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Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

arstechnica.com

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Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#11

Post by IBM »

josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

Bloomberg had a report earlier this year saying they'd have ARM Macs in 2020, which makes sense given that lines up with the work they're doing in Marzipan now [1]. They're also making gains in the legal fight to crack the Qualcomm business model, so that means ARM Macs could have cellular at the same time [2][3].

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-02/apple-is-...

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/qualcomm-suffers-setback-in-ant...

[3] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-apple-qualcomm/apple-not-...

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#12

Post by magicalist »

This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect)

There's little technical detail that wasn't in the ipad review's benchmarks[1] and previous speculation on using apple chips in desktop machines[2].

Everything new they gave no details on, and the only in-depth answers were hard hitting questions like "you could have made a slow chip, why did you decide to make a fast one instead?" and "why is apple so good at teamwork?" (maybe not the questions that were asked, but they were the questions that were answered :)

[1] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/11/2018-ipad-pro-review...

[2] https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/04/apple-is-exploring-m...

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#13

Post by carlesfe »

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise.

Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed.

The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview to one of the most respected tech outlets only confirms this strategy. Expect similar movements in the following months.

Now, it is only a matter of "when", not "if", Apple will start selling laptops with their chips.

As as an aside, this strategy is extremely similar to the one they used when dropping the headphone jack on the iphone: "leak" the news to a respected outlet, perform damage control before the keynote, and test the reaction of the market. When they introduced the headphoneless iphone, that topic was so beaten up that it got much less attention compared to a surprise revelation.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#14

Post by tashoecraft »

josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

I don't think they will. They have already expressed the iPad is their vision of the future of computing. A completely locked down platform allows apple to have full control over the entire computing life cycle and achieve results unparalleled elsewhere, whilst also making their product incredibly sticky.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#15

Post by oddevan »

jbob2000 wrote: post #9
josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

I don't see the point of an A-X chip in a laptop. You aren't taking photos on your laptop, why does it need the image signal processor? There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. When you strip away all the stuff a laptop doesn't need, you're left with... an x86 chip!

> There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip.

With Apple's focus on on-device ML, I would guess this will be the first part of the A-series trifecta (CPU, GPU, Neural) to be included on a Mac and exposed to developers. I can imagine a bunch of possibilities for such a chip, not just FaceID.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#16

Post by misnome »

josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

Would dual chips make sense? A bit like their dual graphics, run most of the OS and anything compatible in one, and have another, low power x86 core take over transparently on demand (like, when running an x86 only program)

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#17

Post by babypuncher »

josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

Apple doesn't really care much about backwards compatibility. I'm sure they will have an x86 emulator, but it probably won't be very fast (read: useless for games) and will probably be dropped entirely a few years down the line.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#18

Post by ianai »

carlesfe wrote: post #13

Apple are paving the way to A-chip laptops, not only by building excellent tech, but also PR-wise. Their last keynote was clearly a gymnastics exercise to ignore Intel CPUs and dismiss laptop performance while later praising their own chips which power a tablet that has no software ready to use that much speed. The fact that one of the most secretive companies executes a PR-stunt by providing an exclusive interview t…

That sounds like a truthful explanation of their motives. On the one hand, I definitely welcome challengers to the chip industry. On the other, I remember the Power days. Having non Mac users “talk down” to me about using a different processor was beyond annoying. It adds a quill to the Mac haters. Here’s hoping Apple produces cpus that outperform their competitors like their 2 G/s ssds do.

Also makes me not really happy to buy any current hardware of theirs.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#19

Post by izacus »

magicalist wrote: post #12

This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect) There's little technical detail that wasn't in the ipad review's benchmarks[1] and previous speculation on using apple chips in desktop machines[2]. Everything new they gave no details on, and the only in-depth answers were hard…

> This is a fine article for what it is, but isn't it really "Apple marketing walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip"? (at least I assume Anand wasn't hired as a SoC architect)

I wonder how that colors the reviews - if the outlet is too critical about a device, they can quickly lose these special privileges.

Re: Apple walks Ars through the iPad Pro’s A12X system on a chip

#20

Post by ihuman »

jbob2000 wrote: post #9
josephg wrote: post #6

I wonder how long it will be before Apple releases a laptop with an A-X chip. They’re already shipping their custom T2 chips in their laptops. The compiler toolchain can build great binaries for their A chips. They’ve swapped CPU architecture before and the modern Mach binary format can hold versions of the executable built for different architectures. They will probably need a Rosetta equivalent to emulate x86 for a…

I don't see the point of an A-X chip in a laptop. You aren't taking photos on your laptop, why does it need the image signal processor? There's no FaceID (yet, maybe it's coming) on laptops, so we don't need the ML chip. When you strip away all the stuff a laptop doesn't need, you're left with... an x86 chip!

> When you strip away all the stuff a laptop doesn't need, you're left with... an x86 chip!

You're left with an ARM chip

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