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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."
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).
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.
... It certainly isn't impossible. People already look at iPads and iPhones as "devices" and not what they really are underneath all that glass and aluminum. Just smaller, simpler "computers". I'd say it's a safe bet that 99% of the Slashdot readership at one point had a computer that looks positively ancient compared to last year's iPhone models, but most people simply don't understand the magnitude of what's been accomplished in technology over the last 30 years.
Now that people look at iDevices and their non-Apple kin as devices, it just takes some time to convince them that the idea of a "computer" really isn't what they ever wanted. They've always wanted devices, and with OSX and now Windows drawing more and more from the closed ecosystem models they spawned off for the mobile realm, people will eventually come around.
I give it around two years before Apple comes out with a new line of ARM-based Macbook Airs, though that could change depending on how effectively Intel and AMD (really, just Intel) stave off the situation by getting lower powered x86 options into the marketplace.
My own pointless vanity vintage computing page
From the Wikipedia article on iOS: "iOS is derived from OS X, with which it shares the Darwin foundation, and is therefore a Unix operating system." So a change from Mac OS X to iOS would not shake the UNIX-ness of the operating system. What you seem to fear is the system being locked down, but that could be done with Mac OS X as it is, if Apple so wished.
Then you also get alternative/thin boot of iOS.
That or Apple will follow Microsoft's lead with Windows RT's lack of sideloading and use the transition to ARM ISA as a chance to remove the option to run software that's not signed with an Apple Developer ID. This means Apple would get to charge owners of ARM Macs $99 per year to rent the ability to run Xcode or any other compiler on their own hardware, just as Apple presently does with iOS.
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.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
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.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Where you see a walled garden, I see a prison.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Remember numeric co-processors?
That's now why you have a GPU.
Float away, baby.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Nothing to write home about, either.
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.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Where you see a zombie-proof enclave, I see a prison that is only 1 bi(y)te away from being overrun.
Not if there is a rogue prisoner opening gates.
This is right.
It's more than just about creating social and legal controls over a technology that threatens traditional power structures, though personal computing has done that - just look at how social networking has supported political revolts across the world. Governments and their business patrons fear this power shift.
So, how have they responded?
The western national economies have transformed their income streams from production to rent collection, which has been ongoing since the 1970s. This has devalued all forms of manufacturing, where raw materials are converted to useful things through work, thus devaluing those who perform labor in the process. It's not automation that has destroyed manufacturing in the United States. In fact, that claim is ridiculous on its face, since - by definition - automation increases productivity which presumably should lead to long term industry success.
No, instead, free capital flows shifted productive work overseas where for cheap labor - sometimes slave labor - was available. This is called 'globalism'. But we should view the term a misnomer, due to the disparity between how easy it is to transfer capital across national boundaries versus how labor is locked into the nation state by borders and immigration law. It's not 'global free trade', it's arbitrage. This has happened not just in lock-step with deregulating the financial industry - Wall Street - at the expense of labor, but also because of it. For the power shift from government to the financial sector has had the effect of diminishing the political power of citizens - and especially labor - in the process. Because it's pretty damn hard for the poor to exercise real political power. That transformation benefitted both power bases in government and the financial sector.
But how does all this relate to computing lock-down and DRM?
It's the model for how to understand vendor lock-down in computing. For open computing platforms decentralize power by freeing people to use computing in ways never intended by the vendor (or government). This used to be called innovation. Back in the 1970s, every personal computer was open. The Apple II shipped with a manual that included schematics. Bus specifications were open. Computers booted to BASIC, a programming language by default. Now, not everyone wants to program and computing shouldn't be viewed strictly from that mindset. But, consider what happened to the minicomputing market as a result. Digital, for example, went bankrupt trying to maintain their vendor lock-in due to competition from open systems - primarily the IBM-PC and its clones we still use today. Because people like freedom, even when they don't directly use that freedom to tinker and create themselves.
So, I'm arguing that in the same vein that the financial industry gained protected privileges (deregulation) which gave it market advantage over labor, so too are titans of the software and tech industry, IBM, Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, etc have bent law and regulation to their benefit, at the expense of small competitors and even their own customers. Like 'deregulation' for Wall Street, the tech industry has it's own legal maneuver, this time through copyrights, patents, and trademarks, all of which are a form of government regulated monopoly protection.
And all this in the Orwellian name of 'freedom'. In the financial industry, they called it 'free trade'. In the tech industry it's, 'freedom to innovate'. But in both cases the freedom isn't to decentralized down to small business or citizens, it's centralized up toward the largest market players. It's a freedom to engage in monopoly control over markets, whether the labor market, the tech market, or any other market where players are big enough to buy protection from legislators and the court system. Protection, not from other big industry players - by and large - but protection from small competitors who might innovate their way into market dominance, and protection from custome
Reminds me of this story...
A couple went on vacation to a resort up north. The husband liked to fish, and the wife liked to read. One morning the husband came back from fishing after getting up real early that morning and took a nap.
While he slept, the wife decided to take the boat out. She was not familiar with the lake, so she rowed out and anchored the boat, and started reading her book.
Along comes the Game Warden in his boat, pulls up alongside the woman's boat and asks her what she's doing? She says, "Reading my book."
The Game Warden tells her she is in a restricted fishing area and she explains that she's not fishing. To which he replied, "But you have all this equipment. I will have to take you in and write you up!"
Angry that the warden was being so unreasonable, the lady told the warden, "If you do that, I will charge you with rape."
The warden, shocked by her statement, replied, "But I didn't even touch you."
To which the lady replied, "Yes, but you have all the equipment!"