> If Apple is ready to switch to ARM they must have some impressive CPU. Apples not usually one to dabble here and there, so if they switch it’s going to be a wholesale ordeal.
Apple has an ARM-based product on sale today that has a better screen, better battery life, and better performance, than the 2020 Macbook air for many workloads, including compiling and doing development work (it crushed the air in the benchmark sets that can be run there).
That product is the 2020 ipad pro, and that is why there are so many posts about people actually trying to turn them into development machines.
This product is one step away from being a real laptop: it is missing real MacOSX.
The performance of the Intel-based Macbook Air has increased by 1.8-1.9x from 2012 to 2020 (that's 8 years). Apple already has internal A13 prototypes, and A14 is probably going to the prototype phase right now.
I can't imagine the numbers working in favor of Intel. By 2021 Intel can probably deliver a 1.1-1.2x speed up tops for Macbook airs, while Apple can probably deliver a 2x speed up for 2021 with the A13 and another 2x one for 2023 with the A14. Being able to scale the same chip for iphones, ipads, and macbooks, reusing internal resources, and avoiding the "hassle" of having to deal with Intel.
The only thing that's IMO in the air is what is going to be the discrete graphics story for macbook pro's and Mac pros.
Its unclear whether it would make sense for AMD to deliver discrete gfx products that interface well with ARM, and the Apple-nvidia bridge burned long time ago. So I wonder whether Apple has openings for electrical engineers to work on discrete graphics verification & design, and driver developers. It would strongly hint that apple would design their own discrete gfx in house.
Apple has an ARM-based product on sale today that has a better screen, better battery life, and better performance, than the 2020 Macbook air for many workloads, including compiling and doing development work (it crushed the air in the benchmark sets that can be run there).
That product is the 2020 ipad pro, and that is why there are so many posts about people actually trying to turn them into development machines.
This product is one step away from being a real laptop: it is missing real MacOSX.
The performance of the Intel-based Macbook Air has increased by 1.8-1.9x from 2012 to 2020 (that's 8 years). Apple already has internal A13 prototypes, and A14 is probably going to the prototype phase right now.
I can't imagine the numbers working in favor of Intel. By 2021 Intel can probably deliver a 1.1-1.2x speed up tops for Macbook airs, while Apple can probably deliver a 2x speed up for 2021 with the A13 and another 2x one for 2023 with the A14. Being able to scale the same chip for iphones, ipads, and macbooks, reusing internal resources, and avoiding the "hassle" of having to deal with Intel.
The only thing that's IMO in the air is what is going to be the discrete graphics story for macbook pro's and Mac pros.
Its unclear whether it would make sense for AMD to deliver discrete gfx products that interface well with ARM, and the Apple-nvidia bridge burned long time ago. So I wonder whether Apple has openings for electrical engineers to work on discrete graphics verification & design, and driver developers. It would strongly hint that apple would design their own discrete gfx in house.