People here were anticipating this, should be no surprise. Presumably, Intel also knows for some time, but their long-term strategy on how to stay relevant seems unclear. I could imagine them becoming a pure fab-company one day.
Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
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Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#22I think this was inevitable given the insane YoY performance increase we've seen from A-series chips. Anyone want to chime in on why Intel can't get more than 5% YoY while Apple has been getting 30-40%?
Because they have moved past the easy parts of optimization. Apple's optimizations still have thermal throttling issues (sustained use of an A11 will not beat an Intel chip due to better cooling and IPC).
Compared to other ARM licencees they do beat the pants off of. This is probably why Apple put in a T1 chip and a touch bar in the Macbook Pro and the T2 chip (dedicated power module) in the iMac Pro. They are prototyping the individual pieces with Intel as the main processor so that they can attempt to swap the chip in 2020.
EDIT: nitpick on t1 and t2 chips.
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#23Because that worked so well last time?
To what are you sarcastically referring?
Apple's switch to PowerPC which gave them a performance lead over Intel for five years and kept them competitive for another five or Apple's switch to its own ARM Core designs which have given them a 12-24 month performance lead over the entire Android ecosystem?
Bear in mind that Apple dominates the high-end desktop / laptop market, both in market share and profit share* which could put a huge dent in Intel's economies of scale for high end consumer CPUs.
* I'm assuming these figures omit servers. Also, there was a lot of noise in around 2009 saying that Apple had over 90% of the high-end PC market, but I've not seen more recent figures one way or another. Given that PC prices seem to have, if anything, slipped, I doubt it's gotten worse for Apple (and goodness knows the tech press loves any statistic that makes Apple look bad).
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#24Apple does have a good record of moving their OS and software from different architectures. 68XXX to PPC to Intel was not a horrible experience. Having gone through three transitions I don't remember a lot of pain - but maybe I am repressing it!
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#25My questions: ARM? Walled garden of an app ecosystem? Command line? There has been convergence between iOS and MacOS for a while now.
I see the question marks but I'm not entirely sure what your questions actually are
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#26While it's had a rocky start, Microsoft's starting to push Windows 10 laptops based on ARM chips, so it's definitely not out of the realm of sanity that Apple is interested in doing the same.
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#27Great, we can go back to the macrumors nonsense about how this PPC is "just as fast" as the x86 days. With their focus on iOS vs MacOS, this doesn't surprise me. MacOS will simply die once they port their tools to iOS. Terrible choice IMO.
Except PPC was Motorola and IBM, not Apple
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#28Great, we can go back to the macrumors nonsense about how this PPC is "just as fast" as the x86 days. With their focus on iOS vs MacOS, this doesn't surprise me. MacOS will simply die once they port their tools to iOS. Terrible choice IMO.
Except apple has demonstrated they can design cpu’s that outperform the (android) competition. Who is to say they can’t make ARM cpu’s that genuinely outperform intel? Intel hasn’t executed all that well lately anyway.
The trade offs for a SoC are different than for a desktop machine, and to a lesser extent a laptop. The desktop is where we'll feel the most pain. I wouldn't be surprised if they cancelled the Mac Pro entirely.
Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#29Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel
#30Based on this article, it doesn't sound like Bloomberg has enough information to distinguish between Apple being committed to a transition, or Apple developing chips to improve their negotiating position with Intel. It's also very unlikely to happen on such a fast timetable; given the IP situation, it's unlikely Apple could make an x86_64 chip, and any move away from x86_64 is going to require significant work by third parties outside Apple who haven't even heard of the possibility of this happening until today.