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Google Reportedly Developing Own Arm-Based Processors for Chromebooks After Being Inspired by Apple Silicon
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The "slavishly copied" in my reply was a play on my reply to the original post, so take that with a grain of salt. But before iPhone and iOS, the entire industry was trying to chase after Blackberry's form factor and software. I don't want to get into a yearly release battle with which came first - my main point is that iPhone and its screen based touchscreen keyboard put the mobile hardware industry on a very different path. I think Google saw the first iPhone and unlike Microsoft, saw it's future. They decided to create a OS, Android, that they would license for free (ensuring high adoption by hardware manufacturers) but that would feed their unquenchable desire for data.
Majority are Intel x64 followed by ARM and AMD x64. Value wise you can get better Windows laptops in the ~$500 range. Where Chromebooks shine is in the ~$250 range but ARM there have been stagnant so hopefully these custom Google ARM SOCs are to address that.
I could tell many here do not even realize all of what chrome OS can do presently. You would be surprised by what you can do on one, just get at least a mid-range model and try one out for yourself and most Android apps actually work.
I use almost every consumer OS and they all have their own issues. There is no perfect OS but I can definitely do more on a chromebook than a ipad.
I use almost every consumer OS and they all have their own issues. There is no perfect OS but I can definitely do more on a chromebook than a ipad.
Apple didn’t create macOS, they bought it and adjusted it too. 🤷♂️
It's honestly strange to me that they waited so long to do this. With how light ChromeOS supposedly is, you would think they would have jumped from Intel to something like this a lot sooner, especially given their corporate portfolio.
I dunno...
With Chromebooks being the default "school computer" with average prices around ~$250 each... would Google want to spend billions of dollars developing their own chips for those types of devices?
And Pixel phones don't sell in any kind of appreciable volume. Aren't Pixels only available in a few countries?
But yes it looks like Google is the latest company to announce a jump into the custom-chip realm. Who knows... they might even sell these chips to other companies to use in their devices... something Apple will never do!
So I think it's great. The more chips the better. For too long we've been beholden to the Intels, Qualcomms and other incumbents.
C’mon do not be an ignorant! It has never been used in volume like this before. And Apple just like it did with wireless earbuds is steering the ARM ship.
Tensor is basically just a rebranded Exynos chip, so I wouldn’t be saying that Google “makes” it.
This. I don’t get why Google use lowly intel chips to begin with for Chromebooks. The battery life alone of ARM would’ve been ideal in context of Chromebooks.
Everybody else is just starting in 2022 at the soonest, while Apple has been shipping M1 as consumer models since 2020. And then there’s still the software part where Windows on ARM is still a work in progress for mass consumer adoption. I have to tip the hat for Apple in their ARM transition.
Apple leads the way....
(....they have a habit of doing that)
Microsoft, I think, tried this as well temporary, and failed... but seems everyone is now extending that long "ARM" haha.. I'm just wondering what this will do to the business world, where we all rely on Exchange, and productivity-mission critical apps..??
I guess Apple and Chrome could get away with this, due to the smaller market size and not much use in business, but what happens when MS does it ? It would be COVID all over again.... economy would collapse.. lol
(....they have a habit of doing that)
Microsoft, I think, tried this as well temporary, and failed... but seems everyone is now extending that long "ARM" haha.. I'm just wondering what this will do to the business world, where we all rely on Exchange, and productivity-mission critical apps..??
I guess Apple and Chrome could get away with this, due to the smaller market size and not much use in business, but what happens when MS does it ? It would be COVID all over again.... economy would collapse.. lol
That was a huge mistake to have Google on Apple’s board & Steve Jobs was running the show back then. His lifelong mission to destroy Google died with him. Now Android phones are dominant worldwide. It’s too bad as Microsoft’s phone was not a copy and really interesting. If Google didn’t have it’s insider head start the Microsoft phone might have had a chance.
Exactly.
It's obviously worth it for Google to keep paying this money to Apple... or else they wouldn't do it.
Google gives Apple $15 billion... because they'll make $20 billion in ads. Or $30 billion in ads. Or whatever.
Or maybe Google Search just breaks even on iOS devices... but they want to remain visible to capture people's attention to sell ads on other devices.
Who knows. But Google must be doing it for some reason. They're not giving Apple $15 billion out of the goodness of their hearts.
Which proves my original point, which was that if Android were doing so well, Google wouldn’t have to pay so much to reach this other audience.
That's been Google's strategy for the last 15 years. Anything out of core Google's web properties (Search, email maps, youtube UGC) is a knockoff from Apple (Android OS, Android Apps, Tablet, Phones, Music, Youtube Movies etc etc)
We might indeed have a different definition of comptetition.
I do not mix apples and oranges.
As such I do not believe apples are in competition with oranges, as there might be people who eat both.
Of course you -could- also say that if someone eats only apples and lots of them, then he won't be able to eat anything else, not even oranges and hence the orange "market" collapses and hence indeed apples -are- in competition with oranges.
Are bicycles in competition with cars? Many people would say no, as they are completely different markets.
Yet they could be. If cars become so expensive (due to tax hikes or high gas prices e.g.) that hardly anyone can afford them anymore, people will switch to bicycles where they can.
And you could say that after all bicycles were in competition with cars. Yet you could also just see it as market shifts due to outside circumstances.
It depends on your definition of competition.
To bring it back to my example, I do not think tablets are in the same market as laptops as many people own both. As they both have individual merits.
But if due to e.g. extreme price/performance differences the comparison becomes skewed, a choice may no longer be possible. Especially for cash-strapped institutions like e.g. schools.
You may still label this a case of "competition", yet I would see it more of a case of "market preferences changed" as one product completely replaced a very different product. Products which were not actually competing originally.
Yet their individual markets are close enough that one market could almost completely replace the other if outside circumstances change substantially.
I think both our definitions can be right. It depends on the point of view.
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Inspiration to create ARM processors exist in whole sale these days, Microsoft is also researching on the same, but it took M1 to inspire them when Apple has been beating every single ARM CPU available for Android for more than a decade. What gives?
Even if Quantum computers are not room sized they are not very usefull for all kinds of calculations, they are very specialized for particular kinds of mathematics only, an average home user has no use for a Quantum Computer even if they could be shrinked to fit your computer. Its like how GPU's are great at vector math but pretty useless at everything else.
They did not believe that "phone CPUs" could be used in desktops successfully.
They felt that these are two separate markets. And with Microsoft not being successful with ARM desktops, they perhaps felt that it was too difficult to create general purpose desktop class performance with "phone CPUs".
The proof's in the pudding, or in the actual performance of a physical device aka M1 Macs.
There are many fringe benefits as well, these M1 Macs proved:
- You can have great performance without needing a fan, saving hardware components.
- You can double your battery life - or choose to half the costs for your battery component.
- You can use a smart memory structure which again halves the amount of RAM you need, saving hardware components.
- You can integrate more functionalities in a SoC package, reducing your motherboard size, again saving not only hardware components but also hardware weight and size (saving on computer shell parts too).
- Any SoC package allows for tighter security integration, making it harder for hackers to compromise the system.
With few of these benefits it was clear whether they could be achievable with ARM desktops during "conceptual stage".
Someone had to be the "pioneer" to actually try it.
Now that it is proven to work, everyone can start following that path.