Apple to Announce its own Mac Processor

[Halon]

Not if Apple designs their own ARM CPU that no one else can use...

If you can make one reliable prediction about Apple's behavior on hardware built in-house, assume they will err toward control freakery. I'll be interested to see when someone gets Linux running on an ARM Mac without resorting to animal sacrifice.

 

[defaultluser]

Not if Apple designs their own ARM CPU that no one else can use...

There's nothing stopping Apple from providing their own Windows drivers

Much like Qualcomm also provides their own Windows drivers, or those notebooks wouldn't wok!

Just because you have to roll-your-own custom drivers doesn't mean it won't happen (all these things run the same fucking ARM architecture). And Apple has always used outdated Intel/AMD GPU drivers for their Bootcamp ports (so it wouldn't take all that much effort to do the same once-a-year Windows driver update)

 

[Rockenrooster]

There's nothing stopping Apple from providing their own Windows drivers

Are we talking about the same Apple?

 

[defaultluser]

Are we talking about the same Apple?

If they care about Bootcamp, then they will put in this level of effort. It would be a waste of Microsoft already supporting ARM otherwise.

Have you seen any signs of them abandoning CURRENT Bootcamp anytime soon? Or are you just being whiny for the sake of whining about LITERALLY nothing?

Show me a single instance of ANY of their current Phone SOCs that are not laid-out in standard fashiion like the rest of the ARM world. Go ahead, I'll wait! Why should this take them any more effort than Qualcomm current y takes to make Windows drivers?

 

[NIZMOZ]

Will this be the end of Boot Camp?

Most likely since I don't believe Windows supports ARM.

 

[NIZMOZ]

There's nothing stopping Apple from providing their own Windows drivers

Much like Qualcomm also provides their own Windows drivers, or those notebooks wouldn't wok!

Just because you have to roll-your-own custom drivers doesn't mean it won't happen (all these things run the same fucking ARM architecture). And Apple has always used outdated Intel/AMD GPU drivers for their Bootcamp ports (so it wouldn't take all that much effort to do the same once-a-year Windows driver update)

Doesn't work like that. It's the CPU itself, Windows has to be designed to work on it. When Apple did their own, Microsoft never supported it back then, and won't now.

 

[defaultluser]

Doesn't work like that. It's the CPU itself, Windows has to be designed to work on it. When Apple did their own, Microsoft never supported it back then, and won't now.

Says the whiny non-believer.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78736-raspberry-pi-3-can-now-run-windows-10.html



Tell us again how Qualcomm currently has their OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE ARM CPU running natively on Windows 10?

Apple didn't run PowerPC on Windows NT because they didn't want to bother with poorly-supported ports to other architectures. But Windows 10 on ARM is the first serious non-x86 port from Microsoft. As I mentioned earlier, they even fixed Edge!

All Apple has to do is provide Windows for ARM64 Device Drivers, and they can have Bootcamp working just fine. Much like the folks above hacked their own Pi 3 drivers for Windows!

 

[Shoganai]

Probably not: there's this little thing called Arm for Windows!

And, being locked to Edge Browser is no-longer the death sentence it once was!

https://www.engadget.com/2020-02-07-edge-chrome-80-arm64.html

You've got Google Chrome compatibility, along with an optimized ARM64 build!

If anything, Apple Arm-powered systems could be the giant nudge Windows on ARM is still looking for!

This feature would be the last little piece missing (will probably be available by next year)!

I hope you're right. I refuse to use emulation for anything other than video games.

 

[GiGaBiTe]

But Windows 10 on ARM is the first serious non-x86 port ever from Microsoft.

Not really correct.

Back in the mid 90s, there were several contenders to x86 (Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC) and Microsoft released Windows NT 3.5x and 4.0 for those architectures, as well as x86. There was a brief period of time where it looked like multiple architectures would be in competition with x86, but companies that pushed those other architectures floundered until they were no longer competitive against x86's ever increasing performance and Microsoft eventually dropped other arch support in NT 4.0 SP3. Those versions of Windows run fine on other architectures, it's just there is so little software written for them. Windows NT 4 had a built in x86-16 bit emulator so it could run WIN16 code from older Windows 3.1x and 95 applications.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

I also don't buy Apple products but I do somewhat like OSX I have been Hackintoshing for quite a few years now. I wonder if they do transition to their own in house processors what will become of the Hackintosh community? I am sure they will find another way to run the OS on uncertified hardware.

It will die eventually, but not yet. We all knew this was coming, Intel has not been delivering on mobile products and Macbooks really need more efficient processors to suit their form factor.

The path was layed years ago with METAL being adopted in OSX and most of the work is already done.

Everyone keeps saying that x86 will remain, I doubt it, people seriously underestimate how powerful Apples chips are.

Hmm I actually thought Apple moving to a standardized chip (x86 as shitty as it is...) was a good move. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out. I am not yet convinced its a good idea for them to move onto ARM or something else.

Yes now instead of a standardised chip we have a standardised framework (METAL) which means processing can be offloaded to many different types of processors including GPUs.

 

[defaultluser]

Not really correct.

Back in the mid 90s, there were several contenders to x86 (Alpha, MIPS, PowerPC) and Microsoft released Windows NT 3.5x and 4.0 for those architectures, as well as x86. There was a brief period of time where it looked like multiple architectures would be in competition with x86, but companies that pushed those other architectures floundered until they were no longer competitive against x86's ever increasing performance and Microsoft eventually dropped other arch support in NT 4.0 SP3. Those versions of Windows run fine on other architectures, it's just there is so little software written for them. Windows NT 4 had a built in x86-16 bit emulator so it could run WIN16 code from older Windows 3.1x and 95 applications.

But most of those were lost in the noise - the only real architecture that made any progress from all that was Alpha, and even it was ditched after Windows 2000

And that was unofficial support for Win 2000 - by 1999, Compaq had given up on ARM on NT, and laid off the entire team.

https://www.itprotoday.com/compute-engines/death-alpha-nt

ARM on Windows 10- has been supported for longer than NT 4 on Alpha was! They have also provided way more native applications for the platform.

Microsoft currently offers Native to ARM Office 365 and Edge. Sounds like the essentials! And they've added a lot more apps to the ARM windwos store.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

People who buy Apple tend to also be easily triggered.

Just like people on this forum cant handle the fact that people actually want computers that just work, don’t need to be opened every week or Windows reloaded after every software update.

Probably not: there's this little thing called Arm for Windows!

And, being locked to Edge Browser is no-longer the death sentence it once was!

https://www.engadget.com/2020-02-07-edge-chrome-80-arm64.html

You've got Google Chrome compatibility, along with an optimized ARM64 build!

If anything, Apple Arm-powered systems could be the giant nudge Windows on ARM is still looking for!

This feature would be the last little piece missing (will probably be available by next year)!

Never happen, it is a chicken and the egg problem, developers wont write apps without a user base and you wont have a user base without apps. Apple completely dodged this issue by unifying the underlying framework so developers write for both platforms.

 

[Deleted member 89018]

I’m actually interested to see if this shakes out. I hadn’t seen a really compelling reason to upgrade any still-functioning retina MacBook, even first wave 2012 models, until thunderbolt 3/ usb-c with the 2016 refresh. and that was debatable depending on your use case for thunderbolt. It was only the last two years or so with 6/8 core CPUs that upgrading an earlier 4C/8T MacBook was really worth the price IMO (although I know plenty of people who did anyways).

This would be a big enough change to make it worthwhile to replace old ones I think. I’d be curious to see if they try a whole system switchover like they did moving to Intel, or if they do it at the low end first - new MacBook / MacBook Air running ARM, where they don't need to push really hard for high end workstation performance right away. Most people looking at those models probably wouldn’t care at all what processor is in them.

 

[ChadD]

It will be interesting to see how this turns out.

I normally consider ARM for the desktop to be somewhat of a Joke, but Apple have built up a quite capable chip design team. Their A series chips for phones have been running circles around everyone else.

It will suck to have to completely rewrite all of the software AGAIN

- 1994 Classic MacOS & Motorola 68k --> Classic MacOS & PowerPC
- 2001 Classic MacOS & PowerPC --> OSX & PowerPC
- 2006 OSX & PowerPC --> OSX & x86
- 2020 OSX & x86 --> OSX & ARM

In the past they have used emulators to help lessen the impact of the transition, but I can't imagine emulating x86 using an ARM chip will be a particularly performant solution...

I don't buy Apple products, and I have no interest in using ARM CPU's, but I sure am curious to see how performance will compare to x86 models.

There isn't anything about the ISA that would preclude the existence of a high performance ARM core. Every consumer ARM CPU so far has been aimed at high efficiency mobile with a few designed for low power workstation type systems. The only high end ARM chips out there at all have been aimed at servers... and they compete quite well no withstanding software issues. The latest Fujitsu ARM server chips will land in the top super computer list later this year... they may not take the crown (although I won't be shocked if Fugaku lands in the top 20 when its fully operational) they will be the best bang for the watt by a large margin.

I think Apple has been wanting to do this for a long time, and a ARM switch rumor pops up every couple months. I think right now is perfect timing really... there won't really be the software pains we saw in the past imo. Cross compatibility work for all major software developers has been going on for ages now. Almost everyone is using frameworks and producing code that can be compiled for multiple systems. I really don't think any of the major software providers will have any issue simply recompiling with a day or two of code tweaks. Smaller houses may even be better situated as almost all small house software these days use API Frameworks that can be easily recompiled for Windows/Mac/Android/ios... the folks behind those tools will quickly add a MacOS(arm) option and recompiles will be pretty painless.

Will be interesting to see if Apple is really going to go for full on performance or if there really just repackaging their mobile core designs. If they go for performance it will be game changing... if they are just repackaging their iphone cores it will probably be a big Meh.

 

[odditory]

ARM on Windows 10- has been supported for longer than NT 4 on Alpha was! They have also provided way more native applications for the platform.

Microsoft currently offers Native to ARM Office 365 and Edge. Sounds like the essentials! And they've added a lot more apps to the ARM windwos store.

Yes! And Windows Phone is making a huge comeback!

 

[Red Falcon]

Show me a single instance of ANY of their current Phone SOCs that are not laid-out in standard fashiion like the rest of the ARM world. Go ahead, I'll wait! Why should this take them any more effort than Qualcomm current y takes to make Windows drivers?

Just because two devices are using the ARM64 (AArch64) ISA, doesn't mean they will have the same platform.
This is why not all computers running x86-64 CPUs are classified as IBM-compatible PCs, like the PS4 and PC-9801.

The software will require some workarounds/emulation/compatibility-layers to work properly if the rest of the platform outside of the CPU itself is different in any way that is non-standard for said software or OS.
I do see what you are saying and going for, and while the code itself can be executed correctly on the CPU itself, it won't be able to run/perform properly due to the rest of the platform architecture/hardware being different than what the program was developed or compiled for.

 

[OFaceSIG]

Apple isn't going to maintain 3 OSes. iOS on ARM, MacOS on ARM, and MacOS on x86. Also, you won't see MacPro's on ARM. So that mains upcoming "macbooks" won't really be macbooks. They'll be folding iPads. Not a huge departure, not revolutionary.

 

[Red Falcon]

Says the whiny non-believer.

https://www.techspot.com/news/78736-raspberry-pi-3-can-now-run-windows-10.html

View attachment 252157

Tell us again how Qualcomm currently has their OBVIOUSLY COMPLETELY INCOMPATIBLE ARM CPU running natively on Windows 10?

Apple didn't run PowerPC on Windows NT because they didn't want to bother with poorly-supported ports to other architectures. But Windows 10 on ARM is the first serious non-x86 port from Microsoft. As I mentioned earlier, they even fixed Edge!

All Apple has to do is provide Windows for ARM64 Device Drivers, and they can have Bootcamp working just fine. Much like the folks above hacked their own Pi 3 drivers for Windows!

That version of Windows 10 is compiled specifically for ARM.
There are versions of Windows NT 4.0 that also ran on the DEC Alpha ISA as well back in the 1990s, but it required the version of Windows NT 4.0 that was compiled and designed for that CPU and hardware platform - vanilla Windows NT 4.0 meant for x86 IBM-compatible PCs would not natively run on a DEC Alpha workstation.

Good example on how that is possible, though!
This is why *NIX and NetBSD are so much fun - so many CPU ISAs and hardware platforms, so little time.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

Apple isn't going to maintain 3 OSes. iOS on ARM, MacOS on ARM, and MacOS on x86. Also, you won't see MacPro's on ARM. So that mains upcoming "macbooks" won't really be macbooks. They'll be folding iPads. Not a huge departure, not revolutionary.

You have it completely backwards... METAL is supported by x86, Apple chips, Intel GPUs and AMD GPUs... there is no support needed for legacy, all apps simply have to run on METAL which is already a requirement in Mojave, nothing more.

 

[Red Falcon]

Apple isn't going to maintain 3 OSes. iOS on ARM, MacOS on ARM, and MacOS on x86. Also, you won't see MacPro's on ARM. So that mains upcoming "macbooks" won't really be macbooks. They'll be folding iPads. Not a huge departure, not revolutionary.

Not quite.
iOS and MacOS are built on the same kernel and back-end, so maintaining those both on ARM64 will not prove difficult.
Apple also did this with OS X 10.4 Tiger and 10.5 Leopard with both PPC64 and x86 by using universal (dual) compiled binaries, along with Rosetta as an emulation layer in 2006.

They used a similar emulation layer in System 7 and OS 8 when Apple moved from m68k to PPC back in the early 1990s.
So, I don't see why they wouldn't support, for at least a year or more, both ARM64 and x86-64 with MacOS in 2020.

It's up in the air if the MacPro workstations will continue to use x86-64 into the future, but I highly doubt they would continue to do so after the first generation of ARM64 laptops and all-in-ones.

 

[OFaceSIG]

I don't believe we are anywhere near the days of ARM emulating x86 with any efficiency. We'll see.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

I don't believe we are anywhere near the days of ARM emulating x86 with any efficiency. We'll see.

It doesn’t need to emulate x86...that is the whole point!

 

[Red Falcon]

I don't believe we are anywhere near the days of ARM emulating x86 with any efficiency. We'll see.

Windows RT emulated x86 to ARM, and it was hot garbage, primarily because Microsoft was way-late to the game, ARM was still strictly 32-bit, and their OS and kernel at the time were less than efficient, even on x86-64 natively (Windows 8/8.1).
With the decade+ of prepwork done by Apple devs, via the METAL API, emulation isn't really needed any more, outside of perhaps a few edge-case scenarios.

 

[Zarathustra[H]]

There isn't anything about the ISA that would preclude the existence of a high performance ARM core. Every consumer ARM CPU so far has been aimed at high efficiency mobile with a few designed for low power workstation type systems. The only high end ARM chips out there at all have been aimed at servers... and they compete quite well no withstanding software issues. The latest Fujitsu ARM server chips will land in the top super computer list later this year... they may not take the crown (although I won't be shocked if Fugaku lands in the top 20 when its fully operational) they will be the best bang for the watt by a large margin.

I think Apple has been wanting to do this for a long time, and a ARM switch rumor pops up every couple months. I think right now is perfect timing really... there won't really be the software pains we saw in the past imo. Cross compatibility work for all major software developers has been going on for ages now. Almost everyone is using frameworks and producing code that can be compiled for multiple systems. I really don't think any of the major software providers will have any issue simply recompiling with a day or two of code tweaks. Smaller houses may even be better situated as almost all small house software these days use API Frameworks that can be easily recompiled for Windows/Mac/Android/ios... the folks behind those tools will quickly add a MacOS(arm) option and recompiles will be pretty painless.

Will be interesting to see if Apple is really going to go for full on performance or if there really just repackaging their mobile core designs. If they go for performance it will be game changing... if they are just repackaging their iphone cores it will probably be a big Meh.

Agreed. I'm just curious what desktop performance will look like, as we havent really seen anything before.

 

[ChadD]

Agreed. I'm just curious what desktop performance will look like, as we havent really seen anything before.

I am curious as well... I am hoping they are swinging for the fences performance wise. Be cool to see something different. (oh man no pun intended really)
If it ends up sucking I'm sure it will be mainly due to Apple basically just reusing their mobile cores. Would be fun to see an actual mainstream consumer performance tuned ARM chip. Who knows if Apple pulls it off perhaps it leads to actual performance ARM designs from others. AMD could easily spin up their ARM based Zen stuff I would imagine. Obviously not in the short term... but 2-3 years out wouldn't be crazy either. Imagine a world where x86 amd arm where both options on PCs.

 

[toast0]

But most of those were lost in the noise - the only real architecture that made any progress from all that was Alpha, and even it was ditched after Windows 2000

And that was unofficial support for Win 2000

If you were in the beta program for Windows 2000, the first release candidate disks shipped with x86 and Alpha. They dropped it before the second release candidate, but it was almost released.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

Agreed. I'm just curious what desktop performance will look like, as we havent really seen anything before.

Apple wouldn’t be pushing ahead with it unless they had a compelling offering. Hell even having their own silicon being able to stretch its legs with no thermal or power limits compared to Intels throttling mess would be enough to give them a leg up.

 

[CaptNumbNutz]

It won't matter whose CPU they use, they still won't be able to design a PCB that won't fry itself.

The only difference is this time, when a short develops on a proprietary screen connector, the 50v backlight will only fry a $20 ARM CPU instead of a $200 Intel one. Kudos for Apple for finding ingenious ways of saving money.

 

[ChadD]

It won't matter whose CPU they use, they still won't be able to design a PCB that won't fry itself.

The only difference is this time, when a short develops on a proprietary screen connector, the 50v backlight will only fry a $20 ARM CPU instead of a $200 Intel one. Kudos for Apple for finding ingenious ways of saving money.

Those $200 14nm+++++ Intel chips are also only worth $20. Apple just has a middle man charging them $180.

 

[Deleted member 243478]

It won't matter whose CPU they use, they still won't be able to design a PCB that won't fry itself.

The only difference is this time, when a short develops on a proprietary screen connector, the 50v backlight will only fry a $20 ARM CPU instead of a $200 Intel one. Kudos for Apple for finding ingenious ways of saving money.

Stop eating up Louis’s horseshit... tons of electrical designers have looked at this issue including an indepth test by EEVblog and it is common practice in circuit design. You don’t design a product around morons spilling their drinks in their laptops... got to love this age of entitlement and no self responsibility

 

[defaultluser]

Just because two devices are using the ARM64 (AArch64) ISA, doesn't mean they will have the same platform.
This is why not all computers running x86-64 CPUs are classified as IBM-compatible PCs, like the PS4 and PC-9801.

The software will require some workarounds/emulation/compatibility-layers to work properly if the rest of the platform outside of the CPU itself is different in any way that is non-standard for said software or OS.
I do see what you are saying and going for, and while the code itself can be executed correctly on the CPU itself, it won't be able to run/perform properly due to the rest of the platform architecture/hardware being different than what the program was developed or compiled for.

You know, for a man who rebuilds ancient computers for a hobby, you have no fucking clue what a CPU Architecture is.

Apple builds standard ARM cores. The Apple A13 is based on ARMv8.4‑A. That means you should be able to bootstrap that core the exact same way you can interface with any other ARM 64-bit processor.

The only other thing you would have to worry about is low-level access to the I/O controller/differences in page tables, but I can't imagine that would be any harder than getting it running on a Qualcomm SoC. If apple provides the same documentation as Qualcomm they cn easily build the same memory->OS interface.

It doesn't fucking matter bout the rest of the SoC bullshit, because all that is handled by the device drivers (and up to Apple to determine exactly how much of the hardware functionality they will support on Windows). If Apple wants to, they can no-OP everything except the GPU.

We already know this is working on Qualcomm SoC, so why are you pretending like running Windows on a ARM SoC is impossible? If anyhing , Apple's memory layout is goinhg to be a lot closer to Qualcomm's than any other architecture thatWindows has supported in the past, so there will be some code reuse between them.

 

[Red Falcon]

You know, for a man who rebuilds ancient computers for a hobby, you have no fucking clue what a CPU Architecture is.

Apple builds standard ARM cores. The Apple A13 is based on ARMv8.4‑A. That means you should be able to bootstrap that core the exact same way you can interface with any other ARM 64-bit processor.

The only other thing you would have to worry about is low-level access to the I/O controller/differences in page tables, but I can't imagine that would be any harder than getting it running on a Qualcomm SoC. If apple provides the same documentation as Qualcomm they cn easily build the same memory->OS interface.

It doesn't fucking matter bout the rest of the SoC bullshit, because all that is handled by the device drivers (and up to Apple to determine exactly how much of the hardware functionality they will support on Windows). If Apple wants to, they can no-OP everthing except the GPU.

...is everything ok?
Sincerely asking - there's no reason for personal attacks. >_>

I agreed with what you were saying, and was just pointing out that there is more to a computer system than the CPU ISA itself that the kernel/OS (and drivers like you are saying) and software can depend on and need to be programmed for.
That's why I used the PS4 and PC-98 systems as examples since, while those are both using the x86-64 ISA, they aren't IBM-compatible PCs, and without making (or modifying) an OS/kernel, an OS meant for an x86-64 PC won't natively run on them; that was also the point of using the DEC Alpha workstation running Windows NT 4.0, which I see that you also mentioned earlier in the thread.

I wasn't trying to argue, and I am sincerely sorry if you are having a bad night, I didn't mean for you to get upset over this, really.
Heh, just because I do a lot of retro work on older systems doesn't mean I know everything, and you've pointed out some cool things to me before as well.

 

[ChadD]

You know, for a man who rebuilds ancient computers for a hobby, you have no fucking clue what a CPU Architecture is.

Apple builds standard ARM cores. The Apple A13 is based on ARMv8.4‑A. That means you should be able to bootstrap that core the exact same way you can interface with any other ARM 64-bit processor.

The only other thing you would have to worry about is low-level access to the I/O controller/differences in page tables, but I can't imagine that would be any harder than getting it running on a Qualcomm SoC. If apple provides the same documentation as Qualcomm they cn easily build the same memory->OS interface.

It doesn't fucking matter bout the rest of the SoC bullshit, because all that is handled by the device drivers (and up to Apple to determine exactly how much of the hardware functionality they will support on Windows). If Apple wants to, they can no-OP everything except the GPU.

We already know this is working on Qualcomm SoC, so why are you pretending like running Windows on a ARM SoC is impossible?

Well ARMv8.4-A is a ISA standard. Apples implementation is NOT a ARM designed core.

ARM designates the instruction sets included in their ISA... and they also design a stock core. If you licence ARM you can either licence ARM ISA AND their core designs. Or as Apple does you can licence just the ISA and build your own core. Saying Apples core is the same as Qualcomms is extremely simplistic. AMD and Intel both make x86 chips but their implementation is not the same, they can simply handle the same instruction calls.

My point is sure Windows can run on ARM.... here are the issues;
1) software... windows software vendors use 1001 Application frame works and APIs. Most of which have no native ARM support. So there is no simple recompile option. Where as Apple has spent years now moving all their software developers toward arm via iOS. All the APIs and frameworks 99% of apple software is developed on already today can be recompiled on the fly to run on ARM hardware. There will be some outliers but for the most part damn near all Apple software can be recompiled and rolled out for MacOS ARM today. Windows... ya no way even 50% of available software would be easily switched even if you gave developers a year to do it.
2) Apples hardware is better. They have proven it every generation with their mobile designs. They are superior... there is no way around that. Yes they are using ARM ISA. But at this point if Apple just takes their current cores... fabs them to ramp up the freq 20-30% there is no non apple ARM chips that are going to compete in the consumer space potentially for years, unless someone like AMD pulls a ARM ZEN chip out of moth balls or something.

If the only thing that mattered in a chip was that it spoke the same language we could have stopped way back... and just all stuck with core duos or something. A core duo and a 3950x both speak x86... but they are not equivalent. If Apple is really working on a legit desktop ARM chip... its going to take anyone else wanting to make one years to catch up. (unless as I said earlier AMD pulls out a hail mary ZEN ARM... but really software is still a problem so I doubt that)

 

[defaultluser]

Sorry dude, I got distracted by all the haters who can't stop telling me how wrong I am, while not telling me exactly why I'm wrong

It's a stretch to assume that Apple will continue to support Bootcamp, but the possibility is definitely there. If buyers are making use of the feature, I would expect Apple to continue support.

 

[Red Falcon]

Sorry dude, I got distracted by all the haters who can't stop telling me how wrong I am, while not telling me exactly why I'm wrong

It's a stretch to assume that Apple will continue to support Bootcamp, but the possibility is definitely there. If buyers are making use of the feature, I would expect Apple to continue support.

Nah, it's cool, I understand.
The fact that you pointed out Windows NT 4.0 for DEC Alpha shows you know more history, and in general, than most!

Hopefully they do, it would be nice to be able to run more than just MacOS (or iOS) on their CPUs and platforms, especially *NIX or BSD distros.

 

[tangoseal]

I say go for it! More competition is good for everyone as long as Rioters dont destroy the fabs

 

[idiomatic]

"I buy apple for my performance workflow" yeah with all the Apple Thread Ripper models available.

Their laptops have been years behind for a while now, ARM could actually be faster.

 

[ND40oz]

"I buy apple for my performance workflow" yeah with all the Apple Thread Ripper models available.

Their laptops have been years behind for a while now, ARM could actually be faster.

How are their laptops years behind? What mobile chips were faster than the i9-9880H and i9-9980HK in November 2019 when the MacBook Pro 16 released?

 

[cybereality]

Apple will probably make a 1-core/1-thread CPU to go with the 1-button mouse.

 

[juanrga]

Wonder if they can really make a competitive processor

"A Bloomberg report on the new processors states that the chips will be based on the "same technology" as the company's A-series SoCs for iOS devices, meaning that Apple will leverage the Arm machine architecture, and has probably developed a high performance CPU core that can match Intel's x64 cores in IPC and efficiency. Macs based on the new processors, will however run MacOS and not iOS, which means much of clean-break transition woes between PPC and x86 Macs are bound to return, but probably better managed by software vendors. It also remains to be seen how Apple handles graphics. The company could scale up the Metal-optimized iGPU found in its A-series SoCs on its new Mac processor, while also giving them the platform I/O capability to support discrete graphics from companies such as AMD."

https://www.techpowerup.com/268294/apple-to-announce-its-own-mac-processor-at-wwdc-late-june

Apple has had competitive processors for a while, fastest and more efficient than x64 ones. Apple surpased Intel in IPC many time ago.