People forget the PowerPC to Intel transition. There is no doubt in my mind that Apple has a MBP and an IMac running OSX with an A-series processor. Nothing may ever come of it, but strategically they would definitely want to know what performance is like should they want to move in a different direction.
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Other A11 vs desktop CPUs... actual comparison?
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I haven't. I clearly remember all the incompatibilities and performance drawbacks, despite the switch to the significantly more powerful Intel CPUs.
Now imagine Apple switching to ARM CPUs, which do not have that performance advantage. Sounds really great.
It’s amazing on mobile. Comparing it to a desktop is silly. A pc can punch those numbers for a long time. Doing the same with an iPhone it will overheat. It sure geekbenches high but that doesn’t tell the whole story. But it is most certainly an amazing chip.
How could I forget my “dirty ROM” SE/30 or “32-bit clean” as well as “fat binary” and “universal” binary code. 64-bit has been the new buzz, the compiler output and efficiencies in code and storage space needed. Mac Pro 2006 with its EFI Intel cpu began a journey of bringing apps closer to 64-bit support but needed EFI 2.1 and 2009 4,1 model to fully get there.
The iMac pro is an engineering marvel that intel was able to achieve with Xeons.
iOS -ification and shared code/development for software to bring iOS and MacOS together under one roof. But not if iOS 11 is a barometer of QA.
Apple likes to invest in and do more in-house design, plus save cost. Buying Samsung OLED, Intel modems, and desktop processors. ARM could help get around Intel firmware and microcode. More control and custom chips.
The MacBook group has avoided being a laptop and tablet in one with pen and touch screen. (I rely on iPad Pro for just those features.) Having used Microsoft Surface Pro (8/256 i7) its an interesting concept. There is a nitch for an iPad Pro that really can do more.
Bottom line: folly to turn to ARM except for tablets and phones.
The iMac pro is an engineering marvel that intel was able to achieve with Xeons.
iOS -ification and shared code/development for software to bring iOS and MacOS together under one roof. But not if iOS 11 is a barometer of QA.
Apple likes to invest in and do more in-house design, plus save cost. Buying Samsung OLED, Intel modems, and desktop processors. ARM could help get around Intel firmware and microcode. More control and custom chips.
The MacBook group has avoided being a laptop and tablet in one with pen and touch screen. (I rely on iPad Pro for just those features.) Having used Microsoft Surface Pro (8/256 i7) its an interesting concept. There is a nitch for an iPad Pro that really can do more.
Bottom line: folly to turn to ARM except for tablets and phones.
I'm quoting all of you because quite, frankly, my answer is geared towards all of you.
First off, you are right to say a mobile CPU does not compare to a desktop class CPU. However, here is where you are wrong. The Apple A-Series CPUs are quickly catching up.
First point, to @thecore762, have you played games on an 4k Apple TV? I'm assumign you haven't. I have, and the games are quite responsive, smooth and I barely see any performance drop. So yes, the A-Series can play games at high resolutions. However, the GPU side of things still needs more fine tunning and raw power if you want to play things like Crysis or Wolfstein 2. Running apps? Are you serious... it seems you forget your A-series CPU already runs all your apps on your iDevice in the background.
To @eyoungren, again, that 4k on the AppleTV output can easily be split into 2 1920x1080 monitors if Apple so desires and we'd still have left over for a 3rd monitor if you so desire. Hence, we have the capability to run multiply displays. Just because iPhones don't do it, doesn't mean the hardware can't.
Obviously @mwhals , no mobile CPU is currently designed with 64GB of RAM in mind right now. The notion that these CPUs are designed for that is laughable. These CPUs are designed or ultra low power operation, something not even Intel is good at. Yes their U-Series core processors are the ones that come close, but their performance is creamed by the recent A-series and their GPU capacity is lackluster compared to a recent A-series. Also, we already have 6-core A-Serie CPUs in the A10X running on the iPad Pro. Sure, three cores are performance and three cores are efficiency, but you have three cores saving power while providing great number crunch.
So yes, you are right, mobile-smartphone CPUs are not comparable to desktop CPUs, but they get the job done and do have the capacity to do the same. So your notion of brushing these CPUs aside is.... laughable.
OK.
Can the iPhone or iPad (even the Pro) run Adobe CC 2017, Acrobat Pro with Enfocus Pitstop Pro (a ~$800 Prepress plugin), Suitcase Fusion 8 and QuarkXPress 2017?
Going to need access to my library of over 4000 fonts. I'll need to attach a keyboard and a mouse (touch is going to kill my productivity).
I will also need the device to be able to access our Windows shares natively through SMB2 as all our files exist on a Windows Server.
Oh! And I need to be able to attach a DVD burner with burn software, preferably Toast, because I backup each publication week of our newspaper to DVD.
Sorry, you answered the question…but the iPhone and iPad still have a very long way to go before they can just slot in as a sub for my Mac Pro.
Ok... where do I start?
Are those apps, rather, have any of those apps been ported to the iPhone or iPad Pro?
Your productivity, doesn't mean someone else's, after all this is a mobile device. To each their own. As per fonts, I'm sure an iDevice now a days can be software upgraded to include those... at a price obviously.
Again, software update.
Cloud back-up doesn't work as well?
True, they are not meant to substitute them, but that doesn't mean they don't have the capacity to try too.
People also forget PowerPC has less than 2% market share in 2006. Intel and AMD dominated the desktop PC market back then and they continue to do so today.
The PowerPC to x86 transition was a do or die situation with Mac.
Apple isn't about to commit suicide by transitioning back to an architecture with such a small market share on the desktop.
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Software is a really really big problem.
Unless Apple is willing to rewrite from the ground up software like the Adobe suite for ARM, Apple will not change to ARM. Adobe and other developers have no incentive to develop their software for ARM when >90% of the desktop computers in the world use x86.
There's no indication Apple Ax processors are anywhere close to Intel's latest offerings. Otherwise, the $5,000 iMac Pro would not be fully committed to Intel Xeon W.
One of the reasons why Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 was to gain access to that huge library of software.
But isn't a large part of Apple's mystique its affinity to zag when others zig - ditching optical drives, dropping USB ports, dongle-life, no headphone jack and so on?
This is the right answer, 100% correct.
We are in a golden age of OS X apps because Apple switched to x86. So many developers before the switch wouldn't even look at Macs because it required essentially re-making the entire app. Today, but for some UI elements, developers can make apps for Windows and Mac in parallel. If Apple were to switch away from x86 again, I believe a lot of Mac developers would not continue to update their apps, and we would lose a lot of great, albeit small, apps. Maybe big players like Adobe and Microsoft would continue developing for Mac, but a lot of smaller developers wouldn't. Not to forget the vast opensource community.
Plus the fact we can virtualize Windows or Linux with nearly no performance loss is amazing, and it's something that can only happen if the architecture of the hardware and what is being virtualized is the same.
I think it's about priorities and design goals. The A-series chips are designed to be power-efficient first, and powerful second. Intel chips are designed to be powerful first, and power-efficient second. On a phone, the former makes more sense. On a desktop, the latter makes more sense. On a laptop, it really depends on how you use it; but I think most users use a laptop more like a portable desktop rather than as a larger phone.
Also, lets not forget that Intel is more than just chip design. Intel's business is also, very importantly, chip manufacturing. And they are the best by far, by a huge margin. Intel and Samsung, as far as I know, are the only vertically integrated processor companies, in that they both design the chips AND manufacture the hardware; but Intel is way more advanced. Apple relies on contract manufacturers for making their chips. Intel is working on 5nm and 7nm manufacturing now, and has pretty much perfected 10nm as of last year. TSMC, who makes the A11, has just started with 10nm, and apparently their yields are not even close to Intel's. For non-Apple clients, TSMC is still primarily working in 16nm and larger. GlobalFoundries, the other big microprocessor manufacturer, is similarly situated.
Some of those changes are inconveniences or situations where Apple has enough clout to force a change or can reverse course easily.
Switching to ARM doesn't make sense from a performance perspective. And it doesn't make sense from a risk/reward perspective either on the software front.
If Apple gave me an ARM compiler for MacOS all my code would recompile with no changes whatsoever. Programs are not developed for x86. They are built for a 32 bit or 64 bit system, possibly and rarely for a little-endian system. I absolutely don't care what processor is used.
None of this has anything to do with the hardware. You’re talking software and OS.
It’s funny how insecure some people are about how powerful ARM chips have become. I used to cling to desktops too so I understand it.
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Easily. If a core 2 duo can run it then any modern apple processor can.
It is not Apple's job to rewrite Adobe's software, that's Adobe's job. They have to see if it's viable to bring their tools to iDevices. That I agree.
Really no indication? There are certain features a Xeon CPU will have over an A-Series CPU.
No, definetly not. One of the reasons why Apple moved to x86 was because the route in PowerPC was unfit for the laptop space and Apple's future CPU demands. Furthermore, PowerPC chips started to consume much more power and churned out same or a bit less performance than an equally, yet more power eficient, Intel Core counterpart. That is something Steve explicitly stated.
Utterly irrelevant. We’re talking about raw computer power in an a11 vs an i5. Nothing to do with software platforms.
Your inferiority complex is laughable. The OP asked about a comparison with a mobile i5 processor. Way to brag about your PC for no reason.
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They do have a performance advantage. A 5 watt apple chip wipes the floor with a 5 watt intel chip. If apple does release arm macs then they wouldn’t emulate x86, they would recompile the apps for arm. It would definitely cause a lot of issues but e not runn8ng pro software probably wouldn’t be a big deal. It is my understanding that any app developed in Xcode is a simple recompile to work for arm.
If someone has the kind of job where a mobile device can legitimately sub for a computer then all fine and good.
That's not happening in the Graphic Design and Prepress industry right now. Oh sure, there are lots of artist positions that use these tools on the go and more.
But when it comes down to a font manager, ad design, newspaper layout and composition, preflight of publications before printing, imposition software, etc, etc - my industry isn't there. That's why we are all still using Macs or PCs.
Maybe there is some early high-end experimentation but that's not the everyday at the moment.
And with that you've made my point. Just because the apps for what you describe aren't there for iPhone, doesn't mean its CPU can't handle the workload.
I'm sure, as you stated, experimentally, there is already software versions running.
I think I probably "made your point" because I misunderstood the argument. Which is my fault really.
And then what? Leave literally thousands of legacy applications that would not be recompiled behind? Good luck trying to explain the average, not too tech savvy user why their old applications and/or games no longer work on their new shiny (and probably expensive) Mac.
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Honestly the Mac is a relatively software poor platform. Outside of the core stuff that’s either Apple’s own or on the App Store, what is there that people would miss? The sort of device that would be powered by an A chip is a browsing/ word processing machine, which could run native safari and pages out of the box if Apple wanted it to.
Let's not forget that the A11 and other smartphone CPUs are not designed for even close to 100% load. If you try to run workflows on one that peak it at 100% for an hour, it's going to throttle to unbearably slow levels.
A lot of code is hand tuned for the processor. The compiler is good enough to produce code for a large number of x86 platforms but developers have spent a lot of time targeting specifically for specific generations of Intel processors, whether it's Sandy Bridge or Haswell.
Microsoft Office? Photoshop? Skype? Chrome? Firefox? Dropbox? Spotify?
And when looking at the current "Five Essential Apps for Your Mac" article and thread: Bartender? Alfred? Caffeine? BetterTouchTool? Little Snitch?
That list goes on and on, and that's still only scratching the surface. I won't even talk about more specialist applications or popular games.