
iMac Pro Appears to Include A10 Fusion Chip for Always-On ‘Hey Siri’ - cybermancy
https://www.macrumors.com/2017/11/19/imac-pro-a10-chip-hey-siri/
======
minimaxir
Please stop saying that Apple is secretly recording your conversations for
nefarious purposes with Hey Siri. It’s been around for 2 years and there has
been nothing world-ending found about the feature.

A reminder about how Hey Siri privacy works:
[https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-
qu...](https://techcrunch.com/2015/09/11/apple-addresses-privacy-questions-
about-hey-siri-and-live-photo-features/)

> In no case is the device recording what the user says or sending that
> information to Apple before the feature is triggered,” says Apple.

> Instead, audio from the microphone is continuously compared against the
> model, or pattern, of your personal way of saying ‘Hey Siri’ that you
> recorded during setup of the feature. Hey Siri requires a match to both the
> ‘general’ Hey Siri model (how your iPhone thinks the words sound) and the
> ‘personalized’ model of how you say it. This is to prevent other people’s
> voices from triggering your phone’s Hey Siri feature by accident.

> Until that match happens, no audio is ever sent off of your iPhone. All of
> that listening and processing happens locally.

~~~
Feniks
Well I'm not an idiot. Things like Siri do not exist to help me or improve my
life like the marketing and Apple fans proclaim.

It exists to sell me shit and make people money.

Not nefarious, I accept capitalism. But at least let me turn it off.

~~~
ggreer
You can turn it off by going to Settings -> Siri & Search -> Listen for "Hey
Siri".

It's not silently enabled by default. You choose on or off when setting up the
device.

~~~
Feniks
Yeah I'm sure it will be just as easy as it was on win10 ;)

~~~
ggreer
I'm not sure what you're getting at. Neither "Hey Siri" nor Siri itself is
enabled by default. It takes 3 seconds to disable if you ever change your
mind. To imply otherwise is either ignorant or disingenuous.

~~~
Feniks
We'll see how deeply embedded it is in the OS. Disabling Cortana didn't shut
down Cortana.

I'm also looking forward to packet inspection.

------
013a
This is huge. While it starts with just powering things like boot security and
Hey Siri, I guarantee you this is the first step toward Apple getting rid of
Intel on the Mac.

How much longer before they release MB/MBPs with the same chip, doing the same
thing? How much longer after that before we see SDKs released for writings
apps that run on Mac, but are completely executed within the ARM processor? I
think this is coming far sooner than many people think.

~~~
zitterbewegung
Here is what I think will occur : New Macbook Pro (not a refresh) will
probably have this chip in but it will be probably only be used initially for
iOS emulator for developers. The next release of macOS will probably have iOS
apps that you can run on a mac. Then they will replace the Macbook Air line in
to a Macbook Arm as a new product launch at the beginning of 2019.

~~~
danpalmer
> it will be probably only be used initially for iOS emulator for developers

This is quite a large technical undertaking, with a very small pay-off given
the tiny percentage of users who develop on their Mac for iOS devices. I can't
see this being something that happens until x86 CPUs have been removed
entirely.

~~~
mtgx
At the rate Apple is increasing its iPhone SKUs every year, it won't be long
until all iOS app companies will need to purchase like 20 different-generation
iPhones. I think they'll need the emulator eventually.

~~~
dogma1138
Not sure why is this being downvoted. Apple is currently selling 8 models
across 4 lines (6s, 7, 8, X and SE), and the iPhone 6 line is still being sold
by carriers. This is pretty much the first time when 8 primary models are
available from Apple + at least 2 models are still being sold.

If the model trend continues to grow as it has been since the iPhone 6, there
might be actually a need for device model emulation for development...

------
cybermancy
Will be interesting to see if native iOS apps will be able to run for
development or regular use. This is a good sign for the convergence of the Mac
and "i" products.

For fun here's the "transitions" talk Steve Jobs gave announcing the switch
from PowerPC to Intel processors.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdTqnYnFyg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghdTqnYnFyg)

~~~
thought_alarm
Every iOS app already runs natively on Intel. Adding an ARM co-processor to
the Mac doesn't change that situation.

~~~
umanwizard
It's possible to compile iOS apps for x86 if you have the source, but this x86
version is not included in what's shipped to the app store.

------
internet2000
Having an embedded iOS computer take over most "firmware" features would
definitely simplify things for Apple. The strings found that hint at the A10
being in charge make it sound like this could possibly even solve the Intel ME
issues, if the iOS part absorbs roles traditionally given to the Intel
chipset.

------
GeekyBear
Steven Sinofsky had an interesting tweetstorm throwing a bit of cold water on
the notion that this was a sign that Macs were moving to ARM.

[https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/932116692620079104](https://twitter.com/stevesi/status/932116692620079104)

~~~
runeks
> 12/ Or do you allow cross-compilation? Then the access to underlying system
> undermines "iOS" walled approach. Only "certified apps" isn't so interesting
> to most people.

I don't get this point. How does ARM translate to "walled garden"? I see no
reason to tie ARM and the walled garden-approach together, just because that's
the way it is on mobile. Non-certified apps would work just fine on OSX if the
developers build for ARM.

Assumption 1: Most interesting OSX apps are active ones, where the authors
have the source code, and are thus able to cross-compile and publish ARM
binaries.

Assumption 2: Due to volume (and using an indenpendent foundry) the A11 chip
is at least 10x cheaper than an Intel CPU.

I'd _love_ to see a Macbook with 10xA11s, for a total of 20 high-performance
cores, even if it can only run non-legacy apps ("legacy" meaning apps that
depend on x86 code somehow).

Does anyone know how much space the four inefficient cores on the A11 take up?
Perhaps the A11 volume is just so large that Apple can spit them out at a cost
so low that it doesn't matter if four of the cores remain unused? I don't
think they'd be of much use in a Macbook -- at least not the 40 of them that
would be available in a 10xA11 setup.

~~~
photojosh
> Does anyone know how much space the four inefficient cores on the A11 take
> up?

Have a look at the die photo at [0]. Not much.

[0]: [http://techinsights.com/about-
techinsights/overview/blog/app...](http://techinsights.com/about-
techinsights/overview/blog/apple-iphone-8-teardown/)

------
pornel
I wonder if macOS will be able to run userspace code on this. Apple's ARM
chips are pretty fast, so this could be extra 50% of computing power for the
iMac.

From software side they've already done similar things in the past (fat
binaries, Rosetta).

~~~
Someone
This new iMac pro, in its ‘low end’ configuration, has 8 cores
([https://www.apple.com/lae/imac-pro/specs/](https://www.apple.com/lae/imac-
pro/specs/)), possibly of the new “Purley” kind
([http://bgr.com/2017/07/12/imac-pro-2017-specs-intel-xeon-
pur...](http://bgr.com/2017/07/12/imac-pro-2017-specs-intel-xeon-purley-
chip/))

A single A10 will not add 50% of computing power, even ignoring its GPU.

~~~
runeks
True, but the A10 is much cheaper than any Intel CPU, so Apple could develop a
multi-socket ARM motherboard to increase the number of ARM cores, to make
performance compatible with Intel's (perhaps at lower cost, since Apple can
get cheap A11s using the high volume of iPhone 8/X).

Also, according to Geekbench, the single-thread performance of the 2.4 GHz A11
is 70%[1] of the 3.7 GHz i7-8700K. I'm guessing Apple could bring the A11 even
closer to the i7 by increasing the clock frequency, which may not make sense
for mobile devices (because of disproportionally higher power consumption).

So, again according to the Geekbench figures, four A11s (at mobile clock
frequency) is 50% faster than a 6-core i7-8700K[1].

[1]
[https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52](https://browser.geekbench.com/ios_devices/52)
[https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2062](https://browser.geekbench.com/processors/2062)

------
izacus
I'm worried this is going to be some kind of TouchBar-and-Siri type useless
gimmick instead of something that genuinely makes this a good useful machine.

------
bitL
The last thing I want is to talk to my turned off computer... Comedy sketches
of the past are becoming reality, and will be propelled by "Apple can't do no
wrong" crowd.

------
egypturnash
I wonder if it'll shut off if, like me, you turn off Siri.

I'm glad they're trying this first in Macs that're expected to always be
plugged in, rather than laptops.

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alphabettsy
Could handle Face ID, etc. Possibly offload video encoding/transcoding? The
A10 can handle 4K HEVC. Not sure what the point would be with dedicated
graphics doing the same.

~~~
dzhiurgis
Article mentions secure enclave so FaceID is very likely. It doesn’t make much
ergonomic sense to put fingerprint reader like you do on macbook.

~~~
jpalomaki
External keyboard with touchbar and touchid might be interesting (but hard to
make wireless, unless with some cool new wireless charging mechanism).

------
JustSomeNobody
Makes perfect sense for them to do this for Siri and Security. Otherwise
they'd end up with two separate implementations.

------
nerdponx
Crazy how HN flips out over the Intel ME then turns around and applauds this.

~~~
misnome
Strange, I didn't see in the article any suggestions that this chip had full
access to all data flowing throughout the computer. Almost as though it's not
at all similar in any way to the Intel ME discussions.

------
jbverschoor
Apple did it before and they will succeed again. Fat binaries.

------
erikj
Always-on Siri is a very creepy feature, and who even needs it in a "Pro"
workstation?

------
danjoc
>the chip will enable support for "Hey Siri" functionality, potentially even
when the iMac Pro is turned off.

Intel ME wasn't bad enough... so Apple builds a second backdoor you can't
remove, with the explicit purpose of bugging your room?

No thanks.

~~~
holydude
This is such a ridiculous statement...literally anything could be a backdoor
why would it be one of the most expensive components ?

------
gallerdude
Mac development has lost some momentum, so maybe unique hardware help push
things forward. On the other hand, the ever-controversial touchbar was unique
hardware.

