They are likely to continue to support and issue updates for Intel Macs at least 5 years out. They are not likely to have a direct replacement for your i7 until next year. What will you use in the meantime?
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Apple Transitioning Macs to Custom Chips With 'Incredible' Performance Starting Later This Year
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Um....yes.
I don't get what you're asking. I honestly cannot comprehend the mindset that would make you think unplanned obsolesce is worse than planned.
ARM does have an architecture specification, which has several revisions - they are adding features with each revision. One of the latest revisions is ARMv8.6A. Part of the architecture specification is AArch64 - it describes the 64 bit mode of the CPUs, which is mandatory if you want to develop a ARMv8.6 compliant architecture.
Apple licensed the architecture and the A14 will be ARMv8.6A compliant which mandates AArch64 support.
Note, that the architecture specification is not just the instruction set architecture but much more (The ARM architecture reference manual has more than 8000 pages).
I mean, in a timing belt it certainly is better for the planned obsolescence...🤷♂️
Thanks for that. Any insights as far as what that means for the chip design itself?
People who bought Mac Pros did so because they need the power, now. They could not wait for a couple more years for a possible new platform. They will surely pay for those Macs before an Arm-based replacement is ready. I would not be surprised if Apple couldn’t offer an Apple Silicon daughter card to pop into a Mac Pro to give it an upgrade.
To be fair, even in that case it's not obsolesce, it's a reasonable service and maintenance schedule. In that case you're replacing a part with the same item before you have a catastrophic failure due to mechanical wear.
In Apple's case, you're replacing a perfectly good and capable piece of hardware, because the maker wants to sell you another one.
I see, yes I agree the high end is unproven. I'm expecting at least 2-3 years more development to optimize performance at the high end but hopefully I'm wrong. Let's put it this way, I think the low end (MacBook Air etc.) will show more dramatic gains sooner than the high end (Mac Pro). Also, there's more volume at the low end and (even though the Mac Pro is very expensive) I assume also more profit, so they'll probably be more motivated to sink engineering resources into the low end. Also, low end machines probably need less radical designs and can share more with the iOS processors and still achieve good performance and battery life.
Lol who in their right mind would buy any seriously professional mac now! Apple might keep support for what 4-5 years, but plugin developers, third party hardware & their dedicated drivers, they aren’t going all support MAC since 2013 probably not even 2020! I wonder if its more about controlling the software via their App Store and the hardware via the T2 chip, they can then take a percentage. Bye Mac Pro it’s been nice while it lasted..
You are completely free to develop the microarchitecture as long as it behaves according to specification. Thats what Apple is doing.
Specification does not tell you how you implement things but how it behaves. Sometimes the specification explicitly says: behaviour is undefined.
And battery powered
Correct! Just ask the residents of CHOP, formerly known as CHAZ, formerly known as ....
Well, I know that I certainly replace my production hardware before it dies but is still “useable”. I’m going to be replacing a server at work this year that is perfectly fine. I just don’t want my workers to be dead in the water unexpectedly one day because I had an absurd desire to hold on to outdated hardware. But what do I know, I’m just a professional trying to keep the business running by acknowledging that change has to happen from time to time 🤷♂️
I'm genuinely concerned about this. Bought a 16" Macbook Pro and LG Ultrafine only a month or so ago, and now it looks like the whole setup could be obsolete.
I understand why Apple would do this, but for anyone who has recently bought a mac, it's going to be tough.
I understand why Apple would do this, but for anyone who has recently bought a mac, it's going to be tough.
So...bear with me because I’m trying to take this in, am I right in saying that Apple has apparently been developing SoC’s on their own rather that just punching up an ARM reference design? The only restriction is that it adheres to the instruction set?
Am I off base or fundamentally misunderstanding the point here? Thanks for the insight.
I haven't watched the presentation but overall I'm excited.
Windows/Bootcamp/virtualization just isn't something I care about anymore. (And I get it, I'm not everyone.) I do know that Apple is killing it with their own silicon and I'm glad to see something finally challenge x86.
On the flip side, this will allow Apple to become rather draconian—by which, I mean more so than they already are—about hardware. In many respects this will be more like the PPC days. I guess it's not that much different now though. I can't fix my own laptop anymore.
They'll either keep making laptops I want to use or... off to Linux I guess.
Windows/Bootcamp/virtualization just isn't something I care about anymore. (And I get it, I'm not everyone.) I do know that Apple is killing it with their own silicon and I'm glad to see something finally challenge x86.
On the flip side, this will allow Apple to become rather draconian—by which, I mean more so than they already are—about hardware. In many respects this will be more like the PPC days. I guess it's not that much different now though. I can't fix my own laptop anymore.
They'll either keep making laptops I want to use or... off to Linux I guess.
Why would you need to rebuy them?
Do they normally charge for upgrades?
You may be overestimating the amount of work to recompile from Intel to Apple Silicon
You essentially have it right. ARM is a specification, not an implementation. Apple's processors are implementations of the specification.
Of course. And that would be the "unplanned obsolesce" we were talking about.
Perhaps some new piece of technology comes out that makes more business to you to you, then of course you will switch to it. In your example, it sounds like you're worried about the older hardware failing if your workers will suddenly be dead in the water. That's reasonable. Plus it's your choice. It make not be necessary, but it's your business decision to make; you decide what's best for you. As it should be.
What's not acceptable is when your vendor simply makes the product that was fine no longer fine for the exact same purpose.
But what roadblock have you suddenly hit that makes any current Mac “no longer fine”?
I know we all have *questions* about this or that, which will obviously be answered in time, but what has fundamentally changed as of today that makes Macs no longer usable for what they’re being used for today?
Tim mentioned that the TRANSITON to Apple Silicon would take 2 years, not that that is when they would stop supporting Intel Macs. That is when they would stop selling new Intel Macs. They would likely support Intel for at least 5 years beyond that. So you would get about 7 years of full support and then you could continue to use it as a legacy Mac for years beyond that.
You do realize that years is merely the plural of year, meaning as little as two years, right?
Then you are betting foolishly. The writing has been on the wall for awhile. Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all establishing their own app stores and creating their own walled ecosystem as part of the transition to software as a service. This is at least partly about establishing a revenue stream.
To the contrary. Apple will keep shipping Intel Macs because those will be the only stable Macs for anyone who uses a Mac to make a living. There will be a large number of people who will buy them in order to keep their current workflow until they figure out how to adapt to ARM or transition to Windows. I expect the initial run of ARM-based Macs to encounter a lot of teething problems for anyone who does not rely solely on apps from Apple, Adobe, or Microsoft.
Yes, that is absolutely correct. They adhere to the architectural specification, but that’s just the top level of the design. The microarchitecture (how many cores, how many pipelines per core, how many stages per pipeline, the relative complexity/performance of the cores, how many cores can run at once, cache sizes, number of caches, TLB size, branch prediction algorithm, etc.) is all Apple. The logic design (the logical gates that form the design) is apple. The circuit design is apple. The physical design (the polygons on each layer of the semiconductor) is apple.