This might make it harder to build a Hackintosh, too.
Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
161–170 of 263 posts
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#162Earlier quoted context omitted.
This sounds incredibly kludgey and at odds with Apple's de-investment in macOS. (As in "reduced investment", not "divestment".) Adding massive complexity to eke out another hour or two of battery life seems like a poor choice when there are so many things to be fixed in the OS.
Why so? A Mac is a very high ASP item - why not, for example allow iOS apps to run in macOS (using the ARM processor). Ultimately, the 2016 MBPs are a great example of why Apple needs to divest from Intel. The poor timing for Kaby Lake mobile processors and lack of low-power RAM were both Apple's reasons stated when the topic of "the MBP isn't keeping up with the competition" arises. And who's to say that macOS.next…
Apple wouldn't need an ARM chip to allow iOS apps to run on Macs. I would think that all iOS apps are already compatible with x86. When a developer writes apps today using Xcode and runs the app in the simulator, they are running an x86 compiled version of their app linked against an x86 version of the iOS framework. It wouldn't be that much of a technical hurdle to polish the experience and officially support fat binaries that run on x86 and ARM.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#163Earlier quoted context omitted.
why not, for example allow iOS apps to run in macOS That's not what the article is talking about and it's a bad idea for UX reasons (no touchscreen). And who's to say that macOS.next will be anything similar to the current macOS? Don't even go there; a vocal minority of Mac users including me do not want anything like that. And getting back to the article, if the OS is radically different then presumably it doesn't n…
> Don't even go there; a vocal minority of Mac users including me do not want anything like that. I'm a Mac user too. Unfortunately, Apple is notorious for doing what they think is right, regardless of their user base. Need I say "lightning headphones" or "no magsafe, just USB-C"? Both of these strike me as positioning for the future Apple wants despite the concerns the vocal parts of their userbase.
Skate where the puck will be, not where it is.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#164Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple did not have the IP rights to continue PowerPC development Didn't they get those rights when they bought PA Semi? I think it didn't make sense for Apple to develop their own processor in 2005 because they were just in a much weaker position than they are now. And it was said that in the old days Exponential got their PowerPC license from Apple.
I don't believe PA Semi ever had a transferable license to Power. They had their own architecture which was very power efficient and they were a CPU design house with ARM experience (they did StrongARM at DEC). What it looks like from the outside looking in, is that Apple bought out a full architecture license (with derivative ownership) from ARM and bought PA Semi to be the core team to start building CPUs that they…
That's how I saw it. I did recently discover PA's PPC looking into various implementations of the architecture that might be salvageable. It was quite impressive. Still better specs on 65nm than the Rocket RISC-V that's on 45nm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PWRficient
EDIT: Funnier is it was used in a desktop for Amiga's (AmigaOne X1000) before acquired by Apple. Had to hurt what little ego the Amiga people had left.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#165Good news for Apple and overall progress, but sad news for those of us in the Hackintosh community. Apple's support for Intel CPUs is really what enabled the whole movement to get traction. I really prefer to see Apple moving toward standardized vs proprietary hardware options.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#166Good news for Apple and overall progress, but sad news for those of us in the Hackintosh community. Apple's support for Intel CPUs is really what enabled the whole movement to get traction. I really prefer to see Apple moving toward standardized vs proprietary hardware options.
And inversely, I wonder how this news is for Linux on Mac hardware....
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#167It has been interesting to watch the ARM ecosystem unfold. Sort of like seeing a levy breach where just a trickle of water starts flowing over it and then more and more and more. Apple has the resources and the motivation to build a "desktop" 64 bit ARM processor. The history here is also interesting. After debuting the Macintosh in 1984, and getting into fights with Motorola over what should be in the next generatio…
Apple didn't adopt PowerPC after fighting with Motorola and it was no shock to Motorola, or the world. Motorola and Apple and IBM worked together on PowerPC in a consortium, after the Motorola 88000 RISC (which Apple also tried) failed for various reasons.
This was all in the exiled-Jobs years while Apple was thrashing about trying to build a real operating system (or systems) to replace classic Mac OS. (NeXT also played with the m88k.)
And ARM wasn't new to Apple with the iOS systems, either. The Newton was built around ARM back in the 90s.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#168Earlier quoted context omitted.
No touch screen at the moment. Apple could be looking at making a hybrid ipad/mac.
That would cannibalise sales of the iPad. Its why they have yet to release a proper iPad Pro, just a gigantic iPod touch with a stylus.
Macs cost more so why would that be a bad thing?
iPad sales were down by 22% in the last quarter and are roughly half what they were at the peak. As someone has pointed out, the iPad sales chart is looking like the iPod's, except it might be going down a little faster...
http://www.zdnet.com/article/the-ipad-is-on-life-support/
Tim Cook's "why on earth would you buy a PC?" routine isn't looking quite as hot now iPads are the fourth ranked revenue earner at Apple, behind the iPhone, Macs, and Services.
Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#169Re: Apple Said to Work on Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role
#170Earlier quoted context omitted.
No reason they couldn't put a touch screen on a MacBook or imac, though I guess they can't guarantee one on a mac pro
Well, one reason is that touch screens for desktop OSes suck. Holding your arm out screen operations for any length of time is awful, and wiping the prints off your screen on your pant leg doesn't work very well on a laptop. That's not to say Apple doesn't release terrible things at times (hockey puck mouse[1]?), but I have trouble imagining Apple releasing one of those. (Laplet? tabletop?) [1] I actually think that…
> Well, one reason is that touch screens for desktop OSes suck
They work perfectly well on desktops like the Surface Studio, where you can bring the screen down to a drawing board angle. They also work well with a "desktop OS" on convertible laptops and 2-in-1s with multiple use modes including "tent" and "tablet".
They're actually not too bad on real desktops with vertical screens, especially if you're standing up. (Try putting an all-in-one in your kitchen.)
It would be foolish to assume that just because you have a touch screen that you have to touch it all the time. You don't. You can still use a mouse, a pen, an air-mouse, a games controller, and several other things. Having a touch screen doesn't make you do anything you don't want to do, it just gives you an extra option.
It's a bit like claiming that if you use a mouse you can't use keyboard shortcuts. Really, that's not how it works....