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No More Intel Inside, Apple Plans To Use Its Own Custom-Built Chips in Mac (bloomberg.com)
Apple is planning to use homegrown custom-built processors in its Mac line of computers, ditching Intel, the processors by which powers Apple's current line of computers, Bloomberg reported on Monday. The company could make the switch to its own chips as early as 2020, the report said. From the report: The initiative, code named Kalamata, is still in the early developmental stages, but comes as part of a larger strategy to make all of Apple's devices -- including Macs, iPhones, and iPads -- work more similarly and seamlessly together, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. The project, which executives have approved, will likely result in a multi-step transition.
The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple's Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news.
The shift would be a blow to Intel, whose partnership helped revive Apple's Mac success and linked the chipmaker to one of the leading brands in electronics. Apple provides Intel with about 5 percent of its annual revenue, according to Bloomberg supply chain analysis. Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news.
That is all, just whoa
PPC anyone?
Am I surprised? No.
Apple has a track record of moving across chip lines. Being that they make the OS and the Hardware, the processor isn't that big of a deal, and they have a really good track-record of keeping compatibility across different processor lines. Compared to say Microsoft who barely made the 64bit transition.
That being said. The real question is for the people who duel boot their Macs, or use Virtualization. My biggest fear is if OS X moves to the closed infrastructure that is iOS. I can deal with Apple approved apps for my phone, but for my laptop, I will want to install whatever I feel like.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If Apple switches to ARM based A-series processors then people dual booting macs with Windows/Linux will be out of luck. It would make Mac a more closed ecosystem as Apple will probably use the switch to make only App store apps run on ARM macs. Stock up on Intel macs while you can.
To date, Apple has stridently refused to incorporate a touchscreen on their notebooks, which would be the most obvious step in bridging the development/user-interface divide between iOS and OSX, yet they feel it's useful to switch to a single processor architecture to achieve the same goal?
I don't want my Mac to behave like my iPad. I don't want a dumbed-down experience where I can't do anything that Apple doesn't permit.
You can get rich if you own a politician, but you have to be rich to buy one in the first place.
Apple probably have the best chip designers in the world. A10X is far superior to any rival and theyâ(TM)ll probably do the same for desktop type computing.
This should mark the last gasp of professional's use of Macs...
a SHIT!
I know! They could use PowerPC based chips!
That way they could re-package all their pre-2006 software as new.
Nothing say "the future" like software that comes on 3.5" inch floppy disks...
Iâ(TM)ve never dual booted any Mac Iâ(TM)ve owned. I can see why it might be important to some people though.
Worked out well last time. Apple can forget about any sales from those intending to install different operating systems on their Apple computers.
Hopefully by time this happens increasing lapses in quality, lack of competitive features and upgrade fatigue will have sufficiently thinned out cult followers of Apple.
...If Apple want to keep their exclusivity and a niche market, they will have to go on their own, completely.
Today, An Apple computer is nothing different from a glorified designer laptop with a PC (typical Intel based architecture) inside, which means you could basically without too much effort just run Windows or Linux on it.
What Apple has gotten much grief for, is that they often use 2-4 year old hardware, instead of bleeding edge hardware. While this is usually good for "tried and tested", meaning that it will result in a relatively stable, well supported computer - it's offering very little new to its userbase, but who are the Apple userbase, this is what you got to take a closer look at:
The Apple userbase is often designers, musicians, artists, film people and basically people working within the creative industry. They like design, and they're willing to pay for it. It may not be the latest, greatest or best - but it sure looks the part, and it gives them a sense of community as they're not "mainstream", but still like to see themselves as the ones considering the computer just a tool, an accessory - and secondary to their work.
They don't want hassle with updates, compatibility issues, endless drivers - they just want to get about their workday without getting into "the computers" themselves.
Apple GET that, but in order to stay really truly "off" the rest, they have to find their own way again...
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
Suck it all. Take it.
Apple Computer
-- proudly going out of business since 1976!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They are already using a REAL Unix. Why switch to a pretend Zunix?
Here comes macOS. Only runs on macs, and macs only run it.
I'm going to get my G5 MacBook Pro! I've been waiting a long, long time for this!
How well will Intel virtualization work with these? If I can't run my various VirtualBox VMs on this, no sale.
The only reason Macs are useable is because you can double boot.
The mac experience has gone down the tubes and this is the nail in the coffin.
Apple has lost it's way. It was fun while it lasted.
I got a mac 128 in 1984 and this is posted from a mac. This current one is ok but I felt that it's probably the last mac I'll ever buy, and I knew that months ago. This just seals the deal.
Yup. I bought a 2016 touch bar model, and it SUCKS. Wish I could have got the previous model, as that was the last worthwhile MBP. If they do this, and basically force everything to go through their App Store, I'm done with them. I guess I'll go Linux, Sure as hell don't want to go back to Windows. And yes, I have a Win10 laptop, for a couple of Win-only apps, and it STILL sucks.
Apple has learned; first from Motorola, now Intel, this deep truth:
Over a long enough timeframe any chip maker is an incompetent asshole.
Of course, by taking this action, Apple will become more and more a chip maker themselves... hmm.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
The company I work for is already moving to linux. Dell has a nice line of Ubuntu supported notebooks and many of our devs and engineers have requested them. I think our office will be Mac free in 2 years.
It’s not like we haven’t heard these rumors for years now... we even heard stuff like this before Apple move to Intel. But still, some things are out of their control.
- Will Adobe play along, or walk away? Much as I hate Adobe, they’re a necessary evil when it comes to doing real work on many Macs.
- How locked down will these “computers” be? Right now, I can install just about anything I want... and I have a bash/zsh shell, to boot.
- What about the few Apple pro apps which remain? They’ve already shed a huge number of customers - it seems unlikely the remaining nes will tolerate another backwards jump.
One would hope that Apple would do their homework on this, since people who still use a laptop or desktop generally have very different requirements than people who use an iPad with a keyboard. A “laptop” which is just a glorified iPad would serve no purpose.
#DeleteChrome
Will we still have to throw out our Mac after three years when something goes bad because we can't replace it?
How much will all those extra welds add to the weight of their MACs?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Once they make the move ...
(1) Any new native apps will likely ONLY run if they're "approved" by Apple, meaning that they are either from the App Store, or if they are signed with an Apple certificate.
(2) They'll drop support for "legacy" apps within 2-3 years.
Closing the walls of the walled garden: complete.
It's trivial to run iOS apps natively on x86 chips - Apple already does so with their iPhone emulator in Xcode. Why not just have Xcode perform two compiles for iOS apps - one for ARM and the other for x86?
has great olives and olive oil, but here in Agrinio we produce even better.(civil war now)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
anyhow, I was looking forward for an AMD custom chip in those situation, but don't think that Intel is out of the door. They depend a lot on intel. What about macs with Xeons? What about Macs with high end desktop cpus? I am not throwing amd out of the equation because amd has IPs and products out in the wild based on Arm... and never forget that amd is ready to supply with embedded gpu solutions.
The only reason Macs are usable to people who dual boot is because you can dual boot.
Your use case isn't the only use case.
This has been an ongoing story fro a few years now. Anyone paying attention to Ax development has seen how fast they have become. They are putting up x86 numbers (in some cases) while running in a passively cooled no ventilation phone. Pretty amazing. But Apple has an issue using third party products. Not because they don't like the tech, but because they can't release features until someone else's silicon supports it. That isn't something a company planning on shipping 100+ million devices a year needs to worry about. Intel and AMD showed some major vulnerabilities in their chip designs, and probably lost a lot of support from companies like Apple regarding those vulnerabilities. Apple knows it can design and market its own chips now. No doubt they will take care of the backward x86 compatibility through virtualization. Imagine 2 or 3 or even four A10X chips running in a laptop, sucking almost no power, running custom GPU tech designed to work in a low power environment. Imagine 5-10 A10X chips running in a workstation spitting out 2-3 Teraflops of compute and supporting eGPUs for additional compute capacity and imagine Apple refreshing their lineup more regularly because they didn't have to wait for Intel to develop XYZ features in their chips for their custom boards. Not to mention RISC V chips are getting some attention from major companies as well. Apple knows RISC processing well. I think all of this points to the fact that x86 is starting to show its age and major companies are looking for alternatives. Apple just happens to be sitting on 20+ years of chip development experience and manufacturing acumen to pull off making it themselves.
You guys do realize that the news is THIRD hand, posted on April SECOND, which could mean that the information originated on April FIRST... just saying.
Our reign has gone on long enough. Indeed. Summon the meteors.
No real geeks will really buy macbook pro if it comes with ARM. Might as well buy a chromebook. When geeks are unhappy they will start talking crap about apple to all their friends and next thing you know Macs will be associated with computer illiterate people only.
Apple can't beat Intel on high end chips. Hell, Apple can't beat AMD on high end chips. Apple can't beat AMD/Nvidia on graphics either. Sure they did well in mobile graphics, but that's competing with Qualcomm.
Apple is lost. It's pretty obvious that they lost many of their best people.
If true this is one more reason I'm glad I got off the Apple train and am back on Linux. Apple is growing too full of themselves.
I remember the time period right before the first iPad was announced. I was hoping and praying that the iPad would ship with a full blown OSX instead of it being just a larger iPhone/iPod.
What would be great is if we could dual boot the iPad into either iOS or OSX.
Or at the very least somehow give us a way to use xcode in iOS (with a MOUSE!)...
It seems like a counter-intuitive movement but I can think of some things I would wish for if I could spec this design from scratch. For example:
* Hardware execution of x86 instruction set to support VMs compiled for x86.
* Tightly coupled 3d graphics support with the ability to expand graphics memory.
* Encryption/Decryption support.
* Power saving logic and features as good as ARM
* All integrated peripherals. Your portable devices as close to one-chip-on-a-PCB as possible.
* At least 64 qbits.
Now I realize that all of this already exists in one form or another in existing architectures but not (as far as I know) in one set of silicon devices (from small to large) tailored to Apple's intended view to an fully integrated OS and tool chain base. Even if it were available, if Apple could save $5 per unit production cost by doing this it would pay for itself in greater profit margin in no time.
And what else is Apple going to do with the billions of dollars they have stockpiled anyway?
Yup. I bought a 2016 touch bar model, and it SUCKS. Wish I could have got the previous model, as that was the last worthwhile MBP. If they do this, and basically force everything to go through their App Store, I'm done with them. I guess I'll go Linux, Sure as hell don't want to go back to Windows. And yes, I have a Win10 laptop, for a couple of Win-only apps, and it STILL sucks.
Its not as if the processor choice has anything to do with the application installation policies. I mean, sure, they might choose to do app-store-only at some point (although I personally doubt it), but they could do that on intel or leave things wide open on A14 (or whatever).
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
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This has been in the works since the start of the LLVM project.
A few years back, Apple and the LLVM project made the announcement that code compiled for x64 with CLang was finally able to run unmodified on the ARM architecture. By compiling into an intermediate language, Apple has made it possible to write code that should run unmodified on any LLVM platform so long as all libraries are present to support it and that the code doesnâ(TM)t depend on hand written assembly or code which needs direct access to the stack for the platform ABI.
With the transition from PPC to x86, a lot of transitional APIs such as Carbon were introduced. Also, the principle of fat binaries were made common place in such that each application or framework could be compiled for two or more platforms. Consider that Apple had Yellow Box running in house on x86, PPC and Sparc.
Over the years, Apple has progressively deprecated any API which was too tightly bound to a single architecture one by one. All code not compiled with LLVM has been slowly killed off. The App Store on IOS and MacOS have set restrictions as to what system calls could be made. Most performance oriented libraries such as QuickTime have been altered, enhanced, etc... to slowly eliminate the need for hand written code. Apple has bullied developers into never writing Mac targeted compilers and instead focused them on compiling to IL or Swift/Obj-C first.
Just like Microsoft has been trying to universally move to .NET for a retargettable platform, Apple has moved to LLVM.
There is no technical reason why Mac couldnâ(TM)t run on ARM today. Iâ(TM)d imagine Apple has had Mac OS running on an iPad Pro for some time. The main difference would probably be the type of SSD they employed.
Performance wise, current Apple chips should have more than enough CPU to handle tasks at least as well as the m3 chips in the Mac Book. 4GB or RAM should be enough for most users as well. PCIe for M.2 storage should be a trivial change for Apple. And Apple has already said they are preparing their own GPU core. I would expect that GPU core to be comparable to Intelâ(TM)s from the beginning. Unlike other GPUs, OpenCL and even most of OpenGL are optional as Apple will dictate the OS graphics API. Of course they already have a strong enough following among game developers that if they cut corners, the developers will suck it up and continue.
What most people mention is a problem is that Mac has a huge dual boot audience. I would expect an agreement with MS or Amazon to happen to push cloud based virtual desktops. Many enterprises get security by using Mac because malicious Mac software doesnâ(TM)t tend to screw with virtual machines. So they deliver the enterprise desktop on a VM and let the user mess with their Mac however they want.
What I expect to really shake things up will be an announcement from Apple to support Windows for ARM as an application/subsystem. Then I expect to see Microsoft support their x86 emulator possibly with acceleration on Mac. Unlike Transmeta. Apple working with Microsoft could easily make their x86 JIT perform better than real hardware. This has to do with how branch prediction, pipelines and cache work.
I honestly donâ(TM)t see anything particularly amazing about this other than the long time it took to get here. Apple must have assessed that the lost business will be offset by the profits gained. Of course, I have been hoping to buy a new Mac Mini this year, my 2012 model is getting old. If Apple releases something âoerespectableâ for $500 or so, Iâ(TM)m in. I only need it for testing Mac builds.
That's what they already do. Xcode has compilers that target both ARM and Intel. When you run the iPhone simulator it's running the version that came out of the x86 (x64 really) compilers.
This is a boring sig
I'd never want a walled garden laptop that behaves like an iPad or iPhone.
But I'd recommend them for my parents in a heartbeat. They can't seem to go a week without somehow causing issues.
MIcrosoft tried to unify the OS on desktops and phones. Well that stank. really screwed things up for a whole OS generation till Win 10 go things back on track.
THis seems like courting the same disaster for apple.
the PPC isn't as good an analogy, though it's not bad. In the ebb and flow of things, PPC was a better chip than intel for much of it's heyday. It eventually fell behind.
Samsungs 8 core processors seem to be stuggling too. and Nvidia keeps wanting to become a CPU make as well.
THe problem is that market size matters in the processor world. Intel dominates CPUs and Nvidia dominates GPUs so most compiler and software targets those.
But remember ARM. Who started ARM? well Apple was one of them. And now ARM is back and eating Intel's lunch.
I think what will save Apple's bacon here is the effer they have put into making good compilers and even good languages (swift). With that and the abstractions of the OS, it's no longer going to be a software title dominated contest. All titles can be compiled for all platforms so it will matter less who makes the GPU or CPU.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Apple hasn't made a secret of their intentions to homogenize the experience, the OS, the apps along their product lines. iPhones drive the business, iPads are a shrinking market, Macs are still busy, and Apple TV is probably better defined as 'we wish it was viable', but they keep their feet wet in it. Speakers are an also-ran. Siri needs to be upgraded to offer value to Mac users.
Making an 'A" style CPU makes sense, and developers who can't learn iOS will find life hard for other reasons. It remains to be seen if iOS is useful for traditionally desktop apps, but this could encourage devs to start building cloud-dependent apps for Macs, and that lets Macs be lightweight and have longer battery life. Add an LTE modem and that's that.
I was at an Intel facility the day Dell announced they would sell servers with AMD processors. You would have thought people had lost their firstborn. The rumor that a team member had been fired just because they were laughing in the cafeteria was partly true; they weren't in the cafeteria. Miserable day. I wonder what's going on there today...
I'm not there any more. Completed the project.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
After 3 years of waiting for a decent upgrade to the MBP, last year I ditched Apple and bought a Dell Precision laptop running Ubuntu. It's got some quirks, but in general, I'm far more pleased with it than I had been with Macs for the last few years.
Velociraptor = Distiraptor / Timeraptor
You're joking right? Compatibility with what? A whole version of Adobe's creative suite was missed on Mac due to one of their transitions
But they made it. And with a codebase that is much more easily shifted to other architectures, as they had to support Intel and PPC for a while...
Apple has had over ten years of supporting tools that easily moved between Arm and Intel processors. I do not think the next switch will be nearly as much of an effort as the PPC switch was.
I wonder if software vendors will continue to support the Mac line.
That's pretty humorous considering how many high-level creative and technical professionals use macs. Go to any conference and look around you at the laptops they are using...
There's some real effort involved in pleasing the fruit's decision of the day.
Right because this was SO SUDDEN a change, in that it's many years from now and Apple last changed platforms over ten years ago...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Considering I can count the number of times I've dual-booted any Mac I've owned over the last 15 years on Zero hands, I'd tend to disagree.
Now, the amount of times I've fired up a Virtual Machine to run something/check something, etc? ... lots more times.
This space for rent. All reasonable inquiries will be entertained at proprietors discretion.
The iPhone.
Apple has much more experience and importantly, money, now than it did with PowerPC in 1998.
And today, Apple makes ARM-instruction-set CPUs/modems/GPUs integrated system on a chip as good as, or better than long-time chip designers, Qualcomm & Samsung. Intel is not competitive here despite major investment.
It also learned from that event as well: do it yourself, if your partners don't have the same interest that you do. Motorola and IBM didn't have an interest in the medium-performance low-power consumption mass-market priced design that's central to notebook computers. And that's what Apple has concentrated on with the iPhone fiercely.
Today, Apple has 100% of the chip design ability to do this for Mac---and the manufacturing capacity, as the Mac will be certainly lower sales numbers than iPhone. It's software design & developer relations that's the hard part.
No intel means bootcamp is going away with it. Windows ain't gonna work on some proprietary custom chip and I doubt Apple will actually build support for it.
Also, this will means third party support will be lacking.
Overall, it will basically be like how Wndows for Mobile was trash because it couldn't do anything the full fledged version could do.
They'll release them with the sapphire screens we were promised right?
Getting so tired of these rumours
Going Intel doubled Mac sales, going back to non-Intel may cut it in half. Intel CPUs removed a huge barrier to Mac purchases, needing Windows support. Windows emulation was available with non-Intel but not practical due to having to emulate the CPU architecture. Going Intel made dual boot and effective emulation possible. Consumers no longer had to chose Mac or Windows, they could have both on the same box.
I'm going with the theory that Apple routinely builds macOS on non-Intel just to ensure the code base is portable. It also helps with debugging, a hard to manifest bug on one architecture/compiler pair can sometimes be easy to manifest on another.
Or maybe its a specialized version of the MacBook Air without support for Windows? The MacBook (non-Pro) and MacBook Air are getting a bit too similar. Perhaps the Air will be dropped or morph into a specialized high endurance machine (long battery life) for people who only want macOS?
Or maybe its Intel GPUs they are abandoning, not CPUs.
Reread my comment again more carefully and compare to the AC comment I am replying to, and you might find that you do in fact agree with me.
Why was this post modded -1? It's an important question that nobody else in the thread has asked yet.
Apple is getting rid of Intel but they're not making their own chips. Instead, they're getting rid of processors in their computers entirely. Their new computers will be .2mm slimmer and processors will be made available via dongles for primitive people who refuse to let go of outdated technologies.
No Steve Jobs is going to come back from the dead to save them this time. This attempt to best Intel is going to be hilarious and fatal. I wondered what boondoggle would end Apple. This is it.
This story keeps popping up every year or two. Iâ(TM)ll need to see something more official from Apple before I waste many cycles on this.
Nothing to see here. Move along...
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
After 3 years of waiting for a decent upgrade to the MBP, last year I ditched Apple and bought a Dell Precision laptop running Ubuntu. It's got some quirks, but in general, I'm far more pleased with it than I had been with Macs for the last few years.
until you have to test the OSX port of your project, then you're screwed
it must be nice to live in a world where you compute for the fuck of it and you don't actually have to make money with your computer
One of the reasons the PPC -> Intel transition was hailed back then was that a lot of processing intensive software ( games, video editing etc. ) had x86 optimized assembler code. If the underlying instruction sets are not available anymore, won't it mean a huge slowdown for a lot of this software?
You're forgetting something. ARM systems have an abysmal track record for interoperability. Since there's no "BIOS" on most ARM devices like x86 uses, every kernel has to be compiled to support every single possible board, and then you need to specify which board to use, in the bootloader. Adding insult to injury is the fact that ARM often ships with locked, unbreakable bootloaders, and I can definitely see Apple doing this. So, maybe Windows for ARM will run on the new Macs if Microsoft pays Apple to sign their bootloader, but it's unlikely Linux will, at least without exploiting security holes, run on the new machines.
Apple can't make money off Intel anymore, due to the fact that the "tick-tock" upgrade cycles are no longer providing leaps-and-bounds performance benefits to draw in users to purchase new hardware.
This is a result of the Age of Good Enough Computing, where folks don't feel compelled to buy because "my laptop runs just fine". (Not to mention the current economic factors)
Apple is wanting to create their own processor in order to provide the following:
1) New platform ("get the all new, much better stuff!")
2) Improve** new platform and use for new products ("Hey look, that stuff is old now, buy this new stuff! Over 50% faster!")
** Possibly deliberately slow on the first iteration, just to create an upgrade path**
3) Repeat just like iPhone/iXxx
4) Profit!
5) GOTO 1
We see this. All. The. Time.
Plus, this also furthers the duopoly mentality, furthering the gap between platforms to help increase the divide. Polarization == $$$$
"Dude, my Mac run so much faster than your PC! You don't even know, you're on that old intel junk! Tell me, how's that Meltdown patch treating ya? LULZ" --- jack jackwagon
Kind of amusing but wouldn't at all surprise me if in the not too distant future, apple released products that were hosted only (ala Office365, Google, etc). That would lower the cpu requirement from high end almost desktop like.
To be clear, there is no way in hell I'd go near such hardware. For them to make such "forward looking statements", smells pretty fishy either way.
This can be labelled as racist but there is truth here. I've encountered several people that don't want anything to with n1ggers because they have encountered some n1gger gangbanger.
What if all they are really doing is adding some compatibility so that they can access an on board A series (A10, A11, whatever) processor that is placed into the mac (I'll call it the iOS processor)? At that point, they could have 100 percent complete compatibility for their iOS apps on Mac, without having to worry about writing emulators (not that they don't already have those), because the machine could run the iOS apps native on the iOS processor.
Back to the heady days of PowerPC & OS9.
Man, people here on Slashdot are not understanding this report at all.
According to this report, Apple is planning on replacing the processor in the Mac with an ARM-based processor. That is all. This is something they have done, successfully, twice before. The original Macintosh from 1984 ran on the Motorola 68k architecture. In 1994 they switched to PowerPC and in 2005 they switched to x86. Now they're considering switching again to their own ARM-based chips like the ones they use in the iPad Pro. One would assume that the processors for the Mac would be more powerful than the ones they use in mobile devices and less concerned with things like heat since you can actually use fans and the user can be OK with a shorter battery life.
When they did this with the x86 switchover they told everyone in 2003 to start using Xcode and if they weren't, switch to it. When the switch occurred in 2005, everyone who was using Xcode could just do a recompile and their app was good to go. The version of Mac OS X that ran on Intel processors for years had a software layer called Rosetta which would allow you to continue to run your PowerPC-based apps for a while. In 2011 when they released Mac OS X 10.7 they removed it but that was a five year stretch where people could upgrade their apps. Some apps never got upgraded but that was part of the gamble Apple took.
However, nothing else about this announcement even begins to imply that anything else is going on. They're not trying to turn macOS into iOS. They're not adding a touch screen to the Mac. They're not looking to lock down the Mac and make it a walled off platform like iOS. They're not looking to make fundamental shifts in how the Mac operates. They're just looking to switch out the processor. And we know basically how they'll do it because they done it before. Twice.
Apple's roadmap on the Mac is beholden to Intel's roadmap and when Intel's roadmap gets delayed, Apple's roadmap gets delayed. This is not something they would be able to tolerate on the iPhone where they want to put a new one out every year. Switching from Intel to an Apple-made ARM processor will make one more item that they're not dependent on an outside company for.
Schnapple
The heavy lifting will be done in their "cloud".
Over a long enough timeframe any chip maker is an incompetent asshole.
That's too specific, over a long enough timeframe any company is an incompetent asshole...and it is becoming increasingly apparent that Apple is no exception.
Well, at least it won't have Meltdown Inside (tm Intel)
2020... year of the linux desktop
until you have to test the OSX port of your project, then you're screwed
If enough people take the same actions, there won't be enough OS X machines to make it worth worrying about a port.
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My prediction:
Ax type chip to run iOS for battery life, basic web browsing, iOS gaming, and iOS App Compatibility
x86 type chip from AMD/Video cards AMD with the ability for the iOS swap data/copy/paste etc with the host
Apple specific apps/iOS devs get a new market, pages etc, run only on the iPad section.
Traditional users get the virtualization, gaming, power user capabilities, plus low power, long life at the flip of the 'sleep' icon
Basically a blend of the iPad Pro and its tools with real capabilities as needed. macOS sleep is already amazing and works seamless. The only reason I hate the iPad Pro is zero virtualization.
2nd step is "plug" your phone, wirelessly in for the iOS capabilities so Apple can keep the profits for a 2-3 year phone cycle and a 5-6 year laptop cycle
I am nearly positive that Apple's priority will not be making their chip platform compatible with other operating systems. Why? Because that has never been Apple's priority. Apple has maintained its pristine hardware/software environment by limiting its responsibility. I love my MacBook Pro for many reasons, one being that I can run many operating systems on it. Apple has already made its own processors and it knew when to outsource and expand. I am disappointed that it is limiting its vision and going backwards.
This is an interesting question, and good arguments can be made for anything non-x86. From a technical standpoint, RISC-V has even surpassed ARM on area and power efficiency, so there are real gains to be had. Since ARMv8 abandoned instruction compression, even the code density of RISC-V is superior.
It would probably be trivial for Apple to peel off the ARM front end on their A series processors, and substantially simplify them by reworking the core for RISC-V, which isn't burdened by condition codes or any other legacy. It is also supported by LLVM, so the only challenges remaining are unfinished vector/bit manipulation/crypto extensions. It is not quite ready, though that has never stopped Apple before.
Apple has a history of building on open efforts, and with the wide industry support, a move to RISC-V would be sensible. The extensible architecture would even allow them a trivial means of adding proprietary bits to lock out any competition, and still benefit from community work on various compilers. Whatever happens, there can be no doubt that Apple desires 100% control, and whatever choice they make, will not be for the benefit their end users.
I think Apple will blow everyone away and use PCI instead of ISA.
#DeleteFacebook
I switched to Mac back when Ubuntu started doing freaky things with Unity, but with that abomination being killed off, it might be safe to switch back to Linux again (I think I'll just go pure Debian, thanks). I find that I'm only using Chrome and Open Office most of the time anyway, so I could easily make the switch again. I'm so glad I didn't convert all my spread sheets and documents to Numbers and Pages.
goodby finder / non store apps / pro users etc.
adobe is about time for an Linux build of adobe CC.
does Apple's A-series have the pci-e needed? For say 10-GB networking + PCI-E storage + PCI-E video cards + TB bus?
Perhaps Apple is looking at a solution where they add a second ARM processor to their iMac/Mackbook lines that can run ARM apps negatively.
68k to PowerPC to Intel.
They have a track record of making this work.
Having said that, I don't think I'll be buying a Mac again anytime soon. The last few releases are more like iPads than computers. If I can't swap out the battery or the drive, I'm not buying.
They may very well be staying with x86 which would be advisable considering the Virtualization issue, perhaps they will use their own x86 chips. A big issue as well is the fact that it would break binary compatability to switch instruction sets. This is the nuiscance for vendors and consumers to not have all of the old distributions of software work on newer computers. Backwards compatability means a lot.
If they can get virtualization comparable to native speeds, then that means they can make all the CPU changes they need, from ARM to RISC-V and no one would notice. And yes GPUs can be virtualized too.
> Apple is planning to use homegrown custom-built processors in its Mac line
Will they run Linux?
I don't get it. What is the ROI for Apple? Does this mean they are going to make CPU development for a ~7% over all PC market a priority over their iPhones and iPads CPU development? Also does this mean don't buy any Apple related PC products for 2 years? This doesn't make any financial sense and I am not even a finance guy.
Flat out lie. You dont have special genetics that cause touchscrrens to divide by zero.
Sounds like a 13yr olds attempt at hacker movie plot. Bad story.
It sure would be nice if they were to choose RISC-V.
Kriston
"Walled garden" as a term doesn't imply iOS. It implies "control". Apple historically has a high degree of control of it's product which has been hardware and software. That allows them to do things that only console makers could get away with. While the openness of the PC has been a boon with the downside that there's little control beyond what market size dictates. That's why there's such a thing as the WINTEL moniker reflecting Microsoft's difficulty in moving to alternative hardware.
...sounds dangerously close to calamity to my ears.
custom built as in the Arm chip running iphones and ipads ? ..... LOL , apple is the nike of IT
Windows is essential to our business. OSX is "essential" to people that can't learn how to use Adobe products with a mouse that has two or more buttons. I'm glad we have early warning this time unlike with the Xserves.
touchpads suck, i love my touch screen windows, shits on your crap mac. Oh and its clean unlike your ass.
I never paid much attention to Apple since I never bothered getting any of their computers... But I remember in college that all my MacBook using friends were happy when some Intel chip came out because they finally could use their pirated copies of Windows on their Macs to play games or use whatever other Windows only software. Would this new CPU will still let them use Windows if they want?
Adobe basically turned their backs on Apple because they got sick of being jerked around by platform switches.
By about 2021 - 2022, Apple's dead. calling it now. they can't even make a "pro" line machine now without major hardware faults that have basically gone uncorrected for 2 years now.
Lots of complaints about high sierra and the APFS transition (which is forced and unnecessary), breaking perfectly good filesystems during the conversion and users, being as dumb as they are and not having used time machine, therefore losing their data.
Apple's dead. They're purging their past and locking the gate behind them with proprietary and locked down bullshit far worse than anything jobs ever did.
They're too scattershot, trying crazy fucking shit without any consideration for what works and is actually good already. Incremental design improvements used to mean something, now the baby is thrown out with the bathwater on a regular basis, both in software and hardware. It's like they want their existing user base to get pissed off with Apple and just leave.
it's like the few sane, competent engineers who weren't cowards just up and left. or retired. or died. and I think they did, look at what's happened to apple's OS releases after the junior psychopaths within the engineering department set things up so that the company internally politicked scott forstall out of there for 'fucking up apple maps' when the fuckheads that are now slowly and gradually raping mac os and iOS were the real culprits.
Company's run and staffed by the kind of idiot who uses twitter on a regular basis for more than just gawking at how idiotic our celebrities and alleged leaders are...
Fact is that Apple is supporting the BDS on Israeli products as requested by the Palestinians. Hence no more Intel inside. It's a brave move but one I fully support.
To buy all your Mac software again... Just like when the switched from ppc to Intel.
I wonder if they'll have a dual architecture where there is a high powered ARM chip but also a high powered Intel chip on board.
Apple isn't replacing the Intel CPUs but the Intel platform controllers to enable features like the secure enclave and FaceID.
... the less I want one. I'm an Apple guy. Or, at least I was. I have owned the first seven generations of iPhone, three iPads, and at least one variant of pretty much every major Mac made since 1996. But I am just done with them because they have been slowly killing the Mac for years by starving it and feeding iOS. I see this as yet another step in that progression and I am happy to say that it won't affect me because by 2020 I will no longer be an Apple customer. It was fun while it lasted but I still desire a real computer, not a walled-garden-lifestyle-device, and the Mac formerly was a real computer until Apple decided to treat it like shit for, oh, the last 5-7 years. Ain't no way this leads to more innovative Macs. Zero percent chance.
You assume everyone has access to a fast reliable and low-latency connection all the time. There's a reason some people never store anything in the freakin' "clouds" of companies.
#DeleteFacebook