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Apple Developing Custom ARM-Based Mac Chip That Would Lessen Intel Role (bloomberg.com)
According to Bloomberg, Apple is designing a new chip for future Mac laptops that would take on more of the functionality currently handled by Intel processors. The chip is a variant of the T1 SoC Apple used in the latest MacBook Pro to power the keyboard's Touch Bar feature. The updated part, internally codenamed T310, is built using ARM technology and would reportedly handle some of the computer's low-power mode functionality. From the report: The development of a more advanced Apple-designed chipset for use within Mac laptops is another step in the company's long-term exploration of becoming independent of Intel for its Mac processors. Apple has used its own A-Series processors inside iPhones and iPads since 2010, and its chip business has become one of the Cupertino, California-based company's most critical long-term investments. Apple engineers are planning to offload the Mac's low-power mode, a feature marketed as "Power Nap," to the next-generation ARM-based chip. This function allows Mac laptops to retrieve e-mails, install software updates, and synchronize calendar appointments with the display shut and not in use. The feature currently uses little battery life while run on the Intel chip, but the move to ARM would conserve even more power, according to one of the people. The current ARM-based chip for Macs is independent from the computer's other components, focusing on the Touch Bar's functionality itself. The new version in development would go further by connecting to other parts of a Mac's system, including storage and wireless components, in order to take on the additional responsibilities. Given that a low-power mode already exists, Apple may choose to not highlight the advancement, much like it has not marketed the significance of its current Mac chip, one of the people said. Building its own chips allows Apple to more tightly integrate its hardware and software functions. It also, crucially, allows it more of a say in the cost of components for its devices. However, Apple has no near-term plans to completely abandon Intel chips for use in its laptops and desktops, the people said.
Wouldn't that be funny. Imagine a world where Apple buys Intel and then for whatever reason tells Intel to stop supplying other PC makers.
READY.
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ARM has only been doing 64-bit out-of-order execution and branch prediction for two generations, the first of which (A57) seemingly had worse IPC than Intel's Netburst architecture. They may catch up one day but for now they are no closer to besting Intel than Transmeta was back in the days of Crusoe. Let's just hope their revenue stream lasts long enough for that to happen.
What really blew my mind was reading that Apple's biggest desktop customer is now IBM. That should tell you something when big blue is distancing themselves from Microsoft.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Posting as AC for a damned good reason.
Apple already has several ARM powered laptops drifting around internally. I've seen several of them with my own eyes. There's at least five different prototypes, all constructed in plastic cases with varying degrees of complexity (some are literally just a clear acrylic box, others look more like 3D printed or milled parts designed to look like a chunky MBA or iBook). There's a few that literally recycled the chassis and case from an MBA, just with a different logic board (which was coloured red for some reason), and others sporting a radically different design than anything Apple currently sells (not going anywhere near the details on those because of NDA).
All of them boot encrypted and signed OS images, which are fully recoverable over the internet so long as you've got WiFi access (similar to how their Intel powered systems do it). You cannot chose a version of the OS to load, you get whatever the latest greatest one is and that's it. They've completely ported OS X to ARM (including all of Cocoa and Aqua), however a ton of utilities that normally come with OS X are missing (there's no Disk Utility, Terminal, ColorSync, Grapher, X11, Audio/MIDI setup, etc). A lot of that functionality has been merged into a new app called "Settings" (presumably to match the iOS counterpart), which takes the place of System Preferences.
Likewise, App Store distribution appeared to be mandatory. I didn't see any mention of Gatekeeper or any way to side load (unsigned) binaries, presumably because Gatekeeper is simply part of the system now. The systems I saw could all access an internal version of the MAS that was specifically designed for the ARM systems (and under heavy WIP, judging by the broken page formatting and placeholder elements). The filesystem seemed a bit... peculiar, to say the least. Everything was stored in the root of the disk drive- that is to say, the OS didn't support multiple users at all, and everything that you'd normally see in your home directory was presented as / instead. I don't think the physical filesystem was actually laid out like this, it's just that the Finder and everything else had been modified to make you believe that's the way the computer worked. There was no /Applications folder anymore, your only option for launching and deleting apps was through Launchpad. Drivers (now called "System Extensions") were handled 100% automatically by the OS. If you plugged anything into the computer that it didn't support, it would automatically launch the MAS and take you to a page where you could download and install the relevant stuff. Those things would show up in Settings.app where you could manage them by way of customized preference panels or uninstall them completely. The rest of it more or less looked like a modern day version of 10.12 without some of the historical features accumulated over the years (for example, Dashboard was nowhere to be found).
From what I was told, there's a huge push to get this stuff out the door as soon as they think the market will accept it. That might be in a year, or two years, or three or four, but that's where Apple is inevitably heading. Custom hardware, custom software, total vendor and user lock in. They want to own everything, everywhere, at all times, and ARM is going to let them do exactly that. They're not stupid though and they're not going to commit suicide by releasing this stuff tomorrow, but they will sometime in the future. I guess in that regard the summary is correct- they don't have any "near term" plans to abandon Apple, but they've sure as shit got some long term ones, and I'm assuming Intel knows about it since a lot of the chips on the transparent prototypes had Intel marketings on them.
While I honestly would like to see more of these comparisons (and the A9X IS a beast, esp. re. IPC and Perf/W) - could everyone please stop using Geekbench scores for cross-arch comparisons, especially 3 or older.
The codepaths and compilation flags are wildly arbitrary and the author has shown time and again his lack of understanding of cross-platform benchmark caveats and pitfalls. Especially GB3 has been shown as useless for that regard, among others by Linus Torvalds himself no less. (just look up his forum conversations on RWT with the author)
What really blew my mind was reading that Apple's biggest desktop customer is now IBM.
And according to this 3 year old article it was Google before them: "Google staff now can use Windows PCs only with a business case making the company the world’s biggest Apple shop with 43,000 devices."
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
IBM, the company that has invested more in Java and Linux than almost any other company, is distancing itself from Microsoft? Tell me more!
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