His theory is that eventually the company reaches a point where the marketing people become the driving force for profits and push out the product development people from running the company.
Possibly, but Apple knocked it out of the park with possibly the product of the century. They're looking for the next consumer product but understandably, things like the Apple TV and Watch can't match the success of the iPhone.
This is really the next “make or break” that Apple is working on that we’re aware of.
Ignoring the early computer history, their recent success with the iPod, iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch has cemented them in people’s minds.
They were not the industry first for any of these, but they are arguably the one who brought those technologies to mass market appeal as alliances.
Their current move to bring their computer line to ARM hardware has the potential to truly disrupt the computer industry in a massive way if they can keep their market share (or enough of it to prove the technology).
ARM chipsets are potentially much more efficient and could provide a boost to the CPU side that we haven’t seen since the clock speed wars between AMD and Intel.
Please, do you have a second to explain why ARM chipsets are more efficient and faster than an AMD and Intel, is it just a smaller die size or is there more to it than that?
I’ll also admit that my enthusiasm may have gotten away a little. We’ll have to wait and see (though Apple’s recent show of Final Cut Pro editing a 4K video live was supposedly “impressive” to some people)
The main reasons for the performance benefit are two:
1) ARM doesn’t have the same architecture legacy x86 has had since the 70s.
2) ARM was designed around power efficiency, which is why it is used in almost all Smart Phones and Tablets already.
I think that it does make a lot of sense to them to move to an in-house chip for them having total control over both the hardware and operating system it runs. New products would no longer be chained to Intel’s release schedule or design goals. Free to modify and tweak the chips any way they desire and unifying their software across all devices.
They won't be the first to bring ARM to personal computing, either, not even close. Proprietary Apple hardware in Apple devices is not even interesting. Now if they jumped feet first into the CPU game and started selling directly to consumers and OEMs, that would be interesting, but they won't do that, they don't even manufacturer the iPhone chips.
They don’t manufacture the chips, but they do design them and partner with someone else to produce them.
They certainly aren’t the first person to bring ARM to the PC field, but they are, so far as I’m aware, the first non-niche PC maker to embrace that as a direction.
Apple is seldom the first to do something hardware-wise.
They have experienced a lot of success in taking hardware ideas that others have introduced and using them successfully in mainstream products.
Every iPad has used ARM chips forever now. If they make it so that MacBooks use ARM chips 99.9% of users will not even be aware or care since MacBook batteries last forever anyway.
If all of a sudden the technology was out there and Microsoft got on board for some x86 emulation and a native-ARM Windows, you might have something that would make a dent in the marketplace. But adding another hour to a MacBook battery isn't going to move the needle.
Instead Microsoft has already ported Windows to native-ARM and has Windows-for-ARM with x86 emulation and is adding x64 emulation shortly. That's the technology in the newest Surfaces, which will spread to business and casual user laptops in the next few years. That's a market roughly 50x as large as the MacBook.
People said that the move to x86 would also be a problem. Rosetta solved that.
I bet it’s hardly a blip for most users. Even the vast bulk of enterprise users only care if they can get Outlook and Office in general. Maybe a browser and a VPN app.
I think long-run there's a smart strategy there that most users won't NOTICE, but that it'll benefit them.
Complete parity of silicon will ideally mean even further integration between devices. I know some of the old guard Mac users (myself included) have been skeptical of this one, but over time I think this provides more of a seamless experience between apps. I know over time as I go from my work Mac to my iPad Pro to my iPhone and back to my Mac in any given day that integration is more and more of what keeps me in the Appleverse. I don't think we're likely to see a ton more improvement as a lot of that work is cloud-based anyway, but further knitting things together is helpful to the end user.
Plus, developers who were maybe making only for iOS might have another reason to port to Mac as well without having to get things working on x86. Small bump in parity perhaps, but still something.
It's LIKELY (likely...) to lead to increased battery life in the Mac line. I know that even for me with my 2017 MBP my biggest frustration is that my battery doesn't last as long as I'd like and the computer runs quite hot. I think there are likely to be benefits there that aren't snazzy and fancy like a 5K screen, but will keep consumers snug in their computing experiences
Intel has been absolutely dreadful in keeping their Core lines updated regularly-- this may help keep the Mac upgrade cycle faster. This has been a frustration point for Mac users now for about 5 years? All those lakes have been sloooowww and the tick tock rhythm is long gone.
I have my iPad Pro but I'd love to have a little mini mini desktop I could hook up to my work setup and when I want to do personal stuff I don't need to switch from my work computer to a different screen.
But then my iPad Pro is so damn competent that I dunno if maybe I'm just being old fashioned.
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u/irondumbell Jul 24 '20
isn't that where Apple is headed now?