Mac With Apple-Designed Arm Processor Coming in First Half of 2021

[Tech198]

Although there is already inconsistencies now with Apple devices communicating with, or through, 3rd party products, i wonder if switching to ARM will make that worse, or not really.?

All i see is "it will be better supported with all Mac being on ARM".

In fact, many 3rd products like QNAS NAS are ARM based too, so i should think it WOULD be better.

The Mac is definitely a gaming platform too: even Apple itself offers Apple Arcade, not to mention Steam and other third parties, meaning they recognize there are users interested in gaming on Mac.

While I understand the wish to obsolete 32 bit applications, the impact it had on games on the platform was significant. I know users who are refraining to upgrade to Catalina exactly for that reason, since it would mean losing lots of older games which would stop working on the new system.

And no, they have zero interest in Boot Camp or such solutions... they want it to just work (rings a bell?).

"Older games stop working on older systems".. That's not really a good excuse,as not many games work on Mojave either..

You can only call "apple a gaming platform NOW.. because Arcade was never done few years ago"

But that to me, is still a cloud platform... and as just, i distance that from a gaming machine, since being "cloud based" any system with capable hardware could in theory play those same games.

I tend to associate gaming with hardware only, and everything being local. No subscription must be tried.

 

[ds2000]

I love the negativity. I'm sure maybe one person at Apple has thought "hey, we need to run some X86_64 stuff" without reading the moaning on here.

 

[bsolar]

"Older games stop working on older systems".. That's not really a good excuse,as not many games work on Mojave either..

The magnitude of games not working anymore due to the removal for 32 bit applications on Catalina is not comparable to incompatibilities on Mojave. There is a reason the switch was much debated in Mac gaming circles and articles had been written to explain the situation. E.g. you can find a list of 32 bit incompatible games here, although I doubt it's complete.

You can only call "apple a gaming platform NOW.. because Arcade was never done few years ago"

Steam for Mac was released in 2010. Even before that, it's not like standalone games didn't exist on Mac either.

I understand gaming might not be the driving factor for Mac users, but it's still unquestionably a relevant use case.

 

[Enerccio]

I love the negativity. I'm sure maybe one person at Apple has thought "hey, we need to run some X86_64 stuff" without reading the moaning on here.

Sorry but if I wanted an iPad I would have bought an iPad... arm on laptops/desktops is absurd

 

[giopiar]

In December Apple launched the new (Intel) Mac Pro, with a price up to $50k. IMO it would be absurd to deprecate x86 in the foreseeable future. Maybe they’ll maintain both ARM/x86 architectures for different product lines (non-pro vs pro), but I think it would be confusing and expensive for both devs and users. Or maybe they’ll launch an iOS MacBook. Nobody knows, but I think x86 has still long life in Mac lineup

 

[Acorn]

windows has toyed with arm processors already and have discovered most windows users dont want it. It seems apple is leaning on 2 things. the massive amount of ios software that could be used and that apple users actually want it. I am not interested in running ios software on a desktop. I am interested in apple pencil support on a apple laptop or desktop. They say touch is no good for mac os that may be true for finger input but apple pencil is more than precise enough. if you enabled both you would have a pretty good touch experience.

 

[bigtomato]

I highly doubt apple will release a 'high end' version, my bet is they will start with 13" laptop. Yea it might be intel / and chips a bit but not that much. Intel / AMD have years of efficiency built into those chips it will take apple at least another 5 years before they eliminate both intel/AMD so don't expect anything like a mac pro killer.

 

[Steve121178]

I am guessing this will come on a MacBook first.

Who knows. macOS is just about finished, so might as well embrace a rioded up iPadOS and move forward with that. Touch screens 'n all.

 

[theluggage]

Although there is already inconsistencies now with Apple devices communicating with, or through, 3rd party products, i wonder if switching to ARM will make that worse, or not really.?

In general, no - NAS devices and even many USB/Thunderbolt devices use standard communications protocols that have nothing to do with the type of processor at either end. Some rely on custom drivers at the Mac end, so its really a case of whether the developer is still around and is prepared to release updated drivers (which, in some cases will still just be a case of 'tick ARM and re-build' although you're more likely to find CPU-specific code in drivers than apps).

To put it in perspective, a few third-party devices get bricked every time Apple upgrades MacOS. Catalina was a major culprit with the dropping of 32 bit support (which will have mopped up a lot of potential ARM problems) but there are plenty of earlier examples - sadly, anything you're currently using that isn't either standards-based or actively supported by the developer is a ticking time bomb anyway, ARM or not.

If a future ARMac uses USB4 instead of Thunderbolt (don't ask the difference or I might start to whimper) there may be some glitches there (as I understand it, USB4 implementations need to go the extra mile to be fully Thunderbolt compatible, but you'd think Apple would do that).

In December Apple launched the new (Intel) Mac Pro, with a price up to $50k. IMO it would be absurd to deprecate x86 in the foreseeable future.

Expecting long-term - beyond about 3-4 years - support for your $50k Mac Pro - is letting optimism triumph over experience.

Ask Mac Pro 1.1 users (Stuck on Lion .
Ask ~2012 Mac Pro "Cheesegrater" users who couldn't transition to the trashcan and waited 7 years for a new PCIe Mac Pro (Esp. in Europe where the MP was dropped a year or two before the trashcan came out for want of a plastic fan guard)
Ask XServe users.

The MP is short-term anyway - look at the Apple site showing how much faster the $30k config is than... 7 year-old trashcans and 2-year-old all-in-ones... they're not even trying to promote it beyond existing MacOS users (anybody not committed to MacOS pro software just has hysterics at the price).

Potentially, though, a "pro" A-series CPU could be very interesting. The reason that ARM cores are starting to be used in supercomputers is not that an ARM core is somehow magically faster than Intel, its that the cores are smaller and take less power, leaving more space on-chip for the multiple cores and accelerator gubbins (vector processors etc.) that actually give supercomputers their mojo.

That could be great in, say, a high-end MacBook Pro (maybe with afterburner-like tech on the SOC) - in which case an ARM-based Mac Pro desktop would make more sense.

 

[Zdigital2015]

prove this.
Apple has only ever on a very limited case ever announced and shipped a product on the same day!
The fact you mention pre-order tells me that sorry no shipping occurred. You’ve not separated pre-order from custom order ... they’re normally not one and the same.

From the press release -

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”

Pricing & Availability
The Mac Pro is shipping today with the standard prebuilt configuration, including two 2.66 GHz Dual-Core Intel Xeon processors and priced at $2,499 (US), through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com), Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers. The 20-inch Cinema Display, 23-inch Cinema HD Display and the 30-inch Cinema HD Display are available through the Apple Store (www.apple.com), at Apple’s retail stores and Apple Authorized Resellers for a suggested retail price of $699 (US), $999 (US) and $1,999 (US), respectively.

There’s always shipping times involved for any product bought on the online store. I have zero proof that Apple has the base config in the physical store that day and, frankly, I could care less. Your contention was that the transition from PowerPC to Intel took 18 months, and it did not take that long, at least from a hardware perspective.
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Here’s the bottom line - If Apple has actually made the decision to move to in-house CPUs then it’s done and it’s time to prepare for the transition. I’ve been the first through two and they were remarkably painless.

If you’re married to Intel, then best to buy a new Mac soon so that you can keep the “compatibility” you want or need. Or move to a Windows PC, or cling to what you currently own until the bitter end. Dealer’s choice.

If you’re not married to Intel, then you’re not really all that bothered by this rumor. So, make a bowl of popcorn, pull up a seat and enjoy the spectacle.

Either way, if it’s true, it is inevitable.

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

In December Apple launched the new (Intel) Mac Pro, with a price up to $50k. IMO it would be absurd to deprecate x86 in the foreseeable future. Maybe they’ll maintain both ARM/x86 architectures for different product lines (non-pro vs pro), but I think it would be confusing and expensive for both devs and users. Or maybe they’ll launch an iOS MacBook. Nobody knows, but I think x86 has still long life in Mac lineup

Absolutely agreed. x86 is just getting started and AMD Zen 2/3 is a good option for Apple.

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

From the press release -

“Apple has successfully completed the transition to using Intel processors in just seven months—210 days to be exact,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “And what better product to complete it with than the new Mac Pro, the workstation Mac users have been dreaming about.”
There’s always shipping times involved for any product bought on the online store. I have zero proof that Apple has the base config in the physical store that day and, frankly, I could care less. Your contention was that the transition from PowerPC to Intel took 18 months, and it did not take that long, at least from a hardware perspective.
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Here’s the bottom line - If Apple has actually made the decision to move to in-house CPUs then it’s done and it’s time to prepare for the transition. I’ve been the first through two and they were remarkably painless.

If you’re married to Intel, then best to buy a new Mac soon so that you can keep the “compatibility” you want or need. Or move to a Windows PC, or cling to what you currently own until the bitter end. Dealer’s choice.

If you’re not married to Intel, then you’re not really all that bothered by this rumor. So, make a bowl of popcorn, pull up a seat and enjoy the spectacle.

Either way, if it’s true, it is inevitable.

Things are different for ARMac transition since INTEL CPU overall performance is still faster than Apple SoC.

 

[Zdigital2015]

Things are different for ARMac transition since INTEL CPU overall performance is still faster than Apple SoC.

NONE of us knows what Apple has cooked up in their labs right now. All we see is how fast the Axx-Series is based on performance benchmarks, comparisons to Android phones, et al. Apple’s current designs are extremely conservative because they have to be for the hardware application they occupy. Beyond that, WE’RE all speculating as to how fast or slow an Apple-powered Mac will end up being. Time will tell who is right and who is wrong.

 

[MikeZTM]

Things are different for ARMac transition since INTEL CPU overall performance is still faster than Apple SoC.

If a 150w Intel 9900k is not faster than a 6w Apple A13 SoC then Intel must be out of business already.

Intel's 9900k is no where near twice as fast core by core compare to A13 and already burning more than twice the power.

That mean if we just scale by adding more cores. A13 will reach same level of multithreaded performance at much lower power.

We are not even talking about the possibility of much higher single core boost if we slap a fan on Apple's SoC.

 

[Emanuel Rodriguez]

The Mac is definitely a gaming platform too: even Apple itself offers Apple Arcade, not to mention Steam and other third parties, meaning they recognize there are users interested in gaming on Mac.

While I understand the wish to obsolete 32 bit applications, the impact it had on games on the platform was significant. I know users who are refraining to upgrade to Catalina exactly for that reason, since it would mean losing lots of older games which would stop working on the new system.

And no, they have zero interest in Boot Camp or such solutions... they want it to just work (rings a bell?).

You can play games on it, but because the makers of the platform clearly do not prioritize games (hence my statement), obsoleting the slew of old 32-bit games which likely won’t be updated, just wasn’t a concern for them. Again, my definition of a gaming platform is one where the maintainers actually make some kind of effort to keep gaming alive on it. Apple has always supported come and go small indie games (which make up the vast majority of games on Apple Arcade), but the large titles have always fallen by the wayside. That’s not a gaming platform. Microsoft has always worked with the large game development firms to keep things functional. Don’t get me wrong, I despise Windows with a passion, but thanks to Microsoft, it is definitely a gaming platform, and can be trusted as such.

 

[MikeZTM]

You can play games on it, but because the makers of the platform clearly do not prioritize games (hence my statement), obsoleting the slew of old 32-bit games which likely won’t be updated, just wasn’t a concern for them. Again, my definition of a gaming platform is one where the maintainers actually make some kind of effort to keep gaming alive on it. Apple has always supported come and go small indie games (which make up the vast majority of games on Apple Arcade), but the large titles have always fallen by the wayside. That’s not a gaming platform. Microsoft has always worked with the large game development firms to keep things functional. Don’t get me wrong, I despise Windows with a passion, but thanks to Microsoft, it is definitely a gaming platform, and can be trusted as such.

It's not Apple don't care about 32bit games.
It's game developer don't care about Apple.

32bit->64bit transitioning happened 10 year ago with Snow Leopard. Apple keep the compatibility layer for 10 year already and anyone that's not crazy should support 64bit at least more than 7 years ago when Mountain Lion went 64bit only kernel.

And those really old game could get a GOG repackage style rebirth -- most of them are PowerPC games so they got cut off much earlier. Also wine is working on running 32bit windows app in 64bit process. With the progress of DXVK for Mac that could workaround most issue gamer complained about.

 

[Mago]

iPhone 6s surpport PCIe NVMe storage.
Technically if you put a thunderbolt chip to that bus you will get thunderbolt support.

And Ampere ARM CPUs already support PCIe slot and are shiped with NVIDIA/AMD graphic cards.

Since Thunderbolt becomes open standard USB4, anyone can implement chipset + driver for that. ARM is not a problem.

People or MacRumors what you said?

 

[PostApple2016BrainWash]

NONE of us knows what Apple has cooked up in their labs right now. All we see is how fast the Axx-Series is based on performance benchmarks, comparisons to Android phones, et al. Apple’s current designs are extremely conservative because they have to be for the hardware application they occupy. Beyond that, WE’RE all speculating as to how fast or slow an Apple-powered Mac will end up being. Time will tell who is right and who is wrong.

The mac operating system will consume more battery and need more core to run fluidly so it definitely won't be much faster than x86.

 

[cmaier]

The mac operating system will consume more battery and more core to run fluidly so it definitely won't be much faster than x86.

Why does battery matter?

As for more cores, it depends on what you are doing. The OS, itself, is fairly light weight and, at its core, is essentially identical to iOS (BSD on Mach). In any event, a laptop/desktop version of an Axx chip will doubtless have more cores than the corresponding mobile versions.

We don't know a lot about the existing Axx architectures, but presumably they will:

1) increase the number of cores
2) add a lot of I/O
3) increase the sizes of each level of cache
4) potentially modify the cores to support a higher issue rate, perhaps by adding another pipeline (or, depending on what they are doing now, reduce contention by increasing the number of highest-functionality pipelines)
5) increase the size of TLBs, branch prediction RAMs, etc.
6) fiddle with the voltage controller

They probably do not need to resort to gimmicks like hyper threading.

If someone knows of any detailed discussion of what's in the latest Axx chips as far as microarchitecture, I'd love to read it.

 

[MikeZTM]

The mac operating system will consume more battery and need more core to run fluidly so it definitely won't be much faster than x86.

More than iOS? Maybe but we are not comparing that. You totally missing the point and not controlling your variables for the comparison.

We are comparing ARM to x86 both running macOS. For same performance A13 need much less power.
That's a fact. And adding more core will not change the power efficiency.

Currently A13 is about 6w.
Just quadruple everything on it you got 24w with 12 cores.

That's far away from Intel's 150W flagship 9900k yet faster in multi threaded performance.

 

[Zdigital2015]

The mac operating system will consume more battery and need more core to run fluidly so it definitely won't be much faster than x86.

To reiterate: NONE of us knows what Apple has cooked up in their labs right now.

 

[Flow39]

"The switch from PowerPC to Intel took a few years"

It happened in 18 months.

I’m talking about the switch for the developers to catch up and port applications over from the 68k architecture, not just the processor switch.

I’ve had like 3 people quote me and correct me. I know that the physical switch only took 18 months. I’m talking about the applications and software porting, not using Rosetta.

 

[bobcomer]

Sure. But not a good enough reason to put in an emulator (and presumably have to pay AMD and Intel license fees)

Software emulator... I certainly wouldn't buy one if it didn't run older Mac apps. I'd even prefer they put back the 32-bit subsystem. I'm a corporate IT guy and we may keep old code running for a VERY long time. (as to why, $$$'s -- it's cheaper, by a LOT) The same goes for Windows on ARM...

 

[cmaier]

Software emulator... I certainly wouldn't buy one if it didn't run older Mac apps. I'd even prefer they put back the 32-bit subsystem. I'm a corporate IT guy and we may keep old code running for a VERY long time. (as to why, $$$'s -- it's cheaper, by a LOT) The same goes for Windows on ARM...

If it’s not already apparent to you that Apple doesn’t care if it loses you, or other corporate IT guys, as customers for Mac, don’t know what to say.

 

[MikeZTM]

I’m talking about the switch for the developers to catch up and port applications over from the 68k architecture, not just the processor switch.

I’ve had like 3 people quote me and correct me. I know that the physical switch only took 18 months. I’m talking about the applications and software porting, not using Rosetta.

Adobe got photoshop ported in 2007 (CS3).
Microsoft got Office ported in 2008.
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Software emulator... I certainly wouldn't buy one if it didn't run older Mac apps. I'd even prefer they put back the 32-bit subsystem. I'm a corporate IT guy and we may keep old code running for a VERY long time. (as to why, $$$'s -- it's cheaper, by a LOT) The same goes for Windows on ARM...

Just virtualize everything you need in the cloud.
Be it public cloud or private cloud.

That's normal in enterprise environment.
There's not reason to bind fresh new client side gadgets to 30 years old technology debt.