). In this ideal world ALL developers will run on the opportunities to develop for Mac OS and software will be ported fast. Apple will soon be richer than ever before...
Unfortunately, history is not completely with Apple on story no 1, so here goes story no 2 :
2. Apple-arm is competitive, it might even be a bit faster than Intel/AMD. Unfortunately, because most apps have not been ported yet, they run (quite a bit) slower than on Intel/AMD. Developers hesitate; how will this play out ? Do I invest my time in porting, or will I just wait and see a bit longer ? Can I really spare the resources to develop on both platforms ? Is there money to be made ? Maybe better be safe than sorry And don’t take the risk ? In this world porting will be slow. Professional apps will continue to run better on Intel/AMD, and they will step up their game too. The professionals might jump ship completely, unless they depend on Logic or some other Apple software. Games will be developed for iOS and run on mac OS, but the really fancy ones that are compiled for PC/PS5/Xbox will not be ported (Btw: let’s not forget our graphics guys either : arm gpu’s are powerfull, but nvidia/amd still play in a different league here). In this scenario, Apple will continue to struggle in the PC market, and it will be a bit like the Power PC era all over.
Whatever the results, we’ll all get better computers in the end, because one thing is sure : Intel/AMD/nvidia will look for ways to react to ARM and up their game as well.
Exciting times for sure !
I would not accept such benchmarks. Too many variables to draw any meaningful conclusions.
The same can be said for all the doom and gloom merchants speculating on what can and cannot be achieved on a product yet to be finalised and shipped.
Apple and third-party won't drop macOS Catalina support for at least a couple of years. And considering that I've seen a lot of Hackintoshers preferably using older OSes, e.g., currently High Sierra and Mojave, I assume the Hackintosh community will be significant for another 5-10 years -- also assuming they don't find a workaround for Apple's CPUs.
Of course, not. I'm still using a nearly eight-year-old Mac with current versions of software and will probably continue until the consumer version A-chip Mac mini becomes available -- which, considering the dev kit is a Mac mini, it should be one of the first product lines released.
Of course not. They were running Linux, not Windows. Windows implies Windows x86, not Windows ARM. The only reason Windows is important on a Mac is for business applications and development. None of which is Windows ARM. When someone says Windows, they mean x86-64. And that cannot run on ARM, period. It's a different CPU, it's physically impossible.
I think they did a good job of explaining:
Faster performance, and I can run every single iOS app on my Mac. YES PLEASE. That’s like millions of apps, not thousands.
So what you're saying is that Apple is going to ignore their massive installed base of Intel Mac users right after the ARM transition, and those poor forlorn Intel Mac users are going to throw away their Intel Macs and go out and buy new ARM machines, overnight?
Wake up, you're dreaming.
Probably graphic protocol are done under Type-C ports via custom Apple graphic controller, or Apple adopting some DisplayPort protocol on their ports. Well not sure what if Thunderbolt 3 behind that, albeit Thunderbolt 3 are possible to be deployed on non Intel chipset (like some of AMD Ryzen boards have TB3 built-in)
I heard the ARM version of Windows 10 is a nightmare, even MS Office and certain Microsoft Apps are sh***y ports running 32-bit x86, from what I heard (don't know if its accurate): https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/5/...view-arm-windows-10-apps-features-specs-price
So I figure RIP Bootcamp, it was such a convenient platform to switch between Windows and Mac easily (be it gaming or Windows-specific apps) but maybe we will see much better thermal and power performance.
Microsoft was ready with an ARM based Windows in 2011, the industry and Chips were not. I am sure Windows support is coming.
Soooo, you run 15+ year old software? You’re not operating the backend of a bank or a power plant or something are you?