Week In CPUs And Storage: Is Apple Gearing Up To Challenge Intel's Desktop CPUs?

[alidan]

Remember what happened last time Apple didn't have Steve Jobs at the helm, and PowerPC processors in their Macs? Oh yeah, they went bankrupt and nearly delisted from the NASDAQ.

from my understanding, the PowerPC cpu was more powerful then an intel one for quite a long time, it may not have had the clocks but it got things done. The switch was more for compatibility reasons with software then as it relates to power. It also didn't help that around that time, price for power on intel's side was racing to the bottom where a powerpc quality chip cost far less for a pc user then a apple user.

It also doesn't hurt that apple has next to no software on its platform that if you are not a professional, you would take from one computer to the next. If you are a professional, then the software is a tax write off much like the pc is.

The only part that really has to ask a question is this.

If apple made a dumb terminal or at least as dumb as it could be without causing problems using it on its own, would they pair it with an optional base station for all the real work?

An Idea I play around with allot, what if everything that actually became processor intensive was offloaded from the main pc to a separate box? I know there are some programs that will do this, but its far from the norm but what if apple made it the norm?

 

[lamorpa]

"Given the precarious nature of TDP limitations inside of a slim iPhone, it is natural to assume that Apple could scale the A10's design upwards into larger and more powerful variants" ... other than the fact that scaling multiple cores and their interoperability onto a single chip is the most difficult task in chip design, and Apple is a decade or more behind and has not the slightest chance of doing this.

 

[InvalidError]

other than the fact that scaling multiple cores and their interoperability onto a single chip is the most difficult task in chip design

Scaling the hardware is relatively trivial, it has been done by hundreds of companies over the past 30 years and even academic designs often do it. The real challenge is writing software capable of leveraging such hardware. That has been the main bottleneck on PCs for the past dozen years. The vast majority of software being written even today is still lightly threaded at best. Most developers simply cannot be bothered with multi-threading beyond their development environment's automatic threading.

 

[lamorpa]

Completely untrue. Scaling operable hardware is the most difficult thing. That's why so few companies are doing it.

 

[shiitaki]

Wow! Look at all of the Apple hate! At least hide it in intelligent arguments. We get it, you love Microsoft! How's that view with your heads up your ass?

Fact is most people want a computer that works and is, get this ridiculous expectation, pleasant to use. How does not matter! I feel the PC/Microsoft lover going borderline psychotic from here! Apple sells a complete product, from screws to OS, the only PC company to do so. The whole buying and setting up process with a Mac blows away the painful and quite honestly abusive PC business. You either have to an expert at chip numbers to keep the PC vendor honest, or settle for a piece of shit Dell or Lenovo for cheap. Microsoft has done no one any favors over the last year, and seem fully intent on doubling down on there abusive business practices. Even Microsofts own hardware doesn't work properly for close to a year(Surface Book).

Apple went with their own processor the iPhone and now crush in that market, the CPU is the single most expensive component in the whole computer, so Apple producing their own would be a huge cost savings. If you put half the power of Intel's 15 watts in to the iPhone processor, it likely would close the gap between the intel part and Apple's part. So what if you are comparing a 2 year old intel part? Apple is making much larger improvements in processing each year than Intel is.

This is not good for Intel and Microsoft, Intel needs to be having a serious conversation with Redmond over their business model. Microsoft is already abandoning the PC space in favor of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS.

If you reduce the price of Apple computers by 300 dollars it makes them much more competitive. Price is the only thing keeping the consumer PC space going, the fanboys at this site being an exception, the consumer loathes Microsoft. They live with it with varying degrees of loathing or misplaced affection because they can't imagine anything better, or are unwilling to learn anything new.

For most uses, the processor in my iPhone 7 is just as fast the processor in my laptop, a real i7 and not that marketing fraud i7 in the Surface Book.

Apple would likely debut their own laptop CPU in a replacement for the entry MacBook Air, it could do very well. Fact is that a laptop version of the iPad pro. Add keyboard and big battery and remote the Pencil/touch screen would be great for a lot of people.

The prower of the iPad Pro is already good enough Apple could be launching product at any time, there is not technical reason other than possibly macOS isn't ready. One big advantage to the box Apple puts developers in is that changing compilers to support new hardware is much easier. Developers have a huge amount of experience with ARM because of Apple.

It is hard to imagine Apple NOT doing this!

 

[lamorpa]

Wow! Look at all of the Apple hate! At least hide it in intelligent arguments. We get it, you love Microsoft! How's that view with your heads up your ass?

Fact is most people want a computer that works and is, get this ridiculous expectation, pleasant to use. How does not matter! I feel the PC/Microsoft lover going borderline psychotic from here! Apple sells a complete product, from screws to OS, the only PC company to do so. The whole buying and setting up process with a Mac blows away the painful and quite honestly abusive PC business. You either have to an expert at chip numbers to keep the PC vendor honest, or settle for a piece of shit Dell or Lenovo for cheap. Microsoft has done no one any favors over the last year, and seem fully intent on doubling down on there abusive business practices. Even Microsofts own hardware doesn't work properly for close to a year(Surface Book).

Apple went with their own processor the iPhone and now crush in that market, the CPU is the single most expensive component in the whole computer, so Apple producing their own would be a huge cost savings. If you put half the power of Intel's 15 watts in to the iPhone processor, it likely would close the gap between the intel part and Apple's part. So what if you are comparing a 2 year old intel part? Apple is making much larger improvements in processing each year than Intel is.

This is not good for Intel and Microsoft, Intel needs to be having a serious conversation with Redmond over their business model. Microsoft is already abandoning the PC space in favor of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS.

If you reduce the price of Apple computers by 300 dollars it makes them much more competitive. Price is the only thing keeping the consumer PC space going, the fanboys at this site being an exception, the consumer loathes Microsoft. They live with it with varying degrees of loathing or misplaced affection because they can't imagine anything better, or are unwilling to learn anything new.

For most uses, the processor in my iPhone 7 is just as fast the processor in my laptop, a real i7 and not that marketing fraud i7 in the Surface Book.

Apple would likely debut their own laptop CPU in a replacement for the entry MacBook Air, it could do very well. Fact is that a laptop version of the iPad pro. Add keyboard and big battery and remote the Pencil/touch screen would be great for a lot of people.

The prower of the iPad Pro is already good enough Apple could be launching product at any time, there is not technical reason other than possibly macOS isn't ready. One big advantage to the box Apple puts developers in is that changing compilers to support new hardware is much easier. Developers have a huge amount of experience with ARM because of Apple.

It is hard to imagine Apple NOT doing this!

 

[lamorpa]

Sorry that reality doesn't often reach Fantasy iLand very often. It looks like your projection of places to stick a head applies to you, and your fantasy place. Some idiot's ignorant wishful thinking about Apple's technology prowess in the area of desktop processors is not a criticism of Apple, it's a criticism of this idiot's thinking. Sorry your skin is so thin about Apple's world position in technology (a 10% player). It's not my fault it stings you.

 

[alidan]

Wow! Look at all of the Apple hate! At least hide it in intelligent arguments. We get it, you love Microsoft! How's that view with your heads up your ass?

Fact is most people want a computer that works and is, get this ridiculous expectation, pleasant to use. How does not matter! I feel the PC/Microsoft lover going borderline psychotic from here! Apple sells a complete product, from screws to OS, the only PC company to do so. The whole buying and setting up process with a Mac blows away the painful and quite honestly abusive PC business. You either have to an expert at chip numbers to keep the PC vendor honest, or settle for a piece of shit Dell or Lenovo for cheap. Microsoft has done no one any favors over the last year, and seem fully intent on doubling down on there abusive business practices. Even Microsofts own hardware doesn't work properly for close to a year(Surface Book).

Apple went with their own processor the iPhone and now crush in that market, the CPU is the single most expensive component in the whole computer, so Apple producing their own would be a huge cost savings. If you put half the power of Intel's 15 watts in to the iPhone processor, it likely would close the gap between the intel part and Apple's part. So what if you are comparing a 2 year old intel part? Apple is making much larger improvements in processing each year than Intel is.

This is not good for Intel and Microsoft, Intel needs to be having a serious conversation with Redmond over their business model. Microsoft is already abandoning the PC space in favor of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS.

If you reduce the price of Apple computers by 300 dollars it makes them much more competitive. Price is the only thing keeping the consumer PC space going, the fanboys at this site being an exception, the consumer loathes Microsoft. They live with it with varying degrees of loathing or misplaced affection because they can't imagine anything better, or are unwilling to learn anything new.

For most uses, the processor in my iPhone 7 is just as fast the processor in my laptop, a real i7 and not that marketing fraud i7 in the Surface Book.

Apple would likely debut their own laptop CPU in a replacement for the entry MacBook Air, it could do very well. Fact is that a laptop version of the iPad pro. Add keyboard and big battery and remote the Pencil/touch screen would be great for a lot of people.

The prower of the iPad Pro is already good enough Apple could be launching product at any time, there is not technical reason other than possibly macOS isn't ready. One big advantage to the box Apple puts developers in is that changing compilers to support new hardware is much easier. Developers have a huge amount of experience with ARM because of Apple.

It is hard to imagine Apple NOT doing this!

we have one mac user in the house, servicing that ipad is a nightmare. everything is so damn locked down that plugging into a computer won't even let you remove the pictures you take and i can not make a real backup of the device, transferring from ipad 2 to the newest one took a good 2 weeks and forced us to pay money for a service, and the person almost bricked the ipad one update because it forced the apple id, and they had forgotten the password as they lock it in the first place.

Any apple product I have ever used I have hated the entire experience.

basically, with a mac, if it doesn't work, there is nothing you can do to fix it, either buy a new one or forget whatever gave you the problem ever existed in the first place.

 

[negusp]

Wow! Look at all of the Apple hate! At least hide it in intelligent arguments. We get it, you love Microsoft! How's that view with your heads up your ass?

Fact is most people want a computer that works and is, get this ridiculous expectation, pleasant to use. How does not matter! I feel the PC/Microsoft lover going borderline psychotic from here! Apple sells a complete product, from screws to OS, the only PC company to do so. The whole buying and setting up process with a Mac blows away the painful and quite honestly abusive PC business. You either have to an expert at chip numbers to keep the PC vendor honest, or settle for a piece of shit Dell or Lenovo for cheap. Microsoft has done no one any favors over the last year, and seem fully intent on doubling down on there abusive business practices. Even Microsofts own hardware doesn't work properly for close to a year(Surface Book).

Apple went with their own processor the iPhone and now crush in that market, the CPU is the single most expensive component in the whole computer, so Apple producing their own would be a huge cost savings. If you put half the power of Intel's 15 watts in to the iPhone processor, it likely would close the gap between the intel part and Apple's part. So what if you are comparing a 2 year old intel part? Apple is making much larger improvements in processing each year than Intel is.

This is not good for Intel and Microsoft, Intel needs to be having a serious conversation with Redmond over their business model. Microsoft is already abandoning the PC space in favor of SaaS, IaaS, and PaaS.

If you reduce the price of Apple computers by 300 dollars it makes them much more competitive. Price is the only thing keeping the consumer PC space going, the fanboys at this site being an exception, the consumer loathes Microsoft. They live with it with varying degrees of loathing or misplaced affection because they can't imagine anything better, or are unwilling to learn anything new.

For most uses, the processor in my iPhone 7 is just as fast the processor in my laptop, a real i7 and not that marketing fraud i7 in the Surface Book.

Apple would likely debut their own laptop CPU in a replacement for the entry MacBook Air, it could do very well. Fact is that a laptop version of the iPad pro. Add keyboard and big battery and remote the Pencil/touch screen would be great for a lot of people.

The prower of the iPad Pro is already good enough Apple could be launching product at any time, there is not technical reason other than possibly macOS isn't ready. One big advantage to the box Apple puts developers in is that changing compilers to support new hardware is much easier. Developers have a huge amount of experience with ARM because of Apple.

It is hard to imagine Apple NOT doing this!

Wow. Did you just blatantly ignore the entirety of us Linux users out there, that hate both Microsoft and Apple for making our lives hard to get proper support for our hardware?

Its also very easy to imagine Apple still cling onto their consumer-expensive, consumer-unfriendly drive towards adapters, closed-source software, etc. Its all about the profit.

And do you really think Apple is going to venture into the sub- $800 realm?

 

[Smlarkin]

The point is well made. Years ago we had mainframes with terminals. Unix
actually works as mainframe OS, and OS10 is Unix. We could go back to using terminal like devices and let the cloud do all the work. Tablets are a step in that direction. Most Androids run on Linux.
The first hard drives were serial audio devices. Then came the intelligent parallel drives. Now we are back to SATA serial drives. Also without Steve Jobs Apple seems to be without a rudder.
Bill Gates bailed the company out last time. Maybe he will do it again.

 

[ShogunM]

There are plenty of people who don't bow down and kowtow to the (sic) gods at Apple. No one in my family will ever own an Apple product of any sort and I know many people that have the same feelings. They definitely do have a following - zombies we call'em because they clearly don't have or use their brains.

 

[Smlarkin]

The only thing that is needed to be a happy Apple owner is great afflunence.