News - Apple reportedly planning to switch MacBooks to ARM

[TheAnimus]

Surely thats not an Acorn fan, thats a NetBSD sucker, RISC OS is a damned fine OS after all

I kinda think of the "override" keyword in bad scifi for security systems, well with risk OS you could just bring up the * prompt

The thing is have we now gone full circle? At the time ARM had issues competeting with the real estate efficiency the fact that so much of a CISC is multi function, where as so much of an RISC is 'wasted' depending on the instructions been issued. Power is now so important we've done a full circle!

[BobF64]

Unless someone pulls a vastly improved ARM CPU out of their hat there is nothing planned or existing to rival a Core i3, nevermind i5 or i7.

ARM chips at the moment are competing at the Fusion C and Atom end of the market. Apple can't switch without making their laptops into toys like the iPad, most of their customer base is designers etc, I really can't see Photoshop running well if they chop the CPU down so far in grunt...

So barring a miracle secret project being announced this rumour is utter crap, or a range killing suicide mission... one or the other.

Youre making the assumption that they would be aiming at Apples "classic" market, ie the designers and graphic artists.

What if the ARM based machines were designed to replace the lower end Macs, the Mac Minis and the Macbooks?

After all, Im sure that the vast majority of home users buying a Mac are only using it for "everyday" tasks like browsing the web or doing email.

[TheAnimus]

Youre making the assumption that they would be aiming at Apples "classic" market, ie the designers and graphic artists.

What if the ARM based machines were designed to replace the lower end Macs, the Mac Minis and the Macbooks?

After all, Im sure that the vast majority of home users buying a Mac are only using it for "everyday" tasks like browsing the web or doing email.

Erm TBH if you had a few ARM processors in the same die, I doubt the core apple market users would notice, after all if they wanted hard core performance they sure as hell wouldn't have bought an Apple.

Then there is that elephant in the room, you don't really need much of a PC to run photoshop. In fact it never ceases to amaze me how badly written it is when I run it on something like my main dev box, its the fact it seems to ignore 95% of the GPU, use only one core, and somehow get confused by the SSD RAID.

My point is compared to a sluggish badly written memory hogging tool like Expression Blend, it doesn't seem to scale well with the hardware.

[scaryjim]

... What if the ARM based machines were designed to replace the lower end Macs, the Mac Minis and the Macbooks? ...

This, definitely. And to a certain extent

... if they wanted hard core performance they sure as hell wouldn't have bought an Apple. ...

This too

A switch from x86 to ARM in the entry level and consumer devices will allow Apple to go thinner and lighter still. And (without wanting to sound like a broken record) current ARM processors with a suitably engineered OS (which for Apple could be OS X for ARM, or could be an enhancement of iOS if they're only aiming at the consumer market) are sufficiently powerful to handle the majority of those oh-so-tasking jobs that we ask our computers to do on a daily basis - you know, making facebook status updates, watching youtube videos, commenting in the Hexus forums...

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

are sufficiently powerful to handle the majority of those oh-so-tasking jobs that we ask our computers to do on a daily basis - you know, making facebook status updates, watching youtube videos, commenting in the Hexus forums...

....and attaching pictures of Moose!

I was thinking perhaps those cheap £50 to £100 Chinese laptops were ahead of the curve TBH!!

[kingpotnoodle]

Youre making the assumption that they would be aiming at Apples "classic" market, ie the designers and graphic artists.

What if the ARM based machines were designed to replace the lower end Macs, the Mac Minis and the Macbooks?

After all, Im sure that the vast majority of home users buying a Mac are only using it for "everyday" tasks like browsing the web or doing email.

There are plenty of Apple-ites who want to do something weightier than Facebook but can't afford a Mac Pro or Macbook Pro, the original article suggested a rumour that Apple were seeking to REPLACE existing Macbook CPUs with ARM is the key... why do that to their mid-range? If someone has no needs for more than basic computing then buy an iPad? I can see them ADDING to the range with a 11-13" iPad-a-like with a keyboard in a clamshell design, but I really cannot see the sense in reducing a range of productive machines to consumption device toys. At most you could replace the CPU in the Air and offend few people...

Then there is that elephant in the room, you don't really need much of a PC to run photoshop. In fact it never ceases to amaze me how badly written it is when I run it on something like my main dev box, its the fact it seems to ignore 95% of the GPU, use only one core, and somehow get confused by the SSD RAID.

OK Photoshop is a bad example, but there a a lot of power-applications that people buy a Mac specifically to use that run fine on todays MacBooks & Minis but would not run so well on an ARM CPU lacking in a lot of grunt. Cutting the abilities of a range, slashing it's usefulness simply to achieve lower power is a stupid idea. If you want to do it then make a new range, the previously mentioned iPad++ above.

Any company, Apple or not needs a much more powerful ARM CPU to make anything more than a tablet or nettop out of it.

[TheAnimus]

Any company, Apple or not needs a much more powerful ARM CPU to make anything more than a tablet or nettop out of it.

Really?

I never felt my Acorn was under powered.

It really depends on what you are doing on it, except running some distrabuted computing task. Even Video editing should work fine, let a GPU handle the effects processing.

[kingpotnoodle]

Really?

I never felt my Acorn was under powered.

It really depends on what you are doing on it, except running some distrabuted computing task. Even Video editing should work fine, let a GPU handle the effects processing.

OK OK, but in today's world an Acorn is low functionality compared to a modern PC/Mac running a modern OS and full function software... People still want to use software with all the functionality not some cut down versions so it runs fast enough, if you cut things down from a regular PC/Laptop then what have you got? A tablet or nettop level device is what.

There seems to be an odd trend in suggestion to one where we have a lot of special function chips and a less powerful general CPU... not sure it's a workable one to be honest... as soon as you say things like "oh sod the underpowered CPU, stick a graphics card monster in there" you have lost the low power and efficiency that was the goal in the first place... also not every workload can be parallelised and offloaded like that.

Simple fact is current ARM CPUs are behind the curve in raw grunt compared to Intel/AMDs desktop CPUs, they are suitable (and excellent) for powering small consumption devices like tablets, not for machines on which people expect to be seriously productive when they want to, and I think Macbooks are definitely those kind of machines.

If the the low power, just enough grunt type machine was OK and nobody ever needed more then HP/Dell/Lenovo would have just whacked an Atom in every SKU and been done with it - they haven't, they've done it only in the very smallest and cheapest devices for those with basic needs - netbooks.

[BobF64]

I never felt my Acorn was under powered.

Me neither, and it was far far superior to a PC or Mac, in some ways it still is.

Acorn machines are like small, sleek roadsters, PCs are like dirty great trucks.

When youre not burdened by bloated memory hungry apps, you dont need huge amounts of power.

[TheAnimus]

Indeed, I didn't reply to a previous post above because I quite frankly couldn't think of a good example.

Where would a RISC not cut it? Video editing it does nicely, we've offloading decoding and encoding to the GPU for years now, gaming, well that's a good example, but macs suck salty monkey nuts at that anyway.

I'm really struggling to see something which they would not cut it for. Maybe I'm a fanboy of Acorn wanting to see it come back? Then again I did sell my ARM shares prematurely, so I honestly have nothing to gain by them doing better, and even mental satisfaction if they are over rated.

[BobF64]

Maybe I'm a fanboy of Acorn wanting to see it come back?

Its probably just you and me and a small handful of others.

[krazy_olie]

This move to me makes alot of sense on one hand, and none on the other. The new Transformer tablet (although buggy as anything) is demonstrating just how practical this situation could now be. A leightweight OS, with an app packed app store could quite easily replace a standard x86 for the majority of us.

There is one thing that makes me wonder about the desktops and standard Mac Book lines though. Since moving to the X86 hardware, the number of programs ported to MACOS has increased greatly. Even look at Steam, MAC games are popping up all over the place. Its pretty simple to port across. Your not going to see Crysis 3 ported to any Arm chips. Also with Intels new '3D' chip design you have to wonder what on earth is going on here. Still, if cloud computing is the game plan for Apple, this is making alot of sense. Let the cloud do the processing for you whilst your laptop manages 20 hours + between charges with its Arm processor.

Depends on what they expect people to do with a mac book air, moving to ARM will reduce various compatibilities. Realistically few will play proper games on a mac book air, but plenty of things will need to undergo heavy surgery. ARM compilers often need code to change a lot for a port and even more so for a good port. Also Intel have a point when they say arm is not intrinsically low power, if you want to have desktop class performance you will need to bump up your processor. If the move is made, a macbook air will not just be a premium sleek macbook but more likely a pimped out ipad

[TheAnimus]

a macbook air will not just be a premium sleek macbook but more likely a pimped out ipad

Which is exactly where apple make all their dosh anyway?

A small single use device which has no upgrade paths but entirely replacing.

Cheap to make, entire SoC design, no user customisation. Its perfect henry ford style production, very, very low cost.

At the end of the day if your sitting in starbucks working on your novel whilst blogging about how hard it is to find an illegal squat in an area of hoxton that isn't too corperate and conformist. That is all you need.....