Comment by Construct | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Construct | Hacker News Reader

It seems very unlikely to me that they'd switch the MacBook line to ARM and rely on an emulation layer to run current applications. ARM processors are getting faster all of time, but catching up to full Intel CPUs is going to be a very difficult task.

Meanwhile, Apple would have to support ARM-based MacBooks and Intel-based workstations until ARM became fast enough to replace workstation-level processors. While software makers caught up to the new architecture, MacBooks would lose much of their 'desktop replacement' status unless they truly could emulate x86 and x64 code with impressive speed.

I really doubt that Apple would split the architectures of their laptop and desktop lines.

They've already switched platforms twice (68XX->PPC, PPC->i386) pretty successfully, why can't they ship ARM/i386 fat binaries?

Also, this is the whole endgame of the A* series of chips that are currently in the phone and iPad. Whose to say that the A5 or A6 won't be multicore laptop/desktop chips? Apple would be fools to tie their future Intel's roadmap if they can possibly avoid it. It's not like Apple buys in sufficient quantities to force Intel to meet their specific requirements in chip designs, and even if they did, there would still be a year turnaround to get something from Intel to market. Imagine if the iPad was dependent on the Intel Atom? We never would have seen the iPad.

(btw. an iPad based on the Atom was an actual early prototype according to a friend of a friend that I have no reason to disbelieve).

If Microsoft can move to ARM, so can Apple. ARM chips don't have to beat Intel's most powerful chips from the start. They just need to get good enough for a Macbook Air, and then transition them to the other notebooks once they become more powerful over the coming years.

A key selling point of the Air is that it is a full-fledged Mac computer. If it has to run normal Mac applications in an emulation layer, which will undoubtedly be slow because the Air's processor is not powerful, this will not be true.

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