Apple reportedly working on a 32-core processor for high-end Macs
theverge.com
theverge.com
You meant this as a joke, didn't you?
Just in case you didn't: Apple already is a, if not the hardware giant - it became the first trillion-dollar company a year ago and just passed the $2 trillion mark in August.
Apple develops and manufacturers a lot of hardware (one of the few positive things I'll plug them for). I would definitely consider them a generic "hardware giant" in that context. Much of this hardware are phones, watches, laptops, and peripherals. I know their server/datacenter market is traditionally pretty slim but don't know what it typically looks like. I know AWS recently announced Mac EC2 instances[1]. The fact EC2 has been so dominant and Apple hardware in EC2 is just now arriving gives much merit that they're not in that much demand in datacenters. I work in research and have only encountered a handful of instances where projects interfaced with Apple hardware (especially in a datacenter) but there's no reason that couldn't shift given Apple's capital and talent pool that already exists.
[1] https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/aws/new-use-mac-instances-to-bu...
They're a luxury brand and they make money off of selling personal lifestyle computers. Often good quality, and, yes, the M1 looks fantastic (literally just bought my wife a new M1 MacBook Air) but this is a company that doesn't even really sell a commodity desktop machine. I cannot see them going head to head against SuperMicro.
Maybe, _maybe_, they'd license M1 out, but I doubt it.
By your definition, fabless companies like AMD or NVIDIA aren't HW giants, which is absurd.
Where I disagree with you, though, is why do you want consolidation of expertise into a single silo?
I would prefer better competition and consumer choice. As many point out...
* With Windows, you are beholden to Microsoft and the control they exert over Windows 10, including stuffing ads into your start menu or even popping up alerts over your taskbar insisting that you try Edge.
* With Linux, you have all of the choice, but sometimes a steeper learning curve. Depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer, it's a non-starter.
* With Apple, they make all the choices for you, and as long as you are OK with their choices, you're a happy camper. If you don't like their choices (or depending on the kinds of gaming you prefer) it's a non-starter.
There's a constant tug-of-war between unity and choice. If there was one central way of making games that worked across operating systems, you might have better choices between Windows, Linux and MacOS, but you'd be stuck with whoever controls the game standard.
So back to the central point, I'd be happy for Apple to be a dominant low-level hardware maker... if it wasn't stuck inside their walled garden. I'd much rather have three solid CPU makers (or more) that were compatible with several operating systems, each with support for Unity, Unreal, etc. not to mention things like CUDA.
I use Windows 10 and never experienced any of those after turning them off after a fresh install
Yes, you can unpin, disable Suggestions, etc and it does improve the experience, but the default behavior is intrusive.
Is apple going after gamers? A good gaming core is different than a good general purpose cpu. And apple has many more fundamental problems re gaming than a lack of horsepower.
If apple going after server market? I don't think so. Apple products may be efficient but they simply cost too much and I don't see the apple premium going away. A cpu with a mix of cores is also not as directly scalable.
I think apple is still going after that "core" apple user, the one that appears in all the commercials. They work at a graphics design office in the village. They have a phone/tablet for email and a desktop PC for serious photoshop work. That's the target market: The desktop PC that needs to on occasion push through a few minutes of photoshop rendering, not gamers or others who will run these CPUs at full throttle for hours. The cpu needs to be power-efficient (ie quiet) 95% of the time, but remain able to ramp up on occasion to complete a task. Rather than solid power it has a mix of cores to address whatever is thrown at it as elegantly/quietly as possible.
For example:
> While the current M1 chip comes with either seven or eight GPU cores, Apple is currently testing models with 16 and 32-cores, and is working on chips with as many as 128 for late 2021 or 2022.
I do believe that developer support will be crucial for "serious" gamers, though.
"In addition to advertising Apple Arcade within iOS settings (see picture above), Apple is actively fighting against companies like Epic Games who are seeking permission to offer their own game stores on iOS. Apple is also restricting companies like Microsoft from offering game subscription/streaming services on iOS."
https://hardware.substack.com/p/falling-out-of-love-with-app...
IMHO this would be more fitting for the Mac Pro's price. Intel Mac Pros have always been grossly underpowered for something so expensive. It should be the most powerful desktop you can get for that tag.
It should not, the most powerful machine you can get tends to be the one you build yourself from components sourced from competing suppliers. This is one of the reasons people build 'Hackintosh' machines, trading design and branding for raw power.
The actual situation is more like what you're saying, but that isn't what the word should means.
A 32-core pro would still win hands down in power efficiency. A 64-core Threadripper or a multi-Epyc would be a nice extra space heater in cold climates though.
Edit: It is not. The criticized submission is here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25331442 but they talk about the same possibility of a rumored 32-core processor.