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Apple Ditching Intel?

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Apple making moves to ditch Intel? I personally don't see this happening, but I've been wrong many times when it comes to Apple.

With a slow-growing PC industry already hurting Intel, losing Apple as a client wouldn't be good for the company. Macs accounted for 11.6% of U.S. PC shipments in the second quarter of 2013, according to Gartner -- a significant enough slice of the pie for Intel to be concerned.
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Hence why I believed they put 64-bit in their A7 chips. It's not that they won't continue to make laptops, but expect them to make ARM based laptops soon. Unless they decided to go with AMD, which is probably a cold day in hell.

Not that those ARM based laptops won't crash and burn. I mean seriously, do they expect people to buy iOS apps from the app store and be happy with it? Half the reason people buy Macs is that at least if all else fails, you can still install Windows and run their apps.
 
This has been rumored for some time, but it's like people saying that Microsoft is going to ditch the Windows desktop. How? Even the A7 is still no where near Core i5/i7 CPU and GPU processing power. Now I very much could see something like an ARM laptop based on iOS with iOS gaining more desktop capabilities. These mobile OSes aren't going to be tied to just tablets forever.
 
that makes some sense now
i could see Apple going ARM with there own chips in every thing
 
Lol, no. This isn't like the switch from PowerPC where the market was small (and fanboy rabid) enough to do something like this. To many regular ass people own Macbook's these days, if they were told suddenly that half their software was about to be killed they would loose their shit.
 
Kor said:
Lol, no. This isn't like the switch from PowerPC where the market was small (and fanboy rabid) enough to do something like this. To many regular ass people own Macbook's these days, if they were told suddenly that half their software was about to be killed they would loose their shit.
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sounds par for apple
apple would save a TON of money moving to ARM
and its been known for a wile they want to merge iOS and OSX
 
I disagree. Intel's mobile offerings are getting stronger and stronger every year. Look at Baytrail. They'd be stupid to go ARM now.
 
Kor said:
Lol, no. This isn't like the switch from PowerPC where the market was small (and fanboy rabid) enough to do something like this. To many regular ass people own Macbook's these days, if they were told suddenly that half their software was about to be killed they would loose their shit.
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Like they haven't done that before ... :rolleyes:
 
MrPatate said:
Like they haven't done that before ... :rolleyes:
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Yeah, I believe every Mac user remembers that all too well.

All too well.

The transition from PPC to Intel x86 wasn't pretty. My friend, an avid OSX and Mac user (not a fan of the company's practices though, but not a fan of Microsoft either), hated that transition. He had to deal with software incompatibilities and slow running software.

For Apple to go from x86 to ARM would not only be a slap in the face to Intel-- 11% market share isn't something they'd want to lose-- but a slap to loyal Apple users and developers.

It's like trying to go from Cantonese to English then to Russian, more or less. (Yes, bad example.)
 
ARM offerings are no where near powerful enough for a workstation like the Mac Pro. There was an actual compelling reason they used RISC processors in their flagship workstations like the G5. Something like a beefy A7 would be fine for ultrabooks and tablets, but not smart for "high end".
 
I think it's a very good reality that Apple will ditch Intel if the cards are right. Mac is only a small part of their ecosystem.

We know the iPhone makes half of Apple's revenue and most of its profits, yet we are now seeing the iPad taking a larger role in Apple's revenue breakdown. The venerable tablet has risen to prominence with a huge 25% chunk of Apple's total revenue.

On the other hand, Macs are the next best thing for Apple after those two, and yet they account for only 10% of Cupertino's sales. The App Store accounts for 6% of revenue, and it's all downhill from there for the other products and services of Apple.
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http://www.phonearena.com/news/Appl...its-sales-now-Macs-dont-really-matter_id32825

So from a year old article:

iphone = 50%
Ipad = 25%
Mac = 10%
App Store = 6%


I would bet in another year or two the App Store sales will overtake the Macs in sales making them such a small part of their business model.

In OSX people can still buy things without paying the apple tax. Apple has to pay Intel for their products and is at the mercy of them to determine what hardware will be in their next model. By switching to ARM and making MBAs that run a new version of iOS Apple can easily cut their slice of the pie from App sales, decide exactly what they want to be in their products, and cut down on the amount of support needed.
 
I dont see macbook pros leaving intel. I could see apple making a low cost desktop/laptop version of the IPAD using an arm processor though.
 
buttons said:
I dont see macbook pros leaving intel. I could see apple making a low cost desktop/laptop version of the IPAD using an arm processor though.
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I would agree there. I think the first step will be MBAs and iMacs/mac minis. Keep the MBPs and Mac Pros with Intel for now but the rest of the lineup is going ARM.
 
I could see a switch to AMD, lets face it Apple can likely write a much better OS to schedule threads and the like then MS.

AMD would be a whole lot cheaper and stick with x86.
 
It's not going to happen any time soon. The reason the switch to Intel worked was because Intel's offerings were fast enough to emulate/translate PPC code to Intel using Rosetta. ARM is too slow for Apple's Pro apps and will never be able to emulate x86_64 at a decent speed for other software.

Switching to ARM won't work for Apple or Microsoft because people have so much invested in software and hardware. That's one of the reasons Windows RT doesn't catch on.

x64/x64_64 is the dominate design for laptops and desktops. And maybe even with tablets in the future.

Apple shouldn't bother designing its own ARM based processor. If Intel can improve the power usage of its mobile processors, I'd say Apple would switch to Intel. It's iOS and Apple's design that sells. Only the fanboys are obsessed with the underlying technology and the Intel/x86 hate.
 
Ashbringer said:
Hence why I believed they put 64-bit in their A7 chips.
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If you see Intel's comment about Apple's move to 64-bit in those chips, it was essentially that it provided no benefit whatsoever...which is false. It honestly reeks of some contention in their relationship and indeed hints at stronger ARM. As you know, Intel is pushing into the low-power market pretty hard right now, so it's not so hard to believe that there may be a divergence between them down the road. Not now, but then again the article does state "a few years out."
 
Elf_Boy said:
I could see a switch to AMD, lets face it Apple can likely write a much better OS to schedule threads and the like then MS.

AMD would be a whole lot cheaper and stick with x86.
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ARM is even cheaper
 
Can you imagine the profit margin? They keep the prices the same but save 200-400 dollars a unit? This is one of Apple's biggest dreams, cut out the high-end CPU manufacturer and move to their own semi-custom design that cost pennies on the dollar? If they think they can pull it off they will.

Of course this does kill the whole "run Windows on my Mac so I can run important applications" angle and I suppose that could spoil the whole deal.
 
Quix said:
Can you imagine the profit margin? They keep the prices the same but save 200-400 dollars a unit? This is one of Apple's biggest dreams, cut out the high-end CPU manufacturer and move to their own semi-custom design that cost pennies on the dollar? If they think they can pull it off they will.
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ARM devices will get slaughtered in performance and at $1k+ that's going to be a problem.
 
If what people are speculating here turns out to be true, then Apple will require Samsung to manufacture even more chips. The irony of the Apple-Samsung relationship never ceases to shock and amaze me.
 
Apple could be making a play with their own ARM notebook.

Look at how popular the ARM Chromebook's are it is not a stretch to think that apple would make a $500-800 "macbook air ARM" running IOS for the lower tier market. Sure they would have to maneuver the skus to ensure it doesn't cannibalize iPad/air sales, but I'm sure they can figure it out.
Basically an ipad 4 with 1 front cam, no retina, more expensive storage (vs ipad) and with IOS and keyboard trackpad, those would sell like hotcakes to students. Consider the extra space for a bigger battery and they would have an great "basic" laptop
 
Quix said:
Can you imagine the profit margin? They keep the prices the same but save 200-400 dollars a unit? This is one of Apple's biggest dreams, cut out the high-end CPU manufacturer and move to their own semi-custom design that cost pennies on the dollar? If they think they can pull it off they will.

Of course this does kill the whole "run Windows on my Mac so I can run important applications" angle and I suppose that could spoil the whole deal.
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not really you could still run Windows 8 since it has an ARM ver
 
Elios said:
when has apple every carried about price/performance
all the apple fans will still buy it
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It's one thing not to have the greatest price to performance ratios. It's another to get completely destroyed in performance at high prices especially for a conventional laptop.
 
Team Obi Juan said:
The sun's about to shine on AMD, boys.
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Guess you forgot.. their was a time where Apple was looking to use AMD.. then retreated and left AMD all together because of the performance..

Went back to Intel and stayed with Intel. They wont be going to AMD.. and hey, nVidia still has Apple.
 
Option 1 - ARM - Changing OS architecture would be potentially very costly in customer loyalty...
Option 2 - AMD - Potentially cheaper, but there generally is a performance hit...

I dont see it happening for a while, at least
 
Since Apple is massively hemorrhaging marketshare in just about ever product category they compete in, I don't see how an x86 -> ARM transition would help them much. It's still possible though since Apple seems to have completely lost their minds the past couple years.

But don't take anything at Motley Fool seriously. The whole site is ridiculous.
 
Completely speculative and with zero proof of anything. That site is now on my banned news sites.
 
i see it considerably more likely theyll switch to AMD... or even attempt a buy out on amd which has been speculated before....

AMD already got deals for xbone and ps4 both literally because their willing to sell at razor thin margins...

if its because of "margins"... i see amd a more likely option...
 
heatlesssun said:
ARM devices will get slaughtered in performance and at $1k+ that's going to be a problem.
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Apple has never cared about their performance.
All they care about is flashy bells and whistles, an aluminum case and "style" to set themselves apart.
Apple users only care that they don't have to worry about viruses, their Macs look stylish, they can surf the net and they can rub it in everyone else's face they just spent 1k on a "piece of art."

They'll shift their coding to run more on parallel processing once they can get cheap octo core 64 bit ARM chips running around 3ghz and go laughing all the way to the bank with low manufacturing cost energy efficient laptops "innovated as green" and the suckers will line up in droves with credit cards waving in the air.
 
I see a handful of problems with this. Sure apple could do it. But a HUGE and I can not over state this, reason that apple was ever able to gain any traction was MS offering office for macs. If apple goes ARM then either by that time MS will need a great IOS office suite, or the world will need to have moved away from MS office. I cant see that happening easily in a couple years would need to be at least 5 years.

Also the move to intel CPUs showed apple something really important. They don't have to lie and make up some different hardware to convince people to buy their stuff. So why would they take the risk of losing the software library they have built up that was non existent before intel macs?

IMO most of the time these articles are just ad revenue for someone, but also it might be apple trying to get some leverage to bargain with intel. If a rumor like this shaves a couple bucks off each CPU great for them right?

It is also possible they will just try to work it in slowly, IE bring out a new skew, the iFeather or some shit and try to get the lower end face book browsers to buy into it and build momentum.
 
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