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Apple can start leaning on their specialized ML cores and accelerators Thank you for mentioning this. I feel like many have missed it. I think Apple sees

Apple can start leaning on their specialized ML cores and accelerators Thank you for mentioning this. I feel like many have missed it. I think Apple sees this sort of thing as the future, and their true competitive advantage. Most are focusing on Apple's potential edge over Intel when it comes to general compute performance/watt. Eventually Apple's likely to hit a wall there too though, like Intel. Where Apple can really pull away is by leaning into custom compute units for specialized tasks. Apple and their full vertical integration will stand alone in the world here. Rather than hoping Intel's chips are good at the things it wants to do, it can specialize the silicone hardcore for the tasks it wants MacOS to do in the future. It will potentially be a throwback to the Amiga days: a system with performance years ahead of competitors because of tight integration with custom hardware. The questions are: 1. Will anybody notice? The initial ARM Macs may be underwhelming. I'm not sure the initial Mac ARM silicon will necessarily have a lot of special custom Mac-oriented compute goodies. And even if it does, I don't know Mac software will be taking full advantage of it from Day 1. It will take a few product cycles (i.e., years) for this to really bear fruit. 2. Will developers bother to exploit these capabilities as Apple surfaces them? Aside from some flagship content-creation apps, native Mac apps are not exactly flourishing.

AgentOrange1234 6y ago
#1, who can say. #2 might be side stepped by the compatibility they with iOS apps they will gain? (making it so all those iphone/ipad developers can ship their apps to macs, too.)
anoncow 6y ago
This could mean the following things. 1. If done correctly, non-Apple laptops may become significantly less attractive. Just like Android phones. 2. Intel may be in for a tough time, especially with AMD winning big on the console and laptop fronts recently. 3. AMD and Intel may have to compete for survival and to save the non-Apple ecosystem in general. If AMD/Intel can consistently and significantly beat Apple here, it may mean that the non-Apple ecosystem survives and even thrives. It may even mean that Apple looks at Intel/AMD as an option for Pro MacBooks in the future. However, this does seem a little less likely. 4. This could also herald the entry of Qualcomm and the likes into laptop territory. Looks like a very interesting and possibly industry changing move. This could potentially severely affect Intel/AMD and Microsoft. And all these players will have to play this new scenario very carefully.
- querez 6y ago
  > 1. If done correctly, non-Apple laptops may become significantly less attractive. Just like Android phones. What makes Android phones less attractive, in your opinion?
  - spullara 6y ago
    The low end iPhone SE compares favorably with the highest end Samsung Galaxy. https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-se-vs-most-powerful-android-galaxy-s20-ultra-1120575/ https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-se-vs-most-powerful-...
    - zambal 6y ago
      It's nice that the iPhone SE performs so well, but there's more to a phone than just the CPU.
      - LoSboccacc 6y ago
        > only one camera, just a 4.7-inch display, and less than Full HD screen resolution cpu selection is likely coming from industrialization concerns, less production line to maintain, less price per unit at volume etc, but they're going to beat that drum loud and proud for all it's worth, meanwhile the phone is cheap in area that in 2020 _do_ matter.
    - leoedin 6y ago
      Do many people care about phone CPU performance? Sure, it needs to be good enough, but after that it's really far down on the list of things that matter. What matters to everyone I know is screen size, camera quality and that a really small selection of apps (messaging, maps, email, browser, bank app) work well. Raw CPU performance is only a very abstract concept.
      - nmfisher 6y ago
        Raw CPU performance, perhaps not. But people definitely do care about a specific set of user-facing, ML-driven functionality - think speech recognition, speech synthesis, realtime video filtering, and so on. Many of these are only barely possible on "pre-neural" mobile ARM CPUs, and at a significant cost to power consumption. Developing for newer devices is like night and day.
sdenton4 6y ago
I know a couple people trying to port an ML app to iOS. It sounds like the interfaces are a bit of a nightmare, and the support for realllly basic stuff in the audio domain is lacking. I don't know the dev ecosystem for apple broadly, but this doesn't bode well for people "bothering to exploit" the hardware.

AgentOrange1234 6y ago

#1, who can say. #2 might be side stepped by the compatibility they with iOS apps they will gain? (making it so all those iphone/ipad developers can ship their apps to macs, too.)

anoncow 6y ago

This could mean the following things. 1. If done correctly, non-Apple laptops may become significantly less attractive. Just like Android phones. 2. Intel may be in for a tough time, especially with AMD winning big on the console and laptop fronts recently. 3. AMD and Intel may have to compete for survival and to save the non-Apple ecosystem in general. If AMD/Intel can consistently and significantly beat Apple here, it may mean that the non-Apple ecosystem survives and even thrives. It may even mean that Apple looks at Intel/AMD as an option for Pro MacBooks in the future. However, this does seem a little less likely. 4. This could also herald the entry of Qualcomm and the likes into laptop territory. Looks like a very interesting and possibly industry changing move. This could potentially severely affect Intel/AMD and Microsoft. And all these players will have to play this new scenario very carefully.

querez 6y ago
> 1. If done correctly, non-Apple laptops may become significantly less attractive. Just like Android phones. What makes Android phones less attractive, in your opinion?
- spullara 6y ago
  The low end iPhone SE compares favorably with the highest end Samsung Galaxy. https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-se-vs-most-powerful-android-galaxy-s20-ultra-1120575/ https://www.androidauthority.com/iphone-se-vs-most-powerful-...
  - zambal 6y ago
    It's nice that the iPhone SE performs so well, but there's more to a phone than just the CPU.
    - LoSboccacc 6y ago
      > only one camera, just a 4.7-inch display, and less than Full HD screen resolution cpu selection is likely coming from industrialization concerns, less production line to maintain, less price per unit at volume etc, but they're going to beat that drum loud and proud for all it's worth, meanwhile the phone is cheap in area that in 2020 _do_ matter.
  - leoedin 6y ago
    Do many people care about phone CPU performance? Sure, it needs to be good enough, but after that it's really far down on the list of things that matter. What matters to everyone I know is screen size, camera quality and that a really small selection of apps (messaging, maps, email, browser, bank app) work well. Raw CPU performance is only a very abstract concept.
    - nmfisher 6y ago
      Raw CPU performance, perhaps not. But people definitely do care about a specific set of user-facing, ML-driven functionality - think speech recognition, speech synthesis, realtime video filtering, and so on. Many of these are only barely possible on "pre-neural" mobile ARM CPUs, and at a significant cost to power consumption. Developing for newer devices is like night and day.

sdenton4 6y ago

I know a couple people trying to port an ML app to iOS. It sounds like the interfaces are a bit of a nightmare, and the support for realllly basic stuff in the audio domain is lacking. I don't know the dev ecosystem for apple broadly, but this doesn't bode well for people "bothering to exploit" the hardware.