Macintel: The End Is Nigh

> why is this ARM OS like my Intel OS but without all my apps?

The problem should be much smaller on OS X than on Windows. Apple has a culture of breaking things regularly, instead of worshipping backwards compatabillity.

The result is that most Mac apps are kept up to date by the developer. Recompiling for an arm-based OS X shouldn't be an issue.

As much as i want this to happen. I dont see this coming in the near future. Why would they release the new MacPro with Intel Xeon if they had ever planned to switch away? And would MacPro be staying in x86 land if Apple decide to switch the rest to ARM?

Another obstacle is Thunderbolt. This DisplayPort + External PCI-Express Cable is totally in control by Intel. AMD's version is based on USB 3, which is an ugly hack that Apple will unlikely use.

The performance gap between Haswell and A7 is huge. Watts to Watts, at Notebook / Desktop power range Intel wins hands down. Although the gap is shrinking with each Ax SoC.

Then there is the part about Intel Atom losing on performance. Which is wrong. Intel Atom SoC performs really well. It didn't get much wins simply because of its ecosystem and prices.

The Mobile SoC market are operating at thin margin comparatively speaking. Even if Intel are offering Atom at the same price, why would any OEM wants to be bound by Intel & x86 again? So Intel decide to offer those SoC at a lost and what happened? On the Western world it is dominated by Qualcomm where it offer better solution or cheaper TC with its integrated Modem. In Eastern World or China it is hit by "8 Core" marketing team from MediaTek. Everyone thoughts more Core = better.

I dont see how Intel is going win this Mobile battle. Apple will pretty much drive Intel to where they want, which is to Fab SoC for them.

You say that ARM chips are 10x slower than Haswells, but the difference isn't actually that large anymore and for Apple's A7 it's around 3x versus a normal desktop chip like the 4770 and only 1.7X versus the 4250U you'd find in a Macbook Air[1]. Diminishing returns is a constant factor in engineering and I'd expect it to be very hard for Apple to make up the remaining distance between themselves and Intel, but we shouldn't exaggerate how large that difference is. And it is possible that some hypothetical A8 could be made competitive with Intel in the 15W range due to not having to make the compromises required to hit 4 GHz.

I do agree that the ~10W you'd save by using an A7 versus an 4250U in a Mackbook Air would be a false economy.

EDIT: To explain that bit about targeted power ranges a bit more, to hit high frequencies at a given process node (like 45 nm or whatever) you need to break up your logic into a fairly high number of simple stages separated by clock driven latches. A core that doesn't worry about hitting high frequencies can divide up it's logic into fewer stages, simplifying design and requiring fewer transistors for latching.

[1]http://www.computingcompendium.com/p/arm-vs-intel-benchmarks...

While I think the article's prediction is incorrect (see my other comment for why), it did give me an idea: Why doesn't Apple design their own x86 CPU?

Their work on the Ax series has probably taught them quite a bit that could be ported over to x86-land. Also, Apple could leave out x86 cruft they don't use: legacy addressing modes, PAE, etc. And of course, they could design the CPU specifically for their products instead of searching for the closest match sold by existing vendors (or cajoling Intel to tweak their designs).

Apple already has strong relationships with fab companies. They have the talent and teams to design such a CPU. One wonders if they're already working on such a thing. Even if it never shipped, it could be used to negotiate lower prices from Intel.

I actually see Apple branding A7 as 'desktop class' to leverage better CPU price from Intel.