The reason I come onto OSX was because of Jobs move into Intel. I guess the writing is on the wall, it’s time to plan to move out.
Assuming it runs all the same software, why does it matter? Intel is falling behind, this could be a good thing, especially for laptops.
Yeah, if you rewatch the Jobs announcement on the move to Intel, it makes the same argument for moving away from it.
That said, someone more hardware knowledge that I am could answer this: does Apple gain anything by going to AMD? Or is it just a case of slightly better, and long run Apple is better off with their own SoCs
Surface Pro X can run Win32 applications in emulation, but the speed is not great. Ironically, by recently putting out an ARM-version of the new Edge browser (built on Chrome), MS accidentally made a better Chromebook than Google.
Gruber had an interesting observation here:
The reason for Apple to move Macs to its own in-house ARM chips is much simpler than that. (1) Apple’s laptop chips are better than Intel’s — they’re faster and more power efficient. (2) Using their own chips puts Apple in control of its own timeline for product updates. Why did it take so long for Apple to get the retina MacBook Air out the door? The one-word answer I was told by a high-perched little birdie: Intel.
I am going on a limb and saying that high-perched birdie is Schiller.
It’s a pretty obvious observation-- Apple wants to be fully vertically integrated as it offers obvious advantages.
The move into Intel allowed Jobs to launch a series of very cheap and affordable range of iMacs, even after we factor the markup they make.
Moving back into fully proprietary Apple hardware will probably mean that there’ll be no chance of more reasonable pricing.
To blame everything on Intel’s engineering is pure bull imo. There are HUGE stretches of time when Apple never bothered to refresh their line up, the “cylinder” Mac Pro was a huge joke.
I love their OSX, but the hardware is totally pure bs.
Well, I didn’t expect that sort of functionality at that low, low price.
The wheel locks are an extra $750, I assume…
According to this, the wheels aren’t available, yet. https://9to5mac.com/2020/02/24/apple-mac-pro-wheels/
Also seems like price is $400. Unless I’m missing something, that post is a fake.
What is so great about the 3:2 aspect ratio that guy keeps harping on?
My memory of it and a quick search shows the first Intel iMacs were exactly the same price as the last G5 iMac in 2005. The iMac was a “cheap” option long before Intel.
Anyway, I would argue the iMac is cheap. You get one helluv a good display for that price.
3:2 is the standard Surface aspect ratio, and it’s great! Most laptop displays are 16:9 or 16:10, which is basically a legacy of the entertainment industry. Great for watching movies, but it sorta sucks for productivity. It’s short and and wide in landscape, so lots of wasted space to the right, usually. And in portrait mode, it’s tall and skinny.
Meanwhile, 3:2 is is closer to the aspect ratio of your standard sheet of paper, one of the most fundamental pieces of office productivity there is. In landscape, you get taller and narrower displays, which is great for displaying lots of information on, say, an Excel sheet or web page. In portrait mode, it’s wider, which is grea when you’re writing on it.
The Mac Pro is a good business case for a complete breakdown. They over designed a product that met few of its customers needs. They then placed all their bets on the 2 gpu design, and the industry stayed on one gpu. They also didn’t account for growth and literally couldn’t upgrade it.
Around the same time, I think Apple bought its own line that the iPad was the future, and the iPhone was still going like gangbusters, so they took their eye off the Mac.
In 2018 (I think) they had that April roundtable where they announced a re-commitment to the Mac Pro, and therefore the Mac in general.
That said, and someone like Stusser who is more hardware knowledgeable than I am can comment further, Intel is having issues shipping thinner chips, and I think generally shipping new generations of chips. That does impact Apple’s lineups.
I finally got around to listening to this week’s Upgrade on the way in to work today. Snell commented that he thought the Mac Pro and maybe a high-end MacBook Pro would stay on Intel, and everything else will move to ARM. This makes sense, but I wouldn’t rule out the MBP going all-in on ARM.
If people would just put their task bars on the side like I do things wouldn’t be so bad.
Yeah, I finally gave in to the sidebar. It’s an improvement for sure.
AMD is very competitive right now, but at the time when Apple had to make a decision on this, probably 5 years ago, they definitely weren’t.
The new beta of macOS has references to AMD there, so I wonder if they may also shift to AMD.
They very well may do that, but it would be for their higher-end products, in addition to ARM at the lower-end.
I think you are right in the pricing. Although the first iMac core2 duo intel model introduced was 2-3 times faster than the g5 model they replaced. Not to mention the possibility of the Mac mini which followed and were priced even lower.
Nowadays I just keep seeing prices going up and up and up. It’ll get worse when they are on their own chips.