3 ms·

Apple could adopt ARM for laptops, but why would it?

13 points by Osiris 16y ago

0x1337 16y ago
Because Apple is evil. Do we need more reasons?
jinushaun 16y ago
Because Apple has always sold computers as lifestyle appliances, instead of complex work machines like the PC industry. Apple's target markst doesn't open up their box and upgrade their computer. They dont care about customisation and plugins because they dont upgrade their toaster or microwave--they use it as is. Going ARM on their laptop plus making MacOS more like iOS is all part of this grand vision.
- 0x1337 16y ago
  Now, this vision of turning computers into toasters is exactly the reason why I think Apple is evil.
  - jinushaun 16y ago
    Apple's vision of turning computers into toasters is exactly the reason why I switched to a Mac. I'm too old to deal with maintaining a PC. Just give me a box and let me do my work. For most of the objects that I interact with on a daily basis, I don't care how it works or whether I can "hack" or upgrade it. I just care that it works and gets out of my way when I don't need it any more. The only notable exception that I can think of right now is a car. But as for computers, that's very much an appliance in my eyes, despite being a developer and coding on Linux and Windows all day at work.
noelchurchill 16y ago
OSX and iOS are merging. Think touch screen macbook air.
- xorglorb 16y ago
  iPad?
  - noelchurchill 16y ago
    No. Think about it. For example, even if you could make an iOS app on an iPad you wouldn't want to. There are legitimate reasons for wanting a keyboard and trackpad. iOS is the future of Apple and they want all those iOS apps to be available on all mac computers too, so they're going to continue to move that iOS to all their machines, including ones with keyboards and trackpads.
fuzionmonkey 16y ago
This is surprising considering the good relationship between Apple and Intel. A couple of recent examples are Thunderbolt and the unreleased Z68 chipset that is in the newest iMacs. I really doubt this will happen anywhere in the near future simply because ARM chips don't have good performance compared to x86 chips. Most people would be unwilling to accept a performance downgrade. I could see the MacBook Air line and other consumer products going in that direction, but certainly not the MacBook Pros or the Mac Pro desktop for that matter. These products are targeted towards serious professionals who need performance. The notion of ARM chips in a workstation computer is laughable for the near future. There's pretty much zero chance ARM will ever reach performance parity with x86. Not to mention Intel's near two year process technology lead over everyone else. The only scenario I see something like this happening is far in the future, when everything transitions towards the cloud and thin clients. But for now, we need real computers with real performance.
- extension 16y ago
  There's pretty much zero chance ARM will ever reach performance parity with x86 But do workstations need state of the art performance? Once upon a time, they did. Today they don't, but are only behind by a small factor. That gap may grow to a few orders of magnitude some day, especially if all the performance advances come from multi-core, which workstations have a hard time exploiting fully. Maybe Apple sees the desktop performance requirements leveling off enough for ARM to catch up. It's not hard to imagine the laptops of tomorrow being in the same performance class as phones and tablets.
- kux 16y ago
  Intel has an effective monopoly on x86 high end mobile chips, and those chips are now provided graphics and require Intel motherboard(southbridge) chips as well. Intel is also in the SSD and wireless chip market. In short, Intel parts are an increasingly large percent of the cost of a laptop. Apple's profits dependent on Apple's control over component costs, but their dependence on Intel threatens this. It is hard to negotiate prices down when there is no viable alternative supplier. If Apple can control developers enough to switch to ARM and write efficient code for 'just good enough' ARM-based laptops, then Apple should switch as soon as possible.
thought_alarm 16y ago
An answer to a question that no one asked.
- adbge 16y ago
  Did you even read the first sentence of the article? It links to the recent discussion about Apple moving to ARM hardware: http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-laptop-lines/ http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-la...
  - thought_alarm 16y ago
    I did. It's a discussion that no reasonable person would take seriously. Where is the rationale for moving Mac to ARM? It's nowhere.
    - phamilton 16y ago
      Because the underpowered macbook air has demonstrated that "Good enough" performance can be greatly outweighed by ultra portable, power efficient devices. Cutting costs, increasing power efficiency, and decreasing physical size are all good ideas in my book. It's a new world out there. People are finally expecting software to run faster while requiring less. Each version of Android has noticeable speedups on identical hardware. Snow Leopard freed up 6GB of storage when upgrading from Leopard. Inefficient software no longer buoys hardware sales. For ultra portable devices, in which category I would put many laptop lines, power and size are all that really matter. Granted, netbooks suck, but a device that's "good enough" speed-wise is fine for such requirements.
hedgehog 16y ago
Depending whose estimates you believe an A5 costs Apple about $14 and a ULV i5 will cost them about $225. One could imagine that a $30 part in a couple generations would be fast enough for a consumer notebook that didn't need x86 virtualization. $200 savings on cost = $286 off retail if they want gross margins at 30%.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
kux 16y ago
This rumor was first addressed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2519858 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2519858
meric 16y ago
Still waiting. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693
daimyoyo 16y ago
The most logical thing for Apple to do if they were to decide to switch to ARM would be to use it in the MacBook air only. People buy iPads and MacBook Airs to play with. People generally buy MacBook Pros, iMacs, and MacPros for work(I did.) The fact is that ARM chips are not cut out to handle the demands of professional users and won't be for the foreseeable future. Especially now that Intel has announced tri-gate. Finally, why would Apple switch when they are placing a major bet on Thunderbolt? It seems unlikely or more accurately unwise for them to switch to AMD without a tremendously compelling reason. And no, A15 isn't enough.
sliverstorm 16y ago
Just a few days ago I was reading about how Intel might start making ARM chips. 2 + 2 = ...? Biggest reason the Apple-ARM rumor is not entirely infeasible to me is Apple has never been performance-first, and I could see them taking a performance hit for aesthetic or form gains.
- kux 16y ago
  one of the biggest reasons Apple would switch to ARM for laptop-like products is to reduce their dependence on Intel's effective monopoly!
  - sliverstorm 16y ago
    Well, they could certainly switch using intel ARM chips. Eases the transition (maybe?) and once everything is on ARM they can switch to another manufacturer anytime.

13 points by Osiris 16y ago

Because Apple is evil. Do we need more reasons?

Because Apple has always sold computers as lifestyle appliances, instead of complex work machines like the PC industry. Apple's target markst doesn't open up their box and upgrade their computer. They dont care about customisation and plugins because they dont upgrade their toaster or microwave--they use it as is. Going ARM on their laptop plus making MacOS more like iOS is all part of this grand vision.

0x1337 16y ago
Now, this vision of turning computers into toasters is exactly the reason why I think Apple is evil.
- jinushaun 16y ago
  Apple's vision of turning computers into toasters is exactly the reason why I switched to a Mac. I'm too old to deal with maintaining a PC. Just give me a box and let me do my work. For most of the objects that I interact with on a daily basis, I don't care how it works or whether I can "hack" or upgrade it. I just care that it works and gets out of my way when I don't need it any more. The only notable exception that I can think of right now is a car. But as for computers, that's very much an appliance in my eyes, despite being a developer and coding on Linux and Windows all day at work.

noelchurchill 16y ago

OSX and iOS are merging. Think touch screen macbook air.

xorglorb 16y ago
iPad?
- noelchurchill 16y ago
  No. Think about it. For example, even if you could make an iOS app on an iPad you wouldn't want to. There are legitimate reasons for wanting a keyboard and trackpad. iOS is the future of Apple and they want all those iOS apps to be available on all mac computers too, so they're going to continue to move that iOS to all their machines, including ones with keyboards and trackpads.

fuzionmonkey 16y ago

This is surprising considering the good relationship between Apple and Intel. A couple of recent examples are Thunderbolt and the unreleased Z68 chipset that is in the newest iMacs. I really doubt this will happen anywhere in the near future simply because ARM chips don't have good performance compared to x86 chips. Most people would be unwilling to accept a performance downgrade. I could see the MacBook Air line and other consumer products going in that direction, but certainly not the MacBook Pros or the Mac Pro desktop for that matter. These products are targeted towards serious professionals who need performance. The notion of ARM chips in a workstation computer is laughable for the near future. There's pretty much zero chance ARM will ever reach performance parity with x86. Not to mention Intel's near two year process technology lead over everyone else. The only scenario I see something like this happening is far in the future, when everything transitions towards the cloud and thin clients. But for now, we need real computers with real performance.

extension 16y ago
There's pretty much zero chance ARM will ever reach performance parity with x86 But do workstations need state of the art performance? Once upon a time, they did. Today they don't, but are only behind by a small factor. That gap may grow to a few orders of magnitude some day, especially if all the performance advances come from multi-core, which workstations have a hard time exploiting fully. Maybe Apple sees the desktop performance requirements leveling off enough for ARM to catch up. It's not hard to imagine the laptops of tomorrow being in the same performance class as phones and tablets.
kux 16y ago
Intel has an effective monopoly on x86 high end mobile chips, and those chips are now provided graphics and require Intel motherboard(southbridge) chips as well. Intel is also in the SSD and wireless chip market. In short, Intel parts are an increasingly large percent of the cost of a laptop. Apple's profits dependent on Apple's control over component costs, but their dependence on Intel threatens this. It is hard to negotiate prices down when there is no viable alternative supplier. If Apple can control developers enough to switch to ARM and write efficient code for 'just good enough' ARM-based laptops, then Apple should switch as soon as possible.

thought_alarm 16y ago

An answer to a question that no one asked.

adbge 16y ago
Did you even read the first sentence of the article? It links to the recent discussion about Apple moving to ARM hardware: http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-laptop-lines/ http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-la...
- thought_alarm 16y ago
  I did. It's a discussion that no reasonable person would take seriously. Where is the rationale for moving Mac to ARM? It's nowhere.
  - phamilton 16y ago
    Because the underpowered macbook air has demonstrated that "Good enough" performance can be greatly outweighed by ultra portable, power efficient devices. Cutting costs, increasing power efficiency, and decreasing physical size are all good ideas in my book. It's a new world out there. People are finally expecting software to run faster while requiring less. Each version of Android has noticeable speedups on identical hardware. Snow Leopard freed up 6GB of storage when upgrading from Leopard. Inefficient software no longer buoys hardware sales. For ultra portable devices, in which category I would put many laptop lines, power and size are all that really matter. Granted, netbooks suck, but a device that's "good enough" speed-wise is fine for such requirements.

hedgehog 16y ago

Depending whose estimates you believe an A5 costs Apple about $14 and a ULV i5 will cost them about $225. One could imagine that a $30 part in a couple generations would be fast enough for a consumer notebook that didn't need x86 virtualization. $200 savings on cost = $286 off retail if they want gross margins at 30%.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

kux 16y ago

This rumor was first addressed here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2519858 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2519858

meric 16y ago

Still waiting. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693

daimyoyo 16y ago

The most logical thing for Apple to do if they were to decide to switch to ARM would be to use it in the MacBook air only. People buy iPads and MacBook Airs to play with. People generally buy MacBook Pros, iMacs, and MacPros for work(I did.) The fact is that ARM chips are not cut out to handle the demands of professional users and won't be for the foreseeable future. Especially now that Intel has announced tri-gate. Finally, why would Apple switch when they are placing a major bet on Thunderbolt? It seems unlikely or more accurately unwise for them to switch to AMD without a tremendously compelling reason. And no, A15 isn't enough.

sliverstorm 16y ago

Just a few days ago I was reading about how Intel might start making ARM chips. 2 + 2 = ...? Biggest reason the Apple-ARM rumor is not entirely infeasible to me is Apple has never been performance-first, and I could see them taking a performance hit for aesthetic or form gains.

kux 16y ago
one of the biggest reasons Apple would switch to ARM for laptop-like products is to reduce their dependence on Intel's effective monopoly!
- sliverstorm 16y ago
  Well, they could certainly switch using intel ARM chips. Eases the transition (maybe?) and once everything is on ARM they can switch to another manufacturer anytime.