Yes, most web surfers out there don’t care whether to use ARM or Intel cpus. ARM cpu’s are 32 bit today and have memory bandwidth limit problems which Intel cpus will leave ARM cpu’s in the dust in cpu and memory intensive software, unless apple decides to ditch the desktop or server segment, since they don’t earn much money from them anyways.

Besides, much of the push to ARM in apple laptop products will probably not be from apple, but probably be from Microsoft. Microsoft is probably going to be the guinea pig to see how successful ARM cpus are in Windows 8 and it is probably be more likely that Microsoft pushing enhancements to the ARM architecture to rival Intel cpus. Whether Microsoft can do it, we shall find out.

The analyst said that Apple will use ARM products in about 3 years, and given the leaps and bounds that ARM cpus have evolutionized, it is possible. But I recall that in about 15 years ago when windows NT was created for 4 different kinds of cpus but Intel cpus won out. Intel is the 800 lb gorilla and they would not give up the battle so easily to ARM.

Nothing wrong with your thoughts, I like reading that as well! It was just the way you put the words that made it a little “cheap” or how to say it… I guess I simply think of your blog as a professional blog and that post stuck out a little.. In a, from my point of view bad way and I don’t believe that is needed to get people reading the article… 🙂 But I could also on the other side understand that it could be tempting/fun to write that way as well.. And other people might like that kind of content.. I had no bad intentions with my comment.. Just trying to give one readers point of view…

I like your blog
, keep up the good work! 🙂

Ya, to me they are basically fact. I might be few dollars above in my BOM estimations, or a few dolars below the actual average sales price, but I believe most of these BOM/Profit margins calculations to be basically right. Which of my facts do you disagree with?

I’m not the only one posting about the ARM Powered Macbooks http://www.techmeme.com/110506/p13#a110506p13

You’re missing the point… Much of the article is stated as though it is fact, when in fact it is rumor and speculation…

There’s nothing wrong with rumor, opinion, or speculation, but there is something wrong stating it as fact.

ARM based devices are significantly cheaper than Intel powered, and consume much less power. Those things are established. Intel is not interested in selling cheaper processors, even to apple. Which is why Intel always tried to design faster, higher power processors and they tried to make everyone have to buy those and nothing else, even using illegal anti-competitive tactics in many case.

Apple does scale so their R&D and software development costs are a one-time expense, no matter the amount of devices they sell. And if they want to save money on software, they can simply use Android, it’s free and open source after all, why design the wheel twice.

Apple has massive amounts of cash, which means when the time is right in technology, they can do the investments necessary to for example bring the right type of capacitive touch screen to the market, or in the case of ARM Powered laptops, it could be backing the production of a few million SoC customized and optimized for full Laptop/Desktop usage. Configured with all the right RAM, fastest possible memory bandwidth, all the number of cores and clock speed necessary so consumers think it is fast enough.

Smaller ARM Powered laptop experiments thus far have had to take the processors that have been designed for phones and experiment putting them in a laptop.

But things are moving really fast and I actually expect Google will be first with ARM Powered Chrome OS to be unveiled in less than 4 days I expect, at the Google I/O conference.

At one point the ARM processors are powerful enough to power most of the HTML5 and other stuff people need in a PC and Laptop. The question is just when is that time going to come, is ARM Cortex-A9 Dual or Quad cores going to be fast enough now, or do we still have to wait for ARM Cortex-A15 level of processing and with all the memory bandwidth and other features that can come around there. Apple is obviously spending a few billion dolars on R&D measuring and testing to find out when the time will be right for them to release ARM Powered Macbooks. The question is not if but when, obviously.

Making things up is a big part of what IDC, ABI Research, Nielsen, Canalys, and the “Semi”Accurate guys do all the time. I think we are all entitled to have opinions on the web, and nobody should have a stamp of somehow being entitled to predict the future and others not. You listen to whomever you want. And if you want to debate about something just post in the comments.
I’ll try to show my opinion posts with a bigger Opinion category color at the top of the post.

100% agreed.

I don’t mind speculation, but this article is written with very direct assertions as though to be fact. Things like
“Apple to (obviously) use ARM in next macbook”
“Arm is the best way to make huge profits”
“This is Apple’s laptop ARM powered laptop plan”
are definite claims that are frankly made up. I had to read sufficiently far before realizing this, which turned out to be a waste of time. Had I known it was speculation and was in the mood, I may have enjoyed the article, but I hate distrusting a source, and this article greatly hurts the credibility of this site.

Charbax has great coverage of ARM related products (especially those lesser known), but I would hate to have to second guess these articles and source them myself just to be able to trust the content.

I agree with MagnetMan, I like your blog Carbax but this article was not well written.

Sure you must be allowed to speak out your mind, no problems there, but the overall layout and language of the article is as if these were facts, which they arent.

On the topic, even if Apple would go with an ARM based CPU, it would not come for free either. A lot of software and hardware would have to be adapted. If they would go and do the development of the core chip them self, that is not free either, to buy one, well that’s almost the same as buying from Intel. If company X would offer a very good price, well, then Intel as the biggest semiconductor company in the world could top that offer.

When it comes to software there might also be more that just the OS related parts that can be a problem. Apple is big in the “designer” typ of computing and very sofisticated programs for sound/video/graphics editing/modulation/creation might not work on ARM without a lot of reconstruction.

Full disclosure: I don’t really like Apple as a company based on there etics or so to speak. So I don’t really care if they would use ARM or not. I just thought this artical should have been written in a different way so that it could not be taken for real facts.

It’s one guy giving you his take, it’s called an opinion and I don’t mind it considering all of the great info on arm devices. It actually makes it interesting–to see what this or that company do and/or release..

Charbax is probably biased toward arm devices so of course he makes speculations. I highly doubt that this would happen because Arm cpus are still underpowered compared to the intel brethren. When Apple moved MAC OS from MIPS to Intel a few years back, they did it for all their platforms, laptops, desktops and servers. So it will make little sense for them to move just their laptops alone for ARM and not desktops and servers because they have to maintain ARM and Intel version of their software. Also, Apple is considering using Intel to manufacturing their chips and Apple is using Intel’s thunderbolt technology so I highly doubt that Apple would do this.

It is to say that it might be possible in the future. Perhaps when ARM cpus can beat Intel cpu architecture in terms of raw speed. Meanwhile, I think that Apple could probably create some kind of cheap netbook type of device based on the IOS, not on the mac os.

I’m *this* close to removing this site from my list of RSS feeds.