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With the CPU design or the transition to a new ISA? Lots of things can go wrong at any time even by doing nothing. But Apple does have a team of pretty good eng

With the CPU design or the transition to a new ISA? Lots of things can go wrong at any time even by doing nothing. But Apple does have a team of pretty good engineers that managed to design what's probably the fastest (best?) ARM cores on the market, and with good enough perf/Watt numbers. So I doubt their biggest hurdle will be to design a CPU. It will be to split the "MacOS" ecosystem in 2 and maintain two branches for x86 and ARM. And while they also have a team of pretty good software engineers with x86 and ARM experience they are already having major quality control problems lately. Having to maintain a dual ISA MacOS will be a challenge. Then they have to provide the legacy compatibility in order to convince people to buy into something with little to no support for most of what's out there today. But you know... we could use some diversity in this space. I wish them all the best.

394549 8y ago
> It will be to split the "MacOS" ecosystem in 2 and maintain two branches for x86 and ARM. And while they also have a team of pretty good software engineers with x86 and ARM experience they are already having major quality control problems lately. Having to maintain a dual ISA MacOS will be a challenge. Then they have to provide the legacy compatibility in order to convince people to buy into something with little to no support for most of what's out there today. They've done that twice before (68k -> PPC, PPC -> Intel), and IIRC, seem to be preparing to do it again (Bitcode). I think the biggest risk for Apple is that they may not be able to keep up with x86 on the desktop performance front. They have a much smaller market to amortize the R&D over than Intel does.
- rusk 8y ago
  The biggest risk for Apple is they’ve become a shiny things company and don’t really have the engineering stones for doing this kind of thing any more
close04 8y ago
@394549, I don't doubt that they can do it, as I was also saying a couple of comments above this one. But at what price? The difference is that now they have big QA issues before having to maintain the 2 branches. Their software (and possibly the software team) a decade and a half ago when they were moving to Intel was in a lot better shape. Unless I'm looking at this through nostalgia goggles. :)
- rusk 8y ago
  They were also moving to a well established architecture from their own bespoke one and now they’re going the other way ...
  - close04 8y ago
    ARM is a well established ISA. The customization Apple might bring to the CPU architecture will make no difference to a user as long as the compatibility is there. The problem is that as established as ARM is they really don't have a meaningful presence in the desktop/laptop ecosystem. You have probably tens of thousands of apps for the mobile space but even if Apple magically adapted them for a non-touchscreen, keyboard and touchpad world the vast majority still won't cater to the regular or professional user wanting to buy a laptop, not a glorified tablet. And that's a hard sell. Why am I buying a MacBook if all I get is an iPad with a keyboard? And don't get me wrong, having used both iPads and CoreM ultraportables (Apple or otherwise) the iPad offered the better experience more often than not. But if I compare it to the regular CPU it just can't compete. The productivity with mobile apps is not where it should be to convince a normal buyer to switch, let alone a more demanding user.
    - rusk 8y ago
      > The problem is that as established as ARM is they really don't have a meaningful presence in the desktop/laptop ecosystem Yes. Not established. That’s what I said.
      - close04 8y ago
        "Not established" and "not established in a specific segment" are two vastly different things. So no, most definitely I didn't say what you said, or what you think I said. ;)
        rusk 8y ago
        Aye, but you said what I meant. Look at another way - Apple moved from PowerPC to Intel. It's not that Motorola ISA weren't well established but they simply weren't as well established and didn't have access to the same mindshare in terms of high performance hardware and software engineering. So in this sense it's a step back the other way - except for perhaps Intel seem to be stuck in the mire these days.

394549 8y ago

> It will be to split the "MacOS" ecosystem in 2 and maintain two branches for x86 and ARM. And while they also have a team of pretty good software engineers with x86 and ARM experience they are already having major quality control problems lately. Having to maintain a dual ISA MacOS will be a challenge. Then they have to provide the legacy compatibility in order to convince people to buy into something with little to no support for most of what's out there today. They've done that twice before (68k -> PPC, PPC -> Intel), and IIRC, seem to be preparing to do it again (Bitcode). I think the biggest risk for Apple is that they may not be able to keep up with x86 on the desktop performance front. They have a much smaller market to amortize the R&D over than Intel does.

rusk 8y ago
The biggest risk for Apple is they’ve become a shiny things company and don’t really have the engineering stones for doing this kind of thing any more

close04 8y ago

@394549, I don't doubt that they can do it, as I was also saying a couple of comments above this one. But at what price? The difference is that now they have big QA issues before having to maintain the 2 branches. Their software (and possibly the software team) a decade and a half ago when they were moving to Intel was in a lot better shape. Unless I'm looking at this through nostalgia goggles. :)

rusk 8y ago
They were also moving to a well established architecture from their own bespoke one and now they’re going the other way ...
- close04 8y ago
  ARM is a well established ISA. The customization Apple might bring to the CPU architecture will make no difference to a user as long as the compatibility is there. The problem is that as established as ARM is they really don't have a meaningful presence in the desktop/laptop ecosystem. You have probably tens of thousands of apps for the mobile space but even if Apple magically adapted them for a non-touchscreen, keyboard and touchpad world the vast majority still won't cater to the regular or professional user wanting to buy a laptop, not a glorified tablet. And that's a hard sell. Why am I buying a MacBook if all I get is an iPad with a keyboard? And don't get me wrong, having used both iPads and CoreM ultraportables (Apple or otherwise) the iPad offered the better experience more often than not. But if I compare it to the regular CPU it just can't compete. The productivity with mobile apps is not where it should be to convince a normal buyer to switch, let alone a more demanding user.
  - rusk 8y ago
    > The problem is that as established as ARM is they really don't have a meaningful presence in the desktop/laptop ecosystem Yes. Not established. That’s what I said.
    - close04 8y ago
      "Not established" and "not established in a specific segment" are two vastly different things. So no, most definitely I didn't say what you said, or what you think I said. ;)
      - rusk 8y ago
        Aye, but you said what I meant. Look at another way - Apple moved from PowerPC to Intel. It's not that Motorola ISA weren't well established but they simply weren't as well established and didn't have access to the same mindshare in terms of high performance hardware and software engineering. So in this sense it's a step back the other way - except for perhaps Intel seem to be stuck in the mire these days.