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This article is moronic. > Cook yesterday unveiled the long rumored iPad mini, a move the purist Jobs condemned just two years ago... Cook reacted, quickly plu

This article is moronic. > Cook yesterday unveiled the long rumored iPad mini, a move the purist Jobs condemned just two years ago... Cook reacted, quickly plugging the final hole in Apple’s consumer electronics empire. Steve Jobs routinely panned the product configurations and strategies of other companies, only to turn around and release something that entirely contradicted his earlier stance. This was a guy who slammed Intel at every single keynote, showing off whatever benchmarks his team could think of to emphasize the PPC's superiority over x86 – until he announced WWDC attendees could order an Intel-based developer box because the times, they were a-changin'. So while this article would have us believe that Cook initiated a crash program to build a 7 inch iPad immediately upon Jobs' death, what I think is more likely is that the form factor has been in progress since it was understood that the iPad was a hit.

mtgx 14y ago
This is exactly why I think Apple will move to ARM for Macs soon, even though most Apple users find that hard to believe.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- philip1209 14y ago
  My immediate reaction is "no," but it is interesting to dwell on this. ARM chips power consumption is optimized for devices that do not use their full capacity all the time. Intel chip power usage is optimized for high performance, and their chips more efficient at levels of sustained intensive computing. While it does not make sense to put ARM chips in, say, an iMac, the idea of putting them in a macbook air or even a macbook is intriguing.
- sneak 14y ago
  As someone who would have liked an 11" MBAir but got the 13" because there isn't enough space in the 11" to hold batteries to run an x86 cpu as long as I'd like, this makes sense to me. There's only one way to go thinner, smaller, or lighter on their laptops at this point, outside of some huge breakthrough in battery technology. What doesn't make sense, though, is apps (built for x86)... Though an app-store-only model (and requiring ARM builds for inclusion in the app store) is not entirely out of the question, iOS style. Back to the Mac, indeed. I don't know if an x64->ARM translation layer for the transition is feasible, performance-wise, though - perhaps someone with more knowledge of the architecture can chime in here.
  - daeken 14y ago
    > I don't know if an x64->ARM translation layer for the transition is feasible, performance-wise, though - perhaps someone with more knowledge of the architecture can chime in here. It's completely feasible. The problem I see is that mapping 64-bit addresses into a 32-bit space is expensive. I can't think of anything in ARM that will make things more performant at the moment, but I'm sure there's some sort of way to pull it off. If OS X binaries are relocatable by default, that'd be an easy solution.
    - beagle3 14y ago
      64-bit ARMs are around the corner; I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has a cooperation agreement with ARM that gives them access to the not-yet-finalized but good-enough-to-work-with 64-bit ARM architecture. Apple has the expertise to be such a client. They're a very significant customer of ARM, and also (unless things changed when I wasn't looking) a major shareholder. Emulating intel code on the ARM is feasible, though going to be 5x-10x slower for high performance compute code. However: most apps are not high performance compute code; and given that native ARM for most apps is not a lot more than a recompile away, that might not be a problem. (With notable exceptions like Adobe - I'm sure Apple can solve these individual problems well enough to make that into a non-deal-breaker)
- to3m 14y ago
  I find it hard to believe. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just that Macs seem still too much of a ghetto, and Windows is still too successful, and I'd have imagined Boot Camp to be a reasonable draw. The fate of Windows 8 may change things, but for now, I bet far, far more people bought a Mac because it could run Windows software than didn't buy a PC because it couldn't run Mac software. And I bet that this number is significant enough to care about. But, who knows? My sample set is fairly small. I'm sure Apple have a better idea than me about the truth of any these suppositions.
  - beagle3 14y ago
    In 2007/2008, almost everyone I knew who had a Mac would run at least 50% of the time in Windows. But recently, they stay in OSX all the time, and most don't even have Parallels/VMWare/VirtualBox installed. The times, they are a-changing.
- r00fus 14y ago
  I would kill for an MacBook ARM. How much power and cycles remain wasted on x86 legacy cruft? Only Apple could make this kind of huge transition as they've worked for years to be able to put an OSX-derived OS on a tiny iPod form factor (and thus creating the iPhone and iPod touch). Bringing that back to the laptop world would be truly awesome. They have the ecosystem, toolchain, and numerous successful similar transitions from 68000->PPC->Intel already.
- danilocampos 14y ago
  I'd be shocked to learn they didn't at least have prototype MacBooks running ARM processors in the lab for the last couple years, as they did with x86 once upon a time. Very compelling case from both a product and business perspective. Longer battery life, higher hardware margins.
sfnuop 14y ago
Like you suggest, I'm sure Jobs had a hand in the current lineup, he's admitted to have tested out tablet prototypes of varying sizes. But for a guy who's always loved playing hard to get, the mini release didn't feel very Jobsy. He liked watching the competition struggle for a bit, then swoop in at the 11th hour with the perfect solution so we can all go "ooh" and "aah." The iPad mini was defense. So I credit Cook with the speed of timing more than anything. Zero games. We asked for it, we got it. When has that ever happened in Apple's history?

mtgx 14y ago

This is exactly why I think Apple will move to ARM for Macs soon, even though most Apple users find that hard to believe.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
philip1209 14y ago
My immediate reaction is "no," but it is interesting to dwell on this. ARM chips power consumption is optimized for devices that do not use their full capacity all the time. Intel chip power usage is optimized for high performance, and their chips more efficient at levels of sustained intensive computing. While it does not make sense to put ARM chips in, say, an iMac, the idea of putting them in a macbook air or even a macbook is intriguing.
sneak 14y ago
As someone who would have liked an 11" MBAir but got the 13" because there isn't enough space in the 11" to hold batteries to run an x86 cpu as long as I'd like, this makes sense to me. There's only one way to go thinner, smaller, or lighter on their laptops at this point, outside of some huge breakthrough in battery technology. What doesn't make sense, though, is apps (built for x86)... Though an app-store-only model (and requiring ARM builds for inclusion in the app store) is not entirely out of the question, iOS style. Back to the Mac, indeed. I don't know if an x64->ARM translation layer for the transition is feasible, performance-wise, though - perhaps someone with more knowledge of the architecture can chime in here.
- daeken 14y ago
  > I don't know if an x64->ARM translation layer for the transition is feasible, performance-wise, though - perhaps someone with more knowledge of the architecture can chime in here. It's completely feasible. The problem I see is that mapping 64-bit addresses into a 32-bit space is expensive. I can't think of anything in ARM that will make things more performant at the moment, but I'm sure there's some sort of way to pull it off. If OS X binaries are relocatable by default, that'd be an easy solution.
  - beagle3 14y ago
    64-bit ARMs are around the corner; I wouldn't be surprised if Apple has a cooperation agreement with ARM that gives them access to the not-yet-finalized but good-enough-to-work-with 64-bit ARM architecture. Apple has the expertise to be such a client. They're a very significant customer of ARM, and also (unless things changed when I wasn't looking) a major shareholder. Emulating intel code on the ARM is feasible, though going to be 5x-10x slower for high performance compute code. However: most apps are not high performance compute code; and given that native ARM for most apps is not a lot more than a recompile away, that might not be a problem. (With notable exceptions like Adobe - I'm sure Apple can solve these individual problems well enough to make that into a non-deal-breaker)
to3m 14y ago
I find it hard to believe. It's not that it's a bad idea, it's just that Macs seem still too much of a ghetto, and Windows is still too successful, and I'd have imagined Boot Camp to be a reasonable draw. The fate of Windows 8 may change things, but for now, I bet far, far more people bought a Mac because it could run Windows software than didn't buy a PC because it couldn't run Mac software. And I bet that this number is significant enough to care about. But, who knows? My sample set is fairly small. I'm sure Apple have a better idea than me about the truth of any these suppositions.
- beagle3 14y ago
  In 2007/2008, almost everyone I knew who had a Mac would run at least 50% of the time in Windows. But recently, they stay in OSX all the time, and most don't even have Parallels/VMWare/VirtualBox installed. The times, they are a-changing.
r00fus 14y ago
I would kill for an MacBook ARM. How much power and cycles remain wasted on x86 legacy cruft? Only Apple could make this kind of huge transition as they've worked for years to be able to put an OSX-derived OS on a tiny iPod form factor (and thus creating the iPhone and iPod touch). Bringing that back to the laptop world would be truly awesome. They have the ecosystem, toolchain, and numerous successful similar transitions from 68000->PPC->Intel already.
danilocampos 14y ago
I'd be shocked to learn they didn't at least have prototype MacBooks running ARM processors in the lab for the last couple years, as they did with x86 once upon a time. Very compelling case from both a product and business perspective. Longer battery life, higher hardware margins.

sfnuop 14y ago

Like you suggest, I'm sure Jobs had a hand in the current lineup, he's admitted to have tested out tablet prototypes of varying sizes. But for a guy who's always loved playing hard to get, the mini release didn't feel very Jobsy. He liked watching the competition struggle for a bit, then swoop in at the 11th hour with the perfect solution so we can all go "ooh" and "aah." The iPad mini was defense. So I credit Cook with the speed of timing more than anything. Zero games. We asked for it, we got it. When has that ever happened in Apple's history?