There is a rumour Apple may drop Intel! Sounds dumb to me, what do think?
Citation needed
A switch to ARM is not really a bad thing, as ARM is a rising architechture.
But they might just do it for the iphone/ipad
What were you thinking? Did you imagine that iPhones and iPads contain power guzzling Intel/AMD CPUs? They were already using ARM on those devices, at least up to iPhone 3 and iPad 1. Recently they have been using an Apple CPU design derived from ARM. Just do a web search.
In terms of CPU numbers, ARM CPUs in the field probably exceed x86 CPUs due to the number of smartphones out there.
Ah yes thats right, I thought the ipad was an intel silly me.
Though i also did think the iphone had a arm like chip, I just thought the ipad had a intel one.
I have not invested in those accursed things so easy mistake to make.
example sources:
Report: Apple to ditch Intel for ARM in MacBooks
Read more: Report: Apple to ditch Intel for ARM in MacBooks | The Digital Home - CNET News
Report: Apple to ditch Intel for ARM in MacBooks | The Digital Home - CNET News
It’s actually not so far fetched a rumour now that they’ve developed their own versions of ARM chips (Apple A4 and A5). These days changing the machine architecture isn’t the big deal it used to be. One of the achievements of Unix and C was to demonstrate that writing an OS in a high level language like C (high compared to assembler) was practical and that the efficiency loss was acceptable (I think the definitive 1974 paper on Unix in CACM estimated the overhead at 20%). And of course we know that Linux was ported to many targets despite Linus’s protestation at the beginning that it would only ever run on 386s.
Not going to happen - ARM chips are woefully underpowered and Macbooks for example are powerhouse laptops. Apple may use ARM in certain devices but in computers, nuh-uh.
The rumour is merely slapped on a few blogs that want to get more hits.
Not as underpowered as you may think. They are starting to be comparable in grunt to netbook Atoms. See here
SemiWiki - ARM vs Intel…Performance? Power? OS support?
and here
Probably this particular rumour is a canard but the challenge of ARM to Intel in the long term is real.
Yes but netbook atoms are completely out of the league when compared to the Macbook/Pro 2.2-2.3GHz quad cores.
The next refresh will most likely move Macbook Pros to hexacore or even octacore if they come out soon enough.
At this point, with no suitable ARM device to change to, it isn’t going to happen for something like a Macbook. At the next generation of ARM products, it is more of an open question, though.
In terms of CPU numbers, ARM CPUs in the field probably exceed x86 CPUs due to the number of smartphones out there.
Well, ARM cpus probably do exceed x86 shipment numbers by quite a healthy margin, but it is not really due to smartphones (or tablets, for hat matter). In numbers, the ARM arch shipments into deeply embedded products probably exceed smartphone shipments by maybe an order of magnitude, but in terms of margin and ‘mindshare’, the more visible, more ‘leading edge’ stuff is always going to get more press attention than a cortex M3, whatever the volumes, for example.
OTOH, in terms of value of products shipped, it is very much more even; the deeply embedded parts are a fraction of the price of the more ‘hollywood’ parts. Quite where the extra margin (assuming that the extra piece part cost does relate to extra margin…it almost certainly does, for leading edge parts, but whether that is the leading-edge-ness, or the glamour aspect that buys the extra margin is an interesting question) ends up in the supply chain is another interesting question…
Actually the strongest reason why it isn’t likely for Macbooks is because Apple doesn’t need to or at least doesn’t need to yet. Their main cash cows are the iPhones and iPads now and they own the CPU designs for those. But who knows, maybe some day Apple might break free from a single vendor for their laptop CPUs.
Thanks for the link.
Since it is a rumor, it is hard to determine what is worth anyway.
Such a change would indeed put everything upside down. For one, as was mentioned, would the intel compatibility be gone.
Even if it restricted to notebooks, but it is possible. But i wouldn’t expect any confirmation any time soon.
And so, it is just a rumor where people who are truly nerdy will fight over and over.
Interesting nevertheless.