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With the heavy rumours of Apple moving forward with ARM chips in Macs, Intel clearly showed the plans for this chip to Apple last year, and Apple said no thank

With the heavy rumours of Apple moving forward with ARM chips in Macs, Intel clearly showed the plans for this chip to Apple last year, and Apple said no thank you.

nojito 6y ago
It doesn’t matter what Intel shows Apple. Intel can’t meet deadlines which forces Apple to restructure their plans constantly.
- feteru 6y ago
  Do you have a link with more info on this?
  - dannyw 6y ago
    I have only seen a sentence or two mentioned in Bloomberg, etc. But it’s widely known that Intel haven’t delivered a true generational upgrade since Skylake. We are on 14nm+++++ or something?
    - whynotminot 6y ago
      10nm Icelake in the new 13" MBP is looking like the first solid generational upgrade in recent memory, but yeah, one qualified success in the last 4ish years does not a roadmap make.
  - dpacmittal 6y ago
    Haven't they been trying 10nm for years? It was supposed to come out by 2015.
    - benologist 6y ago
      Even when Intel started recycling 14nm why would Apple actually care? Some of their computers have gone years without updates despite newer processors being available, it doesn't seem like an important feature of most of their computers. In 2008 Apple bought PA Semi to design processors for iOS, make processors for Macs is likely something they've been working on since way before Intel was late on 10nm.
- fermienrico 6y ago
  Just to add color to that - Apple doesn't want external control of their semiconductors. They want to do their own thing starting with the mobile SOCs, then the secure enclave, then the M2 chip, and the GPU, and now mainstream high power processor. What Intel offers is orthogonal.
  - Jhsto 6y ago
    And don't forget the modem! Apple recently dumped Intel LTE modems as well.
    - williadc 6y ago
      ... and then acquired the team that made those modems.
  - AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    What Intel offers they still have to compete with. It always seems like a good idea to do your own thing when your supplier is stumbling. The problem then is you're on your own. If they find their footing you're in trouble -- either you've blown a huge pile of money developing something which you then don't use because the competition has something better, or you use it anyway and get to relive the final days of Sun Microsystems. And the same thing happens if anybody can beat you. If Intel can't but AMD does, you lose. If AMD can't but Qualcomm does, you lose. Worse, success precipitates failure. If you make an in-house processor which is only a couple of percent faster, that's boring. You spend a lot for a little. If you make one which is more than a couple of percent faster, that's war. Intel can't have that. Google can't have that. Samsung can't have that. Microsoft can't have that. Even if you're bigger than any of them, you're not bigger than all of them. So they double their R&D, combine their resources, whatever it takes, and soon you're Sun Microsystems again.
    - jsnell 6y ago
      When was the last time that a commodity mobile phone soc was even remotely competitive with Apple's latest? 2012? That seems like rather strong evidence against your theory.
- thought_alarm 6y ago
  Intel is hardly to blame for Apple's bungled MacBook lineup of the last 4+ years.
  - rbanffy 6y ago
    That the latest and greatest MacBook Pros use 14nm processors is entirely Intel's fault.
    - thought_alarm 6y ago
      That's not the reason why the 2015-2019 MacBooks are such duds.
      - catalogia 6y ago
        It's one of a few reasons. Macs have worse thermal characteristics than they should; part of that is Apple's fault for making such thin computers with poor ventilation, but part of that is Intel's fault for making such shitty hot chips. Of course there are other matters that can't be laid on Intel, like the keyboard fiasco, but that's beyond the point I think.
      - philistine 6y ago
        The keyboards are. Fair is fair.
        deathanatos 6y ago
        The display cables fraying "Flexgate"[1], the numerous battery recalls[2][3], that the iPhone and the MBP, as shipped, could not be connected to each other (the MBP came with USB-C to USB-C; the iPhone with USB-A to Lightning; the magic trackpads also suffered this)[4], the kernel panics with USB-C until they finally got patched, that the flagship monitor (admittedly an LG device, but advertised on Apple's website at the time) had issues with … Wi-Fi (just being near it, from improper shielding), that same display also had huge issues with disconnecting peripherals (you would connect to the display and get picture/power, but no peripherals), the crappy noisey RSI-inducing redesign of the already poor keyboard (admittedly subjective except for the objective pain in my wrist, but, e.g., [5]¹), the poor design of the device s.t. any breakage in a component results in the complete waste of the remaining good hardware as nothing is independently replaceable/servicable, routinely receiving a score of 1 out of 10 by iFixit, Apple fighting right to repair[6], … oh, and the keyboards breaking the entire laptop from a single grain of sand, the terrible suspend/resume times, … and I haven't upgraded to Catalina yet. I hear that's gone so well for so many. Yeah, Intel's chips are not the biggest fish in the Apple fish fry. I'm not even an Apple customer, I'm just forced to use them by my employer. (And it feels like most employers nowadays.) [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251264/macbook-pro-2018-flexgate-fix-display-cable-2mm-longer https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251264/macbook-pro-2018-... [2]: https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall [3]: https://support.apple.com/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacement https://support.apple.com/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacem... [4]: https://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/27/cant-connect-new-macbook-pro-iphone-without-dongl/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/27/cant-connect-new-mac... [5]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/01/an-ode-to-apples-awful-mac-keyboard/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/01/an-ode-to-apples-awful-mac... [6]: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/3/18761691/right-to-repair-computers-phones-car-mechanics-apple https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/3/18761691/right-to-rep... ¹I now limit my use of Apple keyboards to an absolute minimum.
chongli 6y ago
Last year would already have been too late. These transitions take at least 5 years. So of course Apple said no thank you.
AgloeDreams 6y ago
Why wouldn't they! While Intel showed this, Apple was currently selling iPhone 11s with processors that would clearly outpace this. The A13 has two large cores and four small cores, whereas either one of the large cores outperform the comparable 'Core' core in this, and I'm betting the smaller cores do as well, possibly at less power. Supposedly their ARM< Mac CPU is a 12 core architecture, I imagine with four large cores and 8 small cores. Thats a massive hardware difference...did I mention that the 12 core CPU is supposed to be build on TSMC's 5nm? Intel is trying to get current and honestly, maybe Apple will ship a Macbook Air with it.. but probably not.
- kllrnohj 6y ago
  > The A13 has two large cores and four small cores, whereas either one of the large cores outperform the comparable 'Core' core in this The evidence of this is flimsy at best. It's possible the A13's big cores are faster than Intel's Sunny Cove, but also not very likely, and certainly not established fact. The only real evidence here is Geekbench, which is a highly questionable benchmark that also has extreme OS dependencies (compare results for the same CPU on Windows & Linux, for example). When/if an Apple releases something running MacOS with their custom ARM cores then you'd finally get a good comparison to isolate the CPU's performance by itself.
  - ksec 6y ago
    There are lots of other test from SPEC to Javascript benchmarks ( Using same JS Engine ) that shows what A13 is capable of. And so far results are comparable in many cases, better in some cases, and slower in other cases. We already knew what to expect from Intel Willow Cove, we will have to wait and see what A14 has in store for us.
  - rpiguy 6y ago
    This is not true we have a pretty good idea of where the A13 stands. Anandtech has run SpecInt and SpecFP on the A13 and shows it to be in the same range of performance as a Xeon Silver 4112 (2.6ghz base/3.0ghz turbo), which is a 14nm chip from 2017. So not as fast as the latest processors on a per core basis, but still pretty damn fast. Can't really make assumptions, but you would think with the higher thermal envelope Apple can boost clock speeds making them even more competitive.
ksec 6y ago
>Intel clearly showed the plans for this chip to Apple last year, Lakefield, Foveros, 10nm were suppose to arrive in 2018. And Apple would likely have known about this roadmap before that time. Looks like there will be lots to unpack in WWDC, unfortunately it wont be a staged keynote like it used to.
- williadc 6y ago
  From what I heard when I worked there, Lakefield was purpose-built for this new Microsoft platform, so it's possible that they would not have showed this to Apple until after some time. *Edit: I wanted to add that I left about 2 years ago, and thought the project had been cancelled, along with so many other 10nm products.
  - ksec 6y ago
    So that was before Bob Swan became the new CEO? Why left? If you dont mind sharing :)
    - williadc 6y ago
      > So that was before Bob Swan became the new CEO? Yes, BK was fired right around the time I gave my notice. > Why left? A lot of reasons that would sound like griping. I was recruited by Google for a similar job, but with a chance to build something from the ground up. That sounded like the adventure I was looking for, so I took the offer. I must say, it's been an adventure!
      - ksec 6y ago
        >A lot of reasons that would sound like griping Thanks. I guess that does sums it up and align with lots of other similar sentiments I heard over the years. Off Topic: I think we live in a world where we put too much emphasis on the positives and neglect any negativities. So we end up having any valid complains to be viewed as moaning or griping. I wish as a society there are better ways to handle these rather than simply ignoring it, which would leads to all sort of bad things happening as we seen in the world today.
pradn 6y ago
IMHO, Apple's phones were considered fantastic for a few reasons, in order: brand (perceived quality, luxury status, pricing, "Apple"), software lock-in (iMessage, iCloud), and privacy (also a branding thing since they still use Google for Safari search). The hardware and camera were usually matched or exceeded by top-tier Android manufacturers. Now, Apple-designed CPUs are leaving their competitors in the dust, and provide, perhaps for the first time in a long time, hardware superiority. I don't think consumers quite understand the actual performance gap yet. But once it gets out, it's probably going to be second or third in the list for why people buy iPhones. I'm going to switch from a Pixel to an iPhone this year. The CPU is just clearly better, and seems to actually matter for taking photos and web browsing. (The Pixel still takes like 5 seconds to post-process a photo. iPhones do it instantly.)
- harpratap 6y ago
  the Pixel 4 has dedicated Visual cores based on their TPUs they developed inhouse. All my Pixel 4 photo processing is near instant.
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
  What are your sources for the claim that the hardware superiority actually matters in real life? Every once in a while when I'm looking to buy a phone, I like to check out videos that do real life speed tests (mainly opening apps but other tasks as well) and iPhones have never been on top. Curious to see if that has changed recently.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    > I like to check out videos that do real life speed tests (mainly opening apps but other tasks as well) Those "tests" almost invariably suck at measuring anything useful or being accurate.
    - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
      They are certainly better than synthetic benchmarks however. If you know of anything better let us know.
fomine3 6y ago
When Kaby Lake-G (Intel CPU with RADEON iGPU) is released, I thought that it's for Apple devices but Apple doesn't released devices that use it. I'm curious what's purpose.

With the heavy rumours of Apple moving forward with ARM chips in Macs, Intel clearly showed the plans for this chip to Apple last year, and Apple said no thank you.

nojito 6y ago

It doesn’t matter what Intel shows Apple. Intel can’t meet deadlines which forces Apple to restructure their plans constantly.

feteru 6y ago
Do you have a link with more info on this?
- dannyw 6y ago
  I have only seen a sentence or two mentioned in Bloomberg, etc. But it’s widely known that Intel haven’t delivered a true generational upgrade since Skylake. We are on 14nm+++++ or something?
  - whynotminot 6y ago
    10nm Icelake in the new 13" MBP is looking like the first solid generational upgrade in recent memory, but yeah, one qualified success in the last 4ish years does not a roadmap make.
- dpacmittal 6y ago
  Haven't they been trying 10nm for years? It was supposed to come out by 2015.
  - benologist 6y ago
    Even when Intel started recycling 14nm why would Apple actually care? Some of their computers have gone years without updates despite newer processors being available, it doesn't seem like an important feature of most of their computers. In 2008 Apple bought PA Semi to design processors for iOS, make processors for Macs is likely something they've been working on since way before Intel was late on 10nm.
fermienrico 6y ago
Just to add color to that - Apple doesn't want external control of their semiconductors. They want to do their own thing starting with the mobile SOCs, then the secure enclave, then the M2 chip, and the GPU, and now mainstream high power processor. What Intel offers is orthogonal.
- Jhsto 6y ago
  And don't forget the modem! Apple recently dumped Intel LTE modems as well.
  - williadc 6y ago
    ... and then acquired the team that made those modems.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  What Intel offers they still have to compete with. It always seems like a good idea to do your own thing when your supplier is stumbling. The problem then is you're on your own. If they find their footing you're in trouble -- either you've blown a huge pile of money developing something which you then don't use because the competition has something better, or you use it anyway and get to relive the final days of Sun Microsystems. And the same thing happens if anybody can beat you. If Intel can't but AMD does, you lose. If AMD can't but Qualcomm does, you lose. Worse, success precipitates failure. If you make an in-house processor which is only a couple of percent faster, that's boring. You spend a lot for a little. If you make one which is more than a couple of percent faster, that's war. Intel can't have that. Google can't have that. Samsung can't have that. Microsoft can't have that. Even if you're bigger than any of them, you're not bigger than all of them. So they double their R&D, combine their resources, whatever it takes, and soon you're Sun Microsystems again.
  - jsnell 6y ago
    When was the last time that a commodity mobile phone soc was even remotely competitive with Apple's latest? 2012? That seems like rather strong evidence against your theory.
thought_alarm 6y ago
Intel is hardly to blame for Apple's bungled MacBook lineup of the last 4+ years.
- rbanffy 6y ago
  That the latest and greatest MacBook Pros use 14nm processors is entirely Intel's fault.
  - thought_alarm 6y ago
    That's not the reason why the 2015-2019 MacBooks are such duds.
    - catalogia 6y ago
      It's one of a few reasons. Macs have worse thermal characteristics than they should; part of that is Apple's fault for making such thin computers with poor ventilation, but part of that is Intel's fault for making such shitty hot chips. Of course there are other matters that can't be laid on Intel, like the keyboard fiasco, but that's beyond the point I think.
    - philistine 6y ago
      The keyboards are. Fair is fair.
      - deathanatos 6y ago
        The display cables fraying "Flexgate"[1], the numerous battery recalls[2][3], that the iPhone and the MBP, as shipped, could not be connected to each other (the MBP came with USB-C to USB-C; the iPhone with USB-A to Lightning; the magic trackpads also suffered this)[4], the kernel panics with USB-C until they finally got patched, that the flagship monitor (admittedly an LG device, but advertised on Apple's website at the time) had issues with … Wi-Fi (just being near it, from improper shielding), that same display also had huge issues with disconnecting peripherals (you would connect to the display and get picture/power, but no peripherals), the crappy noisey RSI-inducing redesign of the already poor keyboard (admittedly subjective except for the objective pain in my wrist, but, e.g., [5]¹), the poor design of the device s.t. any breakage in a component results in the complete waste of the remaining good hardware as nothing is independently replaceable/servicable, routinely receiving a score of 1 out of 10 by iFixit, Apple fighting right to repair[6], … oh, and the keyboards breaking the entire laptop from a single grain of sand, the terrible suspend/resume times, … and I haven't upgraded to Catalina yet. I hear that's gone so well for so many. Yeah, Intel's chips are not the biggest fish in the Apple fish fry. I'm not even an Apple customer, I'm just forced to use them by my employer. (And it feels like most employers nowadays.) [1]: https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251264/macbook-pro-2018-flexgate-fix-display-cable-2mm-longer https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/5/18251264/macbook-pro-2018-... [2]: https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall https://support.apple.com/15-inch-macbook-pro-battery-recall [3]: https://support.apple.com/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacement https://support.apple.com/13inch-macbookpro-battery-replacem... [4]: https://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/27/cant-connect-new-macbook-pro-iphone-without-dongl/ https://thenextweb.com/apple/2016/10/27/cant-connect-new-mac... [5]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/01/an-ode-to-apples-awful-mac-keyboard/ https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/01/an-ode-to-apples-awful-mac... [6]: https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/3/18761691/right-to-repair-computers-phones-car-mechanics-apple https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/7/3/18761691/right-to-rep... ¹I now limit my use of Apple keyboards to an absolute minimum.

chongli 6y ago

Last year would already have been too late. These transitions take at least 5 years. So of course Apple said no thank you.

AgloeDreams 6y ago

Why wouldn't they! While Intel showed this, Apple was currently selling iPhone 11s with processors that would clearly outpace this. The A13 has two large cores and four small cores, whereas either one of the large cores outperform the comparable 'Core' core in this, and I'm betting the smaller cores do as well, possibly at less power. Supposedly their ARM< Mac CPU is a 12 core architecture, I imagine with four large cores and 8 small cores. Thats a massive hardware difference...did I mention that the 12 core CPU is supposed to be build on TSMC's 5nm? Intel is trying to get current and honestly, maybe Apple will ship a Macbook Air with it.. but probably not.

kllrnohj 6y ago
> The A13 has two large cores and four small cores, whereas either one of the large cores outperform the comparable 'Core' core in this The evidence of this is flimsy at best. It's possible the A13's big cores are faster than Intel's Sunny Cove, but also not very likely, and certainly not established fact. The only real evidence here is Geekbench, which is a highly questionable benchmark that also has extreme OS dependencies (compare results for the same CPU on Windows & Linux, for example). When/if an Apple releases something running MacOS with their custom ARM cores then you'd finally get a good comparison to isolate the CPU's performance by itself.
- ksec 6y ago
  There are lots of other test from SPEC to Javascript benchmarks ( Using same JS Engine ) that shows what A13 is capable of. And so far results are comparable in many cases, better in some cases, and slower in other cases. We already knew what to expect from Intel Willow Cove, we will have to wait and see what A14 has in store for us.
- rpiguy 6y ago
  This is not true we have a pretty good idea of where the A13 stands. Anandtech has run SpecInt and SpecFP on the A13 and shows it to be in the same range of performance as a Xeon Silver 4112 (2.6ghz base/3.0ghz turbo), which is a 14nm chip from 2017. So not as fast as the latest processors on a per core basis, but still pretty damn fast. Can't really make assumptions, but you would think with the higher thermal envelope Apple can boost clock speeds making them even more competitive.

ksec 6y ago

>Intel clearly showed the plans for this chip to Apple last year, Lakefield, Foveros, 10nm were suppose to arrive in 2018. And Apple would likely have known about this roadmap before that time. Looks like there will be lots to unpack in WWDC, unfortunately it wont be a staged keynote like it used to.

williadc 6y ago
From what I heard when I worked there, Lakefield was purpose-built for this new Microsoft platform, so it's possible that they would not have showed this to Apple until after some time. *Edit: I wanted to add that I left about 2 years ago, and thought the project had been cancelled, along with so many other 10nm products.
- ksec 6y ago
  So that was before Bob Swan became the new CEO? Why left? If you dont mind sharing :)
  - williadc 6y ago
    > So that was before Bob Swan became the new CEO? Yes, BK was fired right around the time I gave my notice. > Why left? A lot of reasons that would sound like griping. I was recruited by Google for a similar job, but with a chance to build something from the ground up. That sounded like the adventure I was looking for, so I took the offer. I must say, it's been an adventure!
    - ksec 6y ago
      >A lot of reasons that would sound like griping Thanks. I guess that does sums it up and align with lots of other similar sentiments I heard over the years. Off Topic: I think we live in a world where we put too much emphasis on the positives and neglect any negativities. So we end up having any valid complains to be viewed as moaning or griping. I wish as a society there are better ways to handle these rather than simply ignoring it, which would leads to all sort of bad things happening as we seen in the world today.

pradn 6y ago

IMHO, Apple's phones were considered fantastic for a few reasons, in order: brand (perceived quality, luxury status, pricing, "Apple"), software lock-in (iMessage, iCloud), and privacy (also a branding thing since they still use Google for Safari search). The hardware and camera were usually matched or exceeded by top-tier Android manufacturers. Now, Apple-designed CPUs are leaving their competitors in the dust, and provide, perhaps for the first time in a long time, hardware superiority. I don't think consumers quite understand the actual performance gap yet. But once it gets out, it's probably going to be second or third in the list for why people buy iPhones. I'm going to switch from a Pixel to an iPhone this year. The CPU is just clearly better, and seems to actually matter for taking photos and web browsing. (The Pixel still takes like 5 seconds to post-process a photo. iPhones do it instantly.)

harpratap 6y ago
the Pixel 4 has dedicated Visual cores based on their TPUs they developed inhouse. All my Pixel 4 photo processing is near instant.
oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
What are your sources for the claim that the hardware superiority actually matters in real life? Every once in a while when I'm looking to buy a phone, I like to check out videos that do real life speed tests (mainly opening apps but other tasks as well) and iPhones have never been on top. Curious to see if that has changed recently.
- saagarjha 6y ago
  > I like to check out videos that do real life speed tests (mainly opening apps but other tasks as well) Those "tests" almost invariably suck at measuring anything useful or being accurate.
  - oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
    They are certainly better than synthetic benchmarks however. If you know of anything better let us know.

fomine3 6y ago

When Kaby Lake-G (Intel CPU with RADEON iGPU) is released, I thought that it's for Apple devices but Apple doesn't released devices that use it. I'm curious what's purpose.