<story><title>M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/m1_macs_truth_and_truthiness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>When iPhone came out in 2007, Android was still an OS for BlackBerry like devices. It didn&amp;#x27;t take long for Android to discover touch screens once Apple made it clear that they were dramatically better. Similarly, it&amp;#x27;s not like other ARM chip manufacturers are going to have to go through all of the same R&amp;amp;D expense to figure out how to make chips that are comparably fast--they just need to copy what Apple did without infringing on any particular patents. Even if they did have to spend the same R&amp;amp;D expense to get there, &lt;i&gt;Apple has already derisked it&lt;/i&gt;. So they have a small fraction of Apple&amp;#x27;s expense and none of the risk, so I would fully expect to see M1 competitive chips come out in a few years&amp;#x27; time. This isn&amp;#x27;t to say that they&amp;#x27;ll catch up with Apple completely; only that they&amp;#x27;ll be able to recoup a significant amount of the gap in a relatively short period of time such that there will be a similar breakthrough in the PC market (this is effectively what TFA is predicting as well, if that lends me any credibility).</text></item><item><author>zepto</author><text>The numbers say otherwise.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>Apple&amp;#x27;s ARM SoCs are definitely ahead, but it&amp;#x27;s not like the competition is hugely far behind. Top of the line Android phones and tablets perform well enough for most desktop tasks IMO. It&amp;#x27;s mostly the software and I&amp;#x2F;O that makes them unusable as such.</text></item><item><author>s3cur3</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not just &amp;quot;ARM is fast,&amp;quot; though—Apple&amp;#x27;s ARM chips in particular beat the pants off their ARM competitors. (See benchmarks of any iPhone compared to flagship Android devices.) I don&amp;#x27;t think you should expect similar levels of performance from a run-of-the-mill ARM chip on the desktop (though I&amp;#x27;m happy to be shown benchmarks to the contrary).</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never owned a Mac and don&amp;#x27;t intend to own one but I&amp;#x27;m very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it&amp;#x27;s been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board.&lt;p&gt;But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;I want to believe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>buran77</author><text>&amp;gt; it&amp;#x27;s not like other ARM chip manufacturers are going to have to go through all of the same R&amp;amp;D expense to figure out how to make chips that are comparably fast--they just need to copy what Apple did without infringing on any particular patents&lt;p&gt;Very handwaivy but the devil is in the details of that &amp;quot;all they have to do&amp;quot;. Copying success is not that straight forward or else AMD would have had a response to Conroe in 2007, Intel for Zen in 2018, and Qualcomm for A-chips around 2014.</text></comment>
<story><title>M1 Macs: Truth and Truthiness</title><url>https://daringfireball.net/2020/12/m1_macs_truth_and_truthiness</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwaway894345</author><text>When iPhone came out in 2007, Android was still an OS for BlackBerry like devices. It didn&amp;#x27;t take long for Android to discover touch screens once Apple made it clear that they were dramatically better. Similarly, it&amp;#x27;s not like other ARM chip manufacturers are going to have to go through all of the same R&amp;amp;D expense to figure out how to make chips that are comparably fast--they just need to copy what Apple did without infringing on any particular patents. Even if they did have to spend the same R&amp;amp;D expense to get there, &lt;i&gt;Apple has already derisked it&lt;/i&gt;. So they have a small fraction of Apple&amp;#x27;s expense and none of the risk, so I would fully expect to see M1 competitive chips come out in a few years&amp;#x27; time. This isn&amp;#x27;t to say that they&amp;#x27;ll catch up with Apple completely; only that they&amp;#x27;ll be able to recoup a significant amount of the gap in a relatively short period of time such that there will be a similar breakthrough in the PC market (this is effectively what TFA is predicting as well, if that lends me any credibility).</text></item><item><author>zepto</author><text>The numbers say otherwise.</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>Apple&amp;#x27;s ARM SoCs are definitely ahead, but it&amp;#x27;s not like the competition is hugely far behind. Top of the line Android phones and tablets perform well enough for most desktop tasks IMO. It&amp;#x27;s mostly the software and I&amp;#x2F;O that makes them unusable as such.</text></item><item><author>s3cur3</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s not just &amp;quot;ARM is fast,&amp;quot; though—Apple&amp;#x27;s ARM chips in particular beat the pants off their ARM competitors. (See benchmarks of any iPhone compared to flagship Android devices.) I don&amp;#x27;t think you should expect similar levels of performance from a run-of-the-mill ARM chip on the desktop (though I&amp;#x27;m happy to be shown benchmarks to the contrary).</text></item><item><author>simias</author><text>I&amp;#x27;ve never owned a Mac and don&amp;#x27;t intend to own one but I&amp;#x27;m very happy with this M1 move, mainly for the reasons highlighted in the introduction to the article:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;M1 Macs embarrass all other PCs — all Intel-based Macs, including automobile-priced Mac Pros, and every single machine running Windows or Linux. Those machines are just standing around in their underwear now because the M1 stole all their pants.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s a bit unfair to lump Linux in there since it&amp;#x27;s been running on ARM and other embedded, low-power devices basically forever, but it is true that few of us run our Linux desktop on an ARM board.&lt;p&gt;But I think the overarching point is true: now desktop and laptop makers can&amp;#x27;t just pretend that having a hot and&amp;#x2F;or slow, clunky, noisy x86-based architecture is just a fact of life. I hope and expect that it&amp;#x27;ll help create a new generation of ARM-based laptops and maybe even desktops that will run cool and smooth.&lt;p&gt;I want to believe.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>snazz</author><text>In my opinion, Apple &amp;quot;derisked&amp;quot; high-performance ARM chips with the A9-ish era five years ago. Other companies have had a &lt;i&gt;long&lt;/i&gt; time to spend catching up to Apple mobile chips, and they haven&amp;#x27;t.</text></comment>