I like your idea of a dual-cpu model! Perhaps basic applications that support execution in both environments, like editing documents etc. that might make use of the low power processor are possible.
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Intel CEO Responds to Rumors of ARM-Based Macs, Says Relationship With Apple Is 'Strong'
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I like your idea of a dual-cpu model! Perhaps basic applications that support execution in both environments, like editing documents etc. that might make use of the low power processor are possible.
Maybe one day it will be worth switching, but right now it is not. Speed, app compatibility & Windows compatibility are the biggest things that come to mind.
Apple must have a ton of products on campus that they don't plan to release now, if ever. If an ARM based Mac wasn't among them, that would be more surprising.
They had to build & test touch screen Macs to learn they weren't worth releasing, after all.
Apple must have a ton of products on campus that they don't plan to release now, if ever. If an ARM based Mac wasn't among them, that would be more surprising.
They had to build & test touch screen Macs to learn they weren't worth releasing, after all.
I'm sorry for letting your bubble burst, but we are talking about Apple. 500$-700$ MBA? 300$ mac mini server?! I wish Apple would lower their prices, but this seems nearly impossible. Even an iPad Air 2 starts at 500$ and goes up to 829$. How are they going to sell products with faster processors and even more hardware parts (keyboard, trackpad etc.) for less money while keeping their profit margins up? This whole Mac ARM debate is driven by too much wishful thinking. Just recompile and everything is fine. No it's not.
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Does purchasing a different machine, with a different operating system, using different software.... really seem like an easier thing for you to do than to watch Apple release a recompiler that allows developers to simply recompile their existing software.... this line of thought seems very suspicious to me.
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I'm glad that Apple have a much better idea of what the word innovation means than most of the commenters here that bash this kind of talk. Sure, just keep on doing what you have been doing, and what other computer companies have been doing for decades. Never ever consider changing anything :roll eyes:
Seriously though... can you even nudge your thinking just a tiny tiny little bit to realize that even if Apple had no intention of changing whatsoever.... allowing this kind of talk to go on gives Intel a huge kick in the butt to get moving!
No, but keeping and continuing to use my existing (and upgradable) hardware sure does......
I can understand the reasoning for flouting a rumor like this and the use it would serve........but until ARM processors stand toe-to-toe with chips from Intel out in the market, we might as well be talking about PowerPC (and we all know how well that worked out)
I'm pretty sure Apple don't "need" a cheaper Mac. They've said time and time again they want to make the best products, not cut corners for cheaper products to try and gain marketshare.
You make it seem more simple than it is. Look at Microsoft's attempts to port Windows to ARM.
"Apple is the only personal computer company to have successfully completed such a transition competitors Commodore and Atari never regained their market positions." (from Wikipedia)
So, it's risky, and without an obvious and overwhelming reason to switch, does not seem worth it at the moment.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
I don't know what I find more challenging: people actually believing what is written above or people believing the switch can be as easy as "just recompile"
However my favorite line in all such posts is:
presumably "no one" because...
further supported(?) by a quantitive reference...
More than 90% of the world's computers are running Windows. That's a lot of "no ones". Many Mac people who have jobs are probably having to use Windows at work. There's tons of work-related software that still ONLY runs on Windows. A survey of just a few friends is not necessarily representative of the whole world. Picking a percentage out of the air does not make it fact. Why? 99.9% of Mac users say so
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Haha. Look at the guys face in the vid...
Not a single **** was given
Probably the same guy that told Apple to take a hike when Apple wanted to buy Intel's chips for the original iPhone. "They'll come crawling back and pay the price we want, don't worry!"
Yikes.... not had your coffee yet?
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Absolutely
It seems that 95% of those that are blasting the thought of going ARM are giving the fact that they need to be able to boot into Windows as the reason to not do so. The rest are just grumpy
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Ok... i can see your point there.
But that's how advancement in technology works. It's not a slow, steady line of progress moving upwards. It's a jerky line that sees lots of time with little to now progress, with brief sharp spikes upwards. To really advance well, backward compatibility cannot always be there.
Intel were not going to say anything but this now are they ?
The stance would be "Defend share price until apple officially announce they are dropping us, until then, fiercely deny any knowledge of a potential kick in the nuts we might be getting down the line revenue wise "
besides, even if apple ARE planning on ditching intel, i suspect there will be a gradual transition over a couple of generations of mac products, with the Mac Mini and MacBook air going first, followed buy the iMacs and macbook line later, with the Pro line "eventually" getting the treatment..
The biggest issue i see will be that when / if apple do do this, they will move over to a purely "appstore" based structure for an ARM version of OSX, no more third party software installs, everything controlled by Apple, that way they ensure that apps written for the "old" intel machines have to include a version for the ARM machines as well..and that speeds the transition from intel to ARM over maybe two product refreshes (as little as 2-4 years for apple)
I suspect its coming.. and i suspect its not going to be pretty
The stance would be "Defend share price until apple officially announce they are dropping us, until then, fiercely deny any knowledge of a potential kick in the nuts we might be getting down the line revenue wise "
besides, even if apple ARE planning on ditching intel, i suspect there will be a gradual transition over a couple of generations of mac products, with the Mac Mini and MacBook air going first, followed buy the iMacs and macbook line later, with the Pro line "eventually" getting the treatment..
The biggest issue i see will be that when / if apple do do this, they will move over to a purely "appstore" based structure for an ARM version of OSX, no more third party software installs, everything controlled by Apple, that way they ensure that apps written for the "old" intel machines have to include a version for the ARM machines as well..and that speeds the transition from intel to ARM over maybe two product refreshes (as little as 2-4 years for apple)
I suspect its coming.. and i suspect its not going to be pretty
I agree an ARM based OSX Mac is a bottom fishing product. Apple may do it simply because they can achieve both a 40% margin, and a competitive price point and feature set. The entire savings seems to be the cost differential between Intel and ARM chips, or about $200.
Apple used to make a computer with both a Motorola and Intel chip inside to try to bridge the compatibility gap. Mostly a failed product, but in principal they could include an ARM as the primary processor and the lowest of the low Intel x-86 chips to offer Wintel compatibility. My concern is anybody with a need for dual ecosystem compatibility probably has a sufficient tech requirement to pay $200 more for a full boat system without the ARM cripple.
Maybe offer an ARM board for Wintel, or a dongle.
None of that is very Apple-ly. But it would spread their ecosystem to other platforms like iTunes did, to attract users to their hardware in PC's, phones, music players, etc.
Rocketman
Apple used to make a computer with both a Motorola and Intel chip inside to try to bridge the compatibility gap. Mostly a failed product, but in principal they could include an ARM as the primary processor and the lowest of the low Intel x-86 chips to offer Wintel compatibility. My concern is anybody with a need for dual ecosystem compatibility probably has a sufficient tech requirement to pay $200 more for a full boat system without the ARM cripple.
Maybe offer an ARM board for Wintel, or a dongle.
None of that is very Apple-ly. But it would spread their ecosystem to other platforms like iTunes did, to attract users to their hardware in PC's, phones, music players, etc.
Rocketman
Right now I can develop for Mac or Windows and do it on one hardware platform at a very decent speed and price. That won't happen on an ARM Mac. I doubt Apple will roll any real part of any cost savings into a price drop and risk further decreasing iPad sales. Emulating x86 and all of the current instruction set on an ARM at a decent speed is still 7-10 years out and would be very expensive to do.
I would not be a Mac user today if it weren't for x86 being in it. I will not be a purchaser of any new Mac hardware without x86. I switched a few people from PC to Mac based on the argument that if you don't like Mac OS, you can still use Windows.
Yes, there is a growing market for Mac's but I think its still driven by a "what do I have to lose" mentality for first timers based on the fact their Windows stuff will still work. (First timers are what Apple needs to keep Mac growing)
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I'm having a hard time understanding the argument elsewhere that there are "millions of apps waiting for an ARM Mac" (this is probably assuming that all apps on the iOS app store would run on an ARM Mac). Macs do not have touch screens. There isn't even a rumor that any of the rumored "ARM Macs" have a touchscreen. There isn't even a rumor that Apple is considering a touch screen for any Mac at all. So there are exactly -zero- Apps waiting for an "ARM Mac". That is why talk of an x86 -> ARM switch is many years too early.
I would not be a Mac user today if it weren't for x86 being in it. I will not be a purchaser of any new Mac hardware without x86. I switched a few people from PC to Mac based on the argument that if you don't like Mac OS, you can still use Windows.
Yes, there is a growing market for Mac's but I think its still driven by a "what do I have to lose" mentality for first timers based on the fact their Windows stuff will still work. (First timers are what Apple needs to keep Mac growing)
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I'm having a hard time understanding the argument elsewhere that there are "millions of apps waiting for an ARM Mac" (this is probably assuming that all apps on the iOS app store would run on an ARM Mac). Macs do not have touch screens. There isn't even a rumor that any of the rumored "ARM Macs" have a touchscreen. There isn't even a rumor that Apple is considering a touch screen for any Mac at all. So there are exactly -zero- Apps waiting for an "ARM Mac". That is why talk of an x86 -> ARM switch is many years too early.
Intel's ceo says what he has to say in order to not worry investors and disturb the Intel stock.
Does anyone know if ARM has any high-end/workstation-class processors in their pipeline?
Does anyone know if ARM has any high-end/workstation-class processors in their pipeline?
I agree with you that i can see them moving to an App Store only system, same as iDevices. Personally, i've been slowly growing to love that idea. Not having to keep track of where stuff is installed, organizing files, all that mess... much easier on an iDevice. But when i think this, i remember a guy i knew decades ago telling me how much he hated Windows, that he preferred DOS... he thought that having a command line interface gave him so much more control. Change is hard for most people.
Oh yeah, I definitely understand this. The reason I said what I did is because Intel's chips are already proven and for me at least, have performed & held up quite well. I have nothing against ARM, but will remain on the fence/skeptical until they can stand toe-to-toe with Intel.
If you stop beeing short-minded for a second, you can notice how ARM in macs is great news for all of us.
First of all, it will make new price point for entry level machines, let it be MBA. You will be able to get at least current-level performance for around 50% of current price, with retina screen and low-power (which means great battery life) features aswell. You loose some compatibility, for sure, but for 'power' users like my wife, having working Safari, Mail, Pages and Numbers will be more than enough.
Then there's us users that need maximum power from our machines. We don't want to hear about ARM for the same reason we don't want to switch our cars from BMWs/Audis - we're used to things that are just on top in terms of performance. Thanks to ARM competition, Intel will have to offer more than just making same old silicon with minimal changes. They won't cripple their chips like cutting off PCI-E in Broadwell to cut off dGPUs, forcing users to invest lots of money for their Iris iGPU. Maybe they even allow other companies make interesting products for Thunderbolt, and not just block anything that is labeled internally as 'Intel competition' (take GPU external enclousers as the best example).
Things just can't get any better than Apple switching to ARM
First of all, it will make new price point for entry level machines, let it be MBA. You will be able to get at least current-level performance for around 50% of current price, with retina screen and low-power (which means great battery life) features aswell. You loose some compatibility, for sure, but for 'power'
users like my wife, having working Safari, Mail, Pages and Numbers will be more than enough.Then there's us
users that need maximum power from our machines. We don't want to hear about ARM for the same reason we don't want to switch our cars from BMWs/Audis - we're used to things that are just on top in terms of performance. Thanks to ARM competition, Intel will have to offer more than just making same old silicon with minimal changes. They won't cripple their chips like cutting off PCI-E in Broadwell to cut off dGPUs, forcing users to invest lots of money for their Iris iGPU. Maybe they even allow other companies make interesting products for Thunderbolt, and not just block anything that is labeled internally as 'Intel competition' (take GPU external enclousers as the best example).Things just can't get any better than Apple switching to ARM
I don't know what I find more challenging: people actually believing what is written above or people believing the switch can be as easy as "just recompile"
However my favorite line in all such posts is:
presumably "no one" because...
further supported(?) by a quantitive reference...
More than 90% of the world's computers are running Windows. That's a lot of "no ones". Many Mac people who have jobs are probably having to use Windows at work. There's tons of work-related software that still ONLY runs on Windows. A survey of just a few friends is not necessarily representative of the whole world. Picking a percentage out of the air does not make it fact. Why? 99.9% of Mac users say so
You obviously don't develop software for a living. It is essentially a recompile. Any modern codebase that isn't written by amateurs is the same.
You also don't seem to understand how Apple would go about supporting ARM processors: just add them to an existing x86 design. Since ARMs use much less power than the bloated Intel architecture, software that runs on the ARM will use less power, while legacy code will run on the x86. People will be incentivised to use ARM software because of improved battery life.
HobeSoundDarryl
macrumors G5
There's already an iOS emulator that runs on Intel on OS X machines. If this desire for Apple to switch has anything to do with getting to run iOS software on more of a computer-like product, the want should be for Apple to turn that programmer's tool into a Dashboard-like alternative.
I can hardly believe people are thinking this would lead to discounted or deeply-discounted Macs. When does Apple really want to win on price? Sure, getting to sub out the cost of an Intel chip for a house chip might allow a little drop of price. But Apple sure likes it profits as fat as possible.
From a consumer's benefit, I don't see a potential switch as having any meaningful benefits. How much profit Apple makes off of selling something to us isn't a consumer benefit. Libraries of software that works now wouldn't "just work" by "just recompiling". The tremendous utility of being able to use ONE computer with the best of both OS X and Windows software would very likely be lost or at least significantly gimped. Etc.
It's like we forget how difficult the transition was from PowerPC to Intel, probably because Rosetta helped mitigate some of the drama. There is no Transitive in the wings with an Intel-for-Arm Rosetta working and ready for Apple to buy and include. Personally, I still have a few things built for PowerPC that I need to access from time-to-time (no Intel Mac update ever arrived) all these years later. So, I've got a separate boot drive of Snow Leopard because it can run Rosetta. IMO, too many of us seem to think it really would be a "just recompile" switch.
I can hardly believe people are thinking this would lead to discounted or deeply-discounted Macs. When does Apple really want to win on price? Sure, getting to sub out the cost of an Intel chip for a house chip might allow a little drop of price. But Apple sure likes it profits as fat as possible.
From a consumer's benefit, I don't see a potential switch as having any meaningful benefits. How much profit Apple makes off of selling something to us isn't a consumer benefit. Libraries of software that works now wouldn't "just work" by "just recompiling". The tremendous utility of being able to use ONE computer with the best of both OS X and Windows software would very likely be lost or at least significantly gimped. Etc.
It's like we forget how difficult the transition was from PowerPC to Intel, probably because Rosetta helped mitigate some of the drama. There is no Transitive in the wings with an Intel-for-Arm Rosetta working and ready for Apple to buy and include. Personally, I still have a few things built for PowerPC that I need to access from time-to-time (no Intel Mac update ever arrived) all these years later. So, I've got a separate boot drive of Snow Leopard because it can run Rosetta. IMO, too many of us seem to think it really would be a "just recompile" switch.
Honestly I put zero faith in what CEO says. Honestly I would put zero faith in Tim Cook saying anything on it either as an answer otherwise hurts both.
Apple has rarely pushed savings onto it's consumers. It would most likely be around the same price of the most expensive wifi ipad since and it would basically be an ipad with a keyboard (why not just make a hybrid 2-in-1 device?). Since it would use arm parts... instead of leaving it at the same size and having a nice size battery they would make it even thinner (do they have body image issues? stop making it thinner) and reduce the size of the battery making it an all day device instead of a multi-day device. It also most likely have a touchscreen.
I would like to correct you and tell you that it is a simulator not an emulator. It is a difference. Emulator would mean it is emulating the hardward. The iOS simulator does not do that. It is complied for x86.
An example of an emulator is the Android one. It comes with other issues of being slow.