Apple dumps Intel and shows Final Cut Pro on new Mac with Apple CPU !

[ahalpert]

Yeah... I use a ton of Apple products but I just don't see them passing those cost savings to the consumer at all. They never have and likely never will.

That's why they have huge profit margins and an HQ building with 100% curved glass

[groveChuck]

Reactions?

The market's happy. I'm happy.

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[groveChuck]

That's why they have huge profit margins and an HQ building with 100% curved glass

What, do you still like your glass square?

[Thomas Smet]

That's why they have huge profit margins and an HQ building with 100% curved glass

what's wrong with that? Any business strives to have a value where they can have a high profit margin?

[Samuel H]

ARM CPUs are great in terms of performance-per-watt but not so much in terms of just performance, so I guess this is good for the Macbook Air, has pros and cons for the Macbook Pro, and is bad for iMac and Mac Pro. The Cortex-X1 is supposed to push performance at the cost of efficiency, and maybe tests with that is what convinced Apple, but given their track record I'd say they're just as likely to use a terribly outdated model instead.

To me, it seems they're just doubling down on their current approach: they will be better at the things they were already good at, while anybody who cares a lot about total performance is not using apple anyway.

[combatentropy]

I use a ton of Apple products but I just don't see them passing those cost savings to the consumer at all. They never have and likely never will.

The original Macintosh sold for $2,495 in 1984, which is over $6,000 in today's dollars. Their prices do come down. More recently, the original iPad started at $499, and it is now 2/3 that.

[ahalpert]

what's wrong with that? Any business strives to have a value where they can have a high profit margin?

There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just concurring with the prediction that they will pocket the savings.

[DLD]

ARM CPUs are great in terms of performance-per-watt but not so much in terms of just performance, so I guess this is good for the Macbook Air, has pros and cons for the Macbook Pro, and is bad for iMac and Mac Pro. The Cortex-X1 is supposed to push performance at the cost of efficiency, and maybe tests with that is what convinced Apple, but given their track record I'd say they're just as likely to use a terribly outdated model instead...

Let me opine on something I know nothing about ... oh, like usual - new ARM chips from Ampere, Marvell and Amazon could probably be tweaked - easily tweaked, perhaps? - to run on the similar architecture from Apple. In that case, Apple could co-produce some of them, rebadge or simply purchase whatever they need to fill out any gaps within their lineup.

PS. Since ARM chips are going inside pretty much everything these days, it moves Apple into a chip making business outside its own products and/or allows it to sell packaged hardware+software deals to whomever. Which means economy of scale and lower prices for everyone.

[scorsesefan]

There's nothing wrong with that. I'm just concurring with the prediction that they will pocket the savings.

Of course they will. While other companies that build PCs integrate flexible and user modifiable technology into their products and pass along cost savings to consumers, Apple locks down their products, charges higher prices and discourages user experimentation (swapping out components, etc.)... In any case, as a lot of editors have switched to subscription based software, I doubt that the chip swap-out will be as destructive in that regard...

[TheTrickster]

As we can see from the iPAD and successive iPhones the performance of the CPU / GPU is very powerful for something that fits in your pockets and normally doesn't get too hot - and every year its seems we are 2X faster, 3X faster etc etc according to Apple keynotes.

My only concern with Apple going this route would be competition for ARM (or the lack of it). With AMD throwing cores at their Threadripper and aligning their Radeon GPUs closer and closer and with Intel - no doubt fixing their thermal issues eventually. Both are pushing speeds, hardware decoding etc faster and faster - which benefits the end user

Where does this leave ARM? Where is their competition for pushing their chips faster? or am I missing something?