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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
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.
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.
For a laptop the use cases are so minimal that the downsides (reducing the quality of the display) are just not worth it. The niche of people who need touch on a laptop is too small for them to bother with. With the unified ecosystem they'll probably do 2-in-1 devices and you'll be able to get a touch screen.
Don't forget MS is launching full(ish) windows for ARM now... So as long as apple keeps their flavor of ARM compatible with what MS is targeting, dual booting will or at least may work.
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
Going Intel doubled Mac sales, going back to non-Intel may cut it in half.
I saw nothing in the article that stated explicitly that the new processors would be incompatible with Intel. It's quite possible they want to have better control of the Intel compatible processors they use. This kind of a shift is not taken lightly, and has likely been considered for a long time.
The current 64 bit architecture used by Apple, and shows in chips made by Intel, was developed by AMD. If Apple wants to make their own "Intel compatible" processor then they could enter a licensing agreement with AMD to do so. Intel might not be happy about this but I don't know what they'd do about it. Maybe they'd offer to fabricate these Apple designed chips under license from Apple?
What I got from the article was that Apple has been using portions of the iOS in their desktops for some elements of running the system and wants to share more code between the two. That could mean a lot of things besides abandoning the Intel architecture. It might mean designing a CPU with asymmetric processing. They might put an ARM core and three x86-64 cores on a die for desktops and laptops, That means not having to put a separate ARM processor in the computers like they do now. If they want to have some x86 fun on the iOS devices then maybe a chip with a two ARM cores and a x86 core on it.
Is it feasible or even desirable to have cores with different instruction sets on them in the same device? It must be because it sounds like Apple does this already, only the cores are in separate packages. If they believe the future is in having ARM running alongside x86 then they might just want to put those cores in the same package. To make that happen might mean having to design their own processors.
I've seen things like this proposed before. I seem to recall someone at least planning to build a laptop had a tablet mode where the tablet used a low power processor and tablet based OS for most tasks in that mode. If there were things that required more processing power, or was opened up to become a laptop, then the higher power processors was "woken up" so it could run a standard desktop OS.
Perhaps Apple wants a processor that is in every way compatible with what Intel offers but they just want a few "tweaks" so they can stay ahead of the performance curve. Apple is already in all kinds of technology licensing agreements so to pick and choose from, and to put them on a chip that they'd put in their own computers might not be that big of a burden for them. They might even be able to get in a deal to sell them to other computer makers, most likely after it's "old news" so as to not compete with their own products.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
It sure would be nice if they were to choose RISC-V.
Kriston