https://www.arm.com/company/news/2021/03/arms-answer-to-the-future-of-ai-armv9-architecture
new architecture, looks nifty.
new architecture, looks nifty.
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I thought the acquisition got squashed by govt?This article goes into more details about what this means for the NVIDIA side of the acquisition:
https://www.nextplatform.com/2021/03/30/arms-v9-architecture-explains-why-nvidia-needs-to-buy-it/
It's about time they fixed the compatibility of SVE, and the new CCA security layers are going to make this one hell of a server processor.
I thought the acquisition got squashed by govt?
In 20 years people are going to have a hard time remembering how entrenched Intel and x86 seemed.This is quite the new feature set, and if ARMv9 can deliver it will definitely have a major inroad to the server, supercomputing, and enterprise markets.
Once NVIDIA completes the merger it is going to give x86-64, and potentially even other ISAs, a run for their money.
It certainly will do something negative in the market as Nvidia isn't exactly going to let ARM promote Mali graphics. Mali won't go anywhere with Nvidia controlling ARM. Also, Nvidia isn't exactly friends when it comes to relations with others. Did we forget about Nvidia's Geforce Partner Program that Kyle called them out on? Not Nvidia's first time being problematic with other companies. Remember Linus Torvalds fuck you? Microsoft Corp declining to comment on its relationship with Nvidia after the shit they went through with Nvidia? Apple still hates Nvidia from the whole GeForce 9600M fiasco and the lack of support Nvidia gave. That's why you haven't seen any Nvidia products in Apple laptops.There is no real worry about anyone having a monopoly, as there is nothing stopping Apple from building their own CPUs (all there other ARM licensees already gave-up custom CPU). Additionally, there are like 6 different major GPU vendors in the mobile phone market (besides MALI): Broadcom, AMD, Imagination Tech, Qualcomm, and Apple, so merging two will not do anything negative.
It certainly will do something negative in the market as Nvidia isn't exactly going to let ARM promote Mali graphics. Mali won't go anywhere with Nvidia controlling ARM. Also, Nvidia isn't exactly friends when it comes to relations with others. Did we forget about Nvidia's Geforce Partner Program that Kyle called them out on? Not Nvidia's first time being problematic with other companies. Remember Linus Torvalds fuck you? Microsoft Corp declining to comment on its relationship with Nvidia after the shit they went through with Nvidia? Apple still hates Nvidia from the whole GeForce 9600M fiasco and the lack of support Nvidia gave. That's why you haven't seen any Nvidia products in Apple laptops.
That's just with Nvidia and other businesses, but there's issues with consumers as well. Anyone remember Nvidia's GameWorks and how it made games worse but less worse for Nvidia cards? Assassin's Creed loses DX10.1 support which benefited ATI a lot. How about the whole 3.5GB of 4GB GTX 970 fiasco? More recently they got pissed off about the lack of Ray-Tracing benchmarks from Hardware Unboxed and was going to take away giving them GPU's. I can go on and on about how Nvidia handles things. Do you really want a company like Nvidia, controlling something as important as ARM? Nvidia might be what ARM needs to move forward but it will be through propriety hell and legal threats with closed standards. I can already see ARM with stuff like PhysX and Cuda crap that nobody else can use without a licensing fee. I can see companies dumping Nvidia's ARM for MIPs or RISC-V.
Plenty of shit companies to go around but I'm pretty sure Nvidia is nearly king of the kill on this one. Especially when you need ARM to be as open as possible.And?
By comparison, the shit NVIDIA has done, Apple's lock-in and 32-bit deletion makes them look like saints. And Qualcomm's forced OEM's cross-licensing contracts by force of Lawsuit (plus holding up the entire Android OS with their shit driver update schedule plus killing TWO internal CPU teams)P
NVIDIA sucks in their own little island, ut of the other two companies I just mentioned, their shit stinks a lot less. When you're talking about a company that can actually afford arm, the list of nice companies is nowhere to be found!
I take this as a conformation of HL3x86 is done for this time!
Linux is going to pull ahead on the desktop this time!
Duke Nukem Forever will be out this year!
Stop me if you have heard this before.
And although you mention Mali as an obvious target, do you know how much less they can charge fir it versus CPUs? The Royalty rates are roughly half (otherwise, you will lose the design win to Imagination Tech.)Plenty of shit companies to go around but I'm pretty sure Nvidia is nearly king of the kill on this one. Especially when you need ARM to be as open as possible.
x86 is done for this time!
Linux is going to pull ahead on the desktop this time!
Duke Nukem Forever will be out this year!
Stop me if you have heard this before.
Threads like this highlight one of the perpetual problems with tech enthusiast forums: this tendency to assume gaming PCs are the center of the universe, and that no computing platform can succeed without gamers' blessing. But devoted gamers only represent a fraction of the market, even if you exclude office PCs. And we might be on the cusp of seeing just how limited gamers' reach really is. Apple won't have a huge effect unless its next Macs really take off, but I wouldn't rule out a scenario in the next several years where x86 home PCs end up as outliers, albeit significant ones with a huge legacy installed base.I won't make the usual ARM powers more devices argument. I believe its valid. However realistically the reality of covid lockdowns have breathed some new life into the desktop platform. With Nvidia looking to seal their ARM deal... and now that we see the next gen ARM cores and where they are heading in terms of synergies. Yes it seems pretty obvious that Apples M1 isn't going to be an oddity. Apple hits the desktop themselves later this year that is known. I believe Nvidia is applying all the pressure they can to get the ARM thing locked down as quickly as possible. The first real push for ARM on the desktop is coming very soon, and making it the last major market they go after was probably wise. As I said before my fear is they are going to try and kill off the entire open platform idea.... its easy to say it will never happen. However if you give most consumers the choice of a x86+GPU or a locked down desktop that is 3/4 the cost for 30% more performance? The masses may not care all that much if the CPU RAM and GPU are all soldered to the same board.
There was a rumor that ARM's mali was going to enter the PC market, which means it would have competed with Nvidia. The reason ARM went for sale was because they invested too much into Internet of Things (IoT). Turns out people didn't need toasters and refrigerators that were connected to the internet. If ARM went after the PC graphics market with Mali then things would be different.And although you mention Mali as an obvious target, do you know how much less they can charge fir it versus CPUs? The Royalty rates are roughly half (otherwise, you will lose the design win to Imagination Tech.)
View attachment 343835
Now, when HALF OF ALL PHONE CHIPS (Qualcomm + Apple) already have their own proprietary GPU, ARM is flailing to make money off more -and-more complex GPUs, it would be easier for NVIDIA to merge the two divisions (rebrand Mali as entry-level GTX). Acquire the best talent, then make the redundancies disappear (and put the increased profits towards more advanced ARM CPU designs).
\
bOTH COMPANIES GAIN FROM THE MERGER (EVEN IF SOME DESIGN JOBS WILL BE LOST), and on the unlikely chance they have an advantage, it would appear in the next rtx.
I'm surprised it wasn't done sooner. Amazon using ARM for a cloud server isn't anything important. Apple's M1 is far more important for ARM's future.If I told you 3 years ago that half of Amazons cloud sales would be for ARM powered instances by 2021.... would you have believed me ?
Depends on which x86 you compare it with. With Intel I can believe that since Intel is still stuck on 14nm. AMD on the other hand... People don't understand how badly Intel fucked up being stuck with 14nm. Amazon's AWS is also on 7nm.Amazon just started spinning up graviton 2 instances and are claiming 55% better price to performance vs their x86 instances. They got to a 50/50 split with 35% better price to performance out of graviton 1. I'll tell you now that in another 2 years Amaozn will be at a min of 80/20 and I wouldn't be shocked if it more like x86 instances dropping to single digits running a handful of very old code.
That's basically console gaming vs PC, and you can still see that people prefer their open platform much more.However if you give most consumers the choice of a x86+GPU or a locked down desktop that is 3/4 the cost for 30% more performance? The masses may not care all that much if the CPU RAM and GPU are all soldered to the same board.
Posts like this is the reason why Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop market. Gamers are why PC's mainly get faster. If gamers weren't involved in PC then a tablet is all you'd need to do your daily tasks. Obviously not everyone is using a tablet for everything, so there's a reason for this. There's a reason why a GPU went from playing Quake 3 to rendering an OS desktop to rendering video encoding. We are the reason why anyone spends money to make faster hardware. We are the reason why Doom outsold Windows 95. We are also the reason why nobody takes Apple serious.Threads like this highlight one of the perpetual problems with tech enthusiast forums: this tendency to assume gaming PCs are the center of the universe, and that no computing platform can succeed without gamers' blessing. But devoted gamers only represent a fraction of the market, even if you exclude office PCs. And we might be on the cusp of seeing just how limited gamers' reach really is. Apple won't have a huge effect unless its next Macs really take off, but I wouldn't rule out a scenario in the next several years where x86 home PCs end up as outliers, albeit significant ones with a huge legacy installed base.
All of this - exactly this, period.Posts like this is the reason why Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop market. Gamers are why PC's mainly get faster. If gamers weren't involved in PC then a tablet is all you'd need to do your daily tasks. Obviously not everyone is using a tablet for everything, so there's a reason for this. There's a reason why a GPU went from playing Quake 3 to rendering an OS desktop to rendering video encoding. We are the reason why anyone spends money to make faster hardware. We are the reason why Doom outsold Windows 95. We are also the reason why nobody takes Apple serious.
Think of it like what porn did for DVD. If you want to get anywhere in this market then you need gamers. ARM's been out for decades and can do basically anything x86 can do now, but it doesn't have the software. It doesn't have an open platform. More importantly, it doesn't have any games... besides mobile. Fuck mobile games. If ARM is to get anywhere on the desktop market then it needs to open up and standardize, just like our modern day IBM compatibles.
There was a rumor that ARM's mali was going to enter the PC market, which means it would have competed with Nvidia. The reason ARM went for sale was because they invested too much into Internet of Things (IoT). Turns out people didn't need toasters and refrigerators that were connected to the internet. If ARM went after the PC graphics market with Mali then things would be different.
I'm surprised it wasn't done sooner. Amazon using ARM for a cloud server isn't anything important. Apple's M1 is far more important for ARM's future.
Depends on which x86 you compare it with. With Intel I can believe that since Intel is still stuck on 14nm. AMD on the other hand... People don't understand how badly Intel fucked up being stuck with 14nm. Amazon's AWS is also on 7nm.
That's basically console gaming vs PC, and you can still see that people prefer their open platform much more.
Posts like this is the reason why Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop market. Gamers are why PC's mainly get faster. If gamers weren't involved in PC then a tablet is all you'd need to do your daily tasks. Obviously not everyone is using a tablet for everything, so there's a reason for this. There's a reason why a GPU went from playing Quake 3 to rendering an OS desktop to rendering video encoding. We are the reason why anyone spends money to make faster hardware. We are the reason why Doom outsold Windows 95. We are also the reason why nobody takes Apple serious.
Think of it like what porn did for DVD. If you want to get anywhere in this market then you need gamers. ARM's been out for decades and can do basically anything x86 can do now, but it doesn't have the software. It doesn't have an open platform. More importantly, it doesn't have any games... besides mobile. Fuck mobile games. If ARM is to get anywhere on the desktop market then it needs to open up and standardize, just like our modern day IBM compatibles.
This is the only part of your post I have anything in particular to speak against. I don’t think you know even where most consumer PC sales are going then. Which is of course the laptop market. Things changed a bit because of COVID19, but honestly more people still prefer a laptop over a desktop PC. This is a space that there are zero disadvantages to ARM (as in, “being open” has no real advantages - people buy laptops like appliances). And as ChadD noted, if it’s faster and costs less it becomes a no brainer scenario.That's basically console gaming vs PC, and you can still see that people prefer their open platform much more.
Right up until it runs into an app that wasn't ported to ARM, and then performance falls off a cliff, just like with the Windows ARM tablets.they are going to be doing it with a 12-16 core performance ARM core that is going to spank x86
Except, if done right, that isn't really the case, especially with MacOS 11 and Rosetta 2, which is a translation layer rather than emulation, thus performance doesn't suffer nearly as much.Right up until it runs into an app that wasn't ported to ARM, and then performance falls off a cliff, just like with the Windows ARM tablets.
Not really. One major step would be to make an open platform for ARM just like x86's modern day IBM compatible PCs. You still need the software, which ARM does have a lot of software but nothing on the scale of x86 Windows. Did you know there's an ARM Windows? Nobody knows about it because nobody in their right mind would use an ARM based Windows laptop over an x86, because of the sheer amount of software available on it. Microsoft can't take down x86 Windows. Linux can't get people to switch and make x86 Linux apps. Steam had to make Proton so that x86 Windows games would run on x86 Linux, because nobody was porting their games over to x86 Linux.You are right, Apple started this with M1, but is still too proprietary and/or vendor-locked to run anything outside of MacOS 11, yet.
Once a mainstream and/or open bootup and platform standard for ARM are both met, it will be truly game over for Intel's x86-64,
AMD is already competitive against ARM. They may not be using 5nm or 3nm like some SoC's you find on cell phones and tablets but AMD has proven that x86 still has a lot of life left. Also I'm kinda excited about AVX-512 on AMD Zen. I love hearing what emulator authors can do with AVX-512.not counting AMD unless they somehow stop innovating the way they have for the last 4 years.
Intel fucked up because they were dependent on their superior manufacturing. That and Sandy Bridge was a huge boost of performance compared to anything else before it. Then Intel got lazy and didn't want to invest in their manufacturing, which is why everyone else is using 7nm or less while Intel is still stuck on 2014 technology. As great as Sandy Bridge was, that was introduced in 2011. Since Sandy Bridge, Intel hasn't done a major redesign for nearly 10 years. AMD introduced the Athlon 64 in 2003 and were using that architecture until Bulldozer which was 2011. That didn't work out well for AMD, so imagine how badly this is working for Intel. You don't want to use an architecture for too long, otherwise you risk having your competitor out perform you.Their latest CPUs are a joke, even when directly compared to their own last generation CPUs, and it seems like the new CEO, and management shakeup, has done little to improve their situation.
Intel needs to get its proverbial shit together, and soon.
Exactly, you hit the nail on the head with the primary issue and what is needed.Not really. One major step would be to make an open platform for ARM just like x86's modern day IBM compatible PCs. You still need the software, which ARM does have a lot of software but nothing on the scale of x86 Windows. Did you know there's an ARM Windows? Nobody knows about it because nobody in their right mind would use an ARM based Windows laptop over an x86, because of the sheer amount of software available on it. Microsoft can't take down x86 Windows. Linux can't get people to switch and make x86 Linux apps. Steam had to make Proton so that x86 Windows games would run on x86 Linux, because nobody was porting their games over to x86 Linux.
That's true, and Apple has been working at getting a software-base going for ARM since the original iPhone back in 2007, so by 2020 they had over a decade worth of software, and an OS ecosystem they had tight control over with little between the mobile and desktop variants, at least on the back-end.When you make a new CPU platform, you do have a chicken or egg situation. Which came first, the software developers or the users? Trick question, you need both at the same thing. This is why Apple made sure they have decent x86 emulation because nobody is going to develop apps for ARM MacOSX when nobody owns them. Consequently no user is going to go ARM MacOSX when there's no apps to use on it. It'll take Apple years just to have the same level of software like they have now on x86. Maybe even 10 years.
Agreed, AMD has really shown that x86/x86-64 can continue to perform, well beyond what I thought was even capable of with it.AMD is already competitive against ARM. They may not be using 5nm or 3nm like some SoC's you find on cell phones and tablets but AMD has proven that x86 still has a lot of life left. Also I'm kinda excited about AVX-512 on AMD Zen. I love hearing what emulator authors can do with AVX-512.
I do remember that as well, and how the HD2000 iGPU was quite the game-changer of 2011, and thinking how good those CPUs and iGPUs really were compared nearly anything else on the market.Intel fucked up because they were dependent on their superior manufacturing. That and Sandy Bridge was a huge boost of performance compared to anything else before it. Then Intel got lazy and didn't want to invest in their manufacturing, which is why everyone else is using 7nm or less while Intel is still stuck on 2014 technology. As great as Sandy Bridge was, that was introduced in 2011. Since Sandy Bridge, Intel hasn't done a major redesign for nearly 10 years.
haha, I remember both of those releases very well, too!AMD introduced the Athlon 64 in 2003 and were using that architecture until Bulldozer which was 2011. That didn't work out well for AMD, so imagine how badly this is working for Intel. You don't want to use an architecture for too long, otherwise you risk having your competitor out perform you.
This isn't indicative of x86's performance, just Intels. When AMD released the Athlon 64, it was destroying Intel in benchmarks because Netburst=LoL. Yet everyone who compared Apple's PowerPC to x86, they would point out Intel. This is the same situation.
I'm thinking also of all those businesses that are still running mainframe apps. Now sure, they can run on terminals in an ARM machine just as easily as anything else but I bet the original ERP or whatever will never be natively ARM, or they would've already ported it to something else.Except, if done right, that isn't really the case, especially with MacOS 11 and Rosetta 2, which is a translation layer rather than emulation, thus performance doesn't suffer nearly as much.
Modern apps will need to be ported or updated to support multiple ISAs (or be ISA-agnostic), depend on emulation/translation, or if proprietary enough then needing to hold onto legacy equipment to perform the task for however long it can.
There was a rumor that ARM's mali was going to enter the PC market, which means it would have competed with Nvidia. The reason ARM went for sale was because they invested too much into Internet of Things (IoT). Turns out people didn't need toasters and refrigerators that were connected to the internet. If ARM went after the PC graphics market with Mali then things would be different.
I'm surprised it wasn't done sooner. Amazon using ARM for a cloud server isn't anything important. Apple's M1 is far more important for ARM's future.
Depends on which x86 you compare it with. With Intel I can believe that since Intel is still stuck on 14nm. AMD on the other hand... People don't understand how badly Intel fucked up being stuck with 14nm. Amazon's AWS is also on 7nm.
That's basically console gaming vs PC, and you can still see that people prefer their open platform much more.
Posts like this is the reason why Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop market. Gamers are why PC's mainly get faster. If gamers weren't involved in PC then a tablet is all you'd need to do your daily tasks. Obviously not everyone is using a tablet for everything, so there's a reason for this. There's a reason why a GPU went from playing Quake 3 to rendering an OS desktop to rendering video encoding. We are the reason why anyone spends money to make faster hardware. We are the reason why Doom outsold Windows 95. We are also the reason why nobody takes Apple serious.
Think of it like what porn did for DVD. If you want to get anywhere in this market then you need gamers. ARM's been out for decades and can do basically anything x86 can do now, but it doesn't have the software. It doesn't have an open platform. More importantly, it doesn't have any games... besides mobile. Fuck mobile games. If ARM is to get anywhere on the desktop market then it needs to open up and standardize, just like our modern day IBM compatibles.
Posts like this is the reason why Linux still hasn't taken over the desktop market. Gamers are why PC's mainly get faster. If gamers weren't involved in PC then a tablet is all you'd need to do your daily tasks. Obviously not everyone is using a tablet for everything, so there's a reason for this. There's a reason why a GPU went from playing Quake 3 to rendering an OS desktop to rendering video encoding. We are the reason why anyone spends money to make faster hardware. We are the reason why Doom outsold Windows 95. We are also the reason why nobody takes Apple serious.
Think of it like what porn did for DVD. If you want to get anywhere in this market then you need gamers. ARM's been out for decades and can do basically anything x86 can do now, but it doesn't have the software. It doesn't have an open platform. More importantly, it doesn't have any games... besides mobile. Fuck mobile games. If ARM is to get anywhere on the desktop market then it needs to open up and standardize, just like our modern day IBM compatibles.
Mainframes (assuming modern units) are specialized hardware with massive amounts of I/O that no other ISA or platform can touch.I'm thinking also of all those businesses that are still running mainframe apps. Now sure, they can run on terminals in an ARM machine just as easily as anything else but I bet the original ERP or whatever will never be natively ARM, or they would've already ported it to something else.
No, it's just a bunch of bitching by other big companies that like to whine (mostly Qualcomm), and every government under the sun besides ours doing it's job and investigating the matter.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethki...quisition-should-be-approved/?sh=4d1e0a8a45b2
There is no real worry about anyone having a monopoly, as there is nothing stopping Apple from building their own CPUs (all there other ARM licensees already gave-up custom CPU). Additionally, there are like 6 different major GPU vendors in the mobile phone market (besides MALI): Broadcom, AMD, Imagination Tech, Qualcomm, and Apple, so merging two will not do anything negative.
Where the hell are all of you people getting the impression that this merger is already dead, besides pointless paid articles from Qualcomm? Where is there any evidence that they will stop licensing to other companies at current rates?
since when have large corps ever made a point of doing something "right".... That might be the primary driver for X86 being what it is, its got tools for everything.Except, if done right, that isn't really the case, especially with MacOS 11 and Rosetta 2, which is a translation layer rather than emulation, thus performance doesn't suffer nearly as much.
Modern apps will need to be ported or updated to support multiple ISAs (or be ISA-agnostic), depend on emulation/translation, or if proprietary enough then needing to hold onto legacy equipment to perform the task for however long it can.
I can top all of this...x86 is done for this time!
Linux is going to pull ahead on the desktop this time!
Duke Nukem Forever will be out this year!
Stop me if you have heard this before.
I'm just trying to picture all of those middle-aged women in the office, the ones who can barely use a computer and freak out any time anything changes at all--they're the ones that have notepads full of exactly every mouse click and keypress to do their jobs, and heaven help if they miss a step one time--switching from Windows to Apple and wondering how well that'd go.Still it looks like MS is ready to take ARM seriously now that it looks like Apple is getting ready to bring some serious pain. Like it or not M1 is selling and selling very well.
Apple didn't become a $1 trillion+ megacorp because of their low low prices.Technology is cheap to manufacture en masse nowadays...Apple is putting cheap hardware in cheap to make packages (just like every other hardware company) and slapping on some of the most massive price tags while marketing them as trendy home decor and fashion accessories. That's a facepalm that Apple has been eliciting for well over a decade.
Please don't bring sex or age into this - I have known people of all ages and genders that do just what you are describing; that is hardly exclusive to middle-aged women.I'm just trying to picture all of those middle-aged women in the office, the ones who can barely use a computer and freak out any time anything changes at all--they're the ones that have notepads full of exactly every mouse click and keypress to do their jobs, and heaven help if they miss a step one time--switching from Windows to Apple and wondering how well that'd go.
Everyone does. If you're not on Windows as a consumer, you're niche.I consider Apple's computer hardware and OS market share numbers as niche. A strong niche, but still niche.
Love them or hate them, Apple makes 100% bespoke products. Every PCB, surface, keyboard, mousing surface, audio module is built by them. The only things that are provided by OEM's are things that sit under other people's standards. Such as Bluetooth chips and Wi-Fi radios, and display panels. At this point with ARM, they make, in Apple terminology, the entire widget.Technology is cheap to manufacture en masse nowadays...Apple is putting cheap hardware in cheap to make packages (just like every other hardware company) and slapping on some of the most massive price tags while marketing them as trendy home decor and fashion accessories. That's a facepalm that Apple has been eliciting for well over a decade.
Right, and to add on, they're the biggest company in the world at this point. What's the point in selling more units? It's about making more money. And even on that note they're excelling. The M1 basically performs faster than any PC that costs twice as much. A $900 Mac Mini can destroy a PC that costs $3000 in 4k and h.265 rendering as well as RAW workflows. Especially in real time - and this is just their first generation product. So even going back to the cost and value proposition, Apple is really ahead in specific workloads. Granted again that isn't "gaming", but if that's your (the proverbial you, not you in particular) focus then this whole discussion is pointless.Apple didn't become a $1 trillion+ megacorp because of their low low prices.
Marketing and brand recognition, along with high pricing, has worked for them as a "premium" product provider for over 20 years now, so why now would they change the game?
Doing so would only make their market more competitive, which is the opposite of what they want to happen, and even purely from a business standpoint, it would be a foolish move.
Not sure how that is a facepalm, as obviously it is working quite well for them - that facepalm should go to Microsoft for being late to the game, stifling innovation, and dropping the ball for nearly 20 years.
Easy there, buddy, I was just using them as an example because they're very common in the business world. You are right, they're not the only people at all like that. (But they do make up a significant fraction of my user base at work.)Please don't bring sex or age into this
Attack ads aren't really Apple's thing these days, even if it did bring John Hodgman back for a one-off. And while Apple did cut the price of the MacBook Air with the M1 switch, you probably weren't going to see any other price changes with that first round regardless — the initial machines were existing models with new innards. If there are cost savings to be had, they'll show up once Apple is designing for ARM from scratch. Not that I expect to see a $600 MacBook any time soon.Through all of this, I think Apple has recently dropped the ball when they had a golden opportunity to propel ARM. New M1 seems quite stout, as well as significantly cheaper to make and implement than x86. Apple probably should have used those facts to their advantage with a massive advertising smear campaign against PC to educate the masses and lower their base MSRPs, but they didn't. They are still too proud of their pricing, and that's why Apple has only about 8% of the personal computer global hardware market and around 10% of the OS global market share. Windows is around 80%, globally.
I consider Apple's computer hardware and OS market share numbers as niche. A strong niche, but still niche.
Technology is cheap to manufacture en masse nowadays...Apple is putting cheap hardware in cheap to make packages (just like every other hardware company) and slapping on some of the most massive price tags while marketing them as trendy home decor and fashion accessories. That's a facepalm that Apple has been eliciting for well over a decade.