Bloomberg: Apple's First Arm Mac to Launch by 2021 With 12-Core Processor

[MauiPa]

It is going to be interesting. However one of the many reasons I prefer Macs is that they can run anything. I can use VMWare, Parallels, VirtualBox or even Bootcamp to run and develop for Linux and Windows at nearly native speeds. Moving to ARM would most likely eliminate that option. I don't know how big of group that is, but I do know that Macs have become many developers primary systems because of that ability.

I wish I could predict the future, especially one so bleak. I’m sure no one could have thought of this at all. Or gee, maybe the arm macs will just be one offering. Oops, then your argument is gone, sorry.
I’d rather see AMD though, intel is just not doing much right. They charge megabajillions foe ecc memory, more than 2 memory channels, pci 4, etc.

 

[Falhófnir]

Question: will the Windows world also switch to ARM? Or will it keep using Intel forever? 🤔

Windows will probably add Arm rather than switching, at least for the foreseeable future. Microsoft seem quite keen for Windows on Arm to be their answer to Chromebooks, but eventually they might build up enough of a native software ecosystem to start eating into full ultrabook territory, thence maybe finally into more powerful systems as well.

 

[Mr. Dee]

For persons who keep bringing up, will I be able to run Windows in BootCamp on these, I have to wonder...

If you need Windows, why not just buy a cheap Windows notebook for your x86 application needs? It’s not like you need a $3,000 Windows notebook just to run the few general purpose apps or even for software development. Currently, I have a Surface Pro 3, Early 2015 MBP and a 2017 iPad Pro, iPhone X. Each has its own use case. Right now, I am using my iPad in bed.

Remember too, this A Series MacBook is a forward thinking device and maybe its an opportunity to rethink your use case. Instead of depending on a local install of Windows, a better approach would be to setup a VM in Microsoft Azure or AWS and do all your Windows development and application testing there. We are talking about a transition here that starts in 2021. 20 years ago when OS X was on PowerPC, we used dialup, installed software from discs, ripped audio to hard disk, watched movies on DVD.

20 years later, we install new versions of macOS from an app software or do clean installs using the Internet recovery option, download apps from the App Store, stream music, not just Apple Music, but using either using Spotify or YouTube, stream movies from Netflix or Hulu.

So, those who are dooming gloom this need to think broader about how this transition will change computing. The need to run Windows in a VM will simply mean connecting to a remote VM over a fast wireless or 5G connection on Azure or AWS.

If you bring up the topic, oh, but what if I am in a spotty location or don’t have access to a fast wireless connection to do a Remote Desktop. The question I would ask is, why are you on vacation in the first place or out in the wilderness? Obviously, you are trying to get away from technology. Years ago, when I was a Windows user, my concern was, I wouldn’t be able to use Microsoft Access and Publisher if I moved to a Mac. To be honest, I never used or needed those apps anyway.

 

[mattopotamus]

I never owned a PC that lasted beyond 3 years that wasn't showing it's age and battery shot to death....here I am typing this to you on 2012 MBP that's still running with the latest OS.

I think it just depends on what you get and where you get it from. I could get a $1500 PC that would run circles around an equally priced Mac.

 

[cmaier]

The Mac market is not the Windows market.

If MacOS is better than Windows, then one of the key reasons is that Apple can have a clean sweep every decade or so without losing their ultra-conservative corporate customers. Even Apple's "pro" users mainly work in media creation and, by necessity, are vastly more open to change than the banks and insurance companies who keep Microsoft stuck with supporting 30 year-old software.

Windows users expect to be able to run binaries compiled in the 1990s (and they have to support a huge corporate market who rely on this) using an API that was x86-centric since it was cloned from CP/M (...Windows NT is newer and cross-platform, but the non-x86 versions all failed and/or were dropped, and even Windows 10 still supports old Win9x-era, if not before, binaries).

In that time, Apple have (a) completely switched processor architecture 3 times (68k to PPC, PPC to x86-32, x86-32 to x86-64) and (b) dumped Classic MacOS for a completely new NextStep-based OS that isn't even source-code compatible with "Classic" (and the "classic" emulation mode is long gone)... which, as a Unix implementation, is fundamentally platform-agnostic and founded on source-level compatibility anyway

Also, Apple control the hardware and the software, so they can force a transition by simply announcing an end-of-life for x86 Macs - anybody wanting to stay in the Mac software business will have to support ARM - whereas Microsoft can't (well, they could drop x86 Windows... and cease to exist) so currently you have 1 or 2 ARM Windows machines vs hundreds of Intel-based competitors with no particular incentive for developers to support it. Heck, Apple could afford to lose the Mac entirely.

Meanwhile, have spent years shepherding developers towards official MacOS frameworks for graphics, acceleration etc., depreciating OpenGL, CUDA etc. They just purged the Mac world of "abandonware" and legacy binaries by dropping 32 bit support in Catalina. For the vast majority of applications, written mainly in high-level languages, recompiling for ARM64 is going to be a trivial job compared to converting them from x86-32 to x86-64... and for the exceptions, well, if the developers don't think their worth supporting they're likely to die at the next major MacOS upgrade anyway (if they haven't already been killed by Catalina).

It's pretty ironic that the most serious loss from switching the Mac to ARM would be the ability to run Windows

...although, personally, that's a feature I'm finding less and less important - increasingly, there are Mac and cloud-based alternatives to Windows-only software, the demise of Internet Explorer and MS's switch to Chromium vastly reduces the need for testing websites/webapps on Windows while the lack of a touchscreen on the Mac probably means that I'm going to end up needing to buy a Windows laptop/convertible to properly test websites/apps.

Meanwhile, if I really need an x86 Linux VM (given that ARM64 Linux is already well-developed), I can spin one up in the cloud for a penny an hour (its not like you can do modern web development without an Internet connection).



That seems most likely - 6 months of a developer program should ensure a huge swathe of natively-compiled ARM apps. The big pro media apps will likely take a bit longer.

However, notwithstanding the comments above (and the revelation that an iPad Pro+ Magic Keyboard weighs more than an Air) I'm starting to wonder if the mythical ARM Mac will actually turn out to be an "iPad Laptop"... which would explain all the interest in "Pro" apps for iPad.

The original report clearly states this is for MacOS machines, not iPadOS.

 

[mikerahl]

if we could only count all the times “Apple is doomed” has been predicted because of a change in processor architecture… 😅

They did nearly kill themselves in the 90s in large part due to lack of compatibility. If Mac OS suddenly becomes incompatible with most or all of their current "non toy" application suite (read almost anything made for IOS), they're going to have trouble with this platform. I can't envision buying a mac that has only "Virtual PC" compatibility with non-web software suites. Hopefully Apple finds a way to bridge the gap.

 

[deconstruct60]

Funny how most people think this is the death of the Mac. I think this could be the death of Windows notebooks just like Netbooks were killed by Apple. ...

Netbooks weren't killed by Apple. Chromebooks ( which pragmatically just a rebranding and shift to a better OS for the purpose) are doing better than iPads. There are a couple of vendors who sell minor variations of Chromebooks as very low end Windows devices.

Even Microsoft has an "upscale" Netbook ; Surface Go.

Meet Surface Go – Portable Power – Microsoft Surface

Surface Go is the smallest, lightest Surface 2-in-1 laptop yet. At only 1.15 lbs (522 grams) & a 10" touchscreen, Surface Go features a built-in adjustable kickstand for adaptability in any environment.

www.microsoft.com

That doesn't look like "dead".

Windows on ARM will probably get more traction by the end of this year. But end of all x86 laptops? That isn't coming any time soon or even next several years.

 

[cmaier]

Death of the Mac for how many technical folks use it. Macs will certainly go on, but Apple just seems determined to turn its back on segments of the consumer base that have been very loyal.

But as we all know, Apple is no longer a computer company. They are a phone/services company. So decisions like this make sense, in that light, no matter how some of us here despise such decisions.

It’s too bad, the 4000 series AMD mobile chips sure look nice. I’m sure Apple could have gotten them much cheaper than the Intel chips they are currently using in the laptops.

That’s short term thinking. AMD has zero history of sustaining a technical advantage more than a couple of years. They also have zero history of supply the full range of parts needed for an entire lineup of machines.

 

[jmgregory1]

Worth the read, I promise!

You don’t have to go very far back in history to conclude that Apple is well positioned to have a smooth transition from x86 to ARM processors. First, they did it with the switch from PowerPC to Intel in 2006. Back then those machines ran a PowerPC emulator called Rosetta to run PowerPC apps on Intel. They were a bit slower than native apps, but it was more than useable to allow devs time to transition their apps to run natively on Intel.

Secondly, they did it right under our noses with the public none the wiser when they transitioned millions of devices from the aging HFS file system to the new APFS file system all the way back in 2017 (no small feat).

Thirdly, a transition of this magnitude is not done overnight. You better believe Apple has been cooking up this thing in the lab for years and when the move happens, they will have all their apps ready to go natively on ARM. I’d wager that their top devs have knowledge of this and are prepping for the transition behind the scenes as well. It’s not an accident that Adobe is dipping their toes in the ARM waters with Photoshop and the upcoming Illustrator for iPad.

Fourthly, by moving over to ARM Apple will be more in control of their products and their product rollout. They will save boatloads of money by designing their own processors because they don’t have to factor in Intel’s profits. This will free them up to either lower prices, or add value by inventing new innovative features that don’t exist today.

Lastly, you can’t compare what Micosoft is doing to what Apple is doing. Literally, Apples and Oranges. One can argue that Microsoft has far more duds than Apple and often rushes unfinished, unrefined product/platforms that have little developer buy-in like Windows Phone, Zune, Windows ME, MSN Watch, MSN PlaysforSure, Plug and Pray... I mean... Plug and Play.

BONUS: The transition to ARM is not a matter of if, but when. Apple transitioned from PowerPC to Intel because PowerPC processor updates became stagnant and unpredictable, they ran hot, and hit the ceiling in terms of performance when compared to Intel. Sound familiar? This is Intel today. ARM is the future, the processors are efficient yet powerful. The current iPad Pro A12X runs rings around Intel Core i7 single and multi-core benchmarks, it even beats the pants of Core i9s in some tests. All this in a super thin, fanless, design that doesn’t run hot enough to cook eggs. Can you imagine what an ARM MacBook would be able to do without the form factor constraints of an iPad? Brrrr... I shudder at the thought.

So... I wouldn’t bet against Apple pulling this off :]

Completely agree with you. I lived through the shift from PowerPC (G5 Tower) to Intel and it was indeed a non-issue for me and my workflow. Obviously there are going to be certain applications that will require ground up re-builds to work with ARM chips, but I would put money on Apple already having conversations or possibly even working with some brands on initial implementations.

Instead of some people getting mad about this shift, they should instead be excited for the jump in performance capability. Apple has already been able to outperform many Intel chips, while also providing reduced energy consumption, which is certainly a big issue in mobile computing going forward.

 

[star-affinity]

Cool!
Let me guess – it will cost an ARM and a leg?

Sorry…

I also think Apple will handle the transition to ARM for macOS just fine. I mean we already have iOS/iPadOS that is sharing a lot of stuff with macOS.

 

[Azrael9]

The Mac market is not the Windows market.

If MacOS is better than Windows, then one of the key reasons is that Apple can have a clean sweep every decade or so without losing their ultra-conservative corporate customers. Even Apple's "pro" users mainly work in media creation and, by necessity, are vastly more open to change than the banks and insurance companies who keep Microsoft stuck with supporting 30 year-old software.

Windows users expect to be able to run binaries compiled in the 1990s (and they have to support a huge corporate market who rely on this) using an API that was x86-centric since it was cloned from CP/M (...Windows NT is newer and cross-platform, but the non-x86 versions all failed and/or were dropped, and even Windows 10 still supports old Win9x-era, if not before, binaries).

In that time, Apple have (a) completely switched processor architecture 3 times (68k to PPC, PPC to x86-32, x86-32 to x86-64) and (b) dumped Classic MacOS for a completely new NextStep-based OS that isn't even source-code compatible with "Classic" (and the "classic" emulation mode is long gone)... which, as a Unix implementation, is fundamentally platform-agnostic and founded on source-level compatibility anyway

Also, Apple control the hardware and the software, so they can force a transition by simply announcing an end-of-life for x86 Macs - anybody wanting to stay in the Mac software business will have to support ARM - whereas Microsoft can't (well, they could drop x86 Windows... and cease to exist) so currently you have 1 or 2 ARM Windows machines vs hundreds of Intel-based competitors with no particular incentive for developers to support it. Heck, Apple could afford to lose the Mac entirely.

Meanwhile, have spent years shepherding developers towards official MacOS frameworks for graphics, acceleration etc., depreciating OpenGL, CUDA etc. They just purged the Mac world of "abandonware" and legacy binaries by dropping 32 bit support in Catalina. For the vast majority of applications, written mainly in high-level languages, recompiling for ARM64 is going to be a trivial job compared to converting them from x86-32 to x86-64... and for the exceptions, well, if the developers don't think their worth supporting they're likely to die at the next major MacOS upgrade anyway (if they haven't already been killed by Catalina).

It's pretty ironic that the most serious loss from switching the Mac to ARM would be the ability to run Windows

...although, personally, that's a feature I'm finding less and less important - increasingly, there are Mac and cloud-based alternatives to Windows-only software, the demise of Internet Explorer and MS's switch to Chromium vastly reduces the need for testing websites/webapps on Windows while the lack of a touchscreen on the Mac probably means that I'm going to end up needing to buy a Windows laptop/convertible to properly test websites/apps.

Meanwhile, if I really need an x86 Linux VM (given that ARM64 Linux is already well-developed), I can spin one up in the cloud for a penny an hour (its not like you can do modern web development without an Internet connection).



That seems most likely - 6 months of a developer program should ensure a huge swathe of natively-compiled ARM apps. The big pro media apps will likely take a bit longer.

However, notwithstanding the comments above (and the revelation that an iPad Pro+ Magic Keyboard weighs more than an Air) I'm starting to wonder if the mythical ARM Mac will actually turn out to be an "iPad Laptop"... which would explain all the interest in "Pro" apps for iPad.

Sound post. Well observed.

Apple have cultivated the iOS (future MacOS) market very well. £££ talk. And the iOS market has 1 billion users. That's leverage to drag the 'Mac' along with it to a new ARM era.

Losing Windows bootcamp isn't going to stop Apple going ARM. It's irrelevant. If you want that, a PC is dirt cheap now. And you can build Hack'tosh easier than ever.

iPad's have Adobe on them now and all the software a 'Mac' could possibly want. And a bigger iPad/iMac ARM based iOS desktop computer will be a natural progression. We'll probably not notice the difference.

Apple didn't hesitate to put Mac OS 9 in a coffin. Nor running over PPC for Intel efficiency. How ironic.

It's that efficiency that is going to run over Intel. Real soon.

Azrael.

 

[Lesser Evets]

That's some intense whining and cringing and doom throwing in this thread.

Ultimately, unless you are inside Apple's team, you have no idea what is coming with this change. You merely throw arbitrary opinion. I was there when Apple transitioned to Mac, then to OS X, then to Intel... it only made the products better. The post-Jobs era hasn't been spectacular, but it hasn't been a total disaster either. I'd bet this newest iteration of Macs will be better than the past (if you get beyond the first year phudge-ups) and spell a better and smoother release of hardware updates.

Apple can finally untether from Intel and get their upgrades to hook into newer-faster standards and protocols and technology. They can actually DEFINE the high-end computer field again instead of being ball-n-chained to Intel's lousy timeline.

There'll probably be a Rosetta-like translator for older software.

And in one year most software titles (smaller ones first) will have re-written around the new OS.

After 3 years it will be as if nothing happened, unless you are clinging to ancient software, in which case you merely retain an old Mac and use that for those suites you need from the past.

Business as usual. Lotta cheese with the whine. As usual.

iPad's have Adobe on them now and all the software a 'Mac' could possibly want.

No... not really. Thanks for playing, though.

 

[Azrael9]

Cool
Let me guess – it will cost an ARM and a leg?

Sorry…

You say that. But iPads here in the UK have been run up and up over the last several years. Who'd a thought of a £1000 iphone, eh?

I wouldn't count on ARM based Macs costing less. They'll pocket any savings on ARM chips.

Azrael.

 

[yaxomoxay]

No. The great majority of applications written today are not written for a specific processor architecture. They're written to support certain operating systems, frameworks, libraries, etc. For most applications, the transition will most likely be as simple as recompiling the software. For example, I work on a large-scale software project intended to run on x86 servers however our demo platform is a bunch of ARM boards running a different operating system than what most of us develop on; we did virtually 0 work to support this, for the most part we just recompiled.

Developers have been writing cross-platform compatible software, using cross-compilers, etc for decades. Some folks here are blowing this way out of proportion (or they just have no idea how software is written today). Yes, there will be a transition period, however, for the great majority of Mac users this will be no big deal.

Another thing that will help this is that Macs are quite popular as developer platforms, including for software that's not intended to run on Macs in production. Those developers, like me, want to use a Mac and we want software to work on it. I can see a lot of developers jumping on this and working to make sure stuff works.

Yes, there will be issues like "how do I run my x86 OS in a VM" and whatnot but those will be solved with time. Aside from issues, I think most people here are not nearly as tied to x86 as they think they are.

Thank you for the explanation, I truly appreciate it.

 

[Azrael9]

When you watch the full keynote of WWDC 2005 at the transition section from 9-10 and also at the end he explains that OS X is set for the next 20 years (in the short clip) and at the end he speaks to us as a fatherly figure or as our boss (around 58 min) to go and recompile our code for the next transition. He'd be saying the same thing today for ARM transition.

Yup.

Azrael.

 

[BeefCake 15]

I think it just depends on what you get and where you get it from. I could get a $1500 PC that would run circles around an equally priced Mac.

All of my corp. PCs are no less than $1,500 Dell, HP and Lenovos

 

[Websnapx2]

Uh…I using Home.app which is Marzipan…but usability in desktop is horrible. They not optimized for desktop experience, basically just large iOS apps floating on window. No contextual menu, using large touch screen oriented UI with mouse cursor is very wrong….

You are missing my point — While they are not as good (yet) as native apps are on x86 chips when the ARM chips get on the mac that won't be an issue anymore, meanwhile people will already be thinking of developing (and delivering) their apps cross-platform. If you think the Initial performance of Marzipan is the endpoint, you are waaaaay off.

 

[Azrael9]

No developer is writing apps in X86, you use tools. Apple controls the bigges one - XCode. All they need to do is a flip a switch in XCode to compile natively for ARM.

Tralsation layer is goign take care of the rest...

This is not 20 years ago, my friends. Even bootcamp will work (looking at my Surface pro X ARM based Windows device...).

Should be easier than last time and easier than ever. They've been planning this move for some time.

Azrael.

 

[Biofreak12]

I need x86 to do my job. This could eventually end my use of OS X, at least for work, which would really suck. I've been using OS X since literally day one in March 2001.

Apple might have some emulation processes to give you similar performance of x86 functionality. Who know. lets wait and see. But i am with you!
[automerge]1587648828[/automerge]

 

[Dionte]

Apple already has an App Store with over 2.2 million apps that are made to work on an arm processor. They released one app for iPhone, iPad and Macs, it’s all coming together.

 

[ericwn]

I still use a 2012 cMBP and keep waiting and waiting... eventually I will upgrade this thing

Sorry but what is a cMBP? Thanks in advance.

 

[needsomecoffee]

We can only hope! This should push them in a whole new direction.

I certainly hope Apple gives options. Currently MacOS is a tremendous productivity tool for development. Sadly Jobs was really the guy who allowed the OS to give options such as having Python pre-installed, Terminal running Bash, etc. Tim is more about walling-in the garden, but perhaps he will relent some given services revenues will need to reach across the wall at some point to continue to grow according to investors' expectations. Nadella's provision of WSL is a pretty strong statement.

 

[Quu]

This is going to be the death of the Mac computers as a whole. Arm Macs won’t have any compatability with any of the software available until the software developers update their software and most will be left behind. Microsoft tried to transition to ARM with the Surface Pro X and Windows 10 on ARM has been a failure. I expect this to fail as well, especially since ARM will probably not have the same performance for all tasks compared to X86-64.

It's funny because people said this exact thing in 2004-2005 in the run-up to the Intel switch. People said, developers won't update their software, the Mac is too small of a market.

They said it will make people think of Macs just like PC's, less special and they would just buy PC's. They said it would cause piracy of Mac OS X and result in people buying Dells and loading Mac OS X on them (the fear here was duplicating what happened with Mac OS 8 when Apple licensed it to vendors and no one bought Apples hardware which was one of the many reasons Apple almost went bankrupt).

But you know what happened? People saw the value in a higher performing computer with better battery life. Developers followed their customers and released updated versions of their software to support the new architecture and Apple in the interim provided Rosetta Stone so we could run the Apps that didn't get an x86 recompile.

Fact is if these computers offer better battery life or higher performance (and it looks like they'll offer both based on the big.LITTLE architecture of the rumoured 12 core chip) it will do great in the market and developers will jump on board.

 

[Bruno Castelló]

This is just a rant, and also my first post here. (I think, I've posted before to complain about Apple Music)

I despise the ARM architecture. I had a RPi 3B+ for the last three years, and could never do any real good s**t on it. So I threw it straight to the bin last month. It's slow, useless, and power hungry, it would eat battery like hell if it had one. I could never do any of my personal projects on it with success, the only one that worked is the one where I used a RPI 3B+ to open and close my garage door remotely from my phone. Just a "toy", literally. ARM is not that powerful for desktop and will never be. In three years, I saw no big changes from 3B+ to RPi 4.

ARM architecture is a complete s**t to me. It as been a complete terrible experience for me. It cannot run Windows full desktop (only the stupid useless IoT version). I know there is some people trying to run on ARM the desktop version, but this is slow as hell. Extremely slow, and no drivers available for it, no networking yet... The only OS that can run "well" there is linux.

I am a web developer. I rely on apps like Coda, Adobe CC suite... I am extremely linked to Coda because it is so easy to use, has plugins that make my life easier as a web dev and I doubt that Panic will do an ARM version of it exactly like it is, because they've been developing the new version (Nova editor) with a terrible experience from what I saw in beta versions. They ditched Coda to push that new version. It's completely the opposite of what Coda is and was. So I am not willing to ditch Coda for another painful transition. For that very reason I want to stay on x86 architecture - My favorite apps, and I doubt they will be THAT good on ARM. I believe x86 will still be there for decades and that ARM will be just a flop, just good enough for smartphones and tablets, and its where it belongs.

Emulating Windows instead of doing BootCamp is not a good idea, because of performance related issues. BootCamp was always the best option because of that, even for gaming.

I don't want to make any effort to switch architectures so therefore I will never buy a Mac if it has ARM on it. If I were developing apps, I'd quit the job on day one of that transition just because I find it not worth the headaches that comes with it. The PPC/Rosetta days were a complete nightmare that I never want to relive again. I do not want to depend on another Rosetta to do my job with my favourite apps. God forbid me!

Also, gaming with an ARM based computer? It will be laughable. ARMs will never have power to run games like F1 2019, for example, with rich ultra high graphics. Simulations, racing games, or first person shooters gamers depend very much of high FPS rates to have success in these so called "eSports" competitions. The more the better for them.

"But iPads have been running emulating Windows with Qemu on it before" yeah right, only the latest 2020 iPad Pro has enough power to at least run Windows 7 at a decent speed and probably 2GB of RAM available. But gaming? No way. I have a 2nd gen iPad Pro 2017, I installed UTM, and put it to the stress test. Only 1GB available for RAM. Win XP couldnt run well, neither Win 2000. Win 10? I didnt even bother trying it. The only thing that run smooth was... *drum rolls* MSDOS 6.22 and Windows 3.11 with just 64mb of RAM... I couldnt even run any Linux distro with a good desktop performance. So no, ARM is not ready to do that job yet.

Put as many cores you want on it, it will eat battery power like a possessed demon. Plug in a big 13-inch screen, and you will have to buy an external battery as well if you want to try and work on it for at least 6 hours...

It will be a complete disaster. Hence why I've been preparing myself to switch to any linux distro (like elementaryOS), so I can stay on x86. I don't even care if I use an Intel or AMD based cpu. Just don't throw at me another ARM garbage. Apple should focus on AMD switch rather than doing ARM s**t.

// End Rant

 

[Azrael9]

Worth the read, I promise!

You don’t have to go very far back in history to conclude that Apple is well positioned to have a smooth transition from x86 to ARM processors. First, they did it with the switch from PowerPC to Intel in 2006. Back then those machines ran a PowerPC emulator called Rosetta to run PowerPC apps on Intel. They were a bit slower than native apps, but it was more than useable and allowed devs the time to transition their apps to run natively on Intel.

Secondly, they did it right under our noses with the public none the wiser when they transitioned millions of iOS devices from the aging HFS file system to the new APFS file system all the way back in 2017 (no small feat).

Thirdly, a transition of this magnitude is not done overnight. You better believe Apple has been cooking up this thing in the lab for years and when the move happens, they will have all their apps ready to go natively on ARM. I’d wager that their top devs have knowledge of this and are prepping for the transition behind the scenes as well. It’s not an accident that Adobe is dipping their toes in the ARM waters with Photoshop and the upcoming Illustrator for iPad.

Fourthly, by moving over to ARM Apple will be more in control of their products and their product rollout. They will save boatloads of money by designing their own processors because they don’t have to factor in Intel’s profits. This will free them up to either lower prices, or add value by inventing new innovative features that don’t exist today.

Lastly, you can’t compare what Micosoft is doing to what Apple is doing. Literally, Apples and Oranges. One can argue that Microsoft has far more duds than Apple and often rushes unfinished, unrefined product/platforms that have little developer buy-in like Windows Phone, Zune, Windows ME, MSN Watch, MSN PlaysforSure, Plug and Pray... I mean... Plug and Play.

BONUS: The transition to ARM is not a matter of if, but when. Apple transitioned from PowerPC to Intel because PowerPC processor updates became stagnant and unpredictable, they ran hot, and hit the ceiling in terms of performance when compared to Intel. Sound familiar? This is Intel today. ARM is the future, the processors are efficient yet powerful. The current iPad Pro A12X runs rings around Intel Core i7 single and multi-core benchmarks, it even beats the pants of Core i9s in some tests. All this in a super thin, fanless, design that doesn’t run hot enough to cook eggs. Can you imagine what an ARM MacBook would be able to do without the form factor constraints of an iPad? Brrrr... I shudder at the thought.

So... I wouldn’t bet against Apple pulling this off :]

Yes.

Azrael.