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Just realized that while the ARM transition makes technical sense it probably increases the odds of Apple being commodified. Using X64 makes it at least somewha

by api 6y ago

Just realized that while the ARM transition makes technical sense it probably increases the odds of Apple being commodified. Using X64 makes it at least somewhat harder for a competitor to do this by offering competitors fewer choices and higher component costs. By pushing the PC, the nucleus of all development, to ARM they are helping push the whole software industry onto a heavily globalized platform with many vendor choices and generally available IP.

lstamour 6y ago
What wasn’t commodified to begin with about the PC industry? Or later, with the smartphone industry? There’s Apple and then there’s the commodity alternative with more market share globally etc. To me this is Apple trying to stay ahead of ARM Chromebooks and the desktop-ification of Android/Chrome. If left alone another half decade, it’s possible that Chromium via either Google or Microsoft could have made more of a dent in the wider market than just education uses. Adobe is already facilitating creatives to cheaper Windows workstations. Frankly, Apple investing in unique silicon for their software simply means it will be more unique, just as the iPad has defended its place through an unbeatable software ecosystem and “cheap enough” hardware. If the Mac can go “cheap enough” to iPad pricing, this is Apple carving out its niche and market for the decade to come...
- orangecat 6y ago
  To me this is Apple trying to stay ahead of ARM Chromebooks and the desktop-ification of Android/Chrome. Right. ChromeOS is getting interesting. At first glance it seems to be even more limited and appliance-like than iOS, but now you can run both Android and Linux software in containers, which opens up many more potential uses.
gumby 6y ago
I assume it’s the double justification for Apple’s marketing to have chosen the phrase “Apple silicon”. One of course is to steer the discussion away from the ARM architecture itself and any sense of commoditization. This was a problem with the intel transition, though they were in a tighter situation so simply didn’t message around it ... and that was fine. The second justification though is that the CPU architecture is less significant on the system scale. The SOC really is a ”system” (we used to predict this in the 1990s but couldn’t get there then) with a lot of other some what specialized functional units designed to work together. In that the A series are more reminiscent of the mainframes of old, where the CPU really was merely the central processing unit and a tremendous amount of processing went on in other processing units.

by api 6y ago

lstamour 6y ago

What wasn’t commodified to begin with about the PC industry? Or later, with the smartphone industry? There’s Apple and then there’s the commodity alternative with more market share globally etc. To me this is Apple trying to stay ahead of ARM Chromebooks and the desktop-ification of Android/Chrome. If left alone another half decade, it’s possible that Chromium via either Google or Microsoft could have made more of a dent in the wider market than just education uses. Adobe is already facilitating creatives to cheaper Windows workstations. Frankly, Apple investing in unique silicon for their software simply means it will be more unique, just as the iPad has defended its place through an unbeatable software ecosystem and “cheap enough” hardware. If the Mac can go “cheap enough” to iPad pricing, this is Apple carving out its niche and market for the decade to come...

orangecat 6y ago
To me this is Apple trying to stay ahead of ARM Chromebooks and the desktop-ification of Android/Chrome. Right. ChromeOS is getting interesting. At first glance it seems to be even more limited and appliance-like than iOS, but now you can run both Android and Linux software in containers, which opens up many more potential uses.

gumby 6y ago

I assume it’s the double justification for Apple’s marketing to have chosen the phrase “Apple silicon”. One of course is to steer the discussion away from the ARM architecture itself and any sense of commoditization. This was a problem with the intel transition, though they were in a tighter situation so simply didn’t message around it ... and that was fine. The second justification though is that the CPU architecture is less significant on the system scale. The SOC really is a ”system” (we used to predict this in the 1990s but couldn’t get there then) with a lot of other some what specialized functional units designed to work together. In that the A series are more reminiscent of the mainframes of old, where the CPU really was merely the central processing unit and a tremendous amount of processing went on in other processing units.