Even as someone that doesn’t like macbooks, I’m very excited for this. I hope this helps the entire industry move to arm for laptops. I would love a high quality non Apple arm laptop to install...
Even as someone that doesn’t like macbooks, I’m very excited for this. I hope this helps the entire industry move to arm for laptops. I would love a high quality non Apple arm laptop to install Debian on.
In general this should help the future of CPUs. The RISC world has much more permissive licensing, from ARM to RISCV. x86 CPUs will forever be a duopoly by Intel and AMD, because Intel owns x86...
In general this should help the future of CPUs. The RISC world has much more permissive licensing, from ARM to RISCV.
x86 CPUs will forever be a duopoly by Intel and AMD, because Intel owns x86 and AMD owns x86-64, they mutually share, but otherwise hold a death grip on the license.
A move to ARM or any other RISC ISC will allow for more competition in general.
We're still missing a crucial part of the ecosystem, and that is the open system that PCs still largely enjoy. There is no standardized sockets for ARM. And more crucially, there isn't really...
We're still missing a crucial part of the ecosystem, and that is the open system that PCs still largely enjoy. There is no standardized sockets for ARM. And more crucially, there isn't really support for commercial operating systems on an open ARM platform.
We'd never have an open standard for desktop grade ARM devices, or honestly probably never have them at all, without this first step. When Apples puts the pressure on the entire rest of the market...
We'd never have an open standard for desktop grade ARM devices, or honestly probably never have them at all, without this first step. When Apples puts the pressure on the entire rest of the market with RISC specific features, like the amazing idle power draw that all our phones/tablets already have, then there will actually be a monetary reason for other companies to start making ARM or other RISC ISC processors.
As an aside, a standardized socket for ARM doesn't really make sense. ARM is just an ISC. The actual architecture of the CPUs, which will involve the socket, is up to the fab and chip designer. There's no standard x86 socket either, Intel has 9 gazillion ones and AMD also has a gazillion, even if they've kept AM3 compatibility for the last few years.
This isn't about the near future. There won't be super cool desktop grade ARM processors from other companies anytime soon. Fabs take a while to make.
It's about the 10+ year horizon.
So while naturally there are huge holes in the general ecosystem for now, that is only to be expected when the industry has been a 2 man duopoly for the last 4 decades.
I don't see this as anything near a first step for an open platform. Intel's chips have been in other computers before the PC, and all of them were arguably much more open than what apple is...
I don't see this as anything near a first step for an open platform. Intel's chips have been in other computers before the PC, and all of them were arguably much more open than what apple is making. Intel came out on top because they were a building block of that open platform, had open access for programmers, and sold to everyone. Right now literally cannot run any other operating system on Apple's silicon because other than the ISC, each of them is essentially a giant black box. You can't touch the bare metal and you can't buy one to put in your clone. Worse, no other manufacturer can make a replacement for what Apple is producing themselves. There will be no Cyrix, no Transmeta, no Via, and certainly no AMD. Where there is no competition, there is no market.
You're right about the sockets though. I wasn't really thinking there; it's been a long time since there were socket-compatible x86 chips from competition.
Even without Apple's chips being open, I think it's still useful to deal a blow to the monopoly that is x86 on the desktop. "Desktop" programs currently exclusively target x86. You might be able...
Even without Apple's chips being open, I think it's still useful to deal a blow to the monopoly that is x86 on the desktop. "Desktop" programs currently exclusively target x86. You might be able to get Linux running on that POWER8 chip or whatever odd architecture catches your attention, but no closed source software will run on it. It's all compiled for x86 because that's what everyone uses. Apple going pure ARM will stir that underlying assumption a bit, and I'm kinda interested to see what unfolds. Sure, their chips aren't reusable by anyone else, but they are still usable and they're entering desktop space.
It will also be interesting to see arm desktops. We don’t currently have high performance arm chips that don’t have to worry about thermal loads. Once Apple starts making some, other manufacturers...
It will also be interesting to see arm desktops. We don’t currently have high performance arm chips that don’t have to worry about thermal loads. Once Apple starts making some, other manufacturers will hopefully do the same.
I'm not sure it helps much? Since Apple will be making its own chips for itself, it doesn't result in any increased choice or competition for non-Apple laptops. It's possible that Apple might...
I'm not sure it helps much? Since Apple will be making its own chips for itself, it doesn't result in any increased choice or competition for non-Apple laptops. It's possible that Apple might contribute to standards for the rest of the industry like they did for peripherals, but I don't think they've announced anything?
At best, you could get a used Apple laptop and install another OS on it. Also, there are ARM-based Chromebooks to choose from already.
If Apple comes out with a laptop that has incomparable features, like iPad level battery life or unprecedented performance on thin-and-lights, it's going to put market pressure on not only Intel...
If Apple comes out with a laptop that has incomparable features, like iPad level battery life or unprecedented performance on thin-and-lights, it's going to put market pressure on not only Intel and AMD to perform better in these areas, but also for new players to emerge offering high performance ARM processors.
I'm excited to see if this eventually extends to the data center world. Major cloud providers are already offering ARM cpu cores, but private cloud industry is still firmly in Intel's grip
I'm excited to see if this eventually extends to the data center world. Major cloud providers are already offering ARM cpu cores, but private cloud industry is still firmly in Intel's grip
Apple Inc on Monday said it will switch to its own chips for its Mac computers, saying the first machines will ship this year and ending a nearly 15-year reliance on Intel Corp to supply processors for its flagship laptops and desktop.
Even as someone that doesn’t like macbooks, I’m very excited for this. I hope this helps the entire industry move to arm for laptops. I would love a high quality non Apple arm laptop to install Debian on.
In general this should help the future of CPUs. The RISC world has much more permissive licensing, from ARM to RISCV.
x86 CPUs will forever be a duopoly by Intel and AMD, because Intel owns x86 and AMD owns x86-64, they mutually share, but otherwise hold a death grip on the license.
A move to ARM or any other RISC ISC will allow for more competition in general.
We're still missing a crucial part of the ecosystem, and that is the open system that PCs still largely enjoy. There is no standardized sockets for ARM. And more crucially, there isn't really support for commercial operating systems on an open ARM platform.
We'd never have an open standard for desktop grade ARM devices, or honestly probably never have them at all, without this first step. When Apples puts the pressure on the entire rest of the market with RISC specific features, like the amazing idle power draw that all our phones/tablets already have, then there will actually be a monetary reason for other companies to start making ARM or other RISC ISC processors.
As an aside, a standardized socket for ARM doesn't really make sense. ARM is just an ISC. The actual architecture of the CPUs, which will involve the socket, is up to the fab and chip designer. There's no standard x86 socket either, Intel has 9 gazillion ones and AMD also has a gazillion, even if they've kept AM3 compatibility for the last few years.
This isn't about the near future. There won't be super cool desktop grade ARM processors from other companies anytime soon. Fabs take a while to make.
It's about the 10+ year horizon.
So while naturally there are huge holes in the general ecosystem for now, that is only to be expected when the industry has been a 2 man duopoly for the last 4 decades.
I don't see this as anything near a first step for an open platform. Intel's chips have been in other computers before the PC, and all of them were arguably much more open than what apple is making. Intel came out on top because they were a building block of that open platform, had open access for programmers, and sold to everyone. Right now literally cannot run any other operating system on Apple's silicon because other than the ISC, each of them is essentially a giant black box. You can't touch the bare metal and you can't buy one to put in your clone. Worse, no other manufacturer can make a replacement for what Apple is producing themselves. There will be no Cyrix, no Transmeta, no Via, and certainly no AMD. Where there is no competition, there is no market.
You're right about the sockets though. I wasn't really thinking there; it's been a long time since there were socket-compatible x86 chips from competition.
Even without Apple's chips being open, I think it's still useful to deal a blow to the monopoly that is x86 on the desktop. "Desktop" programs currently exclusively target x86. You might be able to get Linux running on that POWER8 chip or whatever odd architecture catches your attention, but no closed source software will run on it. It's all compiled for x86 because that's what everyone uses. Apple going pure ARM will stir that underlying assumption a bit, and I'm kinda interested to see what unfolds. Sure, their chips aren't reusable by anyone else, but they are still usable and they're entering desktop space.
It will also be interesting to see arm desktops. We don’t currently have high performance arm chips that don’t have to worry about thermal loads. Once Apple starts making some, other manufacturers will hopefully do the same.
IIRC Qualcomm is making ARM chips for servers, so those kinds of chips already exist kinda sorta.
I'm not sure it helps much? Since Apple will be making its own chips for itself, it doesn't result in any increased choice or competition for non-Apple laptops. It's possible that Apple might contribute to standards for the rest of the industry like they did for peripherals, but I don't think they've announced anything?
At best, you could get a used Apple laptop and install another OS on it. Also, there are ARM-based Chromebooks to choose from already.
If Apple comes out with a laptop that has incomparable features, like iPad level battery life or unprecedented performance on thin-and-lights, it's going to put market pressure on not only Intel and AMD to perform better in these areas, but also for new players to emerge offering high performance ARM processors.
In general, when Apple does something others follow shortly after
I'm excited to see if this eventually extends to the data center world. Major cloud providers are already offering ARM cpu cores, but private cloud industry is still firmly in Intel's grip