As Intel gets later and later in releasing processor upgrades that offer only slight performance boosts from previous processors, the impact on Macs is obvious. New models are late not\u00a0so much\u00a0because Apple doesn’t care about Macs, but because of Intel’s roadmap. Sometimes Apple sticks with the previous year’s parts, which incites the critics. Regardless,\u00a0benchmarks may be just a few percent better than the pervious model.<\/p>\n
Indeed, it may take a few years before a Mac offers a significant performance upgrade compared to older gear. So why upgrade? It does appear that folks are sticking with their vintage\u00a0hardware longer and longer. Indeed, even though Mac sales were up slightly in the last quarter year-over-year, Apple says more than half of the units sold went to Windows switchers. That would appear to mean that most\u00a0Mac users are content with what they have.<\/p>\n
The theory goes that Apple could do another processor switch. They’ve done it twice already; Intel replaced the PowerPC in 2006. Since Apple has managed to improve its custom\u00a0ARM silicon to roughly match the speed of many Intel notebooks, how well would they do if they attempted to go all out on producing parts that worked on traditional notebooks and desktops, where power requirements are\u00a0less restrictive?<\/p>\n
Of course, a processor switch of that sort, while certainly doable, would have tradeoffs. By using Intel processors, Macs can run Windows natively in Boot Camp, and with most of the performance of a PC via a virtual machine. That is a significant sales pitch for Macs, since they can run both macOS and Windows with great performance. If Apple went to ARM, they’d have to run Intel operating systems in emulation, which would mean a potentially significant performance hit. Do you remember the days of the PowerPC?<\/p>\n
I’m not dwelling on forcing developers to switch. Apple already delivers Xcode developer tools that build apps for both Intel and ARM hardware, so changing over may not be near as difficult as it was in previous processor switches.<\/p>\n
By and large, however, putting developers and Mac users through such a migration probably wouldn’t make sense at this point. Apple works hard enough just keeping Mac sales relatively flat, and the cost of a migration probably isn’t justified. It’s not the same as the PowerPC, where development pretty much stalled. Intel is still actively improving its processors, even if the pace of those improvements isn’t what some would like.<\/p>\n
At the same time, Apple’s skills with exclusive ARM silicon means they can do things that PC companies can’t do with a single processor. The Late 2016 MacBook Pro with Touch Bar\u00a0features two operating systems and both intel and ARM parts.<\/p>\n
So it uses a standard Intel Core chip, the same ones many PC makers use. But the Touch Bar and Touch ID fingerprint sensor is operated by an ARM chip apparently derived from the Apple Watch, the T1, and an operating system apparently derived from watchOS.<\/p>\n
Now\u00a0there’s a published report in Bloomberg that Apple is working on adding more Mac features to the\u00a0ARM hardware, thus taking some of the load off Intel. If this story is true \u2014 and Apple is certainly not going to confirm the news unless there’s a product to announce \u2014 the new\u00a0ARM processor will be known as the T310.<\/p>\n
The T310 would reportedly be used to control a Mac’s Power Nap feature, a sleep mode on steroids. While the Mac is in low-power mode, software updates are\u00a0downloaded, iCloud data is synced, email is downloaded, and other functions are\u00a0handled without waking the Mac or putting a load on the Intel hardware.<\/p>\n
So if there’s less load on the Intel hardware, battery life could be extended some, at least when the computer is idle. Very likely other hardware functions could also be passed on to the more efficient ARM processors\u00a0and OS, which may\u00a0maximize performance potential in some respects. I suppose there are other advantages that hardware designers could let us in on.<\/p>\n
Now I don’t pretend to have the full picture of how this dual-processor\/OS setup would work in practice. The Touch Bar may be just the first step of a long-range plan that would add extra functions in a way that couldn’t be realized near as well\u00a0with Intel hardware alone. Since Apple develops\u00a0its own chips and mobile OS, PC makers would have no way to compete except in a clumsy fashion. It’s not that Dell, HP or Lenovo are likely\u00a0to consider building their own custom processors. It’s not that they couldn’t hire\u00a0the expertise to do so. Perhaps they could poach a few Apple processor designers to get started, although it would have to be done in a way that doesn’t infringe on Apple’s many A-series chip patents.<\/p>\n
Even if it could be accomplished, it would take years to deliver shipping products. Maybe Microsoft would try, but it’s efforts at mobile hardware with ARM silicon have been total failures. The rest of the PC industry consists of companies that build me-too hardware based on generic components. But if the Bloomberg story is true, Apple may\u00a0be taking the Mac into uncharted waters\u00a0in a way that vindicates\u00a0its ongoing commitment to the platform..<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As Intel gets later and later in releasing processor upgrades that offer only slight performance boosts from previous processors, the impact on Macs is obvious. New models are late not\u00a0so much\u00a0because Apple doesn’t care about Macs, but because of Intel’s roadmap. Sometimes Apple sticks with the previous year’s parts, which incites the critics. Regardless,\u00a0benchmarks may […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[16159,14806,12427,12359,2170,3219,9904,1045,15736,12291,16158,8377,2122,15637,443,8322,16160,379,16157,15977,14296,2505,15220,8020,246],"class_list":["post-28069","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-apple-t310","tag-apple-watch","tag-arm","tag-bloomberg","tag-boot-camp","tag-dell","tag-hp","tag-intel","tag-intel-core","tag-ios","tag-late-2016-macbook-pro-with-touch-bar","tag-lenovo","tag-mac","tag-macos","tag-microsoft","tag-pc","tag-power-nap","tag-powerpc","tag-t1","tag-touch-bar","tag-touch-id","tag-virtual-machine","tag-watchos","tag-windows","tag-xcode"],"yoast_head":"\n