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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

#391

Post by 0x0 »

bgorman wrote: post #366
moduspol wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think they even used the term "ARM" at any point. They're calling it "Apple's silicon," and they acknowledged it's the same as what iPhone and iPad use. But I thought it was interesting how they seemed to avoid the term. It's probably just a matter of avoiding getting too "techy" and marketing.

ARM doesn't really matter very much to Apple - Apple designs the micro-architecture and many (most?) of the other SOC components themselves. With the technology moves Apple has made, they could probably switch to RISC-V at this point, however being able to use ARM devtools probably adds more value to Apple than any cost savings moving Apple would gain from moving away from ARM

But the instruction set (ISA) absolutely matters for the entire software ecosystem!

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

#392

Post by AgloeDreams »

cbmuser wrote: post #285
bredren wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't just lack of performance numbers, there were no actual products announced. They would have had to tip their hand on a lot of info that is not helpful to customers or their ability to keep selling Intel stuff. One big question though will be how this devkit benchmarks against the current maxed Intel mac mini. I'm curious if GPU performance beats the current BlackMagic eGPU. (rx 580)

> there were no actual products announced. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think they also didn't announce any actual hardware when they introduced Intel Macs. Interestingly, for the PowerPC->Intel transition, they also had an Developer Transition Kit: https://www.macstories.net/stories/this-is-not-a-product-the...

To be honest, this entire plan looks like copy-Paste, kinda like how Star Wars Episode 7 is kinda a remake of A New hope?

Rosetta 2, Universal 2, The DTK Program demo on ARM,, it's the same plan.

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

#393

Post by john_alan »

macintux wrote: post #267
john_alan wrote: post #250

I wonder if Big Sur on Apple Silicon is still Unix based, i.e. with all the Unix underpinnings and terminal access?

Yes, it will be. Even the iPhone/iPad are Unix at their core, although terminal access isn't supported.

good point, I wonder will they eventually open up a dev/pro mode on iPadOS and give terminal access (as it is with macOS) but protect system folders...

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

#394

Post by pettazz »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #346
originalvichy wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what this will do to Electron. If the iOS apps are really 1:1 on macOS, then the need to maintain an electron app will probably diminish. As long as they both support the same OS APIs I can see devs that can learn a new language (Swift) ditch Electron.

Isn't this already the case? iOS apps can be built, for Intel, using Catalyst, with very trivial changes in code, but we still see Electron hanging around today like a bad smell. I can't imagine this will change anything.

But have you actually used a Catalyst app on mac? They're terrible ports as it is right now.

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

#395

Post by m12k »

wtallis wrote: post #352
m12k wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no indication that the A12Z will be the chip that ships to consumers at the end of the year. So honestly it'd be a bit out of character to boast about the specific performance numbers of a pre-release dev kit chip - especially when that chip has already had Geekbench run on it for a while: https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/ipad-pro-12-9-inch...

Last time around, the dev kits had Pentium 4 processors but the Intel Macs that launched used Core and Core 2 processors— a totally different microarchitecture with drastically different performance and power characteristics. It's a pretty safe bet that the first ARM Macs will be using SoCs that are at least a generational improvement over the A12Z. The higher-power Macs that will probably be released toward the end…

I'm honestly pretty excited to see what Apple can deliver. The A12Z is passively cooled, yet is on par with the 10th gen i5 in the new 13 inch MBP: https://browser.geekbench.com/macs/macbook-pro-13-inch-mid-2... Just imagine what they can do with active cooling!

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

#396

Post by tpmx »

modzu wrote: post #186
Cu3PO42 wrote: post #102

I'm surprised we didn't get any performance numbers. Either raw power or at least power efficiency and projected battery life improvements. Seeing as this is a major reason for the transition (according to them), it feels very weird. They're shipping a 'Development Transition Kit' Mac mini with an A12Z this week, so it's not like the numbers are going to stay private for a long time. Even if there's an NDA, someone's…

maybe it's about profits not performance?

Ding-ding-ding. We have a winner.

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

#398

Post by 0x0 »

hanche wrote: post #349
ogre_codes wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know that Apple ever really talks the fact that their chips are based on ARM during this kind of event.

It's funny how that works. This story may be only tangentially related, but here goes: A few years back, I was visiting the local ARM offices in Trondheim, Norway. I happened to mention something about the iPhones using their processors, and my host immediately said, “I am not allowed to comment on that”. But everybody knows it, I said. In response, he said yes, but he still can't talk about it. Possibly, he broke th…

How strange. I mean, Xcode shows which architectures you build for. They even mention "armv6", "armv7", "arm64" etc in their own tech notes. https://developer.apple.com/support/required-device-capabili...

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

#399

Post by rvense »

jccalhoun wrote: post #19

Tim Cook just said they have new intel macs in the pipeline. Those will go over like a lead balloon.

They said the same with the Intel transition, and also projected a two year timeline. The transition was over much sooner than that and there weren't any new PPC products to speak of, as far as I remember. And of course, PPC Macs only got one more version of OS X before support for them was dropped.

They're just trying not to Osbourne themselves too badly. They want you to keep buying Intel Macs, but who's to say how long they'll keep support.

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

#400

Post by abvdasker »

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.

It's astonishing to me how far Intel has fallen in so short a time. I feel like it was only a couple years ago that Intel was understood universally to be the "heavyweight champion of the world" so to speak.

They completely missed the boat on mobile and AMD has leapfrogged them very recently on desktop. On top of that there were the Spectre vulnerabilities which shook confidence even further. This announcement is another huge blow given the extent to which the entire consumer electronics industry tends to follow Apple. I would be interested to hear an insider's perspective on such a rapid decline.

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