This article is from WeChat official account:Pinwan (ID: pinwancool), the original title “Apple’s Wholeheartedness, Is It Really Sincere?” “Author: founding, from the title figure: Vision China
In the early morning of November 11, there was a kind of carnival and a kind of loss in front of mobile phones and computer screens, which dilutes the original meaning of this day. On the one hand, there are gangsters buying and buying, and the other is fruit fans. We are gloomy-is the new Mac worth it?
Despite this idea, there is no actual product now, and Apple has not announced a specific release date. It’s a mule or a horse. It’s not too late to take a look when you pull it out for a walk.
Apple launched the self-developed chip M1 for the Mac product line in the early morning of Double Eleven in 2020. The chip uses the ARM architecture and officially says goodbye to the previous Intel X86. Apple made an early announcement for this step. On June 22 this year, Apple held a global developer conference and announced that it will take two years to gradually shift the Mac product line from Intel processors to the self-developed chip Apple Silicon based on the ARM architecture. Mac products equipped with this chip will be released.”
From the performance shown by Apple at the press conference, there is no doubt that MacBook products equipped with M1 chips have slapped their predecessors-MacBooks equipped with Intel processors. The M1 chip uses a 5nm process technology and will currently be equipped with MacBook Air, MacBook Pro and Mac mini.
Take MacBook Air as an example. Apple said that with the M1 chip, the CPU speed of MacBook Air is 3.5 times faster, the GPU speed is 5 times faster, and the NPU learning speed is 9 times faster. In addition, battery life is also something Apple is proud of: MacBook Air(M1)’s video playback battery life reaches 18 hours, which is 6 hours longer than before.
From Apple’s official website
Don’t rush to cheer. Based on the previous actual usage and considering that MacBook Air is not equipped with an active cooling fan, this theoretical result may be discounted. But taking a step back, the Mac after the M1 blessing does have epoch-making significance.
Today, including the Mac product line, Apple’s self-developed chips are used in products such as the iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch, forming a true “full core and whole family bucket”.
But why did Apple start the major migration of the processor platform of the Mac product line at this time, and what can it bring to Apple after switching to the ARM-based self-developed chip?
Three chip migration
Before embracing the ARM architecture, Apple adjusted the chip for Mac three times.
In 1984, Apple switched to Motorola’s 68K architecture; in 1994, it switched from Motorola’s 68K architecture to IBM’s PowerPC architecture; in 2005, it switched from the PowerPC architecture to the Intel processor architecture.
Almost every 10 years, Apple will adjust the processor architecture of the Mac. When Apple announced the switch to Intel processor architecture in 2005, the then Apple CEO Steve Jobs(Steve Jobs) said: “We think Intel’s technology will help us create the best personal computers in the next ten years. “
Jobs is right. The prototypes of the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air product lines that we are so familiar with today were launched in 2006 and 2008 respectively after embracing Intel.
The Macworld conference on January 15, 2008 may be unforgettable for many people who follow Apple. On this day, Jobs took out the world’s first MacBook Air from an envelope. It was called the thinnest laptop at the time. . To this day, the four-generation MacBook Air is still one of the most popular laptops.
In 2008 Macworld, Jobs took out the MacBook Air from the envelope
From 2005 to 2020, during the 15 years when Apple adopted the Intel processor architecture, the number of active Mac users increased from 12.5 million to 100 million. According to a report by the market research organization Gartner, Apple continues to maintain its position as the world’s fourth largest PC manufacturer, behind Lenovo, HP and Dell. According to Gartner’s estimates, Apple will account for approximately 7.7% of the global PC market in Q3 2020, a year-on-year increase of 7.3%.
Apple previously stated in its earnings report that due to the impact of the global epidemic this year, most people can only work from home, which has stimulated the market demand for Mac and iPad.
Looking back, Jobs’ choice in 2005 did give Mac a foothold. And why did Jobs make this decision?
The cooperation between Apple and IBM has always been full of unpleasantness. The Power Mac G5 processor produced by the latter is under-supplied and has obvious heat dissipation and power consumption issues. At the same time, IBM has also imposed harsh requirements on Apple. Very dissatisfied, unwilling to stock up more for Apple. In such a vicious circle, IBM has been unable to meet Apple’s requirements, so Apple finally chose to abandon IBM and invest in Intel.
During this period not only allowed Apple to switch to a new chip supplier, but also planted seeds for Apple’s self-developed chips.
Intel and self-developed chips
Now that Apple has given up Intel and turned to self-developed chips, the situation is the same as that of IBM back then. The biggest problem is that chip suppliers have begun to drag their feet. In addition to the Mac product line, Apple has applied self-developed chips to the iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and even the AirPods product line, and its performance is getting stronger every year.
Grow beans and get beans. Apple can now rely on self-developed chips to push the iPhone to the top, thanks to Intel’s wrong decision.
Before Jobs officially launched the iPhone, Apple communicated with Intel, hoping to put Intel’s ARM architecture chip XScale on the phone. However, at that time Intel CEO Paul Otellini, who was wearing an astronaut costume and Steve Jobs, announced that Apple and Intel will formally cooperate with each other, he was not optimistic about Apple’s proposal, and he was reluctant to invest in ARM chips.
2005 WWDC, Jobs and Otellini