16 ms·

ARMed mac: not again or for real this time?

65 points by miles 7y ago

Mindwipe 7y ago
The problem seems much more software based than hardware based. The Mac has lost so much software through Catalina's 64 bit transition, and that was telegraphed a decade ago. Between that, Apple's collapsing quality of documentation, seemingly having two competing development frameworks due to internal infighting, the prevalence of Electron, the loss of similarity to software for popular Linux x86 distributions, and Metal being extremely uninviting as a dev wanting to do any crossplatform work can Apple really assume the software will come for an ARM based Mac? I am very worried it wouldn't. Last time the Mac underwent a transition it ultimately made things easier for developers and there was a fairly thriving (if niche) Mac software base. There simply isn't any more. Mac gaming is going backwards at a rate of knots and dual booting to Windows is more important than ever. Large companies seem to just be abandoning Mac drivers entirely (glares at Sony dropping support for their camera software for Macs rather than transition to 64bit).
- unlinked_dll 7y ago
  The documentation quality is so true. Conference videos are not docs! For some of the lower level stuff, all the good documentation is marked deprecated, hidden as comments in the framework headers (curiously stripped in the online API references), in some mailing list dating back 20 years, or in a forum that requires login to read and isn't indexed by search engines. It's like if you want to write a pro media app on MacOS today you need to work for Apple or at a company that's deployed a pro media app for decades.
- deepaksurti 7y ago
  >> The problem seems much more software based than hardware based. - During transition from Motorola's 68k series of chips to IBM/Motorola PowerPC processors, Apple produced classic MacOS versions that could run on either platform. - During the transition from PowerPC to Intel, Apple produced Mac OS X versions that could run on either platform. - In 2005, Apple shipped special Intel build machines for devs only. I think there is a method to this madness and despite all the flaws we currently observe, which are orthogonal to the transition, I trust them to get it right, if and when it happens.
  - RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
    The earlier transitions involved going from a less powerful cpu to a more powerful cpu so emulation was an option. Now, at best you are going to an equivalent cpu and at worst a less powerful cpu.
    - mrkstu 7y ago
      Depends how seamlessly they can get devs to re-compile. ARM having to emulate x86 would be definitely slower. There is no reason to believe the per-watt performance of actual ARM code won't outperform equivalent x86 chips. i.e. an A(x) Macbook Air replacement could easily outperform the Intel variant at the same power envelope, based on the observed performance of the iPad pro my wife uses.
    - londons_explore 7y ago
      Apple has some pretty decent IC design engineers... And ARM has fewer legacy corner cases to support and a more dense simpler to decode instruction set. Apple also has high margins so can afford to have big silicon dies with lots of logic and cache. Given all that, I think it's totally possible Apple could release a CPU with more raw performance and performance per watt than Intel/AMD. That extra performance would allow possibly emulation of x86. The emulation world is much more advanced than it was 20 years ago - dynamic recompilation could easily lead to a 50% slowdown rather than a 5000% slowdown that interpreting might be.
    - ken 7y ago
      Do you have a source for that? The thesis of this article is that it is a more powerful CPU, in terms of performance-per-watt, which is the same metric that spawned the PowerPC-to-Intel transition. The author pointed to specific ARM chips that exist today which "consume less power, about 210 watts, than a competing Xeon CPU needing as much as 400 wats, for about the same amount of computing".
- trevyn 7y ago
  >can Apple really assume the software will come for an ARM based Mac? This is what Catalyst is for, no? Mac software is now iPad software. Macs are now somewhat more capable iPads. The golden age of computing is over.
  - Mindwipe 7y ago
    I think even the most delusional Catalyst fan would admit Catalyst is nowhere near ready for prime time and will not be in the timescale for these supposed ARM Macs to launch, if ever.
  - IAmEveryone 7y ago
    Adding catalyst didn’t remove the ability to use any other UIKit, or to compile and run whatever you want in any language there is. Everything that ran before continues to do so, and it’s almost oxymoronically wrong to consider a system that is a strict superset of another less free.
    - trevyn 7y ago
      Right, and we could find ourselves in a time when any meaningful non-developer app is only available as a Catalyst app. It’s kind of how like Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” made us less free, because it’s actually “embrace, extend, and (later) extinguish”.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- londons_explore 7y ago
  I'm worried that a lot of app devs might just move all the app logic to an Electron app or entirely online as a webapp... The days of desktop apps are numbered already, and this might accelerate that transition.
imtringued 7y ago
Unfortunately I have heard these rumors way too often. I won't believe anything anymore until Apple itself releases a product.
- dep_b 7y ago
  We kept hearing stories about x86 for years too. I'm sure ARM based MacBooks already exist as testing devices.
  - 1123581321 7y ago
    Did successive stories about the x86 change provide additional information before the actual release was imminent? The ARM stories are not.
    - dep_b 7y ago
      They never did, just new sources of rumors.
- wyldfire 7y ago
  Microsoft has already released Windows-on-ARM and there are several vendors making ARM laptops. So far adoption seems slow. I think the initial ball drop was running an emulated x86 Chrome binary. I know time to market is important but porting Edge and not porting Chrome was a big mistake. Now that Windows Chrome (and firefox) is built native, I'd bet the biggest challenge is getting critical third party vendors like VPNs. Apple has fewer third party software vendors AFAIK so they would probably be able to move to ARM with fewer challenges. That said, they have traditionally had a lot of customers in creative industries with specialized software from Adobe. Getting the vendors to port, moving quickly, and trying to keep business plans secret will be tricky. I have an i5 thinkpad for work that gets atrocious battery life. At home, I have an XPS13 (also i5-based) that gets ~6+ hours which is good. I should be able to go the entire work day on a single charge. All of my build/compile/test work is done remotely on desktops and servers, so my laptop has relatively light duty.
fierarul 7y ago
ARM Macs will be the end of the line for many "prosumer" customers of Apple. It will probably sell quite well though. And it will bring back fanless designs.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  > ARM Macs will be the end of the line for many "prosumer" customers of Apple. Why do you think that? Do you just think ARM can't match Intel performance? Or do you think the prosumers need Intel-specific functionality like counters? What I'm worried about is implementing top-quality ARM backends for software like the JVM. We need someone doing this rapidly as I think an ARM MacBook Pro will just turn up one day, unannounced.
  - rjsw 7y ago
    There have been Hotspot backends for ARM and AArch64 in OpenJDK for several versions now.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      Depending who you talk to, you'll get the opinion that they're much lower quality than the AMD64 backends. I think that may be particularly an issue in Graal. Some people will tell you that the way Graal is designed is problematic for ARM and that's a long-term problem. I don't know if that's entirely true or not, but now we need it solved quickly if it is!
      - vbezhenar 7y ago
        I used to think that, but apparently nowadays ARM JVM is pretty good. Have no idea about Graal though (and I have no idea why would anyone need Graal at all).
        chrisseaton 7y ago
        > I have no idea why would anyone need Graal at all It has new optimisations like partial escape analysis that C2 doesn't have. In production this saves Twitter 13% on compute resources in their data centre. That's MASSIVE. I presume it's tens of thousands of dollars a month. People also use Graal to compile Java applications to standalone native executables, which isn't something C2 can do. And finally Graal is a system that you can use to run languages other than Java. For example JavaScript on Graal, which runs on a JVM but is about as fast as V8.
OrangeMango 7y ago
I still think that the AppleTV is where this will start. They now support multiple accounts, have an app store, etc. iOS supports keyboards and mice, and they have a "conference room display" mode that brings them into a business setting. Release the iWork suite and some sort of thin client/remote desktop app and then see how people use them. Learn, iterate, repeat. They can build an ARM-based Mac bit by bit, out in the open, without anyone freaking out and killing their x86 sales.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Apple TV is already ARM (at least the new ones are…), and it runs what's essentially a skin of iOS. I doubt they will switch that out with macOS anytime soon.
  - jsjohnst 7y ago
    The original Apple TV (that looks sorta like a half-height Mac Mini) was based on a stripped down version of OSX, but you are correct, everything from the Apple TV 2 and on is ARM and running a derivative of iOS.
    - solarkraft 7y ago
      Isn't iOS a version of Mac OS? :-) Do they share any new code nowadays?
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        They share most of their code.
        jsjohnst 7y ago
        Now, sure, but not back then to the same extent.
      - jsjohnst 7y ago
        The Apple TV v1 was released/shipped before the iPhone was. It was based on OS X 10.4.7 with a modified version of FrontRow (remember that old app?) as the primary UI. You can read a bunch more about it here[0]. There was nothing remotely iOS in it until Apple TV v2 which didn’t come out for like 7 years after. Yes, iOS and MacOS are very similar now, but they weren’t that similar in 2007. Yes, both were Darwin based, but from there up they originally were pretty distinct. [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/1057029/atv_hacks.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1057029/atv_hacks.html
Fnoord 7y ago
"The iPhone and iPad have run on Apple-designed ARM chips since birth, and while early entries into the Axx line were underpowered, the latest chips created by Apple’s silicon design teams have yielded laptop- or even desktop-class performance" This is incorrect. iPhone's SoC until iPhone 4 was a 32 bit ARM Samsung SoC [1]. From iPhone 4 and onwards they were designed by Apple. The first iPad also had a SoC not designed by Apple [2]. I fail to see how the details of this are relevant though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(1st_generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(1st_generation)
- maallooc 7y ago
  Those SoCs were designed exclusively for Apple products by Apple and Samsung. They were branded Samsung because then Apple failed to notice the importance of brand power of APs.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    > Those SoCs were designed exclusively for Apple products by Apple and Samsung. Seems true [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors#Early_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors#Earl...
    - eatonphil 7y ago
      Pretty sure they're no longer manufactured by Samsung. It's been TSMC since the A8 [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A8
      - saagarjha 7y ago
        A9 was sourced from both Samsung and TSMC.
  - mobilio 7y ago
cmrdporcupine 7y ago
I think the hypothesis at the end of the article ("Could the iPad’s rising revenue (6.5% of total) help cover the hit once its user interface (and keyboard with trackpad) makes it more laptop-like?") is most likely. I think Apple will continue to add features to its tablets to make them take over the niche of its OS X driven computers. Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. If they just keep doing this at a certain point the segment will be large enough to just consider this type of configuration a "Macintosh"
- dkersten 7y ago
  > Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. I use my ipad for everything except programming (and all work-related tasks are currently done on a work laptop due to being in a highly regulated industry, for now) and gaming (besides a few games that work exceptionally well on tablet, I never got into mobile gaming, I have a PS4 anyway). All of my web browsing, youtube watching, document editing, spreadsheets etc I do on ipad. I even occasionally SSH’d into a server to fix some stuff and used a git client to push some minor edits. I also quite like ipad for animation, photo editing and 3d modeling (although I’d like to learn blender since the UI updates...), and Miro for digital whiteboarding. I’m pretty happy with it, but though I’ve tried various setups, tools and editors, I’ve not yet been happy with actually programming on ipad. Note that outside of the ipad, my preferred setup is actually a very keyboard-centric tiled WM Linux setup (i3 on manjaro currently), but I’ll use OSX happily enough (and do for work). I was never really into Apple products much, but I love my three year old 9.whatever inch ipad pro.
  - greggman3 7y ago
    Congratulations. I'd love to only carry an iPad as it's < 1/2 the weight of a Macbook Air and it appears to be faster (runs Shadertoy shaders faster). Unfortunately even simple things I find infuriating like trying to select text with my fingers. Trying to multitask while planning a vacation/business trip and trying to flip between note taking, 4 hotel sites, 3 airline sites, airbnb, and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... Shopping online I find similar, it's so much easier to compare items on a desktop ATM with 12+ tabs open and some split in into separate windows. The majority of tasks I do require multi-tasking and often seeing 2-3 apps at once. Even trying to write replies on HN is almost always infuriating, especially if I want to grab some links to paste into the reply, but also if I see a typo and try to use my fingers to move the cursor to the place to edit. Maybe it's a learned skill or maybe I just use computers differently but I'm always fascinated and somewhat jealous of people like you that some how manage to avoid all that frustration on an iPad.
nottorp 7y ago
[quote] The Pro is a monstrously powered machine that costs tens of thousands of dollars and is designed for a (relatively) small audience of content creator professionals and other high-end technical users running fluidics dilutions and the demanding calculations involved in machine-learning applications. [/quote] I really don't get that. You can have a $8000 Mac Pro that is decently configured as a general purpose workstation that will last you 5-10 years if it's well built. Yet everyone only talks about the $50000 or whatever the high end config is.
- _ph_ 7y ago
  Not sure how much you can get a decent configuration of the Mac Pro for just $8000, but this is a very steep price, considering that the Mac Pro just doubled the entry price compared to its predecessors. From the build quality, this is certainly one of the nicest machines one could get, but the pricing is a new pinnacle even by Apples standards.
  - nottorp 7y ago
    Sorry, 7000 US prices. 48 G ram and 2 Tb storage, rest default. Not everyone needs more than 8C/16T or uses GPU compute. Which was my point. The price may be inflated (not sure by how much, a similar Dell is what, 5K instead of 7?), but there are configurations that cost less than a good car.
mortenjorck 7y ago
There’s one thing I don’t think Gassée, or many of the people predicting an ARM transition for the Mac, are considering: user patience and goodwill, basically political capital with the user base. Apple blew through an incredible amount of it on vanity projects in the 2010s, from the abandoned trashcan Mac Pro to the Touch Bar and butterfly keyboard. They’ve clearly changed course with the 16” MacBook Pro and the 2019 Mac Pro, but they’ve asked a lot of users over the past decade, and this doesn’t quite seem like the right time to ask the entire user base to please be patient once again. In other words, while there’s little question that a switch to ARM is worth the headache for Apple, the critical question is whether Apple can make the case that the switch is worth it for users.
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago
  You left out one important taker-of-goodwill: loss of 32bit on Catalina. But, the fact this happened just now, in 2019, makes me think Apple doesn't recognize this is a problem at all, or thinks it's too small of a problem to matter.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    I thought Mac OS had been 64 bit only for years and am amazed they kept 32 bit support for that long. When they decide on something they usually do it for real and I appreciate that, because it moves the ecosystem forward.
  - raydev 7y ago
    > thinks it's too small of a problem to matter. They know. The loss of 32-bit apps means little to them, because they know it means little to users, and that's why they went through with it.
    - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
      What are you basing this assumption off of? For me, it's an enormous loss. I'm certainly not all users, but neither are you. I think it's pretty clear at this point that the Mac user base has not reacted to Catalina very well. Upgrade rates are abnormally slow. A lot of that is just due to general buggyness (also a problem!), but I think 32bit is some of it as well.
geesejuggler 7y ago
If Apple moves to a full ARM line-up, they will need to copy AMD's chiplet strategy. As Apple understands economies of scale, they will need an architecture that will enable them to cheaply mass-produce millions of chiplets to combine them into low, medium and high-end cpus to suit their different use-cases. Just like AMD is doing now. There is no way Apple can create a monolithic Mac Pro-level cpu at low volume for a profit. It might be easier to just go AMD with the whole Mac line-up. Requires only a little adaptation on OS level and will give users less nuisance trying to run their old apps. In addition, they will gain performant GPUs as a bonus.
gwbas1c 7y ago
I thought most MacOS applications compile to universal binaries that are something like bytecode, not direct x64 code? Assuming I understand this correctly, most applications should run correctly on ARM without any modification? Anyway, one of the big appeals of Apple computers and MacOS is that I can run whatever I want in a VM. That little one-off Windows utility that I use once a year that never made it to Mac? Runs fine under VMware. I also hear of plenty of people who dual boot. What happens when Apple switches to ARM? Are we going to loose dual booting and rich virtualization? At least for me, as much as I love MacOS, virtualization has always been what made it work for me.
- pjmlp 7y ago
  You have fat binaries, and a modified version of LLVM bitcode, that is more stable than the official LLVM bitcode. However so far watchOS is the major consumer from bitcode.
- ken 7y ago
  > I thought most MacOS applications compile to universal binaries that are something like bytecode, not direct x64 code? No, "Universal Binaries" are still native code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > Are we going to loose dual booting and rich virtualization? Virtualization would depend on Apple's chips getting hardware support for this, although you'd only be able to run ARM OSes.
vondur 7y ago
Eh, if Apple releases and ARM based Mac, they will start with notebooks, something similar to the Macbook Air. People should appreciate a laptop with better performance and longer battery life compared to the Intel versions. Most of the software should compile just fine, and if not, maybe a version from the iPad OS will be an ok stopgap. I'm assuming of course that most Mac Apps don't have any Intel assembly code in them. I'm guessing that may be the case for something like Photoshop.
- hinkley 7y ago
  I think you're right and will go a step farther to say that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if everything without a 'Pro' in the name went to ARM over a relatively short period. Switching the Pro lines over is a tougher row to hoe, and has much higher expectations from users. I do know that Apple was playing with ARM coprocessing chips to allow for certain types of computations to be performed while in sleep mode. Perhaps the Pros will end up with both.
kethinov 7y ago
I find these rumors continually terrifying. Boot Camp and VMWare Fusion is vital to my workflow. If Apple drops x64, they're dropping me as a customer.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Windows runs on ARM, as does Linux. I'm sure if apple switched entirely to ARM, lots of other software would switch too, and we might even eventually see the end of the x86 era.
  - jmull 7y ago
    It's not Windows itself that people want to run (need to run, actually), it's Windows-based x64 software. Windows is just one of many pieces of software people would need to run on an ARM-based Mac. Seems pretty clear that this can only work if the ARM-based machines have a pretty decent way of executing x64 binaries.
    - zerkten 7y ago
      It seems like they only have 32-bit app support right now based on articles like https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-arm-app-compatibility https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-arm-app-com.... I'm curious what the blockers are for x64 software which would obviously be desirable in many ways.
      - Const-me 7y ago
        Most likely Intel's patents on different ISA extensions. E.g. every x64 CPU is required to support at least SSE1 and SSE2.
  - mrec 7y ago
    Windows might, but I doubt the majority of Windows software does.
- twodayslate 7y ago
rathel 7y ago
Moving personal computing to ARM is going to enslave us, the end users. The temptation for the OEMs to lock everything down and integrate all components into non-extensible hardware is too strong.
- chaostheory 7y ago
  Since we're on the subject, how far are we from a truly open source machine?
  - grishka 7y ago
    There already are some: https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/
  - pankajdoharey 7y ago
    Definitely more than a Decade, there is no true GPU equivalent Open Core, There are some Open CPU Cores but these are basic compared to what ARM has on offer.
- amiga-workbench 7y ago
  IBM PC Compatible's """openness""" is a complete fluke, and the conditions that caused it no longer exist. Ultimately we're all going to get dragged along for the ride in whatever direction the masses decide they can put up with.
- wyldfire 7y ago
  It was coming since before ARM's rise [1]. But you are right that it is coming. Signed bootloaders are simultaneously fantastic and horrible. I think open hardware initiatives may be a potential way out. But will we see a ban on anonymity in the coming decades? Only licensed devices could connect to the Internet? It would be similarly fantastic and horrible IMO. [1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
- pankajdoharey 7y ago
  Well there are obvious reasons price for one, a A13 Chip might cost apple $25 to produce which is far cheaper than Intel Core i9-9900K which would cost us $479 even for OEM's at bulk prices it would cost them south if $420, even if Apple produces 4 times as dense as chip as A13 which is already quite dense at 8.5 billion transistors it would not cost them what Intel is charging. And Intel has been overcharging for a decade as is evident from AMD's processor pricing. Also A13 is an energy efficient product at 7nm compared to any desktop processor at this time.
Eric_WVGG 7y ago
One other question that I haven't seen addressed is, what about GPUs? Apple makes a GPU for the iPads that seems to compare very favorably to AMD's laptop offerings. I imagine anything written in Metal should "just work," but what about OpenGL? It's now deprecated in MacOS but still sort of on life support, and it seems a little premature to just cut the cord on that. Or could AMD GPUs work on ARM? That also seems like kind of a heavy lift…
- bluedino 7y ago
  The current AMD GPU in the 16" is the first one in a while (except maybe the Vega series) which has 'acceptable' performance, and there's all kinds of stink about how much extra power/heat the GPU generates when it is in use, even though it's been that way with the MacBook Pro since Apple went to the dual graphics models.
mobilio 7y ago
"ARM started as a branch of Acorn Computer in Cambridge, England, with the formation of a joint venture between Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technology. A team of twelve employees produced the design of the first ARM microprocessor between 1983 and 1985." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture
rjsw 7y ago
Another thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22524315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22524315
- dang 7y ago
  Now merged hither.
newscracker 7y ago
I have a pessimistic view on Apple and Macs based on how this product line has been neglected for years (and continues to be neglected: one case in point is the iMac Pro which is three years old with no updates). It seems like the focus is on "iOSifying" the entire ecosystem (overall, Apple hasn't done much, or what was expected/possible, on the Mac over the past several years anyway). Due to that pessimism, I'd expect the first ARM based Macs that are released publicly to run inferior Apple software (this is already evident with the Apple apps in the last few years). Many things will be further crippled and lobotomized with even more sandboxing restrictions, and likely no longer resemble what a "Mac app" has meant for a very long time. There have been signs of the "non-nativeness" with the Catalyst apps. Perhaps the Finder would be thrown out in favor of a Files app ported from iOS/iPadOS. What about browser rendering engines? Would third party ones be disallowed, like they are on iOS/iPadOS/tvOS? Safari on Mac has already removed support for WebExtensions last year, leaving users who have more than casual browsing requirements to switch to Firefox (or Brave or Chrome or other browsers). With battery life, thinness and lightweight laptops considered very important by Apple, there could be many things getting axed on the new ARM Macs. Perhaps, the very first ARM based Mac would actually be a new iPad with an integrated keyboard and trackpad. The article talks about splitting the Mac line, which certainly seems to be a practical possibility. Would we then have macOS that runs on the ARM MacBook, Mac mini and iMac lines and another macOS Pro that would continue to run on the x64 Mac Pro for a much longer time? The stage is already being set to encourage developers to build iOS/iPadOS apps and have them sold as a single bundle on Mac. It's just a matter of pushing them further with the "promise" of a single build running on all platforms (thanks, Catalyst). Just a crazy thought on emulation of x64 apps: would Apple embrace a "streaming app" emulation, similar to game streaming services where any necessary heavy lifting is done on the server side, with the local ARM processors just handling the minimal (pre-computed) rendering and I/O?
- ksec 7y ago
  >I have a pessimistic view on Apple and Macs based on how this product line has been neglected for years Which is unfortunately true. They still have this idea that every update needs to be "meaningful". That would have been true if the Mac were still targeting consumers. But most consumers have moved on to Tablet and Phones. The Mac market is only left with "Prosumers" and Professionals. It took them 6 years for a Mac Pro replacement and 3 years to admit their Keyboard mistake. And the new magic keyboard may be more reliable, but honestly its shallow typing feels still sucks. The rate of AirPod, Apple Watch, Services's growth would mean Apple no longer give a damn about the Mac. While it was all very bitter, they will continue to milk the market, after all there are over 20M iOS developers, that is nearly 20% of Active Mac users. I am not sure if that number is iOS developer account or individual numbers, but it is clear if you want the 1.2B iOS Devices Market you will have to develop on the Mac. And you will have to continue to pay the premium for it.
ken 7y ago
> Why invest in the development of such a high-end chip for Mac Pro’s low volume? - Control of the whole stack (Apple's stated M.O.) - Consistent architecture across all their product lines - If it's roughly twice as energy efficient, as claimed, the floor-standing heat sink known as the Mac Pro could potentially be smaller and lighter again (or they could keep the case the same and increase internal expansion, as they did when they switched the cheesegrater from G5 to Xeon, or they could double the core count with the same cooling) - Depending on how much cheaper it would be, you could put the same CPU into less expensive Macs (high-core-count-Xeon-level performance in an iMac or Mini would be quite compelling) How much difference is there in architecture between a Xeon-level chip and an i3-level chip? I assumed most of the added cost of a Xeon was market segmentation, so if you had another way to do that (e.g., by only selling CPUs in complete systems), you'd be able to increase performance on the low end without losing money.
otterpro 7y ago
I'd love to see an ARM-based Macbook, especially if it can last 20+ hours on battery, is highly portable, and has great thermal/low heat output. I believe history can repeat itself, as in the past 4 decades, we've seen Macs transition from Motorola 680x0 to PowerPC, and from PowerPC to Intel x86, and from Intel x86 32bit to x64 64bit-only. This brings me back to memories of fat binary and PPC emulation.
ksec 7y ago
>Nuvia [1] is developing a chip to power cloud servers. Williams, who spent nearly a decade at Apple, says he raised the possibility of developing such technology years ago, but the idea was rejected by then-Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, and by Johny Srouji, who’s now Apple’s head of hardware technology, because they thought it would detract from the company’s work on consumer facing technology. Apple continues to hold that position today, according to Williams. >"In 2010 [2], Williams and [co-worker Jim] Keller raised this idea with Mike Culbert, their former supervisor at Apple. Culbert suggested that they put together a presentation for Steve Jobs, pitching the idea of Apple building a server chip. Williams and Keller did so, and Culbert presented that opportunity to Jobs," the court filing reads. "Following the meeting, Culbert reported to Williams that Apple would not be pursuing the server chip project because Jobs was only interested in pursuing Apple’s development of consumer-based products." I dont know why anyone would think Apple is making its Desktop Class CPU for Mac. As a matter of fact, even Jim Killer tries to pitch the idea to Steve Jobs on ARM Server Chip [2] . Apple was very late into its own Datacenter play. I am not sure if the economy of scale would have worked in flavour of Apple if the Server and Mac Pro were using the same chip. Basically I still dont think the pros are so clear. It is far easier to switch to AMD for cost saving measures and even Apple couldn't be bothered to do that. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuvia-exec-sued-apple-says-181807641.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuvia-exec-sued-apple-says-18... [2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/nuvia_apple_server/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/nuvia_apple_server/

65 points by miles 7y ago

The problem seems much more software based than hardware based. The Mac has lost so much software through Catalina's 64 bit transition, and that was telegraphed a decade ago. Between that, Apple's collapsing quality of documentation, seemingly having two competing development frameworks due to internal infighting, the prevalence of Electron, the loss of similarity to software for popular Linux x86 distributions, and Metal being extremely uninviting as a dev wanting to do any crossplatform work can Apple really assume the software will come for an ARM based Mac? I am very worried it wouldn't. Last time the Mac underwent a transition it ultimately made things easier for developers and there was a fairly thriving (if niche) Mac software base. There simply isn't any more. Mac gaming is going backwards at a rate of knots and dual booting to Windows is more important than ever. Large companies seem to just be abandoning Mac drivers entirely (glares at Sony dropping support for their camera software for Macs rather than transition to 64bit).

unlinked_dll 7y ago
The documentation quality is so true. Conference videos are not docs! For some of the lower level stuff, all the good documentation is marked deprecated, hidden as comments in the framework headers (curiously stripped in the online API references), in some mailing list dating back 20 years, or in a forum that requires login to read and isn't indexed by search engines. It's like if you want to write a pro media app on MacOS today you need to work for Apple or at a company that's deployed a pro media app for decades.
deepaksurti 7y ago
>> The problem seems much more software based than hardware based. - During transition from Motorola's 68k series of chips to IBM/Motorola PowerPC processors, Apple produced classic MacOS versions that could run on either platform. - During the transition from PowerPC to Intel, Apple produced Mac OS X versions that could run on either platform. - In 2005, Apple shipped special Intel build machines for devs only. I think there is a method to this madness and despite all the flaws we currently observe, which are orthogonal to the transition, I trust them to get it right, if and when it happens.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 7y ago
  The earlier transitions involved going from a less powerful cpu to a more powerful cpu so emulation was an option. Now, at best you are going to an equivalent cpu and at worst a less powerful cpu.
  - mrkstu 7y ago
    Depends how seamlessly they can get devs to re-compile. ARM having to emulate x86 would be definitely slower. There is no reason to believe the per-watt performance of actual ARM code won't outperform equivalent x86 chips. i.e. an A(x) Macbook Air replacement could easily outperform the Intel variant at the same power envelope, based on the observed performance of the iPad pro my wife uses.
  - londons_explore 7y ago
    Apple has some pretty decent IC design engineers... And ARM has fewer legacy corner cases to support and a more dense simpler to decode instruction set. Apple also has high margins so can afford to have big silicon dies with lots of logic and cache. Given all that, I think it's totally possible Apple could release a CPU with more raw performance and performance per watt than Intel/AMD. That extra performance would allow possibly emulation of x86. The emulation world is much more advanced than it was 20 years ago - dynamic recompilation could easily lead to a 50% slowdown rather than a 5000% slowdown that interpreting might be.
  - ken 7y ago
    Do you have a source for that? The thesis of this article is that it is a more powerful CPU, in terms of performance-per-watt, which is the same metric that spawned the PowerPC-to-Intel transition. The author pointed to specific ARM chips that exist today which "consume less power, about 210 watts, than a competing Xeon CPU needing as much as 400 wats, for about the same amount of computing".
trevyn 7y ago
>can Apple really assume the software will come for an ARM based Mac? This is what Catalyst is for, no? Mac software is now iPad software. Macs are now somewhat more capable iPads. The golden age of computing is over.
- Mindwipe 7y ago
  I think even the most delusional Catalyst fan would admit Catalyst is nowhere near ready for prime time and will not be in the timescale for these supposed ARM Macs to launch, if ever.
- IAmEveryone 7y ago
  Adding catalyst didn’t remove the ability to use any other UIKit, or to compile and run whatever you want in any language there is. Everything that ran before continues to do so, and it’s almost oxymoronically wrong to consider a system that is a strict superset of another less free.
  - trevyn 7y ago
    Right, and we could find ourselves in a time when any meaningful non-developer app is only available as a Catalyst app. It’s kind of how like Microsoft’s “embrace and extend” made us less free, because it’s actually “embrace, extend, and (later) extinguish”.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
londons_explore 7y ago
I'm worried that a lot of app devs might just move all the app logic to an Electron app or entirely online as a webapp... The days of desktop apps are numbered already, and this might accelerate that transition.

imtringued 7y ago

Unfortunately I have heard these rumors way too often. I won't believe anything anymore until Apple itself releases a product.

dep_b 7y ago
We kept hearing stories about x86 for years too. I'm sure ARM based MacBooks already exist as testing devices.
- 1123581321 7y ago
  Did successive stories about the x86 change provide additional information before the actual release was imminent? The ARM stories are not.
  - dep_b 7y ago
    They never did, just new sources of rumors.
wyldfire 7y ago
Microsoft has already released Windows-on-ARM and there are several vendors making ARM laptops. So far adoption seems slow. I think the initial ball drop was running an emulated x86 Chrome binary. I know time to market is important but porting Edge and not porting Chrome was a big mistake. Now that Windows Chrome (and firefox) is built native, I'd bet the biggest challenge is getting critical third party vendors like VPNs. Apple has fewer third party software vendors AFAIK so they would probably be able to move to ARM with fewer challenges. That said, they have traditionally had a lot of customers in creative industries with specialized software from Adobe. Getting the vendors to port, moving quickly, and trying to keep business plans secret will be tricky. I have an i5 thinkpad for work that gets atrocious battery life. At home, I have an XPS13 (also i5-based) that gets ~6+ hours which is good. I should be able to go the entire work day on a single charge. All of my build/compile/test work is done remotely on desktops and servers, so my laptop has relatively light duty.

fierarul 7y ago

ARM Macs will be the end of the line for many "prosumer" customers of Apple. It will probably sell quite well though. And it will bring back fanless designs.

chrisseaton 7y ago
> ARM Macs will be the end of the line for many "prosumer" customers of Apple. Why do you think that? Do you just think ARM can't match Intel performance? Or do you think the prosumers need Intel-specific functionality like counters? What I'm worried about is implementing top-quality ARM backends for software like the JVM. We need someone doing this rapidly as I think an ARM MacBook Pro will just turn up one day, unannounced.
- rjsw 7y ago
  There have been Hotspot backends for ARM and AArch64 in OpenJDK for several versions now.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    Depending who you talk to, you'll get the opinion that they're much lower quality than the AMD64 backends. I think that may be particularly an issue in Graal. Some people will tell you that the way Graal is designed is problematic for ARM and that's a long-term problem. I don't know if that's entirely true or not, but now we need it solved quickly if it is!
    - vbezhenar 7y ago
      I used to think that, but apparently nowadays ARM JVM is pretty good. Have no idea about Graal though (and I have no idea why would anyone need Graal at all).
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        > I have no idea why would anyone need Graal at all It has new optimisations like partial escape analysis that C2 doesn't have. In production this saves Twitter 13% on compute resources in their data centre. That's MASSIVE. I presume it's tens of thousands of dollars a month. People also use Graal to compile Java applications to standalone native executables, which isn't something C2 can do. And finally Graal is a system that you can use to run languages other than Java. For example JavaScript on Graal, which runs on a JVM but is about as fast as V8.

OrangeMango 7y ago

I still think that the AppleTV is where this will start. They now support multiple accounts, have an app store, etc. iOS supports keyboards and mice, and they have a "conference room display" mode that brings them into a business setting. Release the iWork suite and some sort of thin client/remote desktop app and then see how people use them. Learn, iterate, repeat. They can build an ARM-based Mac bit by bit, out in the open, without anyone freaking out and killing their x86 sales.

saagarjha 7y ago
Apple TV is already ARM (at least the new ones are…), and it runs what's essentially a skin of iOS. I doubt they will switch that out with macOS anytime soon.
- jsjohnst 7y ago
  The original Apple TV (that looks sorta like a half-height Mac Mini) was based on a stripped down version of OSX, but you are correct, everything from the Apple TV 2 and on is ARM and running a derivative of iOS.
  - solarkraft 7y ago
    Isn't iOS a version of Mac OS? :-) Do they share any new code nowadays?
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      They share most of their code.
      - jsjohnst 7y ago
        Now, sure, but not back then to the same extent.
    - jsjohnst 7y ago
      The Apple TV v1 was released/shipped before the iPhone was. It was based on OS X 10.4.7 with a modified version of FrontRow (remember that old app?) as the primary UI. You can read a bunch more about it here[0]. There was nothing remotely iOS in it until Apple TV v2 which didn’t come out for like 7 years after. Yes, iOS and MacOS are very similar now, but they weren’t that similar in 2007. Yes, both were Darwin based, but from there up they originally were pretty distinct. [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/1057029/atv_hacks.html https://www.macworld.com/article/1057029/atv_hacks.html

Fnoord 7y ago

"The iPhone and iPad have run on Apple-designed ARM chips since birth, and while early entries into the Axx line were underpowered, the latest chips created by Apple’s silicon design teams have yielded laptop- or even desktop-class performance" This is incorrect. iPhone's SoC until iPhone 4 was a 32 bit ARM Samsung SoC [1]. From iPhone 4 and onwards they were designed by Apple. The first iPad also had a SoC not designed by Apple [2]. I fail to see how the details of this are relevant though. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_(1st_generation) / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4 [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(1st_generation) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPad_(1st_generation)

maallooc 7y ago
Those SoCs were designed exclusively for Apple products by Apple and Samsung. They were branded Samsung because then Apple failed to notice the importance of brand power of APs.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  > Those SoCs were designed exclusively for Apple products by Apple and Samsung. Seems true [1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors#Early_series https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple-designed_processors#Earl...
  - eatonphil 7y ago
    Pretty sure they're no longer manufactured by Samsung. It's been TSMC since the A8 [0]. [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A8 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_A8
    - saagarjha 7y ago
      A9 was sourced from both Samsung and TSMC.
- mobilio 7y ago

cmrdporcupine 7y ago

I think the hypothesis at the end of the article ("Could the iPad’s rising revenue (6.5% of total) help cover the hit once its user interface (and keyboard with trackpad) makes it more laptop-like?") is most likely. I think Apple will continue to add features to its tablets to make them take over the niche of its OS X driven computers. Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. If they just keep doing this at a certain point the segment will be large enough to just consider this type of configuration a "Macintosh"

dkersten 7y ago
> Already I have student friends who use an iPad + keyboard + stand as their primary device for productivity work. I use my ipad for everything except programming (and all work-related tasks are currently done on a work laptop due to being in a highly regulated industry, for now) and gaming (besides a few games that work exceptionally well on tablet, I never got into mobile gaming, I have a PS4 anyway). All of my web browsing, youtube watching, document editing, spreadsheets etc I do on ipad. I even occasionally SSH’d into a server to fix some stuff and used a git client to push some minor edits. I also quite like ipad for animation, photo editing and 3d modeling (although I’d like to learn blender since the UI updates...), and Miro for digital whiteboarding. I’m pretty happy with it, but though I’ve tried various setups, tools and editors, I’ve not yet been happy with actually programming on ipad. Note that outside of the ipad, my preferred setup is actually a very keyboard-centric tiled WM Linux setup (i3 on manjaro currently), but I’ll use OSX happily enough (and do for work). I was never really into Apple products much, but I love my three year old 9.whatever inch ipad pro.
- greggman3 7y ago
  Congratulations. I'd love to only carry an iPad as it's < 1/2 the weight of a Macbook Air and it appears to be faster (runs Shadertoy shaders faster). Unfortunately even simple things I find infuriating like trying to select text with my fingers. Trying to multitask while planning a vacation/business trip and trying to flip between note taking, 4 hotel sites, 3 airline sites, airbnb, and multiple instances of google maps (oh right, only allowed one map view on iOS and one AirBnB view) ... Shopping online I find similar, it's so much easier to compare items on a desktop ATM with 12+ tabs open and some split in into separate windows. The majority of tasks I do require multi-tasking and often seeing 2-3 apps at once. Even trying to write replies on HN is almost always infuriating, especially if I want to grab some links to paste into the reply, but also if I see a typo and try to use my fingers to move the cursor to the place to edit. Maybe it's a learned skill or maybe I just use computers differently but I'm always fascinated and somewhat jealous of people like you that some how manage to avoid all that frustration on an iPad.

nottorp 7y ago

[quote] The Pro is a monstrously powered machine that costs tens of thousands of dollars and is designed for a (relatively) small audience of content creator professionals and other high-end technical users running fluidics dilutions and the demanding calculations involved in machine-learning applications. [/quote] I really don't get that. You can have a $8000 Mac Pro that is decently configured as a general purpose workstation that will last you 5-10 years if it's well built. Yet everyone only talks about the $50000 or whatever the high end config is.

_ph_ 7y ago
Not sure how much you can get a decent configuration of the Mac Pro for just $8000, but this is a very steep price, considering that the Mac Pro just doubled the entry price compared to its predecessors. From the build quality, this is certainly one of the nicest machines one could get, but the pricing is a new pinnacle even by Apples standards.
- nottorp 7y ago
  Sorry, 7000 US prices. 48 G ram and 2 Tb storage, rest default. Not everyone needs more than 8C/16T or uses GPU compute. Which was my point. The price may be inflated (not sure by how much, a similar Dell is what, 5K instead of 7?), but there are configurations that cost less than a good car.

mortenjorck 7y ago

There’s one thing I don’t think Gassée, or many of the people predicting an ARM transition for the Mac, are considering: user patience and goodwill, basically political capital with the user base. Apple blew through an incredible amount of it on vanity projects in the 2010s, from the abandoned trashcan Mac Pro to the Touch Bar and butterfly keyboard. They’ve clearly changed course with the 16” MacBook Pro and the 2019 Mac Pro, but they’ve asked a lot of users over the past decade, and this doesn’t quite seem like the right time to ask the entire user base to please be patient once again. In other words, while there’s little question that a switch to ARM is worth the headache for Apple, the critical question is whether Apple can make the case that the switch is worth it for users.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago
You left out one important taker-of-goodwill: loss of 32bit on Catalina. But, the fact this happened just now, in 2019, makes me think Apple doesn't recognize this is a problem at all, or thinks it's too small of a problem to matter.
- solarkraft 7y ago
  I thought Mac OS had been 64 bit only for years and am amazed they kept 32 bit support for that long. When they decide on something they usually do it for real and I appreciate that, because it moves the ecosystem forward.
- raydev 7y ago
  > thinks it's too small of a problem to matter. They know. The loss of 32-bit apps means little to them, because they know it means little to users, and that's why they went through with it.
  - Wowfunhappy 7y ago
    What are you basing this assumption off of? For me, it's an enormous loss. I'm certainly not all users, but neither are you. I think it's pretty clear at this point that the Mac user base has not reacted to Catalina very well. Upgrade rates are abnormally slow. A lot of that is just due to general buggyness (also a problem!), but I think 32bit is some of it as well.

geesejuggler 7y ago

If Apple moves to a full ARM line-up, they will need to copy AMD's chiplet strategy. As Apple understands economies of scale, they will need an architecture that will enable them to cheaply mass-produce millions of chiplets to combine them into low, medium and high-end cpus to suit their different use-cases. Just like AMD is doing now. There is no way Apple can create a monolithic Mac Pro-level cpu at low volume for a profit. It might be easier to just go AMD with the whole Mac line-up. Requires only a little adaptation on OS level and will give users less nuisance trying to run their old apps. In addition, they will gain performant GPUs as a bonus.

gwbas1c 7y ago

I thought most MacOS applications compile to universal binaries that are something like bytecode, not direct x64 code? Assuming I understand this correctly, most applications should run correctly on ARM without any modification? Anyway, one of the big appeals of Apple computers and MacOS is that I can run whatever I want in a VM. That little one-off Windows utility that I use once a year that never made it to Mac? Runs fine under VMware. I also hear of plenty of people who dual boot. What happens when Apple switches to ARM? Are we going to loose dual booting and rich virtualization? At least for me, as much as I love MacOS, virtualization has always been what made it work for me.

pjmlp 7y ago
You have fat binaries, and a modified version of LLVM bitcode, that is more stable than the official LLVM bitcode. However so far watchOS is the major consumer from bitcode.
ken 7y ago
> I thought most MacOS applications compile to universal binaries that are something like bytecode, not direct x64 code? No, "Universal Binaries" are still native code: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_binary
saagarjha 7y ago
> Are we going to loose dual booting and rich virtualization? Virtualization would depend on Apple's chips getting hardware support for this, although you'd only be able to run ARM OSes.

vondur 7y ago

Eh, if Apple releases and ARM based Mac, they will start with notebooks, something similar to the Macbook Air. People should appreciate a laptop with better performance and longer battery life compared to the Intel versions. Most of the software should compile just fine, and if not, maybe a version from the iPad OS will be an ok stopgap. I'm assuming of course that most Mac Apps don't have any Intel assembly code in them. I'm guessing that may be the case for something like Photoshop.

hinkley 7y ago
I think you're right and will go a step farther to say that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if everything without a 'Pro' in the name went to ARM over a relatively short period. Switching the Pro lines over is a tougher row to hoe, and has much higher expectations from users. I do know that Apple was playing with ARM coprocessing chips to allow for certain types of computations to be performed while in sleep mode. Perhaps the Pros will end up with both.

kethinov 7y ago

I find these rumors continually terrifying. Boot Camp and VMWare Fusion is vital to my workflow. If Apple drops x64, they're dropping me as a customer.

londons_explore 7y ago
Windows runs on ARM, as does Linux. I'm sure if apple switched entirely to ARM, lots of other software would switch too, and we might even eventually see the end of the x86 era.
- jmull 7y ago
  It's not Windows itself that people want to run (need to run, actually), it's Windows-based x64 software. Windows is just one of many pieces of software people would need to run on an ARM-based Mac. Seems pretty clear that this can only work if the ARM-based machines have a pretty decent way of executing x64 binaries.
  - zerkten 7y ago
    It seems like they only have 32-bit app support right now based on articles like https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-arm-app-compatibility https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-arm-app-com.... I'm curious what the blockers are for x64 software which would obviously be desirable in many ways.
    - Const-me 7y ago
      Most likely Intel's patents on different ISA extensions. E.g. every x64 CPU is required to support at least SSE1 and SSE2.
- mrec 7y ago
  Windows might, but I doubt the majority of Windows software does.
twodayslate 7y ago

rathel 7y ago

Moving personal computing to ARM is going to enslave us, the end users. The temptation for the OEMs to lock everything down and integrate all components into non-extensible hardware is too strong.

chaostheory 7y ago
Since we're on the subject, how far are we from a truly open source machine?
- grishka 7y ago
  There already are some: https://puri.sm/products/ https://puri.sm/products/
- pankajdoharey 7y ago
  Definitely more than a Decade, there is no true GPU equivalent Open Core, There are some Open CPU Cores but these are basic compared to what ARM has on offer.
amiga-workbench 7y ago
IBM PC Compatible's """openness""" is a complete fluke, and the conditions that caused it no longer exist. Ultimately we're all going to get dragged along for the ride in whatever direction the masses decide they can put up with.
wyldfire 7y ago
It was coming since before ARM's rise [1]. But you are right that it is coming. Signed bootloaders are simultaneously fantastic and horrible. I think open hardware initiatives may be a potential way out. But will we see a ban on anonymity in the coming decades? Only licensed devices could connect to the Internet? It would be similarly fantastic and horrible IMO. [1] https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html https://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/lockdown.html
pankajdoharey 7y ago
Well there are obvious reasons price for one, a A13 Chip might cost apple $25 to produce which is far cheaper than Intel Core i9-9900K which would cost us $479 even for OEM's at bulk prices it would cost them south if $420, even if Apple produces 4 times as dense as chip as A13 which is already quite dense at 8.5 billion transistors it would not cost them what Intel is charging. And Intel has been overcharging for a decade as is evident from AMD's processor pricing. Also A13 is an energy efficient product at 7nm compared to any desktop processor at this time.

Eric_WVGG 7y ago

One other question that I haven't seen addressed is, what about GPUs? Apple makes a GPU for the iPads that seems to compare very favorably to AMD's laptop offerings. I imagine anything written in Metal should "just work," but what about OpenGL? It's now deprecated in MacOS but still sort of on life support, and it seems a little premature to just cut the cord on that. Or could AMD GPUs work on ARM? That also seems like kind of a heavy lift…

bluedino 7y ago
The current AMD GPU in the 16" is the first one in a while (except maybe the Vega series) which has 'acceptable' performance, and there's all kinds of stink about how much extra power/heat the GPU generates when it is in use, even though it's been that way with the MacBook Pro since Apple went to the dual graphics models.

mobilio 7y ago

"ARM started as a branch of Acorn Computer in Cambridge, England, with the formation of a joint venture between Acorn, Apple and VLSI Technology. A team of twelve employees produced the design of the first ARM microprocessor between 1983 and 1985." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARM_architecture

rjsw 7y ago

Another thread here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22524315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22524315

dang 7y ago
Now merged hither.

newscracker 7y ago

I have a pessimistic view on Apple and Macs based on how this product line has been neglected for years (and continues to be neglected: one case in point is the iMac Pro which is three years old with no updates). It seems like the focus is on "iOSifying" the entire ecosystem (overall, Apple hasn't done much, or what was expected/possible, on the Mac over the past several years anyway). Due to that pessimism, I'd expect the first ARM based Macs that are released publicly to run inferior Apple software (this is already evident with the Apple apps in the last few years). Many things will be further crippled and lobotomized with even more sandboxing restrictions, and likely no longer resemble what a "Mac app" has meant for a very long time. There have been signs of the "non-nativeness" with the Catalyst apps. Perhaps the Finder would be thrown out in favor of a Files app ported from iOS/iPadOS. What about browser rendering engines? Would third party ones be disallowed, like they are on iOS/iPadOS/tvOS? Safari on Mac has already removed support for WebExtensions last year, leaving users who have more than casual browsing requirements to switch to Firefox (or Brave or Chrome or other browsers). With battery life, thinness and lightweight laptops considered very important by Apple, there could be many things getting axed on the new ARM Macs. Perhaps, the very first ARM based Mac would actually be a new iPad with an integrated keyboard and trackpad. The article talks about splitting the Mac line, which certainly seems to be a practical possibility. Would we then have macOS that runs on the ARM MacBook, Mac mini and iMac lines and another macOS Pro that would continue to run on the x64 Mac Pro for a much longer time? The stage is already being set to encourage developers to build iOS/iPadOS apps and have them sold as a single bundle on Mac. It's just a matter of pushing them further with the "promise" of a single build running on all platforms (thanks, Catalyst). Just a crazy thought on emulation of x64 apps: would Apple embrace a "streaming app" emulation, similar to game streaming services where any necessary heavy lifting is done on the server side, with the local ARM processors just handling the minimal (pre-computed) rendering and I/O?

ksec 7y ago
>I have a pessimistic view on Apple and Macs based on how this product line has been neglected for years Which is unfortunately true. They still have this idea that every update needs to be "meaningful". That would have been true if the Mac were still targeting consumers. But most consumers have moved on to Tablet and Phones. The Mac market is only left with "Prosumers" and Professionals. It took them 6 years for a Mac Pro replacement and 3 years to admit their Keyboard mistake. And the new magic keyboard may be more reliable, but honestly its shallow typing feels still sucks. The rate of AirPod, Apple Watch, Services's growth would mean Apple no longer give a damn about the Mac. While it was all very bitter, they will continue to milk the market, after all there are over 20M iOS developers, that is nearly 20% of Active Mac users. I am not sure if that number is iOS developer account or individual numbers, but it is clear if you want the 1.2B iOS Devices Market you will have to develop on the Mac. And you will have to continue to pay the premium for it.

ken 7y ago

> Why invest in the development of such a high-end chip for Mac Pro’s low volume? - Control of the whole stack (Apple's stated M.O.) - Consistent architecture across all their product lines - If it's roughly twice as energy efficient, as claimed, the floor-standing heat sink known as the Mac Pro could potentially be smaller and lighter again (or they could keep the case the same and increase internal expansion, as they did when they switched the cheesegrater from G5 to Xeon, or they could double the core count with the same cooling) - Depending on how much cheaper it would be, you could put the same CPU into less expensive Macs (high-core-count-Xeon-level performance in an iMac or Mini would be quite compelling) How much difference is there in architecture between a Xeon-level chip and an i3-level chip? I assumed most of the added cost of a Xeon was market segmentation, so if you had another way to do that (e.g., by only selling CPUs in complete systems), you'd be able to increase performance on the low end without losing money.

otterpro 7y ago

I'd love to see an ARM-based Macbook, especially if it can last 20+ hours on battery, is highly portable, and has great thermal/low heat output. I believe history can repeat itself, as in the past 4 decades, we've seen Macs transition from Motorola 680x0 to PowerPC, and from PowerPC to Intel x86, and from Intel x86 32bit to x64 64bit-only. This brings me back to memories of fat binary and PPC emulation.

ksec 7y ago

>Nuvia [1] is developing a chip to power cloud servers. Williams, who spent nearly a decade at Apple, says he raised the possibility of developing such technology years ago, but the idea was rejected by then-Chief Executive Officer Steve Jobs, who died in 2011, and by Johny Srouji, who’s now Apple’s head of hardware technology, because they thought it would detract from the company’s work on consumer facing technology. Apple continues to hold that position today, according to Williams. >"In 2010 [2], Williams and [co-worker Jim] Keller raised this idea with Mike Culbert, their former supervisor at Apple. Culbert suggested that they put together a presentation for Steve Jobs, pitching the idea of Apple building a server chip. Williams and Keller did so, and Culbert presented that opportunity to Jobs," the court filing reads. "Following the meeting, Culbert reported to Williams that Apple would not be pursuing the server chip project because Jobs was only interested in pursuing Apple’s development of consumer-based products." I dont know why anyone would think Apple is making its Desktop Class CPU for Mac. As a matter of fact, even Jim Killer tries to pitch the idea to Steve Jobs on ARM Server Chip [2] . Apple was very late into its own Datacenter play. I am not sure if the economy of scale would have worked in flavour of Apple if the Server and Mac Pro were using the same chip. Basically I still dont think the pros are so clear. It is far easier to switch to AMD for cost saving measures and even Apple couldn't be bothered to do that. [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuvia-exec-sued-apple-says-181807641.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/nuvia-exec-sued-apple-says-18... [2] https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/nuvia_apple_server/ https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/02/14/nuvia_apple_server/