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On one hand, an ARM powered mac would increase Apple's profitability by not having to pay Intel for processors, on the other hand there's a. the disruption and
by kristianp 7y ago
On one hand, an ARM powered mac would increase Apple's profitability by not having to pay Intel for processors, on the other hand there's a. the disruption and confusion an architecture switch would cause, and b. Apple's lack of interest in the laptop platform relative to Ipad pro and mobile.
Someone demoed transpiling bitcode to x86_64, it seems going the other direction wouldn't be a big problem, it's stock clang: https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translating-an-ARM-iOS-App-to-Intel-macOS-Using-Bitcode https://www.highcaffeinecontent.com/blog/20190518-Translatin...
- leokennis 7y agoWon’t switching form Intel to ARM allow Apple to basically double battery life for the same performance (or double performance with equal battery life)? If I’d had a laptop like that on offer, my interest in the laptop platform would be surely rekindled as half the earth would line up around the block to buy one...
- RossBencina 7y agoI don't see it causing any more disruption and confusion than the switch from 68k to PPC, from PPC to x86, or discontinuing support for 10+ years worth of 32-bit executables.
- macintux 7y agoIt used to be the case that emulating Intel on ARM would be much slower than the emulators that supported previous transitions. Given how impressive the recent Apple chips are, perhaps that's less of an issue now.