I’ve been developing cross platform software for over 40 years. I developed microprocessors for 14 years. Four different ISAs.
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Intel Expecting Apple to Transition to Custom ARM-Based Chips Starting in 2020
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Um this isn’t about CPU overclocking. Unless people here were stating that the EXACT SAME processor in our iPhones would be used in desktops.
But nobody is suggesting running a Mac on an iPhone processor. This will be like comparing an i3 to an i7/i9 or a Xeon. These target different TDP and perform much better. So an A-series chip that targets higher TDP is the equivalent of going from a mobile i3 to a desktop i9 or workstation Xeon.
So I’m not sure what the comparison was that targeting a higher TDP and putting active cooling would only be a slight bump. I SERIOUSLY doubt these computers - like the iMac would use the exact same processor that’s in our phone with just a slight overclock.
Most of the TDP discussion here was nonsense. People are acting like it’s a great challenge to “target a higher TDP.” This is wrong for two reasons. First, CPU designers don’t “target” a higher TDP. TDP is a design constraint, not a goal. They try to get as much performance as they can, but the TDP puts limits on what they can do. Second, and related - when you hand the chip designers a higher TDP constraint, it is easy, not hard, to redesign to that new higher limit. Hard decisions they had to make to fit within the thermal envelope of a mobile device become a lot easier. Hard work they had to do to eke out a milliwatt here and a milliwatt there no longer needs to be done.
It will be no challenge at all for the folks who designed A12 to design P1, the laptop version which doesnt have to deal with the iphone’s Power constraints.
Well then go back and see the original post I replied to and understand what I was talking about.
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Ohhh, I gotcha. It wasn’t about the reliability in general, more about he reliability of his specific setup that just kept falling over until even the flakiness of a Hackintosh was better than the alternative.
Why? Because my MBP will run cooler and the battery will last longer, and my apps will run faster?
Well, as a developer you win nothing because you clearly don't develop software anymore.
*looks up from xcode where he is tweaking a prototype table cell*
I don’t what?
Nonsense. I develop for multiple platforms, and currently get paid more for code that runs on various ARM based platforms, with back-end services that are portable from AWS large instances all the way down to a Raspberry Pi 3. If llvm builds or gcc makes spin up the fan less on some new MacBook xyz while I’m try to get work done, I’ll be quite happy.
Ah AWS... I see... So an ARM based Mac will be useable for eCommerce.
But tell me this: How do all the other industry segment vendors develop and maintain all the 'ecosystem' software (drivers for attached hardware, etc), which is necessary to enable the success of an ARM based Mac platform? And specifically include all the industry segments that 'align' with the Mac segment (think high end 'pro').... because consumers who only need to "buy crap on line" are not Apple's customers. Unless Apple thinks they can sell a $5000 Mac Pro to someone who just wants to surf the web?
This is a lot of words but i find them hard to parse.
There are already drivers for ARM. ARM devices already support usb-c and various other connection standards. Tell me this: how did this work for 68040 devices? How did it work for PowerPC devices? How did it work for x86 devices?
It will work the same way for ARM.
I went through it all from the 68030, so you made me laugh! Remember Apple Bus and throwing away all your keyboards & mice? It was not a lot of fun and it basically put an expiration date on every Mac you'd just bought for compatibility and in some cases basic functionality and ended all software support. Apple always made promises to continue support and then maybe you'd handed the computer down to another relative and the football was yanked out from under them.
Sure Tim Cook will get Microsoft to deliver an ARM Mac based Office, but everything else you have will no longer work or be available in any future upgrades.
I don't think Mac users will go through this again. People just don't have that loyalty or tolerance anymore in my opinion.
I think this will spell the end of the Apple Macintosh & Mac OS as we know it into a completely disposable device Apple iPhone/iPad IOS World designed for simpletons.
It may shock you to know, I don't buy Macs just because they are Macs. They have to be giving me the features and software that I need.
Amazon is already offering a range of custom ARM processor servers on AWS for eCommerce and other cloud services. This was done for professional developers, and has caused nothing on AWS Linux to be "dumbed down" for consumers. Why? You might be surprised at the size of Amazon's power bill.
Apple has enough R&D people to do likewise. Mobile and wearables already. Maybe servers and portable computers later (if not already... in some secret lab).
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I agree it may not be used much but since iOS apps are designed for touch it wouldn't much make sense to put them on laptops and try to use a cursor and pointer to control them.
I actually use a lot of my iOS apps on my Mac with a mouse to control them (since I often test my apps on the iOS Simulator and Xcode debugger). (Option key) pinch and zoom are a bit iffy, but tap and swipe gestures work just fine with a mouse or trackpad.
But porting apps from iOS to macOS is much easier. Porting the other way is a big pain, since a whole bunch of a typical macOS app's controls end up too close together to touch and/or unreadable because they are too small and often hidden underneath my fingers, without a massive UI redesign.
I really do think this will push Apple into the abyss in terms of how many Macs they sell. As someone who worked at Best Buy sporadically during 2006-2016 I can tell you that the first few years Macs didn’t really sell because people were still VERY aware of the challenges of interfacing with Windows based programs and files.
Once things smoothed out around Mountain Lion is when you saw a surge and trust for people to purchase the devices. Also the iPhone was out or coming out.
As a creative this sucks because the last thing I can really afford is to “try” a new Mac running a new chip on a “maybe it works” version of the programs I use. I’ll probably just stay on my current machine until it dies and see what the landscape looks like in 6-8 years
Once things smoothed out around Mountain Lion is when you saw a surge and trust for people to purchase the devices. Also the iPhone was out or coming out.
As a creative this sucks because the last thing I can really afford is to “try” a new Mac running a new chip on a “maybe it works” version of the programs I use. I’ll probably just stay on my current machine until it dies and see what the landscape looks like in 6-8 years
Depends upon what Apple does with it. One of the huge premises is that Apple will do "Mac specific" ARM based SoC for the whole Mac line up. What if they don't? In the iOS line up there are lots of devices that just use "hand me down' processors to lower costs ( the current iPad. iPhone SE. "iphone from two years ago" sold a entry model. ).
Apple could do the same thing with the MacBook. In 2020, just use "last years' iPad Pro A12x and knock the price from $1,299 to 799-899 with a "already R&D paid for" processor and some cuts on battery and mature components on Flash and screen.
Move the MacBook Air over to the then current iPad Pro processor in 2021 perhaps and drop back to $999-1099.
They'd split those two from the rest of the Mac line up for a couple of years and see how that worked out. If the MBP 13" gets subsumed by the the 2022 A__X then fine.
The low end of the laptop line would be just like the low end of the iPad line .... sell older tech at more affordable prices. That increased volumes of iPads sold. It would probably do the same thing for the bottom of the Mac line up also.
Apple could even do a Chromebox like clone and do a "Mac Micro" for the price point spot that the Mac Mini vacated. ( $499-799). A 1-2 port wonder in same fashion as MacBook (or maybe MacBook Air).
The still x86 portions of the Mac line up get put on a 2-3+ year update cycle. (which a sizable part of the line up is already on. ). If Apple is really mad at Intel then switch it over to AMD in 2020-21.
If the adventure on ARM doesn't work out they can simply flip those low end options over to a more mature and more capable iOS and macOS exits the bottom end of its line up.
Mac OS X 10.8 (Moutain Lion) was around 2012. That's the same time Microsoft was rolling out Windows 8. Windows Vista and Windows 8 disruptions helped put folks onto Macs also.
2012 in iPhone terms is in the 45 -> 5 era. The iPhone was well past coming out. iPhone was pretty much on 'fire' in terms of growth at that point. The iPad was on 3 -> 4 generation (the mini came out at the end of 2012). Again the iPad was on high growth and hadn't stalled yet. For folks who had an iPhone and an iPad, adding a Mac to their home computer ecosystem was a far more natural fit than Windows.
For example, Facetime for the Mac came out with 10.11 (Lion). In 2012, if had a iPhone/iPad and a Mac you could Facetime with any one of the devices with other folks who had Facetime. Parent with a Mac can ping Son/Daughter with perhaps a "hand me down" iPhone to chat.
I'm sure there were also folks with a sunk cost collection of Windows games that wanted to know that there was a "safety" option of being able to bootcamp to Windows and their collection. Or small business folks with some aspect of their business hooked to MS Access. But there were a wide variety of factors moving Mac growth at that time.
At the more top half of the Mac line up it is doubtful that Apple is doing to do custom SoC just for a relatively low volume of units. The higher in the mac line up go the more below 1M the volumes sink. there is a critical threshold where Apple isn't going to spend the money to do a niche processor. [ They don't do it in most of the places they use A series now. AppleTV , lowend iPad , HoemPod , etc. all use "hand me down" stuff. ]
In 6-8 years, iOS probably will have encroached on far more of the historic macOS space than it has now. Windows on ARM may have worked also ( not appear and disappear like Windows RT ). If MS is running Windows as a multiple platform option then Apple may be dragged into that position also. ( at current volumes that would be problemtical for Apple but perhaps they do something to grow the Mac volumes at a decent clip for 4-5 years. Right now the quest to "higher average" prices across the whole line up is unlikely to do that long term.
You’d be shocked how many of AMDs and Intels mid range chips are actually high range chips that didn’t bin well or did bin well but are intentionally derated by blowing fuses so they can be sold into the midrange. You don’t have to design for the high end separately from the middle of the market.
I wouldn't be shocked at all. But the XCC, HCC, iCC variants of along the Intel Xeon W product line are not 'blow fuses' but different dies. Yes there is some stuff that is Core i9 that is "fused off' variant of a Intel Xeon W. Apple won't need the massive CPU package line up that AMD and Intel have. However, Apple track record is basically having just one. Every Apple Watch sold in current generation $250-2,500 is just one CPU package SKU. All iPad Pro 2018 .. just one CPU package SKU . iPhone XR , XS, XS Max ... just one CPU SKU. Apple could make more SKUs by fusing off features but they largely don't have the volume to do that profitably (largely beause they can't use them to fill products for other folks. They are a single consumer silo).
Intel and AMD have the opposite problem. They need to fill as many products as possible with as many variations as possible. They have a large product volume space to fill. Apple doesn't.
"every possible product space" is not Apple's core design approach that they are following. They take every opportunity to talk about how the craft their SoC solution to fix exactly the specific product they area designed for on that first iteration of use. The A12X is highly finely tuned for the iPad Pro 2018. And then after that they find other uses for it. ( e.g., won't be surprising to turn up in an AppleTV update like last iPad Pro processor to squeak out more volume. it will be fast enough and affordable enough due to the large bow wave it is riding off of to not have to do a specific design. ).
Apple's primary focus is not at the top end of power, it is at the bottom. That is largely a gross mismatch with what AMD and Intel are doing in the top half of their line up. ( Power saving isn't completely last in priority but
The primary issue is that Apple is NOT doing top end stuff at all. If they took most of the talent off the "bottom" and put them to work on the new "top" who would be working on the "bottom"? If the iPhone SoC development stalls for 12 months what kind of strategic impact would that have for Apple? ( pretty high). So how likely are they going to take those folks off of iterating there? ( pretty low).
As the basic ARM server designs mature over 2020-2023 Apple could take some other parties implementation and just substitute them in at the higher end without having to do much in-house design at all. The N1 is suppose to get a chiplet baseline refernce and E1 bring in SMT. Iterate that 2 more generation and if only particularly concerned about being "fast enough' Apple could buy that almost off the shelf and couple an even more custom T-series so as narrow it specifically to a Mac. If Intel continus to stumbles and AMD gets more on track that is just as viable an option for most of th Mac line up.
Apple's "in-house" development though is almost exactly the opposite of what a robust, "top to bottom" Mac line up needs. Apple could shift completely off of x86, but it is just as likely that would only mean changing vendors for a substantive portion of the Mac line up that isn't mobile obsessed. That over 50% of Apple's overall revenues is extremely likely to keeps Apple's in-house work fixated on obsessing over extreme mobile. It is far more fundamentally strategic to the company.
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Not quite. They usually do one per power envelope. e.g. an A12 for phone-sized batteries and TDP, and a bigger A12X for tablet-sized batteries and TDP. Plus even smaller dies for the Watch and AirPods. More than one.
A new laptop or desktop might represent even higher power envelopes, and thus deserve fabricating separate dies, packages, and/or heat-spreaders, etc.. Perhaps even more cores, cache sizes, and/or a wider or higher bandwidth memory and IO bus for different DRAM chips/dies. e.g. something like an A14 for iPhones, A14X for iPad Pros, perhaps an A14Y for a MacBook or MacBook Air sized platform, and a secret A14Z for internal iCloud/ML data center use.