Intel Confirms: Macs to switch to ARM by 2020.

[Guest]

Intel Confirms Apple Macs Will Switch to Arm CPUs by 2020, Says Report

Source 1: https://www.tomshardware.com/news/apple-mac-arm-cpus-2020-intel,38668.html

Source 2: https://www.axios.com/apple-macbook-arm-chips-ea93c38a-d40a-4873-8de9-7727999c588c.html

Source 3: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-20/apple-is-said-to-target-combining-iphone-ipad-mac-apps-by-2021

Credit: @AlexOak 

 

Quote

Intel officials and developers have reportedly told Axios that Apple is preparing to launch Arm-based Macbooks next year. The report follows a story from Bloomberg Wednesday saying that Apple plans on combining iOS and macOS applications by 2021.

Combining the applications may have a significant disadvantage in performance, depending on the application. This will however put iOS and MacOS integration yards ahead of the competition. The first step, such as Rosetta was for PPC applications, is to be able to emulate with significant performance x86 applications on ARM. Microsoft has already done this, although not perfect. Apple will make use of their new "Marzipan" software. 

 

Quote

The final piece of the puzzle would be transitioning x86 macOS programs to the Arm instruction set architecture. According to Bloomberg, Apple is working on a project called “Marzipan” that would allow developers to code their app once and have it work on both iOS devices and macOS computers. Bloomberg said Apple will release the first version of the necessary software kit in June at its annual developer conference. 

At first, Apple will allow developers to port only iPad apps to Macs, presumably because iPad apps are closer to macOS apps in both functionality and user experience. Initially, the developers will still have to submit two different versions of their apps that have optimized user interface for each platform, but the underlying code will remain the same, the report said.

 

In 2020, Apple’s Marzipan software kit is also expected to allow developers to port their iPhone apps to Macs. Apple engineers have found it challenging to port applications designed for a small screen to the desktop, which is why it will take longer to make this transition.

 

By 2021, third-party app developers will be able to create a “single binary” that will work across iOS devices and macOS computers. Presumably, they’d still have different user interfaces on each form factor, but they’ll either be more fluid to adapt to the screen size or developers will have to contain different user interfaces within each binary.

The way this integration will seem to work is to develop more for MacOS, and port it downward to the iPad, then other iOS devices. I kind of agree that there should be two interfaces for a desktop and mobile software, but then, apart from functionality, would be the point of having the same app, when you could install two (Perhaps it would detect via iCloud you have the desktop version installed, and request the mobile version for your small iOS device. 

Quote

Even though Apple’s custom processors have led the Arm CPU pack for many years, it’s not just Apple’s chips that have started to threaten Intel’s dominance. Qualcomm recently announced the Snapdragon 8cx platform for mainstream notebooks aimed straight at Intel’s Core i5 (U-series).

The main problem Qualcomm would have however, is getting the chip into mainstream notebooks. Windows S hasn't exactly been a major success. This would be different in Apple computers, as they already have the user base, computers to put the chip in, and testers all ready to do. It would be a much more streamlined launch. The performance however of Marzipan is yet to be seen, and comparing the ARM chips to a Core i5 might just be in specific scenarios. 

 

As shown by the success of the iMac Pro, many Mac users do need quite highly performing processors for all the editing, or whatnot. I would expect the higher-end chips to be maintained in the lineup until at least 2022. (Whether that's just Apple not updating or not)

 

Obviously I have a very impartial opinion to any Mac-related topic, but this is somewhat OK news. It doesn't really encourage me to buy an ARM Mac, but I wouldn't really be against it either. As long as we get a good increase in usable performance each generation then that's fine, its an upgrade from the year before - what we've come to expect. As far as the potential for battery gains, again I'm quite agnostic towards it, simply because my current MBP already has like 4-5 hours of battery life, I couldn't think of a daily-life scenario where I would need more.

[Tamesh16]

honestly if they get programs that  alot of people would use to work better on ios, 

i say its perfect, i actually prefer better programs better optimized for the hardware, 

and the arm cpus  would be more efficient

however if apple actually does pull it off well is another story

[r2724r16]

5 minutes ago, floofer said:

<snip>

So... I guess RISC is the future?

 

I mean RISC has many benefits over CISC, and if a big company like Apple is pushing it, then maybe we'll have ARM CPUs in our desktops in the near future.

[elfensky]

That poll should've had an extra option: "as long as all my programs will work, sure", that's really what matters nowadays.
 

Performance isn't really an issue even today, given how well the A12 Cortex in the new iPad Pro performs. Also consider that you could likely get the (sustained) clock speed much higher than in the iPad given that laptops have active cooling.
 

It's purely a software support game at this point. Will <insert x86-64 program> work on this new arm mac?

[mr moose]

6 minutes ago, floofer said:

This will however put iOS and MacOS integration yards ahead of the competition.

 

Only if it actually works better.   There seems to be a lot of issues involved in melding the two systems despite the fact everyone has been throwing resources at the problem for quite some time now.

 

I'm not much one for conspiracies,  but given Intel and AMD are the only ones who stand to loose in such a change,  I can't help but wonder how their compiler effects software and it's ease of conversion to ARM. 

[Linus_torvalds]

Cool, now apple fans would not have any argument to recomend macs. They already are overpriced as hell and give nothing to the user that others do not have for way less money but now HUH macbooks will suck! I guess they won't lower prices, because you know it's apple.

 

I already use linux on arm and they run prety fast. You can make linux use so little RAM and resources. You will never be able to modify macos that way. Linux is coolest OS. You can run it on potatoe and in some programs it can be faster then mac on i7

 

My laptop with arch linux uses 145 MB RAM on fresh boot.

[BuckGup]

Judging by the ARM CPUs used in HPCs being built today I have no doubt that they will be faster than anything Intel has to offer at significantly less power usage. Also Apple can make this chips EXACTLY how they want so there software can be crazy optimized. Also kills all Hackintoshes

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, ElfenSky said:

That poll should've had an extra option: "as long as all my programs will work, sure", that's really what matters nowadays.

Have added poll option 

[suits]

Calling it now, Mac prices won't drop, and performance will be worse.

[Thaldor]

Depends on so many things. Use and performance are the main things, maybe ARM can compete in the ultra low power cases, but I don't see them yet getting anywhere near performance cases. Use browser, watch videos and normal office work, why not, it's not like they would need anything better than a potato. But anything more demanding and it goes to the grey area where performance will tell and what ARM CPUs are now they are nowhere near going to be powerful enough to do high performance demanding tasks. But then again considering how well Apple has handled the cooling in the iMac "Pro", maybe the "power users" aren't Apples main aim anymore.

[yian88]

14 minutes ago, mate_mate91 said:

Cool, now apple fans would not have any argument to recomend macs. They already are overpriced as hell and give nothing to the user that others do not have for way less money but now HUH macbooks will suck! I guess they won't lower prices, because you know it's apple.

 

I already use linux on arm and they run prety fast. You can make linux use so little RAM and resources. You will never be able to modify macos that way. Linux is coolest OS. You can run it on potatoe and in some programs it can be faster then mac on i7

 

My laptop with arch linux uses 145 MB RAM on fresh boot.

It doesnt matter the RAM usage thats what linux community keeps failing to realize, its all about platform quality, stability, full hardware feature support and control and ofcourse driver + pro software support, linux has none of that as dekstop (not as kernel), xorg,wayland, gpu drivers, systemd, pulseaudio, DE's, compositors are all unstable buggy, laggy, lacking modern features and too opinionated.

I think x86 is dying, it just simply doesnt scale on mobile devices, its inefficient and overheats like hell.

The newer ARM desktop chips look really promising, and mobile has way more quality apps, making all of them available to mac's will be awesome.

Windows/Linux is going nowhere fast, MS failed miserably to understand mobile market needs and linux has its head deep down its asshole with linux elitists arguing about DE's lmao, when its 2019 and linux doesnt have an APP store or a unified way everyone gets apps like snaps, flatpak etc.

 

If google pulled its head out of its own ass aswell they would have pushed android x86+ ARM desktop a long time ago, chrombooks suck period, we need android for desktop and if Apple does it successfully i hope google moves quick into desktop x86/ARM so i can finally get a decent desktop/laptop OS and get rid of trash Windows/linux.

[mr moose]

12 minutes ago, Finwillwin said:

Intel is in deep trouble, AMD is making giant leaps in desktop PCs and ARM is now getting put in laptops and MACs.  

No they're not.  AMD's "giant leaps"  are only catching them upto Intel and ARM have at least a decade long developmental path before they are anywhere near workstation/server suitable.

[ZacoAttaco]

1 hour ago, floofer said:

The way this integration will seem to work is to develop more for MacOS, and port it downward to the iPad, then other iOS devices. I kind of agree that there should be two interfaces for a desktop and mobile software, but then, apart from functionality, would be the point of having the same app, when you could install two (Perhaps it would detect via iCloud you have the desktop version installed, and request the mobile version for your small iOS device. 

To me personally, Apple's SOC team has already been making great strides in their mobile devices. Apple A-Series chips have already shown to be impressive in the performance department. If there grand plan is to implement, for lack of a better term, their own UWP or Universal Windows Platform then I'm down for this initiative. It's still obviously early days but Apple has shown promise with their in-house processors.

[ZacoAttaco]

50 minutes ago, BuckGup said:

Also kills all Hackintoshes

So the operating system would just wouldn't run on an x86 instruction set? Couldn't someone develop some sort of a wrapper?

[JoeCoke]

Wayyyy too soon to call.

 

All I can say is. I hope it works out for them. I have my worries about this, this is going to isolate macs a shit ton more. From the way I see it, this will limit how much software makes it to OSX, and will be a HUGE setback for gaming.

[captain_to_fire]

10 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

To me personally, Apple's SOC team has already been making great strides in their mobile devices. Apple A-Series chips have already shown to be impressive in the performance department. If there grand plan is to implement, for lack of a better term, their own UWP or Universal Windows Platform then I'm down for this initiative. It's still obviously early days but Apple has shown promise with their in-house processors.

I think Apple is avoiding what happened during the PowerPC to Intel transition woes as well as the crappy x86 emulation woes of Windows 10S. Which basically means hackintoshing macOS on a Snapdragon powered laptop is not happening. 

 

 

This is their way too woo devs to port their applications to the Mac App Store and make their apps universal binary. Which means, the first batch of ARM MacBooks would only run programs from the Mac App Store. Right now, Adobe CC and Office 365 can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. It’ll probably start with big developers first, then smaller devs will soon port their apps. 

 

 

Edited March 3, 2019 by captain_to_fire

[flibberdipper]

Y'know, as long as performance and compatibility does not suffer AND prices stay the same (or even get lower)... Sure. I'm down for this.

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

So the operating system would just wouldn't run on an x86 instruction set? Couldn't someone develop some sort of a wrapper?

It's why you can't run 10.3 or lower without a VM. 

[Taf the Ghost]

Apple really only has to make sure Webbrowsers, Adobe Products, Music Products and Office works. Apple's current offering for programs that run well on x86 MacOS isn't great. There's a reason they can jettison two decades of an OS and almost no one is going to care.

 

Still, Apple has been clearly headed this direction since even before Steve Jobs died. Frankly, this might be one of the last things he approved. Apple has been hiring up CPU & GPU designers for a long while now, to eventually merge the entire base of programs. The ability to move seamlessly between a Workstation, a Tablet and a Mobile device is a very Apple approach.

[mr moose]

8 minutes ago, Taf the Ghost said:

Apple really only has to make sure Webbrowsers, Adobe Products, Music Products and Office works. Apple's current offering for programs that run well on x86 MacOS isn't great. There's a reason they can jettison two decades of an OS and almost no one is going to care.

 

Still, Apple has been clearly headed this direction since even before Steve Jobs died. Frankly, this might be one of the last things he approved. Apple has been hiring up CPU & GPU designers for a long while now, to eventually merge the entire base of programs. The ability to move seamlessly between a Workstation, a Tablet and a Mobile device is a very Apple approach.

I know quite a few software type people who like mac because it is both  a Unix like system and runs on x86.   I wonder if removing the x86 component makes them more or less useless for programing. 

[silberdrachi]

Ill be interested to see how this affects a lot of our VA projects, which are all primarily developed on macbook pros. The new macbooks were already not great at improving performance and build times, this seems like it would purely just drive people away from the work side of it.

[Blademaster91]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I know quite a few software type people who like mac because it is both  a Unix like system and runs on x86.   I wonder if removing the x86 component makes them more or less useless for programing. 

Unless there would be some kind of emulation to allow programming for x86,though that would just be slower than actual x86 hardware. But removing x86, and no dGPU or intel iGPU for hw acceleration seems like it would drive away the power users.

[ZacoAttaco]

34 minutes ago, floofer said:

It's why you can't run 10.3 or lower without a VM. 

But I used to always run it in a VM. So, I suppose I misunderstood the term 'Hackintosh', it's not running a Type 2 Hyper-V Virtualisation of Mac OS with something like VMware Workstation or Oracle Virtualbox but rather, actually booting into Mac OS.

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

This is their way too woo devs to port their applications to the Mac App Store and make their apps universal binary. Which means, the first batch of ARM MacBooks would only run programs from the Mac App Store. Right now, Adobe CC and Office 365 can be downloaded from the Mac App Store. It’ll probably start with big developers first, then smaller devs will soon port their apps. 

If Apple can make it easy for developers to get their applications running on both iOS devices and Mac OS devices there's definitely an incentive there. Adobe has shown their support for the iPad Pro so it'll be impressive to see what they offer. My biggest thing with this idea has to do with cloud sync. I want it to be near seamless going from applications on different devices, Apple's Ecosystem can definitely support that.

[Guest]

21 minutes ago, ZacoAttaco said:

But I used to always run it in a VM. So, I suppose I misunderstood the term 'Hackintosh', it's not running a Type 2 Hyper-V Virtualisation of Mac OS with something like VMware Workstation or Oracle Virtualbox but rather, actually booting into Mac OS.

Yeah pretty much. Although I suppose this opens up a new avenue, perhaps a mackintosh Chromebook?

[justpoet]

My guess, IF this is actually happening (rather than Apple simply dropping intel…which could also mean AMD for the next generation), based on what they've done with recent computers, is that we would see 2 processors for the next generation of Pro Macs.  

 

They've actually already been doing this with their T2 chips being similar to partial A chips mainly just containing the secure enclaves and IO/encryption cores, so simply making that (or similar with an actual A chip) in the next generation of "Pro" machines, would allow for full use of both platforms, full future development for/on everything, full compatibility with existing software on both platforms, and in a "pro" space where price is less of a concern for folks.

 

I'd guess then that we'd see a delayed refresh of the more entry level macs such as the MacBook, MacBook Air, Mac mini, and base iMac…then moving to the Arm based chip line down the road.

 

Note: Macs can currently run iOS code in the development environment, and Apple has long been working on merging the APIs such as in CoreUI for mouse/touch and automatically doing something appropriate from the same call based on what is being used.  So, just that they want the same app to run in both places really isn't surprising, nor requiring the chip change.  It isn't like most apps get written in assembly anymore, so the compiler can easily handle making a universal app.