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Early Benchmarks Put Retina MacBook CPU Performance in Range of 2011 MacBook Air
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Bzzz, wrong. Yes the ARM processors use an entirely different architecture but the operating systems underlying them are basically the same... multiple streams. Most of the code is C, C++, and Objective-C.... all compiled through CLang/LLVM which supports both ARM and OS X (LLVM is basically a portable assembly language translation layer). Any customer assembly code would take a mere weeks to merge back into the main branch of "OS X".
Apple already has a version of OS X running on ARM in the labs for test purposes only.
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The processor numbering was odd, but the actual performance numbers (though slightly lower than I would have expected) are very very close to reality.
So there's another great candidate for a hate-thread: Apple Takes A Page From Microsoft's Playbook, Releases OS X 10.11 and iOS 9: Surprise, They Are The Same Operating System.
Now You Tell Me
I'm an MBA, CPA and the CFO of a medical organization. I wish Apple would have told me before buying my 2010 Macbook Air that doing so would impact my professional status. Now I'm just mad. Bad Apple.
I'm an MBA, CPA and the CFO of a medical organization. I wish Apple would have told me before buying my 2010 Macbook Air that doing so would impact my professional status. Now I'm just mad. Bad Apple.
As a software engineer, I can't help but notice you're really downplaying how big a task it is to migrate to ARM.
And the poster you quoted was right; comparing Apple's AX series to Intel processors is pretty dumb. Geekbench is not and has never been good at measuring real-life performance, too. Unless all you're doing the whole day is calculating primes, I'd pick better benchmarks to listen to.
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He likely meant somebody who uses intensive professional tools on the computer.
Don't let strangers on the internet hurt your self confidence so easily.
It's not a processor architecture that is incompatible with OS X, large parts are shared with iOS and the place where it matters are parts of the kernel and drivers. I think a bigger hurdle would be users who depends on bootcamp or virtualizing x86 OSes. Anyhow, it's all speculative and hypothetical, but it's an interesting comparison because it shows the performance of the A8X in relation the an Intel CPU with comparable power and thermal characteristics.
And they had a version of OS X running on Intel for years before they switched, too. Porting the OS itself isn't the problem. It's all the applications that users have. Existing x86 and x64 applications (remember, many popular applications, including Microsoft Office, are still 32-bit) would all need to be recompiled. It would break compatibility unless Apple released an emulation layer. But an ARM processor trying to emulate an x86 and x64 processor would not be a pretty sight.
Your point? Should I upgrade my personal laptop every two years like my phone? It's still a solid computer and in very good shape, it's just getting a bit long in the tooth and feeling very heavy compared to modern ones.
Fair enough. I'm planning to do a lot of traveling later this year, and I do wish my Envy was a little more road ready and had better battery life than it does. But I also need a laptop to run programs like Photoshop, Premiere Pro, After Effects and Ableton Live with no problems, so I'm obviously not this MacBook's target demographic. I guess it's all a tradeoff and dependent on what your needs are. It probably would have cost me at least $1500 more to get the same processing, graphics, SSD and RAM power my HP Envy has in MacBook Pro, and I think that's ridiculous.
I was only focusing on task at hand of moving to the ARM processor. Using benchmarks to simulate real life performance is not great (but it is all we have right now), using them across architectures is silly.
Moving OS X to the ARM processor is not as big a task as it was in the past (the compilers and development environment are already there), most of it is testing and tuning small amounts of code. There are issues with drivers, but then there are always issues with drivers. iOS base operating system (Darwin) with some customization is already running on ARM. The customization deltas are all in source control. The UIs are built on top. The task to move to ARM is much smaller than the previous two moves - since it is already done for testing purposes. If they really wanted to move though it would take one full release cycle to shake things out, but most of the work has already been done.
Now I don't think they are going to migrate to ARM, but it is useful when it comes to negotiating with Intel.
I think you completely misunderstood the many posts here. What they're saying is that you are not a professional, and that the work you do is not professional work.
I said earlier that there were hundreds of billions of dollars of revenues that proved their statements wrong, but: (1) I am probably way too low on the dollars and (2) I forgot about people like you who are literally saving lives. People don't need gamer tech to do "professional" work. Maybe the lesson these helpful members are trying to teach us is that the only thing you need gamer tech for is to make a full time job out of avoiding being a productive member of society.
I think you completely misunderstood the many posts here. What they're saying is that you are not a professional, and that the work you do is not professional work.
I said earlier that there were hundreds of billions of dollars of revenues that proved their statements wrong, but: (1) I am probably way too low on the dollars and (2) I forgot about people like you who are literally saving lives. People don't need gamer tech to do "professional" work. Maybe the lesson these helpful members are trying to teach us is that the only thing you need gamer tech for is to make a full time job out of avoiding being a productive member of society.
MBA, CFO.... sorry, but I think you mean figuring out which people are not worth saving
*****? I don't know why you think gender has anything to do with it. If anything, it'll split along work lines, i.e. if the MacBook can do what they need to have it do for their specific work. I dunno how women vs. men comes into play at all.
Thanks - that asnwers a lot of questions.
Personally, I use my Mac in the same way the vast majority do: browsing, emails, invoicing, looking at funny photos and porn. And I think this MacBook will handle all of that just fine.
It's over-priced, but it's a Mac and it runs OS X. And as I like OS X, I have to choose from what they offer me.
Yes, but it was a sub-par experience. It still is to some extent (Office 2016 seems to change that). The point is that Microsoft would need to recompile it for ARM. They have a starting point in Office for iOS, but that has a limited feature set.
True, but it gives an idea or ballpark figure, and real-life performance (as in a complete system) isn't that meaningful if what we are doing is strictly comparing two CPUs.
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If it still is, then it's not due to the architecture since it's now on Intel.
The iOS version would not be a starting point.... that is just silly.... The UI libraries used are not the same..... Unless they have coded things in assembly language it would simply be setting the profile to say it was ARM based computer OS X and build.
That is of course the easy part since the bulk of the costs would be the million spent for testing/certifying it for a new platform.
Umm, thats not really how it works. The 5Y70 supports both VT-x and VT-d. Those virtual machines should run fine if he has enough ram to share between em.
The iPad isnt even the same architecture, it would have no hope coming close performance wise irrespective of RAM.
Speaking of skylake, some of the rumours as of late (one saying the jump from broadwell to skylake will be as big as prescott to conroe) are quite exciting. Not sure what Apple are going to in regards to the MP, but someone shopping for a MBP who can afford to wait a few months might be better off holding back for now IMO.
The skylake architectural changes referred to will come to the Xeon (Mac Pro) first - and it will take several generations before it would probably be noticeable to us users (though we would see improvements in power/performance and bandwidth available for SSD/Video/Thunderbolt like normal).
But does it really?
What was the price of a 15" MBP in 2008? What did it include? What does one go for now and what is included?
I paid $1500-$1600 for mine back in '08, they now start at $2000. Based on one's priorities and needs a case could be made that the current model is a better "value", but the entry price has not come down, but gone up.
Interesting. So potentially those who wait until the fall might have a significantly more powerful MacBook (just like those who waited until November 2008 to get a MacBook Air). That said, Apple might wait until next February to upgrade to Skylake. They have done that in the past.