

ARM-based MacBook Air test sample spied - fvbock
http://www.reghardware.com/2011/05/27/apple_arm_air_spied/

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mmastrac
I think that Apple is going to move to a side-by-side x64/ARM model with the
ARM chip running the full OSX kernel and the x64 chip being an on-demand
auxiliary processor available for user-space applications that haven't or
can't be recompiled for ARM (ie: VirtualBox) or need more horsepower.

The new interconnects on the Intel chip should ensure that both CPUs can
access RAM and various peripherals without performance suffering. Apps can
then choose whether to be run as native ARM or x64. The core apps will all run
on ARM, allowing x64 chip to sleep and the new Macbook Airs to boast 20+ hour
runtimes when performing core tasks only.

I haven't seen anyone else with this theory, but it makes a great deal of
sense that Apple would push this. They have control over most of the stack:
the ARM CPU, the kernel and the motherboard design. More details here - I'd be
interested in hearing if others think this is feasible:

[http://grack.com/blog/2011/05/07/how-apple-can-make-use-
of-a...](http://grack.com/blog/2011/05/07/how-apple-can-make-use-of-arm-and-
intel-in-its-laptop-line/)

~~~
Jeema3000
It's certainly possible I think, but what you're talking about is more-or-less
asymmetric multiprocessing, which (according to Wikipedia at least) is
generally more complicated to implement at a hardware level:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing#Alter...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetric_multiprocessing#Alternatives)

~~~
mmastrac
Exactly, this is just an asymmetric MP configuration. Note that this isn't
exactly groundbreaking either. Others have already been using QPI to hook
FPGAs up as accelerators. I don't doubt that it's a complicated technical
endeavour, but Apple is certainly home to a number of talented engineers:

[http://www.nallatech.com/Latest-News/xilinx-demonstrates-
int...](http://www.nallatech.com/Latest-News/xilinx-demonstrates-intelr-
quickpath-technology-for-fpgas-at-intel-developer-forum.html)

[http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4207772/Xilinx-
demos...](http://www.eetimes.com/electronics-news/4207772/Xilinx-demos-Intel-
QuickPath-technology-for-FPGAs)

------
furyg3
<sarcasm>I can't wait to have the PPC vs i386 arguments all over again...
</sarcasm>

Seriously though, what are the implications for virtualization software
(Vmware, VirtualBox, etc) on an ARM platform?

I'm all for innovation, but the fact that MacOS/Linux/Windows/BSD all
currently support one common architecture has been very convenient, in recent
years.

~~~
Supermighty
I love the idea of lower power ARM devices, but the first thing my mind goes
to is visualization. What are the implications?

VirtualBox has been a boon for me for virtual server environment testing.

~~~
rbanffy
You quite probably won't get decent x86 emulation speed out of an ARM
processor. It takes an order of magnitude more transistors than an ARM has
just to make an x86 out of hardware. You can do code translation on the fly,
but doing that and keeping your virtual environment anything like the server
you are trying to emulate.

When it comes to simulating servers, I've been opting for things like lxc and
openvz. OSX should be able to use BSD's jail.

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jws
How about MacBook Express[1]? - ARM based, Mac App Store only for
applications[2], no touch screen[3]. Users can be given a trojan free
experience and Apple gets a big stick to nudge developers into the Mac App
store?

This would rule the casual, unsophisticated user market. HN readers might have
one as a second machine, but would probably get a "real" MacBook with the x86
and the freedom to code.

[1] Initially I thought _MacBook Light_ , but then that's why I'm forbidden to
name products. _Express_ is already in the Apple product vocabulary and
doesn't carry a negative connotation.

[2] Require a cryptographic signature from the Mac App store before any code
can be executed. Remember, this gets complicated when you have interpreters on
the platform, you have to control the input to them as well or only permit
them in sandboxes. (Developers get some sort of testing exemption.)

[3] I don't think touch screen is a part of it. As great as it is for things
on a tablet, the ergonomics on a laptop are awkward, and you need to design
the application UI twice for people with and without.

~~~
Someone
About that [3]: the first thing I thought is that Apple must have some
innovative idea about the ergonomics of a touchscreen on such a device.

A laptop that supported desk accessary
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desk_Accessory)/Side> kick
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SideKick)-like> use of iOS apps would be a way
to lure existing iOS users to such a device.

And for naming: the OS would be Mac OS X Singapura :-)

~~~
wtracy
Just thinking out loud: How about a device like the Nintendo DS (normal screen
above, touch screen below) scaled up to a normal laptop size?

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hexis
Supposedly, OS X ran on intel chips for years before Apple made the switch for
their products. I've got to imagine that Apple has been running OS X on their
own chips, even if they have no specific plans to make the switch.

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bigmac
I've been expecting this for awhile. At the LLVM developer's conference in
November, there were tons of compiler engineers working on the ARM backend,
but I didn't meet anybody working on the x86 backend.

Granted, iOS is important and runs ARM exclusively, but I would've expected
more love for the x86 backend given how important the laptop segment is for
Apple. It made it seem like x86 was not of long-term importance for Apple.

------
captaincrowbar
I don't think the legacy x86 code issue is anywhere near as big a hurdle as
many people seem to think, because Apple have a weapon there that Microsoft
doesn't have, and Apple didn't have (at least to anywhere near the same level)
during the 68k/PPC and PPC/x86 transitions: Xcode.

Just about every native Mac app these days was developed and built on Xcode,
and Xcode already supports ARM targets. The only remaining obstacle is porting
AppKit to ARM, and if (as the original story suggests) Apple already have
hardware running OSX-on-ARM, they must have already done that. That means most
Mac apps can be ported from x86 to ARM with little more effort than changing
the target in a dropdown list and hitting Build.

(For those not familiar with Mac development: AppKit is the GUI library, part
of Cocoa, used in most modern Mac apps. iOS apps use a slightly different GUI
library, UIKit. At the moment AppKit only targets x86/x64 and UIKit only
targets ARM, at least in the officially released versions.)

Microsoft can do something similar with .NET, as others have pointed out, but
.NET apps don't dominate the Windows software ecosystem to anywhere near the
same extent that Xcode+Cocoa dominates the Mac one.

(One thing I'm quite certain we're not going to see is the hypothetical dual-
CPU ARM+x86 machine that some people are speculating about. For the simple
reason that, if you're going to put an x86 in the box anyway, why bother with
an ARM as well?)

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tianyicui
If this new MacBook Air has a touch screen to run all the current iPad apps,
while all OS X apps can simply re-compile to an x86/arm Universal app to run
on it, it would definitely be my dream laptop.

~~~
hugh3
A touchscreen MacBook Air with a clever hinge so that you can flip it around
and use it as a tablet would be pretty sweet.

I know there have been some attempts at this kind of laptop-tablet form factor
in the past, but has any manufacturer ever actually managed to solve the hinge
problem?

~~~
agravier
I didn't know it was a problem. I have a Viliv S7 (touchscreen, flip-to-tablet
netbook) since maybe a couple of years, no issue with the hinge.

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Klinky
What if they just put iOS on it & have it run iPhone & iPad apps. Add some
first party support from Apple where they develop some cloud based
apps/services that take advantage of the extra hardware(e.g. keyboard) &
differentiate it from the MacBook Air by naming it the "MacBook Cloud"?

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bergie
I'd buy this immediately. MBA has the perfect form factor, and I'd rather have
great battery life than a fast processor.

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rospaya
Anyone wants to speculate on battery life?

~~~
phamilton
I'd wager it's going to be similar to current levels. The past few Apple
refreshes didn't change battery much (Macbook Pro actually dropped in battery
life.)

Once battery is good enough, weight optimization is the next step. I bet these
will be beyond ultra light.

~~~
hucker
It didn't really drop in battery life, it was just that Apple's testing
protocol was revised to more accurately describe real-life usage.

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tptacek
"The iOS-like Mac OS X 7 Lion"?

~~~
beaumartinez
Mac OS X Lion (Mac OS X version 10.7, don't ask me why they stated it as Mac
OS X version 7) is getting some iOS features[1], hence the comparison.

[1] <http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/>

~~~
tptacek
Ah, thanks.

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meric
Looking closer! <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2258693>

