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Unregistered 4U

macrumors G4
Original poster
Jul 22, 2002
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Now that the time is past, what was your favorite statement regarding how Apple would never do this thing that they’ve done?

One of mine is (from earlier this year even!)
“This prediction is of course silly. Sorry. This rumor has been around since 2013 and has been consistently nonsense. It will continue to be nonsense.

So what might actually happen? A new iOS device form factor. Let's call it an iOS Book. That's all.

There will not be any method to recompile Intel CISC based macOS software for RISC based ARM CPUs. Not Gonna Happen. Hit, thrash and trash me all you like. But anyone who graduated from Computing 101 knows exactly why this is the case. Please go educate yourself and let this silly rumor die at long last. Let your ignorance die as well. And no, this isn't troll bait. This is speaking truth to absurdity.”
 
There will not be any method to recompile Intel CISC based macOS software for RISC based ARM CPUs. Not Gonna Happen. Hit, thrash and trash me all you like. But anyone who graduated from Computing 101 knows exactly why this is the case. Please go educate yourself and let this silly rumor die at long last. Let your ignorance die as well. And no, this isn't troll bait. This is speaking truth to absurdity.”

This was the one I always found particularly funny and frustrating. I was predicting the x86-to-ARM transpiration aka Rosetta 2 since the rumors of the ARM Macs first surfaced over a year ago. It was incredible how many people were refusing to get the concept.
 
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The first rumor


Moving away from Intel in their notebooks and desktops would be a HUGE mistake in my opinion. Intel is the big dog and they have the resources to keep innovating. I guess if they plan on making everything iOS then it makes a little more sense, but for true blue OSX machines Intel has the muscle.

This is the most ridiculous thing to appear on the MacRumors front page in quite some time.

This is a non-story, folks. Charlie is well-known as a professional troll who is regularly full of crap.
 
For me it was the constant ones of “why would Apple do this“ when the benefits seemed so obvious for all to see. Linked to this was the ones that doubted the performance of the chips. Even in the last few weeks people were saying how they doubted the laptop chips would be faster than the Intel equivalents.
 
This was the one I always found particularly funny and frustrating. I was predicting the x86-to-ARM transpiration aka Rosetta 2 since the rumors of the ARM Macs first surfaced over a year ago. It was incredible how many people were refusing to get the concept.
I think a lot of folks were still deep in the CISC vs. RISC mindset and that prevented them from backing away to see the bigger picture that Apple was building. Of which Xcode was a huge part.

Those comments from 2011 have not aged well. By 2011 you could say ARM was the future of Mac as OS X started to adopt several iPhone features
Yeah, and it only got more and more clear as time went by. For me, “100% going to happen” was the Intel rumor from last year. Having worked in finance, you can see things in the dollars even when you’re not privy to the actual contract. My assumption was that some lower level folks in Intel saw the value of the Apple PO for 2020 and figured that either Apple was getting out of the Mac biz or switching to their own chips.
 
Yeah, and it only got more and more clear as time went by. For me, “100% going to happen” was the Intel rumor from last year. Having worked in finance, you can see things in the dollars even when you’re not privy to the actual contract. My assumption was that some lower level folks in Intel saw the value of the Apple PO for 2020 and figured that either Apple was getting out of the Mac biz or switching to their own chips.

You could see it with Intel's releases in chips. Performance didn't go up as it did at first (2005 to 2010). It started stagnating around 2011. Apple obviously always experiments, but Intel's stagnation after that just gave Apple the push.

Also, the success of the A-series chips helped Apple experiment on the whole SoC and OS marriage first which lead to incredible performance for a phone. You got better performance on a 4-core A-series SoC than an 8-core Snapdragon. That meant Apple had a exceedingly realistic upgrade path should Intel start to become complacent; which did happen.
 
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The first rumor

That's actually not the first. I've seen one from 1996 where they're talking about using StrongARM CPUs alongside PowerPC in CHRP Macs (although the initiator of that rumour later said he was making it all up).
 
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The first rumor


To be fair, arn, the first comment you quote wasn't saying that the transition wouldn't happen. That poster simply viewed/views the transition as a mistake for Apple. It will be years before we know if this was a smart move for Apple tactically.
 
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For me it was the Mac mini. A lot of people on this forum said it wouldn't happen and it did. I think it happened for the reason I thought it would, to give developers easy and cheap access to Apple Silicon
 
I think the more fun ones were the ones that laid out clear reasons why this would never happen (and, in most every case, they included references to CISC)

“I doubt Apple is going to come out with an ARM based Mac without an Intel chip. I can see Apple coming out with a MD based Mac with an ARM chip before they ditch X86.

the reason? It will confuse the industry having CISC and RISC based processors in the Mac line up. I know they made the transition from PowerPC to X86, but they were able to convert ALL models, not just one or two. They have to be ALL IN with one or the other, and I just don't see them switching to ARM only and ditching X86 altogether. even Microsoft isn't switching everything over. They are just dabbling in the idea, but they haven't fully embraced it, and I doubt they ever will ever fully transition over to it anytime soon, or at all. If Apple were to come out with an ARM only Mac, they would have to have a very quick transition period to covert their entire product line and I doubt Apple has the chip designers that can design enough ARM processors to replace every X86 pricessor used in every Mac, from the MacBook, MacMini all the way up to the MacPro lines.”
 
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