Apple Considering Switch Away From Intel For Macs

concealment sends this quote from Bloomberg: "Apple Inc. is exploring ways to replace Intel processors in its Mac personal computers with a version of the chip technology it uses in the iPhone and iPad, according to people familiar with the company's research. Apple engineers have grown confident that the chip designs used for its mobile devices will one day be powerful enough to run its desktops and laptops, said three people with knowledge of the work, who asked to remain anonymous because the plans are confidential. Apple began using Intel chips for Macs in 2005."

Comments

Efficiency Performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple for a while now has been moving away from performance parts. No real beefy GPU in the Mac Pro. The best GPU in a MBP is an upper-mid tier card. Their server is gone. Its not surprising to see them move more and more away from HPC parts. I'm just a little curious how this will affect people dependent on 'pro-tools' (in the future that is).

Why?

[thammoud]

I can see the switch from PowerPC as IBM and Motorola could not keep up with supplies or advances. To switch from Intel to ARM on PC's will be suicide as performance in PC's far outweigh any negligible benefits in power savings. People using Macs are designers, programmers and heavy users. For those advocating unifying the mobile experience with the desktop, please STOP. I produce content on my desktop. I consume it on my iPad.

Re:Why?

[Anubis IV]

Note the "will one day be powerful enough". I read that as "in 2-5 years we may have something that can compete with laptop or desktop-grade Intel products". From what I understand, and IANACE (I am not a Computer Engineer), there's nothing inherently holding the ARM architecture back from being able to scale up to the sorts of computational performance we see out of Intel's processors, albeit, at the cost of its energy efficiency (of course, it's not there now, but it could be in a few years). Similarly, an Intel exec said a few weeks back that there's nothing technological holding Intel back from being able to scale down to where we see ARM's processors.

That said, Intel doesn't want to do that, since the profit margins are much lower for mobile processors than they are for desktop-grade processors. Yet the danger for them is that the ARM architecture will be scaled up, allowing it to expand into the much more lucrative end of the market, thus pushing them out. That'd be the end for Intel if that sort of thing was allowed to happen. And Apple is in a good position to try something like that.

More importantly and more relevantly to these rumors, I read this whole report as leverage in negotiations with Intel. Credibly scaring the seller into thinking they'll lose your business is a great way to get better prices or other concessions (e.g. early or exclusive access) out of them. Apple is probably content to stay with Intel for as long as Intel is supplying chips that meet Apple's expectations and can do so at reasonable prices. But Apple also wants to hedge its bets in case Intel folds at some point or they're not keeping up with the pace of development that Apple would like to see. Having the ability to run OS X on ARM may very well just be a safety measure in that vein.

Re:Why?

[jedidiah]

> For the tasks most people want a computer for (or think they want a computer for) an ARM-based solution could work just as well as an x86 based one.

No, not really. Not at all. This isn't apparent with things like the iPad because it's a tightly controlled and heavily curated experience. You don't realize you're running on a throwback from the 90s because you aren't allowed to do anything that might make that obvious.

Thinking you can depend on multiple cores has it's own problems and inherent engineering challenges even if you assume that all Mac software has already been modified to accommodate this (which isn't even true).

Re:Why?

[TellarHK]

Let's see, what do most users do with computers? Browse the web, read and reply to email, shop, manage photos and maybe videos if they've got kids, and maybe do some light office and bookkeeping work.

Okay, tell me how the iPad isn't enough for that.

Yes, it's a controlled and curated experience. But Apple has sold more of those controlled, curated, locked down experiences in just the last 4 years than they have ever sold in Macintosh computers. Don't forget that you are not the market Apple is aiming for. You're the market that WISHES Apple was aiming for it, because if they were, then we'd see some pretty astounding products on the shelf. Instead, we get products priced to move by the tens of millions to the people who don't know RAM from storage space. And they are _selling_.

Re:Why?

[farble1670]

You can get 64 quad-core A9s for less power than a single Intel. 256 cores at over 1GHz will be much more processing power than the Intel solution.

sure, if you have a compute job that perfectly parallelizes across 256 cores ... such a job doesn't exist in end user computing. the average PC struggles to find a way to use 4 cores let alone 256.

Dear Apple

[Jailbrekr]

The only reason why I have a Mac Mini is because you are running a modified version of UNIX. This pleases me. But be forewarned: If your future plans include replacing BSD UNIX with your shitass iOS, I am so fucking gone. Your shitty phones are already on my do not buy list, and I have no qualms with dumping your PCs.

Cryptographic lockout

[tepples]

Linux works fine on ARM.

Not on a device whose bootloader cryptographically prevents you from installing it.

Re:Cryptographic lockout

[Hatta]

That assumes that there are machines with unlocked bootloaders available. That may not always be the case. If Microsoft decides to apply the same terms to Windows on x86 that it is on ARM, that would pretty much destroy the market for general purpose computers. You'll probably be able to get one, but at a higher price, and you won't be able to run Windows on it.

That's the optimistic scenario. The pessimistic scenario is that once the general public doesn't need general purpose computers, they'll be classified as hacking tools and prohibited for anyone who isn't licensed. Sort of the way that lock pick tools are illegal for those without a locksmithing license.

Re:Cryptographic lockout

[Hatta]

It would destroy Microsoft's position on the market for general purpose computers.

Microsoft doesn't care about general purpose computers, they care about windows boxes.

Wow, you must live in some fucked up country.

It varies from state to state. In some states, mere possession of lockpicks is considered evidence of intent to burglarize .

I'll bet Apple is exploring all kinds of stuff

[SirGarlon]

According to Ars Technica, Apple's R&D budget is 3.4 BILLION dollars (3.4x10^9). That's enough money to "explore" all kinds of crazy stuff. Just because they're spending money looking into something, doesn't make it part of their business plan.

Re:Hey Apple,

[Bryansix]

Seriously. Like we need another set of hardware stuck on some unsupported version of OS X.

Re:64-way, on 1-die

[h4rr4r]

Even that probably would not be enough to win if floating point performance was needed.

You would also be a huge disadvantage for anything that is difficult or plain impossible to to parralelize.

Re:One Day?

[Dunbal]

Where you see a walled garden, I see a prison.

Re:64-way, on 1-die

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

Remember numeric co-processors?

That's now why you have a GPU.

Float away, baby.

Taking a break from all your worries

[Thud457]

Where you see a walled garden, I see a prison.

Where you see a prison, I see an zombie-proof enclave.

Re:Taking a break from all your worries

[Belial6]

Where you see a zombie-proof enclave, I see a prison that is only 1 bi(y)te away from being overrun.

Re:Efficiency Performance

[Type44Q]

Nothing to write home about, either.

All Mac developers writing for multi-core now

[SuperKendall]

OS X applications are still single threaded, like 99% of all applications. You ever tried writing code for multi-core? Thought not.

Between GCD and blocks and various graphics frameworks, any modern Mac (or iOS) developer has been writing for multiple cores for years now. It's just that most of the tricky work is hidden away.

Developers? What OS X developers!?

Well first of all there are the 500k+ iOS developers, who run on Macs. And then there are hordes of Ruby/UNIX/Java developers, who often use Macs to develop on.

Perhaps you just meant "what developers are writing apps for OS X". I guess someone is, since there are thousands of apps on the OS X App Store now...

Re:All Mac developers writing for multi-core now

[SuperKendall]

The vast majority of Ruby, Unix and Java developers work on non-Apple hardware

All I can say is, you go to no technical conferences and you have obviously never met a Ruby developer.

Ruby Mac use is so pervasive in fact, that the Ruby guys built extensions to program mac (and iOS) apps in Ruby...

Unix developers in particular have almost completely abandoned Mac because Apple have made it too difficult to get Linux running on there.

On the other hand most UNIX users have moved to the Mac because they do not NEED to get Linux running on it. You already have a solid UNIX base, it's not like Cygwin or some other faux substitute.

Good luck with those delusions, which match not at all with easily observable fact or laptop sales figures (which is what most developers use these days, not that you would no that either).

Re:64-way, on 1-die

[Belial6]

Agreed. That leaves the question... Is the market for software/computers that need x86 big enough that it makes sense for Apple to worry about it?

Re:Hey Apple,

[OrangeTide]

Sounds like a win-win for Apple. They don't have to pay for Intel, and all their users are forced to upgrade to new hardware. And all the OSX software vendors get to sell new versions of their software for the new platform.

Re:Now that people are trained not to "compute"...

[timeOday]

Or as stated by Jeff Bezos (founder and CEO of amazon.com): "People want services, not gadgets."

Frankly I think Richard Stallman looks more and more like a prophet every year. (And I doubt Jesus or Moses' personal hygene was especially good, either).