Macs may need ARM processors to survive

“The heyday of personal computers is past. Those happy years up to 2014 when every shopping centre had outlets wanting you to leave the store with a new Mac or PC have sadly gone. According to Statista, desktop PC shipments are expected to decline from a worldwide total of over 150 million in 2011 to less than 80 million by 2023,” Howard Oakley writes for Eclectic Light Company. “As a successful vendor of personal computers, Apple faces a stark choice: innovate, or watch its sales slide inexorably into the sunset.”
“Take a look at recent hardware benchmarks for Apple’s latest models and one thing is obvious: iOS devices are now delivering as good and better performance than bulkier and more expensive Macs,” Oakley writes. “Using the Geekbench suite, for example, this £/$/€ 5000 iMac Pro with its eight cores of Intel Xeon and costly Radeon Pro Vega graphics card isn’t that much faster than one of the current iPad Pro models costing from £/$/€ 769 with its Apple A12X Bionic system-on-a-chip. Compare their graphic performance using Metal 2, and the iPad is slightly faster, with a benchmark of just under 18K compared with the iMac Pro’s 16K. The embarrassing fact now is that the hardware in Apple’s latest iPad Pro has CPU performance very similar to that of a MacBook Pro mid 2018 with a four-core i7 processor, and GPU performance which is already superior to almost any Mac.”
“Intel’s prices are also far from cheap… Then there’s the problem of Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities, and the latest, appropriately dubbed Spoiler,” Oakley writes. “Apple’s own systems-on-a-chip could be the answer to most if not all of these issues.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: It is inevitable that Apple free themselves, and the Mac, from third-party processor vendors wherever possible.
• I’ve always wanted to own and control the primary technology in everything we do. — Steve Jobs, October 12, 2004
• In order to build the best products, you have to own the primary technologies. Steve felt that if Apple could do that — make great products and great tools for people — they in turn would do great things. He felt strongly that this would be his contribution to the world at large. We still very much believe that. That’s still the core of this company. — Apple CEO Tim Cook, March 18, 2015
SEE ALSO:
Steve Jobs predicted the Mac’s move from Intel to ARM processors – April 8, 2019
Intel execs believe that Apple’s ARM-based Macs could come as soon as 2020 – February 21, 2019
Apple’s Project Marzipan could mean big things for the future of the Macintosh – February 20, 2019
Apple iPad Pro’s A12X chip has no real rivals; it delivers performance unseen on Android tablets – November 1, 2018
Ming-Chi Kuo: Apple A-series Macs coming in 2020 or 2021, Apple Car in 2023-2025 – October 17, 2018
MacBooks powered by Apple A-series chips are finally going to happen soon – September 18, 2018
Apple A-series-powered Mac idea boosted as ARM claims its chips can out-perform Intel – August 16, 2018
Did Apple just show its hand on future low-end, A-series-powered MacBooks? – July 13, 2018
How Apple might approach an ARM-based Mac – May 30, 2018
Pegatron said to assemble Apple’s upcoming ‘ARM-based MacBook’ codenamed ‘Star’ – May 29, 2018
Intel 10nm Cannon Lake delays push MacBook Pro with potential 32GB RAM into 2019 – April 27, 2018
Why the next Mac processor transition won’t be like the last two – April 4, 2018
Apple’s ‘Kalamata’ project will move Macs from Intel to Apple A-series processors – April 2, 2018
Apple plans on dumping Intel for its own chips in Macs as early as 2020 – April 2, 2018
Apple is working to unite iOS and macOS; will they standardize their chip platform next? – December 21, 2017
Why Apple would want to unify iOS and Mac apps in 2018 – December 20, 2017
Apple to provide tool for developers build cross-platform apps that run on iOS and macOS in 2018 – December 20, 2017
The once and future OS for Apple – December 8, 2017
Apple ships more microprocessors than Intel – October 2, 2017
Apple embarrasses Intel – June 14, 2017
Apple developing new chip for Macintosh in test of Intel independence – February 1, 2017
Apple’s A10 Fusion chip ‘blows away the competition,’ could easily power MacBook Air – Linley Group – October 21, 2016