Apple's Path to Arm-Based Macs Could Start With a New 12-Inch MacBook

[JosephAW]

Never buy a gen 1 anything. Car, Computer.. ETC.

Or last gen. IE G5 quad core

 

[oneMadRssn]

It's only a matter certification fees. So far, no ARM-based device has been worth putting in TB3.

I don't think that's necessarily correct. Many would say the iPad Pro is an ARM-device that would have been worth having TB3.

It's more cynical, but lots of people have been accusing Intel of deliberately being slow in certifying non-Intel devices.

As of this moment. Intel still has yet to relinquish its position on Thunderbolt certification. Although the spec is now free, and most part of it, is inside USB4 ( and again not mandatory part of the spec ).

Not saying it is the fault of Intel.

Thunderbolt is now royalty-free and part of USB4, but TB devices still have to be certified by Intel. As I understand it, the certification process is not free, nor is certification freely-granted. Intel still has pretty tight mitts around TB.

 

[JosephAW]

Maybe the price point for the new ARM will be back to the old iBook days.

 

[eatrains]

Has anyone been able to run benchmarks on the T1 or T2 chips? Wondering how it compares to a full-fat A* chip and what it means for the potential of an Intel processor and a full-fat Apple processor in one machine.

 

[oneMadRssn]

is it possible for Apple license X86/X64 and make their own chips? (just like ARM license in A series)

Just a thought...

Why bother? Might as well just buy and use AMD chips. Heck the good AMD chips are made right along-side the A series chips at TSMC anyway.

 

[firewood]

Maybe no chance June, 2020. But $200 billion in cash says that Apple can develop a dedicated (e.g. high caliber) desktop GPU just for Metal if they want (I mean, I'm sure they already have such things in their labs). There are already SBCs like nvidia's Jetson that pair "pared down" desktop architecture GPUs with ARM CPUs. Pretty sure Apple can and will do something similar eventually.

So how far away is an Nvidia or AMD "gamer" class GPU from an iPad GPU, on a per Watt basis? Order of magnitude? More?

If Apple were to have their GPU team scale their current tech up to a 100W thermal envelope, would it compete?

 

[Azrael9]

Maybe the price point for the new ARM will be back to the old iBook days.

£595 or was it £695 here in the UK. Back when Apple Mac prices were rational.

ARM gives them the chance to do increase value ie reduce costs for consumer and margins for profits. To bring 'Mac' products back 'to the rest of us.' We'll see.

I look at the price rises on ARM products over teh last few years and doubt that.

That said. Apple have brought the iPad to historic low pricing. And the new iPhone affordable carries an A13 Chip. For 'fair' coin by relative Apple standards.

Azrael.

 

[cmaier]

i did say "has" - no one else can make x86 processors right now. also good point about AMD64. i forgot all about itanium and that whole diversion. i guess that was the first or 2nd time that AMD caught intel sleeping on what the market wanted.

but you know - and this is a patent mess i'm sure - but with apple going 64-bit only, what are the chances that they can license x86-64 from AMD and implement something like the pentium but issue the micro-ops to the ARM cores?

I think anyone can make an x86 if they use IBM as a fab (unless that license expired. Not sure). IBM doesn't really have much in the way of fab capacity anymore, though.

 

[Falhófnir]

I was kind of hoping we don't go back to the 2016 days of a MacBook line-up that's confusing and stupid.

It's pretty much inevitable it will be as they introduce new models (possibly a whole new 'iBook' line) and phase old ones out... I hope the lineup won't resemble its current form when the dust has settled on the other side. Needs more choice than 13" thin and light or 16" workstation. Having a 12", 14" and 16" iBook or something which can scale from the least to most powerful chips Apple are producing means no need to maintain several chassis to target different market segments. Just make 3 chassis designs and add more power and features at each pricing level.

e.g:
12" iBook
A14-1/8GB/256GB/100% RGB - $999
A14-2/8GB/512GB/P3 - $1,299
A14-3/16GB/1TB/P3/ ProMotion - $1,599

Maybe they can call the latter two configurations 'PowerBook' or 'iBook Pro' or whatever (for example) but underneath they are the same machine with more expensive components slotted in, a modular approach saving a ton of cash.

 

[JGIGS]

I wonder if it will even have fans. iPad Pro doesn't...

I feel like ios devices could still use better cooling. My iphone X can get pretty toasty at times.

I would assume they would prefer to continue to use other methods than fans for phones and tablets, but since people are used to them in laptops, if it would improve performance substantially I say let there be fans!

 

[cmaier]

I think the people who are worried about all this are people who didn't live through the glorious chaos of the 1980s PC market. All those different architectures (8088, 6502, 65k, z80, etc.) produced a wide range of different machines with different capabilities and features. It was fantastic.

For the last 30 years we've been more or less stuck in homogeneity. This is going to be great.

 

[MichaelDT]

I’m just going to throw this on the maybe it’s not ARM but AMD or AMD+ARM fire.

 

[bernoulli]

A 12-inch MacBook with ARM may very well outperform the current high-end MacBook Pros, in the same way the iPad Pro does (or comes pretty close). Add built-in 5G and a second thunderbolt port in place of the headphone jack and it would certainly be my preferred machine, even if money were no object! Also wouldn’t be surprised if the ARM Macs were the start of Face ID on the Mac. Yes please.

Yes, it may outperform on some benchmarks but people who need mac to do mission critical work might want to keep their intel macs while people beta test the ARM macs. It makes sense to start with 12inch Macbooks and not the Pros.

 

[Azrael9]

I think the people who are worried about all this are people who didn't live through the glorious chaos of the 1980s PC market. All those different architectures (8088, 6502, 65k, z80, etc.) produced a wide range of different machines with different capabilities and features. It was fantastic.

For the last 30 years we've been more or less stuck in homogeneity. This is going to be great.

I enjoyed reading your post.

100%.

A new CPU. A 'Mac' cpu. Made by Apple. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

This is going to happen. Inevitable. Some may not 'like it.'

But it's going to happen.

It will be like the PPC. Intel will be a footnote in 'Mac' history.

Azrael.

 

[anthdci]

I expected the 12" to come back with it, to be honest. It seems to make the most sense putting it in there first. People using that will use their smallest range of apps so its less of an inconvenience for things not working. As apps start working they'll expand it to the air, and a few years down the line the pro.

 

[bernoulli]

Im really excited for what the new ARM macs will have to offer.
An ARM Mac outperforming Intel i7 Macs doing the same tasks? A greatly improved battery runtime? Awesome!

At the same time I'm a little worried whether Apple will lock down these machines like they do with iPads and iPhones. Will we still be able to install and run whichever software we want, or can software only be installed from the Mac App Store?
Also, will we still be able to install whichever OS we want (e.g. downgrade to an earlier version of macOS or install an ARM version of linux)?

Hopefully these questions will be answered on WWDC, as it will decide whether I will stay on macOS or if I have to switch to another OS. I totally understand the lockdown performed on iPads and iPhones, but can't stand the idea of having a locked down mac.

Still, very excited for this WWDC!

I personally think it won’t benefit professionals but only those who use macs for facebook and youtube.

 

[firewood]

Mac App Store Apps does not guarantee working on ARM Mac.

Not currently. But Apple can fix that using current methods in a short timeframe. They currently threaten to throw apps out of the App Store if the apps haven't been updated recently. And they currently require a minimum SDK level for update submissions. That new minimum macOS SDK level will include a "fat/universal" compatibility requirement for ARM.

An interesting question is will they allow leaving out x86-64 support in their Mac App Store submissions? (e.g. force people to buy new Macs to run certain apps?)

 

[BeefCake 15]

I doubt they'll debut hardware at WWDC but instead are forced to reveal it because it's part of the new Mac OS as well as get developers ready for the ARM migration.

 

[Tekguy0]

Hopefully its cheap! If they are going to sacrifice compatibility and include the butterfly "time-bomb" keyboard, they should at least make it affordable.

 

[Lounge vibes 05]

Here’s how I think it’s going to go schedule wise:
June 2020: Apple announces the ARM transition, with special Apple TVs that are able to boot into macOS for development purposes.
Mar 2021: Apple announces the MacBook T3 with a 12 core chip, 12 inch screen.
June 2021: Apple gives a update on how the transition is going one year later, and announces a Mac Mini T3
October 2021: Apple announces a 14 inch MacBook Pro with a T3X processor with more performance cores and better graphics, and a 16 inch with a T3Z with even more graphics performance.
June 2022: Apple announces the T4 chip, and releases the first ARM powered iMacs.
October 2022: Apple updates all Mac laptops and the Mac mini with the new T4 chips, it also releases a special board to put a ARM Co-processor in the MacPro. June 2023: Apple announces a completely ARM based Mac Pro and iMac Pro with a late 2023 release date.
June 2026: now that the Mac has been completely ARM for 3 years, and most of the 2019-2020 Intel Macs are reaching their obsolete phase, Apple announces that the 2026 release of macOS will be the final release to support X86, with an additional two years of security updates, as every version of macOS gets

 

[DummyFool]

Every reviewers is speculating that ARM will begin on a low-end machine, this is rubbish.

It will start on a pretty powerful machine, don't know if it will be a Macbook Pro 16 or not.

A) It will show their confidence in the move.
B) It will give them a better opportunity to charge a premium for it.
C) If you start bottom up and increase performance you run the risk to encroach on the Pro line.
D) Ming Chi Kuo predicted the transition to ARM will be fast, if that's the case, there is no advantages in starting bottom-up.

 

[JPack]

I don't think that's necessarily correct. Many would say the iPad Pro is an ARM-device that would have been worth having TB3.

It's more cynical, but lots of people have been accusing Intel of deliberately being slow in certifying non-Intel devices.

The iPad Pro is barely using the bandwidth or features of USB-C. iPadOS received external storage support less than a year ago. Most iOS apps don't even recognize a second screen. Very few users are asking to output using a single-cable to dual 4K displays and charge at 60W at the same time.

 

[trace594]

Here’s how I think it’s going to go schedule wise:
June 2020: Apple announces the ARM transition, with special Apple TVs that are able to boot into macOS for development purposes.
Mar 2021: Apple announces the MacBook T3 with a 12 core chip, 12 inch screen.
June 2021: Apple gives a update on how the transition is going one year later, and announces a Mac Mini T3
October 2021: Apple announces a 14 inch MacBook Pro with a T3X processor with more performance cores and better graphics, and a 16 inch with a T3Z with even more graphics performance.
June 2022: Apple announces the T4 chip, and releases the first ARM powered iMacs.
October 2022: Apple updates all Mac laptops and the Mac mini with the new T4 chips, it also releases a special board to put a ARM Co-processor in the MacPro. June 2023: Apple announces a completely ARM based Mac Pro and iMac Pro with a late 2023 release date.
June 2026: now that the Mac has been completely ARM for 3 years, and most of the 2019-2020 Intel Macs are reaching their obsolete phase, Apple announces that the 2026 release of macOS will be the final release to support X86, with an additional two years of security updates, as every version of macOS gets

Same type of play they did with PPC to x86.

 

[now i see it]

I bet the purpose of this junky MacBook is to give developers something to use. Doubt it will be a favorite for customers

 

[CPL593H]

I dont think it makes any sense for them to revive the 12-inch when they have a similarly svelte 13-inch MacBook Air which presumably has always sold way better than the 12-inch MacBook ever did.

Could the new ARM 12 inch MacBook simply become the new “Air”. 2lbs, 12 Inches, pretty Air-y to me. Especially if they do the MBP 16 inch treatment to the bezels to push it closer to 13. The MacBook always felt a great step but unfinished. I liked thr keyboard width size and far less design. If the Air is already said to be a basic use machine, why not turn that line into a true lightweight Air, and differentiate further from the base 13 MBP. Especially in light of the rumored 14 inch MBP, now you’ve got a 12-13 MB(A?), and 14, 16 MBP offerings