The true impact of Apple Silicon’s performance and power efficiency is still yet to be discovered. I think it could be one of the biggest breakthroughs in a generation.
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Tim Cook on Apple Deciding to Manufacture Components: 'We Ask Ourselves If We Can Do Something Better'
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I was an engineer for a small fabless semiconductor company in Silicon Valley. We made a family of full-custom digital signal processing-based high speed communications chips.
All of our customers understood we didn't actually fabricate them. Thus, using the word make and made is indeed proper and used the term regularly. Not a single customer or the 40,000 employee semiconductor manufacturer who eventually acquired us was confused.
I never really understood the naming convention and how did they differ from each other. I am also not sold on hyperthreading. Like everyone else, I am waiting for the new MBP and new iMac 27+...
I was surprised when my friend told me that he 'finally got his M1 iPadPro. It took him many weeks. He was stuck on a specific color, specific storage, and specific cell carrier. I would not care for the color, but that is me.
Yeah my worry is that we could end up in a PPC-style world again where Apple's telling us our stuff's faster but PC users are consistently seeing better real-world results (with cheaper, upgradable/customisable gear).
I don't mind 'waiting for Intel' and TBH it's not as if Apple were always pushing out bleeding-edge Intel tech (or acceptable quality GPUs - they frigging ghosted Nvidia and actively disabled some of their GPUs).
Yes the M1's a great low-end computer but is that what we want? I know I'll get hate for this on here but I'm yet to be convinced that ARM will ever beat high-end Intel/AMD gear (let alone high-end GPUs for graphics/gaming).
Steve Jobs was a genius and he left the company in the hands of another genius, Tim Cook. If you think you can run a mega company better, Just try it.
It is all about risk and contingencies.
CPU is a most important part of modern computer/smartphone/tablet.
Making it in-house shields the company from various risks.
Making it competitive gives the company an edge in competition.
Making it best in industry (especially in efficiency and energy usage) gives a company an invaluable edge in mobile technology.
Second is GPU.
M1 GPU powers iPadPro and Macs and while it is not a discrete GPU, it does the job very well, again giving various advantages.
Modem is important in mobile technology. I think it should be at least as good as Qualcomm's and maybe be cheaper to justify its work. Since Apple already used Intel's modem (where the division came from), I think it is reasonably good.
Camera is fourth important component now. It seems Neural Engine does good job of computational photography, at least as good as industry leaders.
In terms of software and OS, Apple is second to none. Thats the most important component as well.
Making it in-house shields the company from various risks.
Making it competitive gives the company an edge in competition.
Making it best in industry (especially in efficiency and energy usage - I mean OS) gives a company an invaluable edge in mobile technology.
That's why the company is a leader in smartphones and tablets, notebooks, etc. Each component may not be leading in industry, but the mix of that makes the overall combination (hardware and software) very advanced and be the best in mobile space.
Now we have to see how M chips do well in desktops. Judging from my Mac Mini M1, it is definitely very efficient even with limited RAM, is incredibly fast with video and imaging in general, also has good processing abilities for music production (Logic Pro), which is very CPU-intensive.
We'd expect next generation of M chips to move further ahead in terms of RAM and GPU abilities to compete with discrete graphic cards.
For IpadOS, further move towards a full blown finder/desktop version is inevitable, let's see how it will progress.
CPU is a most important part of modern computer/smartphone/tablet.
Making it in-house shields the company from various risks.
Making it competitive gives the company an edge in competition.
Making it best in industry (especially in efficiency and energy usage) gives a company an invaluable edge in mobile technology.
Second is GPU.
M1 GPU powers iPadPro and Macs and while it is not a discrete GPU, it does the job very well, again giving various advantages.
Modem is important in mobile technology. I think it should be at least as good as Qualcomm's and maybe be cheaper to justify its work. Since Apple already used Intel's modem (where the division came from), I think it is reasonably good.
Camera is fourth important component now. It seems Neural Engine does good job of computational photography, at least as good as industry leaders.
In terms of software and OS, Apple is second to none. Thats the most important component as well.
Making it in-house shields the company from various risks.
Making it competitive gives the company an edge in competition.
Making it best in industry (especially in efficiency and energy usage - I mean OS) gives a company an invaluable edge in mobile technology.
That's why the company is a leader in smartphones and tablets, notebooks, etc. Each component may not be leading in industry, but the mix of that makes the overall combination (hardware and software) very advanced and be the best in mobile space.
Now we have to see how M chips do well in desktops. Judging from my Mac Mini M1, it is definitely very efficient even with limited RAM, is incredibly fast with video and imaging in general, also has good processing abilities for music production (Logic Pro), which is very CPU-intensive.
We'd expect next generation of M chips to move further ahead in terms of RAM and GPU abilities to compete with discrete graphic cards.
For IpadOS, further move towards a full blown finder/desktop version is inevitable, let's see how it will progress.
I’m well aware of the purchase. It’s Apples modem business now. Not Intel’s timeline.
Let’s be real here. Intel is years away from something competitive. The only way Intel stays relevant on the consumer side in the short term is if their GPUs knock it out of the price/performance in the low to midrange.
They need another P5 to P6 jump because <10% ipc improvements in only extremely specific scenarios isn’t going to cut it. The BS their slides promised for the 11th gen and the pathetic reality of what the chips delivered (especially compared to AMD delivering on their promises) has thrown their credibility in the gutter.
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Next time, apple enters LCD panel industry as well as individual components industry, build factories around US and domestically produce everything manufacturing an iPhone need, 100% vertically integrated, while also adding millions of jobs across US. Sounds like win-win for me.
Yeah you know what would be better? The best, even? Is if we made a chipset that was marginally faster than a mid-range chipset from our suppliers & it finally put the nail in the coffin of compatibility with everything that exists. Everyone will throw out everythihg old and everything will be shiny and new from today forward, and it will be…. better! Hooray!
And there were no disastrous consequences whatsoever.
And there were no disastrous consequences whatsoever.
That may be true, we'll have to see if Mac revenue continues its upward trajectory (or if it's a blip in time). Plus as the M series powers other devices, does that propagate its consumer Market. But the M's massive achievement is one that is often missed: the huge in house design efficiency. The ability of 'Concept to prototype to manufacturing to market' is going to be hard to beat.
But Tim Cook's achievements are impressive:
-A Big Screen iPhone, the 6+. The sales were astronomical.
-Apple Watch, likely 130 million sold in just over 5 years.
-Purchase of Beats and creation of subsequent Apple Music, approximately 75 million Music subscribers, AirPods generating about 8B annually
-Apple Pay, I think(?) hit 20 billion transactions TTM
In my opinion the biggest achievement solely from a business perspective is the growth of non iPhone revenue that is generated directly from the sale of an iPhone. He was CEO when Apple went from device seller to selling a singular platform.
He isn't Steve Jobs from a product concept perspective (maybe nobody is) but what he has done with Apple the company is one of the more impressive achievements of business.
I think that's a good point. The beginning has been promising but this is the beginning with two SFF laptops and a high end IPAD.
If I see the Mac Pro line roll out with M series that can continue to see impressive watt
rocessing performance? Then M will have definitely taken an impressive step.
The entire semi conductor industry is constrained and affecting everything, not just Apple’s ability to get products out the door fast enough for you.I have a problem with the fact that M1 chip supply are still constrained? That doesn't bode well. They need to get TSMC to meet the demand. How can they cut ties to Intel (maybe they never planned to), and release new Apple Silicone Macs if they aren't even close to meeting demand with existing models? Look at the wait with getting 24" iMacs. If they were to release either M1 something larger iMacs or M1 something MBPs, would their whole market be a waiting game?
What do you think is the next thing Apple will design in-house after M1 and the Apple modem? You think they’d ever try to customize memory?
Architecturally X64 simply can’t hold a candle to ARM64 for general purpose computing. The only way for Intel and AMD to try to compete is to develop proprietary extensions for specialized tasks that, oh by the way, require extra effort to program. Apple can do that, too, though. What we know as X64 has to be superseded, just as X64 superseded X32.
I would if I can. CEOs are known to have golden parachutes anyway so what do I care if I fail 😛
Apple itself owes its success to Steve Jobs, not Tim Cook. Tim is a marketeer and Apple tried that when Steve left, and failed miserably, and only on his return did Apple really start to become a force to be reckoned with. Most of that was down to Steve Jobs revolutionary NeXT cube computer and its operating system and without that none of the operating systems would be anything like they are now.
NeXT brought about so many innovations and yet never receives the accolades it deserves.
Even the Internet as we know it was itself was attributed as being brought into being using a NeXT machine via Sir Tim Berners-Lee.
When Apple heard of Steve Jobs plans, they never had the foresight to realise how much NeXT would change computing and instead embarked on a vilification even putting out press announcements that they were considering removing him as Chairman, even though he had already announced to the Board of his intentions, and where if they had the understanding of what he was trying to achieve (and did), they would have embraced his work, as they should have done.
Apple then issued many press statements and court claims against him, after getting Coca Cola (ironically Steve allegedly recruited him and ironically its alleged a Mr Sculley then organised a board campaign to replace Steve) at the helm of Apple but when Steve went so did innovation!!
After the second Next Steve focussed on NeXTstep operating system, and this became the bedrock of OS and subsequently IOS, which is why Apple bought NeXT for $429m plus $1.5m of Apple stock and Steve back at Apple as they recognised then his value!
Without NeXT technology/innovation all of the Apple products we take for granted today, would be totally different beasts, or may not exist at all.
It is true Steve made disparaging remarks about the iPod when it was first linked to the internet, describing it as a '****** experience', which was true, because the internet at that stage due to the internet rather than the iPod. I used to use telephone cup modem (acoustic coupler) where most know that modem is modulation and demodulation, and it was painfully slow, and in 2004, average dial up download speed was 34Kbs and functionality was spasmodic at best.
If Apple had embraced Steve's ideas and he had stayed with Apple, Apple would also have owned much of the film industry today as Pixar alone was sold to Disney for $7.4billion, after costing Steve $50m.
I was privileged to speak to Steve on numerous occasions, and the media commentary about him which seems to be sucked up as truth by those who didn't know him portrays him as an arrogant aggressive individual, which is not the Steve I spoke to. He was humble but passionate about technological advancement and not just about bringing computers to market, but about making all sorts of EASILY USABLE products
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Also, formation of AIM Alliance and before that, when Apple and Acorn co-founded ARM Ltd.
But how else can he make an impassioned plea to Tim Cook, who obviously reads all MacRumors comment threads.