
Apple: No Macintosh Forks. But the iPad... - evo_9
https://mondaynote.com/apple-no-macintosh-forks-but-the-ipad-78894ddfadfb
======
runjake
For some context: the author of this article, Jean-Louis Gassée, was a former
director at Apple, founded Be, Inc. and was chairman at PalmSource for a
while.

His background may help or hurt his viewpoint, depending on how you see
things.

I will say that I disagree with his points. And I'll also point out _that the
Mac ARM transition is happening right before our eyes with the T2 chip_ ,
which replaces a bunch of system components (memory, i/o, disk controllers,
etc) with an ARM-based platform.

Practically, the only thing that hasn't been replaced are the main CPU and the
GPU, but it's only a matter of time.

~~~
jart
Is the struggle for microprocessor supremacy still even relevant? I'd ask,
"who's going to build the best quantum processor?" rather than, "who's going
to dethrone x86?"

~~~
gridlockd
> Is the struggle for microprocessor supremacy still even relevant?

Absolutely. Today, it's not about performance, but about performance/watt.
Simply using a web browser is a huge power drain.

Even if that wasn't the case, getting rid of the "Intel dependency" and the
"x86 premium" would make sense from a business standpoint.

~~~
jart
x86 is a free/open isa. The patents are expired up to i486 and x86_64 patents
should expire soon. A guy from Oracle not too long ago implement i186 in
Verilog as a hobby project. At least we know that if Intel ever gets too
authoritarian, we can do that for i386.

------
Moto7451
I don’t think the argument holds very well. Apple has made three processor
architectural changes including one on the current OS. “Too complicated”
doesn’t really align with the execution history Apple has. The fat binary
support Apple has is a huge tool and the ability to add instructions and
optimizations to their chips to help with x86 emulation is a big deal.

I don’t know if Apple will ever actually do this, but it seems odd to suggest
it’s not feasible given past performance and their current technology
holdings.

~~~
mjg59
Apple has made two transitions while retaining compatibility, in one case with
emulation of the old architecture being around the speed of the previous (68k
to PPC) and in the other with emulation being faster than the previous
architecture (PPC to x86). There's no ARM that's fast enough to emulate an x86
in the same power envelope, so right now any transition would either require
all performance sensitive apps to be ported or would result in machines that
were slower for many tasks.

Bear in mind that both previous transitions were due to the processor line
Apple was using being effectively EOLed (explicitly in the case of 68k, more
implicitly in PPC - nobody was interested in making CPUs that had the
appropriate performance/power ratio for consumer machines). Apple is doing
great things with ARM, but they're not /that/ far ahead of the rest of the
industry that they can pull off a seamless transition in the near future.

~~~
ajconway
Apple sells iPad Pros which they call “computers”. Those are powerful devices,
but there is not much productivity software available, and UI is very
different from traditional desktop interfaces. Apple could offer an Air-class
machine powered by ARM with a familiar macOS, and most developers would be
able to support it in a matter of weeks, if not days.

~~~
scarface74
There is Microsoft Office and Adobe has previewed full Photoshop on it. What
other mainstream productivity software do most people need?

~~~
colejohnson66
Visual Studio?

~~~
scarface74
I did say “mainstream”. Despite the HN bubble, development is not in the
“mainstream”. Besides, personally, I can’t stand developing on just a laptop
screen. I need at least one external monitor and preferably two.

If I had to do a lot of development on the go, I would have invest in a
portable USB monitor or use my iPad as a second display.

------
flomo
My take on the iPad form-factor hasn't really changed since the introduction.
Its really great for certain casual use cases, but as soon as you sit down at
a desk to get some work done, oh god does this fucking suck. And the keyboard
cases actually make it worse because you delude yourself into thinking it
makes it better, when it does not.

So an iOS/iPadOS laptop with full KVM support always seemed like a no-brainer
in my mind. Or at least a much more obvious move than MacOS/ARM (which would
split a small ecosystem behind the only logic that "they did it before and it
worked out".) Plus 'the future' is obviously iOS.

~~~
brantonb
I love my iPad with the keyboard case. When I hook it up to an external
monitor and my Kinesis keyboard, it’s even better. I’m looking forward to
mouse support in iOS 13.

One of my favorite apps when it comes to the keyboard is Blink. It’s an
SSH/Mosh client with a limited local shell. I use it to build a Jekyll site on
an EC2 instance. Blink supports multi-monitor, so I can have different shells
on different screens.

Multi-window in iOS 13 is going to be another game changer. This is the best
device I’ve owned and I’m excited about what’s to come.

~~~
mehmetoguzderin
The new Safari in iPadOS makes it possible to use Code Server (Visual Studio
Code on browser) with keyboard. If you already spin an EC2 instance, it is
definitely worth a try. This also gives hope about the upcoming Visual Studio
Online and its compatibility with iPadOS.

------
ken
Every analysis I've read, including this one, assumes that Apple would start
at the bottom rather than the top, as they have with every other CPU
transition in the history of the company.

Is there something especially difficult about making a high-core-count CPU?
The A-series is already crushing single-threaded performance and they're
competitive with Intel desktop CPUs for some applications. Once you have a
high-performance CPU with multi-core capabilities, is there any reason you
can't just copy/paste cores?

~~~
_ph_
It isn't especially difficult, but is is expensive. The big challenge with CPU
design is to make up for the costs and for that you need numbers. In the
90ies, there were plenty of high-performance CPU designs, Alpha, Sparc, Mips.
They were alle killed by two mechanisms, that Intel had a lead in fab
technology and that Intel had much higher numbers, consequentely could gain
back much higher investments as the competitors could afford.

The big question wouldn't be whether Apple could make a high-performance ARM,
but if the financials play out for it. The Mac Pro numbers certainly wouldn't
pay for such a CPU development. This could change of course, if they would
bring back the Xserve in a modern incarnation or find some other uses for a
high-performance ARM cpu.

~~~
ken
> The Mac Pro numbers certainly wouldn't pay for such a CPU development.

Again, though, what exactly does "development" mean here? Apple is already
fabless. TSMC makes 32-core chips for AMD, so that scale is not new to them.

~~~
ksec
You will need to buy different set of tools to work and design for TSMC 's
node. And while it is still from TSMC, the node for Desktop ( High Performance
) will be different to Phone / Tablet ( Low Power ). The cost of designing and
testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion. For iPhone that is spread out over
200M unit over its life time, or roughly $5 per chip excluding the actual cost
of wafer.

For Mac you are looking at 25M unit per year, with TDP going from 15W to 250W.
Apple could follow the same path as AMD and make one die to fit all. But in
reality it is waste of engineering recourse and focus for little benefits.

~~~
ken
> the node for Desktop ( High Performance ) will be different to Phone /
> Tablet ( Low Power )

The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips. They've got
incredible single-core performance, great memory bandwidth, and solid 64-bit
and SIMD support. What specific feature of a "high performance" node would
they require that they aren't using for iPhones now? They've been pushing the
limits on allegedly "mobile"-oriented architectures for years.

Every time this comes up, I hear from the naysayers "Yes, Apple is great at
mobile, but desktop is a different game", but then also "Apple's mobile chips
are faster than many Intel desktop chips". The skeptics sound awfully similar
to those who said "Apple is great at iPods but smartphones are a completely
different game".

> The cost of designing and testing a 5nm chips is roughly a billion.

AFAICT, nobody in the world has a production 5nm chip yet. How can you put a
price on something that nobody has successfully produced yet?

If I were Apple and I were confident that just throwing $1B at it would solve
all the engineering problems, I would absolutely do it. $40 per Mac for the
best CPU (and independence from Intel) sounds like a steal.

~~~
ksec
>The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips.

In selected benchmarks. That is like saying the Qualcomm ARM Sever Chips are
already competitive with Intel Chips. But it is pretty close, at least to the
point for most consumer usage it doesn't matter.

>The iPhone CPUs are already competitive with Intel chips. >What specific
feature of a "high performance" node

At sub 10W ( The TDP for iPhone and iPad Pro ), not at 15W+ or 250W on the Mac
Pro. You will require different tools, nodes, design guidelines operating at
those TDP. No one is saying Apple cant do it, the question is if it make any
financial sense doing it.

>AFAICT, nobody in the world has a production 5nm chip yet. How can you put a
price on something that nobody has successfully produced yet?

[https://semiengineering.com/5nm-vs-3nm/](https://semiengineering.com/5nm-
vs-3nm/)

The lead time for designing a chip / SoC with new node is roughly 2-3 years.
Apple are already working ( finalising ) on 5nm SoC for next year, and they
already knew the basic costing, ( excluding yield issues ). 3nm Costing
Projection are also already known and are being worked on as we speak.

>If I were Apple and I were confident that just throwing $1B at it would solve
all the engineering problems, I would absolutely do it. $40 per Mac for the
best CPU (and independence from Intel) sounds like a steal.

Quoting myself _excluding the actual cost of wafer._ and yield. Apple would
have made the jump if it really only cost them $40.

------
dehrmann
ARM on the Macbook Pro would put a lot of software shops (I'm guessing tech
and design firms are the main purchasers of Macs) using Docker in an awkward
spot with their containers not running on dev machines.

~~~
eridius
Do these shops have to use the exact same container on their dev machine as
elsewhere? Can they not build an ARM flavor of their container? Same
Dockerfile but with an ARM base image instead of an x86_64 base image?

~~~
dehrmann
Generally no, but it's been convenient to have the architectures match up. It
minimizes surprises. Different architectures also make people ask if they
should switch to PCs.

------
ChuckMcM
I see a lot of Surface Pro in the iPad[1]. That isn't a bad thing, it is great
to have two design studios trying to out do each other. If you agree that
these devices should work better on ARM chips rather than x86 chips, then the
iPad has an advantage with an already ARM based ecosystem. Of course the
Surface R/T tried that too, and stumbled. But I wonder if Apple saw that as a
hint of where Microsoft might go.

I find it particularly interesting that at both companies these are the
products that have a license to kill sacred cows[2]. The Surface R/T was
"Windows on NOT Intel", the iPad has "stylus improved UI". Both of these were
antithetic to Gates and Jobs way of thinking.

Both products (and I've got several different generations of both) feel to me
like the "post PC" product. An application focused, battery operated, network
aware device. I am a bit surprised that Surface hasn't embraced cellular
connectivity as strongly as the iPad has, that is a key feature of "on the go"
computing.[3]

[1] And chuckled when the new ones had the pen attach with magnets.

[2] The colloquialism, "that is a sacred cow." meaning a feature or rule that
cannot be broken.

[3] Yeah, I know the 'tether it to your phone' mantra, I get that a lot, but
it simpler (lower friction) to have it built in.

~~~
wodenokoto
This trope about jobs needs to die.

He made fun of the idea of putting a color screen on the iPod and a year or so
later presented the iPod color.

Of course apple was gonna put a stylus on the iPad, with or without Jobs.

Apple might be content with asking users to buy third party hardware to draw
on Mac, but they aren’t stupid enough to say you need to buy a Citrix to draw
on your iPad.

~~~
mcintyre1994
I’m not sure you actually mean Citrix for that example, but I actually have a
mouse somewhere for iPad from when I was working for Citrix and they built an
iPad mouse that works with virtualised apps. I think Apple are even adding
official mouse support to iPad OS now too.

~~~
wodenokoto
Cintiq, by Wacom. Looked it up and I have been calling those screens the wrong
company name for years.

------
dmix
It’s amazing to think the iPhone launched without copy and paste and now it’s
a prominent feature on the iPadOS sales page.

I’m a bit happy we’re movinf back to just letting people do stuff and let the
developers figure out how to make it work.

~~~
ken
Every feature on the macOS sales page today is something that macOS shipped
without for almost 20 years (and Mac OS for almost 20 years before that).
That's what sales pages are for: they show off the new features.

Apple didn't withhold copy/paste out of spite. They were shipping a completely
new platform, and you can't do everything in 1.0.

For comparison, with the first version of the Macintosh system software,
copy/paste crashed 50% of the time:
[https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...](https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Cut,_Paste_and_Crash.txt)

------
jackvalentine
My prediction is an A-series Mac won’t start from the bottom up it’ll start
top down - beginning with a Mac Pro addin card.

~~~
OldHand2018
Perhaps like the "Math co-processor" in the 386 days?

Imagine a future generation T-series chip with the neural cores that the
A-series chips have. Accessible using the existing frameworks that you are
already using. Or adding GPU cores to the MacBook Pro lineup as a replacement
for the AMD GPUs that they have now.

And while they are doing that, they can release a Smart Keyboard for a future
iPad Pro that has a trackpad. That's got to be one of the least risky ways to
try out the iPad as a laptop replacement. If it's a flop, you're out the $150
or whatever it would cost but still have a perfectly good iPad that you keep
using as an iPad.

Apple is in the position to take a "lets see where this takes us" approach. As
long as they keep the OS and Frameworks from drifting apart, there are a lot
of nice things that could happen.

~~~
reaperducer
386? Where's the love for Intel's 8087?

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8087](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_8087)

~~~
NikkiA
Everyone with any sense was running Weitek back in those days.

------
walterbell
Apple would like to be less reliant on both Qualcomm (radio/modem) and Intel
(CPU). Qualcomm is ahead on 5G and Intel was behind on 5G and 10nm. Apple
needs TSMC's 5nm performance-per-watt for AR glasses and moving MacOS from x86
to Arm, and it carries keyboard debt into the post-Ive era.

    
    
      - Qualcomm settlement bridges the 5G modem gap
      - Intel modem acquihire rekindles dream of radio autonomy
      - Did Intel modem deal delay "x86-Arm" mobile Mac transition?
      - Can 16" Macbook + 2015 keyboard buy time for new designs?

------
techrich
He is right for right now, but the long game is the axx chip in most apple
products. The MacPro won’t have one, if it’s still around then. ipad pros will
get a dock much like today’s dell usb type c docks. you will connect up to
your screen while at your desk. do what you need to do with the keyboard and
mouse. Even have a vdi app for access to some corp windows only apps. Then
unplug it for meetings with note taking etc. It sounds like an interesting
future.

------
kristianp
I agree that Apple would prefer to use the ipad pro as a way to migrate users
from their intel machines. I bet there's more margin in an ipad pro than a
macbook pro.

------
BerislavLopac
I have realised a long ago that Apple has for a long time now been working
towards steering the Macintosh way from its open, Unix-based foundation.

I used to work with the old MacOS, long before OSX, and it was just the way
they wanted it: a closed platform with a nice (for the time) user interface
and giving Apple full control over what is being developed on it and how.

Dropping this platform for NeXTSTEP-based OS X was the right choice at the
time it was made, when they needed a more advanced platform, and they needed
it immediately. But the side effect was that it opened the Mac as a
development platform, and Apple has since been trying to close it back,
without affecting the existing users too hard.

The success of mobile/tablet market allowed them to build a new, closed
platform, with precisely the features described above. After MacBook Air was
first released I expected them to soon release an OSX-based tablet, but I have
soon realised that it is not going to happen: instead of pushing Mac to the
tablets, they will more and more push iOS to the Mac, until they have one
uniform platform that will make it nearly impossible to develop on except if
sanctioned by Apple.

~~~
jfkwingmsk
Which we’re going to see how that sits with antitrust law pretty soon.

~~~
scarface74
The same as “it sits” with console makers.....

------
kccqzy
It doesn't make much sense. The processor architecture should be an
implementation detail to a user. This has very little to do with product
lines.

~~~
dmix
We’re the only people who know what a T2 is too. I doubt that had big
marketing implications like they are trying to spin ‘Axx’. Absent some
geopolitical/supply chain risk.

------
lyime
I don’t believe Apple will transition away from x86 anytime soon but for
different reasons. They would abandon the pro market if it moved to arm. Most
x86 pro applications would have to be rewritten. What would be the incentive
for software makers?

Apple might very will be able to bring out a arm stack for consumer market but
there is no indication that they can compete with x86 pro or server market.

~~~
eridius
They did a migration like this once already for PPC -> Intel (twice if you
count 68k -> PPC).

~~~
armitron
PPC was niche compared to Intel. So they moved from a dying ecosystem to a
thriving one.

If they moved from AMD64 to ARM, they would be doing the opposite. AMD64 is
not going anywhere on the desktop and is by far the undisputed performance
king. Not to mention how many shops and pro end-users they would instantly
lose. The number of developers that run macOS and depend on AMD64 virtual
machines must be enormous. Given how much Microsoft is embracing Linux, it
would be commercial suicide for Apple to abandon the AMD64 platform since they
would be driving all these devs to their competition.

------
jillesvangurp
Couple of points here:

\- Apple is about to ship a new mac os that comes with improved support for
running ios/ipados applications as well as using an ipad as an extension of
your screen.

\- The reason for the Mac Pro and the Mac Book Pro to exist is to enable
professional artists, developers, and other people that need this kind of
hardware to do their thing. Mostly they use tools not developed by Apple. E.g.
Adobe is king for anything related to graphics. There are a bunch of third
party 3D tools out there. Same for video. Same for Audio. Porting all of that
to a new processor architecture will take a lot of time. It also has a severe
risk of alienating developers and users during the transition. E.g. Adobe took
their sweet time launching optimized versions of their tools for Intel ten
years ago and meanwhile some users moved to Windows.

\- Mac developers targeting intel macs (i.e. all existing macs), would
probably want to develop and test on the machines they are actually targeting.
Building cpu/gpu intensive x86 software on an ARM architecture with an X86
emulator makes no sense. You'd want the real thing. Xcode on arm would be a
hard sell (except for IOS developers).

\- A key money maker on IOS/IpadOS is the app store and the whole point of an
ipad is that all the software comes from there. The whole point of Mac OS is
that pro users get a lot of their software outside the app store.

\- VR/AR is slowly starting to happen and Apple has mostly ignored this on mac
os and only done a little bit on IOS (AR mostly). Any hardware that Apple is
going to launch here is extremely unlikely to involve Intel or AMD hardware.
In fact I suspect this is the primary reason Apple has not pushed hard on this
on mac OS: they are looking to disrupt this space with an Apple product that
consists 100% of Apple hardware and software and are not interested in filling
the gap short term by depending on third party hardware.

So, a processor architecture change on mac os would be short term disruptive
and risky. They have a coherent strategy for getting mac users to buy an ipad
and double dip in revenue and it seems they are pushing a lot of users toward
that platform. Also the pro market is comparatively small but extremely
lucrative in its current form.

------
blinkingled
Apple product ecosystem has fast become a solution looking for problem
combined with touchy feely hokus pokus aided by synthetic exclusivity and
nonsensical differentiation.

Why the hell do we need the iPad to take over the PCs? Why the hell do we need
ARM CPUs in Macs? Nobody is solving any real problems with those things - it's
only purpose is to make Apple's margins and control even greater. And we as
consumers are supposed to pay attention to the news outlets droning on about
it for no benefit!

I think Apple will do well going back to the basics - simplifying the product
lines, selling what matters and focusing on increasing the reach of its
products to price conscious buyers. I don't think the market has a big enough
appetite for more BS however well marketed it may be.

~~~
rubbingalcohol
The trash can Mac Pro and butterfly keyboards are perfect examples of
solutions looking for problems.

But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to
somehow position the devices as "PC killers." For use cases where a tablet is
sufficient to produce a particular work product, a more usable OS only
enhances its effectiveness. This has no bearing on the huge number of use
cases where a tablet is insufficient.

I agree with the author that Apple would be barking up the wrong tree trying
to switch the Macs to ARM processors. Macs are already comparatively a low-
volume market and segmenting that market would not do them any favors in the
face of increasing competition from Microsoft and Linux implementations.

~~~
blinkingled
> But I don't think making the iPad's operating system usable is an attempt to
> somehow position the devices as "PC killers.

I agree with that one - meaningful improvements to make the iPad a better
choice for the users that can get away with using only the iPad as their
primary device is a good thing. There's also a significant number of those
users. But in practice, deciding what those capabilities are and how best to
implement those are far more complicated questions - adding a mouse pointer is
maybe a perfect illustration of the conundrum - should we, how should it look,
what about the click targets, what about touch first, pencil etc.

------
bluthru
I really hope there is a hybrid MBP with an Apple chip running mac OS and
first party apps along with an intel chip that runs on demand for third party
apps that need x86.

------
hartator
Such a bad analysis. Switching CPU architecture has been done before in the
macos ecosystem. And it has been successful.

~~~
NikkiA
Both times were out of necessity though.

~~~
sbuk
Arguably, the necessity here would be energy consumption, thermal performance
and potentially speed?

~~~
kevingadd
That's not really necessity unless you can show that the current values for
those 3 are insufficient and that an Axx transition will produce big gains in
at least 2 of those 3 areas, is it? Even if native apps compiled and written
for the Axx architecture have better energy and thermal performance, what
about all the x86 apps that have to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that.
It could be worse. Intel-based macs are probably wasting some power that Axx
would theoretically not waste, and Axx might theoretically have better
thermals, but there's not some massive demand for Apple to upend the whole
ecosystem like that. Does Apple have competition threatening to steal their
lunch because Macbooks' battery life isn't long enough? Not really, no?

~~~
sbuk
I did say ‘arguably‘ ;)

> Even if native apps compiled and written for the Axx architecture have
> better energy and thermal performance, what about all the x86 apps that have
> to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that.

Initially, probably. Think of the long game. This is something they have
already done, twice. They have the experience and expertise to make this less
impactful.

> Even if native apps compiled and written for the Axx architecture have
> better energy and thermal performance, what about all the x86 apps that have
> to be emulated? There'll be a tax for that.

Longer battery life is always preferable in portable devices, no?
Alternatively, what about the reduction in the need for the materials,
therefore the environmental impact, used in making batteries for laptops?
Apple want to be the greenest manufacturer.

------
vermontdevil
Would Apple be looking at RISC-V as another option here?

~~~
Dunedan
Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and
royalty free. Both arguments aren't that relevant for Apple, as they got an
architectural license from ARM which gives them full access to everything and
allows them to design their own chips and because the royalty charges are
vanishingly small compared to the prices Apple charges for it's products.

Apple has also already invested so much effort in its own ARM chips that I
believe it wouldn't make much sense for them to throw that away in favor of
RISC-V, just for saving a few million dollars per year in royalties.

~~~
fluffything
> Extremely unlikely. The beauty about RISC-V is that it's open source and
> royalty free

The other beauty is that you can extend the ISA with whatever proprietary
instructions you want. Others develop 99% of the ISA for you, and you focus on
the 1% that differentiates your product.

I'm not sure if the ARM licenses allows them to extend the ISA with "Apple-
only" instructions, but RISC-V does and it allows Apple for more vendor lock-
in. E.g. you can't use a Hackintosh anymore without buying a CPU directly from
Apple.

~~~
sokoloff
I think Apple could stop Hackintoshing on Intel (in a practical sense) if they
really cared to do so. There will always be the extreme fringe who would get
it to work, but it's so easy at the moment to get a fully functioning
Hackintosh (including iCloud, iMessage, App Store, etc) that I have to believe
Apple is both aware and doesn't care to try to stop it.

------
spectramax
Does anyone find the use of the word "fork" outside of open-source projects a
bit annoying? BMW forked their 3-series coupe and called it 4-series. Ugh...

~~~
gonzo
Will you also complain about Yogi Bera's "When You Come to a Fork in the Road,
Take It! Inspiration and Wisdom from One of Baseball's Greatest Heroes",
published in 2001?

~~~
taneq
But that doesn’t verb the fork...

------
reitzensteinm
I don't buy the permanent fork argument for one reason.

AMD had the cancelled ARM version of Zen. There aren't any public plans to
bring it back as far as I'm aware.

But if Apple transitions past x86, it's going to provide critical mass for
desktop ARM and the Zen chip will be back.

AMD would be sitting on the highest performance single socket ARM chip, and
Apple would just use that.

~~~
SkyMarshal
I can't see Apple using any ARM chip other than their own. If they commit to
converting OS X to ARM then they'll either produce it in-house or, less
likely, buy AMD (or maybe just buy AMD's Zen tech only).

One of the main reasons for Apple to move to ARM is to control more of their
technology stack. It's the direction they've been moving in for a while now
and this would be part of that strategy.

~~~
reitzensteinm
The article claims Apple would need to keep x86 around indefinitely for the
Mac Pro - I'm just saying that makes no sense.

Apple would definitely prefer to only use its own chips, but if they're unable
to, using ARM Zen from AMD makes a million times more sense than x86 Intel.

I think you may be underestimating Apple's willingness to let the Mac Pro be
an ugly duckling. This is a platform that they left stagnant for years after
all.

~~~
SkyMarshal
_> but if they're unable to, using ARM Zen from AMD makes a million times more
sense than x86 Intel._

How do you figure? Transitioning from x86 to ARM would be a major, expensive
undertaking. If it's justified at all it would mainly be by Apple gaining
control over that part of their stack. I doubt they would make such an effort
and investment only to switch from the current third party, Intel, to a
different third party, AMD.

But otherwise yes they're really not likely to make the transition at all.
Given how small a proportion of their overall sales Mac sales are, they're
most likely to just leave it on x86 indefinitely.

~~~
reitzensteinm
I'm speaking specifically about the Mac Pro, which Apple doesn't really care
about. I get the sense you think I'm talking about using Zen in their laptops
etc.

They're not going to build a chip that competes with high end Xeons just to
field the new Mac Pro.

Given that, in a world where MacBook Pros are powered by A15s, Apple can
either cut the Mac Pro, keep it as their only x86 product or put an ARM Zen in
it.

I'm saying keeping it as x86 will straight up never happen. ARM Zen or
cancellation are the plausible options.

------
eecc
Frankly I’m surprised no one hasn’t built an external core/ram expansion
docking station yet.

With OS support for Numa and a broker to schedule tasks on Big/Little cores
all the pieces are there.

My guess is the halo effect around the cloud that put these devices back into
the drawers; when you can sync files across two conventional independent
devices, risk aversion wins.

But people might become aware and weary of routing everything through
Facebook/Google so the value of cloudless mobility might tip the scale.

Plus, if AR/VR ever takes off, the hardware for high bandwidth wired or not
PAN will become available

~~~
GordonS
> Frankly I’m surprised no one hasn’t built an external core/ram expansion
> docking station yet

I imagine that the distance and all the connectivity required between the CPU
and RAM sitting in an external docking station would destroy performance.

~~~
PetahNZ
How would this be much different to a GPU running over the PCIE bus?

------
jbverschoor
> Today, I’ll contend that moving the macOs to an Axx processor is a fantasy,
> it’s too complicated and will never happen, at least no time soon. Mac users
> are wedded to x86 processors for the foreseeable future.

No wonder Be Inc went belly up. Apple had switched before from architecture.

~~~
kevingadd
To imagine that the transition from ppc to x86 is remotely comparable to a
present-day x86-to-ARM transition is utterly absurd. Basically everything has
changed: Hardware architectures, software architectures, OS design, etc. The
amount of software out there for x86 macs is massive and end users are going
to expect all that stuff to work (even if they'll grumble and accept it when
Apple tells them that only 50% of it will work). You're also having to
maintain compatibility with a massive set of third party hardware used by
creatives, developers and enthusiasts - are you gonna run those drivers in an
emulator? In kernel mode?

This would be an undertaking beyond any past one, because in the past
computers were much simpler and Apple controlled a bigger part of the picture.
Now they're shipping elaborate GPUs and hardware stacks that mash together
chips from various vendors and there's a ton of third party hardware and
software all working on top of it. If they don't keep most of that working
users won't stand for it. Something like "we need to get AMD or NVIDIA to
provide us a top-tier video driver for the Axx instruction set and convince
them not to demand a king's ransom for it" would not have been an obstacle in
the PPC days but it's unavoidable now unless they want to ship their own GPU
too (which they could do, but again, compatibility)

