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I see three possibilities for Apple:
- Stay with Intel. Have stagnant product lines.
- Swap to ARM. Theoretically you might see a performance decrease, but I kind of doubt it... It seems to me that ARM performance has eclipsed low end Intel performance by now, and it's gaining ground on the higher end stuff that Apple uses in the rMBP.
- End Mac. Move to iOS only. Until they get Xcode on iOS, I don't think it's feasible to swap end Mac. Unless they want to let Linux or Windows machines start programming iOS devices.

Even if XCode was ported to iOS, usability would be absolutely hideous. Also the fact that many development tools that are relied upon aren't available on iOS - and questionable whether some could pass Apple's AppStore rules...
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I don't see this as a good move for intel.
Tick Tock is no longer feasible. I don't think they had much other choice.
 
I don't see this as a good move for intel.
I see this as a great move for Intel, First you get people on the brand spanking new hardware, then you make it run faster, then you make it run on a lower power. Which one do you want, the brand spanking new, the fastest, or the one that's stable but has been out for 2 years? 3 ways to buy that $300 - $1000 processor. **cha-ching**
 
- End Mac. Move to iOS only. Until they get Xcode on iOS, I don't think it's feasible to swap end Mac. Unless they want to let Linux or Windows machines start programming iOS devices.

Makers of Windows and Linux machines will have the same problem with processors, why is this a particular issue for Apple?
 
For most users, there are no real performance gains in x86_64 left; at this point the game is squeezing the same performance using less energy.

Realistically speaking, there isn't a lot of day-to-day difference between my 2009 i7 iMac and my wife's 2015 i7 retina iMac. The same can be said among all the retina mac pros that we have around the office; the speed differentials are pretty marginal.
 
No reason to innovate when there's no significant competition.

It's not only lack of competition, it's lack of a compelling need for more power. This has happened before, where we end up with ridiculous numbers of clock cycles that sit unused. Until there are new killer apps that really need mega processing power, people will be happy to keep their existing machines that function just fine.
 
It is not intel's fault if Apple decided to wait on Skylake....

I know this type of thinking is floated for trying to understand Apple OSX product release cycles but in all likelihood Apple just doesn't care about small year to year updates and releases new product when they feel like it and on their terms.
 
Intel: "We will still release processor updates as usual, just holding back on node shrinks. In fact, we released one of our best chip evolutions half a year ago."

Macrumors clickbait: "Apple is doomed!"

Apple: "Wut? There are new processors for Macs?" *Cook dives Scrooge McDuck-style into a pool of iOS devices that prints money*
 
Still makes me smile when people think that ARM does not have to abide by the same laws of physics that Intel and AMD are up against, and can simply make ARM chips that will just sail past them without any problems :)

Exactly. It's not as if Apple owns a fab. They would be beholden to TSMC and Samsung to make their ARM chips. TSMC is not going to get as good at fabrication as Intel; certainly not without x86-like volume.
 
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This is silly. It's not as much about CPU processing power now as it is GPU, fast storage, modern i/o ports. I don't really care if Apple only updates every other year, maybe with silent speed bumps along. The soonest I update my machines is two years anyway, though it's been longer lately b/c Apple hasn't provided me a reason to buy a new machine. I do wish they would built their machines around the best parts available, at least for the "pro" machines. They don't even do that now, and you can't blame Intel for that.
 
Well, if Apple has to wait on processors from Intel, then maybe they will be more willing to focus on other improvements like more powerful graphics cards and software improvements.

I still do not understand why Apple did not use the Haswell E5 v3 Xeon processors for a Mac Pro update. It thought with FirePro 7100, 8100, and 9100 available, along with the Haswell Xeons, the Mac Pro would have been updated sometime in 2015.

Now that Broadwell E5 v4 Xeons are available, will this mean that Apple will use older graphics cards or wait for the Polaris or Tesla cards to become available?
 
Competition to what? There's no way that the iOS device processors can stand up to anything in the current MacBook Pro's, iMac's, and Mac Pro's.
Hence my statement that it would be at least an A10 and that iOS would need to be upgraded.
 
I know this type of thinking is floated for trying to understand Apple OSX product release cycles but in all likelihood Apple just doesn't care about small year to year updates and releases new product when they feel like it and on their terms.
They simply don't care enough about the Mac that's all..

And you agree with me since it is Apple who doesn't want / care to update it is not like Intel has been standing still.
 
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