
First Arm Macs: 13-Inch MacBook Pro, Redesigned iMac; Late 2020 or Early 2021 - aspenmayer
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/06/21/apple-arm-13-inch-macbook-pro-imac/?scrolla=5eb6d68b7fedc32c19ef33b4
======
vegetablepotpie
Often when Apple shifts the rest of the industry follows within 5 years (touch
screen smart phones, ultrabooks, high DPI displays). Although Apple has done
architecture shifts before with no impact to the rest of the industry (68k ->
PPC -> Intel), I wonder if this will be different.

I read in another thread that volume is what propelled x86s popularity.
Intel’s difficulty with 10nm has created an opening for other fabs and other
architectures to catch up. If ARM can be shown to work as a desktop processor,
why wouldn’t HP, Dell, Asus and the rest make ARM laptops?

~~~
moondev
ARM laptops already exist [https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-
arm-app-com...](https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/surface-pro-x-arm-app-
compatibility)

~~~
gigatexal
Lol, commercially successful ARM laptops is what the op meant.

------
kevsim
Possibly stupid question - does Apple switching to ARM mean the death of
Bootcamp?

~~~
cable2600
Possible so, unless Apple makes the ARM chip run Intel code. Windows is
overrated now and only Windows 10 matters at this point in time.

For $150 you can buy a cheap Intel based PC laptop with Windows 10 on it.

I think Bootcamp might work for ARM based Linux and the ARM version of Windows
10. At least Raspberry PIs that are ARM based can run those.

~~~
GradientAssent
Many games still aren't available on Mac, and things like Wine are not nearly
as clean of an experience as just installing games in native Windows. I'd
guess switching to ARM will set back the progress made in Mac gaming as well.

~~~
acephal
They sent the message they wanted everybody to hear about gaming when they
turned the lever on 32bit support

------
moondev
Without the ability to run x86 vms, using a MacBook as a developer workstation
would seem very limited

------
Chernobog
I hope Windows 10 ARM will be able to to run on these. I think that might be
the push W10 ARM needs to get recognized and have more native applications. It
would be somewhat ironic too!

------
1024core
What is the advantage (for Apple) of the ARM CPU over the Intels? Is it power?
Instructions-per-watt? Or just the ability to control one's destiny?

~~~
valuearb
Performance per watt is the biggest advantage, Apple will get fast laptops
with extremely long battery life. Cost per performance is a very close second,
ARM CPUs are a fraction of the cost of Intel CPUs.

It’s also speculated that with active cooling ARM will enable high performance
Macs at a lower price point. It’s very unclear how well they will be able to
match AMD and Intel at the highest performance levels.

~~~
aspenmayer
Perhaps a combined SoC with both ARM and x86-64 cores, with independent
switching like Apple already has for GPU integrated/discrete graphics
switching. I think this would be a convenient middle way through this
compatibility challenge.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202043](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT202043)

~~~
eqtn
That would increase the cost, to include both x86 and ARM processors.

~~~
aspenmayer
Now we know there will be a dev kit, new macOS, and that the new Macs will
natively run iOS and iPadOS apps. Rosetta 2 will handle compatibility.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23604060](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23604060)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603852)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603866](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23603866)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23602434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23602434)

------
philjohn
I suppose now that Edge is cross platform there's less need to spin up a
windows VM to test in IE/Old Edge.

I do worry about software that is highly tuned with hand-rolled assembly
(looking at you various video/photo/audio processing apps) and if this is
going to be another transition that is mostly seamless, but with enough edge
cases to leave people slightly bloodied.

~~~
thewebcount
I would think that most video, and photo processing apps are using the GPU
rather than custom assembly on the CPU since you have hundreds of cores on a
GPU.

~~~
philjohn
Perhaps - although Audio software tends to still be heavily CPU based.

------
aspenmayer
Original title was too long. It was:

First Arm-Based Macs to Be 13-Inch MacBook Pro and Redesigned iMac, Launches
Coming in Late 2020 or Early 2021

------
Hamuko
> _Starting in 2021, Kuo says that all new Mac models will be equipped with
> Apple processors, and that it will take 12 to 18 months for Apple to
> transition to an all-Arm lineup._

So there's not going to be a Xeon Mac Pro in 2023? Are they just going to drop
the Mac Pro or do they actually have a rivaling ARM processor?

~~~
tandr
Does it really matter for the Pro line, if there will be something that gives
Xeon run for its money? Say twice as fast or twice as many cores for the same
price? Once Pro on ARM is out, and it probably will be the last in a lineup,
there will be a lot of software with native ARM support. At that point (unless
there is some INSANE advantage that Xeons would give), it is pretty much given
that it will become ARM. Question is only in how quickly Apple can come up
with something that is noticeable beating Xeons performance-wise.

------
cable2600
I can't wait to see how the price and power compares to the Intel Macs.

~~~
Hamuko
I expect the price will not budge at all.

~~~
valuearb
Apple has target margin levels, they may increase slightly but most of the
savings will go to customers. Apple understands that most customers can’t
justify the higher cost of Macs despite the additional value, they will for
sure attempt to use ARM CPUs to grow Mac market share.

~~~
ac29
Apple has ~$100B cash in the bank. If they wanted to increase market share by
lowering prices, they could.

~~~
Hamuko
It's closer to $200B.

~~~
valuearb
No, you aren’t counting over $100B in debt.

------
tomp
Can anyone explain why Apple would be dropping Intel and doing _ARM_ instead,
instead of just, you know, doing _their own thing_? I find it hard to believe
either that ARM is the (globally optimal) pinnacle of instruction set / CPU
architecture possible, and that a $1tn company can afford to spin up its own
CPU production line (competitor to Intel, a $250b company) but not its own CPU
design department (competitor to ARM, bough by SoftBank for $30b) ?!?

~~~
jsnell
The instruction set matters less for performance than people think. But it
does matter a lot for the ecosystem: low-level hyper-optimized libraries for
certain operations (think BLAS), tooling, developers understanding how to best
write for it, etc. Creating all of that will take a long time no matter how
much money you throw at it. For ARM, that ecosystem is probably the second
best in the world, and in particular Apple has been building it up for
themselves for more than a decade since the first iPhone.

Additionally, sharing the ISA means that the ARM reference cores will always
be available as a backstop if Apple's custom chips start running into trouble
for whatever reason. IIRC, Qualcomm was doing a lot of hopping between full
custom cores and ARM reference ones depending on which one happened to work
better some particular year.

------
jeppesen-io
I wonder what docker looks like on iARM. I assume some level of x86 emulation
provided by OSX that VirtualBox will run on top

~~~
ac29
Docker on ARM Linux doesnt use x86 emulation, I'm not sure why Docker on ARM
macOS would.

edit: I am aware not all Docker containers run on aarch64. But that has been
changing already, and presumably would accelerate if Apple goes all in on ARM.

~~~
moondev
> Docker on ARM Linux doesnt use x86 emulation, I'm not sure why Docker on ARM
> macOS would.

macOS is not linux, so it will need some form of emulation/virtualization to
run "Docker on ARM macOS"

------
sccxy
Does it mean that Macbooks get touchscreen?

~~~
Hamuko
Why would it mean that?

~~~
someheavyocean
Presumably because they could then run iOS applications.

~~~
Hamuko
That basically already exists in the form of Catalyst.

