Also consider the fact that it could/would be fanless with a processor that likely destroys any of the current 13" products (10th gen MBP included).... It would be my ideal machine.... Hell, the leaked A14 Geekbench already destroys my Ryzen 2600 desktop in single core and compares pretty favorably with multi core. An "M14" likely will have more performance cores so it should end up destroying on multi core as well...
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Speculation: The ARM 13" MacBook Pro
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Also consider the fact that it could/would be fanless with a processor that likely destroys any of the current 13" products (10th gen MBP included).... It would be my ideal machine.... Hell, the leaked A14 Geekbench already destroys my Ryzen 2600 desktop in single core and compares pretty favorably with multi core. An "M14" likely will have more performance cores so it should end up destroying on multi core as well...
The one thing that would truly change my life is a true all day battery life, iPhone 11 style. That means even under load (Photoshop, Final Cut Pro, etc. for at least 10h a day + and extra 8 hours of writing, web browsing, 4K Netflix Apple TV streaming, etc.).
Homo Sapiens has turned into Homo Rechargus with all the stuff we're constantly trying to be on top of in terms of battery management and as far as I'm concerned if I could simply have to worry about this only at night while I sleep it would be most ideal. Even more so now that Magsafe is gone (I'm a klutz so having to charge it only when I know I'll never trip on a wire because I'm basically busy sleeping would be a godsend).
A better screen would be welcome. To me 14" would be nice but 13" so as well. It's rather questions of screen uniformity, manufacturing sample variation, backlight bleeding, colour accuracy, colour space and compatibility with calibration systems that concern me. Increased contrast with Mini LED is always nice to take... as long as the manufacturing sample variation is under control.
The other thing I'd love to see, baring Apple succeeding where the industry has failed for more than a decade and finding a truly exceptional form factor for a tablet / laptop hybrid with little opportunity costs compared to a dedicated laptop (ie no thicker, less powerful, or more fragile), would be for the MBP to support a new Apple Pencil 3 in hover mode with the trackpad, like a Wacom tablet, and with the ability to snap the pencil on the side to charge it. Only a minority of users will benefit from this but from a design perspective it can be achieved with little opportunity cost for other users (from an engineering point of view though IDK if hover will be easy to implement).
Face ID would be nice, particularly since the tech can actually be used for more applications (better detouring during video conferences to blur the background for example). Touch ID will always be bound to be just an ID system. The introduction of the neural engine in the Apple Silicone would enable Apple to just port over the Face ID system without much software effort... provided it can fit in the thin screen enclosure.
On the other hand knowing that my new MBP is 2mm tinnier than the previous one, or that it's 50% faster instead of 30%, I don't care that much. Or even that it's got a Touch Bar or not (I actually like it, but wouldn't miss it much either).
Homo Sapiens has turned into Homo Rechargus with all the stuff we're constantly trying to be on top of in terms of battery management and as far as I'm concerned if I could simply have to worry about this only at night while I sleep it would be most ideal. Even more so now that Magsafe is gone (I'm a klutz so having to charge it only when I know I'll never trip on a wire because I'm basically busy sleeping would be a godsend).
A better screen would be welcome. To me 14" would be nice but 13" so as well. It's rather questions of screen uniformity, manufacturing sample variation, backlight bleeding, colour accuracy, colour space and compatibility with calibration systems that concern me. Increased contrast with Mini LED is always nice to take... as long as the manufacturing sample variation is under control.
The other thing I'd love to see, baring Apple succeeding where the industry has failed for more than a decade and finding a truly exceptional form factor for a tablet / laptop hybrid with little opportunity costs compared to a dedicated laptop (ie no thicker, less powerful, or more fragile), would be for the MBP to support a new Apple Pencil 3 in hover mode with the trackpad, like a Wacom tablet, and with the ability to snap the pencil on the side to charge it. Only a minority of users will benefit from this but from a design perspective it can be achieved with little opportunity cost for other users (from an engineering point of view though IDK if hover will be easy to implement).
Face ID would be nice, particularly since the tech can actually be used for more applications (better detouring during video conferences to blur the background for example). Touch ID will always be bound to be just an ID system. The introduction of the neural engine in the Apple Silicone would enable Apple to just port over the Face ID system without much software effort... provided it can fit in the thin screen enclosure.
On the other hand knowing that my new MBP is 2mm tinnier than the previous one, or that it's 50% faster instead of 30%, I don't care that much. Or even that it's got a Touch Bar or not (I actually like it, but wouldn't miss it much either).
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As of late, it seems any work Apple does with bezels is to keep the same dims but extend the screen out. So rather than shrink the bezels on a 12" MacBook & reduce the overall size, they would keep the size & increase visible screen real estate by decreasing the bezels...
My take on an Apple Silicon Mac Book:
MacBook - starting at US$1,299.00
12 P cores / 4 E cores / 24 GPU cores - Monolithic SoC design
LPDDR5 RAM Unified Memory Architecture - 16GB / 32GB / 64GB
NVMe SSD (single NAND blade) - 512GB / 1TB / 2TB
Two USB4 (TB3) ports
14" display / 2560x1600 / 120Hz ProMotion / Mini-LED / 4K webcam / FaceID / stereo speakers
What you have is more likely what the 14” MBP will be...
My take......
MacBook - starting at $899
8 P cores / 4 E cores / 20 GPU cores - SoC fanless cooling
LPDDR5 RAM Unified Memory Architecture - 16GB / 32GB
NVMe SSD - 256GB / 512GB / 1TB
Two thunderbolt 3 / USB 4 ports
12.9“ display (same display used in current iPad Pro with identical resolution and refresh rate)
The 12.9” display should allow them to retain a size similar to the previous 12” MacBook with reduced bezels. Using the same screen also provides the benefit of iPad apps being able to be displayed full screen without any letterboxing or other artifacts due to the matching resolution.
A 12" with two Thunderbolt ports, Apple Silicon performing 30% better than i7, and 5G modem in addition to WiFi 6, please. I might be able to settle for 4G, I suppose. But in principle I'm ready for Apple to return to the leading edge rather than being a high-priced laggard.
Yours is the more realistic design - As in his other thread on this, I think @Boil is looking at what he would like to see down the road once the Apple Silicon line-up is more mature.
I disagree on the display though. It would be a 16:10 display, so wouldn’t be able to use the same panel as used on the 12.9” IPP. Now...if both the iPad and Macbook lines went to 3:2 aspect ratios instead (Like the original iPhone)...that would be tasty. They almost went there completely with the 11” IPP, which uses a 1.43:1 aspect ratio. Link to comparison tool.
That's my point with going with the iPads screen. With the 16:10 aspect ratio, I doubt iPad apps can go full screen without letterboxing (unless iPad apps became less dependent on resolution/aspect ratio then previously?). Going with the same aspect as an iPad would allow apps to be displayed as normal. With that said though, I agree that it would likely end up being the usual 16:10.
GPU and CPU is only part of the story. TDP is equally important as the number of GPU/CPU cores.
The coprocessors such as the NPU, video decoders etc are important to mention because these are ever more efficient that the AS GPU/CPU for certain tasks which drives down power consumption. I am very blank on these coprocessor. It would be great to have some real world metrics on what these coprocessors are contributing to like the BMW scene in Blender, decoding a “standard” movie, 1000 face recognitions and ML learning task.
I guess that the MBP13 run at 10-15W. Whatever that translates to number of CPU/GPU cores, I do not know. I guess that the 24 iMac to go higher, perhaps 30W, same as the future MBP16.
I really like your price suggestion. iMac 24 should be $1299.
The coprocessors such as the NPU, video decoders etc are important to mention because these are ever more efficient that the AS GPU/CPU for certain tasks which drives down power consumption. I am very blank on these coprocessor. It would be great to have some real world metrics on what these coprocessors are contributing to like the BMW scene in Blender, decoding a “standard” movie, 1000 face recognitions and ML learning task.
I guess that the MBP13 run at 10-15W. Whatever that translates to number of CPU/GPU cores, I do not know. I guess that the 24 iMac to go higher, perhaps 30W, same as the future MBP16.
I really like your price suggestion. iMac 24 should be $1299.
Many iPad apps also work on iPhones, so are designed to be flexible around aspect ratio. Although some are design to be used in portrait orientation. I don’t think matching the current state of iPad apps will have much bearing on the design of Mac screens.
I also think it will be 16:10, but would love 3:2 or 4:3.
Too many Mac and Windows apps and even many websites are designed around that 16:10 aspect ratio. The proportions of a laptop with a 3:2 ratio are also different - compare the dimensions of a Surface Pro 6 or 7 with a current MBA or 13" MBP, especially the keyboard design.
I vaguely heard something in a video earlier about Apple dealing with the differences in aspect ratios and resolutions when iOS apps run on Macs. Short version was, they have it covered.
You are using the iPad 12 Pro as your base, stuffing in twice as many CPU performance cores, twice as many memory modules, 2.5x as many GPU cores and then checking out. Maybe Boil inspired you to abandon the laws of thermodynamics; he has that effect on people.
The following is a good dream design for a fanless machine the size of the iPad 12 or, if you prefer 16:10, a 12" Macbook with a slightly bigger screen. It's about as close as we can get to what you want. Compared to the iPad 12 Pro, it leverages TSMC 5 to clock up the CPU cores while adding more GPU cores at the same speeds, and it leverages power savings from LPDDR5 to double the number of memory modules. I added about 10% to our power budget to account for Apple magic.
4x "Firestorm" CPU Cores @ 2.87 GHz + 4x "Icestorm" CPU Cores @ 2GHz
12x Bionic GPU Cores @ iPad 12 clock speeds
2x LPDDR5 Modules
Yeah, the NPU and stuff is kind of a question mark. We don't have a lot of experience with these things and so you don't see them come up a lot in APU discussions even though they are obviously an important part of Apple's design. Lest anyone think otherwise, Apple increased the NPU cores in the A12 to eight up from two in the A11, so they definitely think those cores are doing something useful. How much power do they use? No idea.
My new prediction is the first AS Mac is a 13" MacBook/Air in a case roughly the same size as the 12" MacBook. Massive battery life, A14X, like the one in the leaked Benchmark but with more GPU cores, same chip to be used in the next iPad/Pro maybe. No fans, silent but better than 90% of existing laptops performance wise.
A similar spec Mac Mini follows this one with an even slimmer case, not much bigger than an Apple Superdrive. Come to think of it, this could also double as an AppleTV/Console.
Then later on we get new AS 14" and 16" MBPs with new designs and new AS iMacs with the new designs too, plus a faster Mac Mini with same CPUs as the MBPs. Not sure which of these will be first.
A similar spec Mac Mini follows this one with an even slimmer case, not much bigger than an Apple Superdrive. Come to think of it, this could also double as an AppleTV/Console.
Then later on we get new AS 14" and 16" MBPs with new designs and new AS iMacs with the new designs too, plus a faster Mac Mini with same CPUs as the MBPs. Not sure which of these will be first.
They have already said that Macs will get their own silicone so no A processors in any Mac. That being said, it does not preclude them from basically making an A14x and adding a few other mac specific bits (thunderbolt controller, more GPU cores maybe, etc..). The low spec AS Mac could have the same CPU architecture/core count as the A14x but with additional GPU cores and the aforementioned thunderbolt controller. That still would make it on par if not better then most of Apple's current mobile offerings (based off of the leaked A14 benchmarks).
A 12 core in the 12" macbook might be wishful thinking but an 8/10 core should be doable for sure. 12 core plus for active cooling maybe.
Hadn't thought about Thunderbolt there. I see the DTK has none so you're quite right, my A14X is going to need a controller. Can't see it needs much else though. That said, maybe the A14 line will have TB anyway, might be nice for the iPad Pro?
A lot will depend on patents and licenses involved in getting that included.
They cost much more than adding something to silicon.
Also Apple Silicon is going to need PCIe lanes for the SSD, for hooking up to the TB controller etc. all are missing from am AXX at present time AFAIK. In higher end machines like the replacement for the MP those lanes as well as memory bandwidth might be pushing things for a current AXX chip, hopefully Apple already has all what's needed lined up in their labs as I'm sure the engineers at Apple know this - lets hope the execs listened...
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Nah, TB4 has no license fee. Plus Apple were among the original group that designed Thunderbolt back when it was called Lightpeak. Or so they claimed.
It looks like the iPhone has been running its storage using NVMe and PCI-E since the iPhone 6S. Probably.
iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus Preliminary Results
I think the omission of Thunderbolt from iDevices thus far has been a matter of power constraints, space, possibly thermal concerns with the controllers and the fact its not as useful any more to be able to transfer large files to and from them.
Why has no-one leaked any images of the DTK internals yet?
“Ching-Ding” Kuo....? Really...?
The Developer agreement expressly prohibits disassembly of the DTK, and I'm fairly sure that there are ways Apple can tell if someone took their machine apart.
The NDA forbade benchmarks too but that didn't stop anyone. The Mac Mini enclosure has a plastic disc you can rotate and lift off. Easy.
Apple has never to my knowledge taken measures to show if a Mac has been opened. Which is kind of strange given the the lengths they go to to make them difficult to repair. None of those "Warranty Void" foil stickers over screw holes. Never.
There was nothing in the Intel DTK to stop you peeking inside it. I know this because I did. That one was even easier to get into what with the G5 door on the side.
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I believe Apple doesn’t care if you open it or not as long as the details are not being exposed to the public.
Benchmark should be the least important aspect of the DTK. It should be identical to the iPad Pro or a little bit better because of the thermals, but not a significant jump. What’s important should be how it handles all the x86/iOS/ARM apps
I'm curious about how much room is in the box, if it has a fan or any other connectors. What size heatsink it has. I'm sure there was something else I wanted answered...