10 votes

Why is Apple's M1 chip so fast?

3 comments

  1. [4]
    Comment deleted by author
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    1. clone1
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      Apple's biggest strength really seems to be the ability to go "My way or the highway"

      Apple's biggest strength really seems to be the ability to go "My way or the highway"

      10 votes
    2. [2]
      unknown user
      (edited )
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      I don't agree here. Even if Apple adds more "features" to their ISA, if they're using Apple-provided frameworks and libraries, then shouldn't any native program "just work", regardless of whether...

      This makes it easier to make certain engineering tradeoffs, but I can't see it being good for native software at all. Software written for Apple computers will, increasingly, only be feasible to write for Apple computers; [..] More than that, software written for the current generation of Apple computers is likely to be quite difficult to make backwards-compatible for more than a few generations as Apple adds new hetcomp capabilities that programs rely on.

      I don't agree here. Even if Apple adds more "features" to their ISA, if they're using Apple-provided frameworks and libraries, then shouldn't any native program "just work", regardless of whether custom ISA instructions exist behind the scenes to accelerate certain functions? I would expect any such framework/library APIs to target the best available set of instructions and functionality on the CPU, and fallback as needed. As far as I can tell, you're only going to have problems if you intentionally target private APIs or undocumented functionality.

      Frankly, if this causes the industry to shift to ARM in a more aggressive way (see: Microsoft reportedly designing its own ARM-based chips for servers and Surface PCs), if anything, I see native apps only becoming more and more successful—especially as this is opening the door for iOS and iPadOS apps to make it to the Mac. That in tandem with SwiftUI, Combine, and other modern Apple frameworks providing a unified development experience for building for the ecosystem, this could, if anything, supercharge native binary development in a way we haven't seen for a long time. Because for a while, it was looking like the web would eat native app's lunch. Now, with the entire weight of the iOS and iPadOS development scene having access to macOS, expect native apps for desktops and laptops—or at least Apple's anyway—to get much better.

      I guess we'll have to wait and see, but my bet is in 5 years, native apps will be stronger as a consequence of this—and the claims of psuedo-doom is just a repetition of the same old alarmism we see whenever Apple upends a portion of the computer industry. I've seen enough regurgitations of "Less space than a nomad. Lame." that at this point I find it hard to take claims of impending doom around Apple and Apple's actions in the wider-industry seriously.

      Disclaimer: I am long on AAPL.

      9 votes
      1. [2]
        Comment deleted by author
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        1. unknown user
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          But a rising tide often lifts all boats. Remember: Apple wasn't the first to even make steps in the ARM direction in the consumer desktop/laptop space. The commonly accepted first company to do...

          But a rising tide often lifts all boats. Remember: Apple wasn't the first to even make steps in the ARM direction in the consumer desktop/laptop space. The commonly accepted first company to do this was in fact Microsoft with Windows RT, back in 2012. Granted, they didn't do a very good job of selling customers and businesses on products that used RT, but the desire for movement in the ARM direction has been there for a while. AWS has had its own ARM-based graviton2 processors in the cloud for a while now.

          Could it be that Apple is just the first company to make the ARM platform family a success in the consumer space; and the wider trend was already set by economics, trends in microprocessor design, and changes in how we use computers dating back to the introduction of the smartphone?

          x86 may not be "dying", but the trend towards ARM-based ISA's will probably only accelerate from this point—eliminating concerns about cross-platform compat, because it will be generally accepted you need an ARM binary in addition to an x86 one. If that creates a market that needs be filled, it likely will be filled.

          8 votes