Apple is an existential threat to the PC

From MacTechNews: "Exclusive: With macOS 10.15 and 10.14.4 Apple indicates the big change of platform" (original). Apple's testing of upcoming OS versions is different this year than in most previous years.

Apple has said that the upcoming Mac Pro will be released in 2019, and whether it is Intel or ARM, a release or at least a preview at WWDC is a good bet.

I think some possibilities can be narrowed down given the 2020 assumption.

At WWDC 2005, when the PowerPC → Intel transition was announced, Apple introduced a developer transition kit using a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4. The CPU was one of the fastest Intel desktop CPUs available at the time, with the only faster chips being the 3.8 GHz Pentium 4 and the Pentium D (in multi-threading) which were released less than two weeks before WWDC. That Pentium 4 was probably competitive with the PowerPC G5 in single-threaded performance. So if Apple releases a similar developer transition kit for an Intel → ARM transition, then I expect it to have an ARM architecture CPU that compares favorably in performance to high-end Intel CPUs of the time. (The Bloomberg report says "the transition to Apple chips in hardware is planned to begin as early as 2020." I’m not sure it that includes any developer kits, which wouldn’t be for the public.)

The high-end Apple CPU from my previous speculation post can work as the above high end ARM architecture CPU in both performance and release timeframe. I think that it's possible for this CPU to be in both the developer kit and a mass market Mac, especially if Apple plans to skip one or more generations for Mac chip upgrades. The AnX series has already omitted an A7X (the iPad Air used a faster A7) for an average rate of ~1.4 years/chip so far, and the A11X is almost certainly skipped or canceled in favor of an A12X, so I wouldn’t be surprised if Mac chips receive successors every 2 or even 3 years on average.

I think that an ARM transition will certainly be announced at a WWDC, and a developer kit presumably will not be far behind. This event has occurred yearly in June for a long time; the last non-June WWDC was in August 2006 when the original Mac Pro was announced.

When these assumptions are put together, they point to a reasonably high end Apple-designed ARM architecture CPU or SoC released around mid-2020, maybe mid-2019. We can look at the state of TSMC's process nodes in these timeframes:

• WWDC 2020: TSMC 5 nm is planned for mass production in late 2019 or early 2020 which should be in time for WWDC.
  • For what it’s worth, 5 nm also showed up in a sketchy rumor from CNet about an Apple VR headset targeted for 2020. This rumor does claim that "the chips used in future Macs would be similar to what Apple would use in its T288 AR/VR project."
• WWDC 2019: it is probably too early for TSMC 7 FF, but perhaps Apple could release the developer kit a few months after WWDC.

The 12” MacBook (or its successor) is an "obvious" candidate to be one of the products at the start of the transition since it can use the same AnX chip as the iPad Pro. Bloomberg points to the ARM transition being laptops first then desktops, but from the way it’s written in the article it seems more speculation than inside source. If there is a developer transition kit then I expect any mass market ARM Macs to arrive at least a few months after it, regardless of which Macs come first or what chips they use. But rumors point to a possible shakeup of the low end Mac laptop range later this year, so it’s best to leave this topic for later.

Note: I write "Intel → ARM" but for the purposes of my speculation posts the destination ISA can be an ARM modification (see this Real World Tech forum post pointed out by Entropy), a different existing ISA (e.g. RISC-V), or an Apple-designed ISA (I am not saying anything about the likelihoods of these three options). In most of these cases Apple still needs to demonstrate that they can design high end desktop chips.

 

Now Apple is just not limited to iPhone,ipads, they are moving fastly in technology, no doubt next phase of technology will be dominant by apple company.

 

Thank you, President Trump. Apple are not only moving fastly, but bigly also.

 

Apple announces the 2019 Mac Pro.

Base specs:

Cascade-Lake 8c/16t at 3.5 GHz (up to 28c)
32GB of 2666MHz RAM (12 DIMM slots, up to 1.5 TB)
Radeon Pro 580X (up to 4 Radeon VIIs)
256GB SSD
8 PCIe 3.0 slots (64 PCIe lanes)
2 MPX slots (for custom graphics, storage, FPGAs, etc)
2 10Gb Ethernet ports
A few USB and Thunderbolt ports

Prices start at US$ 6000.

No mention about Nvidia support.
No bays for DVD/Bluray drives.
No bays for ordinary 2.5"/3.5" SATA HDDs and SSDs (it requires a separate internal cage?)

The new 6K monitor costs US$ 5000 and the stand costs US$ 1000.
I wonder if the T2 chip will complicate repairs and upgrades.

 

6k dollars for a 8 core CPU and 256GB of HDD

 

Don't forget the $1,000 for this:

 

Rumor says it's made of an Adamantium and Vibranium alloy straight from Wakanda. If that's the case it's well worth $1000.

 

I heard it was unobtainium from Pandora.

I can't believe for $5K you dont get all of the product.

 

The monitor with cheaper glass costs $5K while the better one costs $6K, also without a stand.

 

Apple could make a perspex monitor with a picture of OSX instead of an LCD display and people would still pay $5k... without a stand.

 

Well that stand proved that the audience at those keynotes are actually real people. I never saw such a reaction from either the audience or the presenter.

Apple has received a ton of ridicule for the price of that stand. Deservedly. It doesn’t mean much, third party stands out of China will appear costing $39.99 , so nobody will have to pay that money anyway. But it is tone deaf in the extreme. They aren’t going to sell many of those anyway, so opening yourself up to that PR loss for no actual gain is just really, really stupid.

 

They sure are getting a lot of coverage out of it. Truth be told, the market segment for this monitor already have their own solutions.

 

We made this stand and priced it at 1000 USD because we don't want to make this stand.

Everything sort of screams.

• We made the Mac Pro and Monitor because people were yelling at us to make one.
• However, we really don't want to make these things, so here's the price you have to pay to make us make it.
• Please let us just go back to making phones and tablets.
• Thank you.

Regards,
SB

 

• You people kept asking for the return of the cheese grater Mac, so here it is.

 

Not just a little.

16C versus 8C.
Quadro P2000 vs. Rx580
SSD boot drive + 2 TB HDD vs 256 GB SSD

Granted the Quadro P2000 is only about 250 USD more than the Rx580. But 16C/32T is significantly more than 8C/16T.

And that's currently 4,859 USD HP versus 6000 USD Apple. Granted that's a promotion on the HP site, but then HP are always having promotions.

I suppose it isn't ludicrously outrageous, but at that price you'd have expected at least a single Radeon VII or professional graphics card. Well, if it was anyone but Apple that is.

Regards,
SB

 

How did people react in the audience?

 

It's mind boggling for consumers but Apple are pitching this into a industry where a large calibrated monitor costs more than Apple's offering. The folks buying this are spending $10k on a camera and $25k on lenses to capture the 4K footage they want to edit on this screens attached to this Mac.

$1,000 for a laser-etched matte-finish screen and $1,000 for a stand (or a bargain $200 for a VESA mount!) is small beans.

The reason Apple have all of the money is the can sell product to people who will spend a lot of money.

 

Apple were showing it off with an unreleased Canon camera that records 8K RAW 4:4:4 ... that should tell something about their intended market. The 8K RED start at $54,500.00 for the body only. Before you can actually record anything usable you are easily looking at $80k - 100k.

Not to mention the FPGA Afterburner card to playback multiple 8K streams simultaneously while color grading and adding effects.

 

Yup. The only weird thing was why Apple thought devs at WWDC would be keen to know about this bonkers hardware than none of them could afford.