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Comment by scarface74 | Hacker News Reader

I don't think Apple cares enough about a line of products that make us less than 10% of their CPU line to go through the engineering effort to create ARM based laptops.

I think it's more likely that Apple will make iOS more flexible on the iPad and make it a true laptop alternative.

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Or Apple could decide that the resources spent tending x86 hardware and dev tools for just 10% of their products would be better spent on one architecture (ARM) across all products. Switching Macs from x86 to ARM would be a one-time investment compared to the ongoing costs of maintaining separate x86 and ARM product lines.

How is it a "one time investment"? They still would have to create processors specifically for the high end where thermal limits aren't as big of a concern that are used in their desktops.

Not necessarily, they could run them at a higher clock and perhaps put two or more of them on the motherboard for the high end units. Keep in mind that the iphone 8 is already on par with their fastest 13-inch macbook pro.

How would that compare to the top end Intel chips that Apple is using in the iMac Pro and the forthcoming Mac Pro?

Apple does not keep two products around that fill the same niche. If the iPad were upgraded to serve as a true laptop alternative (surface pro style), they would get rid of the laptops.

I don't think they are though. The current ARM chips in the high-end iphones and ipads are too powerful for mobile. They don't make sense from an investment standpoint (why not spend that hardware effort on rejuvenating the mac line which can make more money?). They make a lot of sense as a midway point to a performance tier where the A series can serve as a laptop chip.

What does a "rejuvenated Mac look like"? The entire market for traditional PC's have been declining for years. What could Apple possibly do to reverse that decline? It could very well be argued that the current processors for PCs are "overserving" the market.

The watch is less than 10% and the HomePod is less than 10% and they seem to manage just fine custom designing chips for them. And at some point the outlier in your example is going to be the Mac, and I don't think Apple would care enough about it to go through the engineering effort of creating x86 laptops when all their expertise is in ARM.

The watch is part of the iPhone ecosystem. You can't use a Watch without buying an iPhone. The watch is an accessory to the iPhone.

From a software side, WatchOS is a trimmed down version of iOS and share many of the same frameworks. The HomePod is an even further trimmed down version of iOS.

"Designing x86 based hardware" is relatively easy. Intel does all of the heavy lifting with designing and integrating the components. Apple has shown any expertise in designing chips that are a match for Intel's on the high end.

Every other processor transition that Apple has done - 68K -> PPC -> Intel involved a massive CPU advantage that made emulation viable. That wouldn't be the case with x86 -> ARM. On the other hand, Apple had to migrate processors just to stay competitive with Wintel each time. If they stay with Intel, they don't have to worry about not having competitive performance with other PC manufacturers.

Finally, Apple has shown no expertise in delivering chips that are competitive with Intel on the high end. I'm sure they could do it, but they don't get the benefit of spreading their engineering fixed costs across almost a quarter billion devices a year if they develop a high end ARM desktop chip like they do with iOS devices.

> The watch is part of the iPhone ecosystem. You can't use a Watch without buying an iPhone. The watch is an accessory to the iPhone.

So? The iPhone was part of the pc ecosystem, for years you needed a pc to even set it up. That says nothing about its architecture or the resources required to develop it.

It says a lot. The watch can either lead to more sales of the iPhone because if you want an Apple Watch, you have to buy an iPhone. If you have an iPhone, the Watch provides additional functionality to the iPhone.

The Mac doesn't benefit enough from the iPhone tie-in to make it worthwhile as an adjunct to the iPhone.

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