Gurman published article this morning with some new info on Macbook 16, before Apple's announcement. At the end of it he mentioned that Apple still working on ARM Macbook to be released in 2020.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
ARM based MacBook Pro discussion [merged]
- Thread starter Omega Mac
- Start date
-
- Tags
- arm intel macbook pro macos sierra
- Sort by reaction score
I think it highly likely Apple will have an Arm processor designed for computer use, not just doubling up a mobile processor. I'm not sure about clearly outperforming, but I think Apple will make sure they can say there is a performance advantage before switching.
The information in this thread seems a reasonable possibility: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/arm-based-cpu-leaked.2210265/
I think you have a point. The difficulty in porting is not so much the HW platform you run on but more the frameworks you code against.
I think Apple with SwiftUI is trying to create a unified framework that you could use for apps targeting both MacOS and iOS. But this seems to be early work yet and quite immature.
I think will see a process over several years where the iPad will get more functionality, e.g. mouse support? And SwiftUI will become more capable. At some point we may see a bridging device in the form of a MacBook with ARM. 2020 seems a bit early for that, although I would love seeing Apple put some pressure on Intel.
I think Apple with SwiftUI is trying to create a unified framework that you could use for apps targeting both MacOS and iOS. But this seems to be early work yet and quite immature.
I think will see a process over several years where the iPad will get more functionality, e.g. mouse support? And SwiftUI will become more capable. At some point we may see a bridging device in the form of a MacBook with ARM. 2020 seems a bit early for that, although I would love seeing Apple put some pressure on Intel.
That's much too expensive, nobody outside of some special applications hand-tunes their code anymore. "Optimized for" is, more often than not, just empty marketing speak.
[automerge]1575639351[/automerge]
Outside of HPC and some specialised multi-media libraries and similar? Too expensive.
Photoshop and Lightroom are far from complete on iPad - and that's the problem. Lightroom CC (new, cloud-centric version of Lightroom) is far from complete on desktop, compared to big, creaky old Lightroom Classic. Lightroom CC doesn't even have a print command!
Microsoft and Adobe will both take the easy way out, and let iPad apps Catalysted over to run on MacOS ARM stand as their ARM Mac offering, at least for a long time, if not permanently. Microsoft is actually running emulated Office on their own Surface Pro X. What do you think the chance of getting anything other than "easy way out" Catalyst versions on Mac is?
That means that the ARM Mac feature set is the iPad feature set on those applications, and anything else that gets "ported" that way. There are probably some applications where the iPad version is, in fact, relatively complete, and an iPad port is just fine. There are other applications where an iPad version is fine as long as ARM is confined to certain Macs - iPad Adobe apps are probably a better fit for the MacBook Air than the full Mac versions... There are, of course apps that will receive full ARM Mac ports of desktop versions (Final Cut Pro, etc.).
There is also a significant category of apps, though, where the iPad version is substantially different from the desktop Mac version, and where the iPad version will stand as the ARM Mac version for a long time...
Microsoft and Adobe will both take the easy way out, and let iPad apps Catalysted over to run on MacOS ARM stand as their ARM Mac offering, at least for a long time, if not permanently. Microsoft is actually running emulated Office on their own Surface Pro X. What do you think the chance of getting anything other than "easy way out" Catalyst versions on Mac is?
That means that the ARM Mac feature set is the iPad feature set on those applications, and anything else that gets "ported" that way. There are probably some applications where the iPad version is, in fact, relatively complete, and an iPad port is just fine. There are other applications where an iPad version is fine as long as ARM is confined to certain Macs - iPad Adobe apps are probably a better fit for the MacBook Air than the full Mac versions... There are, of course apps that will receive full ARM Mac ports of desktop versions (Final Cut Pro, etc.).
There is also a significant category of apps, though, where the iPad version is substantially different from the desktop Mac version, and where the iPad version will stand as the ARM Mac version for a long time...
Just like the tablet, let Microsoft do the horrendous flop job now (Surface Pro X on ARM) and allow Apple to take a look, learn, design and innovate a real world, widely adopted solution down the line. Next thing you know it'll be a matter of reading the Cnet article on "Remember x86? 10 years of ARM" lol
To be honest, I would like a Mac with a dedicated ARM chip like A12X and an Intel CPU as well, just like we have dual GPU (integrated and dedicated in MacBook Pro.) I know the OS will need to be rewritten, but there may be a solution to this.
That's the only practical way Apple's Pro line is likely to move IMO.
And in some ways, we already have that: The T2 is essentially a variant of the A10.
What I see happening on that front, would be Apple's ARM "coprocessor" taking on more tasks over time. Possibly the option for Apps to bundle an extension built for ARM to offload some tasks, or possibly even to allow the Arm binary to run in the background while the main x86-64 binary is not running - e.g. a Mail or messaging or VOIP client could have a small "listener" binary that runs on the low power ARM chip (saving battery life on a laptop) and triggers either a notification, or even opens the main binary upon some event (e.g. an incoming call).
Excatly, I would be nice to have an ARM co-processor taking over, when during simple stuff like writing documents, mail, watching videos and browsing. With a 99,8 battery and ARM processor one could get an enormous battery life when using this ARM processor
I've been writing papers on my 16", and it ALREADY has a pretty enormous battery life. Something around 14 hours in Word, Mail and adblocked Safari... The thing idles around 5 watts, and half of that is the display! An ARM coprocessor could actually make that worse, if Word were running emulated (or forcing the Intel CPU on while the A12x was also sucking down power). There's really no way (including ARM) to make a big-screen laptop idle much below 4-5 watts.
I've also been editing photos on my 16", and it's happy to suck down 70-100 watts (including 65 for the CPU alone) with DxO PhotoLab and Lightroom running at once... It'll actually cool that much power (it'll run 120 watts for a while until cooling becomes an issue). Of course, you can almost see the battery indicator going down if you try to do that without being plugged in.
Maybe they could make an ARM chip that was more efficient at medium power levels (do on 30 watts what this machine does on 50), but that's about the only place they could add efficiency. The Intel CPU's already not drawing much of anything at a light load, and it's already very, very fast at heavy load (and I've never heard of ARM being super-efficient at high loads).
I've also been editing photos on my 16", and it's happy to suck down 70-100 watts (including 65 for the CPU alone) with DxO PhotoLab and Lightroom running at once... It'll actually cool that much power (it'll run 120 watts for a while until cooling becomes an issue). Of course, you can almost see the battery indicator going down if you try to do that without being plugged in.
Maybe they could make an ARM chip that was more efficient at medium power levels (do on 30 watts what this machine does on 50), but that's about the only place they could add efficiency. The Intel CPU's already not drawing much of anything at a light load, and it's already very, very fast at heavy load (and I've never heard of ARM being super-efficient at high loads).
Every computer is power-limited, even supercomputers.
Back in the old days, Intel won because they were always a transistor node ahead of everybody, and Moore's Law and Dennard scaling were in full effect. Architecture mattered less.
Today, they are behind in process technology. Dennard scaling is dead. Moore's Law is stuck in the mud.
Architecture is much more important now. They are behind and they have baggage. One example: vector instructions do not work for apps that don't use them. It is much easier for an app to use more threads.
By the way, ARM as a coprocessor sounds good, but is fraught with technical challenges. Not worth it in my opinion.
AMD might be a better option until Apple can push Catalyst through.
Back in the old days, Intel won because they were always a transistor node ahead of everybody, and Moore's Law and Dennard scaling were in full effect. Architecture mattered less.
Today, they are behind in process technology. Dennard scaling is dead. Moore's Law is stuck in the mud.
Architecture is much more important now. They are behind and they have baggage. One example: vector instructions do not work for apps that don't use them. It is much easier for an app to use more threads.
By the way, ARM as a coprocessor sounds good, but is fraught with technical challenges. Not worth it in my opinion.
AMD might be a better option until Apple can push Catalyst through.
These stories come up all the time and the Upgrade podcast was talking about this. At some point, the Pro moniker will be "Intel" so long as intel can provide viable high-end chips. In order to completely replace Intel, Apple will likely roll out the lower end machines with ARM and hold off until they can match the higher end. I'm expecting this to take the better part of a decade if I'm completely honest.
I'm not into computer engineering stuff, but based on what I've been reading, don't most of Apple apps in use nowadays complied by compiler that best uses the instruction sets provided by x64/x86? Isn't some of performance gain that we all enjoy now are due to new and advanced instruction sets offered by those intel chips?
Also much of Intel's chip development efforts has gone to prediction? With so many apps and services simultaneously running in a typical computer operating system, I'm still skeptical on performance of ARM based chips solely based on how Apple's chip performs in iPad or iOS. Yes. that os also run many services and background apps, but not comparable to what computer os is running.
There's certainly cost of porting all available apps to ARM, and if we continue to see porting of Mac OS grade apps to iOS or iPad OS, then we are sure to suspect there's something on going. But as of now, what's being offered in iOS and iPad OS side is still not fully functional app compared to Mac OS. So obviously major porting like what happened from PPC to intel has to happen. That's a huge price to pay, and back then, the performance gain was enough to justify the cost. Would it today? ARM must prove a lot before many people is willing to jump the ship.
However, one new product that gives me some kind of hopes. Check out a new Samsung ARM notebook, Galaxybook S. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...m-laptop-battery-life-23-hours-unpacked-event
it's a sleek looking laptop that lasts 23 hours. The initial reception is quite acceptable, and I believe what Apple can offer will be much better than that.
I really don't know. Would Apple segment their already small size of Mac market into both ARM and x64? What if the transition to ARM eco system is so subtle, we wouldn't notice the transition? Or is such subtle integration even possible?. What's the future of Mac Pro 7,1 with possible ARM shift? There's many questions that would be entertaining to watch out for. I'm all for it if the change offers more performance. Intel's heavy duty yet power efficient mobile chip is really a huge technological milestone for all others you know. That's a huge giant wall that Apple has to cross. Power efficient I think they can do. With power efficient and performance, I'm still skeptical about. We shall see.
Also much of Intel's chip development efforts has gone to prediction? With so many apps and services simultaneously running in a typical computer operating system, I'm still skeptical on performance of ARM based chips solely based on how Apple's chip performs in iPad or iOS. Yes. that os also run many services and background apps, but not comparable to what computer os is running.
There's certainly cost of porting all available apps to ARM, and if we continue to see porting of Mac OS grade apps to iOS or iPad OS, then we are sure to suspect there's something on going. But as of now, what's being offered in iOS and iPad OS side is still not fully functional app compared to Mac OS. So obviously major porting like what happened from PPC to intel has to happen. That's a huge price to pay, and back then, the performance gain was enough to justify the cost. Would it today? ARM must prove a lot before many people is willing to jump the ship.
However, one new product that gives me some kind of hopes. Check out a new Samsung ARM notebook, Galaxybook S. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbre...m-laptop-battery-life-23-hours-unpacked-event
it's a sleek looking laptop that lasts 23 hours. The initial reception is quite acceptable, and I believe what Apple can offer will be much better than that.
I really don't know. Would Apple segment their already small size of Mac market into both ARM and x64? What if the transition to ARM eco system is so subtle, we wouldn't notice the transition? Or is such subtle integration even possible?. What's the future of Mac Pro 7,1 with possible ARM shift? There's many questions that would be entertaining to watch out for. I'm all for it if the change offers more performance. Intel's heavy duty yet power efficient mobile chip is really a huge technological milestone for all others you know. That's a huge giant wall that Apple has to cross. Power efficient I think they can do. With power efficient and performance, I'm still skeptical about. We shall see.
The power efficiency of Intel mobile chips is quite remarkable. The 16" MacBook Pro, maxed out, idles around 5W (not the processor, the whole darn Mac with 16" display and 64 GB of RAM). The CPU itself is drawing 1.3 watts of that or less! The same machine can draw 100 watts sustained, with the CPU around 60W, and it can burst up to 142W, with the CPU around 80W.
They aren't going to build an ARM chip that idles lower than 1.3W by a meaningful amount, they aren't going to build one that's enough faster to make up for the effects of emulation (and some software will be emulated unless they are willing to LOSE a lot of software either to just plain not existing or to getting iPad versions instead of the full ones).
Microsoft is running emulated Office on their own Surface Pro X!!!! MS is not going to port Office to ARM on Mac when they can't even get their act together on their own OS - they'll either Catalyst Office for iPad or let Office for Intel Mac run emulated!
Adobe is going to do the same thing - it'll be either iPad apps or emulated ones!
Probably fine for a MacBook (maybe they can get an idle-power system draw enough below 5W to make a difference in battery life, since they don't have the big screen, RAM, SSD, etc). A 2W machine at idle would last longer on a smaller battery, and I bet some iPads idle that low. iPad apps are fine there...
They aren't going to build an ARM chip that idles lower than 1.3W by a meaningful amount, they aren't going to build one that's enough faster to make up for the effects of emulation (and some software will be emulated unless they are willing to LOSE a lot of software either to just plain not existing or to getting iPad versions instead of the full ones).
Microsoft is running emulated Office on their own Surface Pro X!!!! MS is not going to port Office to ARM on Mac when they can't even get their act together on their own OS - they'll either Catalyst Office for iPad or let Office for Intel Mac run emulated!
Adobe is going to do the same thing - it'll be either iPad apps or emulated ones!
Probably fine for a MacBook (maybe they can get an idle-power system draw enough below 5W to make a difference in battery life, since they don't have the big screen, RAM, SSD, etc). A 2W machine at idle would last longer on a smaller battery, and I bet some iPads idle that low. iPad apps are fine there...
I don't think they will move only some Mac lineups to ARM, imagine Macbook Air uses ARM chip and Macbook Pro uses Intel chips. Then some(or most) developer won't care about ARM Macbook Air, not really worth to optimize software only for Macbook Air. So Macbook Air will have really bad compatibility or going for emulation which have too much performance loss, losing all the benefits for using ARM chip.
Yep. Which is why ARM-based "pro" MacOS computers are a pipe dream, perpetuated by forum nerds. I honestly don't understand why so many people are on this bandwagon, when it makes so little sense to Apple and MacOS users.
The only semi-plausible reason for ARM Macs that I've heard is cost savings on A-series chips versus what Intel chargers for their CPUs. I don't think that's significant enough for Apple to make this leap, which will otherwise do nothing but cause pain to the end users.
What we will likely see iPadOS evolve and expand into new form factors, like dual-screen clamshells. That's is going to be the future of Apple's investments.
However, MacOS and Mac product line is going to remain right where it is - Intel x86 based OS with some peripheral functions aided by ARM co-provcessors (such as T2 chip and its successors). ARM MacBook Pro (in a classical sense) won't be happening.
The only semi-plausible reason for ARM Macs that I've heard is cost savings on A-series chips versus what Intel chargers for their CPUs. I don't think that's significant enough for Apple to make this leap, which will otherwise do nothing but cause pain to the end users.
What we will likely see iPadOS evolve and expand into new form factors, like dual-screen clamshells. That's is going to be the future of Apple's investments.
However, MacOS and Mac product line is going to remain right where it is - Intel x86 based OS with some peripheral functions aided by ARM co-provcessors (such as T2 chip and its successors). ARM MacBook Pro (in a classical sense) won't be happening.
Last edited:
I'm skeptical about Arm Mac also, and agree with what you say. But it's Apple, and going ARM gives Apple one good advantage. They can market their Mac detached from easily comparable PC x64 chip generations. They don't have to stick with annual update like now where Apple's constantly under pressure when a new generation of CPU chip is available in market. Going ARM will make Apple easier to market their computer as like generation less and "good enough" Mac for a longer period thus by maximizing their profit. It's evil approach, and I don't have confidence enough in Apple to believe they won't do it.
I could see a MBP paired with Intel/AMD CPU and ARM CPU if that's feasible, but otherwise? I'd much rather Apple not damn it's customers by using ARM CPUs as the sole CPU in their computers. The PowerPC days are over, and shifting from a processor architecture shared across the computer market to a closed ARM architecture powered computer would be such a bad idea. We can see how awful of an idea it is with how the ARM powered Windows Surface laptop. You'd have to emulate any program not natively designed for ARM, and that would come with a massive performance drop.
🤣 do you honestly think they’d do that? That they would replace the current Pro with something that performs like the ARM surface laptop? Really? I’m not hugely optimistic, but I’m reasonably certain that they can mitigate the majority of these concerns in the majority of circumstances.
Mitigate those concerns how? Even if Apple re-wrote all of the in-house MacOS apps for ARM (not likely) - do you seriously expect Microsoft and Adobe re-writing Office and Creative Suite? Microsoft can't even port Office to their own Windows for ARM. And I am not even talking about smaller developers - they barely support x86 MacOS and iPadOS as it is. Twitter won't even release a MacOS app, until that Catalyst junk came along. What makes you think those devs are going to support yet another proprietary desktop OS by Apple? They won't.
And short of native ARM apps - there is no getting around an emulation layer, which is going to be the same garbage user experience as Surface. You can't just hand wave these issues away - "oh it's Apple, they will figure something out". They won't, and hopefully they are smart enough to not go down this rathole.
Well quite apart from the doom mongers I'm eager to see what Apple can do with their own chips in this space. They've got impressive performance out of their phone and tablet chips, let's see what they can achieve in a laptop form factor. I'm not worried about app support, iOS is a much more active developer ecosystem so even in the unlikely event Apple says jump and some developers don't, new alternatives to their products will no doubt be forthcoming soon after.
Sorry but 1000 Chinese made fart apps and emoji sticker apps aren’t going to replace a lot of tools people use to make money with Macs.
I'm not a developer (obviously) so I'm not exactly sure how they will mitigate these issues. From what I understand, "much" software developed today is abstracted from the hardware anyway, so Apple needs to have libraries up to date but it should be plane sailing from that perspective. Developers who are creating apps using lower level languages may have more complex issues. Adobe is writing ARM versions of some Apps for Windows. They have also been creating ARM based apps for iOS.
None of that matters though. I didn't say I know how to mitigate the issues, I said that Apple won't follow Microsoft's lead with a crippled ARM laptop. If Apple roll out an ARM based Macbook it will perform like a "Pro", or it will be a lower end lower performing unit and won't be called a "Pro" device. We won't see Apple replace Intel based Pro laptops with substantially poorer performing ARM based Pro laptops.
Exactly. If this isn't something that they can do "well" (to whatever standard, some people will always complain of course) then they won't do it.