JamesSneed:

I didn't expect this since its really a 10 year outlook. The R&D and low volumes of macs sold I bet Apple doesn't even break even after 5 years. However they can now have one consistent ARM architecture from watches, phones to laptops. I suspect Apple will make ARM perform just fine for laptop needs. Since they control they OS they can bake a few special instructions into the silicon. As long as they can stick with it a decade this is almost certain to pay off in the long game.

I think the low volume is why they're doing this. Apple seems to be putting less and less attention to Mac OS but it's still profitable so they haven't fully abandoned it. The latest iPad Pro appears to me to be an alpha of what they intend to do in the future, which to my impression, is a merger of Mac and iOS. It seems like they're trying to make a unified experience. IIRC, Apple intends to have the new ARM-based Macs to be compatible with iOS apps, which will basically combine both markets into 1 and heavily reduce the need for people to rebuild Mac apps into ARM. It's actually a pretty good idea IMO.

schmidtbag:

I think the low volume is why they're doing this. Apple seems to be putting less and less attention to Mac OS but it's still profitable so they haven't fully abandoned it. The latest iPad Pro appears to me to be an alpha of what they intend to do in the future, which to my impression, is a merger of Mac and iOS. It seems like they're trying to make a unified experience. IIRC, Apple intends to have the new ARM-based Macs to be compatible with iOS apps, which will basically combine both markets into 1 and heavily reduce the need for people to rebuild Mac apps into ARM. It's actually a pretty good idea IMO.

I agree. Its just the billions in R&D will take a while to recoup. Its nice to see companies thinking about a decade later instead of next quarter earnings.

schmidtbag:

They could implement something functionally similar to it; NEON is basically the ARM equivalent of the SSE series, though I don't know how extensive it gets. They very much DO have a reason to add it, since a lot of the software built for Mac requires it. That's not just software made by Apple, either.

Seeing the performance they get compared to everyone else on that power envelope, they're probably way beyond NEON.

schmidtbag:

Fair point, it is "ARM-based", meaning, it is binary compatible with aarch64 but likely has enough adjustments to be architecturally very different. But for just about every other ARM CPU available, 3GHz is considered fast. Benchmarks of other ARM platforms show that the performance-per-watt just tanks whenever you overclock. The architecture was built with efficiency over performance. That's why it won the mobile market. With iOS devices, Apple has remained very much in-line with the rest of the ARM market, except with a few tweaks here and there to their benefit. So, I find it highly unlikely we're going to see something at 4GHz+ with an IPC comparable to Intel chips. It's more likely we're going to see dozen(s) of ~2GHz cores. Apple has enough control over their OS that they can really push for multi-threading. That way, you get all the performance you really need while keeping the architecture within it's efficiency "sweet spot".

But what I also see is that modern performance architectures (like Zen), are actually built with efficiency in mind first. If you get efficiency right, it's easier to scale up. We're not comparing to all of Apple's ecosystem here, only the Mac ecosystem. I know Mac users who don't buy anything from the app store, but almost everyone who builds a hackintosh (who isn't a hobbyist) is deliberately seeking Mac OS because they need Mac-compatible software. This is usually not cheap stuff either, like Final Cut Pro.

schmidtbag:

That's an apples to oranges comparison (EDIT: pun not intended, seriously). Linux has 1% of consumer/workstation market, but it wasn't really built for that; it commands great control in server and industrial markets. Mac OS was built almost entirely for consumers and content creators and failed as a server. They're basically opposite OSes. Hackintosh users exist because they want to be apart of the Apple ecosystem without buying the hardware. There are 2 big reasons they don't buy the hardware: 1. Apple's isn't good enough. Maybe you want to go AMD and get more cores. Maybe you want to use Nvidia (yes, you can still use Nvidia on modern Mac OS). Maybe you want something that doesn't thermal throttle so easily. You're not going to get that from Apple. These people most certainly spend good money on Apple's ecosystem. 2. Apple's is too expensive. Apple's upgrade prices are steep. You can save a lot of money if you build your own Mac. Money that could be spent on the app store.

I seriously doubt that Hackintosh is even a rounding error on Apple's ledger. But I have no numbers.

Cplifj:

So apple is definitely going for the limited customer base. They won't take over the world with this kind of move. Sure apples sells, but it's not the majority at all, just a niche of people who care about exterior appearances mainly. How things look is more important then what they really are kind of folk. One has to be very tech-unsavvy to buy anything Apple. But yeah it looks sleek.

All the software that already runs on macOS, will keep running, unless it's so old that won't get an upgrade from the authors. And on top of that they get immediate access to everything in the iOS app stores. Sounds fine to me.

asturur:

So is not X86-64 right? is something else. I wonder if it makes sense at all, seems like wine won't be usable out of the box.

the X86 in itself, have it's destiny cealed since Apple get rid of win32 and start the transition to Metal. To have played with the most powerfull iPad Pro, i can tell that this is not a so big drama and those who talk about drivers haven't really used a mac, but a hackintosh (you will just have to wait few week to have your new drivers... as usual). Also the X86-64 will not be obsolete at day 1... it will be like PowerMac, many year. I am really positive about that news.

PrMinisterGR:

Seeing the performance they get compared to everyone else on that power envelope, they're probably way beyond NEON.

Well that's the thing: the performance-per-watt is only impressive when you don't push it too hard. The harder you clock ARM, the more x86 starts to look appealing. But yeah, they do have many instructions beyond NEON. I'm saying NEON is basically the ARM-equivalent of SSE. I don't know how "complete" it is compared to SSE, but if it lags behind, that's where Apple would want to make something that's more directly compatible. This will give them an edge in performance, and make it easier for devs who were depending on SSE4.

But what I also see is that modern performance architectures (like Zen), are actually built with efficiency in mind first. If you get efficiency right, it's easier to scale up.

Yes and no. As I just alluded to, once you push clocks to a certain level, x86 is actually the more efficient choice. Y'know why Intel couldn't compete with ARM? Because x86 scales down poorly. Zen2 is the first CPU architecture that seems to be very good at everything... until you involve PCIe 4.0 anyway. I'm not yet sure how well Zen2's idle power draw compares to ARM's, since one of the main benefits of ARM is how cores draw no power when idle. Much like how a car engine has a "sweet spot" for RPM and efficiency (where different engines have different sweet spots), processors seem to have a sweet spot for Hz and efficiency, and it all depends on how they're built. The Vega GPUs are another great example of this - they're actually incredibly efficient when you put them in APUs (despite the fact they're starving for memory bandwidth), but when you push it to compete with a 2080, suddenly it's a real power hog, and it's too expensive to add more cores.

I seriously doubt that Hackintosh is even a rounding error on Apple's ledger. But I have no numbers.

In the grand scope of all of Apple, yeah probably. What I do know is Apple cares enough about Hackintoshes that they do everything in their legal power to stop them. Seems like a lot of effort for a rounding error, eh? Apple legally can't restrict an OS to a specific piece of hardware, which is why they're powerless in shutting down the various projects. I think there's some legal restriction that prevents them from stopping VMs too but I haven't read up in detail about that. What Apple can do is legally restrict people from redistributing Mac OS. That's how OpenCore's efforts got shut down, because that's exactly what they were doing. Most of the Hackintosh sites don't supply you with the OS; they give you the tools but you have to download the OS yourself directly from Apple. Of the ones that do supply pre-built images, you have to get them through torrents.

It's really weird to me that you guys are describing ARM and X86 as anything more than instruction sets. A modern X86 processor has a decoder that translates X86 instructions to uops. After that decoder the internal architecture isn't locked to any particular design. Aside from always having this decoder to deal with, power wise, there is nothing stopping an x86 processor from scaling down, or ARM from scaling up. It's just a matter of no one willing to put in the years of work to do so.

Time to get the ol' tinfoil hats out and show what Apple had to do to prep for this launch to make it look good instead of a shitshow! Prior to 2015, the base-level Macbook Air had full blown PC Mobile CPUs, all the way up to Core i7 chips. Macbooks were generally accepted to be overpriced, but still decent at this point. But in 2015, that changed with the release of the 12" Macbook, which had a single USB-C port and a low-end Core M chip that they picked binned high clock speed versions of, and then overclocked. The end result was a laptop that ran hot, but still performed badly, and lacked a lot of functionality that people were used to. Since 2015, the entry level Macbook has gotten progressively worse. They are now selling models with Y-series mobile chips (Intel's lowest power, and lowest performance mainstream consumer chips), but they bin and overclock them, so instead of being fanless all-day devices like most ultrabooks with Y-series chips in them, they run hot, need fans, and get crap battery life. The CPU in the iPad (not the pro, the regular one) can beat the current in many benchmarks, and the iPad Pro usually wipes the floor with it in most real workloads. So, Looking ahead to the Q4 launch of the ALL NEW Macbook with Apple's new silicon, you are going to see an all new device that outperforms the old Macbook, runs cooler and quieter, has all-day battery life and powers on instantly, and includes cellular always-connected capabilities right out of the box! Who wouldn't want to upgrade?!? All it took was 5 years slowly poisoning the existing Macbook line until it no longer favorably compared to an iPad in order to get there!

If by "slowly poisoning" you mean making the best laptops in the business by a country mile, and getting preferential treatment from Intel", then yes 😛

I just want to say that Intel chips, as many problems as they had, performed FAR below what they normally would while in Apple laptops due to being absolutely strangled by super intentional thermal limitations which should never happen and other bizarro Apple issues. I'm going to puke when I see a review praising their shitty new ARM chips relative to Intel ones.

Denial:

It's really weird to me that you guys are describing ARM and X86 as anything more than instruction sets. A modern X86 processor has a decoder that translates X86 instructions to uops. After that decoder the internal architecture isn't locked to any particular design. Aside from always having this decoder to deal with, power wise, there is nothing stopping an x86 processor from scaling down, or ARM from scaling up. It's just a matter of no one willing to put in the years of work to do so.

Jim Keller completed work for Apple so I wouldn't be surprised if they have the means now to produce a passable ARM chip, but let's be real, a design to rival top mobile chips like what AMD is offering won't happen anytime soon. And the decision to go with ARM instead of the (completely?) open RISC V raises a few questions as far as their chip designing abilities go.

PrMinisterGR:

If by "slowly poisoning" you mean making the best laptops in the business by a country mile, and getting preferential treatment from Intel", then yes 😛

Which "business" are they the best in again? The "looking cool while sitting at Starbucks and pretending to work" one, or the "I am waiting in line at the Apple store because my drink got within a foot of my keyboard and my mainboard is now covered with corrosion again" one? :P

Competes in single threaded with Core in a laptop while in a phone Is two generations ahead from anyone else Gets called a "passable" ARM chip [spoiler] https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/027/475/Screen_Shot_2018-10-25_at_11.02.15_AM.jpg [/spoiler] ARM is just the front end, it's there because it's the architecture with the most software out for it. It doesn't matter for performance. Due to my work, I have had a sample of at least three thousand laptops, with failure rates etc, in the last couple of years. MacBooks (even the ones with the bad keyboards), are head and shoulders above anything else, quality wise. Lenovo ThinkPads are a close second. The amount of people who just repeat anything they hear, without any meaningful sample is crazy.

PrMinisterGR:

MacBooks (even the ones with the bad keyboards), are head and shoulders above anything else, quality wise. Lenovo ThinkPads are a close second. The amount of people who just repeat anything they hear, without any meaningful sample is crazy.

Louis Rossman has also gone through thousands, you might even say it's his business. He disagrees. So do my eyes after seeing how fucked up the internal designs of MacBooks are as he went through endless amounts of them step by step.

I don't know if you had experience with companies doing non-game development, but in these cases at least 60% of the fleet is MacBooks, and for usually very good reasons.

I mean, I see news articles for that and all... but it's old news guys... really old news: https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/3/17191986/apple-intel-cpu-processor-design-competition And that's just one of the articles one can find... hence I don't understand how this is making such big waves in the pond anymore.

K.S.:

This has nothing to do with performance or TDP. Look deeper between the lines folks. This is Apple making this move whom over the years has closed more and more external outlets of cross-compatibility with their eco-system. I do believe if Apple had it their way they'd be an industry-wide monopoly, it has to start somewhere.

Good point, since it was the one thing I took away from the keynote: They are putting great effort into improving the eco system... the apps themselves, oh we now have a side bar for indexing and better managing your pictures in your galery? That's outright hilarious... if that's software innovation in 2020 with apple, they better clone Steve Jobs and bring him back. Improving UI with a sidebar is anachronistic and actually a shame for 2020. But the moves towards their own ecosystem are in every other big than app improvements, from how they handle security to how their hardware looks. And that's it... buy the apple life. Phone, laptop, watch (with complete activity tracking), (smart) home, soon to come AR devices and sooner or later, apple's take on mobility via an apple car.

the death of hackintos too i guess ?

PrMinisterGR:

I don't know if you had experience with companies doing non-game development, but in these cases at least 60% of the fleet is MacBooks, and for usually very good reasons.

Wow. I don't know what planet you are living on, but here on Earth the only markets that use Macs for their employees are video/graphic companies (which is shrinking thanks to years of Apple neglecting their needs), education (also shrinking because MS offers schools much better deal packages), and the "we want to give a high-end impression when we meet clients" segment. I've been a sysadmin for 20 years, and the only people using Macs in most enterprise companies are the executives who because of their position can tell the IT and finance people no when they hand them a Thinkpad or Latitude.

I literally have seen zero web-development or tools companies using Windows any more, unless they are doing maintenance of something proprietary. All the companies I've been give to each employee exactly what they ask, no questions asked. I have a feeling we have working in very different environments 😀

schmidtbag:

They could implement something functionally similar to it; NEON is basically the ARM equivalent of the SSE series, though I don't know how extensive it gets. They very much DO have a reason to add it, since a lot of the software built for Mac requires it. That's not just software made by Apple, either.

ARM uses SVE (scalable vector extension) which is geared towards HPC, and SVE2 is in development and that will be functionally similar to AVX, so it's likely that Apple will use SVE2 for future CPUs. Or perhaps they will develop their own vector ISA, as they have the chops to do so.

The more surprising thing out of this is that they are transitioning their entire lineup to ARM within 2 years, including the Mac Pro. This shows that they have a helluva lot of confidence in their ARM designs scaling up to server/workstations.