When it comes to software, what technologies does Apple Silicon provide that Intel doesn't?

[Idgit]

I'm not talking about performance or power usage. We already know that Apple Silicon wins in those categories.

I'm just wondering if Apple has added any technologies to Apple Silicon, like the neural engine, that app developers can leverage and that gives them an advantage or benefit over the Intel versions of the same app? For example, is there any advantage to the ARM version of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Premiere or Handbrake or scanning/OCR software?

In other words, excluding performance and power efficiency, are Intel Mac users missing out on any Apple Silicon specific features?

 

[StellarVixen]

I'm not talking about performance or power usage. We already know that Apple Silicon wins in those categories.

I'm just wondering if Apple has added any technologies to Apple Silicon that app developers can leverage and that gives them an advantage or benefit over the Intel versions of the same app? For example, is there any advantage to the ARM version of Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Premiere or Handbrake or scanning/OCR software?

In other words, excluding performance and power efficiency, are Intel Mac users missing out on any Apple Silicon specific features?

Dedicated video hardware from the top of my mind, that is what makes Final Cut Pro blazing fast

 

[Idgit]

Dedicated video hardware from the top of my mind, that is what makes Final Cut Pro blazing fast

Oh, so Final Cut Pro on an M1 should be significantly faster than a high-end Intel Mac, like a Mac Pro, even with a dedicated GPU?

 

[exoticSpice]

Dedicated video hardware from the top of my mind, that is what makes Final Cut Pro blazing fast

The Intel CPUs 12th gen do provide media engines. They support H264, H265 and AV1. Not ProRes because that's Apple's codec.

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

The Intel CPUs 12th gen do provide media engines. They support H264, H265 and AV1. Not ProRes because that's Apple's codec. View attachment 2029904

Has Intel's on chip display tech ever been 'good'? It's generally been better than nothing, and a loss leader for companies not wanting to include discrete video cards.

 

[exoticSpice]

Has Intel's on chip display tech ever been 'good'? It's generally been better than nothing, and a loss leader for companies not wanting to include discrete video cards.

Yes from 14th gen. So late next year Intel with Meteor lake is finally going to good iGPUs to thier CPUs.

 

[stvkmco]

It's somewhat software but the big draw of Apple Silicon is the unified memory and an OS that can use it optimally. Even if Intel/AMD/nVidia made an Apple-like SoC today I wonder how long it would take for Windows to adapt to it software wise. There is Arm Windows, there's the Qualcomm based PC's, but it all seems quite behind. Arm adoption or transition is going to be a slog if it even ever happens.

 

[evertjr]

Not burning your lap, neural engine, ISP, not increasing your electric bill.

 

[MrGunny94]

Well much improved ISP and Media Encoders is just the big ones. But I also think the power efficiency is the biggest upgrade over from the x86 world and in special Intel.

 

[leman]

From the top of my mind.

On the CPU side:

- half-precision floating point support
- matrix multiplication hardware (AMX)
- hardware pointer encryption (mostly a safety feature, less relevant to normal developer)

On GPU side:

- unified memory across the board (note that Intel/AMD offer unified memory with their iGPUs, but the performance is limited)
- fully programmable blending and AA
- compute kernels that persist on-chip memory (tile shaders)
- sparse textures that actually work and are fast (it is possible that things have improved in Windows world though, but sparse textures used to have unpredictable performance)
- advanced compression formats

Other:

- low-power ML inference (NPU)

 

[BanditoB]

There are several features in the latest MacOSes that aren’t supported on Intel-based Macs.

The only one that I can think of off of the top of my head is that Maps won’t zoom out to a globe view on Intel Macs, but there are several others. I believe they are mostly related to the lack of the neural processor on Intel CPUs.

Here’s what MacRumors reported for Monterey:

https://www.macrumors.com/2021/06/09/macos-monterey-features-for-m1-macs-only/

 

[Wackery]

Does the neural engine actually do anything?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

Does the neural engine actually do anything?

Add an excuse for increased prices?

 

[PinkyMacGodess]

A stable environment for programs to run? To do the Apple Silicon and not signal to developers you were radically changing the playing field? It seems like this change, a good one too, wasn't pulled off very well. It's insane when I think about it. Developers caught flat footed over this? I'm sure it goes well for them, I mean they are loaded with spare time to fix things that are caused by the changes Intel pulls off in the dark of night.

But anyway...