

Apple could adopt ARM for laptops, but why would it? - Osiris
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/05/apple-could-adopt-arm-for-laptops-but-why-would-it.ars

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fuzionmonkey
This is surprising considering the good relationship between Apple and Intel.

A couple of recent examples are Thunderbolt and the unreleased Z68 chipset
that is in the newest iMacs.

I really doubt this will happen anywhere in the near future simply because ARM
chips don't have good performance compared to x86 chips. Most people would be
unwilling to accept a performance downgrade.

I could see the MacBook Air line and other consumer products going in that
direction, but certainly not the MacBook Pros or the Mac Pro desktop for that
matter. These products are targeted towards serious professionals who need
performance. The notion of ARM chips in a workstation computer is laughable
for the near future.

There's pretty much zero chance ARM will ever reach performance parity with
x86. Not to mention Intel's near two year process technology lead over
everyone else.

The only scenario I see something like this happening is far in the future,
when everything transitions towards the cloud and thin clients. But for now,
we need real computers with real performance.

~~~
yason
_ARM chips don't have good performance compared to x86 chips. Most people
would be unwilling to accept a performance downgrade_

I'm not so sure about that.

Excluding gamers and power users, I'd say that in the last 5-10 years, most
people haven't even had a clue about how the performance of their personal
computer will compare. Everything's just "fast enough" for most people.

Performance increases, if any, are more likely to be attributed to Windows
reinstallations or the fresh setup in a new computer rather than the CPU
power. Installing more memory and better hard drives have more to do with the
snappiness of a personal computer than the CPU.

In fact, heck, I'm a programmer and the last time I think I cared about the
processor speed was in the turn of the 2000's. I do notice CPU performance
when compiling big codebases but compared to hours of turnaround time in the
90's any messages from the compilation units have generally just been
swooshing by at an unprecedented pace during the last decade.

I would notice an ARM CPU on my main development laptop but I could probably
live with that easily, especially given the better battery life and decreased
heat production of an ARM chip.

Anyone else from office workers to my parents probably would never guess if
it's ARM or x86, even if the former was 1GHz and the latter was 3GHz.

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daimyoyo
The most logical thing for Apple to do if they were to decide to switch to ARM
would be to use it in the MacBook air only. People buy iPads and MacBook Airs
to play with. People generally buy MacBook Pros, iMacs, and MacPros for work(I
did.) The fact is that ARM chips are not cut out to handle the demands of
professional users and won't be for the foreseeable future. Especially now
that Intel has announced tri-gate. Finally, why would Apple switch when they
are placing a major bet on Thunderbolt? It seems unlikely or more accurately
unwise for them to switch to AMD without a tremendously compelling reason. And
no, A15 isn't enough.

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meric
Still waiting. <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693>

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hedgehog
Depending whose estimates you believe an A5 costs Apple about $14 and a ULV i5
will cost them about $225. One could imagine that a $30 part in a couple
generations would be fast enough for a consumer notebook that didn't need x86
virtualization. $200 savings on cost = $286 off retail if they want gross
margins at 30%.

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kux
This rumor was first addressed here:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2519858>

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sliverstorm
Just a few days ago I was reading about how Intel might start making ARM
chips. 2 + 2 = ...?

Biggest reason the Apple-ARM rumor is not entirely infeasible to me is Apple
has never been performance-first, and I could see them taking a performance
hit for aesthetic or form gains.

~~~
kux
one of the biggest reasons Apple would switch to ARM for laptop-like products
is to reduce their dependence on Intel's effective monopoly!

~~~
sliverstorm
Well, they could certainly switch _using_ intel ARM chips. Eases the
transition (maybe?) and once everything is on ARM they can switch to another
manufacturer anytime.

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noelchurchill
OSX and iOS are merging. Think touch screen macbook air.

~~~
xorglorb
iPad?

~~~
noelchurchill
No. Think about it. For example, even if you could make an iOS app on an iPad
you wouldn't want to. There are legitimate reasons for wanting a keyboard and
trackpad. iOS is the future of Apple and they want all those iOS apps to be
available on all mac computers too, so they're going to continue to move that
iOS to all their machines, including ones with keyboards and trackpads.

------
thought_alarm
An answer to a question that no one asked.

~~~
adbge
Did you even read _the first sentence of the article?_ It links to the recent
discussion about Apple moving to ARM hardware:
[http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-
la...](http://semiaccurate.com/2011/05/05/apple-dumps-intel-from-laptop-
lines/)

~~~
thought_alarm
I did. It's a discussion that no reasonable person would take seriously. Where
is the rationale for moving Mac to ARM? It's nowhere.

~~~
phamilton
Because the underpowered macbook air has demonstrated that "Good enough"
performance can be greatly outweighed by ultra portable, power efficient
devices.

Cutting costs, increasing power efficiency, and decreasing physical size are
all good ideas in my book.

It's a new world out there. People are finally expecting software to run
faster while requiring less. Each version of Android has noticeable speedups
on identical hardware. Snow Leopard freed up 6GB of storage when upgrading
from Leopard. Inefficient software no longer buoys hardware sales. For ultra
portable devices, in which category I would put many laptop lines, power and
size are all that really matter. Granted, netbooks suck, but a device that's
"good enough" speed-wise is fine for such requirements.

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jinushaun
Because Apple has always sold computers as lifestyle appliances, instead of
complex work machines like the PC industry. Apple's target markst doesn't open
up their box and upgrade their computer. They dont care about customisation
and plugins because they dont upgrade their toaster or microwave--they use it
as is. Going ARM on their laptop plus making MacOS more like iOS is all part
of this grand vision.

~~~
0x1337
Now, this vision of turning computers into toasters is exactly the reason why
I think Apple is evil.

~~~
jinushaun
Apple's vision of turning computers into toasters is _exactly_ the reason why
I switched _to_ a Mac. I'm too old to deal with maintaining a PC. Just give me
a box and let me do my work. For most of the objects that I interact with on a
daily basis, I don't care how it works or whether I can "hack" or upgrade it.
I just care that it works and gets out of my way when I don't need it any
more.

The only notable exception that I can think of right now is a car. But as for
computers, that's very much an appliance in my eyes, despite being a developer
and coding on Linux and Windows all day at work.

