Adios. XPS-15 is the ultimate winner.
Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
841–850 of 1001 posts
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#842Earlier quoted context omitted.
I fully expect any reduction in costs for Apple will get sent to their shareholders, not the consumers.
Think of it this way: 1. This is risky for consumers. Whereas the PPC->x86 move was clearly a benefit to consumers given how PPC was lagging Intel at the time, x86 had proven performance and a massive install base. It was low risk to consumers. This? Less so. Sure iOS devices run on ARM but now you lose x86 compatibility. Consumers need to be "compensated" for this risk. This means lower prices and/or better performa…
> This is risky for consumers.
EXACTLY.
If you are a photographer, a developer, a graphics designer, a musician, a teacher, or whatever, and you are looking at buying a new Mac, what is going to get you to buy the new Apple Silicon powered Mac which is almost certain to impact your workflow in some way? If you are making purchase decisions for classrooms, what makes you buy 200 Macs with a new, unknown architecture?
The first generation of Macs on Apple silicon absolutely needs to have a significantly better price/ performance point versus the current generation or they won't sell to anything more than the most loyal fans. If the new Macs come out and pricing is not good, I could seriously see a sort-of anti-Osborne effect where people gravitate towards Intel based Macs (or away from Macs entirely) to avoid the risk of moving to new architecture.
If anything, I expect margins on the first couple generations of Macs to go DOWN as margins on the first couple generations on all Apple products are lower (also public record).
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#843Commenters 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…
This is not enough for a Pro consumer. There are a wide range of development-related softwares/tools that are not compatible with ARM. And they do not usually come with huge user base. So there will not be any ARM port.
They are free to try it on Macbook or Air. But MBPs? They are simply giving the market to Windows.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#844I guess this is the end of bootcamp?
It’ll require some kind of emulation now to run x86/AMD64 instructions on this architecture if I correctly understand the changes happening.
I’m saddened about that. I liked being able to boot my MacBook pro into Windows for games.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#845Apple 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…
> 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 wonder if Apple had anything to do with TSMC's announcement of a fab in the US?
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#846I'd suggest avoiding either hyping or dismissing the new processors. We don't have performance numbers for a real model, and until we do, we know very little. The thing we can talk about is Apple's strategic direction. The good version has Apple releasing a notably superior general purpose computer, maybe even gaining more marketshare in the process. The bad version has the Mac turning into an iOS development station…
Wasn't Linus who said that the reason ARM hasn't taken over the server market is because there are no ARM chips in developer machines?
I'm curious if Apple's move is going to finally help ARM succeed on the server side.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#847Tim 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…
PPC was complicated by coming after years of failing to have decent chips actually ship. In this case, Intel and AMD are both still heavily invested in pushing x86 forward and Apple doesn’t have to do all of the work maintaining things like compilers or the JVM so it’d be a lot easier to keep that option alive if there was a good enough reason.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#848There goes Hackintoshes after 5 years and backwards compatibility. Throw everything useful away (hardware with special kexts, niche expensive software) and start from scratch. No thanks.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#849I gotta say: really slick presentation. 1) Before the demo even starts: all Apple apps, pro or casual? Already running. Microsoft Office? Already running. Adobe Creative Cloud? Already running. That's the vast majority of the Mac userbase right there. 2) No apparent hard cuts on the legacy. I was expecting them to not support x86 backwards compatibility if they could get away with it, but apparently they're committed…
I am frankly surprised they did not ditch opengl and carbon.
Re: Apple announces it will switch to its own processors for future Macs
#850Earlier quoted context omitted.
What is really sad is that I don't think the majority of Apple consumers really understand what this means for the Intel macs in the long run. I fear a number of people will buy them not realizing they have a very limited lifespan.
> […] not realizing they have a very limited lifespan. It may depend on one's definition of "limited": the Rosetta was first released with Mac OS 10.4 in 2005, [1][2] and was last available in Mac OS 10.6, which first released in 2010, [3] but whose last update was in 2011. Six years of transitional support is not unreasonable. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mac…
Nowadays we can use a same computer for around 8 years easily if we bought with decent spec.