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> other x86 and ARM manufacturers are making substantial improvements that are shortening Apple's lead x86 has fundamental issues that I believe prevent it fro

> other x86 and ARM manufacturers are making substantial improvements that are shortening Apple's lead x86 has fundamental issues that I believe prevent it from ever achieving the MIPS per watt efficiency of anything from ARM. I mean... the newest M4 laptop will have a 24 hour battery life. That exceeds anything remotely possible in the same laptop form factor but with x86 by nearly an order of magnitude. So now you're talking just ARM. Linux has been compilable on ARM for a while now, so where are the competing ARM laptops that are anywhere close to the power of Apple's version of ARM? I do get what you're saying though (I'm definitely a Linux fan and have a Linux Framework laptop), but I wish it wasn't an x86 laptop because its battery life is crap (and that is sometimes important).

talldayo 2y ago
> so where are the competing ARM laptops that are anywhere close to the power of Apple's version of ARM? Better question: where are the incentives for them to make it? Apple is pretty much the only company with an outstanding architectural license to design ARM cores, and the best off-the-shelf ARM core designs don't even compete with 5-year-old x86 ones. If you're a company that has Apple-level capital and Apple-tier core design chops, you might as well embrace RISC-V and save yourself the ARM licensing fee. That's what Nvidia does for many of their GPU SOCs. If SoftBank offered ARM licenses under more attractive terms, there would be genuine competition for good ARM CPUs. Given that Apple has a controlling stake in SoftBank, I wouldn't hold out faith.
- GeekyBear 2y ago
  > Apple is pretty much the only company with an outstanding architectural license to design ARM cores Many other companies have done this to great effect in the past, but in recent years it has become more common to just license one of ARM's own stock cores, instead of designing your own from scratch. This follows a period where companies like Qualcomm and Samsung were still trying to roll their own core designs from scratch, but ending up with designs that were slower and less power efficient than the cheaper stock cores you could license from ARM.
IshKebab 2y ago
Apparently Qualcomm's new ARM laptops are pretty close. However I think ARM platforms tend to be way less open source friendly than x86, at least on mobile. Maybe the laptops are better because they have to run Windows and Microsoft probably wouldn't put up with the shit vendors pull on Android. I don't know.
- pmarreck 2y ago
  Except that ARM just cancelled Qualcomm's chip design license, so... oopsy
  - jojobas 2y ago
    We might not know if it's a valid cancellation for another few months and many millions of lawyer dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if Arm is strongarmed into playing hardball with Qualcomm by Apple itself.
imiric 2y ago
> the newest M4 laptop will have a 24 hour battery life. That exceeds anything remotely possible in the same laptop form factor but with x86 by nearly an order of magnitude. Honestly, why is this such an appealing feature? Are you often away from an outlet for 20+ hours? I use 6+ year old laptops that last 4 hours at most on a single charge, even after a battery replacement. Plugging them in every few hours is not a big inconvenience for me. If I'm traveling, I can usually find an outlet anywhere. It's not like I'm working in remote places where this could even be an issue. Then there's the concern about fan noise and the appeal of completely silent computers. Sure, it's a bit annoying when the fan ramps up, but again, this is not something that makes my computers unbearable to use. And finally, the performance gap is closing. Qualcomm's, AMD's and Intel's latest chips might not be "M4 killers" (or M3, for that matter), but they're certainly competitive. This will only keep improving in 2025.
- littlecosmic 2y ago
  24hrs of web/office is a work day of something more intense, or a few hours of something crazy.
- Philpax 2y ago
  It's not that these are must-haves: it's that it removes any such anxiety about these to begin with. I can take the laptop with me wherever I'm going, and not have to worry about charging it, or that the heat will make it unbearable to use on my lap, or that the fan will be noticeable. It means I can work at a cafe, in a car, on a bus, on a train, on a flight without power, and not have to worry. And these things compound, as the other poster mentioned: 24 hours of light use means longer heavy use, which actually does matter to me. I often move around while using the MacBook because it's good to change up my (physical) perspective - and it means I can do that without the charger while hammering every core with rustc. Once you see that better things are possible, it's very hard to go back to the comparatively terrible performance-per-watt and heat generation of equally powerful x86 laptops.
  - elcritch 2y ago
    > Once you see that better things are possible, it’s very hard to go back Yeah, there’s something a bit freeing about being able to go all day or more without charging. Just not needing to think about power or charging when you’re busy focusing on other things. I’m glad other manufacturers got a bit of pressure to catch up as well. Now people come to expect laptops to just run for days at a time without charging.

talldayo 2y ago

> so where are the competing ARM laptops that are anywhere close to the power of Apple's version of ARM? Better question: where are the incentives for them to make it? Apple is pretty much the only company with an outstanding architectural license to design ARM cores, and the best off-the-shelf ARM core designs don't even compete with 5-year-old x86 ones. If you're a company that has Apple-level capital and Apple-tier core design chops, you might as well embrace RISC-V and save yourself the ARM licensing fee. That's what Nvidia does for many of their GPU SOCs. If SoftBank offered ARM licenses under more attractive terms, there would be genuine competition for good ARM CPUs. Given that Apple has a controlling stake in SoftBank, I wouldn't hold out faith.

GeekyBear 2y ago
> Apple is pretty much the only company with an outstanding architectural license to design ARM cores Many other companies have done this to great effect in the past, but in recent years it has become more common to just license one of ARM's own stock cores, instead of designing your own from scratch. This follows a period where companies like Qualcomm and Samsung were still trying to roll their own core designs from scratch, but ending up with designs that were slower and less power efficient than the cheaper stock cores you could license from ARM.

IshKebab 2y ago

Apparently Qualcomm's new ARM laptops are pretty close. However I think ARM platforms tend to be way less open source friendly than x86, at least on mobile. Maybe the laptops are better because they have to run Windows and Microsoft probably wouldn't put up with the shit vendors pull on Android. I don't know.

pmarreck 2y ago
Except that ARM just cancelled Qualcomm's chip design license, so... oopsy
- jojobas 2y ago
  We might not know if it's a valid cancellation for another few months and many millions of lawyer dollars. I wouldn't be surprised if Arm is strongarmed into playing hardball with Qualcomm by Apple itself.

imiric 2y ago

> the newest M4 laptop will have a 24 hour battery life. That exceeds anything remotely possible in the same laptop form factor but with x86 by nearly an order of magnitude. Honestly, why is this such an appealing feature? Are you often away from an outlet for 20+ hours? I use 6+ year old laptops that last 4 hours at most on a single charge, even after a battery replacement. Plugging them in every few hours is not a big inconvenience for me. If I'm traveling, I can usually find an outlet anywhere. It's not like I'm working in remote places where this could even be an issue. Then there's the concern about fan noise and the appeal of completely silent computers. Sure, it's a bit annoying when the fan ramps up, but again, this is not something that makes my computers unbearable to use. And finally, the performance gap is closing. Qualcomm's, AMD's and Intel's latest chips might not be "M4 killers" (or M3, for that matter), but they're certainly competitive. This will only keep improving in 2025.

littlecosmic 2y ago
24hrs of web/office is a work day of something more intense, or a few hours of something crazy.
Philpax 2y ago
It's not that these are must-haves: it's that it removes any such anxiety about these to begin with. I can take the laptop with me wherever I'm going, and not have to worry about charging it, or that the heat will make it unbearable to use on my lap, or that the fan will be noticeable. It means I can work at a cafe, in a car, on a bus, on a train, on a flight without power, and not have to worry. And these things compound, as the other poster mentioned: 24 hours of light use means longer heavy use, which actually does matter to me. I often move around while using the MacBook because it's good to change up my (physical) perspective - and it means I can do that without the charger while hammering every core with rustc. Once you see that better things are possible, it's very hard to go back to the comparatively terrible performance-per-watt and heat generation of equally powerful x86 laptops.
- elcritch 2y ago
  > Once you see that better things are possible, it’s very hard to go back Yeah, there’s something a bit freeing about being able to go all day or more without charging. Just not needing to think about power or charging when you’re busy focusing on other things. I’m glad other manufacturers got a bit of pressure to catch up as well. Now people come to expect laptops to just run for days at a time without charging.