Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?
Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
31–40 of 166 posts
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#32For some context: the author of this article, Jean-Louis Gassée, was a former director at Apple, founded Be, Inc. and was chairman at PalmSource for a while. His background may help or hurt his viewpoint, depending on how you see things. I will say that I disagree with his points. And I'll also point out that the Mac ARM transition is happening right before our eyes with the T2 chip , which replaces a bunch of system…
Is the struggle for microprocessor supremacy still even relevant? I'd ask, "who's going to build the best quantum processor?" rather than, "who's going to dethrone x86?"
Aren't quantum processors essentially special purpose accelerators, where most of the computation is still done on a classical computer? Shor's algorithm at least looks that way.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#33I don’t believe Apple will transition away from x86 anytime soon but for different reasons. They would abandon the pro market if it moved to arm. Most x86 pro applications would have to be rewritten. What would be the incentive for software makers?
Apple might very will be able to bring out a arm stack for consumer market but there is no indication that they can compete with x86 pro or server market.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#34For some context: the author of this article, Jean-Louis Gassée, was a former director at Apple, founded Be, Inc. and was chairman at PalmSource for a while. His background may help or hurt his viewpoint, depending on how you see things. I will say that I disagree with his points. And I'll also point out that the Mac ARM transition is happening right before our eyes with the T2 chip , which replaces a bunch of system…
I can't help but feel T2 chip is just another cynical ploy to gradually kill off third party repairs by baking software functions into proprietary hardware that only the manufacturer have access to. It may be a sound security decision, but I have doubts whether it's worth it for the end user. It also goes against a wider industrial trend of moving from ARM to RISCV and other architectures.
On the other hand, do all these things matter to users and developers as long as external components are hidden behind buses and abstractions?
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#35Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?
Apple has already spent significant engineering effort to develop internal ARM chips, so RISCV doesn't seem on the horizon.
That said, at least one apple researcher has probably looked at RISC-V at some point, given their size and budget.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#36I don't buy the permanent fork argument for one reason. AMD had the cancelled ARM version of Zen. There aren't any public plans to bring it back as far as I'm aware. But if Apple transitions past x86, it's going to provide critical mass for desktop ARM and the Zen chip will be back. AMD would be sitting on the highest performance single socket ARM chip, and Apple would just use that.
I can't see Apple using any ARM chip other than their own. If they commit to converting OS X to ARM then they'll either produce it in-house or, less likely, buy AMD (or maybe just buy AMD's Zen tech only).
One of the main reasons for Apple to move to ARM is to control more of their technology stack. It's the direction they've been moving in for a while now and this would be part of that strategy.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#37My take on the iPad form-factor hasn't really changed since the introduction. Its really great for certain casual use cases, but as soon as you sit down at a desk to get some work done, oh god does this fucking suck. And the keyboard cases actually make it worse because you delude yourself into thinking it makes it better, when it does not. So an iOS/iPadOS laptop with full KVM support always seemed like a no-brainer…
And the keyboard cases actually make it worse because you delude yourself into thinking it makes it better, when it does not. When I was given my iPad I didn't want to buy a keyboard case. But sometimes I need a keyboard. I happened to have an extra Apple Wireless Keyboard, and it works fantastically. Wireless. Full-sized. And it's only slightly larger than the 9" iPad. I just throw them both in my bag.
(1) Nah, it certainly doesn't work "fantastically", but might work decently enough for you if you have bought an additional ipad stand. (2) If this was some really great solution and not just your personal workaround, Apple would have been promoting it years ago.
My point is the only way iPadOS can displace laptops is to be a laptop. Not this tablet-stand bullshit.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#38My take on the iPad form-factor hasn't really changed since the introduction. Its really great for certain casual use cases, but as soon as you sit down at a desk to get some work done, oh god does this fucking suck. And the keyboard cases actually make it worse because you delude yourself into thinking it makes it better, when it does not. So an iOS/iPadOS laptop with full KVM support always seemed like a no-brainer…
I love my iPad with the keyboard case. When I hook it up to an external monitor and my Kinesis keyboard, it’s even better. I’m looking forward to mouse support in iOS 13.
One of my favorite apps when it comes to the keyboard is Blink. It’s an SSH/Mosh client with a limited local shell. I use it to build a Jekyll site on an EC2 instance. Blink supports multi-monitor, so I can have different shells on different screens.
Multi-window in iOS 13 is going to be another game changer. This is the best device I’ve owned and I’m excited about what’s to come.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sorry, what do you mean? On a current MacBook Pro the memory is controlled by the CPU and the disk is attached to a PCIe root port also on the CPU. The "disk controller" as such has moved into the disk.
The only way to access the soldered-in NAND storage is through the T2 chip, which encrypts everything on-the-fly with a unique burned-in AES key. The T2 also acts as the SSD controller, controlling the raw NAND chips. You can see this in an iMac Pro teardown, as the removeable "SSDs" in it only have flash chips on them, no controller. The T2 is not involved with memory access AFAIK though. As for I/O, it does handle…
Seems like a distinction without a difference. On any PC with an SSD there is "a controller" and "some NAND" the difference with the recent Apple gear is they've changed which part you can remove and replace, and which you cannot. My computer also has NAND you can only address through a dedicated controller that handles the encryption, but I don't think of it as indicative of a revolution.
Re: Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad...
#40Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?
Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and royalty free. Both arguments aren't that relevant for Apple, as they got an architectural license from ARM which gives them full access to everything and allows them to design their own chips and because the royalty charges are vanishingly small compared to the prices Apple charges for it's products.
Apple has also already invested so much effort in its own ARM chips that I believe it wouldn't make much sense for them to throw that away in favor of RISC-V, just for saving a few million dollars per year in royalties.