“Yes, Apple’s newest A7 Cyclone SoC is a beast — but it’s a long, long way from being in any way competitive with Intel’s Core chips in terms of performance,” Joel Hruska writes for ExtremeTech. “That aside, there are three good reasons why Apple won’t adopt ARM across its entire product line anytime soon — and one good reason why Intel should be worried about the long-term roadmap.”
• Software compatibility. [Intel-based Macs run the world’s largest software library. Period. – MDN Ed.]
• Hardware competitiveness. This is an issue people gloss over by claiming that Intel’s weak mobile performance is equivalent to the G5′s problems in the mid-2000s. That’s a vast oversimplification…
• Timing and stability. Every time Apple considers a major product transition, it considers the entire ecosystem today and several years into the future — and it makes a move only when it’s convinced that a winning horse has emerged from the pack…
“The one reason why Apple might seriously build its own ARM core for high-end computing is that such an approach would give it more control over its product family, its roadmap, and its future,” Hruska writes. “But as much as Apple prefers controlling its own destiny, it’s also not willing to compromise the performance and high-quality brand its built just because it can build its own chips. If Apple ever makes the jump from x86 to a future ARM-based processor, history tells us it will do so across the entire product line at once, and only when it can deliver a significant performance improvement.”
Much more in the full article here.
Related articles:
Intel-powered Macs: The end is nigh – August 4, 2014
Intel’s Broadwell chips further delayed; not shipping for most Macs until early-mid 2015 – July 9, 2014
Apple will inevitably drop Intel for their own A-series processors in the Mac – June 26, 2014
How long before Apple dumps Intel from MacBook Air? – June 26, 2013