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Bloomberg: Apple's First Arm Mac to Launch by 2021 With 12-Core Processor
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It's not quite the same. "Marzipan" is used recompile software built for iOS / ARM to run on MacOS / Intel. Obviously with an ARM Mac you could build your iOS software to run on MacOS / ARM which is a tiny bit easier. But if you are mostly interested in MacOS, you would just have a build switch from MacOS / Intel to MacOS / ARM.
This is not that simple. If it were, then why developers like Panic didn't do a linux version for ARM of their most successfull app - Coda Editor? Yeah right... it's not that simple.
Maybe it was only 1 - 2 years for you - but how long did it take to retire 10.6.8? That hung around for a very long time for a reason. I wasn't able to move off it until the release of 10.10.
While certain operations could benefit from ARM design, I think this is completely irrelevant. Apple doesn't have any intentions whatsoever to be associated with data centers.
I think they realized that for every professional who needs a real Mac, there are 100 wannabes who also do "professional" video editing or whatever, like adding sound to youtube videos once a week. Apple wants to develop devices for this group as it is pretty easy to please.
I'm not sure I want my Mac running on an iPhone processor. It just doesn't sound right in terms of performance.
My point is: If an ARM based computer cannot run high quality games, then it will not be a success.
You can see how bad Windows has been on Surface...
This article doesn't say it, but another that I read said that this is only for low end Macs. Intel based chips will still be reserved for higher end Macs and laptops.
I think Apple should still with X86. It was nice when Power did great, but when they lagged it hurt all of Apple. On mobile phones Apple has always been ahead whcih is great but desktops and laptops have different uses. It just seems like a bad decision strategically. If you want to ditch Intel, try AMD.
One library that my code uses doesn't run on the MacOS simulator because they don't have an Intel 64 bit version :-( Only Intel 32 bit, ARM 32 bit, ARM 64 bit, and ARM Neon.
I am sure someone has posited this idea before-but how about a hybrid ARM/X86 laptop. You could have the “best of both worlds” super powerful and energy efficient without sacrificing compatibility. The ARM CPU could handle the Mac OS, background tasks, built in Apple apps etc. while the X86 CPU would only fire up and could use all of its power to only run X86 specific apps or tasks. I am sure there is a sweet spot somewhere in a marriage like that where you could create a laptop that is significantly more powerful than todays MBP yet deliver 8-15+ hour real world battery life depending on usage.
I probably use my MBP in such a way that only about 10-20% of the apps and task I do use would require X86. The rest of the 80-90% of the time my 15” MBP is basically being used like an ipad Pro but with a battery at least 2-3x Wh capacity that could ever fit in an iPad.
I probably use my MBP in such a way that only about 10-20% of the apps and task I do use would require X86. The rest of the 80-90% of the time my 15” MBP is basically being used like an ipad Pro but with a battery at least 2-3x Wh capacity that could ever fit in an iPad.
Here's hoping the lower end will have ARM but the mid to high-end will stay on Intel.
I've always been a Mac fan and having Intel-based Macs has been the golden age. I've had the Apple ecosystem with its neat features and Xcode along with VMs/hypervisors for native Linux and Windows development. ARM-based Macs might make them less expensive and good competition against Chromebooks, but they'll need Intel-based Macs for platform coders.
In a previous life I worked in hardware development and used emulators for different architectures, it was great for getting projects going before first silicon showed up, but it was slow and clunky. Hypervisors work well on Macs now because it's a shared architecture.
We'll see where this leads...
R
I've always been a Mac fan and having Intel-based Macs has been the golden age. I've had the Apple ecosystem with its neat features and Xcode along with VMs/hypervisors for native Linux and Windows development. ARM-based Macs might make them less expensive and good competition against Chromebooks, but they'll need Intel-based Macs for platform coders.
In a previous life I worked in hardware development and used emulators for different architectures, it was great for getting projects going before first silicon showed up, but it was slow and clunky. Hypervisors work well on Macs now because it's a shared architecture.
We'll see where this leads...
R
I don't think success will rely on games. People don't tend to buy Macs purely to play games. Macs kind of suck for games.
This is exactly what I think. Leave it (ARM) to the smartphones and tablets as well as low end computers such as the MB Air.
The switch from PowerPC to Intel went fine. There were a couple bumps, but overall it was a smooth transition.
Most Mac users don't need more than a "snappy" Safari experience. Despite what everybody still wants to believe, Apple is consumer-focused company.
The lack of Intel compatibility will hurt a lot of people who purchased Macs to have designer hardware on their desks - and actually run Windows and Windows software on it.
However, by the time the transition to ARM will be completed, most transitions to "professional software as a cloud service" will also be completed and the norm - and that is the time when the technology on the client side becomes irrelevant. Five to seven years, maximum. The IT industry as a whole is working towards that goal, and when 5G will be widely available, bandwidth won't be as much of an issue anymore as it still is today.
Steve Jobs said in the early 1990s that he wouldn't care what powers his computer; he would be fine if it were a hamster in a wheel, as long as his applications would still work. We're finally getting there. ;-)
Apple is not going to have a few Macs with AMD and a few Macs with Intel, that’s just not how they do things. They will have a few with Intel and a few with ARM/Arm for a period of time, just like they did with 68K—>PowerPC and PowerPC—>Intel. AMD simply doesn’t have the portfolio that Intel does and if Apple is going to go to the trouble to make a CPU switch it is isn’t going to go from one x86 to another x86.
And no, I dont think AMD could keep Apple supplied to Apples expectations without jeopardizing their relationships and contracts with PC OEMs that offer them a lot broader chance of being successful in the market. It is remotely possible that Apple approached AMD about it and AMD basically said they couldn’t meet Apple’s terms and bowed out. I doubt it, but anything is possible.
AMD needs to learn how to walk and chew gum at the same time (CPUs and GPUs) and right now they are having growing pains doing so. The Navi GPU releases have trickled out as AMD has been trying to shore up and exploit their market position for CPUs versus Intel, which is the smartest business move given Intels misfortunes. NVIDIA would not be a good target to tangle with at this point, instead exploiting Intels 10nm foibles is going to have the biggest net positive for AMD and their partners and their stock price.
You know the early 1990s Jobs was a quite completely different man to the one we saw in early 2000s, right?
Hopefully, these ARM CPUs will only be used for lower end Macs. Higher end Macs will keep Intel processors. There's little reason why Apple can't support ARM and Intel concurrently.
And this is exactly why Apple should just fire everyone except a team to release the same Mac with new colors every year.
I use to keep an old iPod launch post on file which was around the lines of "What is Jobs thinking - nobody wants a glorified overpriced MP3 player - we want 'one more thing' not a music device - this its the death of Apple, they'll never be able to build on this"
What makes you think the x86 CPU will be more powerful than a Mac specific ARM CPU? The current low cost/low power A-series CPU in the iPhones already competes/beats the i3 series from Intel and there is no reason Apple can't (or didn't already) design a MacOS dedicated ARM CPU that can compete with the latest i7/i9 Intel CPU's while consuming much less power and costing significantly less as well.
My thoughts exactly. I know many think this will be "the end of the Mac" but in reality this could actually greatly boost Mac sales. Having in house chips could give Apple the ability to mass produce a low end - low cost MacBook that would be in line with the Google Chromebooks price wise. Meanwhile, the higher end machines could still make use of these A series chips as a means to offload some of the task from the Intel CPU (or maybe Apple will switch to AMD CPUs). A $799 or so 12" MacBook with an A14 would be the perfect bridge between the gap or Mac and iPad Pro.
Well most computers cannot run high quality games either due to the poor GPUs in them, and many more cannot run them at an acceptable frame rate. The only reason why there aren’t many PC games written for ARM as well is that its a numbers game when it comes to profitability, having more units will make it more attractive. Both Apple and Microsoft are pushing it so it will send the signal to developers.