They couldn't be more wrong. There's no way the new iMac will have anything other than an Intel based processor. Think about it: there is no ARM processor that exists that would be able to meet the performance demands of a desktop computer. And frankly I'm sick of hearing these ill-formed predictions. It will be Intel or nothing guaranteed.
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People who think the new iMac will use an ARM processor
- Thread starter Puevlo
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Can't say i've seen many people suggesting it will come with ARM....?
Right now I think people are a liitle preoccupied with a more important question.
Right now I think people are a liitle preoccupied with a more important question.
And who would've thought an elitist company like Apple would take a cheap route to go with Intel back in 2006?
And moreover to allow Windows run natively on all its machine? Can you imagine? It's impossible. It will be PowerPC or nothing, guaranteed
And moreover to allow Windows run natively on all its machine? Can you imagine? It's impossible. It will be PowerPC or nothing, guaranteed
[nothing else todo]how about a hybrid solution; ARM for low energy quick boot tasks and Intel for performance-on-demand ? [/nothing else todo]
Ah, the famous Puevlo guarantee!...seriously dude, does it make you feel good to post troll threads like this over and over again?
No, maybe it was the rumor that the Mac Pro would get a single core ARM and no enclosure redesign and no optical drive.
I was having my hour of meditation in the forest, and my mind was absent of all conflict. But a storm approached with grey clouds and fearsome thunder. A dark object appeared over the skyline...a black monolith? As it came closer, I saw it to be the display of a great iMac turned on its side. It opened up, and with great terror I looked inside to see it was powered by ARM. It soon began the swan song which would prompt the end of all things, and together we wept.
The horror...the horror...
The horror...the horror...
It's not happening. Imagine all the effort required to port OSX to a whole new architecture.
Also, all current OSX apps would become obsolete.
Also, all current OSX apps would become obsolete.
Well, a significant part of that work has already been done in producing iOS (no, its not OS X but you can be sure that it shares as much code as is feasible). And most applications (including big chunks of the system) written in C or Objective C would just need re-compiling. Its a far cry from the days when everything had to be written in lovingly hand-crafted assembler. Many of the Linux distros, such as Debian, manage to support ARM, x86 and PPC.
I'd be surprised if there isn't already an ARM rig running OSX somewhere at Apple, just as they had x86 OSX running long before the switch from PPC (how far it is from being production-ready is another matter). Its a good insurance policy against ARM beating Intel in the ultra-low-power mobile stakes.
...however, the iMac is the last place the ARM is likely to turn up. The ARM's 'Unique Selling Point' is low-power, so if Apple went for OSX-on-ARM it would be for something that sat between the iPad and MacBook Air in the product range, or a low-power home server.
I'm saying it's likely - but it is feasible.
However, my best guess (pure speculation) would be a hybrid ARM/Intel subnotebook, with the ARM providing 'always on' communications (email, facetime, messaging, note-taking, music, book reading etc.) and the Intel CPU firing up to run 'serious' OS X applications. Think of a MacBook Air with the top cover replaced by an iPad and elaborate from there...
iOS is a stripped down version of OSX, but it would still require a lot of effort to port the whole thing to a whole new architecture. Also, even though applications could just be recompiled, consider all the PowerPC apps that have still not been converted to Universal binary yet.
I do with agree with you on that second point. A ARM backup Air would be a great possibility, with possible gains with battery life, however, again, the completely different architectures would make it buggy. With Apple's reputation for non-bugginess it could be possible, but hard to implement.
