....
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...an-move-from-intel-to-own-mac-chips-from-2020
Apple does not need to announce it till 2020 or 2021 lol. Also, Microsoft already made a computer with ARM for Windows 10.
That is mostly echo chamber stuff. But let's take a few points from the Bloomberg article.
"... Apple could still theoretically abandon or delay the switch ..."
Yes. If Intel and AMD completely bungled the next 2-4 years of x86 updates then perhaps. Given Apple has supposedly now made a decision to sink gobs of money into a cellular modem, Apple could very well 'abandon' ( if they were trying at all). It would be one thing to use "hand me down" iPad Pro SoCs and quite another to try to remove Intel (and AMD) entirely from the Mac line up. If step 1 was to use a "hand me down" AxxX chip then they don't really have to abandon anything substantive. They were doing the iPad Pro chip anyway. They would have the option to just stop at this different strategic juncture.
"... The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple’s devices -- including Macs, iPhones, and iPads -- work more similarly and seamlessly together,
.. '
There is nothing in this Project Kalamata that necessitates have exactly the same instruction set on all systems. Apple has handoff , airdrop , etc working now and do not need necessarily the same exact instruction set implementation. Sure folks use it as a bridge to start arm flapping about merged macOS and iOS and chips but it is suppose to work now. It could work better but that is far more lack of 'grunt' from Apple in the software/firmware stack than issues down at the level of the function units in the CPU.
" ...As part of the larger initiative to make Macs work more like iPhones, Apple is working on a
new software platform, internally dubbed Marzipan, for release as early as this year that would allow users to run iPhone and iPad apps on Macs, Bloomberg News reported last year. ..."
Except during the "State of the Union" talk at WWDC 2018 (
https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/102/ ) the speaker notes that going from iOS to macOS is a recompile. They also mentioned resolving some of the 'drift' that had build up in the CoreFoundation classes over time. ( only roughly similar to Apple switching to APFS from HFS+ and the iOS 'fork' of HFS+ with drifted features) Much of the Bloomberg flapping about this suggests more so of some virtual machine that is running iOS app on macOS. That doesn't match what Apple said or demoed. The screen and presentation resources for the iOS and macOS apps were different. Needing some "viewer"/"presentation" adjustments but with a 80-90% shared implementation library would make the cross platform work vastly more easier but not it "one compile to rule them all".
I suspect this is more about cleaning up the drift so that Apple can keep their bundled apps easier to port more cost effectively than some balant grab and just sucking in a ton a "race to the bottom" iOS apps pretty much 'as is'.
In short, I think the several points of the commentary that Bloomberg and others get are taken and then hyped out of proportion ( The whole Apple servers hacked episode with Bloomberg a bit further still ).
Extremely doubtful there is some locked in stone thing here any more than Apple had some Mac Pro lock in stone plan in 2014-2017.
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Low end Macs will get ARM before anything else. x86 will remain on desktop machines in foreseeable future.
that wasn't the hype. the hype was that Intel was being overpowering swept aside by a sky full of firebreathing dragons....
There still isn't an economic reason to bring macOS there. The huge inertia moment OS on A-series is iOS. Apple doesn't have to bring macOS there ( short of some collapse in the x86 space. Which is not happening at the moment at all. )
Same rumor sources says iOS iPad mode is getting improvements for its dock and macOS "Dark Mode" and file handling updates. Does that sound like they are not preparing for a iBook laptop (and better attached iPad Pro + keyboard configuration use ) ???????????
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This sucks. Can we get back to arguing whether or not the new MacPro will have pcie slots and drive bays?
".... but the general trend is here. Unit shipments drop because modern laptops cannot accommodate a large 2.5-inch mechanical hard drive, whereas desktops can suffice with just one high-capacity Barracuda Pro-like storage device. What actually drives revenues in modern times are enterprise and exascale cloud datacenter-oriented HDDs that are used to enable services like Azure, Facebook, Gmail, iCloud, Netflix, Prime, and this is just to name a few. ..."
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13935/seagate-hdd-plans-2019
This is the whole market and workstation space probably has a higher aggregate average as deployed (but probably not "as sold by OEM" ). But the point is that the average space consumed by a HDD is dipping. TLC and QLC SSDs
are eating into HDD capacity in an expanding number of contexts. [ that all of the HDD operators have SSD businesses now is indicative that this isn't surprising trend to those who have been carefull watching and not caught up in form over function. ]
Pragmatically the cloud isn't just geographically distant places like AWS/Azure/etc. but also into NAS and SAN. Those spaces are were the HDD capacities are still on a high, positive slope. However, at the individual computer level that isn't the broad trend.
An average of 2.4TB could be covered by a single 2.5" HDD. If wanted 2-3 2.5" HDDs could cover that with RAID 1 or 4-5.
2.5" HDD drives have been somewhat stagnant in capacity (if hold the z height constant). That might change slighly as HAMR rolls out as the drive vendors will finally get back on track of doing more with a single platter ( as opposed to stacking them higher and flying the heads lower (in He) . )
Dual heads will be incrementally better but still way behind SSDs. 250 -> 500 MB still cannot swamp a pragmatic 100MB/s ( 8000 Gbs ) usb 3 gen 2 connector. The IOPS are still down in the "hundreds" as opposed to the "Thousands" ... an order of magnitude (at least).
It won't be surprising if Apple assigns the $/GB issue to 1-2 2.5" SATA drives. Apple would only sell SSDs that they thought passed Apple standards ( validated with trimforce) and perhaps left the HDD options to those who "pop the hood" on the next Mac Pro .
However, some 4+ drive , 100-200+ TB capacity system is probably not going to be a priority. More than most individual folks don't have them.
and spend average $3000 on PC upgrades yearly.
