History Repeating? (68K --> PPC --> Intel --> ARM)

[rampancy]

Thank you. I wonder if there was a G5 PowerBook prototype that Apple was trying to build ? And now, 20 years later we still are using our PPC Macs. Incredible how they are all working great today for most things.

While there's never been any concrete evidence that a PPC 950-based PowerBook prototype actually existed, there's circumstantial evidence that one was built and tested by Apple (and it makes intuitive sense that they did). The closest we've ever gotten to any kind of proof of one existing is the remarkable Dual-1.5 Ghz PowerBook G4 prototype that was supposedly made as a "Plan B" for Apple's PowerBook G5 efforts (and even was apparently made using the PowerBook G5 prototype's casing).

 

[AshleyPomeroy]

Yep - by 2005 the G4 was handily beaten by the Pentium M (talking about laptops).

I find it ironic that the Pentium M and PowerPC G5 were released in the same year, and I've also always wondered how the Pentium M would have fared as a desktop CPU. From what I recall it didn't make much of an impression at the time - it was just another mobile CPU, and Intel wanted to emphasis the Centrino platform rather than the Pentium M itself - but at least Anandtech realised that it was actually faster than some of Intel's contemporary desktop chips:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/1610

Something that was probably a first for a mobile chip. There was at least one small form factor PC based around a Pentium M motherboard - the AOpen XCube - and the Core Solo used in one of the early Mac Minis was essentially an upgraded Pentium M.

ThinkPads switched to the Pentium M in March 2003, which was only a couple of months after the first aluminium G4 PowerBooks came out. Of course Apple couldn't have switched to Intel in 2003 because there wasn't a desktop-class Pentium M yet, and maintaining a line of Pentium M laptops and G5 desktops would have been awkward.

I was inspired along this train of thought by this photo here of a 12" G4 next to a ThinkPad X31, which is almost exactly the same size:
https://www.reddit.com/r/thinkpad/comments/gd4zad/thinkpad_x31_vs_powerbook_g4_12/

 

[Amethyst1]

I've also always wondered how the Pentium M would have fared as a desktop CPU.

There were a couple of expensive desktop boards for the M that supported PCIe graphics so you could use it as a desktop and it was very competitive given its "low" clock speed (totally thrashed the P4 at the same clock). Being limited to 32bit software and 2GB RAM was a bit of a letdown.

 

[maflynn]

So similar reasoning to the other architecture changes?

My take is that its control, Apple is all about controlling their destiny and with manufacturing the chipsets, they gain a lot of control over how and when their macs can be updated.

I think with Intel struggling with their chip designs, either because of the failed tick/tock approach, or simply because they cannot get off of 14nm, that opened the door. I'm not sold that Apple's ARM can compete with a highly threaded, multi core CPUs, but I'm no chip designer. A lot of smarter people are working on this, and if they think they can provide a better product, who am I to say they are wrong.

It will leave a segment of users behind, to be sure, as there are people who need/want windows capability, you lose that with apple going to a different platform

 

[Amethyst1]

the Core Solo used in one of the early Mac Minis was essentially an upgraded Pentium M.

The Core Duo was essentially an upgraded dual-core Pentium M.
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and maintaining a line of Pentium M laptops and G5 desktops would have been awkward.

Awkward maybe - but the right thing. The G4 didn't stand a chance against the M as far as performance was concerned. And Apple sold G4s until May 2006 - freakin' unbelievable.
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it was just another mobile CPU

It wasn't. It was Intel's first CPU specifically engineered for efficiency. Previous mobile AMD or Intel CPUs were just derivatives of desktop chips with some power-saving features bolted on.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

My take is that its control, Apple is all about controlling their destiny and with manufacturing the chipsets, they gain a lot of control over how and when their macs can be updated.

I think with Intel struggling with their chip designs, either because of the failed tick/tock approach, or simply because they cannot get off of 14nm, that opened the door. I'm not sold that Apple's ARM can compete with a highly threaded, multi core CPUs, but I'm no chip designer. A lot of smarter people are working on this, and if they think they can provide a better product, who am I to say they are wrong.

It will leave a segment of users behind, to be sure, as there are people who need/want windows capability, you lose that with apple going to a different platform

Yeah, I'm not entirely sold in the idea either, but I do think that it could possibly be for the better given that Intel seems to be struggling with architecture advancement lately. It might be that Moore's Law has finally broken down completely and that we will be stagnated here for a while until it is found how to continue fabbing chips with smaller processes.

 

[Amethyst1]

AMD's been producing 7nm APUs since last year. (Unfortunately, Intel's still king for raw IPC.) I'd much rather see Apple going AMD than ARM.

 

[RogerWilco6502]

AMD's been producing 7nm APUs since last year. (Unfortunately, Intel's still king for raw IPC.) I'd much rather see Apple going AMD than ARM.

I mean, I'm surprised they wouldn't be. Don't they have AMD GPUs in their current systems with dedicated graphics?

 

[DearthnVader]

A few things switching to Arm could do for Apple, allow Apple to better compete on price, and kill the clones( hackintoshes ).

The first, Apple really has never wanted to compete in the low-end value market, they'd rather be a status symbol and command higher margins. Not that Apple Arm Macs would have to compete solely on price, they are still the only supported way to run the macOS.

I just can't see the top end of the "Pro" line moving to Arm anytime soon, but these Arm switch rumors don't seem to go away, so where there is smoke, there tends to be fire. The Mini and the Air, then the low-end iMac and 13" MBP, may well be slated for a switch to Arm.

I'd say the 16" MBP, iMac Pro, and Mac Pro, will remain x86_64, but for how long, Apple can throw tens of billions at Arm fab until they have a CPU that can run code near the same speed as x86 when natively compiled for Arm.

It's just, does Apple want to be in that game, they'd be putting themselves into direct competition with Intel and AMD as far a desktop and mobile CPUs, yet only be selling them to themselves.

I think, as long as they can take some form of the iPhone/iPad Arm CPU, and for not too much money on R&D, put that in a consumer Mac, people will be happy with that, but "Pros" are not the same market, and I don't think Apple really wants to put money into fab of Arm for desktop to compete with x86, clock for clock, thread for thread, and watt for watt.

 

[iluvmacs99]

In terms of Apple sales, ARM equipped processors command more than 50% of total Apple sales, with only 11% in sales coming from Intel equipped Macs. The majority of Apple users are content creators and use their iPhones and iPad/iPad Pros to create content and consume consumer services mainly on iOS devices. Switching to ARM is, I think, a cost saving and a normalizing of production feature where people who are comfortable using a traditional desktop can leverage the software library of iOS to create and manage their personal content as well as consumer services that they would had already done so with their personal iOS devices and had yet to own a desktop. I had met a lot of these people who actually use their iPhones for everything, including banking, online shopping, online studies etc.. So in a way, an ARM Macbook, Mac Mini and iMac would make more sense. Would ARM replace the higher end Intel CPUs? Personally, I don't think it will so soon as there are things still the Intel does better for RAW processing power. Having said that, how many people really need a Ferrari for daily driving? I don't think all of us need a Ferrari nor would be able to leverage all that power. I think we will be fine with a Honda Civic or even transit for most everyday mundane computing tasks with an ARM.

Having said that, I wouldn't mind owning an ARM Mac computer myself. In hindsight, we already have a hybrid Intel/ARM machine like the T2 chip inside most newer Macs. The image processing capability of the T2 chip is impressive if one is able to leverage it. In fact, you can in video editing software that take advantage of the T2 chip, which improves upon Quicksync which is available on newer Core I series Intel CPUs.

 

[Dronecatcher]

Apple will steer their ship in whichever direction increases their profit margin...how much they care about pro workstation users is evidenced by the monstrosity that now assumes the mantle of what was the Mac Pro.