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ARM while getting more and more powerful with substantial power savings will never be fast enough for professional applications in a MacBook Pro and definitely not in the new Mac Pro ever.

And that's assuming a lot of key professional apps were converted to IOS even.

For Macs, stepping backward to go forward is the exact opposite of the PowerPC/X86 transition. x86 and Windows compatibility got rid of all the inhibitions PC users had about Macs and spurred growth.

The more likely thing is that Apple will gradually add more IOS features to OS X until the two are indistinguishable while still using Intel chips for Macs.

I seriously doubt Intel would make this move only to lose Apple's Mac Business. This move puts them firmly in the picture and is a big blow to Samsung.
 
Don't think so, people have been combining smartphones and tablets for a few years now in the vague hope of saying that everyone is replacing everything with a smartphone or a tablet.

Right. We were bound to see some decline in the PC market due to some people moving from laptops to tablets and smartphones exclusively. But for the most part, the mobile market as it currently exists is complementary to the desktop/laptop market. In other words, it's not an entirely 100% either/or situation.
 
Right. We were bound to see some decline in the PC market due to some people moving from laptops to tablets and smartphones exclusively. But for the most part, the mobile market as it currently exists is complementary to the desktop/laptop market. In other words, it's not an entirely 100% either/or situation.

That's something I wish more people understood.
 
Intel partner Altera announced at the ARM developers' conference yesterday that the world's largest semiconductor chip maker will start manufacturing 64-bit ARM chips beginning in 2014,

This is kind of a "so what?" There needs to be more sources for ARM parts because the demand is going up and Chipzilla wants a bite of that. This just makes logical sense. It's not like Intel hasn't done it before. (They last did it when PDA's were a thing, you all remember PDA's right? Basically what Smartphones evolved from.)

Apple was also originally rumored in 2011 to be moving from Intel's x86 architecture to ARM processors in future laptops, with a report in November 2012 also stating that Apple was considering the switch from Intel chips. A closer look at the potential move determined that Apple's potential shift from x86 to ARM for Macs was not implausible, as Apple could theoretically push ARM's power efficient based chips to become more suitable for its line of desktops and notebooks.

Every time I see this rumor I roll my eyes. This is business people speculating because they don't understand the underlying effort required. When Apple switched from 68K to PPC, they had backwards compatibility in mind. When they switched from PPC to x86, that choice was because the parts were too expensive and non-competitive. Apple does not need to switch from x86 in the desktop/laptops, because there is nothing to be gained. As much as people slam Intel for producing expensive furnaces for CPU parts, they keep on reducing the power usage with every generation. ARM parts however are not (If anything they're staying the same.)

Intel want's to see it's x86 parts in every device because it owns that IP. However x86 will max out around 12nm which means in less than 4 years we'll hit a plateau where there is no return on investment from trying to shrink it down further. Apply this to ARM parts which have a more power efficient design to begin with and you see why Intel has jumped on this bandwagon now. Eventually there may be a reason for Microsoft, Apple, Linux, etc to all switch to ARM parts for portable devices, because of wholesale abandonment of the x86 architecture, but I don't see this happening unless no further power/performance can be squeezed out of x86.

I think what we will see on a laptop or desktop is not a switch from x86, but rather ARM chips appearing first as additional CPU/GPU's (iPhone CPU's reportedly cost around 20$) and then the x86 CPU appearing as the additional CPU later, with lower-cost models not having the x86 parts. This would explain the feature stripping of the Apple owned software to make it similar to the iOS versions.

You all have noticed that most of the time the CPU meter on your desktops and laptops is near 8% or less right? The x86 core is probably overkill for just web browsing. The ARM part could make everything run silent until needed.
 
Yeah, stop living in the past. Batman: Arkham City will play on ARM, right? How about Elder Scrolls? How about Visual Studio? How about Handbrake? How about the many other programs that I use?

Living in the past means I get stuff done, I guess. To be honest, I'm okay with that.

Exactly. Call me when an iPad can run multiple DAWS simultaneously with the support for the top plugin manufacturers. Oh, and with an external monitor hooked up, about 50 safari tabs open (I know I'm a hoarder) and about 500 GB on board storage.

I really have no interest in a tablet for the foreseeable future. Maybe I'll get an iPhone though. ;)
 
Exactly. Call me when an iPad can run multiple DAWS simultaneously with the support for the top plugin manufacturers. Oh, and with an external monitor hooked up, about 50 safari tabs open (I know I'm a hoarder) and about 500 GB on board storage.

I really have no interest in a tablet for the foreseeable future. Maybe I'll get an iPhone though. ;)

I'm quite interested in a new iPad in the future, whenever I can scrape up the extra money. That being said, I plan on using it for things that make sense for you to do on an iPad. It's a nice little gaming machine, Infinity Blade isn't on anything but iOS.
 
Within 5 years, they're going to make a way to make USB thinner? Or are we going to lose more and more ports to the religion of 'thin devices are better'?

Just look at the followinghttp://www.computing.co.uk/IMG/921/131921/apple-macbook-air-sideview-1.png

There's quite a lot below the USB port that could be reduced. And I'm sure Apple will, even without ARM. Even the next Intel chips, with roughly 30% in performance gain, will allow Apple to make the MacBook Air thinner. Because there is no point in 20 hour battery life. I'd rather have 12 hours with a 20-30% weight/thickness reduction.
 
Just look at the followinghttp://www.computing.co.uk/IMG/921/131921/apple-macbook-air-sideview-1.png

There's quite a lot below the USB port that could be reduced. And I'm sure Apple will, even without ARM. Even the next Intel chips, with roughly 30% in performance gain, will allow Apple to make the MacBook Air thinner. Because there is no point in 20 hour battery life. I'd rather have 12 hours with a 20-30% weight/thickness reduction.

Quite a lot? Sure, there's a little that can be removed. I don't see it being made HUGELY THINNER, though. I wasn't trying to say that it won't be made thinner at all, just that we won't be looking back at 2013 and say "that's a fat MBA" due to ports.
 
Holy ****, it's amazing how no one has any idea what they're talking about.

You know that Altera makes FPGAs, right? The ARM chip is there to drive the FPGA, but the FPGA is the primary product. There's a reason that Intel is fabbing for an FPGA company, and that is because they don't compete with Intel's other major customers and it doesn't cannibalize Intel's other business.

While Altera's primary business is FPGAs, they are expanding into custom ASICs. They offer ASIC design services to customers using Intel's 14nm process. These are for very high volume customers that don't have a lot of in house ASIC design expertise. Altera can now offer ARM cores as part of the design building blocks to build custom ASIC SOCs.

While Apple could opt to use Altera as an intermediary, it is much more likely that Apple would work directly with Intel, as they have the in house ASIC design expertise and are a large enough customer, and don't need the intermediary.
 
Quite a lot? Sure, there's a little that can be removed. I don't see it being made HUGELY THINNER, though. I wasn't trying to say that it won't be made thinner at all, just that we won't be looking back at 2013 and say "that's a fat MBA" due to ports.

Yeah but this is Apple, they're creative. They can figure out a way to make the screen 25% thinner, move the USB port to where the MagSafe port is, make the magsafe port thinner, remove the part below the USB port and, voilà, you have a MacBook Air that is easily 25-30% thinner. Apple can and will make it happen.
 
Why should Apple give a crap about gaming? When have they ever?

And yes their consumer products are their main priority, they are a company and that's where the money is at. Why wouldn't they?

I agree but at the end of the day Apple has to "give a crap" about something. They don't give a crap about gaming, servers, expandable computers, and they are in the process of dumbing down our their software by striping away all but the most basic functionality ...

Apple is doing a wonderful job with the iToys and they are great for housewives, kids, and computer illiterates who want to do basic tasks (ie. the net ) and they have made the net accessible to millions who may have never of gotten online (as hard to believe as that it)...

But as I have said before, I really wish they would sell off their Mac Division and allow a company to keep the platform growing before it turns into just another toy...
 
The desktop/laptop market still sells roughly 300m a year on a down year. Tablets don't touch that at all. Yes, there are more smartphones and tables combined. Congrats. You combine two markets to defeat one market that is declining.|

Sort of like you combining workstations, desktops, and laptops to defeat the mobile device market?

Try dividing the hardware markets by the app ecosystems they run. Android wins, with Windows and iOS in close competition.
 
Sort of like you combining workstations, desktops, and laptops to defeat the mobile device market?

Try dividing the hardware markets by the app ecosystems they run. Android wins, with Windows and iOS in close competition.

No, he's comparing real computers that run full operating systems and have tons of industry standard productivity software packages with lightweight media consumption devices with cell phone operating system and dumbed down software.
 
Yeah but this is Apple, they're creative. They can figure out a way to make the screen 25% thinner, move the USB port to where the MagSafe port is, make the magsafe port thinner, remove the part below the USB port and, voilà, you have a MacBook Air that is easily 25-30% thinner. Apple can and will make it happen.

That'd be nice, I might just be proven wrong by Apple. But I'd rather they stick with something a little thicker and maybe works better than thinner at the cost of functionality. If they can get both at the same time, I'm all for it.

Sort of like you combining workstations, desktops, and laptops to defeat the mobile device market?

Try dividing the hardware markets by the app ecosystems they run. Android wins, with Windows and iOS in close competition.

Laptops and Desktops are essentially the same things in different form factors. I can hook a mouse up to my laptop, or use the trackpad, and have 95% the same experience in terms of UI and UX. Tablets and smartphones aren't like that. You're not going to be using the smartphone like you would a tablet.

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Not yet...

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Yup. Look up the numbers. ;)

And never will.

Or are you going to recompile all of everything to ARM. And for the love of all things sacred, do not mention virtualizing x86. If you're going to do that, you're going to end up using more power for lesser performance. Then you get rid of any advantage that moving to ARM would have, though I would argue that when it comes to power per watt we're not likely going to have an ARM chip that will be able to compete with the i-processor. By the time it gets as strong, it will likely be taking more power to do so.
 
While Altera's primary business is FPGAs, they are expanding into custom ASICs. They offer ASIC design services to customers using Intel's 14nm process. These are for very high volume customers that don't have a lot of in house ASIC design expertise. Altera can now offer ARM cores as part of the design building blocks to build custom ASIC SOCs.

While Apple could opt to use Altera as an intermediary, it is much more likely that Apple would work directly with Intel, as they have the in house ASIC design expertise and are a large enough customer, and don't need the intermediary.

Very aware of the FPGA and ASIC business.
Altera's ASIC business extends mostly to those trying to replace Altera FPGAs.

Doubtful that Altera could be used as a go between. We don't know what their deal with ARM or Intel looks like.

Intel is not really set up as a generic fab like TSMC.

Once again, this announcement really doesn't mean anything.
 
I was frustrated with earlier comments but after clicking past them it seems like most misconceptions have been addressed :)

Like others have already mentioned. Intel is just testing the waters by utilizing their fab capabilities. Even if Apple utilizes them just as a manufacturer I don't think it would change the planning of the A series chip much.

Things get really interesting when Intel handles both R&D and manufacturing. Unlike most competition, Intel does R&D at full production scale (check out their new research fab, D1X). This creates large upfront costs but huge savings down the road and is one of the reasons for their success. If you talk to engineers at Intel its kind of like a source of pride. Until we have a better picture of their long term goals with ARM its difficult to predict how Apple will benefit from this.
 
That's something I wish more people understood.

Some people seem to think that the whole mobile revolution is like microcomputers replacing mainframes back in the 70's. The thing they're missing is that microcomputers could do just about everything mainframes could when they made their big debut on the scene, whereas tablets and smartphones can't quite match desktops in every regard. At least not yet.

What's weirder is that the same people who are preaching about this change are the same ones who usually argue with you when you talk about making tablets more capable. It's like the thoughts aren't lining up in their head quite right.

As for my opinion, I do think tablets will eventually replace laptops in the near future, but it isn't happening right this second. I'd say that in about 5 years or so, we'll start truly seeing the big switch. Though it'll be more like a blending of the two, rather than a wholesale replacement.
 
No, he's comparing real computers that run full operating systems and have tons of industry standard productivity software packages with lightweight media consumption devices with cell phone operating system and dumbed down software.

I seem to recall an identical opinion about "real" computers...

...except the guy was a Cobol/JCL programmer talking about IBM 370 mainframes fed with punched cards, versus the new microprocessor toys. How well did that turn out? I hear IBM still sells big expensive Z-series "real" computers (no punched card readers though) and there are still a few extremely well paying jobs tending software for these beasts. If that's what floats your boat, go for it.

...but the world has moved on and continues to move on to lighter weight computing hardware with lower power (greener?) processors and easier-to-use software.
 
Some people seem to think that the whole mobile revolution is like microcomputers replacing mainframes back in the 70's. The thing they're missing is that microcomputers could do just about everything mainframes could when they made their big debut on the scene, whereas tablets and smartphones can't quite match desktops in every regard. At least not yet.

What's weirder is that the same people who are preaching about this change are the same ones who usually argue with you when you talk about making tablets more capable. It's like the thoughts aren't lining up in their head quite right.

As for my opinion, I do think tablets will eventually replace laptops in the near future, but it isn't happening right this second. I'd say that in about 5 years or so, we'll start truly seeing the big switch. Though it'll be more like a blending of the two, rather than a wholesale replacement.

So you think we're going to take tablets, add-on a keyboard and a mouse, and essentially make it a touch screen laptop?
 
Then why is it a great choice for the MBA? A MBA not being able to run OSX (or BootCamp) is not the same device. I think it would have to be a new class of devices. I would never buy it if it is ARM based.

Notice how I wrote "something like" and "some sort of device"? I could easily see this as a new product category or a beefed up iPad that runs OS X.
 
So you think we're going to take tablets, add-on a keyboard and a mouse, and essentially make it a touch screen laptop?

Kindasorta, yeah. We're gonna see a bigger and bigger push towards touch based devices as time goes on. What we'll end up with is gonna look like a lot like a cross between an iPad Air, and those detachable keyboard tablets we've been seeing from Asus, MS, Dell, and the rest.

You'll be using it mostly like we use iPads now, but they can be pared with any type of peripheral you need to best get the job done.
 
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