“For several years, Apple has been steadily designing more and more of the chips powering its iPhones, iPads, Macs and Apple Watches. This creates a better user experience and helps trump rivals,” Mark Gurman reports for Bloomberg. “Recently the company got a fresh incentive to go all-in on silicon: revelations that microprocessors with components designed by Intel Corp., Arm Holdings Plc and Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. are vulnerable to hacking.”
“Apple packs its devices with custom components that process artificial intelligence tasks, track your steps, power game graphics, secure Face ID or Touch ID data, run the Apple Watch, pair AirPods to your phone and help make Macs work the way they do. The result: a chip powerhouse that could one day threaten the dominance of Qualcomm Inc. and even, eventually, Intel,” Gurman reports. “Apple has chip-building and testing facilities in unmarked buildings in and around hometown Cupertino, California, and in Herzliya, Israel, a hotbed of new technologies. The operation employs hundreds of people and is run by Johny Srouji, who joined Apple in 2008 after stints at Intel and IBM and has likened his chip architects to ‘artists.'”
“Last year, Apple expanded its mobile chips arsenal to include a version of its Bluetooth-enabling wireless W2 chip for the latest Apple Watch, an AI chip called the Neural Engine and custom graphics processing units (GPUs) for the iPhone 8 and iPhone X lines. The new iPad, due to be released toward the end of the year, will probably also include the Apple-designed graphics engine and AI chip,” Gurman reports. “So far, only two Mac lines include custom Apple processors: the MacBook Pro with Touch Bar and the iMac Pro. Apple is working on at least three updated Mac models with custom co-processors for release as soon as this year, including updated laptops and a new desktop, according to a person familiar with the plan.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Hello, all-new Mac Pro (and MacBook updates)!
SEE ALSO:
iMac Pro teardown reveals modular, replaceable RAM, CPU, and dual SSDs – January 3, 2018
Apple’s iMac Pro might be the first ARM Mac, but it won’t be the last – November 28, 2017
Why does iMac Pro have an Apple A10 Fusion chip inside? – November 20, 2017
Desktop supercomputer.
Imagine if Apple made the most powerful chips to run the most powerful computers the world has ever seen. Also, fu gets crossed an upgraded Mac Mini is in the cards …
“fu” should be fingers crossed …
I think you had it right the first time… 😉
Now that’s funny! 😆
But I think your right …
I am hoping for that new Mac Pro for sooner than later. Been waiting an obscene amount of time for an updated Mac Pro I actually really want to buy. Lame donut/garbage can be gone, and never return!
I hope Mac Mini fans also get their heart’s desires.
I’m all for it as long as I can continue running some of the intel hard Mac apps or unless the companies update their software for the A series chips.
The main thing for me is there is 1 piece of software that is windows only that I have to use for work unfortunately. They refuse to convert the app to Mac or Linux. I just need bootcamp to still work.
Drop Intel and move on and up….
The only custom Apple chips that will be going into forthcoming Macs will be for touchid or security functions. Losing native Intel compatibility will be the death of what little credibility Apple has left in professional computers.
Apple has no credibility when it comes to the Mac right now. And software isn’t far behind.
Yeh, sure. “No credibility” is a sure-fired way to become the biggest company on the planet.
And is DEFINITELY why all phones look like variations on the iPhone, all tablets look like variations on the iPad, multiple computers look like the Air, and… and… Really good moves by those other companies – copying the “no credibility” giant.
Unfortunately, when it comes to the Mac ecosystem, Danox is correct.
Apple’s recurring problem is that they’ll put out something that’s appealing to professional workflows, but then after around a couple of business cycles, Apple screws up and “drops the ball” on providing a professional level of support.
This leaves any Pro’s who adopted their stuff dangling in the wind.
Contrast this with Microsoft & MS-Office: they’ve been a more consistent supplier of business solutions on the Mac than Apple has.
I sense a whiff of revolution in the air. Since Apple can’t free themselves from CISC x86 Intel chips on Macs, they’re going RISC where they can. What a great idea.
If Pipeline Tim cannot get a team of people to manufacture AND distribute a new MacPro before June, he should be fired for incompetence!!!!! How does it take the largest and richest company in the world 5+ years to refresh/redesign a computer???? SO unacceptable.
Agree completely!
A company with the most money of ALL time and the most decorated industrial designer of ALL time should have done this year’s ago.
Because they have greatest combined resources of ALL time at their disposal — this is ALL on Pipeline Tim. No fanboy apologist excuses can negate that fact.
Deliver for the backbone pros of Apple or LEAVE THIS YEAR …
I rarely cheer anymore for Apple not blogged for well over a year + about Apple and I used to always love to scream the positives.
Having been a fanboy all my life I just get more and more disillusioned with every mess up they do.
They no longer know where the puck is going and so they keep making ‘All in’ mistakes.
I feel the speaker will be one of those also while the rest of the world; (creatives, scientists etc) who rely on Mac computers to project their own visions; are continually hindered by Apples control on what computer we can use compared to the computer we know they should make for the benefit of everyone who needs it not just themselves and their invisible puck.
Being a Tennant trapped in this eco system with a deaf landlord is crippling for everyone’s creativity.
#MacPro
Your first two paragraphs articulate exactly what I have been feeling since Cook took control of Apple.
First off: the bloom is off the rose and the magic is gone for the most part reduced to rare intermittent progress like a Face ID demo.
The new magic is what SJW issue are we working on and how does Apple look to Wall Street — replaced making insanely great products.
NOW, several times a year new releases of MacOS and iOS I have become NUMB for starters. Another chore to continually learn what it does, what it eliminated or neutered, will it work, will it be buggy, concerns about security or should I wait for increment patches?
This is NOT the clean, lean, elegant Apple of the past and no apologist fanboys can deny it. Welcome, to the NEW NORMAL of day to day reality of UNEVEN and SLOPPY Apple.
With all the resources at their disposal, I expect the MacPro this year to not only BE released, but to blow ALL the competition out of the water including gaming ability. If not, Cook it’s time to walk.
Apple owner since my Lisa … 😎
Tim Cook has squandered most of the good will that he built up as Steve Jobs’s trusted right-hand man. As well, his trusted left-hand man Sir Jonathan Ive has piddled away most of the adoration he used to get for his industrial designs, before Cook gave him control of the UI, something he cared little about. The Apple Board of Directors have excused Cook’s numerous mistakes in execution—something he once excelled at, before the scale of manufacturing multiplied beyond his abilities—when they should have called him on the carpet. Despicably, they chased the iPhone money instead of adhering to the principles that made Apple uniquely suited to create the future; and as a result became rich and powerful, but no longer admirable. Apple became laggards, followers of industry trends like any ordinary company, ominously susceptible to disruption at any time by a yet unknown startup, when once they ruled as the master disruptors. Only a glimmer of engineering creativity persists in their secret workshops, puzzling over the kind of new wonders that used to surprise and delight us. I’m willing to give them another chance. But if I hear “thrilling things in the pipeline” or “better late than never” one more time, I might scream.
You’re spot on regarding the adoration for Jony’s well deserved industrial designs and industry leading awards.
Things changed when Cook gave him control of the GUI and later the eye starved debut of iOS7 THREW Steve’s Skeuomorphism under the bus. Two completely different design disciplines and he only excels at ONE if you forgive the THIN and light OBSESSION.
The Apple Board of Directors have indeed excused Cook’s numerous mistakes in execution and should have called him on the carpet long ago. But you know how boards work, the almighty dollar is the only measuring stick that exists.
“Despicably, they chased the iPhone money instead of adhering to the principles that made Apple uniquely suited to create the future; and as a result became rich and powerful, but no longer admirable.”
Sadly, the new normal Apple.
“Only a glimmer of engineering creativity persists in their secret workshops, puzzling over the kind of new wonders that used to surprise and delight us. I’m willing to give them another chance.”
My fingers crossed, as well. But if I don’t see the most powerful consumer computer of ALL TIME THIS YEAR, for me, sadly, will have no choice but to go over to the dark side.
Faster, cheaper, better …