{"id":722,"date":"2022-08-29T22:42:06","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T14:42:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/?p=722"},"modified":"2022-09-04T22:53:41","modified_gmt":"2022-09-04T14:53:41","slug":"why-apple-will-switch-to-arm-based-macs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/?p=722","title":{"rendered":"Why Apple Will Switch to ARM-Based Macs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When Steve Jobs\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0the transition from PowerPC to Intel processors in 2005, he revealed something that, in hindsight<\/mark><\/strong>, seemed obvious to everyone who didn\u2019t anticipate the switch:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two major challenges in this transition. The first one is making Mac OS X sing on Intel processors. Now, I have something to tell you today: Mac OS X has been leading a secret double life for the past five years.<\/em><\/mark><\/p>

[\u2026]<\/em><\/mark><\/p>

We\u2019ve had teams doing the \u201cjust in case\u201d scenario. And our rules have been that our designs for OS X must be processor independent, and that every project must be built for both the PowerPC and Intel processors. And so today, for the first time, I can confirm the rumors that every release of Mac OS X has been compiled for both PowerPC and Intel. This has been going on for the last five years.<\/em><\/mark><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s not a doubt in my mind that if you substitute Intel<\/em> for PowerPC<\/em> and ARM<\/em> for Intel<\/em>, what Steve Jobs said then holds 100 percent true today, word for word. Mac OS X designs must be processor independent, every project must be built for both Intel and ARM processors, and each Mac OS X release in the last five years has been compiled for both Intel and ARM.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Somewhere on Apple\u2019s campus<\/mark><\/strong>(\u82f9\u679c\u603b\u90e8), ARM-based Macs are already running OS X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

User Experience Would Improve<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his iPhone 5S review, Anand Shimpi compared the Apple-designed A7 processor with Intel\u2019s fastest tablet chip at the time. He wrote<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For our cross-platform CPU performance tests we turn to the usual collection of Javascript and HTML5 based browser tests. Most of our comparison targets here are smartphones with two exceptions: Intel\u2019s Bay Trail FFRD and Qualcomm\u2019s MSM8974 Snapdragon 800 MDP\/T. Both of those platforms are test tablets, leveraging higher TDP silicon in a tablet form factor. The gap between the TDP of Apple\u2019s A7 and those two SoCs isn\u2019t huge, but there is a gap. I only include those platforms as a reference point. As you\u2019re about to see, the work that Apple has put into the A7 makes the iPhone 5S performance competitive with both. In many cases the A7 delivers better performance than one or both of them.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In September of 2013, the world\u2019s preeminent<\/mark><\/strong> independent processor expert compared Apple\u2019s latest iPhone chip with Intel\u2019s fastest tablet chip and concluded that the two perform similarly \u2014 even though the\u00a0Intel chip<\/a>\u00a0draws more power, contains four cores versus the A7\u2019s two, and is produced with a more advanced manufacturing technique.\u00a0If Apple\u2019s chip design team can create a phone processor that performs on par with<\/mark><\/strong> Intel\u2019s fastest tablet chip, the company\u2019s \u201chighest priority<\/a>\u201d,\u00a0then there\u2019s no reason to believe that the\u00a0same team at Apple can\u2019t design chips powerful enough for any Mac in the company\u2019s lineup<\/mark><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple has already released a line of A-series chips tailored specifically for iOS devices, and the company is most definitely working on a line of B-series chips tailored specifically for Macs. When that B-series chip \u2014 or set of B-series chips that runs in parallel<\/a> \u2014 is ready, Apple will be able to switch to ARM-based Macs without sacrificing user experience. On the contrary, because the company is no doubt designing its line of B-series chips in tandem with Mac OS X, there would be iPhone-like hardware-software optimization, improving user experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple Would Make More Money Per Mac And Sell More Macs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Going from chip concept to manufactured product can be broken down into two separate and distinct steps. The first is chip design \u2014 figuring out what features the processor will have and how it will work. The second is manufacturing \u2014 turning a file that exists on a screen into a physical product you can hold in your hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, Intel designs the chips in Macs and manufactures them, profiting on both of those steps. But if Apple swapped out Intel\u2019s chips for its own ARM-based designs, an external company would profit on only one step of the chip creation process, not both, leading to a decrease in the cost of building a Mac. By my conservative<\/em> estimate, Apple would be able to drop the price of the base model 11- and 13\u2033 MacBook Airs by $50 and still make more profit per unit on each than it currently does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This cost savings would apply to the entire Mac lineup<\/mark><\/strong>. Apple would be able to drop prices across the board and make more money per Mac than it does today \u2014 and with lower prices, the company would sell more of them, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple Would Be Able To Create Better Macs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When Apple announced the iPhone 5S, it\u00a0explained<\/a>\u00a0that all of the fingerprint data associated with Touch ID \u201cis encrypted and stored inside the secure enclave<\/mark><\/strong> in our new A7 chip\u201d where it\u2019s \u201clocked away from everything else\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Apple wouldn\u2019t have been able to create Touch ID if the iPhone were powered by an Intel chip instead of an Apple-designed one. There wouldn\u2019t have been a \u201csecure enclave\u201d on the iPhone\u2019s processor to store the fingerprint data, nor would there have been perfect hardware-software integration. Apple was able to implement Touch ID because it designed the A7 chip in\u00a0tandem with<\/mark><\/strong> the iPhone 5S\u2019s software and the rest of its hardware.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d bet that there are features Apple envisions<\/mark><\/strong> for the Mac that simply can\u2019t be built while Intel designs the chips inside of them. To implement\u00a0those ideas, Apple would need to switch the Mac to ARM-based processors, because only then would the company have the ability to design chips customized for specific features. If Apple moved the Mac to ARM-based chips, the company would literally be able to create better products than it can today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This brings me to something else Steve Jobs said when he announced the transition from PowerPC to Intel. Ultimately, he explained<\/a>, Apple switched for one simple reason: \u201cWe can envision some amazing products we want to build for you, and we don\u2019t know how to build them with the future PowerPC roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same logic applies today. It\u2019s not a stretch to imagine Tim Cook walking out on stage and saying, \u201cWe can envision some amazing products we want to build for you, and we don\u2019t know how to build them with Intel\u2019s chips.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I first\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0more than three years ago: ARM-based Macs are definitely coming.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

August 26th, 2014 When Steve Jobs\u00a0announced\u00a0the transit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=722"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":726,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/722\/revisions\/726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lcettsg.cn\/code\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}