WSJ Article: The Chips That Rebooted the Mac

[BootsWalking]

Today's WSJ has an in-depth article into the behind-the-scenes of Apple's decision to design their own chips for Macs.

Link (paywall): The Chips That Rebooted the Mac

Snippets:

Apple Inc. had a problem. While its iPhones were flying off shelves, sales of Mac computers were stagnating. Customers weren’t thrilled with their design or performance.

Five years later, Mac sales are soaring. The turnaround is due to an unusual, yearslong effort to build one of the world’s most advanced chip-design operations inside the world’s best-known gadget maker.

...

Deciding to fire a crucial supplier and bring its production in-house can be a wrenching crossroads for any company. Mr. Srouji’s success building the M1 chips was far from a certainty—especially as the coronavirus pandemic threatened the rollout in 2020.

...

Chasing that strategy, Apple has become a “semiconductor juggernaut,” according to Wayne Lam, an analyst at CCS Insight, who estimates that Apple’s spending last year on its internal semiconductors would rank it as the 12th-largest chip company in the world by revenue.

 

[dugbug]

Apple news link

The Chips That Rebooted the Mac — The Wall Street Journal

Apple’s risky, yearslong effort to design its own silicon paid off when supply-chain disruptions left competitors scrambling

apple.news

 

[chouseworth]

The WSJ reader comments to that article are more entertaining than the article itself. There are a lot of Apple haters out there.

 

[AltecX]

The WSJ reader comments to that article are more entertaining than the article itself. There are a lot of Apple haters out there.

There are lots of haters of everything, its how the internet is anymore.

 

[Boil]

Internet 2.0 = The H8rnet

 

[T'hain Esh Kelch]

There are lots of haters of everything, its how the internet is anymore.

Unfortunately it is not really different in the real world.. And I don't think it is a new thing.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I don't think sales of Intel Macintoshes were stagnating, but they were tarnishing their reputation in a couple areas such as performance, reliability and battery life. The introduction of the 2008 unibody, 2012 retina and 2016 redesign/touch bar all had some issues; nVidia graphics/logic board issues, lamination peeling, thermal performance affected by chassis design. Even the desktops were affected by this as with the case of the 2013 Mac Pro and the introduction of the 2012 iMac. That said, Macs wouldn't reach over a 100 million usage with PowerPC. That was an effect of switching to Intel. At the end of the day, I can guarantee you there are over a hundred million Intel Macs still in use than there are Apple Silicon Macs. Hence the reason why Apple will likely support macOS on Intel for quite a while.

Apple benefits from that though, because over 100 million Intel Mac users are going to eventually need to upgrade over the next decade. Another thing I want to note is, I feel like over the 10 to 12 years, I have seen more Macs than Windows PC's in usage.

 

[jdb8167]

Non-paywalled version. https://archive.ph/Ru9Ni

 

[jdb8167]

I don't think sales of Intel Macintoshes were stagnating, but they were tarnishing their reputation in a couple areas such as performance, reliability and battery life. The introduction of the 2008 unibody, 2012 retina and 2016 redesign/touch bar all had some issues; nVidia graphics/logic board issues, lamination peeling, thermal performance affected by chassis design. Even the desktops were affected by this as with the case of the 2013 Mac Pro and the introduction of the 2012 iMac. That said, Macs wouldn't reach over a 100 million usage with PowerPC. That was an effect of switching to Intel. At the end of the day, I can guarantee you there are over a hundred million Intel Macs still in use than there are Apple Silicon Macs. Hence the reason why Apple will likely support macOS on Intel for quite a while.

Apple benefits from that though, because over 100 million Intel Mac users are going to eventually need to upgrade over the next decade. Another thing I want to note is, I feel like over the 10 to 12 years, I have seen more Macs than Windows PC's in usage.

I don’t know. I’m a long time Mac user and I bought a 2018 13” MacBook Pro and I wasn’t very happy with it. It was bad enough that I was looking at trying to make my iPad Pro into my only mobile device. If the Apple silicon MacBooks hadn’t come out I doubt I would have bought a new Mac anytime soon. On the other hand, my 2013 Mac Pro has been a solid performer. Well worth the original price.

 

[Mr. Dee]

I don’t know. I’m a long time Mac user and I bought a 2018 13” MacBook Pro and I wasn’t very happy with it. It was bad enough that I was looking at trying to make my iPad Pro into my only mobile device. If the Apple silicon MacBooks hadn’t come out I doubt I would have bought a new Mac anytime soon. On the other hand, my 2013 Mac Pro has been a solid performer. Well worth the original price.

My sibling has the 2017 17 inch MBP and I never heard him complain about it. So, maybe you got a lemon. My 2015 MBP on the other hand suffered from the lamination issue and it has an issue with the audio.

 

[turbineseaplane]

Whenever the WSJ talks about something, I know I'm soon going to hear about it from a few of my "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" friends..

"Did you hear about X,Y,Z? -- Great piece on it today in the Journal!"

I'm always like -- "yeah -- the rest of us who read a little more widely knew all about X,Y,Z a long time ago"

 

[chouseworth]

Whenever the WSJ talks about something, I know I'm soon going to hear about it from a few of my "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" friends..

"Did you hear about X,Y,Z? -- Great piece on it today in the Journal!"

I'm always like -- "yeah -- the rest of us who read a little more widely knew all about X,Y,Z a long time ago"

There is a good reason why so many people quote it. I think that the WSJ is America’s finest daily news publication and I spend an hour or so with it each morning. I have subscribed for the last forty two years. No, it’s not big on rumors. It’s not meant to be. They are for websites such as this. MacRumors readers could do a lot worse than to buy a trial subscription for a few bucks a month to check it out. They may be surprised to see its appeal to a wide population and the level of its journalistic integrity.

 

[jdb8167]

My sibling has the 2017 17 inch MBP and I never heard him complain about it. So, maybe you got a lemon. My 2015 MBP on the other hand suffered from the lamination issue and it has an issue with the audio.

Same butterfly keyboard problems as everyone else had. Fans spun up on a moments notice. Battery life when using it for anything halfway intensive was bad, like 3 hours bad. It was just not great. I have the M1 MacBook Air now and it is better in every way.

 

[BootsWalking]

Whenever the WSJ talks about something, I know I'm soon going to hear about it from a few of my "socially liberal but fiscally conservative" friends..

"Did you hear about X,Y,Z? -- Great piece on it today in the Journal!"

I'm always like -- "yeah -- the rest of us who read a little more widely knew all about X,Y,Z a long time ago"

There are only a few respected news outlets left that still do investigative journalism and the WSJ is one of them, so regardless of one's political leanings it's a good source to include in one's news diet. I of course put the NYT in that list as well.

 

[Bodhitree]

Non-paywalled version. https://archive.ph/Ru9Ni

Thanks, nice interview with Johnny Srouji.

I think it’s important to remember Apple’s customers are not the general computing market’s customers. They have a keen sense of design and what makes a good product for the professional creative, but are not so driven by games and the focus on hot-and-fast that comes with that. With the M1 they created a chip good for laptops, desktops and tablets, and said, here is the performance standard for the ordinary user, and they raised that bar to a new level.

I’m looking forward to see what Apple will do in the future with Apple Silicon and how it will enable them to shape better products.

 

[makinao]

While the article merely summarizes what we here have been reading for the past year, I like how it puts the spotlight on Johny Srouji.

 

[turbineseaplane]

@BootsWalking & @chouseworth

My real point was that I have friends who consume little beyond the WSJ
That was the thrust of what I was getting at.

Luckily you both are sensible and well read and expand your reach well beyond just the WSJ it sounds like.
Kudos to you both!

 

[randolorian]

I like my 2018 15" MBP better than my 2019 16". It doesn't run as hot and just seems to have fewer quirks.

 

[senttoschool]

While the article merely summarizes what we here have been reading for the past year, I like how it puts the spotlight on Johny Srouji.

I think a lot of credit has to be given to Srouji. The whole M lineup is insanely well executed. M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra. They can scale from the tiny A series all the way to M1 Ultra. Just insane execution. We still have the 2x Ultra to come.