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Since these won't ship in non-Apple products, I don't see really the point. They're only slightly ahead of AMD products when it comes to performance/watt, sligh

Since these won't ship in non-Apple products, I don't see really the point. They're only slightly ahead of AMD products when it comes to performance/watt, slightly behind performance/dollar (in an Apples to apples comparison on similarly configured laptops), and that's only because Apple is head of AMD at TSMC for new nodes, not because Apple has any inherent advantage. I have huge respect for the PA Semi team, but they're basically wasting that talent if Apple only intends to silo their products into an increasingly smaller market. The government really needs to look into splitting Apple up to benefit shareholders and the general public.

pjmlp 5y ago
Our local office only uses macOS and Windows for desktop computers, GNU/Linux nowadays only for servers in some Amazon and Azure cloud instances. Apple will have plenty of customers.
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  OSX is less than 1/7th of the desktop OS market, and iOS is slightly over 1/4th of the phone market; the major cloud companies are the largest consumers of desktop and server scale CPUs, and buy mostly AMD with some Intel only when cluster compatibility requirements apply; when it is non-x86, it is a mix of things that do not include any Apple ARM offerings but do include larger scale higher performance ARM CPUs and some POWER as well. The most used architectures of any kind (including embedded, industrial, and automotive) are MIPS, then ARM, then POWER/PowerPC, then x86. Apple is a tiny player in the overall ARM market, and by hyper-focusing on desktop and phone alone, they are giving up important opportunities to diversify their business. At no point does "Apple will have plenty of customers" make sense in a context where Apple is a $2.45T company: either they have a large majority of possible customers in multiple industries at multiple levels, or reality is going to come crashing in and drive them back down to sub-$T levels. You cannot convince a company that only has a net income of $22B a year is worth that much, no matter how much "goodwill" and "brand recognition" and other nonsense intangibles they have. Steve Jobs died exactly ten years ago on Oct 5th, and the RDF died with him.
  - pjmlp 5y ago
    You are forgetting that GNU/Linux desktop will never happen, it is always going to be Windows or macOS for 98% of the world. Even if we take ChromeOS and Android into account, ChromeOS is largely irrelevant outside North America school system, and Android will always be a phone OS. In both cases, the Linux kernel is an implementation detail. So that leaves Apple with its 10% market share for all creatives, which someone has to develop software for, and iOS devices, which also require developers to create said apps. Everyone else will stay on Windows as always.
  - therealcamino 5y ago
    Apple's net income is not $22B a year -- that's way off.
    - DiabloD3 5y ago
      Sorry, I meant per quarter.
      - therealcamino 5y ago
        Also not really sensible as a basis for arguments about the valuation of the company, as their business is seasonal.
Jtsummers 5y ago
"They're only slightly ahead..." and "The government really needs to look into splitting Apple up to benefit shareholders and the general public." doesn't really seem to jive for me. If they're only slightly ahead, what's the point of splitting them up when everyone else, in your analysis, is nearly on par or will soon be on par with them?
kzrdude 5y ago
ARM going mainstream in powerful personal computers was exciting enough as it was, with the release of the Apple Silicon M1. With time hopefully these will be good to use with Linux.
kergonath 5y ago
> I have huge respect for the PA Semi team, but they're basically wasting that talent if Apple only intends to silo their products into an increasingly smaller market. They design the SoCs in all iPhones and soon all Macs. They have the backing of a huge company with an unhealthy amount of money, and are free from a lot of constraints that come with having to sell a general-purpose CPUs to OEMs. They can work directly with the OS developers so that whatever fancy thing they put in their chips is used and has a real impact on release or shortly thereafter, and will be used by millions of users. Sounds much more exciting than working on the n-th Core generation at Intel. Look at how long it is taking for mainstream software to take advantage of vector extensions. I can’t see how that is wasting talent. > The government really needs to look into splitting Apple up to benefit shareholders and the general public. So that their chip guys become just another boring SoC designer? Talk about killing the golden goose. Also, fuck the shareholders. The people who should matter are the users, and they seem quite happy with the products. Apple certainly has some unfair practices, but it’s difficult to argue that their CPUs are problematic.
rpmisms 5y ago
This is a poorly considered take, no offense to you. I think you're failing to consider that Apple traditionally drives innovation in the computing market, and this will push a lot of other manufacturers to compete with them. AMD is already on the warpath, and Intel just got a massive kick in the pants. There's other arguments against Apple being as big as it, but this isn't a good one. Tesla being huge and powerful has driven amazing EV innovation, for example, and Apple is in the same position in the computing market.
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  A lot of Apple fans keep saying Apple drives innovation, but I'd love to see where this has actually been true. Every example I've ever been given has a counter-example where someone else did it first and Apple did not do it in a way that conferred a market advantage; the only thing Apple has proven they're consistently better at is having a PR team that is also a cult.
  - rpmisms 5y ago
    Sure. Here's the basic pipeline: Somebody makes a cool piece of tech, but they don't have the UI/UX chops to make it work. Apple comes along and works some serious magic on the tech to make it attractive for everyday use. Other companies get their roadmap from Apple's release, and go from there. Some examples: Nice fonts on desktops Smartphones Tablets Smartwatches (more debatable, but Apple did play a big part here) In-house SOCs. I suspect that their future AR offering is going to work the same way. The market is currently nascent, but Apple will make a market.

pjmlp 5y ago

Our local office only uses macOS and Windows for desktop computers, GNU/Linux nowadays only for servers in some Amazon and Azure cloud instances. Apple will have plenty of customers.

DiabloD3 5y ago
OSX is less than 1/7th of the desktop OS market, and iOS is slightly over 1/4th of the phone market; the major cloud companies are the largest consumers of desktop and server scale CPUs, and buy mostly AMD with some Intel only when cluster compatibility requirements apply; when it is non-x86, it is a mix of things that do not include any Apple ARM offerings but do include larger scale higher performance ARM CPUs and some POWER as well. The most used architectures of any kind (including embedded, industrial, and automotive) are MIPS, then ARM, then POWER/PowerPC, then x86. Apple is a tiny player in the overall ARM market, and by hyper-focusing on desktop and phone alone, they are giving up important opportunities to diversify their business. At no point does "Apple will have plenty of customers" make sense in a context where Apple is a $2.45T company: either they have a large majority of possible customers in multiple industries at multiple levels, or reality is going to come crashing in and drive them back down to sub-$T levels. You cannot convince a company that only has a net income of $22B a year is worth that much, no matter how much "goodwill" and "brand recognition" and other nonsense intangibles they have. Steve Jobs died exactly ten years ago on Oct 5th, and the RDF died with him.
- pjmlp 5y ago
  You are forgetting that GNU/Linux desktop will never happen, it is always going to be Windows or macOS for 98% of the world. Even if we take ChromeOS and Android into account, ChromeOS is largely irrelevant outside North America school system, and Android will always be a phone OS. In both cases, the Linux kernel is an implementation detail. So that leaves Apple with its 10% market share for all creatives, which someone has to develop software for, and iOS devices, which also require developers to create said apps. Everyone else will stay on Windows as always.
- therealcamino 5y ago
  Apple's net income is not $22B a year -- that's way off.
  - DiabloD3 5y ago
    Sorry, I meant per quarter.
    - therealcamino 5y ago
      Also not really sensible as a basis for arguments about the valuation of the company, as their business is seasonal.

Jtsummers 5y ago

"They're only slightly ahead..." and "The government really needs to look into splitting Apple up to benefit shareholders and the general public." doesn't really seem to jive for me. If they're only slightly ahead, what's the point of splitting them up when everyone else, in your analysis, is nearly on par or will soon be on par with them?

kzrdude 5y ago

ARM going mainstream in powerful personal computers was exciting enough as it was, with the release of the Apple Silicon M1. With time hopefully these will be good to use with Linux.

kergonath 5y ago

> I have huge respect for the PA Semi team, but they're basically wasting that talent if Apple only intends to silo their products into an increasingly smaller market. They design the SoCs in all iPhones and soon all Macs. They have the backing of a huge company with an unhealthy amount of money, and are free from a lot of constraints that come with having to sell a general-purpose CPUs to OEMs. They can work directly with the OS developers so that whatever fancy thing they put in their chips is used and has a real impact on release or shortly thereafter, and will be used by millions of users. Sounds much more exciting than working on the n-th Core generation at Intel. Look at how long it is taking for mainstream software to take advantage of vector extensions. I can’t see how that is wasting talent. > The government really needs to look into splitting Apple up to benefit shareholders and the general public. So that their chip guys become just another boring SoC designer? Talk about killing the golden goose. Also, fuck the shareholders. The people who should matter are the users, and they seem quite happy with the products. Apple certainly has some unfair practices, but it’s difficult to argue that their CPUs are problematic.

rpmisms 5y ago

This is a poorly considered take, no offense to you. I think you're failing to consider that Apple traditionally drives innovation in the computing market, and this will push a lot of other manufacturers to compete with them. AMD is already on the warpath, and Intel just got a massive kick in the pants. There's other arguments against Apple being as big as it, but this isn't a good one. Tesla being huge and powerful has driven amazing EV innovation, for example, and Apple is in the same position in the computing market.

DiabloD3 5y ago
A lot of Apple fans keep saying Apple drives innovation, but I'd love to see where this has actually been true. Every example I've ever been given has a counter-example where someone else did it first and Apple did not do it in a way that conferred a market advantage; the only thing Apple has proven they're consistently better at is having a PR team that is also a cult.
- rpmisms 5y ago
  Sure. Here's the basic pipeline: Somebody makes a cool piece of tech, but they don't have the UI/UX chops to make it work. Apple comes along and works some serious magic on the tech to make it attractive for everyday use. Other companies get their roadmap from Apple's release, and go from there. Some examples: Nice fonts on desktops Smartphones Tablets Smartwatches (more debatable, but Apple did play a big part here) In-house SOCs. I suspect that their future AR offering is going to work the same way. The market is currently nascent, but Apple will make a market.