That Apple is deploying older generation CPUs in its latest generation MacBook Air is a further sign that the x86 architecture is in the early stages of being disrupted. Drawing on work by Clayton Christensen, the classic signs of disruption are as follows:
1. The current technology is overshooting the needs of the mass market.
Due to a development trajectory that has followed in lockstep with Moore’s Law, and the emergence of cloud computing, the latest generation of x86 processors now exceed the performance needs of the majority of customers. Because many customers are content with older generation microprocessors, they are holding on to their computers for longer periods of time, or if purchasing new computers, are seeking out machines that contain lower performing and less expensive microprocessors.
2. A new technology emerges that excels on different dimensions of performance.
While the x86 architecture excels on processing power – the number of instructions handled within a given period of time – the ARM architecture excels at energy efficiency. According to Data Respons (datarespons.com, 2010), an “ARM-based system typically uses as little as 2 watts, whereas a fully optimized Intel Atom solution uses 5 or 6 watts." The ARM architecture also has an advantage in form factor, enabling OEMs to design and produce smaller devices.
3. Because this new technology excels on a different dimension of performance, it initially attracts a new market segment.
While x86 is the mainstay technology in PCs, the ARM processor has gained significant market share in the embedded systems and mobile devices markets. ARM-based processors are used in more than 95% of mobile phones (InformationWeek, 2010). The ARM architecture is now the main choice for deployments of Google’s Android and is the basis of Apple’s A4 system on a chip, which is used in the latest generation iPod Touch and Apple TV, as well as the iPhone 4 and iPad.
4. Once the new technology gains a foothold in a new market segment, further technology improvements enable it to move up-market, displacing the incumbent technology.
With its foothold in the embedded systems and mobile markets, ARM technology continues to improve. The latest generation ARM chip (the Cortex-A15) retains the energy efficiency of its predecessors, but has a clock speed of up to 2.5 GHz, making it competitive with Intel’s chips from the standpoint of processing power. As evidence of ARM’s move up-market, the startup Smooth-Stone recently raised $48m in venture funding to produce energy efficient, high performance chips based on ARM to be used in servers and data centers. I suspect we will begin seeing the ARM architecture in next generation latops, netbooks, and smartphones (e.g., A4 in a MacBook Air).
5. The new, disruptive technology looks financially unattractive to established companies, in part because they have a higher cost structure.
In 2009, Intel’s costs of sales and operating expenses were a combined $29.6 billion. In contrast, ARM Holdings, the company that develops and supports the ARM architecture, had total expenses (cost of sales and operating) of $259 million. Unlike Intel, ARM does not produce and manufacture chips; instead it licenses its technology to OEMs and other parties and the chips are often manufactured using a contract foundry (e.g., TSMC). Given ARM’s low cost structure, and the competition in the foundry market, “ARM offers a considerably cheaper total solution than the x86 architecture can at present…” (datarespons.com, 2010). Intel is loathe to follow ARM’s licensing model because it would reduce Intel’s revenues and profitability substantially.
In short, the ARM architecture appears to be in the early stages of disrupting x86, not just in the mobile and embedded systems market, but in the personal computer and server markets, the strongholds of Intel and AMD. This is evidenced in part by investors’ expectations for ARM’s, Intel’s and AMD’s future financial performance in the microprocessor markets: today ARM Holdings has a price to earnings ratio of 77.93, while Intel and AMD have price to earnings ratios of 10.63 and 4.26, respectively.
For Intel and AMD to avoid being disrupted, they must offer customers a microprocessor with comparable (or better) processing power and energy efficiency relative to the latest generation ARM chips, and offer this product to customers at the same (or lower) price relative to the ARM license plus the costs of manufacturing using a contract foundry. The Intel Atom is a strong move in this direction, but the Atom is facing resistance in the mobile market and emerging thin device markets (e.g., tablets) due to concerns about its energy efficiency, price point, and form factor.
The x86 architecture is supported by a massive ecosystem of suppliers (e.g., Applied Materials), customers (e.g., Dell), and complements (Microsoft Windows). If Intel and AMD are not able to fend of ARM, and the ARM architecture does displace x86, it would cause turbulence for a large number of companies.
I just posted this as an article to HN: "The End of x86?" I'd appreciate an upvote. Thank you!
Currently Apple relies on Intel for a major component in a key product. Strategically, Apple doesn't like to have to rely on a single source or supplier for key products. Apple will do whatever is possible to remove this reliance.
Hence a prediction: within less than 5 years a Mac will be running on an Apple designed ARM processor.
How? By slowly, step by step, providing a way towards this.
Step 1. Migrate your OS to the new architecture (e.g. iOS already, OS X not far behind) - done
Step 2. Migrate your developer base onto developer tools which you control and can easily change the architecture it targets (e.g. Xcode and LLVM) - done
Step 3. Provide a space where problematic applications which use other VMs or rely directly on getting too close to the hardware are not welcome (e.g. a Mac App Store) - announced
Step 4. Change the marketplace behaviour so that you control how the majority of applications are distributed and can quickly provide updates without user intervention. Such as an App store.
Step 5. Release a new Macbook with an ARM processor, absolutely killing on form factor, price and battery performance that Intel cannot compete with. Encourage your Mac App Store developers to flick a switch in Xcode, to recompile and upload their new Universal (x86 & ARM) versions of their Apps to the Mac App Store.
Result: you now control the processor direction and application distribution mechanism for a key product and no longer rely upon the whims of Intel.
Apple is all about controlling an integrated experience for their customers. Currently Intel is getting in the way of this for the Mac product.
Arrandale is a weird stopgap chip for Intel. Necessary, but not the one I'd look at to see if the company is at an inflection point.
With that said, Intel is always in these weird disruption points. Intel faced similiar talk against RISC, again AMD64, against ARM -- in the past, and Intel against ATI/NVidia.
Probably of all tech companies, Intel is the one I'd be most hardpressed to bet against in their core market.
Your analysis in #5 isn't strictly comparable. Intel fabricates semiconductors, ARM does not. Intel designs whole chips, ARM designs cores. To get good numbers here, you would need to separate out only the CPU design groups accounting information from Intel, or somehow isolate the integration and fab contributions of companies like Qualcomm/TI/Samsung/TSMC/etc... and add it to the "ARM" total.
But your broader point, that the desktop CPU market is at or near its peak, is I think spot on.
Posting an article as a comment due to it's relevancy without even a link to the HN submission for said article is awesome and self-less, but my redundancy-hating-programmer-brain wishes you had just posted a link to the submission. My brain is confused.
"The End of x86?" Really? I think a few x86 processors are being used in some servers somewhere too. Or really in any computer that isn't meant to be carried.
True, there are similar (slower core, lower power) alternatives in the server market (Sun SPARC CMT systesms come to mind), but you didn't mention any of those and they don't have a significant foothold.
Apple has an amusingly-worded bit about their CPU on their features page:
> MacBook Air weighs less than three pounds, but it’s a heavyweight where it counts. Intel Core 2 Duo processors get the work done fast. So you can be every bit as productive on MacBook Air — but in more places. Live-blog the event of the year straight from the convention floor. Perfect your sales-winning presentation from the airport terminal. Cite references down to a T from the library stacks. MacBook Air lets you do everything you need to do whenever and wherever it needs to be done.
Everything you need to do, such as writing, writing, and writing. Those examples seem like they would be more appropriate if Apple had chosen an Atom processor. They don't exactly instill me with 'heavyweight where it counts' confidence.
I used to do image deconvolution of the original (flawed) Hubble images on a Sun Sparc5. Exactly what are you people using your Macbook Air for while sitting in starbucks ?
Is there a big underground CFD or N-Body scene among the trendy teens that I'm not aware of? Or is everybody into computational chem and protein folding to develop the next party drug?
I'm using a 13" MBP (with Core 2 Duo processor) for doing music recording / production. I only record a couple tracks at a time (but mix and playback more), so this may not count as uber-power-usage, but it's more than text editing, and it works fine.
The Air is in a completely different league to netbooks, for a number of reasons. Even the slower CPUs in the 11-incher are 30-60% faster than comparable Atom parts, but consume 30% less power. CPU performance of the 11-inch model is comparable to the 2006 Macbooks and the 13-incher to the 2007/2008 Macbooks.
The big performance story is the GPU and SSD.
For the majority of Air buyers, their new machine will feel quicker than any computer they've every used, by simple merit of the SSD. Cold boot times of 15 seconds are being reported and programs will load with similar haste.
The GPU is a big deal, both for graphics performance and OpenCL. OS X has always leaned heavily on the GPU. With the introduction of Snow Leopard, the vast floating point performance of the GPU is available to the whole system. If you've been following the Folding@Home project, you'll know how big a deal that is. Of course third-party developers are proving fairly slow to make use of it, I will bet lumps of my own flesh that iLife 11 will be heavily optimised for OpenCL.
We've already mostly dispatched with the megahertz myth, but we're going to have to confront the idea that CPU speed is a relatively minor part of real-world computer performance. The old Air felt miserably slow, mainly due to hard drive throughput. The new one will feel very fast indeed, in spite of a relatively modest CPU.
I think you misread the article. The power difference stated is between the 11' and 13' processors. Atom processors use around 2.5w, which is 4 times less than the 11' processor in the air.
TL;DR Summary: Intel's newer CPU's are physically larger and thus harder to fit into the form factor, use somewhat more power, and their integrated GPU's don't support OpenCL and are lacking in performance.
So the headline could have been "Apple chooses form factor, power usage, and OpenCL performance over newer generation CPU in MacBook Air". The words "saddled" and "gimped" probably get more page views.
The article underplayed the importance of thermal design envelope to the situation, and your summary completely left it out.
I think that many people- especially consumers who know enough to reach the wrong conlcusions- don't understand the impact and importance of dealing with heat from CPUs and GPUS. IF you look closely at the inside-the-case view of the Air, you'll notice that the motherboard is at one level, in a plane with the keyboard, and then above it (toward the camera) is space that exists over the CPU board but not over the batteries (because this is where the case gets thicker). On the left, this extra space is taken up with an SSD card that is attached on top of the motherboard... on the right, it is taken up with a heat-pipe that hits the CPU and GPU and goes to the fan.
See how much space the fan takes with the heat pipe? The heat pipe alone doubles the thickness of the machine (assuming some battery space could be given up to fit the SSD in elsewhere.) But you can't go without it and you can't put it in plane with the motherboard.
Laptops are all about power, heat and heat management.
Since Apple typically caters their decisions to the majority of their buyers (as opposed to those power users who look specifically for the most up-to-date tech specs) this decision makes a lot of sense. Having more battery time is rather large plus.
Here is a conspiracy theory I've got, and I think this article and Apple releasing the app store for mac backs it up: Apple is going to drop Intel chips in the next 3 years. My time may be off but I really think this is what's going on.
All of this fighting between Intel and Nvidia is really only hurting customers; namely Apple. So what can Apple do? Create an app store that makes devs standardize on an API and shift the underlying arch. An arch that 67% of their product sales are using.
Don't get me wrong, this is going to be a difficult transition, I think apps like Steam are really going to get screwed, but this is Apple's end game. They control not only all the software but also all the hardware.
It certainly meets the "improbable and kooky" parts of a conspiracy theory. There are several problems with it:
1) Apple already managed one processor transition without herding everyone onto a standardized API. Surely they'd go that route again.
2) If they weren't going that route, then surely they'd be trying to herd as many people as possible onto the standardized API. But the App Store as Stealth API Standardizer doesn't hold water; if that's what it were intended to do, they would have tried to make it appeal to every important vendor on the platform. Instead, it's squarely aimed at small indie developers and excludes or is otherwise not strategically interesting to important 3rd party vendors like Adobe, Valve, VMWare, Mathworks, Microsoft, etc, etc. Are they not coming along to the transition?
3) What is Apple going to transition to? ARM? Seriously? They're great low-powered CPUs, but they're not within a million miles of Intel's Core i* CPUs for the "truck" computing that Apple's pro machines are used for. Compiling software on a 1 GHz A4 would be painful; editing video on it would be downright insane. This may change in years to come, but we're nowhere near close enough for it to happen any time soon.
I was thinking about this yesterday as well. I know Apple bought their own processors for the iPhone. I'm not sure they'd run their desktops off an apple A4 chip - but I mean - look at AMD. Market cap is $5 billion. Apple has $50 billion in cash.
Apple could buy them and REALLY control the computer, end-to-end.
> Here is a conspiracy theory I've got, and I think this article and Apple releasing the app store for mac backs it up: Apple is going to drop Intel chips in the next 3 years.
With all the Intel/NVidia crap going on, that's pretty likely. But not to a different architecture.
> All of this fighting between Intel and Nvidia is really only hurting customers; namely Apple. So what can Apple do? Create an app store that makes devs standardize on an API and shift the underlying arch. An arch that 67% of their product sales are using.
Uh no, that's not going to work unless they mandate that everything on the MacStore be UB x86/ARM, in which case you'll see the transition coming from a solar system away. Furthermore ARM chips simply don't have the oomph to drive big systems right now, you can put as many Cortex-A9 cores as you want on a chip, you won't be building something that can rival the current 12-core mac pro.
Moving to Intel was the best thing that ever happened to the Mac. Literally — look at the sales charts for the past decade. Apple would have to be insane to drop them.
Beyond that, Apple has already done more to make devs standardize on an API than the App Store ever could. Cocoa is the sole API that can create 64-bit apps on Mac OS X, and lots of system APIs are now only available through Cocoa. I don't see how the App Store adds any pressure at all, to be honest.
would be interesting if they could make the screen swivel around and be used like an ipad (like Dell and some others are doing). Would be hard to get the hinges on such a thin device though.
It's been almost a decade since I had a CPU on my personal computer that seemed so slow somehow that I would have been considering an upgrade specifically to a faster CPU...
With modern machines, I think the main cue isn't slow perceived performance, but the sound of my laptop's fans ramping up, indicating that it's working hard.
That said, my boss' MBA is awfully leisurely at times. That may be due to the OS throttling or halting the CPU in order to keep the temperature down.
Have you ever tried to stream a full-screen movie on Netflix using an MBA? It can't keep up, it's very annoying. I thought there was full-screen GPU acceleration for Silverlight, but it wasn't helped in my experience.
I have a desktop with a 1.8 Ghz Core Duo. I have absolutely no problems with performance. Of course, I'm only running browsers, email, Gimp, etc... but what are people going to use a 11" MacBook Air for? Probably not games and professional Photoshop work. The processors in these machines are more than adequate and were probably chosen to balance speed with heat, weight and battery life.
If Intel doesn't either make the Atom line higher performance or the Core line more portable friendly then I could see Apple switching to ARM. The high-end ARM chips aren't quite there yet in terms of performance though, so I figure Intel has at least one more rev to the Core line before that's a danger.
Why? There are already Core i3/i5 ULV laptops around that get 12 hours of battery life. It's only Apple that cares about that extra 1% less size; the rest of the industry is just fine with Intel's new gen.
[+] [-] mjfern|15 years ago|reply
1. The current technology is overshooting the needs of the mass market.
Due to a development trajectory that has followed in lockstep with Moore’s Law, and the emergence of cloud computing, the latest generation of x86 processors now exceed the performance needs of the majority of customers. Because many customers are content with older generation microprocessors, they are holding on to their computers for longer periods of time, or if purchasing new computers, are seeking out machines that contain lower performing and less expensive microprocessors.
2. A new technology emerges that excels on different dimensions of performance.
While the x86 architecture excels on processing power – the number of instructions handled within a given period of time – the ARM architecture excels at energy efficiency. According to Data Respons (datarespons.com, 2010), an “ARM-based system typically uses as little as 2 watts, whereas a fully optimized Intel Atom solution uses 5 or 6 watts." The ARM architecture also has an advantage in form factor, enabling OEMs to design and produce smaller devices.
3. Because this new technology excels on a different dimension of performance, it initially attracts a new market segment.
While x86 is the mainstay technology in PCs, the ARM processor has gained significant market share in the embedded systems and mobile devices markets. ARM-based processors are used in more than 95% of mobile phones (InformationWeek, 2010). The ARM architecture is now the main choice for deployments of Google’s Android and is the basis of Apple’s A4 system on a chip, which is used in the latest generation iPod Touch and Apple TV, as well as the iPhone 4 and iPad.
4. Once the new technology gains a foothold in a new market segment, further technology improvements enable it to move up-market, displacing the incumbent technology.
With its foothold in the embedded systems and mobile markets, ARM technology continues to improve. The latest generation ARM chip (the Cortex-A15) retains the energy efficiency of its predecessors, but has a clock speed of up to 2.5 GHz, making it competitive with Intel’s chips from the standpoint of processing power. As evidence of ARM’s move up-market, the startup Smooth-Stone recently raised $48m in venture funding to produce energy efficient, high performance chips based on ARM to be used in servers and data centers. I suspect we will begin seeing the ARM architecture in next generation latops, netbooks, and smartphones (e.g., A4 in a MacBook Air).
5. The new, disruptive technology looks financially unattractive to established companies, in part because they have a higher cost structure.
In 2009, Intel’s costs of sales and operating expenses were a combined $29.6 billion. In contrast, ARM Holdings, the company that develops and supports the ARM architecture, had total expenses (cost of sales and operating) of $259 million. Unlike Intel, ARM does not produce and manufacture chips; instead it licenses its technology to OEMs and other parties and the chips are often manufactured using a contract foundry (e.g., TSMC). Given ARM’s low cost structure, and the competition in the foundry market, “ARM offers a considerably cheaper total solution than the x86 architecture can at present…” (datarespons.com, 2010). Intel is loathe to follow ARM’s licensing model because it would reduce Intel’s revenues and profitability substantially.
In short, the ARM architecture appears to be in the early stages of disrupting x86, not just in the mobile and embedded systems market, but in the personal computer and server markets, the strongholds of Intel and AMD. This is evidenced in part by investors’ expectations for ARM’s, Intel’s and AMD’s future financial performance in the microprocessor markets: today ARM Holdings has a price to earnings ratio of 77.93, while Intel and AMD have price to earnings ratios of 10.63 and 4.26, respectively.
For Intel and AMD to avoid being disrupted, they must offer customers a microprocessor with comparable (or better) processing power and energy efficiency relative to the latest generation ARM chips, and offer this product to customers at the same (or lower) price relative to the ARM license plus the costs of manufacturing using a contract foundry. The Intel Atom is a strong move in this direction, but the Atom is facing resistance in the mobile market and emerging thin device markets (e.g., tablets) due to concerns about its energy efficiency, price point, and form factor.
The x86 architecture is supported by a massive ecosystem of suppliers (e.g., Applied Materials), customers (e.g., Dell), and complements (Microsoft Windows). If Intel and AMD are not able to fend of ARM, and the ARM architecture does displace x86, it would cause turbulence for a large number of companies.
I just posted this as an article to HN: "The End of x86?" I'd appreciate an upvote. Thank you!
[+] [-] happybuy|15 years ago|reply
Hence a prediction: within less than 5 years a Mac will be running on an Apple designed ARM processor.
How? By slowly, step by step, providing a way towards this.
Step 1. Migrate your OS to the new architecture (e.g. iOS already, OS X not far behind) - done
Step 2. Migrate your developer base onto developer tools which you control and can easily change the architecture it targets (e.g. Xcode and LLVM) - done
Step 3. Provide a space where problematic applications which use other VMs or rely directly on getting too close to the hardware are not welcome (e.g. a Mac App Store) - announced
Step 4. Change the marketplace behaviour so that you control how the majority of applications are distributed and can quickly provide updates without user intervention. Such as an App store.
Step 5. Release a new Macbook with an ARM processor, absolutely killing on form factor, price and battery performance that Intel cannot compete with. Encourage your Mac App Store developers to flick a switch in Xcode, to recompile and upload their new Universal (x86 & ARM) versions of their Apps to the Mac App Store.
Result: you now control the processor direction and application distribution mechanism for a key product and no longer rely upon the whims of Intel.
Apple is all about controlling an integrated experience for their customers. Currently Intel is getting in the way of this for the Mac product.
[+] [-] kenjackson|15 years ago|reply
With that said, Intel is always in these weird disruption points. Intel faced similiar talk against RISC, again AMD64, against ARM -- in the past, and Intel against ATI/NVidia.
Probably of all tech companies, Intel is the one I'd be most hardpressed to bet against in their core market.
[+] [-] ajross|15 years ago|reply
But your broader point, that the desktop CPU market is at or near its peak, is I think spot on.
[+] [-] Goosey|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] atomly|15 years ago|reply
True, there are similar (slower core, lower power) alternatives in the server market (Sun SPARC CMT systesms come to mind), but you didn't mention any of those and they don't have a significant foothold.
[+] [-] paulbaumgart|15 years ago|reply
today AMD has a price to earnings ratio of 77.93
should be ARM Holdings, right?
[+] [-] simonsarris|15 years ago|reply
> MacBook Air weighs less than three pounds, but it’s a heavyweight where it counts. Intel Core 2 Duo processors get the work done fast. So you can be every bit as productive on MacBook Air — but in more places. Live-blog the event of the year straight from the convention floor. Perfect your sales-winning presentation from the airport terminal. Cite references down to a T from the library stacks. MacBook Air lets you do everything you need to do whenever and wherever it needs to be done.
Everything you need to do, such as writing, writing, and writing. Those examples seem like they would be more appropriate if Apple had chosen an Atom processor. They don't exactly instill me with 'heavyweight where it counts' confidence.
[+] [-] opiuygtfrtghyju|15 years ago|reply
Is there a big underground CFD or N-Body scene among the trendy teens that I'm not aware of? Or is everybody into computational chem and protein folding to develop the next party drug?
[+] [-] jrwoodruff|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eli|15 years ago|reply
"Transcode video formats while sitting in a cafe" doesn't exactly have the same ring.
[+] [-] tjr|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jdietrich|15 years ago|reply
The big performance story is the GPU and SSD.
For the majority of Air buyers, their new machine will feel quicker than any computer they've every used, by simple merit of the SSD. Cold boot times of 15 seconds are being reported and programs will load with similar haste.
The GPU is a big deal, both for graphics performance and OpenCL. OS X has always leaned heavily on the GPU. With the introduction of Snow Leopard, the vast floating point performance of the GPU is available to the whole system. If you've been following the Folding@Home project, you'll know how big a deal that is. Of course third-party developers are proving fairly slow to make use of it, I will bet lumps of my own flesh that iLife 11 will be heavily optimised for OpenCL.
We've already mostly dispatched with the megahertz myth, but we're going to have to confront the idea that CPU speed is a relatively minor part of real-world computer performance. The old Air felt miserably slow, mainly due to hard drive throughput. The new one will feel very fast indeed, in spite of a relatively modest CPU.
[+] [-] TeHCrAzY|15 years ago|reply
http://www.intel.com/products/processor/atom/specifications....
[+] [-] zdw|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] protomyth|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] WozRocks|15 years ago|reply
I think that many people- especially consumers who know enough to reach the wrong conlcusions- don't understand the impact and importance of dealing with heat from CPUs and GPUS. IF you look closely at the inside-the-case view of the Air, you'll notice that the motherboard is at one level, in a plane with the keyboard, and then above it (toward the camera) is space that exists over the CPU board but not over the batteries (because this is where the case gets thicker). On the left, this extra space is taken up with an SSD card that is attached on top of the motherboard... on the right, it is taken up with a heat-pipe that hits the CPU and GPU and goes to the fan.
See how much space the fan takes with the heat pipe? The heat pipe alone doubles the thickness of the machine (assuming some battery space could be given up to fit the SSD in elsewhere.) But you can't go without it and you can't put it in plane with the motherboard.
Laptops are all about power, heat and heat management.
[+] [-] jamesteow|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beej71|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] maercsrats|15 years ago|reply
All of this fighting between Intel and Nvidia is really only hurting customers; namely Apple. So what can Apple do? Create an app store that makes devs standardize on an API and shift the underlying arch. An arch that 67% of their product sales are using.
Don't get me wrong, this is going to be a difficult transition, I think apps like Steam are really going to get screwed, but this is Apple's end game. They control not only all the software but also all the hardware.
[+] [-] msbarnett|15 years ago|reply
1) Apple already managed one processor transition without herding everyone onto a standardized API. Surely they'd go that route again.
2) If they weren't going that route, then surely they'd be trying to herd as many people as possible onto the standardized API. But the App Store as Stealth API Standardizer doesn't hold water; if that's what it were intended to do, they would have tried to make it appeal to every important vendor on the platform. Instead, it's squarely aimed at small indie developers and excludes or is otherwise not strategically interesting to important 3rd party vendors like Adobe, Valve, VMWare, Mathworks, Microsoft, etc, etc. Are they not coming along to the transition?
3) What is Apple going to transition to? ARM? Seriously? They're great low-powered CPUs, but they're not within a million miles of Intel's Core i* CPUs for the "truck" computing that Apple's pro machines are used for. Compiling software on a 1 GHz A4 would be painful; editing video on it would be downright insane. This may change in years to come, but we're nowhere near close enough for it to happen any time soon.
[+] [-] unexpected|15 years ago|reply
Apple could buy them and REALLY control the computer, end-to-end.
[+] [-] masklinn|15 years ago|reply
With all the Intel/NVidia crap going on, that's pretty likely. But not to a different architecture.
> All of this fighting between Intel and Nvidia is really only hurting customers; namely Apple. So what can Apple do? Create an app store that makes devs standardize on an API and shift the underlying arch. An arch that 67% of their product sales are using.
Uh no, that's not going to work unless they mandate that everything on the MacStore be UB x86/ARM, in which case you'll see the transition coming from a solar system away. Furthermore ARM chips simply don't have the oomph to drive big systems right now, you can put as many Cortex-A9 cores as you want on a chip, you won't be building something that can rival the current 12-core mac pro.
[+] [-] chc|15 years ago|reply
Beyond that, Apple has already done more to make devs standardize on an API than the App Store ever could. Cocoa is the sole API that can create 64-bit apps on Mac OS X, and lots of system APIs are now only available through Cocoa. I don't see how the App Store adds any pressure at all, to be honest.
[+] [-] steveklabnik|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] brudgers|15 years ago|reply
That's why core2 is fine.
[+] [-] rodh257|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yason|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jonhendry|15 years ago|reply
With modern machines, I think the main cue isn't slow perceived performance, but the sound of my laptop's fans ramping up, indicating that it's working hard.
That said, my boss' MBA is awfully leisurely at times. That may be due to the OS throttling or halting the CPU in order to keep the temperature down.
[+] [-] spudlyo|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] code_duck|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] semipermeable|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aidenn0|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jrockway|15 years ago|reply