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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

#522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens to GPU? Having their own GPU for iMac and Mac Pro as well? Dual GPU options where Apple GPU for power efficiency? This feels like additional complexity. I think GPU scaling will be much harder than CPU, so whereas Apple can surpass Intel CPUs for all but the highest segments, putting together a standalone GPU will be hard and very interesting to see. For an entry-level GPU? No issues. But what about a…

And what happens if China marches into Taiwan? This is a plausible consideration that must be one of Apple's worst nightmares.

TSMC has fabs in mainland China as well. China is a friend of capitalism.

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

#523

Commenters here seem dubious. I’ll take the contra-position. This feels to me like it’s going to be great; a big win for consumers and developers. Current A12z chips are highly performant; Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. I presume their consumer hardware will launch with an A13Z, or maybe an A14 type chip. Apple has consistently shipped new chip designs on time; I…

> Apple is roughly one chip cycle ahead on perfomance/watt from any other manufacturer. Eh? This is a flimsy claim. AMD's performance/watt is extremely impressive right now. Apple is ahead of Intel for sure, but Intel isn't the only other player here. > So, I’m predicting an MBP 13 - 16 range with an extra three hours of battery life+, and 20-30% faster. Alternately a Macbook Air type with 16 hours plus strong 4k per…

I'd say that you should take a look at a comparison of the power efficiency of Apple's "little" core in the A13 to a stock ARM little core.

>In the face-off against a Cortex-A55 implementation such as on the Snapdragon 855, the new Thunder cores represent a 2.5-3x performance lead while at the same time using less than half the energy.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/14892/the-apple-iphone-11-pro...

Apple has been hitting it out of the park lately.

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

#524

They will lock down their PCs like the iPhone. Good luck booting anything other than macos or getting you Mac fixed anywhere other than Apple. No thanks, switching back to Linux. I'm done with this crap.

> They will lock down their PCs like the iPhone. Did they say that in the keynote?

It is true that the boot process on ARM is more entangled with the platform then on x86. In contrast to x86 where you have to do additional steps to lock it down on ARM additional work of the system integrator is required to keep it open/customizable. Not sure if we can expect Apple (or anyone else who is not interest in this business case) to invest into that (if they don't explicitly state that the will).

Edit: This touches a lot of areas, like auto-detection and configuration of hardware and sub-components (either connected or embedded into the SoC) or security specific areas like ARM TrustZone which has vendor specific implementations and secure boot procedures

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

#525
post #381

I'm too old for this. That's great. But what's more important to me is: - Apple being hostile to developers: app approvals (Hey) - Apple hardware being hard or impossible to upgrade - MacOS turning into iOS (don't want)

Apple isn’t being hostile to Hey! They are being hostile to Apple. Imagine building a large new Paid App that you expect Apple to host and distribute for free worldwide by gaming their payment system.

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

#526
post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What happens to GPU? Having their own GPU for iMac and Mac Pro as well? Dual GPU options where Apple GPU for power efficiency? This feels like additional complexity. I think GPU scaling will be much harder than CPU, so whereas Apple can surpass Intel CPUs for all but the highest segments, putting together a standalone GPU will be hard and very interesting to see. For an entry-level GPU? No issues. But what about a…

I heard from random sources that their GPUs are actually (relatively?) very powerful. Better sources/experience appreciated. "Apple claims the GPU in the iPad Pro is equivalent to an Xbox One S, although how they came to thise conclusion is difficult to say since we know so little about the underpinnings of the GPU." [1] [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/13661/the-2018-apple-ipad-pro...

I don’t see how an integrated GPU can compete with the top of the line chips from nvidia and amd. The discreet GPUs(Radeon vega) in the Mac Pros have 13+ billion transistors and have 1 TB/s memory bandwidth with specialized memory.

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

#527

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.

Maybe that lives them open to switch the internal instruction set to risc-v down the road without a naming issue.

I also thought this might be a 'dry run' for a risc-v strategy across their platforms, as risc-v was designed to be expanded for specific applications. Most of the IP is no doubt in the peripherals, which are largely CPU-instruction-set independent. We'll see. I say 5 years, tops, to first Apple risc-v device.

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

#528
post #258

Apple ported many Pro Apps to ARM , especially their Logic Pro, Photoshop and they were showcasing Maya on ARM. That is about as Pro as it gets for Mac. That reads to me Apple isn't going to have Intel for some high end Pro machine. They intended to go all in with ARM. i.e There will be a Mac Pro with High TDP ARM Chip. I wonder what are the owner of Mac Pro feeling now having just spend a $5K+ Mac Pro with Intel. Qu…

I'd assume that they'll still have AMD/NVidia GPUs as options if they truly plan to bring these CPUs to the Mac Pro market. There's no way that e.g. Animation studios will accept anything less than absolutely top-end performance. And upgradability too. I think Apple must know this.

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

#529

Does anybody know if it will still be possible to run Windows via BootCamp with the new apple processors? I use a 16" MBP and am a heavy BootCamp user (Windows 10).

Probably not, no mention at all of Bootcamp and this is a unique opportunity for Apple to lock everything down. Virtualisation will be the only option I bet.

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

#530

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.

But if you're developing with Electron, the purpose is typically cross platform desktop support. This won't change that?

I'd wager for a significant amount of shops it's less about cross-platform support and more for being able to throw existing generalist or web frontend developers into native development. If a business wants to ship a desktop app quickly, it's hard to argue against electron because your existing teams can become productive without too much training.
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