[minhazm423]

>Given that 15 minutes later, in the iPad part of the event, they claimed the new iPad is faster than 92% of all notebooks sold in the last year, the writing is on the wall. For me, the next Macbook to be excited about, would be one with an ARM processor.

hey not a huge technocrat when it comes to pc parts, but could u explain that part to me?

what is the writing on the wall?

what is arm exactly?

and what makes u think its better than whats being offered currently and that it will be in a macbook soon?

[dsr_]

The "writing on the wall" refers to the story of Belshazzar's feast. Belshazzar throws a particularly blasphemous party, and a hand appears and writes "mene, mene, tekel, upharsin" on the wall, which the prophet Daniel translates as "weighed, weighed, found wanting: divided!" and means that the rule of the Babylonians comes to an end and the Medes and Persians will split the kingdom.

In other words, seeing the writing on the wall means that you have failed and will lose what you have.

ARM, in this context, means the processors that power Android phones, iPhones and tablets of all kinds. ARM is the designing company; many other companies license the design.

There is a lot of speculation that Apple will quit buying Intel CPUs and move to ARM CPUs, because Apple makes ARM CPUs.

[kbenson]

ARM based processors which are used in most mobile devices and use a different instruction set, as opposed to x86 based processors, such as those available from Intel and AMD. Apple licensed the ARM technology and builds their own chips using it, and really good chips at that. So good, that some people are now calling for Apple to release an ARM based laptop (which has been done by others, but not to much popularity).

There would be advantages (power savings) and disadvantages (most existing MacOS software wouldn't work until recompiled at a minimum)

[beat]

Odds are they already have ARM-based Macs in house, with all the cross-compilation stuff worked out. The reason they haven't made the switch yet isn't because of work they haven't done.

Back when they switched from the PowerPC chips to x86, it was revealed that they had been building experimental x86 Macs in-house for years. That's just good planning.

[kbenson]

Oh, I'm fairly sure they've tested all their MacOS core software that comes with the OS (and the OS), but all the third party stuff and things in the MacOS app store likely need a lot more time. (at least for those that weren't already shipping iPhone/iPad versions).

[duskwuff]

My expectation is that any ARM laptop/desktop made by Apple would include some form of x86 emulation, just like they used during their PPC-x86 and 68k-PPC transitions.

[toasterlovin]

> what makes u think its better than whats being offered currently and that it will be in a macbook soon?

Not the person you're replying to, but: 1) Apple hates being dependent on Intel's ability (or lack thereof) to execute on their processor roadmap, and 2) Apple will be able to use processors better suited to their needs.

[mmcconnell1618]

Apple has switched chips several times. Around 1996 they moved from Motorola 68K chips to IBM PowerPC chips for the G1-G5 series of machines. PowerPC innovation fell behind Intel and around 2006, Apple decided to move to Intel chips to keep up with PC technology.

The move to Intel chips allowed dual boot Macs which I believe brought a whole new set of customers. Developers loved the ability to run Windows, Mac and Linux on the same hardware.

Microsoft has ARM versions of Windows produced for the Surface RT. If Apple switched to ARM to build their own chips, they have the ability to innovate quickly. But, they also have the risk of falling behind Intel again down the road.

[toasterlovin]

> But, they also have the risk of falling behind Intel again down the road.

I think Apple’s got this one.