Apple Has Procured TSMC’s Entire First Run of 3nm Chips

[erek]

Bad news for NVIDIA's NextGen 3nm chiplet GPUs

"Macrumors states that Apple will also be the first customer for N3E later this year. Intel was supposedly going to join Apple at the N3 table by purchasing GPU tiles for its upcoming Meteor Lake CPUs. However, delays might have forced it to go with N4 instead. With Apple’s purchase, it looks like Intel will be left out in the cold for the first run of N3. Since N3E is supposed to be coming online around the time Meteor Lake launches, we won’t be surprised to see its iGPU be an N4 product.

The purchase by Apple is exciting for the industry, as 3nm promises to be a blockbuster node for TSMC. In fact, TSMC is so confident that it raised prices for Apple, and the company reportedly buckled in negotiations over it. Despite the now-finalized agreement, we won’t see the first 3nm chips for another six months, at least."

Source: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/343291-apple-has-procured-tsmcs-entire-first-run-of-3nm-chips

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

How do you maintain a lead in mobile that no one else can compete with?

Buy all the next gen silicon capacity so no one can compete...

It's really kind of lame that they can do this.

 

[Lakados]

but nobody has anything in mobile that does compete with it, Apple just not looking to take any prisoners with their next lineup.

 

[vegeta535]

How do you maintain a lead in mobile that no one else can compete with?

Buy all the next gen silicon capacity so no one can compete...

It's really kind of lame that they can do this.

The competition needs a chip design that can compete with Apples mobile chips first.

 

[TordanGow]

but nobody has anything in mobile that does compete with it, Apple just not looking to take any prisoners with their next lineup.

Shame they cripple it with their locked down OS. Doesn't matter how good the hardware is if I can't run what I want on it. If sideloading apps through package files was a standard feature I'd switch over in a second.

 

[Mega6]

I take apple lockdown IOS as a plus, won't touch malware infected Android ecosystem.

 

[DukenukemX]

How do you maintain a lead in mobile that no one else can compete with?

Buy all the next gen silicon capacity so no one can compete...

It's really kind of lame that they can do this.

That's how Apple's Silicon got to be so good at power consumption. When the M1 was released it was using 5nm while AMD was using 7nm and Intel was using 14nm. This year will be different as AMD will soon be using 4nm, which will beat Apple's M2's 5nm, and Intel will be using their own 4nm as well as TSMC's 5nm. As for Apple's use of 3nm we won't see it until later this year with the M3.

I take apple lockdown IOS as a plus, won't touch malware infected Android ecosystem.

Apple is the malware. Next time install GrapheneOS on your iPhone.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/19/class-action-privacy-lawsuit/

 

[Mega6]

That's how Apple's Silicon got to be so good at power consumption. When the M1 was released it was using 5nm while AMD was using 7nm and Intel was using 14nm. This year will be different as AMD will soon be using 4nm, which will beat Apple's M2's 5nm, and Intel will be using their own 4nm as well as TSMC's 5nm. As for Apple's use of 3nm we won't see it until later this year with the M3.


Apple is the malware. Next time install GrapheneOS on your iPhone.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/19/class-action-privacy-lawsuit/

Yeah they all spy. I have/had all the tracking off in the OS but not really ready to move to a new 3rd party OS over it. I'll think about it thx for the tip. My initial investigation shows grapheneOS can have integration issues with apps so.. I tread carefully.

Windows does the same thing... there's really no escaping it.

 

[DukenukemX]

Yeah they all spy. I have/had all the tracking off in the OS but not really ready to move to a new 3rd party OS over it. I'll think about it thx for the tip. My initial investigation shows grapheneOS can have integration issues with apps so.. I tread carefully.

Windows does the same thing... there's really no escaping it.

As someone who uses Linux as their main OS and hasn't touched Windows in over a year, yes you can escape it. I haven't used a stock Android OS in forever. Serious no joke the moment I bought my HTC Dream I immediately switched it over to a custom rom. I've been doing this long before Android and iOS with Windows Mobile. Not to be confused with modern Windows Phones. My HTC Kiaser was so modified that originally it shipped with Windows Mobile without 3D acceleration, even though it had the hardware, but eventually I put a Windows Mobile that did, and then eventually moved it to Android. I mainly use LineageOS with F-Droid as a way to get apps. I've also never seen an infected Android device. Not saying it doesn't happen just that it's very unlikely to. Not like Windows.

Anyway, it does seem like Intel is still going to use TSMC's 3nm sometime in 2024. Intel's 4nm is good now while their 3nm will be available sometimes next year or even this year. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem like 3nm for Apple is going to give them any significant advantage for a long period of time. Good chance we won't see any Apple silicon using 3nm at least until later this year. If there's an M3 Pro and Max then it'll be in 2024, which is when you'll see Intel using 3nm as well.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-ceo-fires-back-at-3nm-delay-rumors
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-4nm-and-3nm-class-nodes-on-track-18nm-pulled-in

 

[Lakados]

Yeah they all spy. I have/had all the tracking off in the OS but not really ready to move to a new 3rd party OS over it. I'll think about it thx for the tip. My initial investigation shows grapheneOS can have integration issues with apps so.. I tread carefully.

Windows does the same thing... there's really no escaping it.

The big one I have been seeing a lot more lately is the Amazon AWS-IoT tracking app signature, which is used by Google and Yahoo (I legit forgot they existed) to send their metrics securely to AWS-hosted repositories.
That one spiked up hard when I started blocking anything outgoing on UDP 80 and UDP 443 in addition to anything with the QUIC app signature.
Google works very hard on trying to get their metrics past the blocks.
After blocking the AWS-iot signatures, I have started to see a lot of attempts outgoing as standard SSL on port 8883 to an Azure static IP but not one that I can find in the Microsoft papers for their Azure MQTT services which run on that port, but they are tagged with the MQTT app ID and not generic SSL, and as it popped up as well after blocking more of the known Google data collection methods if that is a new one I need to watch for.

 

[Lakados]

As someone who uses Linux as their main OS and hasn't touched Windows in over a year, yes you can escape it. I haven't used a stock Android OS is forever. Serious no joke the moment I bought my HTC Dream I immediately switched it over to a custom rom. I've been doing this long before Android and iOS with Windows Mobile. Not to be confused with modern Windows Phones. My HTC Kiaser was so modified that originally it shipped with Windows Mobile without 3D acceleration, even though it had the hardware, but eventually I put a Windows Mobile that did, and then eventually moved it to Android. I mainly use LineageOS with F-Droid as a way to get apps. I've also never seen an infected Android device. Not saying it doesn't happen just that it's very unlikely to. Not like Windows.

Anyway, it does seem like Intel is still going to use TSMC's 3nm sometime in 2024. Intel's 4nm is good now while their 3nm will be available sometimes next year or even this year. Whatever the case, it doesn't seem like 3nm for Apple is going to give them any significant advantage for a long period of time. Good chance we won't see any Apple silicon using 3nm at least until later this year. If there's an M3 Pro and Max then it'll be in 2024, which is when you'll see Intel using 3nm as well.
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-ceo-fires-back-at-3nm-delay-rumors
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-4nm-and-3nm-class-nodes-on-track-18nm-pulled-in

I'm too lazy to do that, but Apple does offer some good privacy options for Enterprise which makes short work of most of those problems, their MDM options are pretty good there.
And since I already have to do that, and the office network already filters out the metrics within reason, easier to require the devices to have an always-on VPN back to there for all employees with access to "sensitive" data.
I don't know what Intel's plans with TSMC are now, I get the impression that their nodes are going to be where they need them when they need them so they will only now be using TSMC to manufacture their GPU tiles for the upcoming chips because TSMC undeniably has far more experience there.
Apple is anybody's guess, for their market their hardware does well enough, but is it overpriced, yeah, you can't say it isn't and keep a straight face, but the features their hardware offer are solid and if your use case falls within that scope then it is a solid choice. But I only recommend them for people who need their hardware to make money, because at that price if it isn't working for you then you have better options.
Right now as an "experiment," I am trying to legit find out how much of my weekly admin work I can do from an iPad Pro mini with an attached keyboard because at $750 CAD I can't find a laptop that does a better job than it.

 

[DukenukemX]

I don't know what Intel's plans with TSMC are now, I get the impression that their nodes are going to be where they need them when they need them so they will only now be using TSMC to manufacture their GPU tiles for the upcoming chips because TSMC undeniably has far more experience there.

My impression is that Intel just bought up TSMC 3nm to drive the price up for Apple. Intel has been buying a lot of manufacturing where Apple is also buying, which seems kinda odd when Intel also manufacturers. The article did say that Apple stepped back a bit when they heard the price, so I imagine that was somewhat Intel's doing. I'd imagine that Intel is still bitter that Apple dumped them and wants them back.

 

[Lakados]

My impression is that Intel just bought up TSMC 3nm to drive the price up for Apple. Intel has been buying a lot of manufacturing where Apple is also buying, which seems kinda odd when Intel also manufacturers. The article did say that Apple stepped back a bit when they heard the price, so I imagine that was somewhat Intel's doing. I'd imagine that Intel is still bitter that Apple dumped them and wants them back.

Well yeah, Intel is for sure butthurt there but they sadly only have their previous leadership to blame. Apple sells more hardware each year than AMD does to the consumer market, it was a massive blow.
But that ship has sailed, I don’t see Apple walking back their ARM decision it’s paid off more than sufficiently and is allowing Apple to slowly unify their iOS and MacOS ecosystem’s.
Intels only hope of getting Apple back in any capacity is to get 18A up ASAP before TSMC can launch their 1.8nm node and convince Apple to use their foundries instead of TSMC’s for M4 onwards.

 

[DukenukemX]

Well yeah, Intel is for sure butthurt there but they sadly only have their previous leadership to blame. Apple sells more hardware each year than AMD does to the consumer market, it was a massive blow.
But that ship has sailed, I don’t see Apple walking back their ARM decision it’s paid off more than sufficiently and is allowing Apple to slowly unify their iOS and MacOS ecosystem’s.
Intels only hope of getting Apple back in any capacity is to get 18A up ASAP before TSMC can launch their 1.8nm node and convince Apple to use their foundries instead of TSMC’s for M4 onwards.

I'm not sure that Apple sells more hardware than AMD, unless you count their iPhones and iPads. In that case Qualcomm sells more hardware than Apple and AMD combined. Also Apple's ARM decision is probably costing them. While Apple's iPhone and iPad market is huge, not so much their laptop and desktop market, which I'm sure Apple has spent far more R&D on than their mobile market. Apple didn't go 4nm with their M2 series products, and they did go cheap on the lowest tier SSD's as well. It's not like Apple's laptop market share went up. Also, Apple's ability to combine iOS and MacOS ecosystem's is something they obviously want to do, the question is would Mac users want this? Cause right now MacOS can't even use all the iOS applications due to restrictions from Apple. If iOS and MacOS ever gets merged you won't be side loading applications, or colloquial known in PCMasterRace as downloading and installing programs. Seriously side loading sounds stupid.

Also Intel doesn't need 18A or 20A up. All Intel needs to do is match Apple in power consumption and unplugged power. Right now anyone thinking of buying their MacBooks is doing so for power efficiency, but at the sacrifice of running Windows and x86 programs. If Intel's Meteor Lake is as good as Intel makes it sound like, Apple is in trouble. To be honest I see Windows 11 as more of a problem than Intel's CPU's. Microsoft is just failing in every way with Windows 11.
https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-ceo-slams-arrow-lake-cpu-delay-rumours/

 

[Lakados]

I'm not sure that Apple sells more hardware than AMD, unless you count their iPhones and iPads. In that case Qualcomm sells more hardware than Apple and AMD combined. Also Apple's ARM decision is probably costing them. While Apple's iPhone and iPad market is huge, not so much their laptop and desktop market, which I'm sure Apple has spent far more R&D on than their mobile market. Apple didn't go 4nm with their M2 series products, and they did go cheap on the lowest tier SSD's as well. It's not like Apple's laptop market share went up. Also, Apple's ability to combine iOS and MacOS ecosystem's is something they obviously want to do, the question is would Mac users want this? Cause right now MacOS can't even use all the iOS applications due to restrictions from Apple. If iOS and MacOS ever gets merged you won't be side loading applications, or colloquial known in PCMasterRace as downloading and installing programs. Seriously side loading sounds stupid.

Also Intel doesn't need 18A or 20A up. All Intel needs to do is match Apple in power consumption and unplugged power. Right now anyone thinking of buying their MacBooks is doing so for power efficiency, but at the sacrifice of running Windows and x86 programs. If Intel's Meteor Lake is as good as Intel makes it sound like, Apple is in trouble. To be honest I see Windows 11 as more of a problem than Intel's CPU's. Microsoft is just failing in every way with Windows 11.
https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-ceo-slams-arrow-lake-cpu-delay-rumours/

In any given year Apple was responsible for a little more than 15% of Intel's desktop CPU sales totaling around $3B in revenue.
AMD combines their numbers so I can't find any specifics but accounting for inflation and the fact Apple was buying middle-tier and older CPUs in bulk the numbers are closer than you might realize.
I know Apple spends huge amounts on R&D but their profit margins more than makeup for it, so their strategy there is working very nicely.
Every Mac user I know wants the two systems to merge they often get VERY frustrated when things that are in the MacOS App store are not also in the iOS store, especially when the iPad Pro's and any of the M1-based macs are running the exact same hardware.

Neither AMD more Intel are going to be matching Apple in unplugged power consumption any time soon, Apple has far too many custom hardware accelerators cooked into their architecture and they make sure they are used whenever and where ever possible, this only works in Apple's walled garden and really the PC crowd wouldn't stand for it. Change your OS and suddenly half your CPU's silicon sits idle, update your software and suddenly your audio streams aren't being processed in real-time because the MB's audio processor lacks some sort of new consarned codec acceleration support. I mean Intel, AMD, Microsoft, and Linux can't even agree on something like AVX-512, and suddenly we also want them to agree on, build and support some ASIC functions for fast Fourier transform or some other niche function? Then what happens when the software companies decide nope now we need you to have super fast Fourier transform accelerators instead.

Crap like that won't fly for the PC market, too many users doing too many different things on too many operating systems using vastly different software sets, and we sure as shit won't support the degree of logging Apple does to see what we are doing and how were are doing it, anonymous or not.

Apple users on the other hand silently or begrudgingly accept it, because, they don't care and the system is doing what they needed it to do. If you look at what Apple users are doing on their machines at the end of the day there is shockingly little variation between them, and Apple knows this because they have it logged, what, where, when, why, and for how long, they know if you are at home or a coffee shop they log it all scramble it and categorize you into a user type. They can then say hey if we add this feature to the silicon it would accelerate tasks for 98% of our users, and if we drop support for this it only affects 3% of our users, and if we change this to this and force a software update it will add 45 minutes of battery life, but it will mean that X number of users will need to buy a new version to use it. Microsoft doesn't log that much, and if they tried we'd block it, then they would get sued for it while Google and Facebook do it and more while continuing on their merry way, and you know the Linux community would burn any distro that attempted it into the ground alongside their development teams.

Apple gets to hyper-focus and custom tailor their software and silicon and that is great for them, PC can't do that but in exchange, we get to do just about whatever the hell we want, that's a fair trade because a custom solution should outperform a generic solution for the task it was customized to perform if it can't then it's useless.

 

[DukenukemX]

I know Apple spends huge amounts on R&D but their profit margins more than makeup for it, so their strategy there is working very nicely.

It's not about making profits, it's about making more. Being publicly traded means Apple needs growth, and spending more in R&D to make less is going to effect that. Which is why I'm not a fan of any company being publicly traded.

Every Mac user I know wants the two systems to merge they often get VERY frustrated when things that are in the MacOS App store are not also in the iOS store, especially when the iPad Pro's and any of the M1-based macs are running the exact same hardware.

That's because Mac OSX falls into a traditional OS, in that you can do what you want with the machine like side loading. There's a reason why Apple limits what you can use on Mac OSX from the iOS apps, because side loading is something they hate. Apple bans things like emulators from the iOS store because they see it as a way of circumventing getting applications from the store. Same goes for web browsers since all web browsers on iOS are technically using Safari. To merge the two you would either need to introduce more freedom to iOS, or take freedom away from Mac OSX. Considering how much the Biden Administration is pissed at Apple, you might see iOS become more like Mac OSX than the other way around.

Neither AMD more Intel are going to be matching Apple in unplugged power consumption any time soon, Apple has far too many custom hardware accelerators cooked into their architecture and they make sure they are used whenever and where ever possible, this only works in Apple's walled garden and really the PC crowd wouldn't stand for it. Change your OS and suddenly half your CPU's silicon sits idle, update your software and suddenly your audio streams aren't being processed in real-time because the MB's audio processor lacks some sort of new consarned codec acceleration support.

I'm confident that AMD and Intel will not only catch up but surpass Apple. This has happened before with PowerPC, the other modern more efficient CPU architecture compared to x86, that Apple used in the past. AMD basically called out Apple when they announced their new mobile 7000 chips. Lisa Su straight out said it on stage. Intel's Meteor Lake is pretty much aimed straight at Apple with claims of 50% efficiency and having AV1 encoding support.

To be honest, Intel is the one who made the most changes after Apple's M1 was released. Not only did Intel dump their old CEO, but they're using competitors manufacturing as well as adopting big little core design like Apple. They make "good" GPU's with better video encoding and decoding support. AMD is where I'd expect them to be, but I thought Intel would take many more years before they got their shit together. I also thought Apple would have 3nm chips running ARMv9 by now, so things didn't go as expected. Not in Apple's favor either.

I mean Intel, AMD, Microsoft, and Linux can't even agree on something like AVX-512, and suddenly we also want them to agree on, build and support some ASIC functions for fast Fourier transform or some other niche function? Then what happens when the software companies decide nope now we need you to have super fast Fourier transform accelerators instead.

You make it sound like Apple is immune to this. With their Metal API having hardly anyone adopting it, and already their media engine currently doesn't support AV1. As for AVX-512 the issue is how much power is used when in use, but AMD pretty much fixed this and made it standard on their new CPU's. Eventually Apple will switch over to ARMv9 with SVE2, which is similar to AVX-512.

Apple gets to hyper-focus and custom tailor their software and silicon and that is great for them, PC can't do that but in exchange, we get to do just about whatever the hell we want, that's a fair trade because a custom solution should outperform a generic solution for the task it was customized to perform if it can't then it's useless.

This is the same argument I heard with consoles in that it's worth having locked down hardware and software if it means better optimization and security. Except that Mac OSX isn't locked down, just iOS and that hasn't been an issue for them, or Linux if you consider how much hardware Linux supports. As for custom tailored software, that's a joke. Hackintosh has been a thing for over a decade and that doesn't stop people from running Apple's software. It's debatable if their software is even the best.

 

[Lakados]

That's because Mac OSX falls into a traditional OS, in that you can do what you want with the machine like side loading. There's a reason why Apple limits what you can use on Mac OSX from the iOS apps, because side loading is something they hate. Apple bans things like emulators from the iOS store because they see it as a way of circumventing getting applications from the store. Same goes for web browsers since all web browsers on iOS are technically using Safari. To merge the two you would either need to introduce more freedom to iOS, or take freedom away from Mac OSX. Considering how much the Biden Administration is pissed at Apple, you might see iOS become more like Mac OSX than the other way around.

In this case, it's not even sideloaded, it's in the App store for one but not the other, and I f'ing loathe Safari right now you can't imagine how much of a problem the fact that the Zoom website login not working from Safari causes me.
And iOS not working correctly with SAML authentication and the workarounds I need to implement to make them work on my networks right now makes me cry. As for the Biden administration, they are looking into Google and Facebook for all the same things they are looking into Apple for, just Google and Facebook burry those articles and Apple is on the list because Facebook and Google are paying the lobbyists to make the administration look at them, it's going to go nowhere, and less than nowhere once they start making the chips in Arizona.

I'm confident that AMD and Intel will not only catch up but surpass Apple. This has happened before with PowerPC, the other modern more efficient CPU architecture compared to x86, that Apple used in the past. AMD basically called out Apple when they announced their new mobile 7000 chips. Lisa Su straight out said it on stage. Intel's Meteor Lake is pretty much aimed straight at Apple with claims of 50% efficiency and having AV1 encoding support.

I am sure in general compute they will but when doing the Apple tasks that Apple users do it is going to at best match them, ARM's whole deal is it is very power efficient so x86 has a hard road to plow to beat ARM in that race, I welcome the attempt but I am not holding my breath. Lisa said a lot of things on that stage and I am still waiting for any of it to actually materialize, so I eagerly await 3'rd party tests there and actual products I can buy. But in the meantime, I have to add another 30 licenses to my Jamf server because neither AMD nor Intel is delivering and my budget window closes on June 1 and none of my remote staff want any of the Dell or HP options on their desks, and really locking down Apple devices that don't come inhouse regularly is an easier task than the Microsoft options.

To be honest, Intel is the one who made the most changes after Apple's M1 was released. Not only did Intel dump their old CEO, but they're using competitors manufacturing as well as adopting big little core design like Apple. They make "good" GPU's with better video encoding and decoding support. AMD is where I'd expect them to be, but I thought Intel would take many more years before they got their shit together. I also thought Apple would have 3nm chips running ARMv9 by now, so things didn't go as expected. Not in Apple's favor either.

Intel had to make the most changes, they fucked up. When Apple approached them and said you need to deliver this or we walk, Intel's response was basically, "Bitch you take what we give you and you learn to like it" so they walked. It cost Intel 15% of their annual revenue, if you as a CEO get into a pissing contest with another company who is your partner, then not only lose but then also lose 15% of your annual and still get to keep your job there is something wrong there.

ARMv9 is not all that different from v8, it really isn't it is not a big shake-up, it takes a bunch of the optional features of V8 and makes them mandatory (Apple already used them), and its biggest feature is the new SIMD instruction set, SVE2 but Apple has been using Neon and not SVE, but SVE2 is an optional feature on v8 so they don't need to upgrade to v9 to implement it but SVE2 would be a massive improvement so fingers crossed. It also makes changes to Confidential Compute but again that's a server VM thing so not really useful on a laptop. Its 30% performance gain mostly comes from the difference in the layout of the cache structure which actually makes it look a lot more Apple-like in its floor plan, the most significant change in V9 is on the GPU side something Apple doesn't use, it significantly improves on its enhanced vector processing capabilities and the new modem adds better digital signal processing, but Apple uses its own modems now so not a thing for them either. But other than those the rest of the ARM v9 platform includes optional support for many sensor types and wearable devices, be it hearing aids, or blood pressure sensors all things Apple has built into their watch platform. Arm 7 to 8, a huge change, 8 to 9 (with the exception of SVE2) is a lazy reverse engineering of Apple architecture because they were pretty sure Nvidia would be owning them shortly and they didn't want to invest a lot of money in something they thought they wouldn't own shortly.

Really I expect Apple to start changing up the ISA at some point so it's no longer ARM but "Apple silicon", that or go V10 when it launches, it really comes down to what happens with ARM as Softbank continues to screw the pooch, but I assume Apple is preparing for Softbank to auction it off to the highest bidder which will likely be some CCP holding company.

This is the same argument I heard with consoles in that it's worth having locked down hardware and software if it means better optimization and security. Except that Mac OSX isn't locked down, just iOS and that hasn't been an issue for them, or Linux if you consider how much hardware Linux supports. As for custom tailored software, that's a joke. Hackintosh has been a thing for over a decade and that doesn't stop people from running Apple's software. It's debatable if their software is even the best.

MacOS is pretty locked down, but it is more they have builds of MacOS that are specific to the M architecture, and make explicit use of the ASIC functions they build onto those chips, this is why I am so very interested in the AMD 7040 mobile series it is AMD's first generation of ASIC accelerators on a consumer product. If AMD can manage to work with Microsoft and the Linux communities to get those accelerators working at a core level of the OS as they bragged about on stage then I have hope, but that is going to rely heavily on AMDs driver teams and Microsoft development staff and neither has given me much hope as of late, so you will forgive me for not holding my breath there. If AMD had added those features to their whole Zen 4 lineup I would be more enthusiastic but limiting it only to the 7040 series makes it an afterthought for them all at best and I promptly expect it to be forgotten and only used by the OEMs in their branded software most users uninstall immediately after turning it on, assuming they booted to the installed OS at all and didn't just reimage the whole thing out the gate.
In regards to Apple software being the best, we all know it isn't it just needs to work, like nobody who deals with spreadsheets looks at Numbers and goes "Wow! this makes Excel look like a complete pile of shit!", but you better believe they use it as their default program until they call me one day and go "This macro won't load! WTF!" for me to explain they need to close Numbers and open it in Excel. But if you are using something like Davinci Resolve, the Adobe suite, or the popular audio editors then Apple has some advantages there because Apple basically tailor-made the M1 for those programs specifically. Not saying a desktop doesn't crush the crap out of it, but if you are starting out or freelancing in some shit 300 sq foot apartment the Mac options are going to do it better in your budget than just about anything else. Then when you are doing better and have a larger space you get another mac, not because it's better but because it is what you know, and studios use them because that is what the people they are hiring know and use, so it's a big circle jerk of easy, classic hook them while their young approach.

 

[DukenukemX]

As for the Biden administration, they are looking into Google and Facebook for all the same things they are looking into Apple for, just Google and Facebook burry those articles and Apple is on the list because Facebook and Google are paying the lobbyists to make the administration look at them, it's going to go nowhere, and less than nowhere once they start making the chips in Arizona.

I hope Google and Facebook also burn. Most likely nobody is going to do anything. Apple will eventually make Mac OSX more like iOS to the point where they are just Mac iOSX. All this does is remove side loading for Mac OSX in the long run.

I am sure in general compute they will but when doing the Apple tasks that Apple users do it is going to at best match them, ARM's whole deal is it is very power efficient so x86 has a hard road to plow to beat ARM in that race, I welcome the attempt but I am not holding my breath.

A lot of people see ARM as this holy grail of power efficiency but in reality it isn't the architecture but the fact that it was built for over 20 years on mobile devices where it needed to be efficient but was also slow. The only reason people used them was because their licensing was cheap compared to MIPS and PowerPC. X86 was built for performance and power efficiency be damned.

Lisa said a lot of things on that stage and I am still waiting for any of it to actually materialize, so I eagerly await 3'rd party tests there and actual products I can buy.

They will be released in March which is soon.

But in the meantime, I have to add another 30 licenses to my Jamf server because neither AMD nor Intel is delivering and my budget window closes on June 1 and none of my remote staff want any of the Dell or HP options on their desks, and really locking down Apple devices that don't come inhouse regularly is an easier task than the Microsoft options.

Delivering what? What exactly makes Apple more compelling?

Intel had to make the most changes, they fucked up. When Apple approached them and said you need to deliver this or we walk, Intel's response was basically, "Bitch you take what we give you and you learn to like it" so they walked. It cost Intel 15% of their annual revenue, if you as a CEO get into a pissing contest with another company who is your partner, then not only lose but then also lose 15% of your annual and still get to keep your job there is something wrong there.

Intel fucked up because their CEO wasn't an engineer and walked away with a lot of money. You'll notice that AMD and Nvidia have CEO's that have a background in engineering, and that includes Tim Cook. The new guy Patrick Gelsinger has a background in engineering so they got that right.

Really I expect Apple to start changing up the ISA at some point so it's no longer ARM but "Apple silicon", that or go V10 when it launches, it really comes down to what happens with ARM as Softbank continues to screw the pooch, but I assume Apple is preparing for Softbank to auction it off to the highest bidder which will likely be some CCP holding company.

I expect Apple to also change their silicon to the point where ARM isn't 100% compatible and that would be Apple's second biggest mistake. Good luck with developers.

MacOS is pretty locked down, but it is more they have builds of MacOS that are specific to the M architecture, and make explicit use of the ASIC functions they build onto those chips, this is why I am so very interested in the AMD 7040 mobile series it is AMD's first generation of ASIC accelerators on a consumer product. If AMD can manage to work with Microsoft and the Linux communities to get those accelerators working at a core level of the OS as they bragged about on stage then I have hope, but that is going to rely heavily on AMDs driver teams and Microsoft development staff and neither has given me much hope as of late, so you will forgive me for not holding my breath there.

There is no Apple magic. They aren't doing anything special other than having a heavy reliance on hardware codec acceleration.

If AMD had added those features to their whole Zen 4 lineup I would be more enthusiastic but limiting it only to the 7040 series makes it an afterthought for them all at best and I promptly expect it to be forgotten and only used by the OEMs in their branded software most users uninstall immediately after turning it on, assuming they booted to the installed OS at all and didn't just reimage the whole thing out the gate.

AMD's mistake is gating their tech, which is why the 7040's are the only chips worth looking at. Also what features?

 

[Lakados]

Also what features?

Their ML accelerators in their "AI engine", look into Microsoft Machine Learning or OpenML. Cellphones have been using accelerated ML libraries for the past 6 years and it makes most of their features that we take for granted work way better there than it does on PC for basically nothing. Be it a real-time web page or image translation, audio filtering for stripping out background audio in a conference call, or cleaning up webcam footage to make it more clear. Android and iOS use them for their built-in image editors and video recording software which not only gives better results but does it for very little power draw. I mean if you take a look at how much energy it takes an Android cellphone to do a search based on an image and compare it to how much power it takes to do the same task on a PC that lacks ML acceleration it's a massive difference same thing with any of the "Hey voice assistant" commands.

There is no Apple magic. They aren't doing anything special other than having a heavy reliance on hardware codec acceleration.

That is the magic, the average user doesn't care how the cake gets cut they only want their piece, but if the custom codec accelerator does the job faster and can keep doing it all day on battery while some Intel or AMD chip drans the battery in 2h while taking longer to do it then why would they want that. As far as they are concerned that just means the x86 solution has shit battery and is slower.

I expect Apple to also change their silicon to the point where ARM isn't 100% compatible and that would be Apple's second biggest mistake. Good luck with developers.

Developers don't care, the programming language doesn't change, the commands don't change, it just adds 1 extra box of compile options in a menu, and might require an update from version 10.1.2 to 10.2.1 to add the box, not a deal breaker.

Delivering what? What exactly makes Apple more compelling?

Apple does better for just about every teleconferencing software going, the optimizations they have in place for audio filtering and image enhancement make you look and sound better on Zoom, Citrix, etc. So Apple users can look at their mac and just talk into it, PC users need some sort of headphone set to sound as good and then you look dorky and yeah you get judged for it.
They crush everything on battery life, hands down, nobody likes carrying around a charging brick in addition to their laptop all day, you can reasonably expect your mac to go the full day on a charge, you can't do that on a PC so that means you need to carry the heavier PC and the heavier charger with it and that pisses people off. The rest of the stuff is a dead heat, Word, Excel, Acrobat, Outlook, they don't care what you are running it is all the same.
For me, Apple has vastly better MDM options and Apple has much better purchase and asset tracking built into their platform so that just makes my life easier to track and manage assets that are going off-site that I may not physically see again for years.

They will be released in March which is soon.

But not soon enough, they may be an option for the 2023-2024 budget year but not 2022-2023, also look at their launch partners, MSI, ASUS, and Acer, not exactly on the approved lists, only approved vendors are Dell, and Lenovo, but they put them in the Alienware and Legion lineup so gaming branded, I don't feel like having Auditing and Procurement up my butt asking me to explain those purchases. So while I will gladly ask the wife for permission to buy a new Alienware, no way in hell am I going to sign off on that for work.

 

[GoodBoy]

Shame they cripple it with their locked down OS. Doesn't matter how good the hardware is if I can't run what I want on it. If sideloading apps through package files was a standard feature I'd switch over in a second.

Even if they did, I still wouldn't switch.

I take apple lockdown IOS as a plus, won't touch malware infected Android ecosystem.

Keep telling yourself that.
I've used android for 12 years, my mom who is completely tech illiterate has used it for 8 years. 0 issues with malware.

 

[Mega6]

Even if they did, I still wouldn't switch.

Keep telling yourself that.
I've used android for 12 years, my mom who is completely tech illiterate has used it for 8 years. 0 issues with malware.

Lucky her. My mom has been just as lucky and clueless as hell. Two examples don't make a trend. It is widely known and common sense that there is more Android malware out there than Apple - just by the nature of the ecosystems. But keep fooling yourself.

 

[DukenukemX]

Lucky her. My mom has been just as lucky and clueless as hell. Two examples don't make a trend. It is widely known and common sense that there is more Android malware out there than Apple - just by the nature of the ecosystems. But keep fooling yourself.

I have never seen malware on Android. It's certainly possible due to side loading but they really do deter you from installing APK's.

 

[OutOfPhase]

I have never seen malware on Android. It's certainly possible due to side loading but they really do deter you from installing APK's.

So - for folks who don't want to do research, would you conclude disabling side-loading is a reasonable policy to mitigate the vast majority of malware?

 

[DukenukemX]

So - for folks who don't want to do research, would you conclude disabling side-loading is a reasonable policy to mitigate the vast majority of malware?

What exactly constitutes as malware because according to Apple there's 47x more malware on Android vs iOS. That suggests then Apple does have malware, which shouldn't be the case since their platform is locked down too. Also I wouldn't use Apple as a unbiased source. Who's research are you going by?

 

[OutOfPhase]

What exactly constitutes as malware because according to Apple there's 47x more malware on Android vs iOS. That suggests then Apple does have malware, which shouldn't be the case since their platform is locked down too. Also I wouldn't use Apple as a unbiased source. Who's research are you going by

I did not provide a position, but asked a question.

 

[GoodBoy]

Lucky her. My mom has been just as lucky and clueless as hell. Two examples don't make a trend. It is widely known and common sense that there is more Android malware out there than Apple - just by the nature of the ecosystems. But keep fooling yourself.

You have to reallly try to sideload apps on Android.

If you go to some website to download a crack for your game, you are probably going to get some shit with it. If you go to an appstore that Google tells you "This is untrusted", and you still go anyway, it's the same roll of the dice.

Nothing about any of that has anything to do with the "nature of the ecosystem".

For Apple users, ignorance is bliss...

 

[Mega6]

You have to reallly try to sideload apps on Android.

If you go to some website to download a crack for your game, you are probably going to get some shit with it. If you go to an appstore that Google tells you "This is untrusted", and you still go anyway, it's the same roll of the dice.

Nothing about any of that has anything to do with the "nature of the ecosystem".

For Apple users, ignorance is bliss...

-the open nature of Android makes it more susceptible to malware attacks
-the popularity makes Android a more common target
-the nature of the Android OS makes it harder to track and locate malware/bugs
-security updates are more limited than ios (only 2 years)
-multiple app marketplaces makes for more intrusion points

 

[NightReaver]

-the popularity makes Android a more common target

How true is this nowadays? Isn't Apple pretty widespread now?

 

[Armenius]

-the open nature of Android makes it more susceptible to malware attacks
-the popularity makes Android a more common target
-the nature of the Android OS makes it harder to track and locate malware/bugs
-security updates are more limited than ios (only 2 years)
-multiple app marketplaces makes for more intrusion points

So you're saying you just need to treat it like a regular PC? Got it.

 

[Aurelius]

Can we get back on topic, please?

This isn't surprising if true, and reflects what I've touched on in the past. The largest threat from the ARM transition was always going to come in the long run, as Apple got a sense for what worked and took advantage of improved manufacturing nodes. Remember, it took Apple's A-series chips a few years to go from merely competitive to class-leading (the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the first rival in a long time to outrun the latest Apple SoC in a significant way, at least in some areas). Not that Apple is guaranteed a repeat, but I suspect M3 is where the company will really hit its stride.

Again, I don't think this will necessarily give Apple giant leaps in market share. It might, however, help the company effectively corner the high-end home computer space (at least, outside of gaming) and provide steady gains. We've already seen Apple generally outperform the rest of the top five in relative shipment performance since M1 arrived; even in the horrible last quarter, its shipments declined far less than those of Windows rivals (2.1% versus 20.9% or more). The company has also hinted that it's taking gaming more seriously this time around, although I don't think it's under any illusion that it'll supplant Windows — just get more major games on the Mac.

 

[Lakados]

Can we get back on topic, please?

This isn't surprising if true, and reflects what I've touched on in the past. The largest threat from the ARM transition was always going to come in the long run, as Apple got a sense for what worked and took advantage of improved manufacturing nodes. Remember, it took Apple's A-series chips a few years to go from merely competitive to class-leading (the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 is the first rival in a long time to outrun the latest Apple SoC in a significant way, at least in some areas). Not that Apple is guaranteed a repeat, but I suspect M3 is where the company will really hit its stride.

Again, I don't think this will necessarily give Apple giant leaps in market share. It might, however, help the company effectively corner the high-end home computer space (at least, outside of gaming) and provide steady gains. We've already seen Apple generally outperform the rest of the top five in relative shipment performance since M1 arrived; even in the horrible last quarter, its shipments declined far less than those of Windows rivals (2.1% versus 20.9% or more). The company has also hinted that it's taking gaming more seriously this time around, although I don't think it's under any illusion that it'll supplant Windows — just get more major games on the Mac.

Apple doesn't play for market share, the fact they are technically a "minor" player in terms of market penetration actually plays to its advantage it lets them do things that would otherwise be illegal.
The fact that Apple needs to move to 3nm to maintain an advantage against Qualcomm is a good thing, we want Qualcomm and Apple to be in a race like Intel and AMD, we want them to push each other so nobody gets complacent.
Remember the Apple Intel years when their "newest" pro series devices used CPUs or GPUs that were sometimes 2 generations old? And they would sell, not because they were better for doing a particular job but because they were Apple and they had some semi-exclusive software set that worked best there.
Apple continuing that sort of strategy does nothing for any of us here. We want them to feel pressured to innovate, we want them to put pressure on Intel and AMD to improve efficiency and battery performance, and we want OEMs to feel pressured to use nicer keyboards or better-quality displays.

Apple for gaming has come a long way, they have been making large investments into the Apple Arcade platform and it is steadily growing, many of the games I have tried there are honestly quite good, nothing spectacular, but better than many if not most of the mobile offerings out there.
Should the Microsoft purchase of the Activision/Blizzard fail I honestly hope Apple swoops in and buys them, at $69B Microsoft is overpaying and they know it, when it fails and the price tanks Apple could probably get it in the $50B range and that is better than the alternatives because I know Netease and Tencent are eyeing them up.
Worst case there Apple fucks the whole thing up but I doubt it, they have the money to throw at them to bring things in line.

 

[Teenyman45]

How do you maintain a lead in mobile that no one else can compete with?

Buy all the next gen silicon capacity so no one can compete...

It's really kind of lame that they can do this.

Samsung or anybody else can always offer to pay more than Apple for 20-50% of the first run capacity on the new node...

 

[Mega6]

Apple-Activision will never happen, at least not now or for a while. The biggest burden is Apple is all ARM now. x86 rules desktop gaming at this point. Mobile? Have at it. Apple has a LONG way to go before it's a viable desktop platform for gaming. However I'm all for your competition argument.

 

[Mega6]

Samsung or anybody else can always offer to pay more than Apple for 20-50% of the first run capacity on the new node...

No one else has the cash, loyalty of TSMC and capital that Apple has. Proven time and time again as Apple gets dibs on TSMCs most advanced node.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

Samsung or anybody else can always offer to pay more than Apple for 20-50% of the first run capacity on the new node...

It's pretty hard to beat Apples $50 billion in cash on hand (down from $100B just a few years ago) if it comes to a bidding war.

Heck, if they wanted to they could sabotage a shit ton of others in the market by just buying up capacity.

 

[Teenyman45]

It's pretty hard to beat Apples $50 billion in cash on hand (down from $100B just a few years ago) if it comes to a bidding war.

Heck, if they wanted to they could sabotage a shit ton of others in the market by just buying up capacity.

Like the guy who made SoftSoap and bought all the small plastic pumps that could work with liquid soap and all the production capacity for those pumps in the country.

 

[Lakados]

Apple-Activision will never happen, at least not now or for a while. The biggest burden is Apple is all ARM now. x86 rules desktop gaming at this point. Mobile? Have at it. Apple has a LONG way to go before it's a viable desktop platform for gaming. However I'm all for your competition argument.

The newer Dev sets don’t care much, C++ and C# compile cross platform and architecture with relative ease and Activisions has a huge custom development set and their own wrapper for graphics development. So when coding graphics your not coding directly in DX11, DX12, Vulkan, or PSGL and PSSL for the PS5. Blizzard already has theirs in place for Metal and DX12 for their games so combining it all together while daunting isn’t a problem with the correct resources allocated.

 

[Mega6]

The newer Dev sets don’t care much, C++ and C# compile cross platform and architecture with relative ease and Activisions has a huge custom development set and their own wrapper for graphics development. So when coding graphics your not coding directly in DX11, DX12, Vulkan, or PSGL and PSSL for the PS5. Blizzard already has theirs in place for Metal and DX12 for their games so combining it all together while daunting isn’t a problem with the correct resources allocated.

Maybe so, I just don't see that trend on a macro scale yet.

 

[Lakados]

It's pretty hard to beat Apples $50 billion in cash on hand (down from $100B just a few years ago) if it comes to a bidding war.

Heck, if they wanted to they could sabotage a shit ton of others in the market by just buying up capacity.

They might be down to $50B in cash on hand but they are now up well over $200B in cash investments.
They are working hard on making their credit card stuff happen, they are tired of paying MasterCard and Visa a few billion a year in fees.

 

[Lakados]

Maybe so, I just don't see that trend on a macro scale yet.

Hell Apple could spin up their own Publisher/Dev studio as a separate entity and simply put it there.
I just want a shake up in Gaming and Apple has enough FU money to make it work.