Intel's Processor Roadmap Leaves Uncertainty for Apple's 2014 Mac Updates

[Max(IT)]

Oh yea. Many apps are now cross platform with a few exceptions. What makes a difference between Flappy Bird on iOS vs Android?

Oh and your iPad is capable of making you a breakfast?
It doesn't even have Bluetooth file transfer let alone video output support. HDMI to Lightning is a fake solution.

I'm all ear for iOS, I have iPhone and iPad that's why I'm here on this forum for so long. But I wouldn't deny iOS has its own limitation compared to other.

Fanboy much? Gimme a break

So your reason for have a tablet is flappy bird ? Ok, I stand corrected: go ahead and buy an android tablet ...


Ps: your comment about bt file transfer says much .... AirDrop tells you something ? No, naturally no .... Keep dreaming about USB and bt dude, and buy a wonderful galaxy note

 

[mcarling]

I can see there is a lot of nostalgia still hanging in the air regarding the 17", and I'm glad I sold mine. It was upgraded to the maximum, with an extra HDD instead of Superdrive.

I may traded away a lot of power, but I sure love how cool my new retina display computer runs, how the fans never whine, and how portable the machine is. I almost never took the 17" with me, though I don't work with video that much, it always stayed on my desk, I actually used my wifes Macbook Air 2010 to do work outside of home, coding + photoshop.

I understand the need to edit on the road, but if performance matters, I would rather buy a Mac Pro. In laptop I can allow myself to wait a second or two, as long as it doesn't whine or get hot all the time. I'm actually welcoming more integrated graphics in laptops. For video I would always use a desktop beast with dedicated graphics, maybe do a few small bits on a laptop, but not day-to-day business.

The new retina MBP is still a work in progress. Integrated GPU trying to outfox dedicated GPUs are still also a work in progress, but I like the way it is heading, because portability equals more usage.

I'm confident that Apple were right to drop the 17" MBP when they did. At that time, a 17" rMBP would have been unaffordable and it would have been terrible marketing to offer their high-end laptop only in an "old" configuration.

Now there is a year and a half of pent-up demand for a 17" rMBP and improved Retina yields have made a hypothetical 17" rMBP relatively affordable. It would of course be a lot more portable than the 17" cMBP. Extrapolating from the 13" and 15" models, a 17" rMBP should be 600 to 750 grams lighter than the 17" cMBP.

Volumes might be small, so it would be important to offer features not available in the 15" rMBP such as a choice of 16GB or 32GB of DRAM, two PCIe SSD slots (permitting BTO configurations from 256GB to 2TB), and more ports. No need to offer CPU choices other than the 4910MQ.

Are those bugs usually fixed on the next tick?

Intel's bugs in the silicon are usually fixed with a new stepping. The next tick would be the absolute latest that a silicon bug would be fixed.

 

[KohPhiPhi]

What I dont understand is how come Apple hasnt upgraded their Display yet with thinner display, Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.0. I've been waiting for that for like a year!

 

[iSayuSay]

So your reason for have a tablet is flappy bird ? Ok, I stand corrected: go ahead and buy an android tablet ...


Ps: your comment about bt file transfer says much .... AirDrop tells you something ? No, naturally no .... Keep dreaming about USB and bt dude, and buy a wonderful galaxy note

Oh dude does AirDrop works with anything other than iOS devices?

Oh and one more, does AirDrop for iOS works for Mac despite share the same name? No, naturally no .. Keep dreaming about your crippled iOS and live under the rock

 

[spegahsheen]

If Apple does another CPU chip change to their own ARM, I'm going to be pissed.

But then again, so we really need faster chips at this point for the average Facebook, email, & Spotify consumer? Nope. We need more optimized software.

Yes, sad to say but Apple isn't a software house

 

[mcarling]

What I dont understand is how come Apple hasnt upgraded their Display yet with thinner display, Thunderbolt 2 and USB 3.0. I've been waiting for that for like a year!

Those things will come whenever Apple upgrade the Thunderbolt Display to 4K.

 

[Lolito]

No upgradable RAM = I will eventually switch back to a windows 7 machine, unfortunately... A 16gb retina macbook pro from Apple has become uber expensive... I might switch to a mac mini though and keep my old MBP.

No upgradable ram = no mac for me
No ssd + hdd = no mac for me

Pity... for me ;-) I´m not rich. Apple became an elite brand, just like BMW. Good for them for sure, not good for me.

Iphones and ipad are already surpased by the Google NEXUS line.

 

[mcarling]

No upgradable RAM = I will eventually switch back to a windows 7 machine, unfortunately...

Soon the PeeCees will also dump upgradeable RAM.

 

[AppleScruff1]

The Mac sales aren't looking bad in general, what exactly makes you think that Apple would neglect them in the sense of simplyfing them or whatever else you thought you were thinking when you said "a bit more iOS device like" - especially after investing a lot of R&D and execution in the Mac Pro?

I didn't mean to imply that Mac sales were bad, just that they only account for about 10% of Apple's revenue. I can see an Air device running on ARM, not quite a notebook, not quite an iPad. Something in between. The new Mac Pro was long overdue, and IMO, some of it was engineering for the sake of engineering, and I don't mean that as knock. If the nMP had the same performance and specs in a traditional form factor, it wouldn't have generated as much buzz, again, IMO.

 

[iRun26.2]

No way they will use ARM, since its far inferior to x86 in almost every way.

The 64bit chip has nothing to do with it except changing the architecture to support more efficient / faster performance for low level processing.

It's like telling Apple to go back to PPC, there is no way they would do such thing. It just not cost efficient and consumer friendly. Overall its a downgrade path, and not a small one either.

PS: Even Microsoft regret going after ARM with RT, it's essentially pointless and useless crap that does nothing but a Mobile Phone with bigger screen.

Thank you!

I get so tired of the "Apple changing from x86 to ARM" nonsense predictions. At this point in time that would be foolish.

 

[MacSince1990]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Apple's ARM chips will be in Macbook Air's.

That's one of the reasons for making the 64-bit chip.

Just watch. WWDC2014

And maybe when they get to more than 1/10th the speed of a comparable Core i7, you'll be right.

 

[gnasher729]

Dear Tim Cook: Why are you allowing your companies fortunes to be dictated by waiting on Intel? Why don't you take some of that 100 billion that your company has in cash and buy AMD.Then hire the best of the best and make the best cpu's in the world! Please don't become another Microsoft and sit back afraid to make a mistake! Take a chance Tim,and let Apple control the cpu market!

It doesn't matter to Apple how fast Intel processors are. What matters (to some small degree) is how fast Apple computers are compared to competitors' computers. Since they all use the same chips, it doesn't matter.

 

[Alexjones]

Well, this is a timely article! I have been waiting to purchase a new, high end 15-inch retina Macbook Pro thinking there would be a minor upgrade next month. Like maybe a 755m graphics chip(over the current 750m) and a slight processor upgrade. Sounds like that is not going to happen. Guess I'll go ahead and buy one.

You wont be sorry. It is a true powerhouse. The blackmagic speed test gives the ssd a 714 read speed. Just beware of the sometimes buggy two finger pinch to zoom issue on the trackpad. Otherwise, i say go for it.

 

[gnasher729]

The A7 is nowhere near Haswell. Seriously. Intel is ahead of ARM.

Well, an A7 chip could easily run at double the clock speed (not in an iPhone because it would be too hot and eat too much power, but in a laptop), and you could easily put eight instead of two A7 cores into one chip (not in an iPhone for the same reason, and it would of course be at least four times more expensive). That would be a lot closer to Haswell in speed. Unfortunately, a lot closer in heat, power consumption and price as well.

This is lie comparing a formula 1 car to a professional racing bycicle.

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This is what we call "Fear Uncertainty and Doubt". What's the point of this story, except to make people scared to buy a Mac?

That would apply to stupid people only. If someone could reliably predict that Macs won't get faster this year, then there's obviously no point in waiting, so just buy one right now.

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In your mind, Apple is doing it wrong; in reality, Apple is possibly the only company doing it right. They are still in the market after 30 years.

Compare to Samsung who just dropped out of the UK market completely (88% sales drop according to Gartner).

 

[Michael Goff]

Well, an A7 chip could easily run at double the clock speed (not in an iPhone because it would be too hot and eat too much power, but in a laptop), and you could easily put eight instead of two A7 cores into one chip (not in an iPhone for the same reason, and it would of course be at least four times more expensive). That would be a lot closer to Haswell in speed. Unfortunately, a lot closer in heat, power consumption and price as well.

This is lie comparing a formula 1 car to a professional racing bycicle.

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That would apply to stupid people only. If someone could reliably predict that Macs won't get faster this year, then there's obviously no point in waiting, so just buy one right now.

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Compare to Samsung who just dropped out of the UK market completely (88% sales drop according to Gartner).

I know that, but the idea is that ARM isn't capable of surpassing Intel yet.

 

[iLondoner]

Speed is always a factor when the device is used as a computer and not an Internet access device. This idea that computers are fast enough is asinine and seems to crop up with every generation of hardware and software. For trivial needs we have iPad, but when that doesn't cut the mustard performance counts.

The iPad is far too limited to be compared alongside Windows/OS X PCs. I spend most of my time doing content creation, word processing, desktop publishing, some video editing, GPS routing and so forth. Since the 1970s I've wanted faster and faster micro computers (as they were then), now I'm fairly happy with the MacBook Air speed.

Actually the SSDs are a big issue for me and many others. 256GB barely cuts it these days. Especially if you run VMs or process lots of data. I'd actually rather see Apple triple the size of the SSD storage in these machines than to deliver a worthless 100 MHz clock update on the processor.

Apple doubled the maximum SSD capacity to 512GB on the last refresh.

 

[Menneisyys2]

I understand the need to edit on the road, but if performance matters, I would rather buy a Mac Pro.

I'm one of those 17" fans. I just love the screen estate. And I'm without AC electricity for more than a month each year. (In Northern-Finland, it'd cost several thousands of Euros to get an electricity line to a distant summer cottage. It's simply not worth it if you "only" spend a month each year there.) This plenty much rules out all kinds of external monitors - my solar cells just aren't capable of powering them properly.

This kind of use case should also be taken into account when speaking about the usefulness of 17" screen size.

 

[mcarling]

I'm one of those 17" fans. I just love the screen estate. And I'm without AC electricity for more than a month each year. (In Northern-Finland, it'd cost several thousands of Euros to get an electricity line to a distant summer cottage. It's simply not worth it if you "only" spend a month each year there.) This plenty much rules out all kinds of external monitors - my solar cells just aren't capable of powering them properly.

This kind of use case should also be taken into account when speaking about the usefulness of 17" screen size.

I think the timing is right for Apple to introduce a 17" rMBP. However, with as much sunlight as northern Finland gets in the summer, you do have the option of adding another solar panel or getting a nice set of LiFePO4 batteries. Can you get cellular Internet connectivity out there?

 

[Razeus]

Yes, sad to say but Apple isn't a software house

Wha?

 

[Michael Goff]

Wha?

Apple is a deign company whose primary revenue comes from hardware. They make software to differentiate. Saying they're not a software house? I guess it's true?

 

[iRun26.2]

My money is on an ARM 12" Macbook Air.

Would you buy one?

 

[iRun26.2]

I agree: the MBA family, just like the iPad family, has been tweaked to almost perfection over the years, so it's difficult to improve it even further.

We all want more brute power in our machines, but let's be honest: the MBA is already powerful enough for what's meant to be: a sensible balance between mobility and consumer-level use. The current Haswell + 8Gb RAM + SSD + HD5000 GPU lineup is more than powerful enough for its intended target user, so I'd argue that it doesn't need more "beef".

If I was Apple, I'd direct my research efforts for the MBA family towards longer battery life, smaller screen bezel and more software optimization.

And a retina screen!

Its way overdue on the MBA.

 

[iRun26.2]

Sadly this is all BS.


It is actually superior in many ways. Take a long hard look at Apple A7 and AMDs new ARM based server chip.

Again more BS. Apples early move to 64 bit is a huge step forward. They will quickly have the entire iOS ecosystem on a 64 bit platform. From that point the only direction is forwards.

Again totally irrational thinking, first you assume a performance down grade but that isn't a given. In fact the smaller, lower power ARM cores can mean a performance upgrade if more cores are available per watt or power. As for cost efficient Apple would not be paying for Intels very fat margins on processor chips. So the consumer would be getting far more performance per his computer dollar. With App Store and XCode all Apple would need to do is request of demand that apps be submitted with ARM binaries.


MS isn't regretting ARM, it is regretting that they tried to pass off crap as a respectable bit of competition for Apple. In fact I don't think you will find many that disagree with me here, RTs failure had nothing to do with ARM.

But ARM processors would render BootCamp useless.

 

[AdamskiUK]

I need to pick up a MBP towards the end of this year - preferably before the end of September. I'm going to wait for this year's refreshes and I'm currently looking at the high-end stock build 15" which is a whopping £2200 (£1833 pre 'sales tax' (VAT)) which is something like $3050 (again, excl. sales tax)!

So if I bought one for the last week of Sept when I actually need the thing and then they get refreshed in October, at $3k I would be mighty upset.

 

[kalsta]

The only mac that needs to be updated is the Mac mini anyway. The rest can go another 10 months without updates easy.

I disagree. The iMac still comes with spinning disk as standard! I know this article is about processors, not storage, but that's the biggest speed bottleneck for these machines, and I find it sad that Apple's flagship consumer desktop doesn't at the very least come with Fusion Drive as standard.