Apple will announce move to ARM-based Macs later this month, says report

[StDragon]

2 hours ago, Master Disaster said:

Cook is the one more concerned with profit over design. You can't blame the engineers for that.

I blame both. But more to the point, you get what you pay for (in quality of labor). Just ask Boeing in regards to paying 9 bucks an hour to code for the 737 MAX. Every one of their executives should be force to fly that fail-bird!

[leadeater]

7 minutes ago, hishnash said:

for many consumers if intel and amd just stagnant as the did for over 8 years and apple dont apple the macs will be 2 or 3 times faster and use less power etc. for 95% of users the choices apple makes with limited hardware changes are not important buying considerations.

Well the problem there was that a lot of the slow progress is fab technology related so anything ARM on orders of magnitude faster of 2x to 3x would have to be on fab technology equivalently superior and also not be available to Intel or AMD which has yet to ever be the case. Because removing marking node names Intel has not and actually still isn't significantly behind in fab technology, they have been the dominant industry leader in technology and production.

 

Huge performance leads are not so easy to come by and ARM architectures alone just will not bring that. I classify this as pipe dreaming tbh.

[hishnash]

2 minutes ago, leadeater said:

Huge performance leads are not so easy to come by and ARM architectures alone just will not bring that

the ISA has nothing to do woth it but having a third vendor in the game spending lots of money on R&D will. intels proffit margins are only as high as they are due to them not thinking the need to spend more on R&D!

 

the reason TSMC has had so much progress is due to apples funding! 

[hishnash]

7 minutes ago, StDragon said:

I blame both. But more to the point, you get what you pay for (in quality of labor). Just ask Boeing in regards to paying 9 bucks an hour to code for the 737 MAX. Every one of their executives should be force to fly that fail-bird!

apple pay very well! 

[StDragon]

2 hours ago, mr moose said:

Those few years are more like 6-7 now though (jobs died 9 years ago and the issues started in 2011/12).  A fair bit of time passed when we weren't looking.

That's normal. Product lineup can take years from conception to a final consumer deliverable. Also, there's a "bigger picture " aspect when factoring the ecosystem as a whole. Essentially, after Jobs passed away, it was the prior momentum carrying itself out years after. After that, yeah, 100% Tim Cook.

[leadeater]

14 minutes ago, hishnash said:

the ISA has nothing to do woth it but having a third vendor in the game spending lots of money on R&D will. intels proffit margins are only as high as they are due to them not thinking the need to spend more on R&D!

Intel has been spending plenty on R&D, that is just factually wrong. They spend the most in R&D in the fab industry and also in the CPU industry. Like I've covered before in other topics fab technology simply has not been there to do what people want to or believe could have been done. To have the performance per core that Intel has at the power budgets applicable to the desktop market they have actually offered the best possible within reason that fits best with current software, higher than necessary pricing is about the only thing I'd agree about.

 

14 minutes ago, hishnash said:

the reason TSMC has had so much progress is due to apples funding! 

Apple isn't even half of TSMC total customer base, Apple is not the Halo company that gifted TSMC their success. What?

[mr moose]

10 hours ago, hishnash said:

they are 100% vertically intergrated they make the socket the chipset and binnary bios blob. yiu cant put an intel in a amd motherboard. 

Intel and AMD are useless without other companies as they are only component manufactrurers, I.E they need motherboard, RAM, PSU etc.   They only make the CPU and the supporting chips/bios,  that is not vertical integration, that is providing the necessities to make the products work. 

 

10 hours ago, hishnash said:

only in security situations nothing else has locks they dont waist time putting in these locks that would also be a pain for themselves!

BS,  they tried to lock out battery and screen replacement in their iphones too. and they are doing their darnedest to stop anyone they don't want from fixing their products. They do this by avoiding generic parts and then having customs steal and destroy anything with an apple logo from being imported even when it is legitimate product.

10 hours ago, hishnash said:

it will have the same limitations as intel or amd, needs to be socketed needs to have the same socket and needs to have a supported chipset then it will work. 

 

 

No it won't,  An outside and extreme event, but in most laptops you can put in any CPU that the sockets supports, which can be bought of the shelf at most  computer shops,  If apple go to in house ARM CPU where are you going to buy one?  For the record, I often pull apart old laptops and rebuild working ones using the best parts from the others, which includes the CPU.  Couldn't do that with unique CPU's it can only be done with Intel CPU's. 

 

So even though that wasn't the point I was specifically discussing but found an example of anyway, This still highlights the dangers of a company with a history of anti consumer practice in vertically integrating.

[hishnash]

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Intel has been spending plenty on R&D, that is just factually wrong.

Im not saying they don't spend lots. but you can look at their reports they make ~61% proffit. Had AMD been competitive all this time they would have been spending more of that profit margin on R&D it is that simple.

 

 

9 hours ago, leadeater said:

Apple isn't even half of TSMC total customer base,

Yes but of the new process node apple always gets this 6 months before anyone else.  you need to remember TSMC are still selling 16nm node space.

 

Apple did not give TSMC money but they did push TSMC due to the risk that apple can easily jump to Samsung fabs, this was all long before AMD started shipping Zen.

 

37 minutes ago, mr moose said:

they tried to lock out battery

They don't at all, all they do if you have a non apple battery is in the battery page in the OS they say that they cant trust the battery health report, you can still use the third party battery not problem.
 

41 minutes ago, mr moose said:

screen replacement in their iphones too

 Also completely untrue, you can replace iphone screen with a third party without any issues. If you are a repair shop and you say to customers it is a genuine apple display and it is not apple will sue you that might be what you are thinking of here. Go check what Louis Rossmann had to say about this, he was very clear that if you pretend to have a genuine part then you are liable and that if fair, he uses third party screens and they work perfectly.

 

44 minutes ago, mr moose said:

customs steal and destroy anything with an apple logo from being imported even when it is legitimate product

Again look up Louis Rossmann video on this, he was very clear that he has had factories in china print apple logos on parts that are not from apple, and he has had to send back these parts refusing to use them since he does not want to **lie to his customers** about parts. Apple are not suing people from importing genuine apple parts they are suing people for importing fake apple parts go watch his videos.
 

 

52 minutes ago, mr moose said:

which can be bought of the shelf at most  computer shops

All most all laptops use BGA sockets that is to say they are soldered in theres are not like sockets on a desktop, you can not buy these cpus in any retail shop! to buy a BGA Intel socketed cpus you need to have a partner agreement with intel and do a bulk order. And Intel do not have any retail any models of their mobile CPUs even those that are not BGA. 

 

 

55 minutes ago, mr moose said:

which includes the CPU

You have a  BGA soldering rig! that is impressive i would assume if you had this you would also know the ballshit you talked about with respect to not permitting battery/screen replacment is ballshit.
 

If you can replace an Intel cpu on any modern laptop you can also do the same on an iPad or iPhone, you need a BFA de-soldering and soldering rig and you need a doner board that you can take the CPU from. For the iphone you will also need to take the matching fingerprint/faceID sensor from the device that you took the cpu then it will all work. 

 

 

 

 

 

[mr moose]

28 minutes ago, hishnash said:

They don't at all, all they do if you have a non apple battery is in the battery page in the OS they say that they cant trust the battery health report, you can still use the third party battery not problem.
 

 Also completely untrue, you can replace iphone screen with a third party without any issues. If you are a repair shop and you say to customers it is a genuine apple display and it is not apple will sue you that might be what you are thinking of here. Go check what Louis Rossmann had to say about this, he was very clear that if you pretend to have a genuine part then you are liable and that if fair, he uses third party screens and they work perfectly.

 

I said they "tried to", and they absolutely did try to lock out battery and screen replacement.  The only reason they reversed the decision was to save face.

 

 

Quote

Again look up Louis Rossmann video on this, he was very clear that he has had factories in china print apple logos on parts that are not from apple, and he has had to send back these parts refusing to use them since he does not want to **lie to his customers** about parts. Apple are not suing people from importing genuine apple parts they are suing people for importing fake apple parts go watch his videos.
 

There have been genuine refurb batteries get stolen at customs.  It's not just CR infringement.

 

Quote

 

All most all laptops use BGA sockets that is to say they are soldered in theres are not like sockets on a desktop, you can not buy these cpus in any retail shop! to buy a BGA Intel socketed cpus you need to have a partner agreement with intel and do a bulk order. And Intel do not have any retail any models of their mobile CPUs even those that are not BGA. 

 

 

Not the ones I have been fixing and pulling apart for parts. 

 

Quote

 

You have a  BGA soldering rig! that is impressive i would assume if you had this you would also know the ballshit you talked about with respect to not permitting battery/screen replacment is ballshit.
 

 

Please read what I said before you call it BS. 

 

Here are some articles for you to read:

 

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-air-mac-mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbjm8e/iphone-7-home-button-unreplaceable-repair-software-lock

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/224769/20180410/if-you-ve-had-an-iphone-screen-replacement-the-new-ios-update-will-brick-your-device.htm

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/296387-apple-has-begun-software-locking-iphone-batteries-to-prevent-third-party-replacement

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-locks-batteries-third-party-repair/

 

 

Like this is common knowledge, I don't know why anyone would even try to argue they aren't trying to stop all third party repairs.

 

Quote

If you can replace an Intel cpu on any modern laptop you can also do the same on an iPad or iPhone, you need a BFA de-soldering and soldering rig and you need a doner board that you can take the CPU from. For the iphone you will also need to take the matching fingerprint/faceID sensor from the device that you took the cpu then it will all work. 

 

 

Not if you can't get hold of the CPU.   And also here's a somewhat limited list of Current laptops with socketed CPU's.  Which means when they are out of warranty in a few years people will still be able to service them and use them for parts.  Unlike the others.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/threads/cpu-upgradeable-laptops.805499/

 

EDIT: before you say that post is 3 years old, it was edited aug last year and still reflects accurately products coming out of warranty right now that consumers are going to be needing to repair or work with. 

EDIT 2: and don't forget that laptops and macbooks aren't the only devices that can go ARM, if their mac pro end up ARM too then that definitely Makes it easier for them to lock down the entire system. Like they have with the ssd,

 

[Donut417]

On 6/9/2020 at 10:03 AM, paeschli said:

Probably the beginning of the end for Intel

SMH...... You do know Intel does more than Desktop CPU's? Server chips, SSD's, NAND flash memory, and now they are getting in to the GPU game. Intel can have a bad few generations. AMD had a bad decade and they are still with us. Also, I don't see ARM computers taking off. Look at Microsoft, they have had a few ARM based machines and they can't sell them. 

 

I even doubt Apple will move fully to arm. First they will probably do a MacBook Air, but I don't see them moving any "Pro" machines to ARM any time soon. Plus I don't even know if Devs will be willing to deal with this crap again. I mean Apple already moved from PowerPC to Intel. 

[hishnash]

21 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://www.extremetech.com/mobile/296387-apple-has-begun-software-locking-iphone-batteries-to-prevent-third-party-replacement

https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/apple-locks-batteries-third-party-repair/

So apple never shipped any version of iOS that locked out batteries all they did was ship a version that disabled the battery helth view and put a bit of warning text there saying that the battery was not genuine.  *I think they should have still shown the health view* but just put a little bit of text on the top saying they cant `trust` it. At no point did they stop you replacing the battery the rest of the OS continues to work perfectly with a third party battery, some news outlets decided to go with the headline of apple blocking replacements when it was not true, the new websites need clicks after all.

 

 

24 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/kbjm8e/iphone-7-home-button-unreplaceable-repair-software-lock

Lol as I said before apple will block the ability to replace parts when it is a security issue for users. There are good reasons you cant trust a random fingerprint reader it completely comprises the security chain. This story is related to this, it is not apple trying to make it harder for third parties to repair iphones this is apple ensuring high security of hardware, that is the tradeoffs you have if you aim for a high sec model.

 

28 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://www.techtimes.com/articles/224769/20180410/if-you-ve-had-an-iphone-screen-replacement-the-new-ios-update-will-brick-your-device.htm

Lol this was a bug that also affected some devices shipped by apple durring the iOS 13 beta, it was nothing to do with third party screens, however someone on reddit was testing on the new beta had the issue and assumed it was to do with the screen. It did not ship with the release.
 

30 minutes ago, mr moose said:

https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18077166/apple-macbook-air-mac-mini-t2-chip-security-repair-replacement-tool

Go read up on what the T2 chip does in the computer before blindingly assuming it is just there to lock you out.

 

So again the like the fingerprint (and face id) the T2 chip is part of the security chain of the device.  It handles the boot sequence of the device and checks UEFI signature before powering on the x86 cpu. That means it loads the UEFI from somewhere.. the attached SSD. If you remove that SSD and replace it with an empty SSD how do you expect to be able to boot your x86 cpu if there is no UEFI on the motherboard to boot from? This tool that apple have is used to provide the T2 chip with a new UEFI so that it can write it to the SSD, also the T2 chip is the ssd controller chip so juch like every other SSD controller chip on them market if you replace the SSD dies connected to it you need to re-init the chip so that it can check again for what sectores etc have issues.

 

 

34 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Which means when they are out of warranty in a few years people will still be able to service them and use them for parts

And the same is true today with iPads and iPhones repair shops keep stacks/buy of dead motherboards that they can use to source parts from. Moving to ARM does not in any way affect this for repair shops... they already do exactly this for macBooks, non of which have had socketed cpus for years. 

 

36 minutes ago, mr moose said:

if their mac pro end up ARM too then that definitely Makes it easier for them to lock down the entire system

I expect when they do do a ARM macPro as you say it will not be socketed, apple would need to get patents etc for that, they will just provide one CPU option per mac product line per generation that is for sure. Repair shops will still be able to do what they do for macBooks (99% of their work is already on macBooks so they already know how to do this). Getting parts for the lower volume devices will be harder but that is already the case with the macPro, cpus don't normally fail, normally it would be the motherboard or socket that fails and then kills the cpu, so if your a repair shop with the current Xeon based macPro the fact that it is a xeon cpu does not make it that much simpler to repair you still need to somehow fix that motherboard (or replace it...). 

 

 

35 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Look at Microsoft, they have had a few ARM based machines and they can't sell them

It is harder for Microsoft to make this move sime Microsoft have a very very strong culture of providing many many years of backwards compatibility.  on windows developers are releasing applications that are still being compiled with compilers written in 2000 they have not updated to the latest tools. Developers are still using apis from windows 95 even through MS has released 3 or 4 new sets of apis in the years since to replace them... To make a jump to any cpu architecture you need your developers to be already on the most uptodate compilers etc so that it is just a recompile for them, if you are asking them to also jump from MSVC 2000 to MSVC 2020 then that work is massive just due to the changes in how the compiler interprets your code. 

Apple (you can argue either way on this one) does not provide multiple generations of api support, when they release a new api the depreciate the old api it replaces and remove that old api within a few years. This means that developers shipping apps on macOS 10.15 are already using a recent SDK and a recent compiler so the move for them to jump to the new SDK and compiler for the new OS release that can support compiling to ARM is much smaller than what MS is asking of its developers. 

 

41 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I even doubt Apple will move fully to arm.

They will move fully and fast, i recon within 2 years they will have fully replaced the entire produce line, if they stay fragmented it will water down the effectiveness for the move the faster they move the better it will be for users. They will still support existing x86 systems for 5 to 7 years with new os updates and a few years after that with security updates so for people with large macPros etc its not going to be an issue.  Making a macPro cpu is nto that hard it is a high core count but low single core speed cpu that is something we have already seen a lot of in ARM server cpus. Making an iMac cpu replacement will be harder as this currently has a high single core speed cpu i expect apple will just push developers to be more multi threaded, the rumors are that even the entry level laptop cpu will be a 12core cpus, it is easier for them to make very high core count cpus than make low core count high performance per core.

 

For this they will need to push dev (even more) to be focused on multi threaded workloads but that is the sort of thing you can do when you control the cpu all the way through to the compiler, sdk and os not to mention the programing languages as well. 

 

43 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

I mean Apple already moved from PowerPC to Intel. 

Apple moved to PPC before the moved from PPC, apple have done many of these moves in the past and they will get devs on board, they have done a lot in 10.15 to already prep the way, killing 32bit support is a big part of this as it means they have already forced the had of these developers to update to the new stack and recompile with a modern compiler!  The amount of work, even for someone like Adobe who basically write thier own OS with their own memory management/windowing system etc will be much smaller than the PPC-> intel transaction. 

 

45 minutes ago, Donut417 said:

Intel can have a bad few generations. AMD had a bad decade and they are still with us.

Yep intel and AMD will stay with us what this will do however is open up the idea (for non tec savvy investors) that intel is not the only people who make cpus... 
 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

So apple never shipped any version of iOS that locked out batteries all they did was ship a version that disabled the battery helth view and put a bit of warning text there saying that the battery was not genuine.  *I think they should have still shown the health view* but just put a little bit of text on the top saying they cant `trust` it. At no point did they stop you replacing the battery the rest of the OS continues to work perfectly with a third party battery, some news outlets decided to go with the headline of apple blocking replacements when it was not true, the new websites need clicks after all.

 

 

Lol as I said before apple will block the ability to replace parts when it is a security issue for users. There are good reasons you cant trust a random fingerprint reader it completely comprises the security chain. This story is related to this, it is not apple trying to make it harder for third parties to repair iphones this is apple ensuring high security of hardware, that is the tradeoffs you have if you aim for a high sec model.

 

Lol this was a bug that also affected some devices shipped by apple durring the iOS 13 beta, it was nothing to do with third party screens, however someone on reddit was testing on the new beta had the issue and assumed it was to do with the screen. It did not ship with the release.
 

Go read up on what the T2 chip does in the computer before blindingly assuming it is just there to lock you out.

 

So again the like the fingerprint (and face id) the T2 chip is part of the security chain of the device.  It handles the boot sequence of the device and checks UEFI signature before powering on the x86 cpu. That means it loads the UEFI from somewhere.. the attached SSD. If you remove that SSD and replace it with an empty SSD how do you expect to be able to boot your x86 cpu if there is no UEFI on the motherboard to boot from? This tool that apple have is used to provide the T2 chip with a new UEFI so that it can write it to the SSD, also the T2 chip is the ssd controller chip so juch like every other SSD controller chip on them market if you replace the SSD dies connected to it you need to re-init the chip so that it can check again for what sectores etc have issues.

 

 

And the same is true today with iPads and iPhones repair shops keep stacks/buy of dead motherboards that they can use to source parts from. Moving to ARM does not in any way affect this for repair shops... they already do exactly this for macBooks, non of which have had socketed cpus for years. 

 

I expect when they do do a ARM macPro as you say it will not be socketed, apple would need to get patents etc for that, they will just provide one CPU option per mac product line per generation that is for sure. Repair shops will still be able to do what they do for macBooks (99% of their work is already on macBooks so they already know how to do this). Getting parts for the lower volume devices will be harder but that is already the case with the macPro, cpus don't normally fail, normally it would be the motherboard or socket that fails and then kills the cpu, so if your a repair shop with the current Xeon based macPro the fact that it is a xeon cpu does not make it that much simpler to repair you still need to somehow fix that motherboard (or replace it...). 

 

 

It is harder for Microsoft to make this move sime Microsoft have a very very strong culture of providing many many years of backwards compatibility.  on windows developers are releasing applications that are still being compiled with compilers written in 2000 they have not updated to the latest tools. Developers are still using apis from windows 95 even through MS has released 3 or 4 new sets of apis in the years since to replace them... To make a jump to any cpu architecture you need your developers to be already on the most uptodate compilers etc so that it is just a recompile for them, if you are asking them to also jump from MSVC 2000 to MSVC 2020 then that work is massive just due to the changes in how the compiler interprets your code. 

Apple (you can argue either way on this one) does not provide multiple generations of api support, when they release a new api the depreciate the old api it replaces and remove that old api within a few years. This means that developers shipping apps on macOS 10.15 are already using a recent SDK and a recent compiler so the move for them to jump to the new SDK and compiler for the new OS release that can support compiling to ARM is much smaller than what MS is asking of its developers. 

 

They will move fully and fast, i recon within 2 years they will have fully replaced the entire produce line, if they stay fragmented it will water down the effectiveness for the move the faster they move the better it will be for users. They will still support existing x86 systems for 5 to 7 years with new os updates and a few years after that with security updates so for people with large macPros etc its not going to be an issue.  Making a macPro cpu is nto that hard it is a high core count but low single core speed cpu that is something we have already seen a lot of in ARM server cpus. Making an iMac cpu replacement will be harder as this currently has a high single core speed cpu i expect apple will just push developers to be more multi threaded, the rumors are that even the entry level laptop cpu will be a 12core cpus, it is easier for them to make very high core count cpus than make low core count high performance per core.

 

For this they will need to push dev (even more) to be focused on multi threaded workloads but that is the sort of thing you can do when you control the cpu all the way through to the compiler, sdk and os not to mention the programing languages as well. 

 

Apple moved to PPC before the moved from PPC, apple have done many of these moves in the past and they will get devs on board, they have done a lot in 10.15 to already prep the way, killing 32bit support is a big part of this as it means they have already forced the had of these developers to update to the new stack and recompile with a modern compiler!  The amount of work, even for someone like Adobe who basically write thier own OS with their own memory management/windowing system etc will be much smaller than the PPC-> intel transaction. 

 

Yep intel and AMD will stay with us what this will do however is open up the idea (for non tec savvy investors) that intel is not the only people who make cpus... 
 

I just can't accept any of that as a reasonable refutation to the evidence I posted. Trying to dismiss it as "security" is not acceptable when blocking replacement screens and finger print readers  A: does not necessarily increase security and B: should be the consumer decision.   If you can install and boot from a completely different hard drive, then making the original SSD none replaceable and necessary is pointless from a security perspective.

 

Apple will block the replacement of parts anytime they think they can get away with it.  Proof is in attempts so far. I will not dismiss them as merely "unexpected" mistakes.  I find it really difficult to accept half of what they have done as non intentional consequences, especially when it is backed up with the rest of their service policy that has absolutely been proven to be anti consumer and fraudulent.

 

Mind you an argument can be made that their engineering has been so bad that maybe they are that useless they unwittingly overlooked bricking iphones with replaced screens. 

 

 

[lewdicrous]

5 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Mind you an argument can be made that their engineering has been so bad that maybe they are that useless they unwittingly overlooked bricking iphones with replaced screens. 

With Apple actively lobbying against right to repair, I highly doubt that this is something they overlooked.

Their lobbying invalidates whatever excuse they want to come up with, imo.

[mr moose]

11 minutes ago, lewdicrous said:

With Apple actively lobbying against right to repair, I highly doubt that this is something they overlooked.

Their lobbying invalidates whatever excuse they want to come up with, imo.

This is basically my argument, combine that with all the "mistakes" and shonky genius bar shenanigans and we have a company hell bent on preventing consumers from doing anything other than buying a new product ever few years.  Something I refuse to accept as coincidental, accidental or a necessary part of security.

[leadeater]

6 hours ago, hishnash said:

Yes but of the new process node apple always gets this 6 months before anyone else.  you need to remember TSMC are still selling 16nm node space.

No you need to remember that Apple paying for front of the line has nothing to do with TSMC funding or pushing to keep ahead as a market leader. TSMC produces over 13 million wafers per year or in Apple chip terms about 6.8 billion usable dies and last I checked Apple isn't selling that or half or a quarter or an eighth of that, Apple represents about one thirtieth of TSMC total production per year. Now I realize they have different fab lines and node sizes and Apple buys in to the more cutting edge ones early but they are not the only and TSMC does not live or die on Apples dime nor does TSMC only cater to Apple when it comes to R&D.

 

TSMC total R&D budget is around 3 billion per year, Intel's is around 13 billion per year and if you know much about Intel as a company they are primarily a fab company and about half their entire employee base is under their fab and manufacturing business and it's where most of their money gets spent as it's the most expensive part of the business. So even if we just incorrectly half 13 billion Intel still spends 6.5 billion on fab R&D and 6.5 billion on everything else, no matter how you slice it Intel spends more than anyone else and by significant amounts.

 

Remember the Intel and Micron partnership/merger, Micron being the third largest pure fab in the industry at the time while also being described as a minnow compared to Intel as a company and as a fab.

 

It's not like I even like Intel either but people generally woefully misunderstand how big Intel is as a company, how much they do spend, how much influence they have and how they are literally regarded as the premier benchmark when it comes to fab technology.

 

Intel can never be perfect, Intel can never give you everything you want but they have not being doing anything close to what people make out they have been. It's simply a case of the way it has turned out most of the gains being made could only be significantly utilized in the server/enterprise CPU market where customers are willing to pay the cost of large die, low yield products. Neither does looking at margins show what you think it does, those margins you see in financial reports are what is used to fund R&D so if you reduce those margins Intel would be spending less on R&D.

 

6 hours ago, hishnash said:

Apple did not give TSMC money but they did push TSMC due to the risk that apple can easily jump to Samsung fabs, this was all long before AMD started shipping Zen.

And there is an entire list of companies willing to take Apples place, fab industry is highly competitive and yet again Apple is not the incentive to push development here. You either strive to be the best or you shrink and become irrelevant e.g. GloFo.

[hishnash]

32 minutes ago, leadeater said:

those margins you see in financial reports are what is used to fund R&D so if you reduce those margins Intel would be spending less on R&D.

No those margins are the profits after spending on R&D the law is very clear on what this figure is and how it is then shared out to shareholders: for example in 2018 they paid out $16.3 billion to shareholders, they could have kept some of that back and put it into R&D if they had felt under more pressure. 

R&D is not just about node size, it is also about other elements like increasing core counts, memory controllers etc I dont get why you think having more players in the consumer computer CPU space will not help maintain better competition that will lead to better products for all users.

[leadeater]

54 minutes ago, hishnash said:

No those margins are the profits after spending on R&D the law is very clear on what this figure is and how it is then shared out to shareholders: for example in 2018 they paid out $16.3 billion to shareholders, they could have kept some of that back and put it into R&D if they had felt under more pressure. 

You said profit, but the figure you used I can only assume based on what it was is Gross Margin. But looking purely as a single year or just yearly ignores that profits can be spent in future. A lower Gross Margin will as I said result in less money being spent on R&D. If you are not turning a profit and growing things like cash reserves and keeping investors happy the business will not grow and you won't have capital or be able to raise capital to do major projects and developments.

 

You also have not shown any link to Intel having spent more money in R&D actually having a tangible benefit in reality. Spending more in the last few years might have helped or it could have done nothing, it's not as if Intel is alone in fab technology progression hitting problems and throwing money at things doesn't just make them go away.

 

And if you are trying to have a go at Intel over their high Gross Margin then please apply that to Apple as well, theirs is also very high. I'm seeing a lot of double standards and unfounded support of certain companies for no reasons outside of "I just want to see them do well". Sure that's fine if you want to see a company do well but keep it realistic.

 

54 minutes ago, hishnash said:

R&D is not just about node size, it is also about other elements like increasing core counts, memory controllers etc I dont get why you think having more players in the consumer computer CPU space will not help maintain better competition that will lead to better products for all users.

Your last bit has nothing at all to do with this. Look it's really simple, you made what I consider rather fanciful statements about what ARM might bring, performance gains and power etc and using industry assessment I'm just pointing out that these are highly unrealistic.

 

None of what you are saying can happen without significant gains in feb technology which is what I said. ARM will not bring 2 to 3 times the performance at lower power than what Intel or AMD can offer on the same node and if ARM has access to a particular node so will Intel and AMD or minimum one of them. Things actually have to support what you are saying and I can't see anything that would for that.

 

Like I said pricing sure, Intel has been charging more than they needed to and AMD has brought down pricing but also on the other hand increased top end pricing as well. ARM won't actually significantly change this at all, CPUs aren't suddenly going to half in price across the board or double in performance just because ARM is in Apple products or makes it across to the wider PC market.

[Kisai]

21 hours ago, mr moose said:

This is basically my argument, combine that with all the "mistakes" and shonky genius bar shenanigans and we have a company hell bent on preventing consumers from doing anything other than buying a new product ever few years.  Something I refuse to accept as coincidental, accidental or a necessary part of security.

Nope.

 

Apple is different. Just because the Apple Stores sometimes hire clowns instead of technically minded people for sales, doesn't mean it's like that all the way up. I interviewed for an Apple store before and it was just kinda a farce. They hired people alright, but they hired people who were sales-people types who could wow people, not tech people.

 

Apple itself, knows the lifetime of it's products. 7-8 years for the iMac/MacMini's, 7 years for the ipads/phones, and 7+ years for the Mac Pros. These times frames all make sense, even if the warranty is only 2-3 years.

 

iOS:

Every phone had at least three major versions, with current generations having 5-6 (5s and later.)

 

Same with the OSX:

 

So the OSX can still run on 8-year old Mac's.

 

Compare this with pretty much any other company, and you will find that Dell's laptops only have 3 year warranties on them and their batteries are dead after 2 on the ultrabooks. Android phones typically stop receiving updates and become paperweights after 18 months, and the sheer amount of "barely unchanged from last year's model" nonsense that happens.

 

Like as an example with Dell, the E7470 7480 7490 all look alike, and with the exception of the USB-C port on the 80 and 90, they're they also have the same problems. The Precision 5510/5520/5530/5540, exactly the same on the outside, different CPU/GPU on the inside. 7710/7720/7730/7740, again different CPU and GPU on the inside, outside is exactly the same except for the removal of the Dell EPort II dock connector and an additional USB-C on 7730/7740 to support the WD19DC dock. Yet, I can run the most recent Windows 1909 on the x10 models, even though they are out of warranty and originally shipped with Windows 7. The x10's are Skylake. The x20's are 6th or 7th gen, the x30's are Intel 8th gen. The x40's are Intel 9th gen. 

 

There's never any innovation in these. There is no "Dell Ecosystem" of phones, speakers, printers, etc. HP at one point in time did, but hasn't since 2009. So HP and Dell basically have resigned themselves to focusing on their enterprise hardware, and mostly produce consumer hardware as a by-product of the enterprise hardware. 

 

It's like some people don't understand what Apple makes. Does Dell make "speaker devices", no Google, and Amazon do, because they have AI systems for it, and they probably run on Dell hardware in the cloud. Does Dell make GPS systems? Nope, unless you count WWAN-enabled latitude laptops (ones with a sim-card slot.) Most of the stuff that Apple makes, are all related to things that Apple markets itself around. So Photography, Music, Film, Artwork, etc.  They're not marketed as nerd toys. 

 

Android does not integrate with the Wintel PC platform. Many of the devices Google makes, is designed to cut out the PC, and invade your privacy by not letting you opt out of things. I would be far more suspect of Amazon or Google "always listening" than Apple. 

 

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, Kisai said:

Nope.

 

Apple is different. Just because the Apple Stores sometimes hire clowns instead of technically minded people for sales, doesn't mean it's like that all the way up. I interviewed for an Apple store before and it was just kinda a farce. They hired people alright, but they hired people who were sales-people types who could wow people, not tech people.

 

Apple itself, knows the lifetime of it's products. 7-8 years for the iMac/MacMini's, 7 years for the ipads/phones, and 7+ years for the Mac Pros. These times frames all make sense, even if the warranty is only 2-3 years.

 

iOS:

Every phone had at least three major versions, with current generations having 5-6 (5s and later.)

 

Same with the OSX:

 

So the OSX can still run on 8-year old Mac's.

 

Compare this with pretty much any other company, and you will find that Dell's laptops only have 3 year warranties on them and their batteries are dead after 2 on the ultrabooks. Android phones typically stop receiving updates and become paperweights after 18 months, and the sheer amount of "barely unchanged from last year's model" nonsense that happens.

 

Like as an example with Dell, the E7470 7480 7490 all look alike, and with the exception of the USB-C port on the 80 and 90, they're they also have the same problems. The Precision 5510/5520/5530/5540, exactly the same on the outside, different CPU/GPU on the inside. 7710/7720/7730/7740, again different CPU and GPU on the inside, outside is exactly the same except for the removal of the Dell EPort II dock connector and an additional USB-C on 7730/7740 to support the WD19DC dock. Yet, I can run the most recent Windows 1909 on the x10 models, even though they are out of warranty and originally shipped with Windows 7. The x10's are Skylake. The x20's are 6th or 7th gen, the x30's are Intel 8th gen. The x40's are Intel 9th gen. 

 

There's never any innovation in these. There is no "Dell Ecosystem" of phones, speakers, printers, etc. HP at one point in time did, but hasn't since 2009. So HP and Dell basically have resigned themselves to focusing on their enterprise hardware, and mostly produce consumer hardware as a by-product of the enterprise hardware. 

 

It's like some people don't understand what Apple makes. Does Dell make "speaker devices", no Google, and Amazon do, because they have AI systems for it, and they probably run on Dell hardware in the cloud. Does Dell make GPS systems? Nope, unless you count WWAN-enabled latitude laptops (ones with a sim-card slot.) Most of the stuff that Apple makes, are all related to things that Apple markets itself around. So Photography, Music, Film, Artwork, etc.  They're not marketed as nerd toys. 

 

Android does not integrate with the Wintel PC platform. Many of the devices Google makes, is designed to cut out the PC, and invade your privacy by not letting you opt out of things. I would be far more suspect of Amazon or Google "always listening" than Apple. 

 

How long they support there software for plays no bearing on the obvious BS they pull trying to get people not to repair their products.  They would rather you buy a new one than even fix it themselves.  I have witnessed this firsthand myself.  It is not the people in the store it is the actual policy apple make them follow. 

 

 

[Kisai]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

How long they support there software for plays no bearing on the obvious BS they pull trying to get people not to repair their products.  They would rather you buy a new one than even fix it themselves.  I have witnessed this firsthand myself.  It is not the people in the store it is the actual policy apple make them follow. 

 

 

Yeah, and how would you propose to fix that to only punish apple, and not everyone else who is notably worse?

 

What would "fix" problems like this is legislation on warranties to always cover the lifetime of the product, and the product to have an explicit expiry date when the company will pay to have it returned to them in exchange for credit against the latest model. That solves two problems, one the e-waste problem and two, the lifetime warranty having an explicit end date, thus the device should be engineered to last that long and any consumable parts, last longer than the expiry. You can blame mobile phone carriers for this nonsense 2-year lifetime of phones, that's something they created, and it should never have happened. Consumers mistakenly believe that they should replace their phone every 2 years on the dot, and that somehow "free" phones somehow cost nothing to produce.

 

I may still be a bit pissed off at how iOS 12 killed my iPhone 6s, thus having to buy a new phone, but I would much rather have bought a new phone than paid 10% of the cost of the new phone in repairing the old one. There wasn't a hope in hell that I would buy an Android device, and there's no other option.

[suicidalfranco]

23 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Compare this with pretty much any other company, and you will find that Dell's laptops only have 3 year warranties on them and their batteries are dead after 2 on the ultrabooks.

talk OS support, end in battery life

an orange to orange comparison 

 

21 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Android phones typically stop receiving updates and become paperweights after 18 months

not true, and you know it

 

23 minutes ago, mr moose said:

and the sheer amount of "barely unchanged from last year's model" nonsense that happens

And Apple isn't guilty of that am i right

 

27 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Android does not integrate with the Wintel PC platform

it does

 

28 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Many of the devices Google makes, is designed to cut out the PC, and invade your privacy by not letting you opt out of things. I would be far more suspect of Amazon or Google "always listening" than Apple. 

and yet Apple as been found to always listen

 

 

[suicidalfranco]

7 minutes ago, Kisai said:

What would "fix" problems like this is legislation on warranties to always cover the lifetime of the product, and the product to have an explicit expiry date when the company will pay to have it returned to them in exchange for credit against the latest model.

 

Should companies also come spoon feed you while one of their products is in your possession?

[Kisai]

7 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

 

Should companies also come spoon feed you while one of their products is in your possession?

If you're not willing to have a serious answer, then why spam the thread.

 

It's very simple. If a company doesn't want to repair their products, then they should have them shipped back to them, and their own cost.

[mr moose]

9 minutes ago, Kisai said:

Yeah, and how would you propose to fix that to only punish apple, and not everyone else who is notably worse?

First thing is to stop pretending apple doesn't isn't a problem or that it's acceptable because you think others do it too.

 

9 minutes ago, Kisai said:

What would "fix" problems like this is legislation on warranties to always cover the lifetime of the product, and the product to have an explicit expiry date when the company will pay to have it returned to them in exchange for credit against the latest model. That solves two problems, one the e-waste problem and two, the lifetime warranty having an explicit end date, thus the device should be engineered to last that long and any consumable parts, last longer than the expiry. You can blame mobile phone carriers for this nonsense 2-year lifetime of phones, that's something they created, and it should never have happened. Consumers mistakenly believe that they should replace their phone every 2 years on the dot, and that somehow "free" phones somehow cost nothing to produce.

 

I may still be a bit pissed off at how iOS 12 killed my iPhone 6s, thus having to buy a new phone, but I would much rather have bought a new phone than paid 10% of the cost of the new phone in repairing the old one. There wasn't a hope in hell that I would buy an Android device, and there's no other option.

What would fix the issue would be if apple were to stop trying to be so anti consumer.  PERIOD.

It's not that complicated, we don;t have to pretend it's a law issue or bring other manufacturers into it, we don't have to water down and obfuscate the problems by introducing software aspects that may or may not be a problem.  We just have to be realistic about what apple are doing in their service centres and how they are treating consumers with right to repair and obvious attempts to prevent consumers from getting products repaired satisfactorily and at a reasonable price.   

 

Being told it will cost more to replace the screen on an ipad than to buy a whole new ipad is BS, absolute BS.   And then to be told they wouldn't do it anyway is rubbing salt in the wound.  There is no way a replacement screen and labor costs more than a new Ipad. I mean it's a part that gets broken so often we have dedicated repair shops for it all over the place,  In fact broken screens on phones and tablets are so common you could rationally argue they are basically consumables.   

 

 

3 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

talk OS support, end in battery life

an orange to orange comparison 

 

not true, and you know it

 

And Apple isn't guilty of that am i right

 

it does

 

and yet Apple as been found to always listen

 

 

Might want to fix the quotes, I didn't say those things.

 

[Donut417]

6 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

ot true, and you know it

I call BS on that. Every Android device I have owned with the exception of the OnePlus 3T has pretty much become dead do to no software support after 2 years. Most Android devices you're lucky to get one to two OS updates, after that your pretty much screwed. Yes, you might get security updates for a time but device makers don't want to support devices for long term. Apple provides like what 4 to 5 years of support on their platform? 

 

11 minutes ago, suicidalfranco said:

it does

Doubt its to the level Apple provides.