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See my comment on another part of this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20292762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20292762 1. MacOS and iPad a
by npunt 7y ago
See my comment on another part of this thread:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20292762 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20292762
1. MacOS and iPad are similar, but distinct user experiences. Its more than hardware (one with keyboard, one without), its about those differences in experience. Apple is nothing if not patient about introducing change to computing paradigms and experiences, so it's fine to co-exist for a while. Switching to ARM gives them better margins, better control over price, better control over physical chassis constraints, better control over features offered, access to a better chip team than Intel's, and now TSMC and/or Samsung's better EUV processes. E.g. features-wise, Intel still isn't shipping LPDDR4 chips, something the 4 year old iPhone 6S had.
2. Basically, x86 becomes a co-processor, just like how discrete GPUs are handled. This avoids having to compete with tiny sliver of market that wants Xeons.
3. AMD is a lateral move, with exactly the same lack of control over core technologies problem. Also AMD is historically not as reliable a supplier for volumes that Apple has.
4. See #2 and my comment. Also, they needed to intro Mac Pro to satisfy / shore up existing Mac contingent before they abandoned entirely. This is a multi-year journey.
- wcfields 7y ago> 2. ... x86 becomes a co-processor, just like how discrete GPUs are handled ... That's become my hunch too in the transition to ARM, with Apple producing a SoC that integrates an entry level x86, with usual 2 upgrade options. Eg the next product line would be: $1599 -- Dual-Core 1.5ghz A14 + Dual-core 1.2ghz x86 $1899 -- Quad-Core 1.9ghz A14 + Quad-Core 2.4ghz x86 $2199 -- Quad-Core 2.5ghz A14 + Quad-Core 2.7ghz x86
- als0 7y agoTo me that sounds way too costly (especially if they need to be an x86 licensee). And managing a heterogenous platform (HW/FW/OS) is damn hard without even considering the user experience standards that Apple are proud of. I think they will take a different approach. Put a decent keyboard on a future iPad Pro. Make iOS more like macOS. And then they'll eventually kill macOS.
- ksec 7y agoBecause all these hypotheses assumes Co-Processor model works. And as far as I know,It doesn't. You cant move process between different ISA, not to mention memory access.