Since when is have no fans a good thing, just look at early Compact Macs and Slot loading G3 iMacs.
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Former Intel Engineer Claims Buggy Skylake Chips Hastened Apple's Switch to Custom Silicon
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Having multiple OS install is enough to warrant that. I dislike VM due to performance reduction, so having ARM is only pushing me away from it.
Pretty sure Apple has factored in lost business from folks who feel the same way. If you absolutely require Windows on bare hardware and can't stand the idea that virtualization and translation will take away too much performance, then the only alternative is an Intel machine. I am curious, however, what type of performance we will observe if an enterprising third party does introduce support for virtualizing x86 Windows on Apple silicon. Even better if Microsoft comes through allowing Windows ARM on Macs through virtualization.
Like many folks here, I use virtualization to run multiple OS's at the same time, made simpler with container technology like Docker but I still run Parallels instances hosting Linux with the bulk of work done in macOS. I know this model will continue to work well after the silicon migration. I'm fortunate that I don't have use cases that require Windows on my laptop. The occasional times that becomes necessary I remote into a Windows server for a few mundane tasks and then I'm happily back out.
It is too bad that boot camp is going away. While I never used it, I always thought it was a cool idea.
I removed my Bootcamp partition perhaps a year ago or so, after realizing I hadn't used it in a long while. I can spin up a Windows machine in our own data center or in Azure when I need one; we pay for Citrix/Remote Desktop licenses for all employees anyway, so if I'd ever happen upon an Office document that can't be parsed by the Mac port I can open it on a Windows version of the program, and for most other work I live in a shell (Linux and modern Windows) or in Royal TSX (remote desktop to legacy Windows servers). A move to Arm-instruction set Macs will most likely only be a quality of life improvement to my use case: Longer battery life, cooler-running computer, less fan noise.
Apple is using FPGA to accelerate video processing and is loading the code depending on codecs used. This speeds up calculations dramatically. It’s selling this in a card for mac pro.
And the result is they've become lackadaisical, complacent and now, with the exposure of Spectre, Meltdown & other vulnerabilities, negligent.
Back in the day, IBM stood for greatness. Now? Now it's a joke. Intel is fast approaching later day IBM status.
Some people have pipped up from time to time saying that Apple should have switched to AMD instead of ARM. AMD chips are also made by TSMC
And at this point in time, TSMC is quite a bit ahead of Intel.I agree on a raw performance perspective - but now the move is likely towards efficiency - what if you could have today's power with 2-3 days of battery life? An iPad can run for +/- 1 day with moderate use - now take that and double/triple the battery size and you now have a laptop that is really pushing the boundaries of what people think/expect. I see this as a deeper push to make the MacBooks (Air and Pro) last for much longer - when you add in a possible future with OLED/MicroLED screens - we could be looking at 4-5 days of battery life for a 16inch Macbook Pro - one can dream
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Apples use of AMD Graphics is less about AMD Graphics and how Apple and NVidia can't seem to get along - I doubt anyone at Apple is happy with AMD Graphics at this point - NVidia is 2 full generations ahead in the mobile space and lightyears for the workstation world.
If Apple/NVidia patch things up or if Apple makes their own GPU (or buys Intels new one) AMD could be in a world of hurt too.
I don't think they can patch anything up. nVidia GPUs need a lot of power, I don't see MacBooks with 50% of performance while on battery anytime soon.
Apple should buy TSMCSome people have pipped up from time to time saying that Apple should have switched to AMD instead of ARM. AMD chips are also made by TSMC
Remember that Apple's iPhone + iPad division have mad HUGE performance improvements to their chips year after year. And with Macs switching to ARM, Apple will build more ARM chips than Intel builds x86 chips, and most (in numbers) Intel chips go into low end laptops and desktops that aren't nearly as powerful as Apple's ARM chips. Apple has actually an advantage in numbers compared to Intel, and having only two customers (Apple iPhone and Apple Mac) means they can focus a lot better than Intel. It took Apple 8 years to catch up with Intel, two years to overtake them, and now there will be years when the difference increases.
And in two years I can see these chips to be powerful enough that Microsoft will push Windows on ARM seriously and sell you a Microsoft ARM laptop or desktop.
Maybe he needs a computer now and in 2-3 years time when **maybe** it performs better than the current Intel one? Anyone buying now can (if they want and I think it's took long anyway) get a good 7 years out of an intel system, by which point a computer from anyone would be faster with newer features so it's irrelevant.
I don't seen the point in waiting on any future technology be it Intel, ARM, iPad or iPhone there will always be something better around the corner, just upgrade every 2-3 years and enjoy whatever is available now - I mean hell we've got Intel Macs that haven't even been released yet and you're saying wait for ARM!
Excellent point. The advantage of buying an Intel-based Mac now is it will run all your history Intel apps natively, as well as Windows if you need whilst you wait for them to upgrade to ARM-native apps. It also means when you get to replace your Mac you get a more mature version of the desktop versions of the ARM Macs - overall a positive experience.
This is just plain not true.
Intel doesn't release recent sales number, but they sell more than 600million chips per year according to the most recent known numbers. Apple sells roughly 300millions iphone/ipads per year. Remember Intel supplies a lot of chips to industries that Apple isn't in, such as servers, communication infrastructure, embedded devices, storage, etc. Indeed, Intel sells more Xeon chips per year than Apple sells iPads.
Also, according to Intel's 10K, Intel's datacenter segment is about as big as Intel's total laptop and desktop segment (both low end and high end). So that figures that their datacenter segment is bigger than their low end laptop and desktop business.
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Ok, but you aren’’t going to be able to install MacOS on whatever you switch to, so switching doesn’t really solve the problem, does it?
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Apple should buy TSMC
Probably not. Chip companies that own fabs haven’t been doing so well - AMD sold its fabs a long time ago and only now is showing signs of life. Intel has been struggling with its fabs for years.
In a few years it’s likely TSMC will hit some problems. Then apple can switch to global foundries, intel, umc, samsung, or whoever has the next big thing.
It's a shame for them that AMD are coming for them hard in that segment and ARM in the datacenter is coming too (although it's a bit like Linux on the desktop: this year is always the year it will finally be a thing!)
Also, the last step before a company fades away is when they move as far away from the consumer as possible. Remember when IBM was a thing? HP?
I actually think its a great thing that AMD has found success recently. Hopefully competition will improve things for all.
It is noteworthy though the AMD chips everyone wants are fabbed by TSMC, which is also the fab Apple has been using most lately. Really it's TSMC's innovation in shrinking the process node that is at the heart of it all.
Apple’s chips at 10nm were beating a lot of intel’s chips at 14nm (and those two processes are essentially equivalent).
TSMC deserves a lot of credit, but Apple (and to a lesser extent AMD) also deserves credit for their designs (or for at least not being as terrible at design as Intel is, and has been for many years)
IBM are still a thing. HP are still a thing in Enterprise hardware. I dread to think how many DL380s we have in our datacenters at work!
They are still a thing, but they aren’t what they were. IBM *was* computing. HP *was* personal computing. Now who even thinks about them?
I thought Zen/Zen2 made big steps forwards in IPC to help catch up with the Xeons. The massive core counts are definitely enabled by node size (or at least made possible at a reasonable cost)