Apple Announces "3rd Transition" for macOS: From Intel CPUs to Apple Silicon

[animalflynn]

The official deadline for completing the transition is only 2 years from now. Unless the schedule is delayed, we should see ARM-based Mac Pro models within 2 years.

I'll believe it when I see it. When they touted the performance per watt aspect without any real numbers - like they almost always have - I got really wary. The Bionic a12z is fast but it ain't that fast. My 6-year-old Intel-based MacBook Pro has a very similar speed to the a12z with faster graphics.

 

[Bustycat]

I'll believe it when I see it. When they touted the performance per watt aspect without any real numbers - like they almost always have - I got really wary. The Bionic a12z is fast but it ain't that fast. My 6-year-old Intel-based MacBook Pro has a very similar speed to the a12z with faster graphics.

A12Z is installed for testing only. We will see the real performance later this year.

 

[estradaluciano]

A12Z is installed for testing only. We will see the real performance later this year.

I hope that is true. Apple is notorious for adding low end hardware and selling it at a pretty penny. They're still making Macs with dual cores. Thus, why the Hackintosh community was created, to have better hardware without paying the Apple tax.

 

[Ecchi Nutuano]

I'll believe it when I see it. When they touted the performance per watt aspect without any real numbers - like they almost always have - I got really wary. The Bionic a12z is fast but it ain't that fast. My 6-year-old Intel-based MacBook Pro has a very similar speed to the a12z with faster graphics.

If you are basing this on MHz, then your point is moot. MHz is not equivalent because of IPC. Just go ask Intel how it's doing against AMD right now. AMD products are clocked almost 1Ghz lower in some SKUs than competing intel chips, and yet Intel can barely be competitive (exception is games).
The iPad Pro is running on significantly less power and heat envelope than your MBP. The MBP has a larger heatsink and power delivery. I don't have the specs in front of me, but let's say for argument that the iPad Pro A12Z operates on 7w(I'm basing this assumption on the fact at 15w+ requires active cooling as evidenced by AMD's X570 mobos). Let's say your intel MBP operates on 35w(depending on model, most mobile chips tend to shoot for 35-45w). That's 5x-6.5x the amount of power and heat draw to what you claim is equivalent performance. Consider what A12Z could perform at if it was given a larger power envelope work within? And as far the claim it's the equivalent to your 6 year old MBP - consider the 2018 A12X was within "spitting distance of a 2018 MBP", for that claim to be true, that implies Intel has made almost zero improvements to their chips, if your numbers and their numbers are identical years later. Apple's reasoning on this is pretty sound - they have YoY power/efficiency double digit % improvements on their own designs, but every Intel recycle offers single digit % improvements, at some point A-series starts look more and more promising.

I hope that is true. Apple is notorious for adding low end hardware and selling it at a pretty penny. They're still making Macs with dual cores. Thus, why the Hackintosh community was created, to have better hardware without paying the Apple tax.

Any bets that the A-Series Macs will feature a quasi-chiplet design like AMD does currently? That could help with scaling the product stack (from MBA to MP).

 

[thefsb]

I need to think and decide if I want to invest in one more hackintosh before the end of the line for Intel Macs...

What do you think the return on that investment might be? What alternative investments might make more sense?

 

[pastrychef]

What do you think the return on that investment might be? What alternative investments might make more sense?

After some thought, I've come to the conclusion that it would be foolish for me to invest in another build. It makes more sense for me to start saving for an ARM based Mac.

I don't know what to invest in right now... All the stocks I track are pricy now... I'm just glad I made a few good calls and my portfolio is up ~50% so far in 2020.

 

[trs96]

Looks like Quinn was spot on with this video back in August 2019. Goes into a lot of depth on the whole topic. Technically Apple is not leaving Intel for ARM. Apple designs their own chips, they just pay ARM a licensing fee. It would be like saying Apple left PowerPC for X86 back in 2006. Everyone knows they left PowerPC for Intel. Intel just happens to be one company that makes X86 instruction set chips. This is why Tim Cook never once said "ARM" in his presentation on Monday the 22nd.

 

[Wiet]

I still haven't Catalina working, if I had spent all the time trying, on a side job, I could have easily bought a real Mac.
Everytime the updates got more complicated.
I thank the Hackintosh / Custo Mac world a lot for all the good times, but for me the show is over.

 

[thefsb]

My current build should be my last one and it may be converted to a fully Windows only PC many years later, just like my first Hackintosh.

For my personal computer I used Mac from 1986 to 1990. Then, because of work, Windows until 2002. Then OS X on Apple and later a Hack. For a while in the 0ughts i used Windows for work and OS X for personal. Since late 2019, after 17 years I'm back to Windows.

So by luck I managed to avoid the sad late years of Mac OS. I was unemployed soon after 9/11 and needed my own laptop for prospective consulting work. I choose a Ti PowerBook G4 over a PC because I wanted to use OS X. By that time OS X had Microsoft Office so I could interoperate with client's docs. And it had a nice terminal app with a shell that ran in a FreeBSD-like environment, which was great because I used FreeBSD on my servers back then. I said then that OS X was the first version of UNIX with an acceptable window GUI on top. (I believe that's still true.)

Hacks are, in my experience, high maintenance. If you just want to get your work done then I don't recommend them. If you enjoy the hobby then go for it. Personally I ended up with a Hack because Apple stopped selling computers with specs that meet my needs at a price I can afford (I currently have 8c/16t and 64 GB memory, price that on the Apple store) and because I wasn't willing to switch to Windows.

I couldn't bring myself to deal with cmd shell, PowerShell, the ghastly Terminal app and the complexities of life with NTFS when my servers and VMs and the apps I write for them run Linux (I switched from FreeBSD to Debian a while back). These problems resolved with WSL and VisualStudio Code, which comes with a very good term app.

Overall, I have the sense that in recent years Apple has been moving from general computing towards luxury consumer electronics while Microsoft has moved to bridge the divide between the worlds of Windows in enterprise IT and the cloud, server and scientific software, much of it based on OSS, that uses libc and scripting languages. MS appears to have decided to address the Duct Tape market (Graeber, David. 2018. Bullsh1t Jobs *). This seems to be working well for both corporations.

Windows still does way too many BSODs and its support for audio is terrible. Apart from that it's ok and some things are better than macOS.

Apple's move away from Intel to the same kind of SoCs they use on phones makes sense for them and not for me. So this looks like the end of the road. Goodbye Mac OS! or whatever you call yourself now. It's been a long time since we got together in 1986. I know you won't miss me but I'll always remember you.

(* Did you know that tonymacx86.com displays the word BS as eight asterisks? Cute! Harry Hrankfurt would have trouble discussing his most famous work here, eh?)

 

[vesalius]

macOS 11. The name of OS X is completely outdated now.

Let's call it "Big Berry" then