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It’s also important to recognize that Apple transitions after their current processors are, intentionally or unintentionally, far behind the state of the art in

It’s also important to recognize that Apple transitions after their current processors are, intentionally or unintentionally, far behind the state of the art in processor power. When Apple transitioned to Intel the PowerPC platform was way behind on a performance basis. In this case it wasn’t deliberate. But when it transitioned from Intel to ARM, Apple was again way behind on performance compared to contemporary competitors, making the transition look better than if it was up to date. If Apple had been at the forefront of Intel CPUs, the transition would have looked like a slight loss in performance for tremendous increases in battery life which most would have been happy with. But they weren’t so it looked like an increase in performance along with an increase in battery life, which made the transition a no brainer for Apple. And they were able to do this because they tightly couple their OS with the hardware, so they can control the transition without having, say Acer stick macOS on a laptop that makes the M1 not look as great as the previous Apple Intel Mac.

GeekyBear 3y ago
> When Apple transitioned to Intel the PowerPC platform was way behind on a performance basis. Apple transitioned after it became obvious that consumers were starting to prefer laptops over desktops, and Power PC (as well as Pentium IV) chips had problems with both power draw and heat. As soon as Intel transitioned to Core, Apple transitioned to Intel. Apple transitioned to ARM after Intel ran into the same issues with power draw and heat again,
dagmx 3y ago
In what way were Apple behind on performance at the end of the Intel era? They were shipping the same chips as everyone else and were getting similar performance and battery benchmarks as other brands (Dell, HP) in that same generation of processor.
- GeekyBear 3y ago
  Power PC led on floating point performance and Intel led on integer performance. Since printing and graphics were one of Apple's largest markets, they were better positioned in that market with good floating point performance. It's also the reason that Apple showed off Mac vs. PC Photoshop performance so frequently in that time period.
wtallis 3y ago
> If Apple had been at the forefront of Intel CPUs, the transition would have looked like a slight loss in performance for tremendous increases in battery life which most would have been happy with. The M1 launched two months after the first Intel Tiger Lake processors, so Apple was pretty much on-time for moving the 13" MacBook Pro off of Intel's Ice Lake, and it wasn't behind on performance: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1185g7-vs-apple-m1#benchmarks https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1185g7-v... The larger MacBook Pro was later moving off Intel and was using a very old (2.5 years) Intel CPU at the time the M1 Pro and M1 Max launched, but even comparing against the CPUs Intel had at the time for machines of that class, the M1 Pro's performance looks fine: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-11900h-vs-apple-m1-pro#benchmarks https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-11900h-v... And it's important to note that Intel themselves were largely to blame for the fact that the larger MacBook Pro was still using a 2.5 year old CPU: Intel never shipped Ice Lake processors for desktop or high-power mobile, so the Coffee Lake Refresh processors didn't have a successor from Intel until five months before the M1 Pro and M1 Max launched.

GeekyBear 3y ago

> When Apple transitioned to Intel the PowerPC platform was way behind on a performance basis. Apple transitioned after it became obvious that consumers were starting to prefer laptops over desktops, and Power PC (as well as Pentium IV) chips had problems with both power draw and heat. As soon as Intel transitioned to Core, Apple transitioned to Intel. Apple transitioned to ARM after Intel ran into the same issues with power draw and heat again,

dagmx 3y ago

In what way were Apple behind on performance at the end of the Intel era? They were shipping the same chips as everyone else and were getting similar performance and battery benchmarks as other brands (Dell, HP) in that same generation of processor.

GeekyBear 3y ago
Power PC led on floating point performance and Intel led on integer performance. Since printing and graphics were one of Apple's largest markets, they were better positioned in that market with good floating point performance. It's also the reason that Apple showed off Mac vs. PC Photoshop performance so frequently in that time period.

wtallis 3y ago

> If Apple had been at the forefront of Intel CPUs, the transition would have looked like a slight loss in performance for tremendous increases in battery life which most would have been happy with. The M1 launched two months after the first Intel Tiger Lake processors, so Apple was pretty much on-time for moving the 13" MacBook Pro off of Intel's Ice Lake, and it wasn't behind on performance: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1185g7-vs-apple-m1#benchmarks https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i7-1185g7-v... The larger MacBook Pro was later moving off Intel and was using a very old (2.5 years) Intel CPU at the time the M1 Pro and M1 Max launched, but even comparing against the CPUs Intel had at the time for machines of that class, the M1 Pro's performance looks fine: https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-11900h-vs-apple-m1-pro#benchmarks https://nanoreview.net/en/cpu-compare/intel-core-i9-11900h-v... And it's important to note that Intel themselves were largely to blame for the fact that the larger MacBook Pro was still using a 2.5 year old CPU: Intel never shipped Ice Lake processors for desktop or high-power mobile, so the Coffee Lake Refresh processors didn't have a successor from Intel until five months before the M1 Pro and M1 Max launched.