It's hilarious how HN is consistently wrong, even on tech-heavy subjects. No bright minds popping up here tbh. You can glean some interesting stuff from this. The hive mind was wrong on dropbox, seemingly wrong on this, and they are likely wrong on blockchain today.
It's easy to doubt but it actually takes effort to form educated guesses about the future.
I didn't see this particular article but I would have agreed with it. I certainly have written many comments on similar articles (search the comments for alwillis ARM Mac for starters) explaining why such a switch to ARM was completely doable, having lived through the switch from PowerPC to Intel while working at MIT.
I think there were a good number of us who recognized that Intel was a bad fit for Apple. The lackadaisical progress of PowerPC simply forced the issue, and Intel was the only real option at the time.
Intel is like Mike Brady with his architectural designs that all look suspiciously like his own house.
They refused to compete with themselves and kept x86 as 32 bit so they could promote Itanic, and therefore lost the lead to AMD for years (it wasn't just 64 bit - actively REDUCING instructions per clock with Netburst was... well, legendary - just in a bad way).
It just so happened that the kick in the ass Intel got from AMD came a few years before Apple needed Intel, so Intel had finally started trying enough that they had a product line that would work for Apple.
But really, is Intel suitable for low power? Could anyone seriously imagine an x86-based phone? Their one-hit wonder is only barely keeping up with AMD and ARM when Intel throws hundreds of watts at their chips and turbo-clocks the heck out of them. Even though Ryzen has been showing up Intel for years, they've floundered so long that there was practically zero chance Apple could stay with them long term.
But even in 2005, Intel wasn't necessarily good - they just happened to be the least bad right then.
I think the move to Intel was critical for the revival of the Mac because it gave Windows users an off-ramp if they wanted to try out the Mac hardware without going all-in with OSX. Boot Camp made it safe for Windows users to switch, and many did.
It got me to buy my first Mac, at least (iMac). I figured if OSX didn’t work out I could just run Windows on it.
Maybe ironically, the new ARM Macs make me a little hesitant to buy a new MacBook because I’d be pretty much locked in to OSX (with all due respect to the Asahi folks who are doing great work - I fear Apple is going to pull the rug out from under them though.)
> But even in 2005, Intel wasn't necessarily good - they just happened to be the least bad right then.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Intel Macs coincided with the release of Core/Core 2 Duo cpus. At the time there was nothing close to them by any metric. Remember Intel enjoyed a generational lead in foundry tech for decades.
The last few percentage points of performance take an insane amount of power. If you gave up 10% perf you'd probably halve power consumption.
I don't think there's any reason X86 has to use more power than ARM - it's simply not the focus of most implementations, however. As I understand it, most processors at this point are an interpreter on top of a bespoke core. Intel used to get quite a lot of praise for low power consumption back in 2012-2015 with Ivy Bridge and so on - rather coincidentally, that was also when they had a process advantage (rather like AMD and Apple today enjoy).
For me the pivotal point was when iPhone XS outperformed 7700K with number crunching. It was some weird benchmark and everyone could find issues with it. But it did show tremendous progress happened with mobile chips performance and desktop stagnation.
I think it's important to draw a distinction between 'can' and 'will' here.
With the the A7 SoC and the A64 ISA it became clear that the ISA and Apple's Silicon design capabilities were sufficient to build SoC's that would compete with the best that Intel could offer.
However, the costs of making a transition would still be significant, maybe not in cash terms for Apple, but certainly in manpower and focus.
I suspect that it was Intel's process stumbles that led to the decision being made in the end. How many times, I wonder, did Intel promise something to Apple behind the scenes, only to fail to deliver? With the success of TSMC the opportunity for Apple's management to take more control of their own destiny would have been too compelling.
You could argue it was inevitably going to happen since Apple started designing their own silicon. iOS is macOS, more or less (modulo a few system libraries and apps), so since the beginning of the iPhone project, Apple has had the software in place to make an ARM-based Mac if they wanted to.
Could you please expand on that? I heard they were quite distinct, e.g. sandboxing/security is done completely differently, with ios having a much more modern approach.
While pedantically it can be included in your modulo, but are they really that similar?
While we know that the current chips are ARM-based, Apple is very deliberately calling it "Apple Silicon," perhaps to avoid committing to any particular ISA. An interesting question is how far Apple Silicon will diverge from ARM64. We know there are extensions like AMX already.
I think some of that may depend on external factors.
If AWS Graviton or Microsoft ARM significantly grows then it might force Apple to be aligned with ARM64 but just with their own extensions. Because one of the big blockers for developers during the transition to M1 was having all of the CLI tools being available. And they were only available on day one because of demand from AWS users etc.
I am curious. Is that allowed as part of ARM's licensing? It would be surprising that ARM is okay with that, unless Apple bullied them into allowing them to call and market it as Apple silicon.
> Somewhere on Apple’s campus, ARM-based Macs are already running OS X.
Okay.
NeXTSTEP originally ran on the Motorola 68030, then the 040. Then NeXT fully ported the operating system to run on the HP PA-RISC, Sun Sparc, Intel 486, Motorola 88000, and at least tentatively to the IBM RS/6000. This was as diverse a collection of processors as one could imagine.
When NeXTSTEP was transformed into MacOS X, it was just one more minor step to include PowerPC in that list. When iOS was developed on the iPhone, it was obvious that it was little more than a modified version of MacOS X, and primarily NeXTSTEP. Surely that's how they developed it: Apple just ported MacOS X to ARM and did development on top of it.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's not at all interesting or surprising that someone in 2014 prognosticated that MacOS X had been ported to ARM. It was clear as of 2006 that Apple had already done that. And given that NeXTSTEP had been ported to at least seven processor families prior to that, it was hardly a big deal.
What made NeXT (and then OS X) so portable? NeXT never sold a whole lot, but I would like to see a breakdown of sales by CPU. And if certain platforms were missing things, etc.
I've heard many answers over the years:
Mach is a microkernel, they are easier to port
NeXT never made their own hardware so they designed it that way from the start
This is a middlebrow dismissal. From what I can see this article played out exactly as predicted, and the idea that NeXTSEP rans on multiple architectures in the 90s is just half-assed retconning. In 2014 the conventional wisdom was that Intel was best-in-class and would remain dominant.
Per the other thread, I'm not seeing the storyline that the author is arguing that Mac OS will run on ARM but still be first class on Intel architecture. We can assume that is not the case because Apple doesn't half-ass their transitions.
Please highlight what you think the prediction got wrong so we can talk about that specifically.
I am no a fan of apple and their digital golden jail, but I see that move as a way to prepare to jump to risc-v which does not have toxic IP tied to it, once wi have performant risc-v cpus ofc.
1. Apple clearly has no problem with 'toxic' (not sure what that means) IP as long as they have access on acceptable terms - which they clearly do with Arm.
2. Apple were almost certainly one of (maybe the only) lead partner for Arm in developing the A64 ISA - they have had a lot more input into A64 than they have into RISC-V.
3. They design their own architecture - they could have built a RISC-V CPU for the Mac if they'd wanted - they don't have to wait for anyone else.
This seems very, very unlikely to me. RISC-V is a very similar architecture to AArch64; I haven't heard a reason to expect it to have improved performance or efficiency. (Its only distinguishing feature (that I know of) is compressed instructions -- which ARM used to have (THUMB mode) before dropping support in AArch64, so presumably it doesn't help on Apple's systems with their huge caches and high memory bandwidth.)
Rather, RISC-V's primary advantage over ARM is its openness; vendors can do whatever they want with the ISA without having to pay license fees or maintain compatibility. But this doesn't affect Apple at all; they co-founded ARM, and they have a huge amount of influence over the direction of the architecture along with some sort of special license that allows them to do things other CPU vendors aren't allowed to do (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782840, https://twitter.com/stuntpants/status/1346470705446092811).
Developing an entirely new high-end CPU mircoarchitecture takes many years and many billions of dollars. It's not something Apple's going to do unless they have a very, very good reason -- and RISC-V being really cool is unfortunately not a good enough reason.
[+] [-] esturk|3 years ago|reply
Some key take away:
- A lot of people got it wrong with the bet on Intel.
- 2 people that said it will take 5 years were right.
- Suggestion to use Rosetta was right.
- Indicator for fan less Macbooks was right.
It's easy to doubt but it actually takes effort to form educated guesses about the future.
[+] [-] alberth|3 years ago|reply
2015 is the year both the (Intel) 12” MacBook and the first iPad Pro were released.
These we also both entirely new form factors for Apple (and both roughly the same size).
On the Intel front, Apple saw how underperforming, short lasting battery and hot the 12” MacBook was.
Then they saw how performant, long battery lasting and cool their iPad (ARM chip) was.
This became an easy decision for Apple to ditch Intel when they saw how much better their own iPad Pro was relative to the 12” Intel MacBook.
[+] [-] kranke155|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] frostwarrior|3 years ago|reply
I5/i7's were great at that time
[+] [-] pjot|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tambourine_man|3 years ago|reply
Phew. I’m glad I didn’t comment on that thread.
[+] [-] alwillis|3 years ago|reply
I didn't see this particular article but I would have agreed with it. I certainly have written many comments on similar articles (search the comments for alwillis ARM Mac for starters) explaining why such a switch to ARM was completely doable, having lived through the switch from PowerPC to Intel while working at MIT.
[+] [-] systemvoltage|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 0x0|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] johnklos|3 years ago|reply
Intel is like Mike Brady with his architectural designs that all look suspiciously like his own house.
They refused to compete with themselves and kept x86 as 32 bit so they could promote Itanic, and therefore lost the lead to AMD for years (it wasn't just 64 bit - actively REDUCING instructions per clock with Netburst was... well, legendary - just in a bad way).
It just so happened that the kick in the ass Intel got from AMD came a few years before Apple needed Intel, so Intel had finally started trying enough that they had a product line that would work for Apple.
But really, is Intel suitable for low power? Could anyone seriously imagine an x86-based phone? Their one-hit wonder is only barely keeping up with AMD and ARM when Intel throws hundreds of watts at their chips and turbo-clocks the heck out of them. Even though Ryzen has been showing up Intel for years, they've floundered so long that there was practically zero chance Apple could stay with them long term.
But even in 2005, Intel wasn't necessarily good - they just happened to be the least bad right then.
[+] [-] _vdpp|3 years ago|reply
It got me to buy my first Mac, at least (iMac). I figured if OSX didn’t work out I could just run Windows on it.
Maybe ironically, the new ARM Macs make me a little hesitant to buy a new MacBook because I’d be pretty much locked in to OSX (with all due respect to the Asahi folks who are doing great work - I fear Apple is going to pull the rug out from under them though.)
[+] [-] kcb|3 years ago|reply
I don't think it's a coincidence that Intel Macs coincided with the release of Core/Core 2 Duo cpus. At the time there was nothing close to them by any metric. Remember Intel enjoyed a generational lead in foundry tech for decades.
[+] [-] kube-system|3 years ago|reply
You forget about Atom?
[+] [-] Panzer04|3 years ago|reply
I don't think there's any reason X86 has to use more power than ARM - it's simply not the focus of most implementations, however. As I understand it, most processors at this point are an interpreter on top of a bespoke core. Intel used to get quite a lot of praise for low power consumption back in 2012-2015 with Ivy Bridge and so on - rather coincidentally, that was also when they had a process advantage (rather like AMD and Apple today enjoy).
[+] [-] vbezhenar|3 years ago|reply
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~bornholt/post/z3-iphone.html
[+] [-] panda88888|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] klelatti|3 years ago|reply
With the the A7 SoC and the A64 ISA it became clear that the ISA and Apple's Silicon design capabilities were sufficient to build SoC's that would compete with the best that Intel could offer.
However, the costs of making a transition would still be significant, maybe not in cash terms for Apple, but certainly in manpower and focus.
I suspect that it was Intel's process stumbles that led to the decision being made in the end. How many times, I wonder, did Intel promise something to Apple behind the scenes, only to fail to deliver? With the success of TSMC the opportunity for Apple's management to take more control of their own destiny would have been too compelling.
[+] [-] TazeTSchnitzel|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kaba0|3 years ago|reply
Could you please expand on that? I heard they were quite distinct, e.g. sandboxing/security is done completely differently, with ios having a much more modern approach.
While pedantically it can be included in your modulo, but are they really that similar?
[+] [-] ridiculous_fish|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thrdbndndn|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] saagarjha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threeseed|3 years ago|reply
If AWS Graviton or Microsoft ARM significantly grows then it might force Apple to be aligned with ARM64 but just with their own extensions. Because one of the big blockers for developers during the transition to M1 was having all of the CLI tools being available. And they were only available on day one because of demand from AWS users etc.
[+] [-] bmitc|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willcate|3 years ago|reply
https://www.mattrichman.net/apple-and-arm-sitting-in-a-tree/
[+] [-] hoistbypetard|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] logankeenan|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] hoistbypetard|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SeanLuke|3 years ago|reply
Okay.
NeXTSTEP originally ran on the Motorola 68030, then the 040. Then NeXT fully ported the operating system to run on the HP PA-RISC, Sun Sparc, Intel 486, Motorola 88000, and at least tentatively to the IBM RS/6000. This was as diverse a collection of processors as one could imagine.
When NeXTSTEP was transformed into MacOS X, it was just one more minor step to include PowerPC in that list. When iOS was developed on the iPhone, it was obvious that it was little more than a modified version of MacOS X, and primarily NeXTSTEP. Surely that's how they developed it: Apple just ported MacOS X to ARM and did development on top of it.
I guess what I'm saying is that it's not at all interesting or surprising that someone in 2014 prognosticated that MacOS X had been ported to ARM. It was clear as of 2006 that Apple had already done that. And given that NeXTSTEP had been ported to at least seven processor families prior to that, it was hardly a big deal.
[+] [-] tambourine_man|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alwillis|3 years ago|reply
I literally wrote the same thing about NeXTSTEP here on HN 3 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21235236
[+] [-] eyelidlessness|3 years ago|reply
They said exactly this at the time. The OS on the original iPhone was explicitly “OS X”, it only gained its own name several iterations later.
[+] [-] bluedino|3 years ago|reply
I've heard many answers over the years:
Mach is a microkernel, they are easier to port
NeXT never made their own hardware so they designed it that way from the start
It contained 'very little assembly'
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] imwillofficial|3 years ago|reply
This comment left me shaking my head and facepalming all at once.
[+] [-] dasil003|3 years ago|reply
Per the other thread, I'm not seeing the storyline that the author is arguing that Mac OS will run on ARM but still be first class on Intel architecture. We can assume that is not the case because Apple doesn't half-ass their transitions.
Please highlight what you think the prediction got wrong so we can talk about that specifically.
[+] [-] sylware|3 years ago|reply
This is a little drop of good in a ocean of bad.
[+] [-] klelatti|3 years ago|reply
1. Apple clearly has no problem with 'toxic' (not sure what that means) IP as long as they have access on acceptable terms - which they clearly do with Arm.
2. Apple were almost certainly one of (maybe the only) lead partner for Arm in developing the A64 ISA - they have had a lot more input into A64 than they have into RISC-V.
3. They design their own architecture - they could have built a RISC-V CPU for the Mac if they'd wanted - they don't have to wait for anyone else.
[+] [-] rock_artist|3 years ago|reply
Anand Shimpi who founded Anandtech has stepped down from Anandtech and is working for few years now at Apple in hardware.
[+] [-] TXCSwe|3 years ago|reply
Apple doesn't design chips, they design functionality. Intel design chips that are as much flexible as possible.
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] keepquestioning|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NobodyNada|3 years ago|reply
Rather, RISC-V's primary advantage over ARM is its openness; vendors can do whatever they want with the ISA without having to pay license fees or maintain compatibility. But this doesn't affect Apple at all; they co-founded ARM, and they have a huge amount of influence over the direction of the architecture along with some sort of special license that allows them to do things other CPU vendors aren't allowed to do (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29782840, https://twitter.com/stuntpants/status/1346470705446092811).
Developing an entirely new high-end CPU mircoarchitecture takes many years and many billions of dollars. It's not something Apple's going to do unless they have a very, very good reason -- and RISC-V being really cool is unfortunately not a good enough reason.
[+] [-] ridiculous_fish|3 years ago|reply
I speculate this is somewhat less likely now that the NVidia / ARM deal has fallen through but surely Apple wants the option at least.
[+] [-] internet_user|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|3 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] owaislone|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] andy_ppp|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] denkmoon|3 years ago|reply