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You're making the incorrect assumption that apple would in fact emulate. As they control the whole stack, they can (relatively) quickly switch architectures. Th

by ricw 12y ago

You're making the incorrect assumption that apple would in fact emulate. As they control the whole stack, they can (relatively) quickly switch architectures. They'd lose the market that does in fact install windows on mac hardware, though that is likely a negligible niche. So for the vast majority of their customers there would not be a performance penalty. Quite the opposite. Apple chips are in terms of tech already competitive with anything Intel has to offer [1], though of course currently optimised for mobile. Introduce a dedicated chip for macOS without the heat and power restrictions and Apple won't be chained to intel any more. It will save the extra $50-500 they pay intel for every chip. On top of that, the battery will be smaller/cheaper; it will require fewer external chips as the SoC will incorporate this functionality (also cheaper, more control); the retina graphics will be driven by a chip that is adequately powered and optimised (intels graphics chips are extremely slow): all of the sudden the whole package is extremely compelling. All you lose is windows compatibility. A small downside to multiple big upsides. [1] http://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchitecture-detailed http://www.anandtech.com/show/7910/apples-cyclone-microarchi...

mschuster91 12y ago
No. You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe, since all of these use lots of highly optimized, handwritten assembler code for critical sections, as well of all code paths using x86 vector instructions or other hw acceleration. Thanks but no thanks.
- dragontamer 12y ago
  They'd also lose compatibility with any 3rd party hardware (think ThunderBolt), any video editing device drivers which were made for the x86 platform will need to be recompiled for the ARM platform. A switch like this would kill Thunderbolt and many USB drivers. Besides, we already saw what happens when Microsoft tried to switch to ARM through WinRT. That was an absolute disaster. Why would Apple try to do the same?
  - ayrx 12y ago
    Video editing device drivers might be a problem but I'm pretty sure Apple provides the Thunderbolt drivers so a recompile won't be a problem for that if they make the (very unlikely imo) move to ARM. Correct me if I'm wrong on the Thunderbolt drivers point.
- ricw 12y ago
  Those vendors will follow. As they have previously when they transitioned from powerpc to x86. Games is a good point. But this is not a big thing on MacOS (as yet) anyways. If it saves hundreds of dollars per machine, its a no-brainer for the vast majority of users.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    It took a VERY long time for the large ISVs to switch, and while games aren't big on OS X many people like the fact they can boot into Windows to play them. If Apple was able to get the performance of their chips up to the level of Intel chips, would they be able to save hundreds per machine? Intel has some very large economies of scale. If Apple wanted to save hundreds per machine they could do that right now. Intel's marketing campaigns that Apple doesn't take part of (like the 'Intel Inside' stickers) come with large rebates. Apple could use that and not have to go through the huge pain of another architecture switch.
  - forgotketchup 12y ago
    Why should they? Intel chips blew the doors off PPC by the time Apple got around to the PPC -> Intel transition. That (and good emulation software) allowed a relatively pain-free transition for most consumers: PPC apps didn't feel any slower when run on a new Intel-based Mac. That made it fairly easy to accumulate a critical mass of users with Intel systems, yet it still took ages for native apps to become available from the likes of Adobe and others. Fast forward to today. ARM chips are, at best, a little slower than the Intel chips they would replace. On top of that, the x86 ISA has a reputation for being hard to emulate well. So put yourself in the shoes of the consumer: are you going to upgrade to the new ARMBook Air, if it runs all your old apps at 1/2 or 1/4 the speed (and I'm being super optimistic here) they ran on your old MacBook Air? No! You're not! You're going to stick it out until the second generation of ARMBook comes out. That means no critical mass of people who own ARM-based Macs and are willing and able to pay for native ARM software. That means vendors will. not. follow. This doesn't even take into account that Apple have burned their bridge with Adobe (a major vendor of 3rd party software for Mac). Last point: I think you're wrong about games. There are tons of games for Mac on Steam. Would vendors go to the trouble of making a Mac port if there was no money in it?
- quanticle 12y ago
  >You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe Just like they lost compatibility when they switched from PPC to Intel? I think that's one thing that a lot of commenters in this thread are ignoring: Apple has done this before. They've switched from PPC to Intel when IBM wasn't committing to making the power efficiency gains that they were looking for, and they'll switch from Intel to their own homegrown ARM chips for essentially the same reason.
  - MBCook 12y ago
    That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC). I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other commenters ideas of making an 'iPad pro' and coming at it from that direction seems like a much better idea if you think any of this should be done. Don't forget that Apple is up against Intel. They're called Fabzilla for a reason. Apple has a done an amazing job with their phones and tablets but when it comes to raw performance on the desktop I don't think they'd be able to keep up when Intel decided to start playing hardball.
    - gress 12y ago
      Intel is failing to deliver their existing roadmap on time. Is this because they just haven't 'decided' to play hardball?
      - MBCook 12y ago
        They're having issues right now, but they'll pull back. We've been through this before. Look at how far Intel's chips have come from just the Core2 processors of a few years ago. Either way, this is nothing compared to the mess of delays the G4 and G5 went though, especially on mobile. Compared to what Apple has seen before this is a tiny detour. And of course since Intel is the market leader, Apple is (at worst) in the same boat as everyone else. With the G4/5 they were falling further and further behind each year.
- whyenot 12y ago
  I don't think they would snap their fingers and every Mac they sell would abruptly switch to ARM. If they chose to go with ARM they would almost certainly move more gradually and come out with only one or two ARM machines at first. Maybe an iPad "Pro" or something like that which leverages all the software already written for the iPad and iPhone but has a detachable keyboard can also run Mac software if it's recompiled... something like that.
- alwillis 12y ago
  You're making a big assumption. Sure, some apps have handwritten assembly, but that's pretty rare these days. Apple's Accelerate framework (which has been around since the PowerPC days) allows apps that need high performance in certain areas to do that without resorting to assembly: >This document describes the Accelerate Framework, which contains C APIs for vector and matrix math, digital signal processing, large number handling, and image processing. https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accelerate/Reference/AccelerateFWRef/_index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accele...

by ricw 12y ago

mschuster91 12y ago

No. You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe, since all of these use lots of highly optimized, handwritten assembler code for critical sections, as well of all code paths using x86 vector instructions or other hw acceleration. Thanks but no thanks.

dragontamer 12y ago
They'd also lose compatibility with any 3rd party hardware (think ThunderBolt), any video editing device drivers which were made for the x86 platform will need to be recompiled for the ARM platform. A switch like this would kill Thunderbolt and many USB drivers. Besides, we already saw what happens when Microsoft tried to switch to ARM through WinRT. That was an absolute disaster. Why would Apple try to do the same?
- ayrx 12y ago
  Video editing device drivers might be a problem but I'm pretty sure Apple provides the Thunderbolt drivers so a recompile won't be a problem for that if they make the (very unlikely imo) move to ARM. Correct me if I'm wrong on the Thunderbolt drivers point.
ricw 12y ago
Those vendors will follow. As they have previously when they transitioned from powerpc to x86. Games is a good point. But this is not a big thing on MacOS (as yet) anyways. If it saves hundreds of dollars per machine, its a no-brainer for the vast majority of users.
- MBCook 12y ago
  It took a VERY long time for the large ISVs to switch, and while games aren't big on OS X many people like the fact they can boot into Windows to play them. If Apple was able to get the performance of their chips up to the level of Intel chips, would they be able to save hundreds per machine? Intel has some very large economies of scale. If Apple wanted to save hundreds per machine they could do that right now. Intel's marketing campaigns that Apple doesn't take part of (like the 'Intel Inside' stickers) come with large rebates. Apple could use that and not have to go through the huge pain of another architecture switch.
- forgotketchup 12y ago
  Why should they? Intel chips blew the doors off PPC by the time Apple got around to the PPC -> Intel transition. That (and good emulation software) allowed a relatively pain-free transition for most consumers: PPC apps didn't feel any slower when run on a new Intel-based Mac. That made it fairly easy to accumulate a critical mass of users with Intel systems, yet it still took ages for native apps to become available from the likes of Adobe and others. Fast forward to today. ARM chips are, at best, a little slower than the Intel chips they would replace. On top of that, the x86 ISA has a reputation for being hard to emulate well. So put yourself in the shoes of the consumer: are you going to upgrade to the new ARMBook Air, if it runs all your old apps at 1/2 or 1/4 the speed (and I'm being super optimistic here) they ran on your old MacBook Air? No! You're not! You're going to stick it out until the second generation of ARMBook comes out. That means no critical mass of people who own ARM-based Macs and are willing and able to pay for native ARM software. That means vendors will. not. follow. This doesn't even take into account that Apple have burned their bridge with Adobe (a major vendor of 3rd party software for Mac). Last point: I think you're wrong about games. There are tons of games for Mac on Steam. Would vendors go to the trouble of making a Mac port if there was no money in it?
quanticle 12y ago
>You also lose compatibility with every game and most major applications like Adobe Just like they lost compatibility when they switched from PPC to Intel? I think that's one thing that a lot of commenters in this thread are ignoring: Apple has done this before. They've switched from PPC to Intel when IBM wasn't committing to making the power efficiency gains that they were looking for, and they'll switch from Intel to their own homegrown ARM chips for essentially the same reason.
- MBCook 12y ago
  That switch took years and years and YEARS, and it was done for clear benefit. Desktops were one thing but in laptops Apple was way behind in performance. The new machines were so much faster that the emulated software didn't feel slower in normal use and you gained access to Windows software (which was horrendously slow when emulated on a PPC). I'm not sure they could do such a transition again on the desktop. Other commenters ideas of making an 'iPad pro' and coming at it from that direction seems like a much better idea if you think any of this should be done. Don't forget that Apple is up against Intel. They're called Fabzilla for a reason. Apple has a done an amazing job with their phones and tablets but when it comes to raw performance on the desktop I don't think they'd be able to keep up when Intel decided to start playing hardball.
  - gress 12y ago
    Intel is failing to deliver their existing roadmap on time. Is this because they just haven't 'decided' to play hardball?
    - MBCook 12y ago
      They're having issues right now, but they'll pull back. We've been through this before. Look at how far Intel's chips have come from just the Core2 processors of a few years ago. Either way, this is nothing compared to the mess of delays the G4 and G5 went though, especially on mobile. Compared to what Apple has seen before this is a tiny detour. And of course since Intel is the market leader, Apple is (at worst) in the same boat as everyone else. With the G4/5 they were falling further and further behind each year.
whyenot 12y ago
I don't think they would snap their fingers and every Mac they sell would abruptly switch to ARM. If they chose to go with ARM they would almost certainly move more gradually and come out with only one or two ARM machines at first. Maybe an iPad "Pro" or something like that which leverages all the software already written for the iPad and iPhone but has a detachable keyboard can also run Mac software if it's recompiled... something like that.
alwillis 12y ago
You're making a big assumption. Sure, some apps have handwritten assembly, but that's pretty rare these days. Apple's Accelerate framework (which has been around since the PowerPC days) allows apps that need high performance in certain areas to do that without resorting to assembly: >This document describes the Accelerate Framework, which contains C APIs for vector and matrix math, digital signal processing, large number handling, and image processing. https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accelerate/Reference/AccelerateFWRef/_index.html https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/Accele...