
Apple Said to Be Exploring Switch From Intel Chips for the Mac - azylman
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/apple-said-to-be-exploring-switch-from-intel-chips-for-the-mac.html
======
azylman
Sorry, I didn't link to the source originally and it looks like I can't change
the URL, but here's the (longer, more interesting) Bloomberg article:
[http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/apple-said-to-be-
ex...](http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-05/apple-said-to-be-exploring-
switch-from-intel-chips-for-the-mac.html)

------
0x0
Curiously, I would almost have believed Microsoft to have been the first to
make a move like this. They have already been preparing their developer
ecosystem for an architecture independent target for years with .NET and
CLR/MSIL. As more software is developed in C#, switching CPU architecture is
just a matter of supplying a new .NET VM bundled with the OS, and all your
legacy software should continue to run - at full speed, even. (Incredibly,
they decided that their ARM version of Windows 8 should be called "Windows RT"
and be rather limited! What a missed opportunity!)

Meanwhile, Apple's developer tools are still churning out x86, x86_64, and/or
arm assembly from Objective-C, so all existing software would at the very
least need a recompile (hope your vendor is still around and has written
portable code!) Or they could do another Rosetta, translating x86_64 to ARM.
Doesn't sound like an efficient solution, though. And after a few years they'd
drop the emulator from the OS anyways :P

~~~
glhaynes
I might be running more .NET software than I realize, but it seems to me that
.NET isn't anywhere _close_ to becoming the majority "instruction set" of
software shipped on Windows.

~~~
0x0
You can't blame them for lack of trying to push it though, no? :)

~~~
glhaynes
Agreed. Although Office staying Win32 sure doesn't send the signal to others
that its worth the effort to move software like that to .NET. Anyway, I'm
always surprised how few things seem to be .NET, here nearly 11 years after it
was introduced.

------
Osmium
It seems risky to invest so much in your own chip design without owning a fab
too. If they really want to go down this route, I'd expect a purchase of TSMC
or similar. And you're not going to stay competitive for long unless you
invest heavily, at least on the scale Intel is. Apple users have watched their
computers slip behind before with PowerPC, I'm not sure if they'd have the
patience to see that happen again.

~~~
Someone
A problem with that approach is that owning a top-of-the-line fab is expensive
because you have to buy a new one every few years. Every next generation is
more expensive than the one before it.

I would think owning a fab just for the production of chips used in Apple
products would be too expensive to consider. Owning a fab and selling chips to
others, to me, looks to go way too much against Apple's culture.

 _"Apple users have watched their computers slip behind before with PowerPC"_

I think that is exactly why Apple has a _backup_ plan to move to ARM. If
Microsoft is successful at moving to ARM with Surface, they will have to
follow.

~~~
Osmium
Putting aside the fact that the fab takes a healthy chunk of profit, the
question is one of capacity. A fab is under no obligation to provide Apple
with chips, and given a choice between one big contract with Apple or
diversifying and having a dozen smaller contracts with other manufacturers and
I know what I'd pick.

The problem then, for Apple, is that they can't just turn around and get their
chips made somewhere else. There just aren't enough fabs in the world to
produce them at the quantity Apple needs, especially using latest-generation
processes.

~~~
Someone
Which one would you pick? The one with AAA rating that pays half up front that
pays well for state of the art stuff, or the dozen smaller ones that seem more
concerned about your pricing than about the quality of your products? Yes, I
probably am exaggerating, but I do not think the choice is as clearcut as you
indicate. There is risk in taking on a customer that is larger than you, but
there also is a lot of potential profit there.

------
grainawi
For Apple, leaking news like this makes sense for a few key reasons:

1) They obviously are eager to take another step towards complete vertical
integration, giving them even greater profit margins 2) Apple made it known
wanted to make their Macbook pros as thin as their Macbook airs earlier this
year, but the (relatively) high TDP of intel's mobile chips would've scorched
users laps. 3) It's an obvious message(and challenge) to intel that they have
to do even better. Apple will likely continue their growth to the largest PC
maker (if they aren't already) and Intel needs their business. They're giving
Intel 5 years to show them something special.

------
dlevine
There is no question in my mind that Apple will gradually switch from Intel to
ARM. I don't think it will happen until 2014, when the first 64-bit ARM
designs come out. At the current rate of improvement, ARM processors in two
years will offer roughly 4X what today's chips offer (with a better power
consumption profile than current low-end Intel designs). By that point, ARM
performance will probably be "good enough" for lower-end machines (such as the
MBA) to use ARM rather than Intel.

I also think it's possible that iOS will eventually become the successor to
Mac OSX.

~~~
protomyth
One thing in favor of the move is customization. Intel has done an amazing job
of removing the customization options from the x86 eco-system. No NVIDIA
chipsets and no hooking into the faster bus on Intel motherboards. This has to
be a problem for a company like Apple trying to build something non-stock.

Also, I cannot imagine the whole "Intel paying people to clone the MacBook
Air" was well received in Cupertino.

------
Osmium
Betting against Intel in the long term doesn't seem to be a good idea. That
said, I'm sure Apple's got their eye on the world's first 24-hour laptop, and
I'm sure ARM could help them get there.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Intel hasn't been doing to hot lately; wall street is definitely betting
against them now, and I think they are taking a long term outlook because
Intel still has good profits.

What makes you think Intel will eventually stop the slide and get its mojo
back?

~~~
Osmium
Just sheer force of will. Intel has the engineering talent, the experience,
the motivation and the capital. If they can't do it, who can? Apple has a lot
to prove here, and so far all they've achieved is purchasing a few smaller
chip design firms and managing to adapt existing ARM cores for their own SoCs.
They have a long way to go to be able to be competitive in this area. The one
thing going for them is that they have the capital to burn, and I can't think
of a better way to use it.

~~~
chucknelson
Note that as of the A6/X, they have now designed their _own_ ARM instruction
set cores (as opposed to using ARM-designed cores).

~~~
Osmium
Ah, I wasn't aware of this, thanks. I thought they were still packaging ARM-
designed cores. For anyone else who'd missed it, here's a good article on it
on Anandtech: <http://www.anandtech.com/show/6330/the-iphone-5-review/5>

------
absherwin
There's no need to assume that a switch for some Macs will be a switch for all
Macs. Multi-architecture binaries were standard for several years during the
x86 transition. As they move to an App-Store model, it will be relatively
simple to download the right binary based on architecture. Signed binaries
could be required to be multiplatform. The minority of users who want to
install software that's not Apple-approved will have to deal with potentially
higher amounts of complexity.

------
kirian
See this report on Apple's CapEx spending in the last quarter:
<http://www.asymco.com/2012/10/31/hey-big-spender/>

It's seen a big spike up and is ~ 30% more than Intel's $2.6 billion/quarter.
And it spent three times in Q3 than Google, 4.8x Microsoft and 3.8x Amazon.

Speculation in the comments are that Apple is paying an as yet unnamed firm,
probably TSMC, to build/tool/operate one or several ARM SoC fabs.

------
nachteilig
I know things have changed a lot since the PPC days, but it seems like this
might not be the best idea, and that Apple's history might point this out.

I can see it for iOS devices, but for a legacy computer part of what's
attractive to me about Macs is the base compatibility with commodity PC
hardware. Of course, I also am not the hugest fan of the move toward merging
iOS features into the desktop OS, so maybe I'm just being old fashioned about
this.

------
beagle3
My speculation (completely not based on any knowledge - just what I would have
done had I been in Apple's place)

1\. Buy AMD (or Cyrix or one of the other companies that has a working
AMD64/x86 chip)

2\. Build a laptop that has both an acceptably strong AMD64 for the time, and
a ridiculously strong (but scalable) ARM - say, a 16-core or 64-core 64-bit
ARM core, which can scale its power.

3\. Politely ask app developers to ship 3-arch fat binaries:
AMD64+ARM64+LLVMIR (politely ask might mean refuse in the Mac app store
otherwise). Well, the first two are actually optional, but recommended. Or the
last one is optional but recommended.

4\. Introduce a laptop with an OLED/color eInk (or other very low power)
display, which can run either ARM64 or AMD64 or both, and can scale the number
of cores. And an API that would let an app switch seamlessly between those
modes.

5\. Tell people "your laptop can do 24 arm-core-hours (so, 2 hours using 12
cores, or 24 hours using one core), or 6 amd-core-hours. You pick the
software, you choose.

6\. Watch as people (hopefully) prefer the amd64 mode thanks to its long life.

No company except Apple is in a position to pull such a thing. Maybe Apple
can't either - but if anyone can, it is Apple.

------
kylec
I could definitely see them going ARM in the MacBook Air line, but I think
they'll keep Intel for a while for their desktops (power usage isn't a
concern) and the MacBook Pro ("pro" users will need the extra power and
compatibility of the Intel chips, at least in the near term).

------
rhizome
Sounds like Apple and Intel are in the midst of renegotiating their
agreement(s).

------
dhawalhs
I don't think they are moving away from intel chips but doing something
similar to Microsoft's approach with the Surface/Surface Pro versions.

------
a_c_s
I'd be surprised if Apple hasn't been investigating alternatives to Intel
chips since the day they switched. Not necessarily out of any dislike for
Intel, (I think the switch has worked out quite well for Apple), but rather to
remain nimble and be able to jump ships if Intel ever ran aground like the
PowerPC consortium did.

------
kyriakos
realistically ARM currently lacks the raw power intel chips provide. you can
argue about battery life but most work is still done in offices where power
sockets are not an issue.

it might change in the future but.. i don't think arm will catch up with x86
for at least a couple of years - in the meantime intel won't sit around doing
nothing.

~~~
freehunter
Apple doesnt historically pander to the enterprise market. They're eyeing
their consumer laptops.

~~~
kyriakos
it was in the past appealing to creatives, designers, video producers, the
publishing industry etc I believe those are processor-intensive applications
that don't fall in the enterprise sector.

I understand even though apple tried to move out of the server market, every
creative company offices i have visited they mostly work with apple products.

------
tesmar2
I am wondering if Apple should not just go ahead and acquire AMD in order to
further vertical integration.

~~~
SeppoErviala
Using AMD/ATI would be a setback in terms of component quality and TDP.

~~~
tesmar2
With AMD jumping in the ARM game, I thought it might make sense.

------
Metrop0218
I wouldn't doubt it. I think that Apple's going to move to control the entire
stack from bottom to top.

~~~
kyriakos
ultimately apple doesn't want to be dependent on suppliers. I guess CPUs and
displays are the next obvious things. not necessarily a good thing - this will
lead to de-standardization of components, more undocumented hardware and
drivers.

------
alexkcd
Apple should migrate from x86 to LLVM IR. Then JIT down to native code upon
program installation. That way they can switch the underlying architecture as
much as they like.

I'm surprised they haven't adopted this scheme with iOS already when they
deprecated GCC.

~~~
tedunangst
Consider that having effectively banned jits from iOS, they have made the
binary translation problem much easier.

------
sjs382
I'd be surprised if they _weren't_ exploring it. But that doesn't mean they're
going to make the switch; it only means that they're keeping their options
open.

------
bitcartel
Wild speculation:

Compiling for Apple's custom chip would require using a proprietary version of
LLVM/Clang, and resulting binaries could only be distributed via the Mac App
Store.

~~~
wmf
It doesn't matter because they've already locked it down on the demand side.
You can distribute iOS apps anyway you want, but people won't be able to
install them.

~~~
bitcartel
Things are locked down on iOS but not (yet) on Mac OS X. My gut feeling is
that this trend will continue.

For example, APIs are already being leveraged. You can only use iCloud if your
Mac app is distributed through the App Store.

In the near future, Apple could switch Gatekeeper's default setting to Mac App
Store only, raising another barrier to independent vendors.

Moving to a new processor would provide Apple a great opportunity to round up
the laggards and force them into the App Store.

------
esolyt
"In fact, the sources said such a move was years away, potentially not
happening till 2017."

So this article is about something may or may not happen in 2007.

~~~
tedunangst
No, it's about something that may or may not happen in 2017.

~~~
esolyt
Sorry about that.

------
stesch
Guess I'll have to buy the White Album again …

Or something like that.

