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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

#411

Post by muro »

ianai wrote: post #224
QuixoticQuibit wrote: post #198

I really wonder what this says about the x86 platform going forward. Mobile completely passed it by. I’ve been seeing more hype about ARM servers for a while with AWS Graviton instances, the new #1 supercomputer in the TOP500, etc. And of course today we see that Apple plans to transition their Macs to their own ARM chips. Even Microsoft made an ARM-based Windows/Surface product but it didn’t seem to amount to much.…

Intel has either squandered the tech and we will see drastic improvements soon or possibly they’ll fall closer toward the dustbin of history. I suspect the later since they’ve been stuck at various points of specifications for a decade plus. Or they do something novel for once. I wouldn’t count them out of a breakthrough into new architectures/fab processes entirely.

They still make more money than ever. It's mostly DC driven and many companies are probably looking at alternatives.

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

#412

Post by zitterbewegung »

vessenes wrote: post #305

Commenters here seem dubious. I’ll take the contra-position. This feels to me like it’s going to be great; a big win for consumers and developers. Current A12z chips are highly performant; Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. I presume their consumer hardware will launch with an A13Z, or maybe an A14 type chip. Apple has consistently shipped new chip designs on time; I…

I agree with you but I think we are going to see at least one A12Z consumer product (other than the iPad) probably going to be a rereleased MacBook with a better keyboard.

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

#414

Post by skrtskrt »

EtienneK wrote: post #283
awill wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just got a 16" MBP... Still, the waiting game sucks too. Apple said their first Arm mac will come out at the end of the year, but that could well be a very low end Mac mini, or Macbook Air. It's unknown when the pro line will come out.

There was an article posted here on HN yesterday speculating that the first ARM Mac will be a new 13” MacBook Pro.

That might explain why all but the top line version of the barely-refreshed 13+ MacBook Pro are missing Intel's 10th-gen processors.

Sandbag the upgrade for the 13" so it's not that desirable and you won't cannibalize your own demand for the release of the first Apple Silicon machine

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

#417

Post by heyoni »

msie wrote: post #381

I'm too old for this. That's great. But what's more important to me is: - Apple being hostile to developers: app approvals (Hey) - Apple hardware being hard or impossible to upgrade - MacOS turning into iOS (don't want)

How is that last one bad? It looks like it's just a design change "with crisp new icons". We like icons, right?

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

#418

Post by cestith »

JohnBooty wrote: post #286
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.

I could see the "final Intel Macs" having a value to folks; somewhat similar to the 2015 Macbook Pros which many considered the "last good Macbooks" before Apple fumbled things with the 2016-onward Macs and their gimpy keyboards. In this case, I don't think the first ARM Macs will have undesirable hardware ala the first few years of Touchbar Macs, but there will be some straggler software whose ARM ports will be dela…

I still have my dual G5 PowerMac. Right now it runs Lubuntu.

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

#419

Post by greatpatton »

vessenes wrote: post #343
ksec wrote: post #258

Apple ported many Pro Apps to ARM , especially their Logic Pro, Photoshop and they were showcasing Maya on ARM. That is about as Pro as it gets for Mac. That reads to me Apple isn't going to have Intel for some high end Pro machine. They intended to go all in with ARM. i.e There will be a Mac Pro with High TDP ARM Chip. I wonder what are the owner of Mac Pro feeling now having just spend a $5K+ Mac Pro with Intel. Qu…

Inferring from the video announce plus guessing: Will they have a wide TDP range of designs? Yes. On feasibility, there are two major components to the cost - first is the engineering cost for design. You can bet that these costs are not massive; Apple has roughly $200 billion cash on hand right now. Most of the work will be scaled up as part of their overall design process. The second cost component is the Non-recur…

200 billions may seem huge but at the same time the have 118 billions $ of debt as they use debt to pay dividend without moving money.

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

#420

Post by slantyyz »

chx wrote: post #404

I searched this thread for Thunderbolt and USB and nothing. The only way this can work if they implement USB 4. That's earlier than expected but not by much. USB 4 came out last September and everyone was guesstimating 18 months before the first systems ship with it. AMD shipping it with the Ryzen 4xxx laptop chips would've been a really big win but apparently it was too early. And now, as with Thunderbolt, it seems…

I have to wonder if Apple even needs to worry about TB on the Apple Silicon computers moving forward.

Now that they're going down the path towards controlling everything in their computer hardware, I can see Apple creating a new proprietary high performance interface to replace TB and use USB for everything else that requires interoperability.

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