DigiTimes: Arm-Based 13-inch MacBook Pro and MacBook Air to Ship By End of 2020

[lxmeta]

Because Ampere IPC isn't even matching Apple's own ARM implementation. They are basically ARM N1, or you could look at Amazon's Graviton 2 and see how it performs. Decent, but not enough for Apple yet.

A 5W A14 only run max clock on one core for 10-20 seconds. Bumping up Clock speed and all core you get much higher Power usage.

Yes, it is quite impressive how Apple leads with instructions per clock. Any reason why Apple would not be able to apply this to a N1 design? For a Mac Pro where liquid cooling would allow higher clock rates, the raw performance of a 80 core 5ghz should still brutally outperform the A14x in most workloads.
I don't know how well the A14x can be scaled on TDP or clock speed. Should not be that simple to "just" increase the TDP to 85w, and have it run at 5ghz.
I'm a software guy, not silicon. So, honestly interested in understanding the options a bit better.

 

[Sinfonist]

I can’t imagine what a MBP without an Intel processor will look like. Is Apple really far ahead of whatever Intel has in their pipeline, or are the “Pro” machines only going to become less “Pro”? Something tells me it’s the latter.

There are already 32-core ARM chips (not Apple Silicon, but the general design has clearly been mapped out). 48-64 core ARM chips are unlikely, but a system could conceivably contain 2-4 chips for 64-128 cores. Intel is also behind on 7nm processes (expecting to release by the end of 2021) and has been stretching power budgets (my 28 core has a 1650W PSU which is approaching limits on typical US home wiring specs - luckily we have a bit more margin in the UK ). Apple are naturally expecting to get benefits from this - they've done 2 architecture moves so far, and both have improved performance to the end user. Cost is also probably a factor - ARM licence the designs rather than manufacturing them, giving more freedom to Apple over system pricing and user options. The Xeon lines are essentially Intel limiting supply to allow it to increase prices across the board

I wouldn't be surprised to see an aggressively priced mid-range system with about 16 cores in the desktop range, plus high end options for power users, all of which undercut Intel systems on cost (which might mean lower consumer prices, or larger Apple profit margins )

 

[Laurent François]

(which might mean lower consumer prices, or larger Apple profit margins )

My bet is on the latter

 

[Redstars001]

So is it safe to say there will be no mini-LED screen coming with this ARM update and they are saving that for just the 14” and 16” releases?

 

[PBG4 Dude]

Any idea about the future of the app store and Gate Keeper?
Don' you think there's a risk that Apple will slowly go back to a closed Gate Keeper situation, before switching to a unified IOS/MAC OS app store?
That's the biggest fear I have with the transition to ARM : that we'll soon be unable to install third-party apps that don't come from the app store 😰

That would destroy Apple computers as viable machines for anyone using open source software, as most OSS groups do not pay Apple’s annual fee to have their apps notarized, or available on the Mac App Store.

All of the 3D printing software I use (Cura, Prusa Slicer, FreeCAD, Matter Controller, Pronterface, and others I’m forgetting), is OSS, and all of them currently require administrative override to run on macOS.
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Same happened with the first Intel Macs with the 32-bit Core Duo processors.

Agree, I had the first CoreDuo MacBook released, before boot camp was a thing.

 

[macretinahurts]

I'm really curious how they will differentiate between the Air and Pro lines with Apple Silicon. So far every Apple chip is pretty much just "1 better" than the last, with the X and Z series adding more GPU power.

Are they going to have different lines like i3/i5/i7/i9 with different capabilities? Or just names + core counts? And then there is TDP. Will they release this information now that all CPU's are in-house?

The answer is quite simple, look, MacBook Air is using 10th gen cpu, and MacBook Pro (two thunderbolt) is using 8th gen Intel cpu. The 8th gen Intel cpu outperform 10th gen due to the limits of power and thermal dissipation on the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air’s fan does not even connect to the heat sink.. another thing we can learn from A12X and A12Z, that is A12X and A12Z are actually same design, one GPU core on A12X is blocked.
So Apple can design one chip for all laptops to reduce the developing costs. And Apple can realize different performances by blocking some cores, different thermal design and power consumption limit.
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I think you got it. It's what happened in the past as well. Eg. the first intel iMac used the same white shell as the G5, then next refresh introduced the aluminum unibody one.
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They said the same thing during the PPC to intel transition, saying that they still had PPC Macs in the pipeline.

Spoiler

They lied.

So Apple didn’t release any new ppc MacBook after announcing the transition?
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The first iPad was able to run iOS 5, but I get your point, the iPad 2 received updates up to iOS 9 and was far more capable thanks to the RAM and to a much powerful CPU.

I am curious what about the first gen Intel MacBook? Did it only get OS updates for two years after its release? It may be more reasonable to compare MacBooks instead of iPads

 

[PBG4 Dude]

The answer is quite simple, look, MacBook Air is using 10th gen cpu, and MacBook Pro (two thunderbolt) is using 8th gen Intel cpu. The 8th gen Intel cpu outperform 10th gen due to the limits of power and thermal dissipation on the MacBook Air. The MacBook Air’s fan does not even connect to the heat sink.. another thing we can learn from A12X and A12Z, that is A12X and A12Z are actually same design, one GPU core on A12X is blocked.
So Apple can design one chip for all laptops to reduce the developing costs. And Apple can realize different performances by blocking some cores, different thermal design and power consumption limit.
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So Apple didn’t release any new ppc MacBook after announcing the transition?
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I am curious what about the first gen Intel MacBook? Did it only get OS updates for two years after its release? It may be more reasonable to compare MacBooks instead of iPads

The first CoreDuo MacBooks were dropped from the upgrade list much earlier than the Core2Duo models that came out later the same year.

 

[macretinahurts]

The first CoreDuo MacBooks were dropped from the upgrade list much earlier than the Core2Duo models that came out later the same year.

what is the reason for dropping first coreduo MacBook earlier? The performance? If so, it won’t be a problem for Apple silicon. And the first gen iPad Pro is still in the support list.

I probably wait to see first gen ARM MacBook, and purchase Intel MacBook Pro, because there will be a better discount, lol. Then wait 2-3years to see how ARM MacBooks evolve. According to Big Sur, the future ARM MacBook Probably has touch screen. I guess they will be more like iPad Pro. So the first gen ARM MacBook same design as now, second gen with 14 inch micro led. Maybe third gen with touch screen...

 

[magbarn]

Apple supported Rosetta from Jan 2006 until Summer of 2011, so that allowed any upgraded users to support PPC software in the latest OS version for 5 1/2 years...

I think he was alluding to 7 years of support of software for a 2020 MBP bought today, not being able to run Intel based MacOS software through emulation 7 years from now.
The flip side of that argument is the poor saps who bought $5000 G5 Mac Pro's after Intel transition was announced, they got dumped on.
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what is the reason for dropping first coreduo MacBook earlier? The performance? If so, it won’t be a problem for Apple silicon. And the first gen iPad Pro is still in the support list.

I probably wait to see first gen ARM MacBook, and purchase Intel MacBook Pro, because there will be a better discount, lol. Then wait 2-3years to see how ARM MacBooks evolve. According to Big Sur, the future ARM MacBook Probably has touch screen. I guess they will be more like iPad Pro. So the first gen ARM MacBook same design as now, second gen with 14 inch micro led. Maybe third gen with touch screen...

The Coreduo didn't have 64 bit support, while the Core2Duo did. I was at least able to drop in a C2D in my 2006 Mac mini for dirt cheap several years later as Apple was still using socketed CPU's in Mac Mini's back then. I'm still using it to this day!

 

[pers0n]

Any idea about the future of the app store and Gate Keeper?
Don' you think there's a risk that Apple will slowly go back to a closed Gate Keeper situation, before switching to a unified IOS/MAC OS app store?
That's the biggest fear I have with the transition to ARM : that we'll soon be unable to install third-party apps that don't come from the app store 😰

They will probably lock down ram and storage options with the computers just being glued together. Can you upgrade an iPhone, nope, that’s how the new ARM macs will be. I was shocked they allowed the Mac mini 2018 to have ram upgradable.

 

[ksec]

Yes, it is quite impressive how Apple leads with instructions per clock. Any reason why Apple would not be able to apply this to a N1 design? For a Mac Pro where liquid cooling would allow higher clock rates, the raw performance of a 80 core 5ghz should still brutally outperform the A14x in most workloads.
I don't know how well the A14x can be scaled on TDP or clock speed. Should not be that simple to "just" increase the TDP to 85w, and have it run at 5ghz.
I'm a software guy, not silicon. So, honestly interested in understanding the options a bit better.

TDP isn't a limitation on Chip Design ( Until you reach higher number, then you will have different design rules ), but a limitation of Cooling. Apple has an A12X running at 10W TDP purely because that is the maximum heat dissipation possible with a fanless design aka iPad and iPad Pro.

That is why the A12Z in the current developer kit is capable of running at close to 25W max simply with a Fan sitting on top. The A12Z is a 10W TDP design too. But once you run it at *even* higher clock speed and All Core full throttle you will need additional validation in place. Which is something the current A12Z design hasn't factored in. If A12Z could do 25W Max with 4 High Performance Core, 4 Efficient Core, GPU Core, and NPU, it shouldn't be too much of a sketched to run it at 50W if you are doubling those core in an hypothetical A14X.

As to why not a 80-Apple Core for Mac Pro, the answer is not technical. Designing such chip wouldn't be "simple", but it also wouldn't be rocket science for Apple. The answer is economy of scale. Is Apple selling enough Mac Pro to justify designing a monster CPU only for Mac Pro? ( Mac Pro is an ultra low volume product ) Could this chip be used in iMac Pro as well? Does the volume make up for the investment. Etc. It is a question I have yet to see anyone on the internet make an decent analysis or argument on it.

 

[JustAnExpat]

I’d be more worried about premature obsolescence over product quality.

Take the original iPad, for example. Shipped with iOS 3.2, and was only supported for 1 iOS update. Lasts iOS for the original iPad was 4.5.2. The iPad 2, released 1 year later, had iOS updates through iOS 7. This was due to the iPad 1 only having 256MB RAM. The iPad 2 had 512MB.

If you're looking at Mac, the first MacBook Pro was released in Jan 2006, with OSX 10.4. It was upgradable to OSX 10.6, which was discontinued in 2011. So that's 5 years, which isn't too bad. Same thing for the MacBook, and iMac. The MacPro could go up to MacOS X 10.7, which was replaced in 2012.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

What shoddy quality control? I’ve had this MBP for 7 years, using it 8-12 hours a day, every day. Still on the same battery and same OS install. I’ve not exactly been careful with it at all (it has suffered several falls) and the only thing wrong with it other than this trackpad issue is that the footpads have fallen off and two dead pixels appeared last year. Considering its age, I think I got my money’s worth.

The shoddy quality control started from 2016 with the butterfly keyboard models, yours is from before this, as is my 2015 rMBP, which like yours, is an excellent machine. They finally fixed the butterfly keyboard, but even the new 2020 models are plagued with problems, as is Catalina. I am hoping that Apple has woken up to this and is trying to fix things, but I'm not holding my breath quite yet.

 

[Lone Deranger]

The shoddy quality control started from 2016 with the butterfly keyboard models, yours is from before this, as is my 2015 rMBP, which like yours, is an excellent machine. They finally fixed the butterfly keyboard, but even the new 2020 models are plagued with problems, as is Catalina. I am hoping that Apple has woken up to this and is trying to fix things, but I'm not holding my breath quite yet.

That’s not so much a quality control issue as it is a design flaw. The Butterfly keyboard simply was/is a bad design that couldn’t handle the ingress of dust and dirt in the same way as the scissor mechanism keyboards can. If it was a case of quality control having gone down, we’d notice a similar increase in complaints about the scissor mechanism keyboards as well as other parts across the Mac hardware line up. There is no data to back that up.

As for Catalina? Well my suspicion is that this has to do with Apple preparing for their big migration to ARM. But I’m no developer with a thorough understanding of these things so I may be wrong there. I’m sticking with Mojave for now.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

That’s not so much a quality control issue as it is a design flaw. The Butterfly keyboard simply was/is a bad design that couldn’t handle the ingress of dust and dirt in the same way as the scissor mechanism keyboards can. If it was a case of quality control having gone down, we’d notice a similar increase in complaints about the scissor mechanism keyboards as well as other parts across the Mac hardware line up. There is no data to back that up.

As for Catalina? Well my suspicion is that this has to do with Apple preparing for their big migration to ARM. But I’m no developer with a thorough understanding of these things so I may be wrong there. I’m sticking with Mojave for now.

I'm not just talking about the butterfly keyboard, there are a whole list of quality control and bad design problems that have grown since 2016. They have all been discussed ad nauseam in the comments on MacRumors. So far I have never bothered to by the extended 3 year warrantee, as I know any problems my machines would have would most likely pop up well within the first year. But if I was to buy a new Mac now, I wouldn't dare not get the extended warrantee, partly due to ongoing issues, but also partly due to all the parts being soldered together making repairs ridiculously expensive. Anyway, all the best mate, but I do recommend browsing through the MacRumors comments regularly to see all the issues that pop up.

E.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an-external-monitor.2211747/

 

[HandITOVER]

SMH.

 

[Lone Deranger]

I'm not just talking about the butterfly keyboard, there are a whole list of quality control and bad design problems that have grown since 2016. They have all been discussed ad nauseam in the comments on MacRumors. So far I have never bothered to by the extended 3 year warrantee, as I know any problems my machines would have would most likely pop up well within the first year. But if I was to buy a new Mac now, I wouldn't dare not get the extended warrantee, partly due to ongoing issues, but also partly due to all the parts being soldered together making repairs ridiculously expensive. Anyway, all the best mate, but I do recommend browsing through the MacRumors comments regularly to see all the issues that pop up.

E.g. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/16-is-hot-noisy-with-an-external-monitor.2211747/

Good call on the AppleCare. Glue and solder does make for needlessly expensive repairs, sadly.

 

[iBug2]

As to why not a 80-Apple Core for Mac Pro, the answer is not technical. Designing such chip wouldn't be "simple", but it also wouldn't be rocket science for Apple. The answer is economy of scale. Is Apple selling enough Mac Pro to justify designing a monster CPU only for Mac Pro? ( Mac Pro is an ultra low volume product ) Could this chip be used in iMac Pro as well? Does the volume make up for the investment. Etc. It is a question I have yet to see anyone on the internet make an decent analysis or argument on it.

I'd expect 50-100 cores for Mac Pro. How else are they going to top a 28 core 56 thread Intel? Obviously the Mac Silicon Mac Pro will be faster than the Intel Mac Pro.

 

[sideshowuniqueuser]

Agreed. In fact, the MBP storage drive needs to be removable from logic board so it can reduce the cost of repairing and e-waste.

Apple needs to embrace back what it already offered in the past.

Exactly! Unfortunately, I think this was a deliberate move, not to make things thinner, but to make it impossible for people to go and buy better priced, aftermarket SSDs. Pure greed. But I think it has cost Apple a lot of sales. And the general mentality of it is a problem that will eventually bite Apple.

 

[throAU]

Gird your loins, folks. This is gonna be an expensive fall/winter season. New phones. New iPads. New Macs.

I just hope they finally cut the phone over to USB-C; I'm already due a new iPhone - if I can upgrade both the phone and iPad to USB-C I can use one set of cables for all of them and won't have a 50/50 chance of pulling the wrong cable out of my bag (lightning vs. usb type C) every time I go to plug in my MacBook. or iPad