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iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

macrumors.com

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Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#41

Post by currysausage »

erikj wrote: post #37
minimaxir wrote: post #30

Please stop saying that Apple is secretly recording your conversations for nefarious purposes with Hey Siri. It’s been around for 2 years and there has been nothing world-ending found about the feature. A reminder about how Hey Siri privacy works: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu... > In no case is the device recording what the user says or sending that information to Apple before the feat…

As long as there is an always-on CPU with non-permanent firmware that has access to the microphone in my device, Fort Meade will find a way to hijack it and subvert this security model. I would rather not give them more attack surface.

If they have come this far, why should they even bother about the “Allow Hey Siri” toggle?

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#42

Post by mtgx »

danpalmer wrote: post #12
zitterbewegung wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is what I think will occur : New Macbook Pro (not a refresh) will probably have this chip in but it will be probably only be used initially for iOS emulator for developers. The next release of macOS will probably have iOS apps that you can run on a mac. Then they will replace the Macbook Air line in to a Macbook Arm as a new product launch at the beginning of 2019.

> it will be probably only be used initially for iOS emulator for developers This is quite a large technical undertaking, with a very small pay-off given the tiny percentage of users who develop on their Mac for iOS devices. I can't see this being something that happens until x86 CPUs have been removed entirely.

At the rate Apple is increasing its iPhone SKUs every year, it won't be long until all iOS app companies will need to purchase like 20 different-generation iPhones. I think they'll need the emulator eventually.

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#44

Post by runeks »

Someone wrote: post #31
pornel wrote: post #15

I wonder if macOS will be able to run userspace code on this. Apple's ARM chips are pretty fast, so this could be extra 50% of computing power for the iMac. From software side they've already done similar things in the past (fat binaries, Rosetta).

This new iMac pro, in its ‘low end’ configuration, has 8 cores ( https://www.apple.com/lae/imac-pro/specs/ ), possibly of the new “Purley” kind ( http://bgr.com/2017/07/12/imac-pro-2017-specs-intel-xeon-pur... ) A single A10 will not add 50% of computing power, even ignoring its GPU.

True, but the A10 is much cheaper than any Intel CPU, so Apple could develop a multi-socket ARM motherboard to increase the number of ARM cores, to make performance compatible with Intel's (perhaps at lower cost, since Apple can get cheap A11s using the high volume of iPhone 8/X).

Also, according to Geekbench, the single-thread performance of the 2.4 GHz A11 is 70%[1] of the 3.7 GHz i7-8700K. I'm guessing Apple could bring the A11 even closer to the i7 by increasing the clock frequency, which may not make sense for mobile devices (because of disproportionally higher power consumption).

So, again according to the Geekbench figures, four A11s (at mobile clock frequency) is 50% faster than a 6-core i7-8700K[1].

[1] https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2062

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#45

Post by vardump »

thought_alarm wrote: post #29
cybermancy wrote: post #2

Will be interesting to see if native iOS apps will be able to run for development or regular use. This is a good sign for the convergence of the Mac and "i" products. For fun here's the "transitions" talk Steve Jobs gave announcing the switch from PowerPC to Intel processors. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdTqnYnFyg

Every iOS app already runs natively on Intel. Adding an ARM co-processor to the Mac doesn't change that situation.

> Every iOS app already runs natively on Intel.

For simple apps this is more or less true.

More complicated cases might not behave same.

For example, ARMv8 and x86 have different memory models. So execution won't be equivalent. You can have concurrency bugs in your code that only manifest on ARMv8.

I'm sure there are a lot of other examples of differences as well.

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#46

Post by zoul »

rallycarre wrote: post #40
minimaxir wrote: post #30

Please stop saying that Apple is secretly recording your conversations for nefarious purposes with Hey Siri. It’s been around for 2 years and there has been nothing world-ending found about the feature. A reminder about how Hey Siri privacy works: https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-qu... > In no case is the device recording what the user says or sending that information to Apple before the feat…

It won't be listening to you if they don't care to. The idea of having a device that listens to everything around in your home is unnerving, for me atleast. The problem with saying "they would never do something like this" or "I have nothing to hide so why do I care" is that your trusting people thousands of miles away from you who are heavily influenced by the government... If your not comfortable having a policeman…

If Apple wants to eavesdrop on you I don’t see how Siri changes the situation. You already have a networked device with a microphone, turning or not turning on an additional service hardly makes a difference.

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#47

Post by 0x0 »

coldtea wrote: post #32
0x0 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Converging the Mac and the i products sounds like a terrible idea, as long as iOS insists on running non-windowed apps. Serious workloads is very inefficient without a proper windowed desktop environment combined with a Finder and a Terminal that can access files across all apps. Also, having an x86-compatible CPU at the core enables high enough performance for virtualbox/vmware, which is a huge enabler in that it al…

> A converged ARM-based Macbook sounds very much like a toy computer; a facebook+youtube media consumption station with an option for perhaps doing limited creative work such as composing an iMovie or touching up some photos at the most. What you describe as a "toy computer" is actually an indestructible and hella-great main business computer for a huge majority of people. Most people aren't designers or videographer…

Nothing wrong with a device like that - put a keyboard and mouse on the iPad and go at it. But please don't take away the option of having a real computer Macbook for the rest of us.

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#48

Post by gggvvh »

013a wrote: post #6

This is huge. While it starts with just powering things like boot security and Hey Siri, I guarantee you this is the first step toward Apple getting rid of Intel on the Mac. How much longer before they release MB/MBPs with the same chip, doing the same thing? How much longer after that before we see SDKs released for writings apps that run on Mac, but are completely executed within the ARM processor? I think this is…

I automatically dismiss comments that start with “This is huge”. I’m not the only one. Could you please edit that filler out of your comment, thanks.

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#49

Post by jpalomaki »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #28
alphabettsy wrote: post #14

Could handle Face ID, etc. Possibly offload video encoding/transcoding? The A10 can handle 4K HEVC. Not sure what the point would be with dedicated graphics doing the same.

Article mentions secure enclave so FaceID is very likely. It doesn’t make much ergonomic sense to put fingerprint reader like you do on macbook.

External keyboard with touchbar and touchid might be interesting (but hard to make wireless, unless with some cool new wireless charging mechanism).

Re: iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’

#50

Post by gggvvh »

Someone wrote: post #35
pjmlp wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the return to the roots, just like Apple used to be before OS X happened. They only became more open out of necessity.

Apple’s roots were extremely open. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_I#History : ”After building it for himself and showing it at the Club, he and Steve Jobs gave out schematics (technical designs) for the computer to interested club members and even helped some of them build and test out copies” Also: the Apple 2 shipped with full schematics and an assembly listing of its ROMs. The ‘phone book’ edition of Inside…

That’s Jobs-Woz Apple, not Jobs Apple. The Apple you’re thinking of started disappearing when the Macintosh came out, and was no more when Jobs returned as CEO.

Not saying it’s a bad thing, mind.

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