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Apple Plans to Use Its Own Chips in Macs from 2020, Replacing Intel

• haakon 9y ago
  Intel stock is down 7.3% currently.
  • r00fus 9y ago
    DJIA and NSDQ are both down about 3% right now so at least half of it is a general slump/profit taking
  • cctt23 9y ago
    Well yes, but the whole market is taking a dive today. -500 on the DOW last I checked.
    • jacquesm 9y ago
      -722
  • seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    The whole market is down today because of the TTT (Trump, tweets, and tariffs).
• searine 9y ago
  Because that worked so well last time?
  • masklinn 9y ago
    When they decided to make their own ARM chips and went on to build the best mobile implementation by a pretty long shot?
    • thrillgore 9y ago
      The wonders of vertical integration!
  • Tloewald 9y ago
    To what are you sarcastically referring? Apple's switch to PowerPC which gave them a performance lead over Intel for five years and kept them competitive for another five or Apple's switch to its own ARM Core designs which have given them a 12-24 month performance lead over the entire Android ecosystem? Bear in mind that Apple dominates the high-end desktop / laptop market, both in market share and profit share* which could put a huge dent in Intel's economies of scale for high end consumer CPUs. * I'm assuming these figures omit servers. Also, there was a lot of noise in around 2009 saying that Apple had over 90% of the high-end PC market, but I've not seen more recent figures one way or another. Given that PC prices seem to have, if anything, slipped, I doubt it's gotten worse for Apple (and goodness knows the tech press loves any statistic that makes Apple look bad).
    • cjensen 9y ago
      He is referring of course to the PowerPC architecture. It did not have a performance lead over Intel for as long as you suggest. Even when it had a lead, it wasn't that big. (I bought the best G5 when it came out, so it's a painful memory) The problem with switching to a different architecture is that if it falls behind Intel, people will say "not as fast as a PC." If you stay with Intel and it falls behind, people say nothing. It's risk vs. no reward.
      • CodeWriter23 9y ago
        Pretty sure "last time" refers to the transition from Power PC to Intel.
        • madshiva 9y ago
          and "hacker news apple fans boy" should know that before telling bs.
• justherefortart 9y ago
  Great, we can go back to the macrumors nonsense about how this PPC is "just as fast" as the x86 days. With their focus on iOS vs MacOS, this doesn't surprise me. MacOS will simply die once they port their tools to iOS. Terrible choice IMO.
  • CyberDildonics 9y ago
    I don't know where all this conjecture is coming from. Have you seen benchmarks of apple A11 chips? They have some of the best CPU technology in the world now. They are competitive with low end Intel chips already while using significantly less power. Before they went to Intel, they were at the mercy of Motorola, which couldn't keep up with Intel.
    • AskewEgret 9y ago
      The problem Apple had with Motorola was that Motorola couldn't get the chip yields they needed at high clock rates. The problem Apple had with IBM was that IBM didn't care enough about power efficiency to make the chips viable in laptops. They also weren't that interested in fast iterations of incremental improvements. When the G4 first game out, it was far, far ahead of x86. Apple offered it at 350, 400 and 450 MHz but shipped maybe a few hundred or a few thousand at 450 MHz and a few tens of thousands at 400 MHz. Those computers blew the Pentium out of the water. Intel eventually caught up and passed them purely on manufacturing ability. Then the G5 came out, which was a beast of a processor. But it never came out for mobile, and IBM only upgraded the speed once or twice before Apple went for Intel.
  • Joeri 9y ago
    Except apple has demonstrated they can design cpu’s that outperform the (android) competition. Who is to say they can’t make ARM cpu’s that genuinely outperform intel? Intel hasn’t executed all that well lately anyway.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
• fancyfacebook 9y ago
  I wonder if they will be ARM only or if there is some sort of x86 solution built in too. This report has basically zero info.
  • mitchty 9y ago
    Its hardly a report. It is at best a rumor. My strategy with any apple news: ignore it until its released or said from the horses mouth. Remember the iphones that had clickwheels like ipod rumors prior to the iphone? Thats what I consider this.
    • israrkhan 9y ago
      The clickwheel iphone "rumor", might have been true. During initial design of the original iPhone, both Scott Frostall (from Mac OS division), and Tony Fadell (from iPod division) were tasked with creation of iPhone. Both groups took their existing software (from iPod/Mac), and tuned it for a phone. Ultimately trimmed down OSX solution won over iPod's evolved firmware. I was reverse engineering iPod video/classic firmware around 2005/2006, and I do remember seeing references to "iphone".
      • mitchty 9y ago
        Sure it might have existed, but that isn't what was released. That version of the iphone might just have been a proof of concept or prototype, but it didn't end up a product. Just like this rumor might be.
  • Nokinside 9y ago
    It will be ARM only. It's not just feasible for Apple to develop new microarchitecture from scratch. Kalamata will license ARM technology. New microarchitecture takes 6-8 years to develop and it's huge investment even for companies like Intel, Amd and ARM. Currently only Intel and Amd have high end desktops CPU's. ARM is likely enter as third with ARM architecture that Apple is licensing, but it will have relatively low performance. Apple will likely take a hit in workstation markets for CAD and image processing application market but they are in the position to gain a lot in more common use cases if customers get better power/performance ratio.
• gxs 9y ago
  Steve Jobs mentioned in interviews what a hell of a job his teams did in the initial change to x86 and the immense work it required. I wonder what he'd say in this scenario. Not saying "Steve Jobs would have NEVER allowed this apple is going to shit", simply wondering if the effort required to move to x86 should be essentially discarded (depending on the implementation) Edit: I agree with the replies, they are a good reminder to me of the sunk cost fallacy
  • dieterrams 9y ago
    Honestly I think Jobs would’ve been all for dropping x86. They also derived an immense amount of value from the effort to move to x86, so it’s not like it was wasted.
    • gxs 9y ago
      >>> They also derived an immense amount of value from the effort to move to x86, so it’s not like it was wasted. That's a good point and a reminder to me of the sunk cost fallacy.
  • marssaxman 9y ago
    In the x86 transition, Apple was discarding the previous effort which had been required to move from 680x0 to PowerPC, and that seems to have been the correct choice.
  • redial 9y ago
    The effort to move to x86 has paid off tenfold already in the ~10 years since the transition. They now need another effort to sustain the Mac, or whatever comes next, for another 10 years.
  • Stranger43 9y ago
    It's also worth noting that the OS they migrated was not the one that ran on the bulk of the old ppc system but a relatively new Unix fork that at least at the time was pretty possix compliant.
    • 9y ago
• erric 9y ago
  My questions: ARM? Walled garden of an app ecosystem? Command line? There has been convergence between iOS and MacOS for a while now.
  • TheSoftwareGuy 9y ago
    I see the question marks but I'm not entirely sure what your questions actually are
    • jamesgeck0 9y ago
      I think I see the questions, but I don't think we can answer them. Will Apple use this as an opportunity to merge MacOS and iOS? What will that mean for developing and distributing software?
    • erric 9y ago
      It was just a stream of consciousness and I was planning on editing it but got distracted. It also wasn't formatted very well. My mistake. I'm sure this has been going on for a long time behind the scenes. That is what happened when the PPC -> x86 transition became public. Since Apple has it's own ARM chips/fab, I wonder if ARM is where they are going? It would make sense from a couple different points of view: Lower power use and security. Can there be equivalence between the two architectures, meaning would similar CPUs net you a similar workload? There is much to like about the iOS app store, but there also is much to dislike. Apple is the gatekeeper here, and if they don't like your app, you are out of luck. That's not the case with MacOS, at least not yet. You can still write what ever kind of app you desire for what ever your client base may pay for and Apple can't really do much to stop you. Merging iOS and MacOS would need to address this. Finally I use the command line a lot. I don't have access to that on my tablet or phone unless I jailbreak it which has it's own risks with doing so. If Apple decides this is no longer acceptable, that will certainly change my choices for getting work done.
      • saagarjha 9y ago
        Your concerns would be better founded if this was news of iOS coming to desktop instead of Apple switching desktop processors.
• Talyen42 9y ago
  I think this was inevitable given the insane YoY performance increase we've seen from A-series chips. Anyone want to chime in on why Intel can't get more than 5% YoY while Apple has been getting 30-40%?
  • pstrateman 9y ago
    Cause they started with atrocious performance?
  • MagnumOpus 9y ago
    Starting from a lower base. Now that ARM chips have nearly caught up, they almost certainly won't have the same rate of performance growth.
  • Tomte 9y ago
    Because Apple started from a much lower base. I will probably surpass Pizza Hut's growth in making pizzas this year. Last year I made just a few, and only this month already two or three!
    • actsasbuffoon 9y ago
      That's a good joke and I laughed, but this seriously understates the power of Apple's ARM chips. They are pretty impressive. To put this on the pizza scale, Apple is a lot further along than any individual pizza maker. They're a strong regional pizza chain, at the very least.
  • zitterbewegung 9y ago
    Because they have moved past the easy parts of optimization. Apple's optimizations still have thermal throttling issues (sustained use of an A11 will not beat an Intel chip due to better cooling and IPC). Compared to other ARM licencees they do beat the pants off of. This is probably why Apple put in a T1 chip and a touch bar in the Macbook Pro and the T2 chip (dedicated power module) in the iMac Pro. They are prototyping the individual pieces with Intel as the main processor so that they can attempt to swap the chip in 2020. EDIT: nitpick on t1 and t2 chips.
• justinzollars 9y ago
  I'm pretty happy with my Xeon.
• thrillgore 9y ago
  Oh boy, more universal binaries. What are the odds that Apple will just internalize x86 production, as opposed to doing a A11-style ARM derivative?
  • ThrowawayR2 9y ago
    > What are the odds that Apple will just internalize x86 production... Zero, since it's wildly improbable that Intel would grant them a license to use the x86 architecture.
    • cjensen 9y ago
      You don't need a license to use x86. Moreover, the x64 was created by AMD, not Intel.
      • jsjohnst 9y ago
        > You don't need a license to use x86. Factually wrong. Ask Microsoft. ;)
      • FireBeyond 9y ago
        > Moreover, the x64 was created by AMD, not Intel. With the assistance of a veritable phone book of cross-licensing of patents with both Intel and VIA.
    • jsjohnst 9y ago
      They could just buy AMD, which is also a rights holder to X86_64 (in fact, they basically “invented” it). Super highly doubt it will happen, but technically possible.
      • dragonwriter 9y ago
        It is not unheard of for licenses to have terms which require renegotiation in the event of acquisition. That might make such an acquisition a mortal threat to x86_64, but not a seamless path to using it.
• amq 9y ago
  People here were anticipating this, should be no surprise. Presumably, Intel also knows for some time, but their long-term strategy on how to stay relevant seems unclear. I could imagine them becoming a pure fab-company one day.
• jweir 9y ago
  Apple does have a good record of moving their OS and software from different architectures. 68XXX to PPC to Intel was not a horrible experience. Having gone through three transitions I don't remember a lot of pain - but maybe I am repressing it!
  • troupe 9y ago
    It is fairly common for newer versions of OS X to break software that worked on previous versions. If you try to use Photoshop 6 on a modern version of OS X it isn't going to work. I think this makes the chip transition less painful because no one really expects their old software to work anyway.
    • bobwaycott 9y ago
      > ... no one really expects their old software to work anyway. My experience with HN comments leads me to believe otherwise, at least among professionals. :)
      • troupe 9y ago
        Well everyone (including myself) likes to complain about it, but there is a huge difference in how many OS updates it takes to break a legacy application on OS X and Windows. If we really expected the OS X updates to not break things, we'd move to a different OS.
    • yardie 9y ago
      PS6 used the old Carbon Framework. This was developed as a stopgap to allow developers to transition off of MacOS to OSX in the early aughts. It goes to show how little respect Adobe back then had for Apple and Mac users that Apple ended up purchasing and developing Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro IP. Microsoft Office was another drag on the Carbon library. They also chose to keep their applications in the old format even though they were told repeatedly from Apple that this thing was going away. Eventually they got their shit together and the Office suite for OSX is a best of show.
• ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  While it's had a rocky start, Microsoft's starting to push Windows 10 laptops based on ARM chips, so it's definitely not out of the realm of sanity that Apple is interested in doing the same.
• jimrandomh 9y ago
  Based on this article, it doesn't sound like Bloomberg has enough information to distinguish between Apple being committed to a transition, or Apple developing chips to improve their negotiating position with Intel. It's also very unlikely to happen on such a fast timetable; given the IP situation, it's unlikely Apple could make an x86_64 chip, and any move away from x86_64 is going to require significant work by third parties outside Apple who haven't even heard of the possibility of this happening until today.
  • madeofpalk 9y ago
    > it's unlikely Apple could make an x86_64 chip Why is it unlikely that Apple would make a x86 chip? Because of IP/licensing, or for technical reasons?
    • lima 9y ago
      IP/licensing.
      • Skunkleton 9y ago
        I would argue technical reasons too. x86_64 is a huge and complicated beast.
      • squarefoot 9y ago
        And cost. Making something you can license to others and/or sell to 250000 users each year has a completely different cost compared to something you use only on your 20000 machines (source: [1]). Macs are already overpriced, I don't know how much Apple could sustain an in-house production of proprietary chips without hitting their users; they're probably going to ARM. [1]: https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43495918 https://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS43495918
        • Bud 9y ago
          And the fact that Apple can already beat x86 on speed per unit of electricity with its own architecture.
• Tloewald 9y ago
  One possibly nice fallout of this would be Intel offering Xeons to consumers to leverage its economies of scale on the server-side for the consumer market (since I believe Apple is the biggest customer for high-end consumer CPUs).
• Apocryphon 9y ago
  Would they be able to design their chips to avoid Spectre-type attacks?
  • simonh 9y ago
    Bear in mind Apple’s own mobile CPUs were also vulnerable to these attacks. The vulnerability was with commonly used architectural features found in many processor designs from different design houses, including both Apple and Intel among others.
• lambda_lover 9y ago
  > "A decision to go with ARM technology in computers might lend it credibility where it has failed to gain a foothold so far." > "Apple is working on a new software platform, internally dubbed Marzipan, for release as early as this year that would allow users to run iPhone and iPad apps on Macs" Two things here: 1) I'm OK with breaking the Intel near-monopoly on x86. I'm not OK with moving to a walled garden where Apple forces you to publish apps through their App Store with a paid dev account, etc. just for the privilege of users on their platform. ARM doesn't necessarily mean this, but it is a different CPU arch. When Apple transitioned to Intel/x86 from PowerPC, Intel processors were performant enough compared to PowerPC processors to provide a pleasant emulated PowerPC environment for applications build for PowerPC. I don't think that a switch to ARM would provide this benefit, and afaik Intel's mobile offerings aren't that far off from ARM efficiency. So what's the benefit? Just vertical integration, I guess? Escaping Intel's backdoors and high prices? 2) iOS apps on OS X. Why? Does anybody want this? The way I see it, web apps are perfectly adequate for the desktop environment when it comes to stuff like checking my bank account or browsing Hacker News. I don't want to deal with a desktop app to do any of the stuff I can currently do via a browser. Is there actually a use case? 3) Given the hellscape of bugs currently present in iOS/macOS, does anybody have faith that Apple is going to be able to navigate a rewrite of macOS on this scale? It sounds like the sort of thing that requires a lot of talent and a lot of focus. Apple has the capital for this, but not the environment, imo. Seems to me like this could be the nail in the coffin for Macbooks that's been pending since the merger of the macOS/iOS teams and the introduction of the controversial TouchBar/USB-C Pro.
  • pertsix 9y ago
    Not having to emulate iOS apps on macOS will be a boon for Xcode developers.
    • adamson 9y ago
      I doubt iOS devs are very high up on the list of parties to please with this move
    • jluxenberg 9y ago
• adamnemecek 9y ago
  All the vestiges of 90's computing are dying! I couldn't be happier actually. 2020 computing here I come.
• lovamova 9y ago
  I think the first step is to produce a GPU that integrates well with Intel CPUs. The next Metal version will need to have even deeper hardware integration while external GPUs support will be a solution for those who need AMD or NVIDIA solutions.
• jdlyga 9y ago
  Apple is fantastic with hardware, so this sounds like a great idea.
• uptown 9y ago
  Tim Cook has repeatedly stated that the iPad is "the clearest expression of our vision of the future of personal computing" and Apple only sells around 4M Macs per quarter, while iOS devices dwarf this stat. If their plan is to continue moving users from desktop/laptop devices to their iOS ecosystem, and the software can be transformed to cross between both classes of devices, then it only makes sense to unify the processor architecture as-well. Especially considering the expertise they've brought in-house to accomplish this, and the success they've demonstrated with their "A" service of chips, complemented by some of the specialized co-processors which have begun popping up in their accessories. I still expect that they'll offer devices in traditional form factors -- laptop-like devices and desktop devices, if the market demands this. But for most users, they don't care what's inside if it let's them accomplish what they're trying to accomplish.
  • joezydeco 9y ago
    I still expect that they'll offer devices in traditional form factors What are iOS developers supposed to develop on?
    • uptown 9y ago
      "What are iOS developers supposed to develop on?" Presumably laptops and desktops with Apple chips inside.
      • jasonlotito 9y ago
        According to the article, those would still be using Intel chips.
        • uptown 9y ago
          "According to the article, those would still be using Intel chips." Where do you see that?
    • rfrey 9y ago
      Buy two iPads and use one as a keyboard.
• simonh 9y ago
  AMD has the rights to produce x86 compatible CPUs. If Apple were to design the chips but AMD manufactured them on contract, would that avoid IP/licensing issues with Intel?
  • masklinn 9y ago
    No. Without an architectural license Apple can't design chips without being sued. They could set up a partnership though, similar to Zhaoxin, a joint venture between VIA and the Shanghai Muni.
  • old-gregg 9y ago
    AMD does not manufacture anything, they've gone 100% fabless. Their former manufacturing arm had been spun off into https://www.globalfoundries.com https://www.globalfoundries.com, which also absorbed IBM's fab tech.
  • bob1029 9y ago
    Yes. I am finding it almost bemusing that people are dancing so delicately around the only rational possibility here: A semi-custom AMD-produced x86-64 CPU, very much like the Samsung-produced A-series ARM CPUs for their phones and tablets. I see zero reason that the next Axxxx chip cant be a rebranded Zen core with Vega GPU and custom Apple IP magic sprinkled in - https://www.amd.com/en-us/solutions/semi-custom https://www.amd.com/en-us/solutions/semi-custom Just because Apple says they are done with Intel and are making their own chips, does not preclude the possibility that they are simply working with a different x86 vendor on a custom/semi-custom design. I see zero way Apple gets off the x86 architecture in the next few years, simply due to the tremendous software ecosystem that has grown up around the platform since the switch from PowerPC. They would have to offer a dual path for years to get their larger software partners prepared.
    • npunt 9y ago
      That’s a lot of fuss for at best a lateral shift, and a step down in the all-important performance-per-watt metric (Zen and Vega are totally unproven here). You may be underestimating the possible paths Apple has to a) transition software developers quickly with better tooling, and b) provide sufficiently performant JIT / compatibility layer by sprinkling a bit of x86 compatibility into future A-series chips, and you’re certainly underestimating the value in c) reducing complexity on the software-side. Apple is already making their own GPU and CPU and throwing all their weight behind that, why would they hop onto the (brilliant but rather unreliable and on mobile totally unproven) AMD train?
• tambourine_man 9y ago
  That would be the end of the Hackintosh, which would be kind of a shame. Even having never built one myself, it remained a last resort of some kind in the back of my mind.
  • emodendroket 9y ago
    For someone not still in high school that struck me as way more effort than it was worth.
    • akhilcacharya 9y ago
      Hah, now that you mention it does seem like a huge chunk of the community is in high school. When I went to college I just got a real Mac and it is 100x better than the MSI Wind I used to use (though that was a great device too!).
      • emodendroket 9y ago
        That's kind of the crowd for something that saves you a bit of money at the cost of a huge chunk of your time, isn't it?
  • Digory 9y ago
    It's actually pretty astonishing how easy it has become to churn out a decent, stable desktop hackintosh. This announcement seems to give them a four or five year lifespan.
• andr 9y ago
  While a x86-ARM translator of some sort is certainly possible, keep in mind that Xcode added support for BitCode back in 2015, which means that binaries are uploaded to the App Store in LLVM IR and compiled to the target architecture by Apple. While this will not cover 100% of Mac OS applications out there, it will certainly minimize the effort of porting stuff to ARM MacBooks.
  • insaneirish 9y ago
    Relevant: http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript/#bitcode http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript/#bitcod... I wouldn't assume that Bitcode is a huge help with this. Per Chris Lattner in the linked transcript, "It's useful for very specific, low-level kinds of enhancements, but it isn't a panacea that makes everything magically portable."
• israrkhan 9y ago
  Apple has been preparing itself for independence from underlying CPU arachitecture for a while. In WWDC 2015[1], they announced bitcode. All App submissions to AppStore are compiled to to bitcode. This allows Apple to re-optimize/re-compile your app binary in the future for newer hardware without the need to submit new version of your app to the store. This allows Apple to switch to intel chip on iPhone, or switch to an ARM chip on MacOS. [1] https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-developer-news-at-wwdc-that-nobodys-talking-about-bitcode/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2015/06/17/apples-biggest-devel...
  • insaneirish 9y ago
    > This allows Apple to switch to intel chip on iPhone, or switch to an ARM chip on MacOS. I think you're assuming way too much. Says Chris Lattner regarding Bitcode, "It's useful for very specific, low-level kinds of enhancements, but it isn't a panacea that makes everything magically portable." [1] [1]: http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript/#bitcode http://atp.fm/205-chris-lattner-interview-transcript/#bitcod...
    • jernfrost 9y ago
      I believe Lattner said there was interest in making a CPU architecture independent bitcode though. At least bitcode is part of the way.
  • MisterTea 9y ago
    Similar to how Bell Labs Inferno worked. The kernel to user space interface was a register based VM called Dis. The entirety of user space was written in Limbo, the predecessor to Go (Both designed by Rob Pike), which allowed the whole of userspace and thus the bulk of the OS to be completely CPU independant. A JIT kept things speedy and performance penalties were about 30%. So your entire OS stack was CPU independent which allows applications to be written on an X86 machine and then ran on an Arm box with zero recopilation. True write-once-run-anywhere. I have it built on my raspberry pi B+, Linux 32bit chroot, and there is a prebuilt Windows image available that you unzip and run.
• iliaznk 9y ago
  Is Apple competent enough to build an equally powerful CPU? Or is it a no-brainer for the kind of money they got?
  • dwighttk 9y ago
    Apple's Cash (77B) is about 1/3 of Intel's Market Cap (224B), maybe they could just buy Intel.
    • partiallypro 9y ago
      Good luck getting that by antitrust laws.
    • bproven 9y ago
      Buying AMD is an option if they really need x86... either short term or long term.
      • neolefty 9y ago
        Unfortunately AMD's licensing deals with Intel terminate if AMD is purchased.
  • TheCoreh 9y ago
    They are absurdly competent with CPU design. The A series chips are already matching or even surpassing the performance of lower tier Intel chips. Keep in mind these chips were first introduced IIRC in 2011 with the iPhone 4S, are designed to be passively cooled (no fans) and are limited by the battery constraints of iPhones and iPads. They could conceivably 'scale them up' for laptops and desktops and get a significant performance boost.
    • imtringued 9y ago
      Keep in mind that the Geekbench benchmark measures the unthrottled performance. Whether the phone is passively cooled or has a 200 TDP Fan strapped to it doesn't matter.
• monocasa 9y ago
  A transition to aarch64 would provide a unique challenge to Apple. The other transitions (68k->PPC, and PPC->x86) brought with them nearly an order of magnitude increased raw performance, which let them paper over some of the emulation overhead in Rosetta or their 68k emulator. They won't have the same intrinsic benefit working for them this time; it's hard to beat Intel at raw performance, especially single threaded.
  • throwaway84742 9y ago
    It’s doable for them. For one thing, even their iPhone chips are currently nipping at the heels of Intel’s low-tdp mobile CPUs, exceeding some ULV parts in performance. For another, they could just push all the difficult stuff into specialized coprocessors. Wrap that into system frameworks and nobody will ever know.
    • monocasa 9y ago
      I think they'll get between 5 and 10 percent of Intel by then, but that still means that an x86 emulator is punching light, even before you get into emulation overhead. By comparison, the 68k emulator on PPC wasn't even a JIT. It just interpreted 68k machine code, and even then it was still 2x faster than a native 68k. Moore's law really helped them.with their previous transitions, but Moore ain't cashing checks like he used to.
      • throwaway84742 9y ago
        I’m pretty sure Rosetta wasn’t an interpreter, and Intel chips were less than 2x the speed of PowerPC. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_(software)
        • monocasa 9y ago
          Their x86 cores were about 5x faster when you accounted for everything. And even though Rosetta was a JIT it ended up running a little slower than the PowerPC chips it was replacing. So to start off with chips that, let's assume are only about 90% of the chips that you're replacing in native code, you're now at least under half the performance of x86 while emulating. And that means half the battery life too.
• deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
• dep_b 9y ago
  That would be 30 years after they started ARM together with Acorn.
• GameOfTrolls 9y ago
  "What's a Computer?"
• toxican 9y ago
  Probably too early to tell, but I'd imagine this will mark the death of the Hackintosh? It's a shame, because I had a lot of fun hunting down all of the information and files I needed to convert one of my old PC's over.
  • kylec 9y ago
    Eventually, probably. But they'll still support existing Macs with new software for a while after the transition.
• andmarios 9y ago
  I think for a site full of developers, the almost exclusively welcome reactions to such a change are intriguing. Don't you worry you will have to cross-compile to run your programs on the amd64 server? Or how you are going to debug locally bugs that may arise from a different architecture? Or that homebrew could be in an inconsistent state for some years until all software catches up with the new architecture?
  • trollied 9y ago
    Apple dealt with this last time with Universal Binaries https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
  • mr_toad 9y ago
    Recompiling software isn’t as scarey as some people seem to think as long as you have a decent toolchain. And, in my experience toolchains have improved a lot in the last few decades. Automated build processes are de rigueur these days. Actual hardware to test on is essential for debugging, but it’s not like ARM based Unix/Linux isn’t already a thing. Assuming Apple doesn’t lock down the OS, I’d say that open source ports like Homebrew will be available almost immediately. It’s the closed source vendors with outdated development processes that might drag their heels.
• craigc 9y ago
  If the current MacBook Pro is any indication, then I would be surprised if people are still buying Macs at all in 2020.
  • jacquesc 9y ago
    Pretty sure I'll still be using / rebuying the 2015 model
    • contingencies 9y ago
      Try an XPS15.
• nerdymanchild 9y ago
  I sensed this transition from the point that Apple released the new small MacBook.
• cjensen 9y ago
  One of the authors of this piece is Mark Gurman. Lately, Gurman has gotten legit scoops on news, but has then interpreted the small gem of a scoop into a story which is entirely wrong. In other words, take this with a huge grain of salt.
• jernfrost 9y ago
  This is such an obvious move, that I predicted it 2 years ago: https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/in-3-years-apple-will-switch-from-intel-to-arm-a6816058a1b2 https://medium.com/@Jernfrost/in-3-years-apple-will-switch-f... My prediction in 2016, was that Apple would switch to ARM based laptops in 2019, so it looks like I am off by just 1 year. A quick summary of my argument back then was that ARM was getting fast ENOUGH, but are considerably cheaper. Standardizing on one CPU architecture for all their products makes sense. In addition it allows them to differentiate themselves from competitors. The only choice I am still uncertain about is the Mac Pro lineup. Since performance will matter a lot more in this segment it is harder to see a transition away from intel. A possible solution would be for apple to go massively parallel and simply use a lot of ARM CPU cores. Sure single thread performance wont be able to compete with intel but they might not need to. A lot of the stuff you need a Mac Pro for like compiling large programs fast, video processing etc is likely very paralelizable.
  • otterley 9y ago
    What if it turns out not to be based on the ARM architecture?
    • xaduha 9y ago
      What else is there?
      • otterley 9y ago
        x86_64, but of their own manufacture. A fair number of people use MBPs to run Docker containers and other Linux/Windows VMs; to ask them to sacrifice this functionality would be to risk a fairly significant user population.
        • awalton 9y ago
          If other companies could legally figure out how to license and build x86 chips, nVidia would already be there stamping them out. It's a legal minefield that's simply not worth exploring, even for Apple.
• ataturk 9y ago
  How much has Intel knuckled under to the intelligence community which wants to bug 100% of our electronics?
• patrickg_zill 9y ago
  Surprised by the comments on performance. Putting a second cpu/SoC on the board and keeping it in a low power sleep mode, then spinning it up as needed would be trivial for Apple.
• deagle50 9y ago
  About time. I'm tired of Intel's minimally viable laptop processors (and their security blunders). Apple has the margins and the volume to throw a lot of transistors at a problem, like they do in iOS devices. I want 13" Macbook with more than 2 cores, good GPU, and decent memory bandwidth. Apple can do big/little cores, large caches, wider memory buses (HBM please), inference acceleration, 120hz variable refresh with good battery life, etc. These things have a questionable ROI for Intel but set Apple apart and sell more hardware.
  • FireBeyond 9y ago
    These things are available, Apple chooses not to use them in their quest for thinness.
    • deagle50 9y ago
      I disagree. They have certainly sacrificed battery size at the altar of thinness but not transistors. Who else is doing 100mm^2 SoCs in consumer devices? Now take that up to 200-300mm^2 and imagine the possibilities with tailor-made blocks and cutting edge memory. Look at Intel's dual core die shots, >50% GPU and my laptop is still jankier than my iOS device.
• chrisper 9y ago
  I wonder what impact this will have on the hackintosh community.
• teemwerk 9y ago
  Maybe a bit tangential, but from an economic it's interesting to see Intel's market cap vs TSMC, given that TSMC is purely a foundry. Nowadays what 10nm or 14nm actually means is a lot fuzzier than previous nodes, but the general consensus seems to be Intel's fab tech lead is either pretty precarious or already gone, so I'm just gonna assume even (which is admittedly a poor, oversimplified assumption). Then TSMC and Intel are pretty even, which is slightly interesting to extrapolate all manner of conclusions. Intel has slowly opened it's fabs to outsiders, however the first one was Altera, who Intel now owns, so... Main point is in 20, 30 years, is Intel's main business going to be fabbing their own chips, or someone else's? I dunno, I just enjoy following the industry.
  • SomeHacker44 9y ago
    If TSMC's fab is as good as or better than Intel's, then fabless companies like AMD and Apple will reap competitive benefits over Intel, which now has to have IP for CPUs it sells as well as IP for its fab business.
• deleted 9y ago
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• pokemongoaway 9y ago
  Component manufacturers & companies like newegg should get together and fund a Linux distro that has great ports of all the most popular OSX software :)
• thothamon 9y ago
  Well. We'll see what they do, but Apple had better be very careful. If a lot of OSS software won't run on Apple's new chip, then it becomes very hard for a software developer like myself to stick with Apple. And it is developer energy that sustains the software ecosystem for Apple....including many developers who are in the Mac ecosystem to develop for iOS. This is not necessarily the wrong move for Apple, but it is fraught with danger. Here be dragons.
  • edude03 9y ago
    OSS software can "just" be recompiled though.
    • thothamon 9y ago
      In theory yes, but back in the PPC days a lot of stuff was not available even though theoretically it could have been.
    • super_mario 9y ago
      This was complicated by the fact that PPC was big endian and Intel is little endian. If software assumed byte order when twiddling bits, etc, you could not just recompile it.
  • kccqzy 9y ago
    By definition, if the maintainer of some OSS software doesn't have the time/energy/willingness to make the software run on Apple's new chip, you can do it yourself.
    • thothamon 9y ago
      True, but right now I don't have to do it myself. Things like brew just work. If the proposal is to throw away something that works, and add the burden of doing it myself to my to-do list, that doesn't sound at all appealing.
      • kccqzy 9y ago
• cletus 9y ago
  So what I'm hearing is the 2019 Macbook Pro will be the one to buy?
  • DoofusOfDeath 9y ago
    Assuming that Apple has the good sense to ditch the touchbar, absolutely.
• WheelsAtLarge 9y ago
  This is a multi-year transition even after 2020 but this is a step closer towards a cloud-based MAC where the hardware is connected 100%, has super long battery life and the majority of the processing is done in the cloud.
• BlackLotus89 9y ago
  Is this maybe why they are looking for Linux kernel developers? Tim Pritlove predicted this move for some years now on his freakshow(.fm). Anyway the only interesting thing to me is if they will share a codebase between macOs and ios or if they will create something new and not based on darwin. Maybe they will take the step steve didn't want and switch to linux.
  • saagarjha 9y ago
    I seriously doubt this will happen. Why would they throw away three decades of work that's known to work on both x86 and ARM?
    • BlackLotus89 9y ago
      You are probably right. I myself however am curious why they would need linux kernel devs.
• Stranger43 9y ago
  Have anyone checked with adobe and autodesk if this essentially kills the professional mac workstation as a viable product going forward? I have no doubt they can make it fast and usable enough for the naive consumer living inside the bubble of what relatively inexpensive(consumer grade) app-store apps can do and that microsoft will release something pretending to be MS office for a new ARM macbook line, but photoshop, autocad, mathematica(ok that one is fairly portable), AfterEffects and whatever it is the pro's use for video editing those days are a different ballgame. We saw microsoft stumble down that path with their successfull port of windows to arm where the OS itself worked but where no major 3rd party business essential app ever got ported to windows for arm, with a lot of IT departments choosing to keep windows 7 around our of fear of what 10 would morph into until MS begun to dial back their ambitions for windows everywhere. Im guessing that the short run result of Apple going though with OSX on arm is that a lot of the CAD and video editing heavyweights just drop support for whatever OSX morphs into to support running on IOS hardware.
  • bhouston 9y ago
    Adobe has a lot of stuff that works well on iOS. ARM has neon instructions for SIMD. I think they will be okay. Changing over from one SIMD architecture to another is not that hard. AutoCAD isn't ultra optimized for Mac anyhow, it will be okay. This transition may screw up or significantly slow down VMs of Intel-based OSes like Ubuntu.
    • ssutch3 9y ago
      A lot of progress has been made recently in ARM virtualization (see its push into datacenter units). An ARM VM should run reasonably quick, and Ubuntu works fine on ARM.
      • wilun 9y ago
        Are there extensions with a stronger memory model by at very low cost (matching the one of x86)? If not, we might not get excellent perf with x86 emulated by arm in the multithread & multicore era we are.
• deleted 9y ago
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• jmull 9y ago
  If this is true, I'm pretty interested to see how they intend to pull it off (and how it works out in real life). I'd be more skeptical if Apple hadn't already pulled off CPU architecture transitions with impressive smoothness multiple times already. Will Apple do an x64 CPU? Or maybe x64 emulation? ...maybe with custom hardware assist? Could they possibly do a crazy "you must recompile for ARM if you want to run on the latest Macs" thing? The performance of Apple's ARM CPUs is already fine for the lower end of lappys, and have superior power usage. Moving up into midrange performance lappys doesn't seem like a stretch at all to me, or even higher end lappys, especially if you're looking for more cores. But what about iMacm, iMac Pro and Mac Pro? Does Apple really have a solid plan that makes ARM CPUs competitive there? Or will there be Intel-based Macs at the high-end and ARM-based Macs at the mid to low end? Could Apple possibly tie all this to some unification of iOS and MacOS? And/or tie it to a unification of the iOS App Store and Mac App Store? Interesting stuff.
• mark_l_watson 9y ago
  This might just be a bargaining move on Apple’s part, but I don’t think so. I think that long term they are much better off controlling their entire hardware stack. I wouldn’t be surprised to even see them make their own display screens. As an Apple customer, I like this idea also. For 20 years, I used to be a desktop Linux fanatic and later became a fan of Android. In the last few years, I have switched to using all Apple devices. Even though I am a computer scientists, I actually spend more time on my iPad and iPhone, by far, than on my Mac laptops. I only use a laptop for software development (because of the nature of my work, that is often just SSHed into Linux servers), the rest of my workflow and entertainment is on iOS devices. The older I get, the more I want to get my work done expediently, leaving time to study new technologies and spend time with family and friends. At least for right now, I am maximally effective in Apple’s environments. As a bonus, I trust Apple more that Microsoft, Google, Intel, etc.
  • baq 9y ago
    interesting, i only use my ipad as a remote to the avr so i can play tidal from my hifi... it's gathering dust otherwise.
  • criddell 9y ago
    The only thing I have a hard time trusting Intel with is the way they have handled questions around their Management Engine. I think they have done a poor job convincing us that it's safe or at least benign. It will be interesting to see if Apple includes a secretive management engine. If they do, then the speculation that it's required by one or more governments will be dialed up to 11.
    • madez 9y ago
      With Apple's documented interest in owner's control of their devices and delivering the required documentation for it, they won't tell us what is included in the chips and what's not.
      • criddell 9y ago
        Apple has done a very good job with documenting iOS security: https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf https://www.apple.com/business/docs/iOS_Security_Guide.pdf If they included a management engine and produced a document like that, I'd be satisfied.
• samstave 9y ago
  What I find funny is that in ~2006 I had a net eng working for me that was a die-hard Mac fan. I claimed at the time, that I would bet him that apple would start making machines with Intel chips. He LOST it and said "THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN!!" And thought I was a complete moron for even suggesting as such. :-)
  • saagarjha 9y ago
    This was public knowledge in 2005…
    • samstave 9y ago
      I may have got the year wrong. I don’t recall the year.
• bhouston 9y ago
  What will happen to people who use VMs of Intel-centric OSes like Ubuntu, Fedora and other cloud OSes?
  • deleted 9y ago
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  • neolefty 9y ago
    For web development, I think Ubuntu for ARM will be fine: https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/arm https://www.ubuntu.com/download/server/arm
• ggg9990 9y ago
  Intel’s R&D budget is $13 billion and Apple’s operating income is $61 billion, so Apple has more than enough money to play this game. I do wonder why it makes sense for them, other than a possible unification from top to bottom of the desktop and mobile computing paradigms, with everything from the Apple Watch to the Mac Pro running the same instruction set.
  • pm90 9y ago
    I think scaring Intel enough to be better about its software and security practices is a big enough effect that would be beneficial for everyone. Not that I'm a big fan of close-source-everything Apple. But Intel's Software is just a horrible mess (note that I'm talking specifically about software: they seem to contract out software development to other firms and the code quality seems to be objectively bad as a result)
• phire 9y ago
  Does anyone remember Intel's random rant about how "emulation of x86 violates our intellectual property" from last year? https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/x86-approaching-40-still-going-strong/ https://newsroom.intel.com/editorials/x86-approaching-40-sti... Intel didn't name names, and everyone at the time assumed it was related to Microsoft and their efforts to ship windows 10 on ARM with a 32 bit only x86 emulator. But I wonder if that rant was actually aimed at Apple. Microsoft's emulator only needs to target a older subset of x86, one that could avoid ant patented instructions. If Apple are planning to move from x86 to arm, they will need an emulator that supports full 64bit with some relatively recent extensions that all MacOS applications target by default.
  • RI_Swamp_Yankee 9y ago
    That would put Intel in the crosshairs of anti-trust. The have a defacto monopoly on personal computer processors, and this sounds like an abuse of their market position to stifle innovation.
    • scott_karana 9y ago
      How would Apple vs Microsoft change anything in those circumstances, though?
  • wilun 9y ago
    The timing and the wording makes it so I'm quasi sure this was MS & Qualcomm related, and not Apple related. For example it says "there have been reports that some companies may try to emulate Intel’s proprietary x86 ISA without Intel’s authorization" Also the level of secretivity at Apple is soo high that I'm not even sure anybody outside there knew about any concrete subject this summer. And would they somehow know, why would them try to dissuade them publicly at this point? That does not work like that at this level.
• wiremine 9y ago
  Seeing a lot of assumptions and speculations on this thread (which makes sense given how early and high level the sourcing is). I wonder if anyone has seen side by side roadmaps of Apple and Intel's roadmaps, or projections of those roadmaps? I doubt Apple is moving away from Intel for pricing reasons, given the margins they work with. It seems more likely (or at least as likely) there are broader technical reasons. Feels like an apples-to-apples (no pun intended) comparison would be helpful.
  • saagarjha 9y ago
    > I wonder if anyone has seen side by side roadmaps of Apple and Intel's roadmaps This would be easy to do, if we knew what was on Apple's roadmap…
• 0x0 9y ago
  I'm not going to miss Intel ME. I am going to miss running windows and linux VMs, and commercial software by microsoft, adobe, and blizzard. I'm also going to miss hand-optimized x86_64 assembly variants of ffmpeg, lame, x265, nodejs/v8, java hotspot, and more.
  • wpdev_63 9y ago
    IME cannot do everything you think it can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMEJCLX2dtw&list=WL&index=17&t=479s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMEJCLX2dtw&list=WL&index=17...
• awat 9y ago
  It will be interesting to see how Apple handles this. Last time around users got a compatibilty layer in Rosetta to bridge compatibilty between Power Pc applications on Intel. I would imagine that would be the case this time but some of the questionable changes in terms of user friendliness (imho) in the recent past removing headphone jack etc. makes me wonder if this will be a cold switch for older software.
• ape4 9y ago
  Its going to be a 128 bit chip (it could be)
• trisimix 9y ago
  Puts them in a unique position where they may see increased sales if the can prove the lack of the invasive portions of a management engine. How can they create and push to market something as complex as an x86 processor in 2 years. Sounds like a ton of work.
• m3kw9 9y ago
  This will give them even more advantages because they are a vertical integrated company they can differentiate them selves with hardware and software integrations
• sagitariusrex 9y ago
  The thing I've come to realize over the past couple years is that the dream of performant open hardware is still beyond reach for at least a decade or two. But this is probably the next best thing to have. A company that at least tries to be sensitive in terms of privacy and security building their own hardware, albeit not open. I respect Apple for that.
• 40acres 9y ago
  This is no surprise, it's in Apple's culture to want to own the stack completely. I wonder how they will execute on this however, Apple's design team is pretty good.. but who do they have doing pre and post silicon validation? Will they go the extra mile someday and build their own fab? There are lots of intricacies to consider when trying to make your own chip. I guess the biggest question is how far is Apple willing to go to have complete control over their product, microprocessors are probably the most capital intensive part of their product.
• magice 9y ago
  I sometimes wonder why Apple would do this. I mean: i) the end-users frankly don't care. Seriously. ii) 90% (if not 99.99%) of dev would not (be able to) care I mean, I doubt if more than perhaps 5% of Apple internal dev can take advantage of "tight integrat[ion] of new hardware and software." This integration probably takes form of either some specific app (think Pixel camera phone), some specific library, or compiler optimizations. The first one (specific app) can be accomplished much cheaper through add-on chips (guess what, that's what Pixel does). The 2nd and 3rd can be done much more effectively through a generally available chips (like, well, Intel's chip) since more people, from vendor's engineers to researchers to random open source ninjas, would be able to experiment and help out. In other words, from a purely technical point of view, there is absolutely zero reason to do this. Whatever happens, Intel is among if not the best capable chip producers. And Apple is not "disrupting" (i.e. focuses on unaddressed aspect), but merely directly competing with Intel's core competencies. It's not Amazon entering details against WalMart's. It's Target's competing against WalMart's, except they don't have Target's existing competencies. Which, again, makes no technical sense. On the other hand, if they want to completely lock in users......
  • RI_Swamp_Yankee 9y ago
    I don't think they'd attempt it unless they had something that would disrupt the market. Intel has been rusting on its laurels without credible competition, and if Apple manages to steal a march on them with a new technology, that would be the impetus to bring it in-house.
• callesgg 9y ago
  As long as i get a unix shell i wont complain about what apple does to the hardware.
• vondur 9y ago
  I wonder if Apple is maybe looking at AMD for chips? That would be a much less painful switch instead of transitioning to ARM for the Desktop.
  • phire 9y ago
    It's unlikely. Apple has shown a clear trend towards trying to get rid of absolutely any 3rd party components from their devices. They want the control that full vertical integration gives them. The got rid of the 3rd party ARM design in their iphones/ipads, going for their own ARM/AARCH64 design. They are currently in the process of getting rid of the PowerVR GPU, to be replaced with their own GPU. Moving to their own AARCH64 CPU for laptops/desktops fits with that trend. Many people have been wondering 'when' this will happen, not if. Moving to AMD doesn't fit with this long term trend.
    • vondur 9y ago
      Probably correct. Apple could easily purchase AMD and also get the video card tech from ATI which they seem to favor on their desktop machines.
• yoavmmn 9y ago
  The only thing that could go wrong with this kind of switch is software compatibility, and as long as this chips could run x86 software properly and will have same or better performance, I don't mind.
• makecheck 9y ago
  It would be in line with their warnings on 32-bit apps. You certainly wouldn’t want to have to continue supporting 32-bit as a first-class development target when you’re about to change your entire architecture.
• deleted 9y ago
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• Zeklandia 9y ago
  Anything to get more competition in that market is greatly appreciated. Intel products have become a massive disappointment.
• fulafel 9y ago
  Their own ARM or x86?
• zrm 9y ago
  Does this mean we can have Open Firmware again?
• jpalomaki 9y ago
  How the performance of fastest current ARM chips compare to the latest generation of low power, quad core Intel i7 chips (~15W) used in contemporary non-workstation laptops?
• Myrmornis 9y ago
  Can someone explain the current and hypothesized future role of Intel, ARM and now Apple chips among Apple products?
• jakobegger 9y ago
  If Apple really moves to custom chips in Macs, it's going to be about one thing only: independence. Apple wants to control the entire stack; and relying on a single vendor is too big of a risk. It's not a question of price; it's about getting the chips they need. Intel has missed a lot of targets in recent years, and (according to rumors) more than one recent Mac model has been delayed because Intel did not have the next chip generation ready in time. Current Macbook Pros max out at 16GB RAM because the Intel chips don't support LPDDR4 RAM. On iOS, Apple can control everything. They can plan ahead, and know that in 3 years they'll have the chips they need. On the Mac side, they can only hope that Intel doesn't delay their roadmap longer than usual. (The story about Marcipan (a shared iOS / macOS UI framework) seems unrelated to the chip issue. Sounds like they included it in this article only to make it look a bit more substantial. There is already a lot of shared code between macOS and iOS, and the CPU architecture isn't holding anything back in that regard.)
  • trurl 9y ago
    Yeah, I can definitely see this as being the reason. The switch from PPC to Intel was partly motivated by IBM dropping the ball. Now Intel is failing to keep up as well, so given that Apple has the resources, why not control their own destiny?
• finchisko 9y ago
  I think Tim Cook is laughing out loud in his office now, how they just tricked Intel to lower their CPU prices. However I wonder how this insider info went out public, having direct impact on Intel shares. Sorry but transiting from Intel doesn't make sense to me. It would burn huge pile of money for very low benefit.
• utahcon 9y ago
  I was just discussing this weekend the strength I was seeing in the ARM market. Looking at the Apple trend lately with the A9-A11 chips, being ARM based, and then the advances Qualcomm has made making workstations and servers based on ARM chips, this just seems like a no brainer. Build cheaper, more efficient chips, custom designed to work with your own ecosystem. Finally, the ARM and NVIDIA deals could make large strides in the market of getting blockchain ready and making machines purpose built for dealing with the inevitable future of blockchain in everything.
• hickeygareth 9y ago
  Here's the full Bloomberg piece over audio: https://goo.gl/V999a4 https://goo.gl/V999a4
• JohnTHaller 9y ago
  For everyone speculating that this means a move to ARM and they'll write an emulator for x86 code, it's good to note that the first Windows tablet based on ARM, the $1,000 HP Envy x2, has pretty terrible performance for x86 code when running on a Snapdragon 835. The Celeron N3450 launched almost 2 years ago found in super low end $200 Windows laptops outperforms it by ~50%. And ARM on Windows can only run 32-bit apps (no 64-bit apps, no drivers, no system level utilities).
  • npunt 9y ago
    Good data point, though they may have just not invested much in writing a good emulator, let alone dedicating some extra silicon to speeding it up. If Apple makes this shift, my strong suspicion is they’d do both.
• jrnichols 9y ago
  "according to people familiar with the plans." usually = "stuff we made up." Same with the WSJ. They're known for Apple news stock manipulation. went from 167 to 164, which at a decent volume and buying at the lower price, could net a nice profit. "Intel shares dropped as much as 9.2 percent, the biggest intraday drop in more than two years, on the news." Ahh. That too. Plus all of the ad revenue from all of the people clicking on this startling article. I don't trust Bloomberg for anything related to Apple.
• nullvector 9y ago
  Tim Cook is fundamentally an operations person who drives cost out of the supply chain. During his time as CEO, Apple seems to be innovating in the supply chain instead of the products. At Apple's scale, building your own chips and iPhone screens makes sense but doesn't intrinsically add value to customers. I wish Apple would invest as much in their software as they do in reducing cost. Fortune Magazine in 2008: Think of Cook’s contribution like this. There are two basic ways to get great profit margins: Charge high prices or reduce costs. Apple does both. The marketing and design drive consumers wild with desire—and make them willing to pay a premium; Cook’s operational savvy keeps costs under control. Thus Apple is a cash-generating machine. Cook has called the company a place that is “entrepreneurial in its nature but with the mother of all balance sheets.” At last count that meant $24.5 billion in cash and no debt.
• blacklight 9y ago
  I personally hate close fences with no rooms for customization, and many computer scientists are on the same wavelength. Windows is an awful choice for software development, a job that usually requires a lot of interaction with Unix servers. Microsoft's recent crush for Linux and open source can't fix many years of closed standards, closed protocols, and Embrace-Extend-Exterminate evil culture. And MacOS, even though it's still loosely based on a Unix *BSD flavor, still falls into the "closed fence" category - brew is nice but can't be compared with the maturity of the package managers on any Linux distro, you can't just recompile or update the kernel on the fly to get support for a new device, and OS internals are purposely obscure to developers. Paying all that money for such a closed box, if you're anything more than an average users, is simply a waste of money. Linux distros are by far the best environment for a computer scientists - made by developers, for developers - but there's no major vendor that sells machines with Linux pre-installed and supported, and getting Linux installed on the newest Surface or Dell toy is often a challenge that gets many frustrated. There's definitely a huge gap in the market, and as a computer scientist I feel that none of the major vendors cares to provide me with a solid machine to do my work.
  • ekianjo 9y ago
    How about the Dell XPS line with official Ubuntu support?
  • walshemj 9y ago
    I don't really get that you can run X windows to work on your end server and you can set up local tools to work direct MySqlWorkBench for example.
  • khedoros1 9y ago
    > Linux distros are by far the best environment for a computer scientists - made by developers, for developers - but there's no major vendor that sells machines with Linux pre-installed and supported, and getting Linux installed on the newest Surface or Dell toy is often a challenge that gets many frustrated. Is there any reason why something like the various Dell machines preloaded with Ubuntu or RHEL wouldn't count?
• rotub 9y ago
  Will this make the prices go up or down? Down, right?
• aloukissas 9y ago
  It's kinda hilarious that nobody has commented on the "Kalamata" code name :D
  • georgek 9y ago
    That's because there ar
• rjurney 9y ago
  ‪How they managed not to mention the shrinking economy of scale for PC chips vs growing economy of scale for mobile chips is beyond me.‬
• SomeHacker44 9y ago
  As a Mac user since 2004 for my daily driver and professional software engineering as well as light gaming and recreation... I really hope not. Being able to run Windows and Linux easily in both VMs and on metal are much too important to me. Of course, I am already not buying another Mac until they give me a keyboard with a physical ESC and F-keys so maybe it doesn’t matter at this point.
  • princekolt 9y ago
    The current MacBook Pro is what caused Apple's revised compromise on the Pro PC line. So I think there's still hope. Otherwise I too will be patching up rMBP models like the one I have (probably second-hand ones though) until they run out.
• intrasight 9y ago
  A non-event and long-forecasted IMHO. As others have pointed out, they've already done this twice before. I do like the idea that they can thus build a very secure platform. Might even make me buy a Mac again.
• sangd 9y ago
  This looks to be a very good move to optimize and significantly improve Apple products' security and reliability. I do not understand why we argue what is better between Mac, Windows and Linux. It all comes down to the scope of what we're using it for. All of these 3 OSes have complex parts and arguing which one is better is not a a good conversation to have. The market already says it all for what choices people are making. These 3 OSes feature development would always follow the market demand. They're usually not that far off for important features. And whether they choose to focus/optimize them is a business decision. I have used all 3 and I like different parts of all 3. I currently use mostly my Macbook Pro, iPhone and sometimes iPad as they're very reliable and high quality made products. They often get my job done mostly without a hiccup. I would choose the product that get my work done best within the least amount of time so I could focus on other more important things. My wife, however, prefers her Windows laptop & android phone as she could do her work better and she prefers android because of its flexibility.
• SCAQTony 9y ago
  I am curious as to how Apple can just jump into a new complex business and be instantly pro at it without buying out a chip manufacturer who is. Will there be a learning curve? Will Apple machines circa 2020 have a bumpy road or not as fact?
  • danappelxx 9y ago
    Don’t they manufacture chips for their iOS line of products?
    • SCAQTony 9y ago
      I can find no evidence that Apple manufactures chips of any kind.
      • Dunedan 9y ago
        Neither does it plan to do so.
    • Strom 9y ago
      The Apple chips are manufactured by TSMC & Samsung.
  • JoachimS 9y ago
    There is a difference between designing a chip (from system model downto mask set) and manufacturint (fabbing). Apple is a fabless company, just like many others. They use TSMC, Samsung Semi, SMIC and other fabs that provides state of the art fab processes. When it comes to the design part, Apple has gobbled up enormous amounts of talent and resources the last 10 years. PA Semi was one of the bigger ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P.A._Semi
• scarface74 9y ago
  I've read through a lot of the comments, but no one asked the question - why would Apple invest the R&D resources to create and support ARM based Macs when Macs are such a small part of their revenue and profits? Would they make more money by selling ARM based Macs? Why not just add capabilities to iOS and make an iOS laptop? The only thing I see missing is true multi-user support (not the hack they do in the education market) and pointer support.
  • Dunedan 9y ago
    > why would Apple invest the R&D resources to create and support ARM based Macs when Macs are such a small part of their revenue and profits? They already invest a lot in the development of their ARM-based processors for iOS. I don't think the additional investment for making them ready for Macs would be that high. Take the 12" MacBook for example. I can even imagine they could simply stick the current A11 processor into it and it'd be fine. > Would they make more money by selling ARM based Macs? Yes. Profit margin would be much higher.
    • scarface74 9y ago
      They would still have to develop their own custom thunderbolt controller, an emulator, etc. The only thing changing as far as cost would be the processor. Let's say they save $100 on the processor (not likely). They sell about 14 million Macs a year. That's only $1.4 Billion - pocket change to Apple.
• tambourine_man 9y ago
  Interesting thread on the way Steve dealt with the press during the PPC -> X86 transition. https://twitter.com/nickwingfield/status/980882009156329472 https://twitter.com/nickwingfield/status/980882009156329472
• ianai 9y ago
  Hey Apple, could we get those chips made in germanium? Kthx
• promeus 9y ago
  Finally. I was a hardcore apple fan. I believed in well thought design and optimized software. But after Jobs this company is pissing me off constantly. Stupid iWatch is device without real use case (but it was a reason iPhone to look like every other smartphone), ditching the skeuomorphic interface for flat stupidity (instead of simplifying and cleaning it), mac mini fiasco (great idea, left in the dust), mac book air (best laptop form factor, still with low quality TN display), killing of Final Cut Studio (the most comprehensive audio/video suite ever) and dumbing down the software (my friends still use Old versions of Final Cut), no Mac Pro (iMac pro is not a professional system), ditching the core user base (the reason of existence in the first place). Finally this year after staring down in disbelief at iPhone X (o god face id is the new norm) for the first time i started looking in other alternatives in smartphone market. The only device that i still cannot replace is my iPad Air 2 (media consumption and good battery life) but is questionable. This is the last drop.For me Apple is gone. It was a good ride Steve. Now its time to ditch the bandwagon, and say hello to my old Penguin friend. To all developers in the world: Start making top notch software for linux. Make it expensive and reliable. Start with Photoshop. Than Illustrator. Than Video editing and DAW systems. The hipsters like me who from years are paying for apple GUI design (now non existent in good quality and fading away every day) are ready to pay. Go find yourself The old Apple (Snow Leopard) HIG and start your engines. Big Money is coming in your face, because professional designers, videographers, composers, architects, etc. are really pissed off :)
• asimpletune 9y ago
  This coupled with LLVM creates a powerful position for Apple in the future.
• eastdakota 9y ago
  If true, and assuming the chip will be based around ARM, then this may be the final nail in Intel's server business. The biggest gate in adopting ARM-based servers is development and testing on a local environment. If x86 is being emulated and ARM is native then developing software for ARM-based servers just got a lot easier.
• orionblastar 9y ago
  Some of the old X86 clone chip companies got bought out by others. Cyrix, Centaur, Winchip ect got bought out by VIA and I had not heard of VIA is still in business. Apple once made PowerPC chips with Motorola, IBM, and others. There is also a rumor of Apple using ARM chips with X86 codes or X86 emulation. I'd like to see Apple make a version of a modern PowerPC CPU and use an ARM as a co-processor to run iOS stuff. Cut out Intel or do it via emulation like Rosetta did for PowerPC code.
• Datsundere 9y ago
  Sure Apple, how did it go last time when you tried to implement your own SSL library without any tests or static analysis? goto fail; goto fail;
• _emacsomancer_ 9y ago
  I remember when Atari and Apple used to use Motorola chips. I miss the greater variety of those days, so I see this as positive, even if I'm not an Apple user myself. (And I look forward to trying out Apple-produced chips second-hand, and running Linux on them....)
• flamedoge 9y ago
  who didn't see this coming?
• akulbe 9y ago
  I wonder if this means that virtualization will be impossible without some sort of emulation layer. If so, that seriously blows.
• shmerl 9y ago
  So Apple laptops will become glorified underpowered netbooks. macOS users totally won't start abandoning the platform even more than now.
• imagetic 9y ago
  I just had a flashback to the G4 and G5 era. The day they announced Apple announced the move to Intel there was a huge sigh of relief from everybody I knew, especially those in the Media industry. I don't see a lot of good coming from this move.
• martin1975 9y ago
  Apple couldn't have started digging their own grave soon enough. Now all that's left to do is for Microsoft to play its end game - provide a bridge for NT/Win32 apps to run atop Linux, and spend the next couple of years bolting/porting/reinventing their new UI on a rock solid server OS - Linux, which will soon become a rock solid desktop OS. Bye bye Apple. Nice to have known you. Game over-Linux wins, we all win. No more proprietary OS.
• jiveturkey 9y ago
  if true it means they have version 1 chips already today. perhaps this is why the new support for external GPU.
• dannyw 9y ago
  SemiAccurate has reported this all the way back in 2012 that they had a ten year plan to switch to ARM. I’m not surprised.
• baybal2 9y ago
  So that was not an April 1 joke?
• hyperpallium 9y ago
  It's trivially credible that Apple will use its own chips in macs - it already has cpu's faster that its low-end, ultra portables. They could have done it years ago. But less credible that they will only use their own chips. However, there have been complaints that Apple's high-end hasn't been very high recently - maybe laying the ground-work, lowering expectations?
• SZJX 9y ago
  So Apple seems to be willing to give up on the developer market almost entirely, and will turn the Macs into multimedia centers just as iPads then? Maybe that's indeed where the majority of their revenue lies, and they couldn't care less whether fewer developers buy their Macs if that means more home users buy them. But still, I doubt whether it will be the right move in the long run. Correct me if I'm wrong, but wouldn't a change of processor architecture mean that the majority of the apps that currently run on Mac won't run anymore and would require the app developers to make extensive changes to make them run on the new architecture? I've parted with my MBP after having used it for 4 years and switched to Arch Linux. It has been a blast so far, apart from the spotty HiDPI support and lack of built-in dictionaries. It's also much nicer than Ubuntu as a dev distro (not as a production distro of course) since you can install the newest version of almost any software you want in a flash without involving the messy PPAs. I was worrying about Apple's shifts in the recent years in the Mac line but they pale in comparison to this change. Gives me less of an incentive to use any Apple product for sure.
  • pertymcpert 9y ago
    The vast majority of apps don't use things like inline assembly or rely on architecture specific features, so it's just a recompile.
• madshiva 9y ago
  I hope all fan boys that trust more a company instead of doing a real analyse, test of the product, start to learn to stop focusing only on one brand. They only use fancy argument. "It's more easy", "it's more convenent". "I like how the wallpaper is rendering." Come on Apple failed with there proprietar hardware, we was not able to change anything and you want back the same things? Because it's more easy mean that you are a noob, that don't know how to use your computer, then stay on Mac. It's better for you, and for us.
• coinerone 9y ago
  I think and hope that Apple will merge osx and ios and thus only needs to maintain one software and hardware architecture.
• machinehermit 9y ago
  IMO if you have never tried KDE plasma and install KDE connect on your mobile devices you have no idea what you are missing. KDE connect is irreplaceable 5 minutes after you install it.
• Ataraxy 9y ago
  Meanwhile with the impending containerization and vm efforts chromeos will begin to look more and more attractive.
• awinter-py 9y ago
  1. apple likely believes intel's hardware division benefits from apple's large investment in compilers. In general, apple is attacking all its technology partners to cut them out of the stack (i.e. qualcomm). 2. apple seems to be underestimate the value of openness in driving certain kinds of customers to their hardware (developers, for example). Further splitting the ecosystem will drive some users to linux laptops. (Hear hear). 3. intel's incentives are now highly aligned with the linux community (esp given msft's windows shutdown) 4. this is the first time since 2005 that there's a legitimate spread trade between intc and aapl.
• amelius 9y ago
  What is next, Apple building its own wafer-steppers / lithography machines?
• brockers 9y ago
  I cannot imagine that is is a good plan. I just don't see enough innovation coming from the processor space to justify the overhead of design, development, testing, and manufacturing while effectively re-inventing most of the underlying system. Unless they build them as x86 clones... but even then it seems like they would be playing catch-up to new innovation. If Apple really plans on doing this, it MUST be because of some fundamentally new capability that they are either unwilling to divulge to Intel, or Intel is unwilling to invest in. Some kind of core change to the way that Macs interact with or behave with users; otherwise it just doens't make sense to me.
• carlhjerpe 9y ago
  It'd be really cool if they rolled down the https://riscv.org/ https://riscv.org/ path. They wouldn't have to pay anyone anything and could do whatever they wanted. Then again, wont happen
• ksec 9y ago
  I just read 1060 comments, 400 of them are about macOS, 200 of them are not even related to the CPU topic. And no one has any more insight to share? I find it very strange people think Apple SoC aren't any good for desktop workload. https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/7795892?baseline=7796004 https://browser.geekbench.com/v4/cpu/compare/7795892?baselin... This is an Macbook Top Spec from Intel on a Fanless Design, against an iPad Pro also a fanless design. Let's ignore the small difference of TDP for a minutes because both are limited by its Fanless design, and Geekbench do runs on for a few minutes, so it is an indication or how close they are in these specific workloads. The Intel Core i7-7Y75 can turbo boost to 3.4Ghz if needed, comparing that to max 2.4Ghz of the A10X. If we also ignore the frequency, iPad Single Core performance is with 10% of Intel's best Core processor at this TDP. The A10 core here is a generation older then the A11 used in iPhone X and iPhone8, and A12 coming in this September will likely have even better IPC. The JavaScript testing performance on both Mac and iOS Safari shows performance is similar and A11 even edge out Intel in some cases. So no matter how you spin it, in certain workload Apple A11 has already matched up or exceed Intel within a Fanless TDP design. That is excluding the advantage Apple will have on Multicore when it has 4x Core compared to 2 Core 4 thread in Intel. Intel's 14nm++ is also matured and better then then TSMC 10nm, which is merely a testing node for its 7nm. i.e Assuming Apple wanted to, they could have a 7nm Quad Core A12X shipping in 6 months time that is better then Intel's Core at Fanless TDP or <15W design, at 1/3 of the cost. The reality is Intel hasn't been executing its plan for a few years. And If this rumours is true it is only themselves to blame. When Apple were designing its 2015 Macbook, Intel's roadmap were clear, three years later in 2017, the Macbook was suppose to have Quad Core in its design. And looking at all the latest roadmap, it doesn't seem there will be a 10nm Quad Core CPU shipping this year either. Not in fanless design. We are looking at 2019 march, four years since its introduction to get that through. Then there is the LPDDR4 memory support. You wanted 32GB Laptop Memory? Well Intel doesn't allow you to have it. Not even in 2018. The delay in 10nm, the little to no improvement in IPC, AVX2 is very much a niche. As a normal customer I dont really have a reason to buy Intel anymore unless you want absolute Price / Single Core Performance, otherwise AMD is a much better choice. So I dont think we are the one who are frustrated. Apple is likely too. I also wonder how this moves means in the Modem space. Which is the much more important pcs for Apple. I have often argued one reason Apple didn't make the Mac to ARM move earlier was because Apple needed Intel's modem to fence off Qualcomm's "double dipping". Now that Broadcom failed to acquire Qualcomm, Intel is being dumped from Apple. Does that mean Apple is going back to Qualcomm modem soon? Likely along with a deal of using Qualcomm Centriq on servers and likely later in Pro lineup of Mac? Previously Apple's rumoured Project McQueen were to bring all the Server inhouse, using less resources from AWS, Azure and Google. Apple is a large Server customers on its own. If Qualcomm has Apple to kick start its Server CPU business, along with Apple push to help PC transition to ARM, it may be well worth Qualcomm to lower its royalty and modem prices.