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Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

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Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#561

Post by snowwrestler »

lhorie wrote: post #420
mark_l_watson wrote: post #229

This might just be a bargaining move on Apple’s part, but I don’t think so. I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack. I wouldn’t be surprised to even see them make their own display screens. As an Apple customer, I like this idea also. For 20 years, I used to be a desktop Linux fanatic and later became a fan of Android. In the last few years, I have switched to using all…

How's this different than going back to PowerPC architecture? When they switched to Intel, I recall there being a lot of talk of benefits to running on the same chips as everyone else. From what I've been hearing lately about Apple, the impression I keep getting is that Apple doesn't think of Mac as a product with a specific target market, but more as a sort of just-a-really-really-big-ipad. The closed garden approac…

> When they switched to Intel, I recall there being a lot of talk of benefits to running on the same chips as everyone else.

They switched to Intel first and foremost because PowerPC was not going to get them the performance/power ratio that they wanted. It was holding them back in laptops. For example, Apple never shipped a laptop with a G5 chip because it took so much damn power to run a G5. Intel was basically their only option.

A secondary benefit, which they marketed heavily, was the opportunity to boot your machine natively into Windows. They thought this would help overcome the reluctance of "switchers" who were worried that they would miss something about Windows.

These days, the role of the OS as a gatekeeper is basically gone. There's greater diversity in client OS (Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, iOS, Android, etc.) and most anything important is available through a browser or a native app.

And Intel is no longer their only option. They've proven they can run big businesses making their own chips.

I do wonder how this will affect VM performance on Macs though. I don't see how it can be maintained, unless Apple chips are so much faster than Intel that they can absorb the translation overhead.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#562

Post by bb88 »

ionforce wrote: post #487
sreque wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

What parts of your workflow do you think are uniquely enhanced by not being on Mac?

For me,

1. Getting packages with apt on ubuntu without installing homebrew. It's vastly simpler and natively supported by ubuntu. I can also update my entire system with sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade.

2. Native docker support.

3. On mac, I always ask the question whether something is ctrl-c or cmd-c, say. On linux it's always ctrl.

4. I don't have to login to the apple store to get the software I need.

5. Linux has always been command-line first. On mac it's always been GUI first.

6. Macbooks are terribly built, and fail for a number of reasons. [1]

7. The Apple brand, while it used to be one of homebrew is now akin to one of fashion. It's kind of like seeing all the kids walk around with their "Hollister" t-shirts on.

I could go on I suppose but those are the meat of the issues.

1: Louis Rossmann's macbook repair channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfrYOWlKJ_g

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#563

Post by mbroncano »

adrianmonk wrote: post #400
Stranger43 wrote: post #213

Have anyone checked with adobe and autodesk if this essentially kills the professional mac workstation as a viable product going forward? I have no doubt they can make it fast and usable enough for the naive consumer living inside the bubble of what relatively inexpensive(consumer grade) app-store apps can do and that microsoft will release something pretending to be MS office for a new ARM macbook line, but photosho…

I'm not a chip designer, but how practical would it be for Apple to try to make a CPU that has good hardware support for both ARM and x86/x86-64 binaries? It's a radical direction, but they are designing the chip by themselves and for themselves, they have deep pockets, and if it worked well it would reduce an important risk. There are already several chips capable of running multiple instruction sets. Most desktop m…

AFAIK the biggest impediment might be that Intel would need to license Apple to do so, not to talk about patents etc.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#564

Post by jcfrei »

fastball wrote: post #443
sreque wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a software developer, and I detest working on my mac laptop. At $lastjob I had a Linux desktop and it is, I believe, the most productive environment I have ever developed in. The job before, I had a windows desktop, and I prefer that to mac. You say you want to just "get things done expediently," but in my experience apple software is flat out inferior and OSX is the worst of the 3 major operating systems I have…

What exactly does your development workflow look like where Linux was so much better than MacOS?

Apple frequently introduces changes to its OS that caters to the average user without any hindsight for developers. A good example I had to deal with; I wanted to change the port the SSH daemon listens on. With El Capitan and future versions you have to temporarily disable SIP (System Integrity Protection) - which requires two reboots - in order to make the change to the ssh.plist file. As you can see it's a common problem: https://apple.stackexchange.com/a/208481 It's lots of little things like this that require extra effort on OSX but which are straightforward on a decent Linux distro.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#565

Post by gurkendoktor »

120photo wrote: post #290
Stranger43 wrote: post #213

Have anyone checked with adobe and autodesk if this essentially kills the professional mac workstation as a viable product going forward? I have no doubt they can make it fast and usable enough for the naive consumer living inside the bubble of what relatively inexpensive(consumer grade) app-store apps can do and that microsoft will release something pretending to be MS office for a new ARM macbook line, but photosho…

Apple goes where the money is. I'm sure they have ran the numbers. If this makes financial sense I'm sure they are willing to drop the professional graphics market. Still waiting on that new Mac Pro?

If Apple manages to lose both designers and developers, I think the whole ecosystem (not just macOS) will suffer more than Apple's management realizes. I also don't think it's possible to run the numbers on this scenario.

Without the insistence of so many designers on using a Mac, would macOS really have won a foothold in corporate environments? If enough designers and developers switch to Windows, who's to say that macOS won't slowly turn into a hobbyist OS that no IT department wants to support (like Linux, or Macs ~12 years ago)?

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#567

Post by tekromancr »

yellow_postit wrote: post #551
reaperducer wrote: post #497

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My last couple of jobs have given me no choice aside from a MBP and OS X. They do this because they don't want to manage multiple kinds of machines from an IT perspective. Not that many years ago that was the same reason IT departments would give for only giving people Windows machines.

Apple shot themselves in the foot for this market with the touch bar. It adds such a small amount of utility for annoying every VIM user.

I got lucky on that one! I have been remapping caps lock to escape for years now on every machine I use. It's great, until I need to use literally anybody else's machine.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#568

Post by clouddrover »

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #253
egypturnash wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple has done this twice already. 680x0 to PowerPC, then PowerPC to Intel. Adobe's come along on both of these.

Those changes were all to more powerful processors such that emulating the old architecture wouldn't be that bad. In this instance, Apple would likely be going to a less powerful processors and thus emulation at any reasonable level of performance wouldn't be that viable.

Microsoft is running 32-bit x86 applications on ARM today:

https://channel9.msdn.com/Events/Build/2017/P4171

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