Apple Aims to Sell Macs With Its Own Chips Starting in 2021

[atxcyclist]

So basically this means no more dual-booting Windows on Apple computers, unless it would be some worthless version for ARM-chips-only that wouldn't be compatible with the vast number of x86 and AMD64 programs available?

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, atxcyclist said:

So, basically this means no more running Windows on Apple computers unless it would be some worthless version for ARM chips only that isn't compatible with the vast number of x86 and AMD64 programs available?

It certainly raises quite a few questions.  If this turns out to be true then what is the percentage of mac users who need windows?  what if they all decide it is easier and cheaper to run windows with a Linux terminal and work in the opposites direction.

[hishnash]

10 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

So basically this means no more dual-booting Windows on Apple computers, unless it would be some worthless version for ARM-chips-only that wouldn't be compatible with the vast number of x86 and AMD64 programs available?

yes you would only be able to boot ARM operating systems, linux of course (and you dont have software limitations here) and MS ARM version of windows.

we will see how much MS push the ARM windows as to if this is a viable solution for users who need both. 

 

Not that many mac users due boot however so it will not make a large dent on the user-base.

[atxcyclist]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

It certainly raises quite a few questions.  If this turns out to be true then what is the percentage of mac users who need windows?  what if they all decide it is easier and cheaper to run windows with a Linux terminal and work in the opposites direction.

I know a handful of people that have MacBooks and they all have Windows dual-booted, but most of them use Windows to run light-ish games that are probably now available in OSX. I guess it's also possible that the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro might still run AMD64-compatible hardware for a long while. Apple could be trying to move the MacBook Air into a really energy-efficient near-tablet machine that has a keyboard, but days of battery life for light users, that would make good sense if the price reflects the capability.

[hishnash]

Just now, atxcyclist said:

I know a handful of people that have MacBooks and they all have Windows dual-booted, but most of them use Windows to run light-ish games that are probably now available in OSX. I guess it's also possible that the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro might still run AMD64-compatible hardware for a long while still. Apple could be trying to move the MacBook Air into a really energy-efficient near-tablet machine that has a keyboard, but days of battery life for light users, that would make good sense if the price reflects the capability.

Yer this is a good point, if we are just talking about the ultra low power devices the applications you might use on a windows duel boot are very limited, you will find macOS solutions to fill these needs easly.

[mr moose]

3 minutes ago, atxcyclist said:

I know a handful of people that have MacBooks and they all have Windows dual-booted, but most of them use Windows to run light-ish games that are probably now available in OSX. I guess it's also possible that the Mac Pro and the iMac Pro might still run AMD64-compatible hardware for a long while. Apple could be trying to move the MacBook Air into a really energy-efficient near-tablet machine that has a keyboard, but days of battery life for light users, that would make good sense if the price reflects the capability.

I was thinking about those who use mac for coding and the like,  they use mac for that, then boot to windows for testing and implementation. 

[hishnash]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I was thinking about those who use mac for coding and the like,  they use mac for that, then boot to windows for testing and implementation. 

As a developer who works in a company that produces windows applications and linux server applications:

 

i think very view people write code that runs on windows when using a macOS. if you need your code to run on windows you write it one windows, if you need the code to run on posix you write it on posix.

Otherwise you are writing your code blind, you cant attach a debugger etc... 

[TetraSky]

Apple : We must control EVERYTHING.

 

It's either a move to get rid of Hackintosh or to not give intel more money.

[mr moose]

Just now, hishnash said:

As a developer who works in a company that produces windows applications and linux server applications:

 

i think very view people write code that runs on windows when using a macOS. if you need your code to run on windows you write it one windows, if you need the code to run on posix you write it on posix.

Otherwise you are writing your code blind, you cant attach a debugger etc... 

I have no idea about it, it's just what he programmers I know do. 

[hishnash]

3 minutes ago, mr moose said:

I have no idea about it, it's just what he programmers I know do. 

they just really hate using windows to cripple their dev workflow this much. 
 

Due to that I expect they would continue to use macOS and just get a cheep small windows laptop that they can use to dedicated testing (would be a better workflow than continuously rebooting between OSs).

[mr moose]

1 minute ago, hishnash said:

they just really hate using windows to cripple their dev workflow this much. 
 

Due to that I expect they would continue to use macOS and just get a cheep small windows laptop that they can use to dedicated testing (would be a better workflow than continuously rebooting between OSs).

Fucked if I know, they have multiple systems, I just figured it was the best option for a nix environment and windows without dragging two computers around.  At home they are always on windows systems. so god know why. 

[hishnash]

7 minutes ago, mr moose said:

Fucked if I know, they have multiple systems, I just figured it was the best option for a nix environment and windows without dragging two computers around.  At home they are always on windows systems. so god know why. 

windows SubSystem for linux is not good (when it comes to performance), disk IO is dread-full, we are talking CD speeds (understandable mapping the windows file system into something that works with nix is not easy).

Our code base is a few GB doing `git status` in windows subsystem for linux takes 5 minutes.

more likely they would run linux and then run windows in a VM if they dont need to test of macOS that is.

there is also a good chance a lot of dev houses will drop windows support over the next few years (if we are talking about server side support). Most companies already have.

[SenKa]

I feel like apple aimed to sell macs with their own CPU's in 2018, 2019, and 2020 as well.

 

But, if 2021 is actually the year its happening, I am very excited to see where it goes. 8 cores is also an interesting number, as thats the same number of CPU cores as their phones ATM. Given how powerful the A13 series is right now... doubly excited.

[RejZoR]

8 hours ago, BuckGup said:

Hopefully this doesn't lead to segmentation in the software world. It didn't back in the days when they use PowerPC chips 

I think they weren't exactly prepared for transition. This time they seem to shifting whole software thing first so that apps will work on both. But I think there will still be some segmentation, it's impossible not to with such dramatic shifts. I mean, just look how things shifted between Win9x and WinNT transtition and they ran on same x86 processors! If you shift from x86 to ARM there will be more problems for sure.

[captain_to_fire]

7 hours ago, mr moose said:

I tried pointing out that apple could move to and AMD processor whenever they wanted.

At one point, Apple considered using AMD processors for the MacBook Air way back in 2011 but AMD simply can’t meet Apple’s demand and decided to stick with Intel. Also, Intel chips in 2011 are simply better than AMDs. It might be possible that Apple might ship a Mac Pro SKU with an Epyc chip inside instead of a Xeon. But considering that Apple is big on OpenCL and AMD’s Ryzen is not, it’s possible that Apple will still stick their necks out with Intel and include an ARM powered MacBook Air. 
 

Perhaps Apple’s in-house ARM chips can match a 10th gen core i5-U on single core performance, but I don’t think it can match Intel on multicore. 

[captain_to_fire]

2 hours ago, atxcyclist said:

So basically this means no more dual-booting Windows on Apple computers, unless it would be some worthless version for ARM-chips-only that wouldn't be compatible with the vast number of x86 and AMD64 programs available?

Unless Apple green lights Microsoft to support their in-house ARM chips with the necessary drivers. I think it’s doable considering that Windows 10 Home/Pro can run natively on a Qualcomm chip. 

[maartendc]

10 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

I will believe it when I see it. I still think ARM is going to have trouble competing in the laptop space due to dual boot being quite popular for macbooks. 

Don't underestimate the willingness of Apple to don't give a fuck and do something the userbase would hate.

 

Personally that would totally stop me from getting a Mac. I run certain professional applications that only run on Windows, so I couldn't justify buying a Macbook if I cannot dual boot it, even though I prefer MacOS for personal use.

[hishnash]

26 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

But considering that Apple is big on OpenCL

Apple is no longer interested in OpenCL apple is fully behind Metal as their compute layer.

 

 

28 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

Apple’s in-house ARM chips can match a 10th gen core i5-U on single core performance, but I don’t think it can match Intel on multicore. 

The iPad 2018 (without any active cooling) already outperforms these chips even in multi core. With active cooling (and higher power input) the 12Core cpu rumored for this first ARM mac would completely dominate.


 

 

27 minutes ago, captain_to_fire said:

with the necessary drivers

Apple do provide the drives on existing macs (so that windows can use them). That is one part of bootcamp.

 

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

Win9x and WinNT transtition

Apple is a lot better at pushing its developers to keep up than MS. (not always a good thing)

 

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

If you shift from x86 to ARM there will be more problems for sure.

For many developers moving form x86-64 (macOS is already 64bit only) to ARM64 will just be a recompile, since all the system libraries will continue to exist on ARM. This is much less work than moving from `Win9x to WinNT` where all of the system libs they used changed.

 

Infact the move from x86-64 to ARM64 is less work than moving from x86-32 to x86-64. 

For both translations you need to:
* update all your dependencies  (or you need or dependency libs to already be moved for your)
* any `assembly` code you might have needs to be updated (this was also lost of work moving from 32bit to 64bit since the address space for these instructions changed)

However for the 32bit to 64bit transaction you may have needed to consider how you packed your function points (only in optimised code). For the x86-64 to ARM64 you do not need to consider this change since the points size has not changed.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

7 hours ago, hishnash said:

There might be something good in the use of ARM server side. 

Is that a good thing?

 

7 hours ago, hishnash said:

the other thing to consider is ARM is much less of a vertical than x86 anyone can buy an ARM license and build an ARM cpu.

That's not what "vertical integration" means. Doing something in-house is not less vertical than outsourcing it. By definition.

 

7 hours ago, hishnash said:

I take it you dont own any game consoles? 

I don't. I have a cat, though. I think it's equally relevant.

 

[mr moose]

1 hour ago, captain_to_fire said:

At one point, Apple considered using AMD processors for the MacBook Air way back in 2011 but AMD simply can’t meet Apple’s demand and decided to stick with Intel. Also, Intel chips in 2011 are simply better than AMDs. It might be possible that Apple might ship a Mac Pro SKU with an Epyc chip inside instead of a Xeon. But considering that Apple is big on OpenCL and AMD’s Ryzen is not, it’s possible that Apple will still stick their necks out with Intel and include an ARM powered MacBook Air. 
 

Perhaps Apple’s in-house ARM chips can match a 10th gen core i5-U on single core performance, but I don’t think it can match Intel on multicore. 

When I was saying they could do it, it was only months ago, a year or two at best.    Some of the reasons people were using were assumed supply contracts with Intel,  Assumptions that the OS wasn't written and therefore wasn't ready or needed too much work.  At any rate  the point is people shouldn't make assumptions about the abilities of a large well resourced company that designs all it's own shit almost from the ground up.

[hishnash]

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Is that a good thing?

For the planet yes, the ARM servers that AWS have been pussing use a lot less power for the same performance. 

 

Also unlike the du-opoly that is the x86-64 space (intel and amd only) anyone can get an ARM license and make an ARM server this opens up the ecosystem a lot more that means we will have Zen style revolutions in improvements much more commonly since no-one will ever be abel to sit un there buts (like intel have been doing for years).

 

1 hour ago, SpaceGhostC2C said:

Doing something in-house is not less vertical than outsourcing it.

Apple don't Make there CPU they buy the license from ARM (who designed most of the chip) then yes apple customise it, they then pay TSMC to make them. Compared to paying intel, (who desenge 100% and make in house) moving to ARM is increasing the number of third parties that apple depends upon.

Vertical would be if apple purchased ARM outright and purchased TSMC.

 

Sure moving to AMD would be better still.

but on the vertical integration being a bad thing see the above point on server ARM and how this could significantly improve our server ecosystem.

 

 

55 minutes ago, mr moose said:

At any rate  the point is people shouldn't make assumptions about the abilities of a large well resourced company that designs all it's own shit almost from the ground up.

Not to mention built one of the best cross platform compilation solution (LLVM) that is AMDs official primary supported compiler.

[Arika]

2 hours ago, captain_to_fire said:

Unless Apple green lights Microsoft to support their in-house ARM chips with the necessary drivers. I think it’s doable considering that Windows 10 Home/Pro can run natively on a Qualcomm chip. 

i dont like this "solution" because Apple are still saying "fuck you" to people that want to dual boot and then putting the onus on Microsoft to fix Apple's problem of pissing off their customers

 

1 hour ago, hishnash said:

The iPad 2018 (without any active cooling) already outperforms these chips even in multi core. With active cooling (and higher power input) the 12Core cpu rumored for this first ARM mac would completely dominate.

Incorrect. There is no Benchmark that exists or can exist that can effectively compare x86/AMD64 to ARM in any accurate way. They function completely differently under different loads

[hishnash]

19 minutes ago, Arika S said:

i dont like this "solution" because Apple are still saying "fuck you" to people that want to dual boot and then putting the onus on Microsoft to fix Apple's problem of pissing off their customers

Apple do provide drivers for bootcamp (they tend to be about 1 year behind through)...

 

 

19 minutes ago, Arika S said:

Incorrect. There is no Benchmark that exists or can exist that can effectively compare x86/AMD64 to ARM in any accurate way. They function completely differently under different loads

No you can make a benchmark that does a task and time the task, eg:

* `compile some code`

* `encode some video`

 

all of these are valid benchmarks to compare between platforms.

 

The instruction set has nothing to do with out the cpu functions under load!

 

 

 

[mrchow19910319]

12 hours ago, hishnash said:

 

me when someone who has way more knowledge on something at this forum debating with me: 

 

 

[Kisai]

11 hours ago, GoodBytes said:

A broken analogue clock is only right twice a day.

 

Every year, the same rumor... well, since Apple was making its own CPUs. I guess one day it will be correct.

This story happens every year. Heck, the history for the links below is still in my browser from the last time the story came up

 

2008: https://www.computerworld.com/article/2480717/apple-s-netbook-tablet-to-be-based-on-arm-cortex-architecture-.html

2011: https://www.cultofmac.com/109835/intel-apple-switching-macbooks-to-arm-is-a-very-real-and-scary-threat-for-us/

2012: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/139677-the-threat-of-macs-switching-from-x86-to-arm

2013: https://www.macrumors.com/2013/10/13/apple-predicted-to-release-ultra-slim-12-inch-macbook-with-retina-display-in-mid-2014/ (Ming-Chi Kuo again)

2014: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/187513-why-apple-wont-dump-intel-x86-for-its-own-arm-chips-in-macbooks-and-the-mac-pro

 

BTW that article is about Ming-Chi, same guy below, has been making this prediction for 5+ years

2015: https://www.cultofmac.com/309019/worlds-top-apple-analyst-probably-wrong-arm-based-macs/

 

2018:

2020: https://www.macrumors.com/2020/03/26/kuo-several-arm-based-macs-2021/

 

It's the same guy, nearly every time, one of these years he might be right.

 

For someone who is supposely the "most accurate Apple analyst", he's been wrong 10 years in a row.

http://www.macotakara.jp/blog/rumor/entry-12774.html (from 2011)

Quote

Few weeks ago, DigiTimes told that Apple to launch MacBook Air with Sandy Bridge and Thunderbolt in June-July. And additionally, an anonymous source told more information, Apple already made test equipment of Thunderbolt MacBook Air driven by A5 processor.

According to this source who saw live A5 MacBook Air actually, this test machine performed better than expected.

Though it's not clear which Mac OS X or iOS is pre-installed on this A5 MacBook Air, iOS seems to have difficulty to use features of Thunderbolt without Finder. And even if Mac OS X is installed, developer should spend time to support A5 on Universal Binary Applications. As considering these situation, this A5 MacBook Air seems to be made just for experiment.

 

This is why the "arm macbook" rumor never dies. Because supposely it exists, and for all we know the reason it's never released is because it's the ipad.

 

Look at the current iPad Pro. That is literately the thing from 2011.