I think GeekBench is a poor benchmark, since it's measuring peak CPU performance in a narrow domain, but the table you cited shows that the 4770 is 6.5x faster than the A7 (16774 vs 2564). Even at the same frequency and core count, Haswell is 1.8x faster in the benchmark. Whatever the exact number, it doesn't invalidate the point I was making: Switching to ARM will ruin performance for x86 programs, which need to be…
I was looking at the single threaded numbers because those are usually more relevant to what you would be doing on most Macbooks.
That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC). I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other…
Intel is failing to deliver their existing roadmap on time. Is this because they just haven't 'decided' to play hardball?
Well it's certainly plausible that this is the case... They have no meaningful competition at the top end of performance, so clearly they're don't need to bother dumping as much money into R&D as if they did. If they've found that a basic level of incremental improvements maximises profit, then they'll do that. And at the moment they're held up by fabrication issues, sure, but die shrinkage is an important part of their 'tick tock' development model so it makes sense they'd be waiting for this, it's hardly an indication that they're struggling in the grand scheme of things, or that they will fail to deliver the same steady performance improvements moving forward.
I wonder if this will mean the end of Flash Player for Mac? Will Adobe bother releasing an ARM version?
I think all existing x86 apps would be emulated.
Emulating x86 on ARM would be trickier than emulating PPC on x86. But even if emulation did work, that would mean you would have to use an x86 browser to use Flash. You wouldn't be able to use the x86 plugin with a native browser.
In practice, that would make a huge difference in terms of Flash's market share.
If you think Android isn't a walled garden (unless you mean non-Google Android?) then the devil has convinced you he doesn't exist.
It is at least much less of one than iOS
Which may appeal to you as a developer, but from a user perspective, that isn't a good thing.
Consider this analogy: Would you buy an "open-source" deadbolt for your house? Great feature for aspiring locksmiths! But very likely not such a great feature for 99.9% of home owners.