| I think sometime next year when the A10X is released the question of MacBook Pro or iPad Pro will come down to the following: “What device of, which both have the same performance and storage, do I choose? The one with the USB ports, the inflexible keyboard, bloated software and costs 600$ more, or the other one with a touchscreen, optional keyboard, and much much simpler software?” Also I think that Apple won’t do any ARM MacBook at all. If we consider a RICE scheme for gauging priorization for such a feature like ARM CPUs in MacBooks: Reach: Modest, there aren’t that many Mac users compared to iOS Impact: Positive impact on Mac users is limited. Performance won’t be that better, mostly equal. Software availability could be limited for a while during a transition. Confidence: Apple has made a couple architecture transitions on the Mac before, so they know how it works. But they don’t know how app developers will react. Will Adobe, Microsoft etc. get onboard, or jump ship? Effort: Rather high. It’s one of the things where 10% of the implementation will need 90% of the effort. Mostly it’s just a recompile to run. But optimizing software for x86 is different than for ARM. The performance critical parts of many system frameworks which have no existing iOS port have to be rewritten to be efficient on the new architecture. |