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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

#311

Post by jononor »

masklinn wrote: post #161
jononor wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wanted to go x86 they would just buy VIA? I think it will be aarch64

> If they wanted to go x86 they would just buy VIA? In theory, but then VIA is a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Group, so they'd need to either negotiate the sale with an entity with which they've locked horns in the past or buy an entire petrochemical group??? They'd probably have an easier time buying AMD.

Right, same group that owns HTC. They did have some big-ish lawsuits going with Apple some years back. So maybe not that easy, in practice.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#312

Post by justherefortart »

jernfrost wrote: post #199
justherefortart wrote: post #4

Great, 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.

Nah... back then single thread performance mattered a lot. Today most users can do most of their work on something with the performance of an iPad. Apple will not suffer in 2020 from having lower performance than intel. It wont matter. Form factor, screen quality, memory speed, memory size, touch pad, battery life etc will matter so much more. Multi threading is also so much more common on pro app which require perfo…

Not everyone wants a mobile PC.

The mac mini is essentially 1700 days old since they downgraded the processors.

I only have macs because I build apps on them. I buy used and as inexpensively as possible. Using an old i5 for development currently.

I wanted to be an Apple fanboy, but having to rebuy critical software for even point releases because of stability killed that off for me long ago.

Best Apple I've ever owned (beyond my //e) was the Dual Processor Quicksilver. Case opened on the side, you had many upgrade options and it even looked nice (irrelevant to me but I'm sure that matters to some).

ARM will simply be the new PPC. You think things like supporting external graphics cards (yay they just got limited AMD support) and having high end rigs isn't what people want, especially in the gaming community?

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#313

Post by sydney6 »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #229

This might just be a bargaining move on Apple’s part, but I don’t think so. I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack. I wouldn’t be surprised to even see them make their own display screens. As an Apple customer, I like this idea also. For 20 years, I used to be a desktop Linux fanatic and later became a fan of Android. In the last few years, I have switched to using all…

> I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack.

But CPU/GPU aren't the only chips Apple is sourcing from 3rd party. Think wireless modems like WiFi, LTE, etc.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#315

Post by mamon »

PullJosh wrote: post #233
macintux wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Having those mobile/tablet apps expand automatically to desktop is the next logical conclusion. Thankfully Apple comprises vastly smarter people than me, but I've always thought this is a bad idea. The two interaction models are so dramatically different that I don't see how merging them makes sense. A finger is not a mouse.

It's hard to argue with the resounding success of Windows 8.

Its easy to succed when you have the monopoly in PC operating systems so success of Win 8 proves absolutely nothing. Touchscreen in PC is about as useful as a waterproof towel

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#316

Post by nnnnnnnnnnnnn »

squarefoot wrote: post #179
lima wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP/licensing.

And cost. Making something you can license to others and/or sell to 250000 users each year has a completely different cost compared to something you use only on your 20000 machines (source: [1]). Macs are already overpriced, I don't know how much Apple could sustain an in-house production of proprietary chips without hitting their users; they're probably going to ARM. [1]: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=p…

I think you might have misread the table at the page you linked. Above the table, it says "Shipments are in thousands of units." According to the table, Apple shipped 20 million notebooks and desktops last year, not 20 thousand.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#317

Post by bitL »

masklinn wrote: post #161
jononor wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they wanted to go x86 they would just buy VIA? I think it will be aarch64

> If they wanted to go x86 they would just buy VIA? In theory, but then VIA is a subsidiary of Formosa Plastics Group, so they'd need to either negotiate the sale with an entity with which they've locked horns in the past or buy an entire petrochemical group??? They'd probably have an easier time buying AMD.

Money don't smell to them, memory in the business world is short if the price is right.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#318

Post by saagarjha »

criddell wrote: post #289
madez wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Apple's documented interest in owner's control of their devices and delivering the required documentation for it, they won't tell us what is included in the chips and what's not.

Apple has done a very good job with documenting iOS security: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf If they included a management engine and produced a document like that, I'd be satisfied.

Apple is probably going to produce a similar document that details at a high level how the security works. If they follow the example that they set with iOS devices, what they won't do is provide the source code for these components.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#319

Post by kccqzy »

thothamon wrote: post #193

Well. We'll see what they do, but Apple had better be very careful. If a lot of OSS software won't run on Apple's new chip, then it becomes very hard for a software developer like myself to stick with Apple. And it is developer energy that sustains the software ecosystem for Apple....including many developers who are in the Mac ecosystem to develop for iOS. This is not necessarily the wrong move for Apple, but it is…

By definition, if the maintainer of some OSS software doesn't have the time/energy/willingness to make the software run on Apple's new chip, you can do it yourself.

Re: Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

#320

Post by bitL »

thothamon wrote: post #193

Well. We'll see what they do, but Apple had better be very careful. If a lot of OSS software won't run on Apple's new chip, then it becomes very hard for a software developer like myself to stick with Apple. And it is developer energy that sustains the software ecosystem for Apple....including many developers who are in the Mac ecosystem to develop for iOS. This is not necessarily the wrong move for Apple, but it is…

If iOS will be by that time the only mainstream way to make money from developing software (happening already), people would care very little about OSS there...
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