Looks like Apple is on a 2-year update cycle for AS Macs. If so, I think Intel will fly past them.

[staypuftforums]

Rumor is the M2 won’t be released until possibly late next year. With the M2 Pro/Max in 2023.

If this is the case, I absolutely see Intel flying right past Apple sooner rather than later.

Intel’s generational improvement will be less, but they will be updating chips twice as often.

 

[Ixon2001]

Does it really matter what Intel do from now on, Apple has no need for Intel or anybody else now they have their own SOC.

Intel & AMD could potentially pull away in the future.. who knows they both could make a faster & more efficient ARM based SOC's than the M series, but Apple will still have the advantage of having its own OS & everything in a more tightly integrated package.

 

[Jorbanead]

Think about this for two seconds - there’s no way their A series chips are going to keep progressing year over year while Mac chips get further and further behind. At some point they’re either going to skip a generation (like they did with iPad chips) or they are going to release products at a faster pace.

It’s also likely the pandemic and production supply issues attributed to the pacing of Apple silicon. There were strong rumors that we were supposed to get the M1 Pro/Max chips at WWDC this year with the M2 chips coming in fall of 2021. But major issues in supply chain caused them to be delayed by a few more months.

 

[matram]

Apple has a long track record of delivering substantial yearly updates on the A chips. i would not worry.

 

[smoking monkey]

Rumor is the M2 won’t be released until possibly late next year. With the M2 Pro/Max in 2023.

If this is the case, I absolutely see Intel flying right past Apple sooner rather than later.

You might think so, but it doesn’t make it true. You have zero evidence to back up this rather silly claim.

 

[Abazigal]

Rumor is the M2 won’t be released until possibly late next year. With the M2 Pro/Max in 2023.

If this is the case, I absolutely see Intel flying right past Apple sooner rather than later.

Intel’s generational improvement will be less, but they will be updating chips twice as often.

My bet is that 4 years later, the M1 chip will still be beating intel chips in equivalent laptops in terms of performance and battery life.

Intel still has the fundamental problem of their foundry business being at odds with their chip design department in terms of incentives. Chip design is costly, and you offset that through high volume, which means stretching your update cycle for as long as possible.

Either way, Intel loses.

 

[staypuftforums]

Does it really matter what Intel do from now on, Apple has no need for Intel or anybody else now they have their own SOC.

Of course it matters. If it didn’t, Apple wouldn’t have switched to Intel in the first place.

 

[matram]

Of course it matters. If it didn’t, Apple wouldn’t have switched to Intel in the first place.

It has always been Apples strategy to control the whole stack of HW an SW. Now when they have achieved that they are not going back.

I think you have to separate the architecture from the process node. Apple is not going back to x86, if anything the whole industry is moving (slowly) towards ARM or RISC-V.

The other aspect is the process node. Today TSMC is leading, partially because all the money Apple has invested in them. I do not think Intel will overtake TSMC in the short term, but I believe that Apple is pragmatic with regard to what foundry they may use.

But rember that Intel promised 10 nm for 2016, causing a lot of problems for Apple when they failed repeatedly to deliver. Confidence once lost can be very difficult to regain.

 

[leman]

OP, what makes you think that? Intel’s update cycles are slower than Apples.

 

[Zhang]

u think apple will watch intel take over the place?

 

[leslieg]

cool fairytale man. apple are in their own ball game now and don't rely on intel. watch them build better products from here on out.

 

[Sullivan0930]

Apple is wrong when they release something annually

and will lose if they release biannually.

i think this forum secretly hates apple.

 

[senttoschool]

Does it really matter what Intel do from now on, Apple has no need for Intel or anybody else now they have their own SOC.

Yes it does. Macs don't exist in a vacuum. Today, more Windows laptops dwarf the marketshare of Macs. Apple should be aggressive in absolutely crushing the computer market within the next 5 years.

 

[senttoschool]

Rumor is the M2 won’t be released until possibly late next year. With the M2 Pro/Max in 2023.

All the rumors point to a summer release which makes it 18 months.

 

[Bodhitree]

Well, if they update the A-series processors every year, and then take across the improvements to the M-series every two years, it would make Mac product updates somewhat easier while allowing for larger jumps in the M-series and more incentive to upgrade. It’s a possibility, although they might also hit a yearly cadence after the transition.

But I think Apple has set out a certain intent with these chips. Like they do in the iPhone market, they want to dominate in the high-end market of the laptop space as well. That is why they are so aggressively pursueing performance-per-watt. They don’t care about overall marketshare, but they want to have a strong presence in the most profitable 15% of the market.

 

[matram]

Just speculating but my guess is that changes to the architecture will be first introduced in the A-series where Apple makes the most money. This will happen with the current yearly cadence, each autumn.

Then these changes will incorporated in the next M-series together with other changes not related to CPU / GPU. Maybe 6 months later. I think APple will aim for roughly yearly updates to MacBook / MacBookPro. I do not think Apple has the resources to update everything on a yearly cadence so we will see less frequent updates of things like the mini or iMac.

I think the introduction of the M1Pro / Max was delayed and was supposed to happen Q2. This is why we have the peculiar situation that the M chips are not based on the latest A-chips.

 

[leman]

Just speculating but my guess is that changes to the architecture will be first introduced in the A-series where Apple makes the most money. This will happen with the current yearly cadence, each autumn.

Then these changes will incorporated in the next M-series together with other changes not related to CPU / GPU. Maybe 6 months later. I think APple will aim for roughly yearly updates to MacBook / MacBookPro. I do not think Apple has the resources to update everything on a yearly cadence so we will see less frequent updates of things like the mini or iMac.

I think the introduction of the M1Pro / Max was delayed and was supposed to happen Q2. This is why we have the peculiar situation that the M chips are not based on the latest A-chips.

Agree in regards to delays. I think the plan is to roll A-series, closely followed by base M-series update, and then the professional M-series the following spring. I am sure they will smooth the roadmap down over the next few years.

 

[senttoschool]

Usually when iPhones ship, they use the most cutting-edge TSMC node. This means yields aren't fully optimized yet. This presents a problem for huge chips like the Pro and Max.

So one year later, the yields might be optimized enough for big chips to make sense.

 

[Sheepish-Lord]

Does it really matter what Intel do from now on, Apple has no need for Intel or anybody else now they have their own SOC.

Intel & AMD could potentially pull away in the future.. who knows they both could make a faster & more efficient ARM based SOC's than the M series, but Apple will still have the advantage of having its own OS & everything in a more tightly integrated package.

Exactly, I don't think MacOS users need to concern themselves with what Intel/AMD are doing anymore as we'll likely never see a transition back in this decade. With proven poor TDP on Intel chips, especially in Macs, I'm not sure who is still wanting an Intel chip running MacOS especially when Rosetta2 can outperform some native x86 programs. So for now Intel/AMD will stay exclusive to the Windows world and I think a lot of people are okay with that. Personally, even though I'm not a power user it stunk waiting 2+yrs for an updated Intel chip in a Mac which when released was already outdated and vastly underperformed yet I still paid top dollar.

 

[quarkysg]

When the transition is over and done with, my guess is that A series will drop in Sep, M series based on the A series cores will drop in Q1 the following year and M Pro / Max series to drop in Q2 or early Q3 the same year.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[Strider64]

In my opinion Apple has one big advantage over Intel as they were the first to realize the real potential of the ARM-based system on a chip when it came to laptops and desktop computing. If my memory serves me right when Intel was negotiating with Apple to continue making Intel-based computer chips for them they said they couldn't solve the heating problem or something like that. I know technology changes fast, but Intel has to catch up and Apple isn't going to be standing still.Though competition is good for everyone especially consumers.

 

[ian87w]

Rumor is the M2 won’t be released until possibly late next year. With the M2 Pro/Max in 2023.

If this is the case, I absolutely see Intel flying right past Apple sooner rather than later.

Intel’s generational improvement will be less, but they will be updating chips twice as often.

On performance, maaaaybe. But in performance per watt, Intel will have a loooong way to go.

Simply because Apple based their designs from an extreme thermally and battery restricted device, the iPhone and iPad. Efficiency will be the priority. Meanwhile, Intel has never had that intentional self restriction. Heck, the fact that their chips have to severely throttle down just being unplugged shows that efficiency is not really a priority in their designs. And you cannot just change the way the chip team do things overnight. But Apple Silicon is definitely a good wake up call for Intel. Hopefully they put more efforts in R&D instead of marketing.

 

[Slartibart]

Yes it does. Macs don't exist in a vacuum. Today, more Windows laptops dwarf the marketshare of Macs. Apple should be aggressive in absolutely crushing the computer market within the next 5 years.

Massive chunks of “the computer market” consist of audiences in which Apple isn’t interested (or doesn’t see how anything they want to offer would fit). It’s a worn example, but BMW& the likes similarly will not try to crush ”the car market” - there is literally nothing to gain from their perspective.

 

[Falhófnir]

I agree M series generations will be every second year based on current patterns (M1 2020, M2 2022, M3 2024) but Intel going past? Apple's A series which debuts their cores is on a more rapidly improving trajectory anyway:

So 2022's M2 should be based on the A16, with 2 years of cumulative performance gains which based on Apple's current roughly linear trajectory will be around the 25-30% mark. Expect a SC of at least 2100 for the M2, towards the end of next year. I don't see Intel beating that even if they can pick up the pace a bit.

 

[senttoschool]

Massive chunks of “the computer market” consist of audiences in which Apple isn’t interested (or doesn’t see how anything they want to offer would fit). It’s a worn example, but BMW& the likes similarly will not try to crush ”the car market” - there is literally nothing to gain from their perspective.

This is wrong and not indicative of Apple's market share strategy.

In terms of market share, iPhones are 55%+ in the US. Tablets 56%+. Smart Watch 52%+.

Macs, 15%.

See the outlier?