Apple To Develop Its Own GPU, UK Chip Designer Imagination Reveals In 'Bombshell' PR (anandtech.com)

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Apple To Develop Its Own GPU, UK Chip Designer Imagination Reveals In 'Bombshell' PR (anandtech.com)

Posted by msmash on Monday April 3, 2017 @02:00AM from the cutting-reliance dept.

From a report on AnandTech: In a bombshell of a press release issued this morning, Imagination has announced that Apple has informed their long-time GPU partner that they will be winding down their use of Imagination's IP. Specifically, Apple expects that they will no longer be using Imagination's IP in 15 to 24 months. Furthermore the GPU design that replaces Imagination's designs will be, according to Imagination, "a separate, independent graphics design." In other words, Apple is developing their own GPU, and when that is ready, they will be dropping Imagination's GPU designs entirely. This alone would be big news, however the story doesn't stop there. As Apple's long-time GPU partner and the provider for the basis of all of Apple's SoCs going back to the very first iPhone, Imagination is also making a case to investors (and the public) that while Apple may be dropping Imagination's GPU designs for a custom design, that Apple can't develop a new GPU in isolation -- that any GPU developed by the company would still infringe on some of Imagination's IP. As a result the company is continuing to sit down with Apple and discuss alternative licensing arrangements, with the intent of defending their IP rights.

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They were going to buy them... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

Because they couldn't get around the patents they had. They must have figured out another way to do things if they're just cutting them loose.
Poor guys, the stock was down 63% this morning.
1. Re:They were going to buy them... by DickBreath · 2017-04-03 03:10 · Score: 0, Offtopic
  
  Apple could get Imagination's stock to drop even further if they can get Trump to tweet something about failing Imagination. Terrible. Sad.
  
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2. Re: They were going to buy them... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:13 · Score: 0
  
  However, doing so would be illegal in most jurisdictions.
3. Re:They were going to buy them... by msauve · 2017-04-03 03:38 · Score: 2
  
  "Apple can't develop a new GPU in isolation -- that any GPU developed by the company would still infringe on some of Imagination's IP. "
  
  Why is that the case? I don't see AMD, Intel, or nVidia among their licensees, and they make GPUs. Maybe they have a patent for "GPU, but on an Apple product."
  
  And it looks like Imagination's first GPU (by the name PowerVR) came out in 1996. So it seems that the foundational patents would be expired by now.
  
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4. Re:They were going to buy them... by slew · 2017-04-03 03:57 · Score: 2
  
  Because they couldn't get around the patents they had. They must have figured out another way to do things if they're just cutting them loose.
  Poor guys, the stock was down 63% this morning.
  Probably gonna get worse for Imagination. About the only reason they were selling anything to SoC folks is that they could point and say, Apple uses our GPUs and that's why we are going to stay in business (used to be Apple and Intel). Now, not so much, and ARM/Mali is probably gonna come in and eat their lunch. Imagination isn't gonna be much better than Vivante after this.
  FWIW, Vivante isn't in much better shape than Imagination, their main customer is Freescale, which was bought by NXP which was recently bought by Qualcomm who many moond ago had bought ATI's mobile GPU for use in their Snapdragon chips (which is likely in most of the non-samsung android phones that aren't sold in china).
  And then there were fewer...
5. Re:They were going to buy them... by Registered+Coward+v2 · 2017-04-03 04:08 · Score: 1
  
  My thoughts exactly. Because Apple represents the lion share of the company profits, it makes sense for Apple to say they are building out their own GPU, watch the stock drop, then be in a position to better buy out position.
  I doubt that would work, even if it were true. As soon as word got out about talks the price would recover and the sale is a negotiation, not merely buying all the stock on the market. Imagination wold negotiate a fair price if Apple decided it needed to buy it for the IP. The IP might also be worth licensing to other Imagination customers as well, or as one more set of patents to potentially beat someone with if they decide to sue Apple. If Apple is deciding not to use their IP they may be going in a completely different direction with their GPU. That is one advantage of a closed system - they can control driver development and hardware to make everything work, in theory at least.
  
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6. Re:They were going to buy them... by TheRaven64 · 2017-04-03 04:45 · Score: 1
  
  I suspect that most relevant patents are in the mobile space. PowerVR was the first GPU to use a tile-based model and mobile GPUs use later iterations of that technology - I'd be very surprised if they didn't have patents later than 1996 on something that they've been actively working on for so long. ARM isn't on that list, but I think Mali has enough similarities to the PowerVR designs that they've almost certainly got a cross-licensing deal with them. They may well do with nVidia as well - there were a bunch of lawsuits with 3dfx and both companies that I think ended up with cross-licensing deals. That list is probably only of the licensees that are paying them money.
  
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7. Re:They were going to buy them... by Anubis+IV · 2017-04-03 04:49 · Score: 1
  
  Poor guys, the stock was down 63% this morning.
  Things are likely to get a lot more grim in the near future.
  The article mentions that Apple's licensing payments account for 69% of Imagination's annual revenue (Imagination even referred to Apple as an "Essential Contract" in its filings). As is to be expected, that amount is larger than the entirety of their profits, meaning that the loss of Apple immediately plunges them into the red. It looks like they'll have 1.5-2 years to figure out how to reduce their R&D costs or increase the payments they receive, but that's not much time.
  Of course, Apple isn't Imagination's sole licensee, so Apple may view this as a means to put all of Imagination's other licensees--Apple's competitors--on their back foot, thus giving them a competitive advantage. If they're one of the only few with the staff on hand today to continue the necessary R&D work, in a few years' time they may be one of the few putting out improved designs, with everyone else relying on outdated or subpar tech. Or else maybe someone else will step in to fill Imagination's shoes. Time will tell.
8. Re:They were going to buy them... by Aighearach · 2017-04-03 05:59 · Score: 1
  
  Because they were designing custom stuff for Apple, where Apple didn't own the customized stuff they were buying. That makes it hard for Apple to cut them loose and replace those parts with their own. They would have be building something significantly different for themselves than the thing they're replacing.
  When you buy a GPU from AMD or Intel, you're just buying a pre-made design. Of course you can't copy it, but you don't need to. You're just buying it. But now you ask to have a custom feature added, and you build a bunch of software and OS stuff on top of that feature, well it isn't your feature. Trying to build it yourself is like trying to hire Intel to make a chip with AMD's tech; not allowed.
  The big problem for Apple here is how exposed they are to Imagination's proprietary tech because of having used it for so long.
9. Re:They were going to buy them... by Aighearach · 2017-04-03 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  Surely some percentage of their expenditures are also related to fulfilling their obligations to Apple and their costs go down too ;) No reason at all to presume they'll be in the red, they might just be a lot smaller.
  Also, the R&D wouldn't still be getting spent right up to the day Apple stops buying the manufactured chips, that would be silly. The R&D costs would be scaling down right away, while the profit from existing Apple sales would continue for 18-24 months. We not only don't know they'll go in the red, we don't even know that their profit margin will go down! It might go up, especially in the worst case scenario where they can't replace the orders. If they crash and burn or just end up smaller than they are now depends on the quality of their management, something probably not visible at this stage from outside.
10. Re:They were going to buy them... by mspohr · 2017-04-03 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  Patents are a minefield. They are written broadly to cover as much as possible. It's hard for a new company to enter the field without getting sued by those that own the patents. Not sure what Apple's strategy here is but I doubt they can avoid paying royalties to someone for GPU patents. Maybe they think they can bluff their way into the market.
  
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11. Re: They were going to buy them... by davester666 · 2017-04-03 07:00 · Score: 2
  
  It's not a leak. It sounds like something they are required to disclose, as it materially affects the company's value (hence, the immediate dumping of stock).
  
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12. Re:They were going to buy them... by davester666 · 2017-04-03 07:03 · Score: 1
  
  Yes, because Apple has historically been run by complete morons. Apple is chock full of 1) really smart people and 2) lawyers with IP experience. They know exactly what it means to make their own GPU and the risks of being sued by Imagination and/or pretty much every other GPU manufacturer [everybody will go for jumping on the "I want a cut of Apple's revenue cuz of my wonderous GPU IP" bandwagon]...
  
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13. Re:They were going to buy them... by Anubis+IV · 2017-04-03 07:12 · Score: 1
  
  Saying "immediately in the red" was a poor choice of words on my part. What I meant to convey was that, as things are today and when taken by itself, the loss of Apple would be sufficient to put them into the red. You're quite right that that the loss isn't set to happen immediately and that they are likely to make adjustments in the meantime. Even so, what I was getting at is that I don't know that it will allow them to remain relevant.
  
  Surely some percentage of their expenditures are also related to fulfilling their obligations to Apple and their costs go down too
  As the article points out, their costs are almost entirely fixed R&D costs (i.e. they don't do any sort of work that revolves around per-unit costs), meaning that the gain or loss of any particular licensee does not affect their costs in any meaningful way. Typically that's a good thing, since any new licensee is pure profit, but in this case that's a bad thing, since they don't have any obvious costs to cut. They weren't specifically doing any design work for Apple before (Apple has been using in-house teams for that), so Imagination's costs post-Apple will be nearly identical to those before. As such, any cuts must come at the expense of their ability to produce technology for their other licensees.
  It's possible (and likely) that they will slash their R&D budget, but this comes at a bad time for them. Imagination just announced their new Furian architecture a month or two ago. It's still in development, and their roadmap for it was built on the assumption that they'd be able to maintain their current level of spending on its R&D. Slashing their R&D budget now likely won't impact the launch of Furian too much, since it's pretty well locked down, but it leaves them in a poor state for picking off the low-hanging fruit that they otherwise would have easily gotten to post-launch. As such, the efficiency and performance gains we'd expect to see over the next few years will likely be significantly smaller and less frequent.
  As you said, they may be able to (and I'd wager will) stay in business, but I question their ability to remain relevant in this same space after the loss of Apple. They may need to focus on a much smaller niche if they want to stay in business, but that may cause Apple's competitors to scramble for alternatives if their needs aren't being served by Imagination's change in focus.
14. Re:They were going to buy them... by 91degrees · 2017-04-03 07:28 · Score: 1
  
  You can use a lot of the PowerVR tiling stuff, certainly. And the technology to make a modern GPU is going to be in a pool of licensable IP.
  
  Still, PowerVR might conceivably have some useful power saving technologies that the others simply don't care about on account of not requiring absolute minimal power levels. This is entirely speculation of course.
15. Re:They were going to buy them... by Wootery · 2017-04-03 08:04 · Score: 1
  
  None of that means they aren't screwed.
16. Re:They were going to buy them... by Aighearach · 2017-04-04 09:28 · Score: 1
  
  Golly, they know what they're doing, so that guantees success and forecloses analysis! Wowsers, Batman!
  Nobody is ever wrong, nothing is ever contested, and everybody always wins. Why? Because their lawyers had experience. Duh.
  roflcopter
  Also, Apple never lost a court case, right?
  Maybe instead we should just assume that everybody on slashdot knows that Apple spends a lot of money on lawyers, and sometimes they break the law and get in trouble. For example, price fixing in e-books. Other times they get away with it. Often, they settle cases and leave us to infer for ourselves what did or didn't happen.
  You may find that when people express ideas that are different than you expect, that they just looked at a different aspect of the situation than you did. There is no guarantee that everybody with a different focus or conclusion is a moron.
Develop? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:01 · Score: -1

Develop? More like infringe on all of Samsung's parents to create a GPU.
1. Re:Develop? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 04:58 · Score: 0
  
  Develop? More like infringe on all of Samsung's parents to create a GPU.
  Why the down-vote? AC is right: Apple will violate every single one of the zero GPU related patents Samsung owns.
2. Re:Develop? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 05:09 · Score: 1
  
  Which GPU patents are those? You do realize that Samsung, just like Apple, licenses their mobile GPUs from others for their mobile chips right? In fact in their Exynos CPUs they've used PowerVR (the same line Apple uses) and Mail (from ARM). For some of their mobile products they don't use their own processors: Samsung uses Snapdragon processors which is 100% Qualcomm IP.
  
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3. Re:Develop? by Aighearach · 2017-04-03 06:04 · Score: 1
  
  First rule of karma whoring: never ask about the downvotes.
4. Re:Develop? by Aighearach · 2017-04-03 06:07 · Score: 1
  
  Samsung uses Snapdragon processors which is 100% Qualcomm IP.
  Which is why Samsung can't just say, "Golly Qualcomm, go away we're not going to pay you anymore. We're going to build our own!"
  If it turns out compatible, they'll have a hard time claiming they didn't copy it when they even used to license it!
  That is the danger is the first place when you have somebody develop tech to sell to you, instead of developing it yourself. They then own the implementations you're used to using for the features you thought of!
  Ultimately, Apple probably figures they'll get a better price at settlement of the suit than at the negotiation.
5. Re:Develop? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 06:43 · Score: 1
  
  Which is why Samsung can't just say, "Golly Qualcomm, go away we're not going to pay you anymore. We're going to build our own!"
  And how much experience has Samsung had with that? None. In their own Exynos chip, they have only designed the core for Exynos 8 and Exynos 9. Prior models used ARM standard cores.
  The issue isn't just desire. Samsung doesn't have the experience or the personnel at this point to do it. They barely have the personnel to do it for CPUs much less any IP entanglements that might occur.
  
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6. Re:Develop? by Aighearach · 2017-04-04 09:23 · Score: 1
  
  And how much experience has Samsung had with that? None. In their own Exynos chip, they have only designed the core for Exynos 8 and Exynos 9. Prior models used ARM standard cores.
  So in your story, Samsung doesn't have experience with chip design because after using other people's designs for a long time, they designed their own, and then the next model they again designed their own. So, you're admitting that you know that they do in fact have experience at doing the thing you claim they are too inexperienced to do.
  I'm not going to provide any other analysis of what you said, because you simply contradict yourself in a way that shows you don't even understand what you said. So of course it is unlikely that you even understood what I said.
7. Re:Develop? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-04 16:13 · Score: 1
  
  So in your story, Samsung doesn't have experience with chip design because after using other people's designs for a long time, they designed their own, and then the next model they again designed their own. So, you're admitting that you know that they do in fact have experience at doing the thing you claim they are too inexperienced to do.
  Um no. Samsung has only been doing their own architecture ARM CPU work only for the last two version of Exynos. Previously they only used standard ARM cores. My assertion is they have ZERO experience with GPU designs. None. They have yet to design a single GPU even in Exynos because they still use other GPUs from other manufacturers.
  
  I'm not going to provide any other analysis of what you said, because you simply contradict yourself in a way that shows you don't even understand what you said. So of course it is unlikely that you even understood what I said.
  I'm going to let you research the history of Samsung design and how a GPU is not a CPU.
  
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Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by damn_registrars · 2017-04-03 02:04 · Score: 2

The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.

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1. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:09 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  There would be no point in telling their supplier of mobile GPU's "oh hey, we're about to drop you" if they were developing a desktop GPU.
2. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheRaven64 · 2017-04-03 02:09 · Score: 2
  
  The one doesn't preclude the other. There are a few things that mobile GPUs do to favour compute over off-chip data transfer because it saves power, but generally phone, tablet, and laptop GPUs are not that different other than in the number of pipelines that they support. That said, the numbers aren't really there for the larger parts. The iPhone and iPad between them make a sufficiently large chunk of the high-end mobile market that it's worth developing a chip that's used solely by them. The Mac lines are a sufficiently small part of their overall markets that it's difficult to compete with the economies of scale of companies like AMD and nVidia.
  
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3. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by DontBeAMoran · 2017-04-03 02:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  It's not like Apple really cares about Macs anymore. The last Mac mini update in 2014 was even a downgrade from their 2012 models. The Mac mini slide from the Keynote even implied that SSD was standard, but it's not. Still using 5400 RPM HDDs in their overpriced 2017 computers. Shame on you, Apple.
  
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4. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by AHuxley · 2017-04-03 02:30 · Score: 2
  
  Its not the desktop PC issue. Apple has the surrounding hardware, OS, cpu, the developers, a way to pay developers for their software. The GPU is the last part that still has outside considerations. Control over the OS, developer tools, battery usage, resolution and the CPU tasks can allow for an interesting new internal GPU concept.
  
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5. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Freischutz · 2017-04-03 02:39 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.
  Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Apple is not normally in the business of competing in the chip and components market. Apple designs its own motherboards but it does not market them to third parties and it would surprise me if they did any more with an in-house GPU design than use it in their own devices. If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI, limiting its use to their own line of devices would help them sell those devices which fits their business model. If there is anything to hope for in this context it's mostly for Apple users who can hope that this will improve Apple devices as a gaming platform and that maybe one of the next couple of iterations of Apple TV will be a truly worth while gaming console (not holding my breath though).
  
  Now, please give a cheer for the long line of local slashdot commenters eager to explain to us why Apple is the source of all evil and how this is a part of Apple's nefarious plan to achieve world domination.
6. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:15 · Score: 0
  
  Given that we are talking about phones, why not develop a GPU that is an add-on core for the A11 or whatever CPUs they develop? As it is, they have to use very compact packaging technologies, such as SoC, PoP, et al
7. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:20 · Score: 0
  
  The best thing that Apple could do would be to migrate the Mac line a third time to their A series: that way, they can just leverage the iPhone/iPad/iPod inventory in making those.
8. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:26 · Score: 0
  
  Apple isn't the source of all evil. It's just a company that has slid down to the state where they make shiny consumer gadgets. They are getting big and bloated and mediocre.
9. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by jisom · 2017-04-03 03:33 · Score: 1
  
  I would be surprised, with this announcement, that the A11 doesn't include this new GPU. For them to drop the current GPU tech as they currently sell iPhones, they would have to totally stop making chips with that tech. 18 to 24 months would be iPhone "8" and iPhone "8S" for 2 generations as they have been doing. With a possible purchase of Toshiba's nand business, that would leave the modems, currently supplied by Qualcomm and Intel, and the display tech. Pretty much every other part is designed by Apple, including the nand controllers, now.
10. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Baloroth · 2017-04-03 03:59 · Score: 1
  
  There are a few things that mobile GPUs do to favour compute over off-chip data transfer because it saves power, but generally phone, tablet, and laptop GPUs are not that different other than in the number of pipelines that they support.
  
  Well, aside from a massive difference in performance level and feature support. There's a reason Intel (despite actually making integrated desktop GPUs) doesn't try to compete with nVidia or AMD for the discrete market: modern desktop GPUs are very nearly as complicated as modern CPUs (in terms of transistor count, actually vastly more so, by a factor of 10-20 or so).
  
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11. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Solandri · 2017-04-03 04:00 · Score: 2
  
  If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI
  This is almost certainly aimed at improving improving the GPU in their iOS devices. Desktop (and laptop) GPUs are still an order of magnitude faster than GPUs in mobile devices (and consume an order of magnitude more power). I seriously doubt Apple would be able to leapfrog Nvidia and AMD in GPUs. (Except maybe power efficiency - problem being almost everyone else already beats them at power efficiency. That's why you rarely see Nvidia Terga SoCs in mobile devices outside of dedicated gaming handhelds like the Nvidia Shield and Nintendo Switch.)
  
  This isn't like the A6 SoC Apple designed - where everyone else was licensing and using the same ARM v7 design for their SoCs, and all Apple had to do was tweak it to make the A6 perform better than other ARM SoCs. There's no standard modern GPU hardware architecture for them to license - they'd have to start from scratch.
  
  Also, they've been neglecting their Mac line for years now. Many Macs aren't getting serious refreshes for 2-3 years, while competitors refresh every year. When I bought my current laptop with an Nvidia 970m, the top-end Macbook Pro still only had a Nvidia 750m as an option (and was still priced $500 higher for it). The Macbooks are temperature constrained because their designer-centric "form over function" mentality prevents them from cutting ventilation holes into the bottom of the chassis, severely limiting the power of the GPU they can put in.
12. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by MSG · 2017-04-03 04:38 · Score: 1
  
  MacRumors' buyers guide rates everything but the MacBook Pro as "Don't buy" right now...
  https://buyersguide.macrumors....
13. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 04:40 · Score: 1
  
  It would be but I don't see it happening before mobile. Apple has spent most the last decade designing their mobile CPUs not their desktop ones. I'm sure Apple is always working on whether they could switch their laptops or desktops to their CPUs but the main priority would be mobile first.
  
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14. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 04:44 · Score: 0
  
  There's a reason Intel (despite actually making integrated desktop GPUs) doesn't try to compete with nVidia or AMD for the discrete market
  Well, Intel did try in the past and failed miserably.
  Google "Intel i740".
15. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 04:50 · Score: 1
  
  Given that we are talking about phones, why not develop a GPU that is an add-on core for the A11 or whatever CPUs they develop?
  If I understand your question, you want to know why a GPU isn't an add-on for phones? The first reason would be efficiency and performance. By being on same SoC, communication between GPU and CPU is magnitudes faster than if they were not on the same chip.
  
  As it is, they have to use very compact packaging technologies, such as SoC, PoP, et al
  First of all you don't lose SoC or PoP whether or not a GPU is separated from the CPU. The mobile SoC still needs that technology for cache, memory, and other controllers.
  Second, in order to use an add-on, you have to increase the complexity of manufacture. In the case of say an add-on module there are interconnect technologies, busses, protocols, etc. between the GPU and the CPU. In the desktop/laptop world here is how CPU - GPU layers: CPU <--> Northbridge/Southbridge <--> PCI-e <--> GPU motherboard <--> GPU. It doesn't make things more efficient; it makes it less efficient for the sake of modularity.
  
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16. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Freischutz · 2017-04-03 04:53 · Score: 1
  
  If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI
  This is almost certainly aimed at improving improving the GPU in their iOS devices. Desktop (and laptop) GPUs are still an order of magnitude faster than GPUs in mobile devices (and consume an order of magnitude more power). I seriously doubt Apple would be able to leapfrog Nvidia and AMD in GPUs. (Except maybe power efficiency - problem being almost everyone else already beats them at power efficiency. That's why you rarely see Nvidia Terga SoCs in mobile devices outside of dedicated gaming handhelds like the Nvidia Shield and Nintendo Switch.).
  True but you don't chop down a couple of giant redwoods like NVIDIA and ATI in a single swing, you do it one blow of your axe at a time. If Apple really was out to compete with NVIDIA and ATI, or more accurately stated was out to make itself self sufficient in terms of GPU chips for it's entire product line, I would expect them to start small and go on from there. It's what they did with the iPhone and iPod, they started with a couple of devices who into the bargain were widely lambasted by industry pundits for having limited functionality and that they were missing basic features like copy/paste. Apple then grew those devices into entire product lines. It always seemed to me that the Apple TV had the potential to be grown into a half way decent gaming platform and if it ever is I won't complain about the sewn up cliques of GPU makers on the one hand and Console manufacturers on the other having a small fire lit under their ass by a new competitor. Oh, and don't forget this is all part of Apple's nefarious plan to achieve world domination and enslave humanity.
17. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 04:55 · Score: 0
  
  Because they didn't update Mac Mini means they don't care about Macs? They just released a new Macbook Pro.
18. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 05:14 · Score: 0
  
  That's pretty much where I'm at. Replaced the DVD drive with another SSD, upgraded the memory, and replaced the battery on a years-old MacBook Pro. The new ones just aren't worth the inflated cost and decreased features (ports).
  Here's hoping they get their head out of the clouds (or wherever it is) and return to sanity, or I'll be switching to ... I'm not sure. Some brand that is actually half decent but doesn't expect both arms and legs to pay for less.
19. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 05:22 · Score: 0
  
  Thank you for providing a voice of intelligence and reason.
  There is exactly a zero probability that Apple will leapfrog Intel, AMD, or NVIDIA in the GPU department. They have an in house inferior GPU design or they will license someone else's technology. Which is really what OP is saying above.
  This is Apple circling the drain.
20. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 05:58 · Score: 1
  
  The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.
  That's Phase II of the Project...
  Then it's the Axx CPU/SoC that can run x86...
21. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:01 · Score: 1
  
  The one doesn't preclude the other. There are a few things that mobile GPUs do to favour compute over off-chip data transfer because it saves power, but generally phone, tablet, and laptop GPUs are not that different other than in the number of pipelines that they support. That said, the numbers aren't really there for the larger parts. The iPhone and iPad between them make a sufficiently large chunk of the high-end mobile market that it's worth developing a chip that's used solely by them. The Mac lines are a sufficiently small part of their overall markets that it's difficult to compete with the economies of scale of companies like AMD and nVidia.
  You haven't looked at Intel, nVidia and AMD's prices lately, have you?
  Apple can put a fair amount of R&D $$$ into walking-away from those guys, AND get the ability to move their capabilities at a pace that isn't controlled (hampered) by them, too.
  Both of those things are VERY enticing to Apple, I assure you.
22. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:06 · Score: 1
  
  MacRumors' buyers guide rates everything but the MacBook Pro as "Don't buy" right now...
  https://buyersguide.macrumors....
  Yeah, because everyone who's in the know about Apple realizes that a desktop upgrade is imminent. Even I recommended to someone not to upgrade their aging iMac (2007, still going strong, but the display is getting a bit dim), but rather buy an external monitor for it and wait for the next models. So, $250 and he has a nice Dell display that has the same resolution as his 24" iMac, and will eventually serve as the replacement display for his wife's mini, who's display has developed a brightness-difference between the left and right sides.
23. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:10 · Score: 1
  
  There are a few things that mobile GPUs do to favour compute over off-chip data transfer because it saves power, but generally phone, tablet, and laptop GPUs are not that different other than in the number of pipelines that they support.
  Well, aside from a massive difference in performance level and feature support. There's a reason Intel (despite actually making integrated desktop GPUs) doesn't try to compete with nVidia or AMD for the discrete market: modern desktop GPUs are very nearly as complicated as modern CPUs (in terms of transistor count, actually vastly more so, by a factor of 10-20 or so).
  Modern GPUs are nowhere near as complex as a modern CPU.
  They have high transistor counts; but they are generally made up of fairly simple computational units. Just LOTS of them.
24. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:14 · Score: 1
  
  Its not the desktop PC issue. Apple has the surrounding hardware, OS, cpu, the developers, a way to pay developers for their software. The GPU is the last part that still has outside considerations. Control over the OS, developer tools, battery usage, resolution and the CPU tasks can allow for an interesting new internal GPU concept.
  I think that Apple is getting REALLY tired of having their "roadmap" at the mercy of others, and with the new R&D facilities opening up, is going to go on a quite a push to bring all the key silicon designs "in house".
  Then then only thing left is fabrication, in which Apple seems totally disinterested. But if they continue to have BEEELIONS burning a hole in their pocket (which it looks like they will), that will eventually come, too...
25. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:18 · Score: 1
  
  The summary seems to suggest that but the title is vague. It would arguably be an even bigger bombshell if they were developing a GPU to compete with NVIDIA and ATI on the desktop market.
  Let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Apple is not normally in the business of competing in the chip and components market. Apple designs its own motherboards but it does not market them to third parties and it would surprise me if they did any more with an in-house GPU design than use it in their own devices. If this design turns out to be superior to what you can get from NVIDIA and ATI, limiting its use to their own line of devices would help them sell those devices which fits their business model. If there is anything to hope for in this context it's mostly for Apple users who can hope that this will improve Apple devices as a gaming platform and that maybe one of the next couple of iterations of Apple TV will be a truly worth while gaming console (not holding my breath though).
  Now, please give a cheer for the long line of local slashdot commenters eager to explain to us why Apple is the source of all evil and how this is a part of Apple's nefarious plan to achieve world domination.
  I think you are spot-on that Apple has no intentions on selling any GPU, CPU or SoC designs or components outside of Apple.
  They have been designing custom silicon since the Apple ][ days (some of it which would have been GREAT in the embedded world), and custom ARM designs since at least the Newton's time; and yet NEVER have they sold designs or components outside of their own company.
26. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:24 · Score: 1
  
  Mediocre: Like their laptop that has:
  1. The fastest SSD on the market.
  2. The most I/O bandwidth on the market.
  3. A Thermal design that can go full-tilt all-day-long without thermal throttling of the CPU nor GPU, and which the case temperature never rises above 40 c (skin temp. is about 35 c)\
  4. The ability to drive FOUR 4k or TWO 5k External Displays (no one else's laptop can do that, either).
  Yeah. Mediocre.
27. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by DontBeAMoran · 2017-04-03 06:32 · Score: 1
  
  As others have pointed out, check out this page.
  And they didn't simply "not update the Mac mini" they actually went out of their way to downgrade the machine. A slow 1.4GHz on the low-end model? Soldered RAM so you're forced to pay Apple's RAM prices at the moment of purchase for future-proofing your machine?
  I'm guessing Tim Cook really believes his "iPad is better than a laptop" nonsense. All the profits in the world means nothing if they can't make decent Macs anymore. Some of us need computers to work, not toys.
  
  --
  #DeleteFacebook
28. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 06:45 · Score: 2
  
  This isn't like the A6 SoC Apple designed - where everyone else was licensing and using the same ARM v7 design for their SoCs, and all Apple had to do was tweak it to make the A6 perform better than other ARM SoCs. There's no standard modern GPU hardware architecture for them to license - they'd have to start from scratch.
  You do realize, of course, that Apple has an "Architecture"-class license from ARM, meaning they can, and DO, "roll their own" ARM-instruction-set-compatible CPUs. They don't just "tweak" or rearrange the deck-chairs, they actually have their own ARM designs, reflecting the fact that they have more ARM experience than almost anyone else on the planet.
  
  Also, they've been neglecting their Mac line for years now. Many Macs aren't getting serious refreshes for 2-3 years, while competitors refresh every year.
  
  Unlike most other laptop mfgs., Apple doesn't just throw together "this year's chipset", and call it a "New Design". They refresh stuff when it will actually result in a better-performing product, like with the latest MacBook Pro.
  
  The Macbooks are temperature constrained because their designer-centric "form over function" mentality prevents them from cutting ventilation holes into the bottom of the chassis, severely limiting the power of the GPU they can put in.
  You're full of shit.
  The latest MacBook Pro can cruise along all-day at full-tilt CPU + GPU without thermal throttling at all. And the GPU choice was made not because of power consumption; but because there was no nVidia GPU that could drive as many displays as the AMD ones they used.
  Please try to keep up.
29. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Khyber · 2017-04-03 08:49 · Score: 1
  
  1. Fastest SSD on market - not even close. I've got PCI-E SSDs a year old that are faster than anything in any Apple hardware, period.
  2. The most I/O bandwidth on market - not in their gimped as fuck GPUs
  3. Thermal design - yea, doesn't go anywhere. I've got a stress-test program that ignores all the safety stuff and does a real stress test, no matter the machine. Every Apple product burns up.
  4. Uhh, my Sager notebook has dual GPUs. I can drive EIGHT 4K displays without issue, at the same cost as your shitty craptop.
  Mediocre, beyond belief.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
30. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by thegarbz · 2017-04-03 08:59 · Score: 1
  
  The big bombshell would be that Apple had any interest at all in the desktop market.
31. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 13:19 · Score: 0
  
  As others have pointed out, check out this page.
  Well, the time since the last update is always the longest right before the next update.
32. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Hadlock · 2017-04-03 13:25 · Score: 1
  
  That may have been true for the first two weeks after launch. And then the market caught up. It's just a fancy winter laptop running a weirdo unixy OS, at the end of the day
  
  --
  moox. for a new generation.
33. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 14:13 · Score: 0
  
  Yup. Mediocre.
  1. 4x PCIE M.2 is generally available
  2. TB3 is generally available
  3. yes, by lowering the max clockspeed
  4. from an intel integrated gpu? caveats abound.. thunderbolt dedicated video? ditto. Those tb video adapters are pretty terrible.
34. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 15:35 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  1. Fastest SSD on market - not even close. I've got PCI-E SSDs a year old that are faster than anything in any Apple hardware, period.
  2. The most I/O bandwidth on market - not in their gimped as fuck GPUs
  3. Thermal design - yea, doesn't go anywhere. I've got a stress-test program that ignores all the safety stuff and does a real stress test, no matter the machine. Every Apple product burns up.
  4. Uhh, my Sager notebook has dual GPUs. I can drive EIGHT 4K displays without issue, at the same cost as your shitty craptop.
  Mediocre, beyond belief.
  1. Fastest SSD. Not my benchmark; but, BTW, where's yours?
  2. Most I/O b/w. Four TB 3 ports say 80 Gbps of raw I/O. Sorry.. Dem's da facts.
  3. Sorry, the new MBP DOESN'T even GET to the thermal limits. According to multiple reviews, Both the CPU and GPU run flat-out 100% duty cycle 24/7. They really did fix it. Try again, Slashtard.
  4. Dual GPUs. And at nearly THIRTEEN POUNDS, (nevermind the power bricks you have to lug around!) that Sager is more properly classified as a "luggable", than a laptop. You can't rest that thing on your lap for more than five minutes without your legs going numb! But that's ok, since you won't be venturing far from an AC outlet for long...
35. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-03 15:36 · Score: 1
  
  That may have been true for the first two weeks after launch. And then the market caught up. It's just a fancy winter laptop running a weirdo unixy OS, at the end of the day
  Sounds like sour grapes to me.
36. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 20:49 · Score: 0
  
  "3.1Gbps" with small b. If I were to trust 9to5mac, MBP's SSD perf would be an order of magnitude below competition. Good thing I don't.
37. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Blaskowicz · 2017-04-04 05:42 · Score: 1
  
  The Northbridge and PCIe for GPU are integrated in all desktop/laptops CPUs now (save for AM3+ FX 6000 and 8000 series that you still can buy)
  Of course this doesn't change much at all. PCIe bandwith and latency and joule per bit on PCIe still are the same.
  What would work better is an MCM, CPU and GPU are packaged close together and use custom or semi-custom interface. It does exist, that's AMD's upcoming Opteron that includes on the same package : two Ryzen dies, one Vega 2048 SP / 32 CU die, HBM2 memory for the GPU die. I'm sure it will be awesome but it will work great at 180 watts or 250 watts, not 1.8 watt or 2.5 watts.
  There's also Haswell or later at lowest wattage : on a single package, a CPU (with GPU and shit integrated) and a chipset are connected, closely and low powery. The "MacBook" (thing with only one USB port) and Surface Pro can use that. But it's a bit similar to a phone using a "do everything" SoC and a radio/modem chip on the side.
  All of that to support your conclusion but theoretically, a large Ipad / Ipad Pro can use a discrete GPU, though still very unlikely.
  Can optic communication between two chips reduce the power? That would be one way to make it more possible, although likely again some expensive thing for $1000 and up tablets or other small mobile computers.
  Ultra fast external communications are power hungry in general, what's telling is 4K 60Hz and up may require real time compression even between a device's chip and the device's display panel (there's a VESA standard for this) and 10 gigabit RJ45 ethernet failed just because of this.
38. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-04 10:02 · Score: 1
  
  The point about the Northbridge/Southbridge was to point out to the poster that making the GPU an add-on module introduces multiple layers between the CPU and GPU that it does not currently have. This means that efficiency is being traded for modularity.
  
  There's also Haswell or later at lowest wattage : on a single package, a CPU (with GPU and shit integrated) and a chipset are connected, closely and low powery. The "MacBook" (thing with only one USB port) and Surface Pro can use that. But it's a bit similar to a phone using a "do everything" SoC and a radio/modem chip on the side.
  From what I gather that's not what the poster wants. He/she wants the ability to add-on GPUs which is not on the same SoC. This idea comes from teh modular phone concept where you can upgrade the camera, GPU, CPU, etc. like Google's Project Ara which is a cool concept but has never been turned into a product.
  
  Can optic communication between two chips reduce the power? That would be one way to make it more possible, although likely again some expensive thing for $1000 and up tablets or other small mobile computers.
  Power isn't the only consideration. Like I said before adding multiple layers between GPU and CPU means it is less efficient when it comes to speed. It also introduces multiple points of failure. Using fiber optics does not reduce the complexity but shifts it by requiring an optical/electronic converter at two different points.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
39. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Khyber · 2017-04-04 16:33 · Score: 1
  
  "1. Fastest SSD. Not my benchmark [9to5mac.com]; but, BTW, where's yours?"
  http://i.imgur.com/wZ0cjjt.png - you dare compare a laptop to anything I have and it will stomp the shit out of your CRAPPLE any day.
  And there's still room for expansion in that configuration, too.
  "80 Gbps of raw I/O"
  Dude, I have THAT MANY LANES OF PCI-E 3.0 per motherboard (of which there are 4 in that config.)
  "Sorry, the new MBP DOESN'T even GET to the thermal limits. According to multiple reviews [notebookcheck.net], Both the CPU and GPU run flat-out 100% duty cycle 24/7. They really did fix it. Try again, Slashtard."
  As I look at three brand-fucking new ones, dead from overheating/deballing of the SoC, which I'm being paid to repair. Try again, oh ye who has no Apple repair certification.
  Most of that weight is battery, and modern GPUs barely use all that much power, so much that nVidia dropped any distinction between desktop and mobile - all nvidia mobile GPUs are desktop-GPUs now, since you've had your head in the sand for about five months or so.
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
40. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Blaskowicz · 2017-04-05 02:41 · Score: 1
  
  (thanks, that's interesting)
  Even on chip buses are as fast as they need to be, or often too slow (typically, two packs of four CPU cores have a slowish networking between them and aren't to be used arbitrarily as an eight core CPU)
  You can have a state of the art interconnect between CPU and GPU and memory etc. on a high end chip, sure.
  CPU and GPU might be able to share memory addresses, function like AMD's heterogeneous computing promises to do (or does already, just not used very much). Not only AMD, the HSA foundation has the usual mobile CPU/GPU/SoC suspects. Possibly Apple would aim for such abilities in developing a SoC with Apple CPU and Apple GPU, and I wonder if you were thinking of something like that. If so, there will eventually be an announcement of Apple joining the HSA foundation.
  But whether Apple joins in or not, this might be very interesting technically speaking.. But we'll need software that uses it.
  If Apple does make such an integrated CPU + GPU combo, it would need e.g. some powerful video editor for iPad Pro and iPad to show off the abilities, or some other example.
  I originally wanted to point out the "modular" external GPU is available in just one product, Microsoft Surfacebook with the keyboard dock that includes battery and GPU (so, Intel CPU + GPU combo in the main unit, and low power nvidia in the keyboard dock).
  So I see no overarching reason why Apple can't do the same with Apple CPU + GPU in an iPad, and Apple GPU in a powered dock. You can even run some code that likes lower latency on the internal GPU, and some code ok with high latency on the external GPU. Just saying it's technically possible, not that they would bother with such a contraption - they'll probably want to sell you a Mac instead, not the equivalent of a "Sega 32x" or sidecar expansion for the iPad/iPad Pro/iPhone plus.
41. Re:Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-05 05:29 · Score: 1
  
  External GPU is something that laptops and even mobile devices might benefit from in the future. Thunderbolt 2 can do that but not many eGPU products have not been created yet. Razer Core is one of the few that have. Unfortunately it only works with Razer laptops and not a generic solution.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
42. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by TheFakeTimCook · 2017-04-05 08:02 · Score: 1
  
  "1. Fastest SSD. Not my benchmark [9to5mac.com]; but, BTW, where's yours?"
  http://i.imgur.com/wZ0cjjt.png - you dare compare a laptop to anything I have and it will stomp the shit out of your CRAPPLE any day.
  And there's still room for expansion in that configuration, too.
  Hardly a fair comparison; since that is NOT a laptop, and costs as much as a cheap house! A Cray can outperform any Dell, too; but what's the point? You're just grandstanding. NO Laptop, not even a Sager, has that much crap in it. It simply wouldn't fit. Try again. And if you claim that really IS in your Sager, then I want the model number.
  
  "80 Gbps of raw I/O"
  Dude, I have THAT MANY LANES OF PCI-E 3.0 per motherboard (of which there are 4 in that config.)
  Again, what's your point? You're comparing a LAPTOP to some sort of monstrosity that dims the lights when you power it on! FFS!!!
  
  "Sorry, the new MBP DOESN'T even GET to the thermal limits. According to multiple reviews [notebookcheck.net], Both the CPU and GPU run flat-out 100% duty cycle 24/7. They really did fix it. Try again, Slashtard."
  As I look at three brand-fucking new ones, dead from overheating/deballing of the SoC, which I'm being paid to repair. Try again, oh ye who has no Apple repair certification.
  Now I KNOW you're lying! What "SoC" would you be talking about in a MacBook Pro? The TouchBar controller? And why would YOU be working on a has-to-be-under-warranty 2016 MBP? These days, Apple wouldn't pay Depot Repair for an under-warranty unit. It would go straight back to Apple. They have all-but killed-off "Certified Repair" centers for Apple stuff.
  And I may not have an Apple Repair Cert.; but I have certainly done my time on electronic repair benches, before I got a better job.
  
  Most of that weight is battery, and modern GPUs barely use all that much power, so much that nVidia dropped any distinction between desktop and mobile - all nvidia mobile GPUs are desktop-GPUs now, since you've had your head in the sand for about five months or so.
  Who cares what the weight is from. It's still a LUGGABLE.
43. Re: Develop a MOBILE GPU, yes? by Khyber · 2017-04-07 15:50 · Score: 1
  
  "A Cray can outperform any Dell, too; but what's the point?"
  Actually, if you bothered to look, no, it cannot. You are obviously living in old times, here. There's a reason Cray moved to x86 (and a good reason why they're losing right now.)
  "Again, what's your point? You're comparing a LAPTOP to some sort of monstrosity that dims the lights when you power it on! FFS!!!"
  You mactards think your shit is better than EVERYTHING, especially since you claim shit like fastest SSD on the market which is bullshit when we've got built-in PCI-E x16 SSDs that blow the shit out of your CRAPPLE hardware any day. Try again child.
  "Now I KNOW you're lying! What "SoC" would you be talking about in a MacBook Pro?"
  You obviously don't understand that almost everything nowdays is SoC, minus top-end CPU hardware (which Apple is not.) Why do you think there's such a thing as integrated graphics, you fucking tool?
  "And why would YOU be working on a has-to-be-under-warranty 2016 MBP?"
  Because people that know me understand that I know semiconductors better than almost every Apple engineer. That's why *I* am fixing the product that CRAPPLE "Engineers" 'make.'
  "And I may not have an Apple Repair Cert.; but I have certainly done my time on electronic repair benches, before I got a better job."
  If you found a better job outside of electronics, you were obviously shit at the first job inside of electronics.
  "Who cares what the weight is from. It's still a LUGGABLE."
  Funny you'd say that given that CRAPPLE products are EXACTLY THAT - mostly battery in weight/mass.
  You fucking shill, come back when you actually WORKED for Apple (via Flextronics.)
  
  --
  Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Eliminate Moderation by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:08 · Score: -1

Moderation is a form of censorship. It allows moderators to hide posts from view, reducing their visibility. It is a form of censorship. All censorship is evil and must be opposed. Moderation must be eliminated. All moderators should he permanently banned.
1. Re:Eliminate Moderation by DickBreath · 2017-04-03 02:13 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Don't complain. Who watches the watchers?
  
  Moderate the moderators! Yes, there is actually a way to do this. Someone could invent this thing. Call it meta-moderation. And patent it! With rounded corners! It would be the best! Trust me! It would go over bigly! I promise!
  
  I can't tolerate intolerant people! I am totally intolerant of intolerant people!
  
  There are no absolutes! Absolutely no absolutes! And that rule is absolute!
  
  --
  
  I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
2. Re:Eliminate Moderation by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:14 · Score: 0
  
  "All censorship is evil and must be opposed"
  No, that's not always true.
  "All moderators should he permanently banned"
  Ban yourself to a place with no censorhip
3. Re:Eliminate Moderation by Archangel+Michael · 2017-04-03 02:49 · Score: 1
  
  Actually the thing that should be banned are ACs, like the GP post.
  
  --
  Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
4. Re:Eliminate Moderation by NatasRevol · 2017-04-03 04:58 · Score: 1
  
  Not a whole lot of logic to that one. See: The Federalist Papers
  
  --
  There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
5. Re:Eliminate Moderation by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 15:19 · Score: 0
  
  Ah no. Hiding the truth is not the way to go.
Apple designing a GPU? by Z80a · 2017-04-03 02:15 · Score: 1, Funny

I bet it will work with quadrangles, because triangles aren't "magical", and will work only with 10bit depth textures.
1. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:33 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, they're bringing back the Sega Saturn's architecture that was a lot more like 2D sprites warped and transformed to look 3D than triangle meshes.
2. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by Z80a · 2017-04-03 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  Sega saturn does not exist,nor does the 3DO. Apple is the first company in the whole world to use quadrangles!
3. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by DickBreath · 2017-04-03 03:17 · Score: 2
  
  The unique patent worthy novelty of an Apple GPU is that it could work with . . .
  
  Rounded Corner Rectangles
  
  And it would have the other magical incantation that makes things patent worthy . . .
  
  On an iPhone!
  
  --
  
  I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
4. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by _merlin · 2017-04-03 03:19 · Score: 1
  
  I know you're joking, but Apple's early 3D APIs RAVE and QuickDraw 3D were based on quads, and some early 3D hardware like Nvidia NV1 and Sega Model 1 rendered quads natively.
5. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by skids · 2017-04-03 03:29 · Score: 1
  
  It'll have special technology that detects when an application is trying to draw window
  borders itself, and change them to the Apple look and feel.
  Or maybe they will just dicontinue blue. Nobody wants blue anyway.
  
  --
  Someone had to do it.
6. Re:Apple designing a GPU? by zlives · 2017-04-03 05:08 · Score: 1
  
  beat me to it. one big caveat is though... if you hold it wrong it renders everything in text only.
EU called, Apple! You are on NOTICE! by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:16 · Score: 0

They want their money, Apple! OR ELSE!
Get in line Imagination, because you'll need some to get anything!
Has to be for mobile GPU by myowntrueself · 2017-04-03 02:18 · Score: 1, Interesting

So far Apple haven't given a crap about graphics performance. You don't have to be an anti-fanboi to see this, even Apple fanbois admit that the GPU in existing Apple kit, especially the so called 'pro' series, is lacking and the fanboi will say that this is because Apple users have better things to do with their time than play games.
Suddenly Apple cares enough to develop their own GPU? Are they hoping that game developers are going to start targeting the Apple user market which, for so long now, has been mostly disinterested in gaming? Are they hoping to win back the 3d graphics professionals that they've been neglecting all these long years?
The only direction this could be headed is mobile GPU.
Desktop graphics is a totally lost cause for Apple. No game studio is going to develop games for a platform whose users are basically disinterested in desktop gaming; because if someone were interested in desktop gaming they would have bought a PC not a Mac.

--
In the free world the media isn't government run; the government is media run.
1. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:34 · Score: 0
  
  Wow, nice analysis there.. This is absolutely about mobile GPUs since that's what Imagination does, and that's what Apple uses them for. It's also a segment where Apple together with Imagination completely dominates.
2. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:50 · Score: 0
  
  It would be fun to have Apple vs AMD and NVidia.
  Imagine... Apple would release something equivalent to a GTX 1070 and price it like a Titan X. The fanboys would buy it anyway because Apple GPU would produce "better" "retina pixels"! :D
3. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by itsdapead · 2017-04-03 02:51 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Suddenly Apple cares enough to develop their own GPU?
  Newsflash 1: Apple have been using their own A-series systems-on-a-chip (including CPU and GPU) in iPhone/iPad/Watch & AppleTV for a few years now. They license IP from various companies (ARM, Imagination and others) and have taken over a few chip designers to achieve this.
  Newsflash 2: Apple owns one of the leading gaming platforms on the market: it's called the iPhone.
  Apple has drunk deeply of the kool-aid that says that everybody is going to be using phones and tablets for all their computing needs in the next few years.
  Macs, meanwhile, are mostly running on Intel integrated graphics or unspectacular AMD mobile graphics chips. Tim Cook recently stood up and re-iterated how important the Mac line is to Apple - and anybody who understands political talk will know that means exactly the opposite of what it says.
  
  --
  In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
4. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by bill_mcgonigle · 2017-04-03 02:55 · Score: 2
  
  If you're going to replace the Mac with an iOS "Mac Mode" and drive a KVM you're going to need a very efficient GPU and a decent patent portfolio.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
5. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:03 · Score: 0
  
  a platform whose users are basically disinterested in desktop gaming
  That user base once existed, but Apple has shunned them. I used to have Macs, but when money was short I went with a Hackintosh. Still, I kept waiting for something to entice me back. Anything that would be a clear upgrade and justify their premium. But it never happened, so eventually I shrugged and moved on. Apple used to make good machines for regular users, but now they make fancy desktops with laptop-grade parts. It's not worth it. Nothing from Apple is worth it. Even if you love macOS, come on. You could probably build a crazy gaming rig that would beat the best Mac Pro, for the price of the cheapest iMac.
6. Re: Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:30 · Score: 0
  
  They completely dominate, even though rhey only maje tablets with dull lcd displays?
  The dazzling leader in mobile graphics is Samsung with their OLED Galaxy Tab S line.
7. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 08:16 · Score: 0
  
  Tim Cook recently stood up and re-iterated how important the Mac line is to Apple -
  well no duh, how else is one supposed to develop an IOS app?
8. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 09:53 · Score: 0
  
  hahahaha - iPhone? A gaming platform? I laugh. Little games hardly amount to a real gaming platform.
9. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by godrik · 2017-04-03 10:59 · Score: 1
  
  My guess is that the current provider was trying to milk Apple for licensing their GPUs and Apple looked at it and said "we probably can design something as good, let's cut them out".
10. Re:Has to be for mobile GPU by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 21:01 · Score: 0
  
  Real gaming? Is that what true scotsmen do?
We will build a garden ... by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2017-04-03 02:20 · Score: 1, Interesting

Then a wall around that garden.
We will make the wall taller and insurmountable
We will grow more stuff inside and import less and less.
By the time the inmates realize the walled garden is a prison, it would be too late. All other gardens would have been starved and withered and desolate.
Then, ... profit?
I remember another company trying to corner the desktop market for themselves.
Actually one can back all the way to Morgan trying to corner the silver market.
Well, free market and invisible hand all that will find some solution. But the people rewarded by the free markets would not be the ones hurt by the walled garden.

--
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
1. Re:We will build a garden ... by bill_mcgonigle · 2017-04-03 02:36 · Score: 1
  
  They'll make the Windows users pay for it too.
  
  --
  My God, it's Full of Source!
  OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
2. Re:We will build a garden ... by DickBreath · 2017-04-03 03:27 · Score: 1
  
  Just be sure these new GPUs run on clean coal. Help put the coal miners back to work. Make Apple Great Again!
  
  --
  
  I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
3. Re:We will build a garden ... by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:32 · Score: 0, Insightful
  
  Pessimist much?
  Look, the walled garden phrase is old & overused. Plus it does not apply in this case.
  So a company wants to design in-house and stop outsourcing. This is very normal & reduces reliance on sub-contractors. Problem?
  It's just like you have learned to cook for yourself. Now should we scold you for not eating out every night of the week?
  Oh those poor restaurant staff & business owners will be put out, since you decided to eat at home(!).
  Walled garden is a great phrase, but not applicable in this case. You're just apocalyptic & a nay-sayer is all...
Back to the 1980's by AHuxley · 2017-04-03 02:22 · Score: 1

When every brand had their own GPU ideas, CPU ideas and music chip support.
A tight new GPU design could see the kind of advancements some of the most creative game designers made with gpu support in the 1980's
Real freedom to be creative on one platform again. Not having to worry about the port, Windows, other devices.
A better in house GPU to keep developers happy. Been less tempted by easy porting and more productive on one OS.
The users then have to buy a hardware product range to play the must have game.

--
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
1. Re: Back to the 1980's by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:38 · Score: 0
  
  You'll still see ports. They'll just vary widely in quality and usability. Compare e.g. the same title on NES, SNES, SMS, Genesis, TurboGrafx-16, FM Towns, C64, Amiga, Atari 800, Atari ST, PC, and Apple IIGS.
2. Re: Back to the 1980's by AHuxley · 2017-04-03 02:43 · Score: 1
  
  But the music and graphics support was often a bit different :)
  
  --
  Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Mobile GPUs, not desktop GPUs by Henriok · 2017-04-03 02:37 · Score: 1

For you who this isn't completely obvious: This is entirely about mobile GPUs. This has nothing about Apple trying to dominate AMD or Nvidia in the desktop space.

--

- Henrik

- when the Shadows descend -
1. Re:Mobile GPUs, not desktop GPUs by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 21:14 · Score: 0
  
  Their long term plan is to take advantage of a market disruption where mobile devices take over desktops. They aren't even the only ones with that vision. Of course they aren't going to "dominate" over something they see as obsolete.
  I hope they fail though. I prefer keeping my general purpose computer instead of it being replaced with a walled garden toaster.
Apple is tired to suck at graphics by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 02:44 · Score: 0

Well, I can understand Apple concern and interest to use something else.
Adrenos GPUs on Android midrange phones already beat iPhone7's GPUs, and the gap is even wider on the hi-end.
1. Re:Apple is tired to suck at graphics by ledow · 2017-04-03 03:21 · Score: 2
  
  You'd think, then, if this was indeed the issue and they were unable to compete, they'd use some of the HUMONGOUS profit margin they make on the iPhones and iPads and buy the same (or similar) chips?
  It's got nothing to do with "competing", so much as "owning".
2. Re:Apple is tired to suck at graphics by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 06:47 · Score: 1
  
  Rather I think the OP has narrow definitions of "beats". For some people it's about one or two specs that one thing "beats" another. I can guarantee that Apple has never used the mobile GPU that puts out the most pixels at the fastest clock speed. Apple has used mobile GPUs that balance numerous factors like power and efficiency.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re:Apple is tired to suck at graphics by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 07:35 · Score: 0
  
  Pfff... Yeah, because only Apple know how to do this magic and precious power balance. All other phones can't possibly last a full day having all that extra graphics power. Never!
  Fanbois will be fanbois alright.
4. Re:Apple is tired to suck at graphics by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 09:45 · Score: 1
  
  And some fanbois only concentrate on one or two things for "better". It would be a shame if the A10 processor beat out the Snapdragon 820 in multiple performance tests.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
5. Re: Apple is tired to suck at graphics by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 11:20 · Score: 0
  
  Hey, 820? Why compare with a more than a year old Soc?
  Compare it to the 835 then, moron and see a very diferent story. Anyway, se are talking about graphics fanboi. On a phone half the price of a iPhone 7.
  Butthurt much?
6. Re: Apple is tired to suck at graphics by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 17:59 · Score: 2
  
  Hey, 820? Why compare with a more than a year old Soc? Compare it to the 835 then, moron and see a very diferent story. Anyway, se are talking about graphics fanboi. On a phone half the price of a iPhone 7.
  You really are a fanboi arent you? The 835 has not been released yet. Therefore it is rather impossible for someone December 2016 to do a head to head comparison. And when someone compares apples to apples comparison of two processors which you can get today and that destroys your assertion, your first instinct it to get defensive.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
7. Re: Apple is tired to suck at graphics by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 23:14 · Score: 0
  
  Read the news and check you facts. The 835 is on the market. The already released S8 uses it in some countries, so you can buy phones using the SoC right now.
  Anyway, back to the original discussion: iPhone7 graphics are lacking and there's nothing you can do to change it... you, like a good FANBOI tried to justify with some power efficiency bullshit... which is totally bogus since other SoCs manage it very well.
  I'm sorry your overpriced hardware isn't perfect like you'd like it to be. Don't be mad at me for it! Stop worshiping the brand, please.
8. Re: Apple is tired to suck at graphics by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-04 04:16 · Score: 1
  
  Read the news and check you facts. The 835 is on the market. The already released S8 uses it in some countries, so you can buy phones using the SoC right now.
  You can pre-order the S8 in some markets. That doesn't mean you can get one today. Certainly in the US, the release date is April 21, 2017. Again it's somewhat impossible for someone in December 2016 to do comparison of two phones where one isn't released until months later.
  Also according to you, then you are comparing a year-old processor (A10) vs a new processor (Snapdragon 835). How fair is that comparison? Or do always intend your comparisons to be unfair and dishonest.
  
  Anyway, back to the original discussion: iPhone7 graphics are lacking and there's nothing you can do to change it... you, like a good FANBOI tried to justify with some power efficiency bullshit... which is totally bogus since other SoCs manage it very well.
  So many strawman arguments. First I never said NO OTHER manufacturer manages their SoCs. I said that Apple has to balance their graphics performance with efficiency for THEIR phone. Like most of Apple's history, they may not use the most robust GPU but opt for a more balanced approach when it comes to overall performance and efficiency. In fact I even said above.
  That's why in some tests, an iPhone will beat out another phone. In some tests, the iPhone will lose. For most consumers, they really don't care. Most modern smart phones suit their needs for the most part whether it's a Samsung or an iPhone. Only Fanbois like you get butt hurt at the mention that something you think sucks, doesn't suck.
  
  I'm sorry your overpriced hardware isn't perfect like you'd like it to be. Don't be mad at me for it! Stop worshiping the brand, please.
  Samsung Galaxy S8 64GB US pricing (Verizon): $720 + tax
  iPhone 7 32GB US pricing: $649, 128GB $749
  Why must you lie so much? iPhone pricing is about the same as you'd pay for a Galaxy. Certainly you can buy cheaper Android phone but you can also buy more expensive ones.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Thank you Apple for going into nowhere by dimko · 2017-04-03 02:46 · Score: 1

It makes sense why they don't support Vulkan in light of that which is purely Apple decision. So whats gonna happen. They will introduce their own VR. Since VR is already on market and they are LATE to the party, somewhat. No one will want to invest into homogeneous enterprise. So they gonna try hard, and loose good chunk of fan base. Wellcome back to Windows our older more lazy users who ned to have shit done, welcome to Linux, those willing to learn.
1. Re:Thank you Apple for going into nowhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:46 · Score: 0
  
  The last two times Apple was 5 years late to a party they made the iPod and the iPhone, so I wouldn't count them out yet. Sucks though.
2. Re:Thank you Apple for going into nowhere by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 05:02 · Score: 1
  
  It makes sense why they don't support Vulkan in light of that which is purely Apple decision.
  From what I remember, Apple released Metal before Vulkan was announced as a spec. That was probably the main reason not to support it.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re: Thank you Apple for going into nowhere by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 05:11 · Score: 0
  
  True. Same ia true for DX12.
  But is it relevant?
4. Re: Thank you Apple for going into nowhere by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 05:21 · Score: 1
  
  Well considering that Vulkan has only been around little more than 1 year (February 2016) and the PowerVR drivers have available only since March 2016, the platform is very new.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Those that cannot innovate... by Gravis+Zero · 2017-04-03 02:50 · Score: 2

sue.

--
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
Comment removed by account_deleted · 2017-04-03 02:59 · Score: 1

Comment removed based on user account deletion
one more smack with the clue stick by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:06 · Score: 0

The only direction this could be headed is mobile GPU.
the rest of your post is ignorant garbage
what a loser by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:08 · Score: 0

tell us more about how the world came to a crashing end when ford and GM started making their own brakes and transmissions instead of buying them
1. Re:what a loser by 140Mandak262Jamuna · 2017-04-03 03:52 · Score: 1
  
  Have you looked at the price of nicely integrated GPS from any car maker? And the cost to update the latest version of the maps? For my 2006 Toyota Prius GPS DVD would cost me 200$ to get one year old version. It was like this before the radio/stereo s became standardized. Sky high price for crappy radios.
  Don't you think GM and Ford would simply love it, if SAE ceases to exist and they can make their engine incompatible with 10w-40 and make you buy proprietary oils from the dealer? Or tire rims become non-standard and you need to buy tires only from Toyota, not from NTB?
  The standard interchangeable components and consumables in cars are achieved after a long period of struggle stretching over many decades. Now that most of the population is immunized and polio is something they read about in history books, people become lassie-faire with vaccination.
  
  --
  sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
2. Re:what a loser by UnknowingFool · 2017-04-03 04:56 · Score: 1
  
  The standard interchangeable components and consumables in cars are achieved after a long period of struggle stretching over many decades. Now that most of the population is immunized and polio is something they read about in history books, people become lassie-faire with vaccination.
  Your assertion relies on the component being consumable. I don't think a GPU can be considered a consumable.
  
  --
  Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
3. Re: what a loser by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 05:18 · Score: 0
  
  I hope you realize there are laws that stop that practice. Car manufacturers have to allow 3rd party parts as well as service them and can't void the warranty because of said parts.
stupid, ignorant white boi by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 03:53 · Score: -1

Moderation is a form of censorship. It allows moderators to hide posts from view, reducing their visibility. It is a form of censorship. All censorship is evil and must be opposed. Moderation must be eliminated. All moderators should he permanently banned.
Does the stupid, ignorant, privileged white boi feel repressed?
Has the stupid, ignorant, privileged white boi been repeatedly moderated into oblivion?
The stupid white boi should read the god-damn FAQ, it won't fix the stupidity, but it will cure ignorance.
Take the moderation here as a lesson. /. is infested with Libertarians. Libertarians claim to be for freedom, but they're only concerned with their personal freedom, and are more than welcome to trample on other's freedom. Most of them are white males who just love sucking Ayn Rand's crank, while worshiping the likes of Ron and Rand Paul as they caress their firearms and bitching about how much their white-ass is being repressed.
Apple to replace Imagination's designs? by najajomo · 2017-04-03 04:05 · Score: 2

'Furthermore the GPU design that replaces Imagination's designs will be, according to Imagination, "a separate, independent graphics design."'

Imagination does not acknowledge Apples claims, it actual fact Imagination says the exact opposite.

"Apple has not presented any evidence to substantiate its assertion that it will no longer require Imagination’s technology, without violating Imagination’s patents, intellectual property and confidential information"

Apple were also one time in talks to acquire Imagination's technology outright.

"From time to time, Apple talks with companies about potential acquisitions. We had some discussions with Imagination, but we do not plan to make an offer for the company at this time." March 2016
1. Re:Apple to replace Imagination's designs? by sl3xd · 2017-04-04 09:14 · Score: 1
  
  There are other licensed GPU blocks (ARM's Mali comes to mind), along with mobile GPU's from NVIDIA that seem to work without Imagination's IP.
  That doesn't mean Apple is building their own GPU from scratch, any more than they build the CPU from scratch. For both the CPU and GPU, they licensed from external companies (ARM & Imagination). There's likely nothing stopping them from licensing the GPU from ARM, NVIDIA, or any other of Imagination's competitors.
  
  --
  -- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
How is this news? by LynnwoodRooster · 2017-04-03 04:11 · Score: 2

Apple's been advertising/looking for GPU verification engineers and IC process engineers on LinkedIn and other sites for months. If this was a "secret" it was one of the worst-kept secrets out there...

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Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
Quadrangles in action by goombah99 · 2017-04-03 04:22 · Score: 1

how does that work? TRiangles are gaurenteed to be planar (3 points determine a line) quadrangles are not necessarily planar. Doesn't that screw up a lot of the interpolation and shading and such?

--
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
1. Re:Quadrangles in action by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 04:59 · Score: 1
  
  An "advantage" of the quad approach was that they weren't planar: they could be warped into rounded shapes. But the texture on the quad would tend to look stretched and pixelated, because the quads were more like 2D sprites that were being transformed and warped. You couldn't wrap a texture around a mesh like you can with triangle meshes. Each quad was its own texture.
Patent age? by BigBuckHunter · 2017-04-03 04:38 · Score: 1

In TFA, It says:

Imagination has a significant number of GPU patents (they’ve been at this for over 20 years), so developing a GPU that doesn’t infringe on those patents would be difficult to do, especially in the mobile space. Apple couldn’t implement Imagination’s Tile Based Deferred Rendering technique, for example, which has been the heart and soul of their GPU designs.

Since patents only last for 20 years, and the first Tile based PVR was released in 1996...... Why couldn't Apple use Tile Based Deferred Rendering?
1. Re:Patent age? by zlives · 2017-04-03 05:16 · Score: 1
  
  probably because the newer patent is on "Tile Based Deferred Rendering" on mobile :)
2. Re:Patent age? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 05:16 · Score: 0
  
  In TFA, It says:
  
  Apple couldn’t implement Imagination’s Tile Based Deferred Rendering technique, for example, which has been the heart and soul of their GPU designs.
  
  And why on Earth Apple would want to implement it on their GPUs? Tile Rendering made a lot of sense when memory bandwidth was ridiculously narrow (the case 20 years ago). That's not the case anymore. Nowadays Apple would have the option to use HBM2 and that alone takes out almost all of the good reasons to use Tile Rendering.
3. Re:Patent age? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 09:05 · Score: 0
  
  Heh, you're hilariously out of date.
  Tile based rendering makes so much sense today that even the desktop chips are going that way. Both Maxwell and Pascal are tile based immediate renderers, while AMD's current generation is a tile based deferred renderer.
  EVERYONE wants to jump on tile based rendering since it matches the way that compute works much better. A tile mirrors a compute thread block, and you no longer need any magical special purpose hardware for compute vs rasterisation.
4. Re: Patent age? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 11:46 · Score: 0
  
  Hummm... If Tile Rendering is so "trendy and good" now it makes one wonder why Imagination always had so much trouble extracting viable performance out of it. Shouldn't they have at least a decade lead on everyone else?
5. Re: Patent age? by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 21:30 · Score: 0
  
  It's that "d" letter there in the acronym. PVR is more tiley than others.
  If you have low polygon counts and don't do things that throw off the PVR's pipeline like discarding pixels in shaders etc, it is actually the faster and more power-efficient way. But that's a big if: eg. with polygons smaller than a pixel the polygon metadata dominates over pixel bandwidth so the cure is worse than the disease.
Difficulty parsing the headline by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 04:44 · Score: -1

Dear msmash,
The moment I read the headline, I knew that you had written it. This is becuase the headline is difficult to parse, and you seem to be in the habit of writing difficult-to-parse headlines. The problem, of course, is that "Imagination" is being used as a proper name, but readers are likely to interpret it as a common noun, especially when it occurs before the word "reveals". The headline becomes much easlier to read if you just drop "Imagination" entirely:
Apple To Develop Its Own GPU, UK Chip Designer Reveals In 'Bombshell' PR
Incidentally, are you a millennial? I have noticed that the millennials seem to have difficulty understanding other peoples' points of view. In this case, you don't seem to have considered the fact that the word "Imagination" might confuse people who are unfamiliar with the name of the UK chip designer.
1. Re:Difficulty parsing the headline by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 06:03 · Score: 0
  
  Dear msmash,
  The moment I read the headline, I knew that you had written it. This is becuase the headline is difficult to parse, and you seem to be in the habit of writing difficult-to-parse headlines. The problem, of course, is that "Imagination" is being used as a proper name, but readers are likely to interpret it as a common noun, especially when it occurs before the word "reveals". The headline becomes much easlier to read if you just drop "Imagination" entirely:
  Apple To Develop Its Own GPU, UK Chip Designer Reveals In 'Bombshell' PR
  Incidentally, are you a millennial? I have noticed that the millennials seem to have difficulty understanding other peoples' points of view. In this case, you don't seem to have considered the fact that the word "Imagination" might confuse people who are unfamiliar with the name of the UK chip designer.
  Somebody modded this post -1, so I'm bringing it back up. The post contains constructive criticism, and it is difficult to learn from our mistakes if constructive criticism is suppressed.
2. Re:Difficulty parsing the headline by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 07:21 · Score: 0
  
  Yeah, people who mod ACs to -1 are kind of dicks in my book. Unless they're disgusting ACs.
  As if it's not hard enough getting visibility as an AC already...
3. Re:Difficulty parsing the headline by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 22:00 · Score: 0
  
  ITYM: "UK chip designer (that we don't bother to mention by name so that you need to click Click CLICK.. mm. moar clicks)"
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Scary by 2ms · 2017-04-03 06:47 · Score: 1

Let's just hope they don't do with GPU what they did in CPU. I'm going to be pissed if Apple GPUs are as dominant as their CPUs are.
1. Re:Scary by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 08:23 · Score: 0
  
  Let's just hope they don't do with GPU what they did in CPU. I'm going to be pissed if Apple GPUs are as dominant as their CPUs are.
  Yep. Hardcoded backdoors in the GPUs as well as the CPUs.
Um really? by beheaderaswp · 2017-04-03 07:26 · Score: 1

Look guys- we're watching a dying company. Sure they have a lot of business at the moment. But their tech is limited and specialized. They killed their desktop business. They are losing ground in the tablet and phone market.
Investing in your own GPU is not the thing to do under those conditions. And only for mobile or just Apple products? Even with an assumption that Apple can produce something competitive it just doesn't make sense.
This smells a lot like Newton, John Sculley's pet project. Or CyberDog. Or the System Administrator's Tool Kit. Or the E-mate. Or the AV series of Macs. All products that were cool as heck- with no place in the market.
History repeats itself again.

--
Another consultant who stuck it out.

"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
No, they will not by Anonymous Coward · 2017-04-03 07:36 · Score: 0

they will either buy something, or steal something without paying royalties, knowing very well that most can't fight them in court, and trusting entirely in that their protectionist government and courts will keep them safe from those few that can. Apple will not develop a competitive GPU architecture from scratch, period.
Lack of Imagination by Roger+W+Moore · 2017-04-03 07:38 · Score: 1

It's not like Apple really cares about Macs anymore.
Agreed - Apple's latests offerings show that they are clearly lacking imagination and all this announcement does is make that official.