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Part of the problem with the Mac is that Intel has been slow to make progress. Particularly when it comes to faster low-power chips, Moore's Law has been failin

Part of the problem with the Mac is that Intel has been slow to make progress. Particularly when it comes to faster low-power chips, Moore's Law has been failing us for some time now. How long till Apple start putting their A-series chips in Macs?

illumin8 8y ago
I think it's coming very soon, perhaps in the next generation of Macbook Pros. The writing was on the wall when Apple released the new iPad Pros: https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nightmare-for-qualcomm-and-intel/ https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nig... I know these are synthetic benchmarks, but it's incredible to see the A12X outperform the iMac 27" Retina... These chips have the potential to blow the doors off of Intel's Core i7/i9 while having 2x the battery life.
matwood 8y ago
> How long till Apple start putting their A-series chips in Macs? What most people call a Mac? I'm betting 2020. If you expand your thought a bit, you could say they already have the A-series chips in a Mac with the new iPad Pros. It looks like before long Adobes creative suite will be on the iPad Pro. It has a keyboard, can hook up to external monitors, etc... And, while it still would not work for most people on HN, it is getting very close to a full computer replacement for many.
askafriend 8y ago
The new iPad Pro already benchmarks as high as some of their recent laptops (Yes, I know the thermals are different, etc but bear with me here) My bet is that over the years iPad Pro will expand to do more and more of the jobs that people traditionally use MacBooks (or laptops in general) to do. We'll eventually see a world where most people have iPads, not laptops - thereby relying on A-series chips, not Intel, to get their work done. iPad sales are already encroaching Mac sales, and Apple already acknowledges that for most people, the iPad is enough to be their primary computer or soon will be (you can see this in their communications and commercials). I know it might be difficult for a somewhat technical (and maybe a little bit older) community like HN to imagine, but this is one of my strong beliefs with regards to Apple's product lineup. I truly think the iPad Pro is the dark horse that no one will see coming (especially given that Apple themselves hadn't really focused on iPad deeply for the first couple years of its existence).
- stale2002 8y ago
  I really don't think so. Whether or not the iPad pro has good hardwear is irrelevant. What matters is that it is missing and extremely important feature, which is a mouse and keyboard. I don't care how powerful a keyboard is if I can't use a physical keyboard and mouse for it. Power can't beat UX, and boy is the keyboard good UX when you compare it to tablets or phones.
  - askafriend 8y ago
    This sounds like the kind of argument people made when the iPhone had a software keyboard and every other smartphone had a physical tactile keyboard. What I think you're missing is that the world will evolve in ways to accommodate a mouse-light interface or evolve to include it if it becomes obvious that it's mission-critical (it's not at all obvious today, despite legacy thinking). Neither version of the future precludes the iPad at all. Just look at the new gestural interface on the new iPhone X/XR/XS devices. It makes navigating the OS effortless and super fast in ways that it simply wasn't before. Before it, people were saying that it's too slow to navigate on a mobile device. How many other innovations like that are coming down the line? We don't know. I say this as someone who's used an iPad Pro along with the Keyboard Cover for quite some time. No, you won't be able to type on it for hours and hours. But you'll be able to type on it for an hour or so consistently. That's a BIG deal, and changes A LOT. It's only going to get better from here. There are a lot of apps that support countless keyboard shortcuts, including Google's whole G Suite, Office 365, Lightroom, and the upcoming full version of Photoshop in 2019. If you asked me 3 years ago if I thought the iPad would replace Laptops, I'd tell you probably not. Apple had done little to differentiate it from the iPhone lineup in terms of iOS or even hardware features. But with the iPad Pro specifically, I think things have taken a real turn and Apple is signaling that they're ready to focus on taking it from a media consumption device to a more productive, mission-critical device. 120hz refresh rate, full digitizer, Apple Pencil, the new integrated keyboard cases, a new focus on pro apps, and a ton of improvements to the actual UI/UX to make multitasking and app-switching easier....etc etc. These were all the things that were missing for a long time. But Apple is finally doing all the things needed to move iPad in a direction where people will choose it over laptops at an increasing rate. The kicker is this: Apple announced recently during WWDC that iOS apps will work on MacOS. Many of their new stock apps in MacOS Mojave are just ported iOS apps. They are truly and confidently doubling down on iOS and iPad. That's my personal prediction and belief anyway.
plussed_reader 8y ago
Did you know 'Moore's Law' is a nice idea, and not actually regulated by anything?
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Yes, but it's an assumption on which many decisions across the industry on predicated, because it has held fairly consistent for a long time, until recently. Moore's Law truly ending would cause a lot of upheaval. Is causing, but luckily a lot of the industry has shifted focus to mobile anyway, where advancements continue to accelerate for now.

illumin8 8y ago

I think it's coming very soon, perhaps in the next generation of Macbook Pros. The writing was on the wall when Apple released the new iPad Pros: https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nightmare-for-qualcomm-and-intel/ https://bgr.com/2018/11/01/new-ipad-pros-speed-will-be-a-nig... I know these are synthetic benchmarks, but it's incredible to see the A12X outperform the iMac 27" Retina... These chips have the potential to blow the doors off of Intel's Core i7/i9 while having 2x the battery life.

matwood 8y ago

> How long till Apple start putting their A-series chips in Macs? What most people call a Mac? I'm betting 2020. If you expand your thought a bit, you could say they already have the A-series chips in a Mac with the new iPad Pros. It looks like before long Adobes creative suite will be on the iPad Pro. It has a keyboard, can hook up to external monitors, etc... And, while it still would not work for most people on HN, it is getting very close to a full computer replacement for many.

askafriend 8y ago

The new iPad Pro already benchmarks as high as some of their recent laptops (Yes, I know the thermals are different, etc but bear with me here) My bet is that over the years iPad Pro will expand to do more and more of the jobs that people traditionally use MacBooks (or laptops in general) to do. We'll eventually see a world where most people have iPads, not laptops - thereby relying on A-series chips, not Intel, to get their work done. iPad sales are already encroaching Mac sales, and Apple already acknowledges that for most people, the iPad is enough to be their primary computer or soon will be (you can see this in their communications and commercials). I know it might be difficult for a somewhat technical (and maybe a little bit older) community like HN to imagine, but this is one of my strong beliefs with regards to Apple's product lineup. I truly think the iPad Pro is the dark horse that no one will see coming (especially given that Apple themselves hadn't really focused on iPad deeply for the first couple years of its existence).

stale2002 8y ago
I really don't think so. Whether or not the iPad pro has good hardwear is irrelevant. What matters is that it is missing and extremely important feature, which is a mouse and keyboard. I don't care how powerful a keyboard is if I can't use a physical keyboard and mouse for it. Power can't beat UX, and boy is the keyboard good UX when you compare it to tablets or phones.
- askafriend 8y ago
  This sounds like the kind of argument people made when the iPhone had a software keyboard and every other smartphone had a physical tactile keyboard. What I think you're missing is that the world will evolve in ways to accommodate a mouse-light interface or evolve to include it if it becomes obvious that it's mission-critical (it's not at all obvious today, despite legacy thinking). Neither version of the future precludes the iPad at all. Just look at the new gestural interface on the new iPhone X/XR/XS devices. It makes navigating the OS effortless and super fast in ways that it simply wasn't before. Before it, people were saying that it's too slow to navigate on a mobile device. How many other innovations like that are coming down the line? We don't know. I say this as someone who's used an iPad Pro along with the Keyboard Cover for quite some time. No, you won't be able to type on it for hours and hours. But you'll be able to type on it for an hour or so consistently. That's a BIG deal, and changes A LOT. It's only going to get better from here. There are a lot of apps that support countless keyboard shortcuts, including Google's whole G Suite, Office 365, Lightroom, and the upcoming full version of Photoshop in 2019. If you asked me 3 years ago if I thought the iPad would replace Laptops, I'd tell you probably not. Apple had done little to differentiate it from the iPhone lineup in terms of iOS or even hardware features. But with the iPad Pro specifically, I think things have taken a real turn and Apple is signaling that they're ready to focus on taking it from a media consumption device to a more productive, mission-critical device. 120hz refresh rate, full digitizer, Apple Pencil, the new integrated keyboard cases, a new focus on pro apps, and a ton of improvements to the actual UI/UX to make multitasking and app-switching easier....etc etc. These were all the things that were missing for a long time. But Apple is finally doing all the things needed to move iPad in a direction where people will choose it over laptops at an increasing rate. The kicker is this: Apple announced recently during WWDC that iOS apps will work on MacOS. Many of their new stock apps in MacOS Mojave are just ported iOS apps. They are truly and confidently doubling down on iOS and iPad. That's my personal prediction and belief anyway.

plussed_reader 8y ago

Did you know 'Moore's Law' is a nice idea, and not actually regulated by anything?

Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Yes, but it's an assumption on which many decisions across the industry on predicated, because it has held fairly consistent for a long time, until recently. Moore's Law truly ending would cause a lot of upheaval. Is causing, but luckily a lot of the industry has shifted focus to mobile anyway, where advancements continue to accelerate for now.