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Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

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Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#141

Post by coldpie »

Slartie wrote: post #58
cmer wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious that they said nothing about virtualizing Windows. That can’t be a mistake or oversight. Odd.

I noticed that too. Might have trademark or legal reasons though. Technically, if they're able to dynamically translate x86 to ARM as they've explicitly stated (with JIT of JS and the JVM as the example) they should be able to dynamically translate x86 VMs regardless of what OS they contain, which would allow x86 Windows to be virtualized with better-than-interpreted performance. Or at least that's what I hope ;-) I'…

I would guess that their Intel emulation doesn't support 32-bit x86, which many, many Windows apps depend on.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#142

Post by ogre_codes »

nailer wrote: post #63
ogre_codes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't be so sure, there are a fair number of people who want a machine that will run x86 for various reasons. Windows support/ Linux support. Even considering how impressive x86 VMs looked in the demo, lots of people will prefer using intel silicon for guaranteed compatibility.

Linux and Windows have both supported ARM for a while now.

> Linux and Windows have both supported ARM for a while now.

Many people who want dual boot Windows/ Macs want them for games and gamers want the sort of performance you don't get with emulation.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#143

Post by alfredxing »

udev wrote: post #45
chvid wrote: post #26

MacMini with an A12 chip. Available now as a part of a developer kit. Will be fun to see what that can do.

I wonder what the cost of the transition mini is.

Based on the Newsroom release [1], cost is $500 and the hardware is a loan.

[1] https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t...

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#144

Post by macintux »

tjr wrote: post #37
jccalhoun wrote: post #19

Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.

And I reckon those of us who just bought a shiny new Intel Mac in the past few months might be questioning our decision. Should have held on to that 2010 MBP one more year?

Nah, I'd have to wait until early next year to buy an ARM Mac, and mine will be fine for a long time to come.

I am pleased I didn't splurge for the 32GB of RAM, however. I'll do that with my next one.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#145

Post by wiremine »

jccalhoun wrote: post #19

Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.

If the PowerPC to Intel transition was any indication, they'll do just fine. Most consumers won't care, or will want to wait until Apple works out the kinks.

To put it a different way: the initial sales of the ARM-based chips won't be as strong as you think they might be, or as wide spread.

Having both Intel and ARM based systems in the market will even out the sales.

History is repeating itself, it's worth reviewing the previous transitions before making assumptions.

- https://everymac.com/mac-answers/macintel-faq/why-did-apple-...

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple%27s_transition_to_Intel_...

- https://tedium.co/2020/06/16/apple-powerpc-intel-transition-...

- https://mashable.com/2016/06/29/intel-macs-at-10/

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#146

Post by eslaught »

ipsum2 wrote: post #96
aldanor wrote: post #40

So, if I install numpy via conda on a Mac now, it's backed by Intel MKL and is thus amazingly fast. What will it be replaced with? Has anyone at Apple thought about use cases like this?..

ARM Neon instructions are pretty fast for math, but I haven't looked for benchmarks: http://www.netlib.org/utk/people/JackDongarra/WEB-PAGES/Batc...

This isn't just about hardware. It's about software, and an investment in making libraries that are fully optimized for the hardware. The problem here is the long tail of needs is very, very long.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#147

Post by pier25 »

Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

I'm surprised we didn't get any performance numbers. Either raw power or at least power efficiency and projected battery life improvements. Seeing as this is a major reason for the transition (according to them), it feels very weird. They're shipping a 'Development Transition Kit' Mac mini with an A12Z this week, so it's not like the numbers are going to stay private for a long time. Even if there's an NDA, someone's…

They said the first ARM macs are coming at the end of this year, so even if there's an NDA it won't be long until we'll see the real numbers.

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#148

Post by snazz »

udev wrote: post #45
chvid wrote: post #26

MacMini with an A12 chip. Available now as a part of a developer kit. Will be fun to see what that can do.

I wonder what the cost of the transition mini is.

It's $500. See the press release: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/06/apple-announces-mac-t...

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#149

Post by m12k »

snuxoll wrote: post #25
AlexandrB wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to be going the other way actually. MacOS Big Sur looks like iPadOS with a menu bar tacked on.

What they did to Finder is just...unacceptable.

I highly recommend Path Finder as a replacement anyway

Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs

#150

Post by jandrese »

nouveaux wrote: post #81
simonbarker87 wrote: post #42

Well, that new MBP I bought 4 weeks ago and planned to keep for 5 years just got a muuuuch shorter life span if I can run iOS apps on an Arm Mac, my wife is going to be livid. I guess this also means Catalyst’s life span is pretty short and SwiftUI will becomes the focus?

I'd be surprised if the iOS apps did not work on Intel based macOS. Project Catalyst already works on Intel macs and my guess is many iOS apps have been migrated already.

I'm sure there will be emulators. But I'm also fairly confident that they'll be relatively slow. Emulating across architectures is rarely performant, and if Apple had solved the problem they would be talking a lot about it right now. In the past they've gotten away with this because the architecture they're moving to was so much faster than the previous architecture that even with a 50% or 75% performance penalty the apps would run faster than they did on the old hardware. With this new hardware it is likely only going to be marginally faster than the old Intel chips since the focus is more on power efficiency, so emulated apps are probably going to feel sluggish.
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