“Somewhere on Apple’s campus, ARM-based Macs are already running OS X,” Matt Richmond blogs.
“In September of 2013, the world’s preeminent independent processor expert compared Apple’s latest iPhone chip with Intel’s fastest tablet chip and concluded that the two perform similarly — even though the Intel chip draws more power, contains four cores versus the A7’s two, and is produced with a more advanced manufacturing technique,” Richmond writes. “If Apple’s chip design team can create a phone processor that performs on par with Intel’s fastest tablet chip, the company’s ‘highest priority,’ then there’s no reason to believe that the same team at Apple can’t design chips powerful enough for any Mac in the company’s lineup.”
“Apple wouldn’t have been able to create Touch ID if the iPhone were powered by an Intel chip instead of an Apple-designed one. There wouldn’t have been a “secure enclave” on the iPhone’s processor to store the fingerprint data, nor would there have been perfect hardware-software integration. Apple was able to implement Touch ID because it designed the A7 chip in tandem with the iPhone 5S’s software and the rest of its hardware,” Richmond writes. “I’d bet that there are features Apple envisions for the Mac that simply can’t be built while Intel designs the chips inside of them.”
Much more in the full article -recommended – here.
Related articles:
Why Apple won’t dump Intel x86 for its own ARM chips in MacBooks and the Mac Pro – August 5, 2014
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
