5 ms·

It's almost certain this is why Apple has taken so long to move their laptops (and desktops, eventually, probably) to ARM. The top-of-the-line iPhone has been b

It's almost certain this is why Apple has taken so long to move their laptops (and desktops, eventually, probably) to ARM. The top-of-the-line iPhone has been benchmarking at or around MacBooks for the past 2-3 years.

jandrese 6y ago
I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for peripherals. x86_64 emulation on ARM is still pretty bad AFAIK and there is a tremendous amount of Mac software that won't be ported on the first day, or ever in some cases.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- eyesee 6y ago
  I wonder if there are (legal) hurdles to Apple adding an additional x86_64 front end to their custom Mac chips to have hardware 'emulation' for backwards compatibility.
  - gumby 6y ago
    They could get around that by simply buying AMD who has an old-but-still valid second source license from intel plus of course the true 64-bit x86 architecture. They could also just license it from Intel. AMD has some hot designers (some who cycled through Apple!) but overall has little to add to Apple (in my ignorant-of-the-true-state-of-Hines opinion. And I admire both companies). Apple’s never been afraid to license something rather than do a perfectly legal legal clean room but-almost-perfect clone. I doubt they’d bother.
    - mr_toad 6y ago
      I’ve heard that AMDs license gets voided if the company gets sold.
      - gumby 6y ago
        I suppose that’s possible but quite hard to believe. That license dates back at least to the 286, perhaps And more likely to the 8086 (I’ve long since forgotten) and dates from a time when multi-source parts were not just very common but required for military and most commercial design-ins. So common that when a part didn’t have a second source it was noticeable. The second source agreement had to be transferable else it would defeat its own purpose (if the second source went out of business nobody would buy your part). Now of course I’ve never seen the intel/amd agreement so I’m just speculating as to what it says. But the weight of precedent/tradition makes a prohibition on transfer unlikely.
  - solarkraft 6y ago
    Microsoft has an x86 emulation, so it seems to be okay. It notably doesn't work with 64 bit software. From what I've been able to gather the issue is technical, but I'm very uncertain about it.
  - colejohnson66 6y ago
    Worth remembering it was AMD who created x86_64. It was Intel who created x86. Granted, they’ve both added their own features on top of the basic x86_64 set, so it would be a legal hurdle.
- cma 6y ago
  I don't see how multithreaded stuff will ever emulate well given arm's more relaxed memory consistency model.
  - jdxcode 6y ago
    Throw more cores at the problem?
    - monocasa 6y ago
      If anything that just makes the problem harder.
  - gumby 6y ago
    They control the architecture and in theory could put in some hardware support for emulation. I can’t speculate as to what that might look like.
  - monocasa 6y ago
    They only have two options there as I see it. Either the emulator only runs on a single core per process, or they have an ARM with (maybe optionally?) stronger than required for ARM consistency guarantees. Both options kinda suck.
- alasdair_ 6y ago
  >I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for peripherals. The recent Catalina update that caused a bunch of older programs to simply stop functioning strongly implies Apple doesn't care that much about being backwards-compatible any more.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    But they never really have. iDevices seems shorter than laptop/desktop, but either way, they definitely have short support in terms if iOS hardware compatibility.
  - gumby 6y ago
    There were many years of warnings that 32 bit apps would ultimately stop running. It was hardly a surprise. As for hardware lifetime...I’m still using a 2014 iPad, 2015 iPhone and only stopped using my 2015 MacBook because it got caught in the rain.
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    My theory is that the 64-bit only migration was done to weed out old apps and APIs that won't be ported to ARM and won't work in emulation. Killing 32-bit removed stuff like classic QuickTime and the whole Carbon API.
- Someone 6y ago
  I don’t think backwards compatibility is an issue. A device that initially only runs what Apple ships (web browser, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) plus a few essential iOS apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc), priced competitively, is good enough to create a sizable market. MS Office, FireFox, Chrome, and the like only are only nice to have at launch. It’ll be fine if it takes a few months for them to become available. They probably can do without Photoshop for years.
  - solarkraft 6y ago
    I tend to disagree. It might be possible to do something like this, but it'd certainly be hard, as the initial public perception will be "nothing works" - that's a pretty dangerous way of entering the feedback loop. Apple isn't Microsoft, but their consistent failure attempting something like this may be a tale of caution.
  - kalleboo 6y ago
    I think Microsoft and Adobe are probably the easiest ones for them to get on board for launch (or 6 months after launch), since both of them have their core code ported to ARM already.
    - jandrese 6y ago
      Adobe has a pretty poor track record with updating their software to keep up with Apple API changes.
      - kalleboo 6y ago
        That has been very true historically (Intel/Cocoa shifts), but Apple and Adobe have been publicly shaking hands and smiling a lot about these new full Photoshop for iPad builds lately, so things look a bit better now.
  - saati 6y ago
    Graphics designers are a huge market for Apple, they probably can't do without PS for years.
gumby 6y ago
Cautionary factor with those benchmarks: peak performance and sustained performance aren’t the same and Intel’s desktop and server chips have historically done much better in regards to sustained performance. I’ve tried using an iPad Pro as a computing platform to run some of my code (mostly for fun but also it makes for a more interesting demo) and this is quite noticeable. I think part of up this is simply because of Intel’s design approach, and also because Apple’s target is devices that can run quickly and then go to sleep to save power/heat. Not to imply that Apple couldn’t design for that but it isn’t a mobile use case that they have been shooting for to date, and I suspect the current, publicly released chips would not be appropriate for a laptop much less an iMac.
- CoolGuySteve 6y ago
  Seems like apples and oranges to compare a passively cooled iPad to an actively cooled desktop/server. Does the iPad even have a heatsink or does it radiate through the case?
  - gumby 6y ago
    That’s my point: Apple’s parts are designed for a different design point so the benchmarks, while fun and interesting, don’t really compare like to like. Apple’s ipod designs remind me in spirit of the design of the Alto: focused on the display before anything else.
    - spacedcowboy 6y ago
      Generally, the more difficult problem is to design the power-sipping, energy-efficient cpu that runs on a battery with passive cooling, than the relative power hog that plugs into the wall and has active cooling.
      - gumby 6y ago
        I work at one layer above that so I’ll take your word for it.
weare138 6y ago
>The top-of-the-line iPhone has been benchmarking at or around MacBooks for the past 2-3 years This just isn't true. I looked up some benchmarks. The iPhone X with the A11 Bionic got a Geekbench score of 918 for single core and 2368 for multi-core. To put that in perspective an old 15-inch MacBook Pro from 2013 with a Core i7-3840QM clocked in at 820 and 3199 respectively. https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1997421 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1997421

jandrese 6y ago

I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for peripherals. x86_64 emulation on ARM is still pretty bad AFAIK and there is a tremendous amount of Mac software that won't be ported on the first day, or ever in some cases.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
eyesee 6y ago
I wonder if there are (legal) hurdles to Apple adding an additional x86_64 front end to their custom Mac chips to have hardware 'emulation' for backwards compatibility.
- gumby 6y ago
  They could get around that by simply buying AMD who has an old-but-still valid second source license from intel plus of course the true 64-bit x86 architecture. They could also just license it from Intel. AMD has some hot designers (some who cycled through Apple!) but overall has little to add to Apple (in my ignorant-of-the-true-state-of-Hines opinion. And I admire both companies). Apple’s never been afraid to license something rather than do a perfectly legal legal clean room but-almost-perfect clone. I doubt they’d bother.
  - mr_toad 6y ago
    I’ve heard that AMDs license gets voided if the company gets sold.
    - gumby 6y ago
      I suppose that’s possible but quite hard to believe. That license dates back at least to the 286, perhaps And more likely to the 8086 (I’ve long since forgotten) and dates from a time when multi-source parts were not just very common but required for military and most commercial design-ins. So common that when a part didn’t have a second source it was noticeable. The second source agreement had to be transferable else it would defeat its own purpose (if the second source went out of business nobody would buy your part). Now of course I’ve never seen the intel/amd agreement so I’m just speculating as to what it says. But the weight of precedent/tradition makes a prohibition on transfer unlikely.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  Microsoft has an x86 emulation, so it seems to be okay. It notably doesn't work with 64 bit software. From what I've been able to gather the issue is technical, but I'm very uncertain about it.
- colejohnson66 6y ago
  Worth remembering it was AMD who created x86_64. It was Intel who created x86. Granted, they’ve both added their own features on top of the basic x86_64 set, so it would be a legal hurdle.
cma 6y ago
I don't see how multithreaded stuff will ever emulate well given arm's more relaxed memory consistency model.
- jdxcode 6y ago
  Throw more cores at the problem?
  - monocasa 6y ago
    If anything that just makes the problem harder.
- gumby 6y ago
  They control the architecture and in theory could put in some hardware support for emulation. I can’t speculate as to what that might look like.
- monocasa 6y ago
  They only have two options there as I see it. Either the emulator only runs on a single core per process, or they have an ARM with (maybe optionally?) stronger than required for ARM consistency guarantees. Both options kinda suck.
alasdair_ 6y ago
>I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for peripherals. The recent Catalina update that caused a bunch of older programs to simply stop functioning strongly implies Apple doesn't care that much about being backwards-compatible any more.
- dylan604 6y ago
  But they never really have. iDevices seems shorter than laptop/desktop, but either way, they definitely have short support in terms if iOS hardware compatibility.
- gumby 6y ago
  There were many years of warnings that 32 bit apps would ultimately stop running. It was hardly a surprise. As for hardware lifetime...I’m still using a 2014 iPad, 2015 iPhone and only stopped using my 2015 MacBook because it got caught in the rain.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  My theory is that the 64-bit only migration was done to weed out old apps and APIs that won't be ported to ARM and won't work in emulation. Killing 32-bit removed stuff like classic QuickTime and the whole Carbon API.
Someone 6y ago
I don’t think backwards compatibility is an issue. A device that initially only runs what Apple ships (web browser, Pages, Keynote, and Numbers) plus a few essential iOS apps (Facebook, WhatsApp, etc), priced competitively, is good enough to create a sizable market. MS Office, FireFox, Chrome, and the like only are only nice to have at launch. It’ll be fine if it takes a few months for them to become available. They probably can do without Photoshop for years.
- solarkraft 6y ago
  I tend to disagree. It might be possible to do something like this, but it'd certainly be hard, as the initial public perception will be "nothing works" - that's a pretty dangerous way of entering the feedback loop. Apple isn't Microsoft, but their consistent failure attempting something like this may be a tale of caution.
- kalleboo 6y ago
  I think Microsoft and Adobe are probably the easiest ones for them to get on board for launch (or 6 months after launch), since both of them have their core code ported to ARM already.
  - jandrese 6y ago
    Adobe has a pretty poor track record with updating their software to keep up with Apple API changes.
    - kalleboo 6y ago
      That has been very true historically (Intel/Cocoa shifts), but Apple and Adobe have been publicly shaking hands and smiling a lot about these new full Photoshop for iPad builds lately, so things look a bit better now.
- saati 6y ago
  Graphics designers are a huge market for Apple, they probably can't do without PS for years.

gumby 6y ago

Cautionary factor with those benchmarks: peak performance and sustained performance aren’t the same and Intel’s desktop and server chips have historically done much better in regards to sustained performance. I’ve tried using an iPad Pro as a computing platform to run some of my code (mostly for fun but also it makes for a more interesting demo) and this is quite noticeable. I think part of up this is simply because of Intel’s design approach, and also because Apple’s target is devices that can run quickly and then go to sleep to save power/heat. Not to imply that Apple couldn’t design for that but it isn’t a mobile use case that they have been shooting for to date, and I suspect the current, publicly released chips would not be appropriate for a laptop much less an iMac.

CoolGuySteve 6y ago
Seems like apples and oranges to compare a passively cooled iPad to an actively cooled desktop/server. Does the iPad even have a heatsink or does it radiate through the case?
- gumby 6y ago
  That’s my point: Apple’s parts are designed for a different design point so the benchmarks, while fun and interesting, don’t really compare like to like. Apple’s ipod designs remind me in spirit of the design of the Alto: focused on the display before anything else.
  - spacedcowboy 6y ago
    Generally, the more difficult problem is to design the power-sipping, energy-efficient cpu that runs on a battery with passive cooling, than the relative power hog that plugs into the wall and has active cooling.
    - gumby 6y ago
      I work at one layer above that so I’ll take your word for it.

weare138 6y ago

>The top-of-the-line iPhone has been benchmarking at or around MacBooks for the past 2-3 years This just isn't true. I looked up some benchmarks. The iPhone X with the A11 Bionic got a Geekbench score of 918 for single core and 2368 for multi-core. To put that in perspective an old 15-inch MacBook Pro from 2013 with a Core i7-3840QM clocked in at 820 and 3199 respectively. https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1997421 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/1997421