
Apple’s abandonment of Intel chips is inevitable (2018) - partingshots
https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17191986/apple-intel-cpu-processor-design-competition
======
gumby
One thing that is ignored by the punditocracy is that a laptop has a lot of
other silicon beyond the CPU.* Apple would have to have all the support
chipset as well. Internal connections like memory controller etc they already
have from iPhone/iPad, but Intel provides support for peripheral access. This
works for the iPad, but note that the iPad Pro doesn't have laptop-class USB-C
support much to the annoyance of some people. A laptop would have to, and
probably would need USB4/TB4 (since if you're designing your own you might as
well go straight there -- classic Apple move) which would need all the PCIe,
DP etc plumbing they are currently getting from Intel.

Certainly doable, but there's a lot more boring spadework needed beyond the
sexy CPU.

* This is why I always laughed when I saw articles comparing laptops by CPU clock speed rather than actual performance.

~~~
turdnagel
It's almost certain this is why Apple has taken so long to move their laptops
(and desktops, eventually, probably) to ARM. The top-of-the-line iPhone has
been benchmarking at or around MacBooks for the past 2-3 years.

~~~
jandrese
I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for
peripherals. x86_64 emulation on ARM is still pretty bad AFAIK and there is a
tremendous amount of Mac software that won't be ported on the first day, or
ever in some cases.

~~~
alasdair_
>I think backwards compatibility is a bigger stumbling block than support for
peripherals.

The recent Catalina update that caused a bunch of older programs to simply
stop functioning strongly implies Apple doesn't care that much about being
backwards-compatible any more.

~~~
gumby
There were _many_ years of warnings that 32 bit apps would ultimately stop
running. It was hardly a surprise.

As for hardware lifetime...I’m still using a 2014 iPad, 2015 iPhone and only
stopped using my 2015 MacBook because it got caught in the rain.

------
dreamcompiler
On the one hand I like this idea because I'm tired of Intel's lousy security
and lousy energy budget. On the other hand I dread it because Apple will not
fully document the ISA of their new CPU (just like with their current mobile
lineup) which means it will become impossible to develop one's own programs
for the Mac, write code in whatever language you wish, or distribute programs
for the Mac outside the Apple-controlled walled garden. You'll use Swift and
Xcode and you'll distribute your programs via the App Store with Apple's
approval, and you'll like it. Or you won't develop for the Mac.

~~~
scoot_718
I stopped supporting Mac versions of software when they kept breaking
compatibility for no real reason.

~~~
esmi
Did you stop developing software altogether? What doesn’t break compatibility
from time to time?

~~~
oblio
Windows...

~~~
gumby
This is an important lesson. I am personally not a fan of the Windows
programming model* and I despair the number of security holes over the years,
but I am quite aware that a large part of it stems from Microsoft's commitment
to extreme backwards compatibility (which I also recognize has sometimes taken
heroic measures).

I'm actually surprised how long Apple takes to obsolete APIs (carbon lingered
_forever_ ) and how far back they are willing to support old hardware. They
project an insouciance towards old APIs but tend to give a lot of advanced
warning (e.g. the obsolescence of 32-bit applications was announced at least
five years ago). They seem to be far less conservative towards UI, and prefer
to rewrite rather than update which leads to a bunch of new bugs. That might
be what gives people the impression that they junk APIs quickly.

* that's a matter of personal taste, not meant to start a flame session.

------
xt00
Another aspect of Intel not working that closely with Apple (it this ARM
transition happens) is that Apple is often seen as knowing what they are
talking about on deep technical issues (basically they have lots of really
good engineers). So Intel will need to find other smart customers that they
can work closely with to understand the consumers needs and what they should
modify in their chips for the next gen.

~~~
soperj
Is that why they dropped intel in the 90s?

~~~
MengerSponge
Apple didn't switch processor vendors in the 90's. They dropped
Motorola/PowerPC in the 00's in favor of Intel's Core processors that were
remarkably faster and more power efficient.

~~~
monocasa
Well, they did swap processor architectures in the 90s too. 68k for powerpc.

~~~
MengerSponge
Oh yeah, my mistake. Motorola made both though, right?

~~~
cptskippy
IBM developed the Power architecture and I believe a consortium of Apple, IBM
and Motorola (AIM) did the whole ISA.

------
ksec
And there are similar articles in 2019, 2017, 2016, all the way to 2011 [1].

One of the thing about these rumours is that they are always 6 months or so
before another new Mac product launches or refresh. It could also have been
coincidence since Mac used to update once a year, and any rumours would always
fit into that time frame.

But I cant help and wonder if this is just a tactics from Apple on pricing.
Apple doesn't get any marketing subsidies from the Intel stickers since Apple
dont use any of those. Surely Apple would still want an equivalent incentives
if not more.

[1] [https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/05/apple-could-adopt-
ar...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2011/05/apple-could-adopt-arm-for-
laptops-but-why-would-it/)

~~~
prewett
There were similar persistent rumors about Apple having a build of OS X
running on x86 back in The Day. I dismissed them as wishful thinking by the
rumorer. One day Apple announced x86 Macs and I was simply shocked.

~~~
ksec
As far as I am aware, Apple had been running x86 OSX before even Steve knew
about it. So the 5 years double life secret agent was merely a marketing
pitch. The whole story was written on cake.co

But what was clear though was Steve wanted a notebook, and Intel Centrino was
the perfect fit. And the roadmap from IBM was a dead end. And it was very
obvious, ( unless you belong to those group that does not believe in Notebook
market) that switching to Intel was the only choice.

But this time there is _nothing_ ARM / Apple CPU can do that Intel cant. The
only real advantage Apple get is cost reduction. Intel isn't like IBM where it
has no low power roadmap, and Intel's IPC aren't far behind either.

------
mihaaly
Mobile first applications make software difficult to use, compromising
features to the limited nature of mobile devices. It is a worrying trend
driven not by practical but appearance focused design not only corrupting
desktops but the web too. So many good old software or solutions go down the
drain being ported to mobile platform and becoming increasingly difficult to
use or/and pure dumb. Mobile platforms are auxiliary from productivity point
of view, never can be the main thing. Have its good place where it shines but
fails terribly elsewhere. Putting into the centre brings degradation.

~~~
nine_k
Is a laptop a mobile device? Is my laptop with an i7 and 32GB RAM a crippled
device?

Imagine a 15" iPad Ultra Pro with comparable hardware, running iOS, with
wireless keyboard and mouse / touchpad. Could it be a real workstation?

~~~
mihaaly
Working on a handheld device with fingers requires different approach than
keyboard and mouse put on a desk together with the device, the trouble is with
the OS and software not with the technical specification. If those are made
for one, effective for one, will be crippled for the other. Also try using the
same software on both 5" and 32" and with either finger only or keyboard and
mouse only, efficiently. Good luck with that!

If powerful processor and plenty of RAM would make a laptop then your
Playstation was a laptop too! :)

------
EricE
I would love an ARM based MacBook Air. I dunno why it’s widely assumed if
Apple introduces one ARM based Mac that all Mac’s will eventually go ARM -
Operating systems supporting multiple CPU architectures isn’t a new thing, and
Apple has had more commercial success than anyone else. I have no doubt for me
as an end user that once apps are updated I wouldn’t experience any difference
- other than better performance, battery performance, and a cooler running
computer.

Thankfully I’m not clinging to any older unsupported apps so I realize it’s
easy for me to be pro ARM Mac - which is why I don’t expect Apple to go ARM
only any time soon but offer a choice for quite a while while the market
settles out.

And who knows, Intel could turn it around. They haven’t managed for the last 7
years or so, but I suppose it could still eventually happen.

~~~
soneil
I suspect that only going ARM on a few models could be detrimental. The risk
is creating a niche within a niche. If they move everything, as with previous
arch moves, it's "do or die" for third-parties.

But if, eg, MacBook Air turns into MacBook ARM but MacBook Pro remains Intel -
this would be a very difficult schism. Many publishers might look at it as
being pro customers staying on Intel and cost-sensitive customers on ARM,
which could damage adoption.

The risk is having no carrot and no stick - not entirely dissimilar to
Itanium's problem.

~~~
wtallis
Apple's primary carrot and stick here will be the Mac App Store. Whether they
split the product line between ARM and Intel, or go for a full transition to
ARM, they'll mandate that apps on the App Store be universal binaries. The
challenge as usual will be ISVs that don't distribute through the App Store
and want to drag their heels (eg. Adobe, who always prefers ignoring Apple's
roadmap in the hopes that they won't have to update their own code).

~~~
scarface74
Adobe has ported it’s software from 68K to PPC to OS X (Carbon) to x86
(Carbon) to x86 (Cocoa) over the years.

Not to mention that they are shipping an iPad version already.

~~~
wtallis
As I recall, Adobe was unwilling to abandon Carbon until Apple promised that
Carbon wouldn't make the 64-bit transition. And even then, Adobe was pretty
slow: Creative Suite on Windows started including 64-bit versions in 2008 and
_required_ a 64-bit CPU starting in 2010, but the last CS version for Mac in
2012 was still all 32-bit. When Apple dropped 32-bit support in 2019 after a
two-year warning period, parts of Adobe Creative Cloud on macOS were still not
ready.

Even Adobe's transition from PPC to Intel took 15 months after Intel Macs
started shipping and 22 months after the x86 Mac dev kits were publicly
announced (though I wouldn't be surprised if Adobe had a heads-up if not
actual dev kits even before Apple publicly announced their Intel transition).

And let's not forget all the fuss Adobe made when the rest of the world was
ready for Flash to die. This company has a history of being very defensive
about their technical debt.

------
clairity
apple is moving on from intel because intel burned them badly with 10nm
process chips. those were supposed to be out 5 years ago, when apple was
readying the current design generation of macbook pros. apple finally had to
give up hope and release the machine with hotter and less performant chips
than they thought they’d be launching with.

that was the point that apple realized intel had become incapable of leading
the industry any longer and started looking beyond intel.

~~~
kitsunesoba
There's some parallels with IBM dropping the ball on PowerPC, driving Apple to
jump to Intel. The situation hasn't gotten quite as bad as it was with
PowerPC, but Apple has seen this all before and wants to make the leap before
it gets that bad, or at the very least open up an escape hatch or two (given
Apple's relationship with AMD for graphics, I would be shocked if they haven't
also talked about Ryzen in high end Macs).

------
sarah180
It could happen, but I suspect this is a negotiating position more than a real
desire to leave behind x86 in favor of Apple's ARM architecture chips. It
makes more sense for them to improve the iPad Pro than to drop software
compatibility across the MacBook lines.

~~~
FreeFull
Well, this wouldn't be the first time they've switched architectures. Before,
it was PowerPC to x86, back around 2006.

~~~
city41
And before that, Motorola 68k.

~~~
monocasa
For each of those there was a clear perf advantage on the transition though.

~~~
jkestner
1\. We haven’t yet seen what Apple's desktop-class chip can do. 2\.
Performance per watt is critical. Apple moved to Intel in large part because
PowerPC couldn’t get this down, and one of the first two Intel Macs introduced
was the MacBook Pro.

------
alasdair_
I was at Sun around 2002 or so, when the writing was on the wall about SPARC
perhaps not being the best long-term plan and various x86 projects starting.

I hope Apple learns from Sun's mistakes.

Also, somewhat related: does anyone remember Transmeta? They were about a
decade too early but their ideas on low-power, low-heat x86-compatible mobile-
friendly processors were pretty cool.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transmeta)

~~~
FullyFunctional
Oranges and, eh, pears.

Sun never had the volume Apple does. SPARC was far from competitive with x86
in its later days, unlike Apple's A-series chips.

Transmeta? I was there from ~2001 until we closed the doors. What some people
still don't understand was that Transmeta's failure was a business failure,
not a technical one. When Crusoe launched it had greater power efficiency than
Intel's chips. Intel has _officially_ credited Transmeta with kickstarting
Intel's focus on power. Execution and business failure cost Transmeta to slip
more than a year at which point opportunity and customer goodwill had sailed.
Someone really should write a book about all the drama.

~~~
sitkack
Maybe that person is you?

What do you think about wasm?

~~~
FullyFunctional
No I'm not a writer and I don't have nearly the insights needed. I'd read it
though.

I have been around compiler internal formats and "bytecode" representations
since the mid 80es. WASM is simply brilliant for what is designed for. I'm
particularly in love with the structured control flow (key for enabling 1-pass
translation). I used a block structure IR a compiler IR in the mid-90es.
(EDIT: am I being trolled?)

~~~
sitkack
Trolled, no. :)

I think wasm will be the portable bytecode we have all been promised. It will
literally run our flying cars.

It also melts away the need for an MMU and because of that, the operating
system. Requiring an OS, kernel/user code is no longer referentialy
transparent, but with wasm, you can basically have an infinite number of
hypervisors.

~~~
FullyFunctional
I'm carefully optimistic that WASM could point a path out of our legacy. It
has a lot of potential and opens up new possibilities, so please use it and
contribute improvements :)

------
dschuessler
> "As investment and development dollars continue flowing into the dominant
> mobile platforms — Android and iOS — it’s logical to expect that every
> useful desktop application that hasn’t yet been adapted to them already is
> on its way there."

I'm unsure whether some classes of desktop applications can ever be as useful
on mobile platforms as they are on the desktop. I'm thinking of applications
that legitimately need a lot of screen estate to stay useful like digital
audio workstations or IDEs with extensive debugging support.

I contend that useful desktop applications are sometimes useful precisely
because they run on a desktop.

~~~
alasdair_
If they make a 16 inch iPad Pro with enough connectors to drive multiple
external displays, I'm not sure there would be much of a difference.

------
xoa
I'm honestly somewhat surprised in all these discussions that one word hasn't
come up a lot more frequently, more so as the years go by: _patents_. Patents
under the current regime last 20 years. AMD64 was a 1999 announcement and spec
was out in 2000 IIRC, 1st implementation (Opteron?) was like 2003, Conroe was
2006. And chip designs are done years before mass fabbing too.

All of which means that, starting this year and definitely in the next few
years all possible patents on the core x86-64 standard will expire, with each
additional year bringing a few extra extensions. As far as what Apple
_requires_ to run historic macOS code, they clearly have not built a
dependence on every cutting edge new instruction. They officially supported
2010 Mac Pros (which were on the Westmere chips) until last year, and 10.15
can still be made to run on them.

Ever since Apple giving up on Intel chips has been discussed one general
assumption/objection that I have always seen essentially assumed is that it
also means abandoning x86 too, and in turn an enormous amount of macOS
software, compatibility, etc. But need that actually be the case? x86-64 going
patent free for all the essential parts opens up a lot of options for a lot of
players. Maybe I've missed a lot of discussion (and if so I'd love to be
directed to it) but so far I really haven't seen it considered much. 20 years
is a long time in tech, but it's not forever. Without IP holding them back,
need Apple ever give it up? They can focus on ARM, but a high performance
hardware/software translation layer would certainly change the math around a
transition wouldn't it?

~~~
wtallis
I think the big problem here is that code which really needs to be run on
native x86-64 hardware rather than through emulation/dynamic translation is
likely to also be code that uses newer instruction set extensions that Apple
would have to license.

------
sitkack
Having a single vendor for the most important, developer exposed component in
your system is very very risky.

~~~
greendave
Seems that'd be an argument for x86, not against it. Especially now when AMD
is quite competitive.

> starting sometime around 2020

That prediction hasn't proven wrong yet, but it's looking increasingly
unlikely. If the Mac were a bigger part of their revenues, they'd probably be
further along in the transition though.

~~~
sitkack
If I were AMD, I'd court Apple with a bespoke part just like they do for all
the consoles.

~~~
m463
AMD already does that with apple. their mac pro gpus (current and 2013) seem
to be special designs.

~~~
sitkack
Already does but has are totally different. AMD could be ideally suited to
ship an X86/ARM hybrid, run stuff on say 8 cores of ARM and say 2 cores of X86
for stuff that has compat problems.

AMD already has ARM server experience with the [https://www.amd.com/en/amd-
opteron-a1100](https://www.amd.com/en/amd-opteron-a1100)

------
rsynnott
Case in point; the chart in the article shows Ice Lake coming out in 2018.
It's _still_ barely out.

------
dathinab
My guess is that there is a high chance that Apple will ship ARM laptops (air)
running iOS, just potentially a modified version of it.

Then they will slowly deprecate MacOS, but only after they made sure that
development of software can be done one the modified version of iOS.

Through that's just a wild guess.

~~~
Spartan-S63
Given their penchant for keeping their touch interfaces (and software)
separate from their non-touch, I'd imagine you'd get a full-fat macOS compiled
for ARM. At this point, I'm sure they have internal builds of macOS on ARM
that they've been toying with for years.

It just doesn't make sense to adapt iPadOS even more to a MacBook Air computer
if they're not going to include a touchscreen. With them holding out as long
as they have on touchscreens, I can't imagine them reversing course.

------
CyanLite2
Intel is dying under the weight of its own technical debt. AMD will eventually
have this problem too as ARM catches up.

Meanwhile, it's 2020 and and x86 instruction sets upgrades are infrequent
compared to ARM. And x86 CPUs still are required to support 16-bit devices
from 35 years ago.

~~~
throwaway2048
Intel (and AMD's) problems have nothing to do with any supposed "technical
debt" imposed by x86.

Also, the x86 instruction set gets upgraded with practically every single
generation of Intel and AMD processor.

~~~
bcatanzaro
ARM is very old as well and has plenty of technical debt.

RISCV, on the other hand...

~~~
mikece
What do you suppose the chances are of Apple compiling/running iOS and macOC
on RISCV?

~~~
dathinab
Closer to zero, it's an open architecture something the king of walled gardens
wouldn't touch from a mile away. ;=)

Jokes aside the real reason why it's extremely unlikely is that they put a lot
of money into ARM and they simply have no reason to switch to it. For this to
happen ARM would need to do something like massively increase the price of
their IP licenses, or simila. Which won't happen.

------
0xy
Obviously we'll be waiting a while before ARM hits high-end MacBook Pro and
Mac Pro machines, what are the odds that Apple would retool to support AMD
chips in that time?

I would love an AMD MBP. Intel's chips have rapidly diminishing value for
pretty much all use cases and AMD is firing on all cylinders with Dr Lisa Su.

~~~
artificial
I'd like to see AMD as well, Ryzen is awesome bang for the buck. How would
these perform in a laptop though since even the MacBook Air has overheating
issues.

------
mikece
"Because Intel isn't moving anywhere..." reminds me of the rationale of why
they dumped POWER processors 15(?) years ago.

~~~
mschuster91
Apple could just go for AMD, they have a _really_ decent offering these days.
Next to zero cost for external vendors as both are functionally equal, only a
bit of cost for them to re-design their PCBs...

------
abinaya_rl
I would love an ARM based MacBook Air but for the Mac book pro's I would like
to prefer the Intel one.

------
pmarreck
Ryzen Threadripper is the Intel wake-up call, if ARM wasn't already

~~~
Synaesthesia
Meanwhile Intel's sitting with record revenues & profits. Like they haven't
had wake-up calls in their history ...

~~~
scarface74
RIMs most profitable year was in 2010. Three years after the iPhone camera
out. Profits are a lagging indicator.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Alright, but Intel isn’t exactly RIM, they can adapt. They’ve been around for
quite a while now! I obviously applaud the competition, both from AMD and ARM

~~~
rleigh
Can they adapt in time? Being "around for a while" means nothing. There are
thousands of big-name businesses that fail all the time after being in
business for decades, or even centuries. As they say, past performance is not
an indicator of future success...

~~~
scarface74
I couldn’t find any numbers for the server market, but Apple alone sells more
products based on their chip design than all of the personal computers sold
worldwide.

Intel has already lost the mobile market, threw the towel in on the cellular
chip market and sold the division to Apple, lost the console market to AMD,
and the worlds largest cloud provider AWS has started selling access to both
AMD and ARM servers at a much cheaper cost/cpu rate.

The education market is rapidly moving to ARM based Chromebooks.

------
cosmotic
Apple's abandonment of <Whatever they replace Intel chips with> is inevitable

