End Of MacOS on Intel?

[Korreckj328]

It goes along with the design direction of APFS. The new file system is optimized towards machines with a single solid state drive using the cloud for backups, and does nothing helpful for hard-disk-drives. I haven't heard anything to suggest HFS+ will see further improvements. My general feeling is Apple considers machines with traditional disk drives as outside their scope now.

Spinning disks are great for some things, but lets face it. They have issues. Slower speeds, head crashes and mechanics to avoid them (which can be exploited for some things) they're part of the past. SSD's are going to continue to fall in price, last longer and get faster. Spinning disks are going to go the way of the tape backup eventually, used for some special applications still but not in the home or general market.

 

[guslima]

Guys, remember that still necessary a certain amount of processing to develop a simple app for their platform. I don't think that Apple is going to change their entire products on a single move. Even if they do, it would turn to be a much more complicated process to be part of the development of the apps inside the ecosystem, so developers wouldn't be happy about it. I don't think they're gonna change that. So, at least, not everything would change, and developers would have to use cross-compilers to ship apps for the new architecture, but using mainly our old friend x86-64.

 

[UtterDisbelief]

Take this with a few grains of salt. Anyone that actually works for Apple cannot disclose any of this, especially to Bloomberg. If they did they would be fired immediately. So this has to be second hand information and likely guesses. I'll believe it if I hear Apple officially announce this, not just people with no face and no name.

This seems all too familiar. Look at this news story from nearly 6 yrs. ago published on Cult of Mac. People also make these "announcements" to influence the stock market. They first short Intel Stock, then release a story like this and hope everyone believes it and dumps their Intel stock out of fear, a knee jerk reaction. They then profit from short selling. Sneaky isn't it ?
Here's proof:
Intel Corp. INTC, -7.01% shares fell sharply Monday after a report that Apple Inc.AAPL, -1.56% will begin outfitting its Mac personal computers with its own chips in two years. Intel stock was already suffering on the day, down about 5%, but fell to losses of more than 9% after Bloomberg News reported that Apple could make the move as early as 2020. Bloomberg cited anonymous sources for the report.
View attachment 322582

My guess is that they will only come out with Macbooks with Arm based chips by 2020, not the full Mac lineup. They would be hard pressed to replace an 18 Core Xeon W chip with an A series ARM processor in the iMac Pro in 2 years.

Very sane and sensible analysis.

There's a big difference in changing from PowerPC desktop chips to Intel, and swapping their desktops over to a mobile, low-power alternative. Apple would need to invest in some serious development and fabrication - not just cost, they can afford most things - but for reliability and scalability. Intel (and back in the day IBM) have put in very many years of development to get to where they are now.

People say the new iMac Pro is just a "stop-gap" so why go the CPU direction they did? That kind of development isn't trivial.

As well as the hardware concerns, there's software to consider. How many developers publish macOS software as well as Windows? Easier to do so with a common CPU architecture. Going back to the "old days" of limited software availability would be a very retrograde step.

Even if not, there would have to be quite a few years of dual architectures to run-out all the hardware they will continue to sell in the mean time.

 

[pthaler]

I absolutely do understand, that there is such a huge response from the tonymacx86 community according to the rumours spread about Apple producing their own ARM chips which might result in the end of customacs.

But, although my opinion might not be the most popular, I absolutely believe that this is an important long-term step for Apple in order to be able to manufacture products with the unique features and performance, which they haven't been for a longer period of time now.
Of course we (most certainly) all like Apple products or at least macOS, but Pro users have waited far to long for the iMac Pro, which most certainly wouldn't have been achievable with older Intel CPU and chipset generations in the last few years due to their overall thermal design. Some of those users are still eagerly waiting for a new modular Pro Desktop Mac, which perhaps could be way more powerful/outstanding than what's coming in the next year or so, if Intel hadn't relaxed with minimal effort in their position as industry leaders for too long. The majority of customers, who use their mobile MacBooks have the choice between a 12inch MacBook, that is just fine for basic office tasks, a completely outdated MacBook Air, which is worse than upgraded Pro models from seven years ago or the MacBook Pro models, which aren't as "pro" as they probably could be, if there weren't certain limitations caused by using Intel processors. (RAM for instance...)
Obviously not all negative aspects in the Apple product line are a result of their cooperation with Intel, but I personally understood if being dependent on them, isn't a best-case scenario in Apple's point of view. Not being able to choose the desired configuration might not be a problem exclusive to this community

There are no official statements yet, whether they are definitely planning to use their own chips and presumed they do so, which exact architecture they will use, how smooth transition for Intel-based mac users occur and how "hackintoshable" macOS after 2020 will be. Using last years release of the iMac Pro as an argument, why such a change won't happen for the upcoming 5 or 6 years is more or less invalid, since this would imply, that Apple won't sell a single macOS device for a period of five years, because every potential customer would be screwed with his/her latest purchase. It's not about how soon Apple will turn their back on Intel, but how include their chips for os updates in the future.

 

[SapphireHarp]

Spinning disks are great for some things, but lets face it. They have issues. Slower speeds, head crashes and mechanics to avoid them (which can be exploited for some things) they're part of the past. SSD's are going to continue to fall in price, last longer and get faster. Spinning disks are going to go the way of the tape backup eventually, used for some special applications still but not in the home or general market.

And yet, tape storage has abundant use and plenty of new developments today. Just not in home use.

Desktops are frequently used for heavier computing tasks. It's not that you can't do a massive video editing project on your laptop, it's just easier to build a more cost-efficient desktop for that sort of thing. And computers with that kind of role usually need many terra bytes of storage. HDDs are going remain the sensible choice for that role for at least five years. Personally, I would estimate it will be more like ten to fifteen.

But, Apple appears to be content to leave HDDs choosing between an painfully inefficient file system, or a legacy file system. My read is that Apple isn't interested in that kind of machine anymore.

 

[Korreckj328]

And yet, tape storage has abundant use and plenty of new developments today. Just not in home use.

Desktops are frequently used for heavier computing tasks. It's not that you can't do a massive video editing project on your laptop, it's just easier to build a more cost-efficient desktop for that sort of thing. And computers with that kind of role usually need many terra bytes of storage. HDDs are going remain the sensible choice for that role for at least five years. Personally, I would estimate it will be more like ten to fifteen.

But, Apple appears to be content to leave HDDs choosing between an painfully inefficient file system, or a legacy file system. My read is that Apple isn't interested in that kind of machine anymore.

Right, but even on that desktop you're going to be booting off of an ssd. Your application is likely going to be on that ssd and just your bulk storage will be on the traditional hdd or a hybrid drive.

 

[Wolfie81]

I hypothese that from 2020 (if rumours are true) will involve a complete rewrite of macOS to cater for both ARM and x86. Laptops will then be built with either ARM or a fusion of x86 and ARM. The software will be smart enough to use ARM for everyday use, giving ridiculously long battery life, and when the CPU demands it in situations the x86 processor wakes up and does the work.

This will be very expensive, but as always, with time, prices will drop as software and hardware becomes refined, as well as giving Apple a foot in both doors with a view over the next decade to move to ARM only chips.

Hackintoshes or legitimate Macs arent going anywhere anytime soon. A new macOS rewrite will run on current Macs as of today but just not utilise the ARM side of things.

Remember, many said it was impossible for OSX to run on x86 years ago. All it took was one smart developer to prove the world wrong and got Steve Jobs attention. While it may be hard for us to comprehend how ARM and X86 may work together software wise (either on the same machine or on independent machines), Apple has the smartest people around, and access to the deep code of macOS we arent privy to.

If future apps will be iOS and macOS compatible as per rumours for WWDC 18, this theory holds more water. Apple wants one code (and eventual processor line) to rule them all.

 

[niteFlight]

I hypothese that from 2020 (if rumours are true) will involve a complete rewrite of macOS to cater for both ARM and x86. Laptops will then be built with either ARM or a fusion of x86 and ARM. The software will be smart enough to use ARM for everyday use, giving ridiculously long battery life, and when the CPU demands it in situations the x86 processor wakes up and does the work.

Absolutely. And Macs will be the only PCs on the planet with this capability...a nice feat if they can pull it off.

This will be very expensive, but as always, with time, prices will drop as software and hardware becomes refined, as well as giving Apple a foot in both doors with a view over the next decade to move to ARM only chips.

Now that Moore's law has ended, there really isn't much choice. That is also why Microsoft is starting to port Windows over. I say "starting" because Windows on ARM, such as it is today, is not something any power user would be happy with.

Hackintoshes or legitimate Macs arent going anywhere anytime soon. A new macOS rewrite will run on current Macs as of today but just not utilise the ARM side of things.

This is where I disagree. The more quickly Apple can get an A-series chip controlling everything on their machines, the sooner the walls are back up around their garden. No more hackintoshes. They also got dragged kicking and screaming into eGPU. As long as their OS is depending on a third party's CPU and its microcode/firmware, its a guest in someone else's house. They want that to be over ASAP.

Remember, many said it was impossible for OSX to run on x86 years ago. All it took was one smart developer to prove the world wrong and got Steve Jobs attention. While it may be hard for us to comprehend how ARM and X86 may work together software wise (either on the same machine or on independent machines), Apple has the smartest people around, and access to the deep code of macOS we arent privy to.

I think going ARM is a great choice and it can really do wonderful things for Mac and for Apple, and I would happily fork over the money for an Apple product whose price is truly justified by market differentiation. If I can't become root on it or use it without an internet connection, I will have to take my business elsewhere.

If future apps will be iOS and macOS compatible as per rumours for WWDC 18, this theory holds more water. Apple wants one code (and eventual processor line) to rule them all.

 

[flmmkr]

I read the complaints about not being able to run Windows and I almost have to laugh. Does no one read technology news outside of the Apple ecosystem? Microsoft's recent restructuring and announcement all but rings of the end of Windows as we know it. In 5-10 years you won't care about running Windows because any app you want to run from Windows you'll be running from the web (on Microsoft Azure) anyway, or at least have the ability to, so it won't matter what OS your computer is running or what processor it has inside it.

 

[Korreckj328]

I read the complaints about not being able to run Windows and I almost have to laugh. Does no one read technology news outside of the Apple ecosystem? Microsoft's recent restructuring and announcement all but rings of the end of Windows as we know it. In 5-10 years you won't care about running Windows because any app you want to run from Windows you'll be running from the web (on Microsoft Azure) anyway, or at least have the ability to, so it won't matter what OS your computer is running or what processor it has inside it.

That could likely work for me. It won't for others if they want to be able to play games. Running the code on the cloud is not a mystical answer for everyone though it will help some.