1:05 Did Apple just VINTAGE your iMac?
1:32 Linux on Apple Silicon M1
2:28 What will the Apple Silicon Update Cycle look like going forward?
6:25 Notification Squad
Apple has added a number of its iMacs to the Apple Vintage products list this week, including up to the mid 2015 Retina 5K models and mid 2014 21.5” iMacs.
There is a little confusion about what this actually means, as in 2018 Apple went from no longer offering servicing on their Vintage products list to extended repairs on select models, which I think in reality mean “as long as we have the parts”.
While this now means that the iCave is produced on a vintage machine (not the G4 Cube in the background) I don’t think this 2013 pre-retina iMac was ever likely to return to an Apple store for service anyway. However… It DOES make me wonder if I should really start considering that Mac mini I’ve had my eye on for a while.
Of course we’re expecting the iMac to be re-launched with an Apple Silicon heart and most likely the first redesign of this new generation of Macs, so maybe I should hold on. More on the new iMacs later.
Linux on Apple Silicon M1
Back in the “but what else can we run on Apple’s new Superchip” department, Developer Hector Martin or Marcan has launched a Patreon funded project to port Linux to Apple Silicon.
This, along with the prospect of Windows not getting official support for Apple Silicon makes me wonder… While its almost the exact opposite of what we understand now, could running un-supported operating systems on Apple Silicon become the new incarnation of Hackintoshing? It seems unlikely that trying to run Apple’s Arm Specific OS on non Apple systems will be popular if at all possible, but perhaps other boot or VM options on Macs could be where that energy finds a home.
What will the Apple Silicon Update Cycle look like going forward?
Given that the world is finally seeing what we’d all been expecting since August, that Apple Silicon, even in its most basic, reduced power level version that is the MacBook Air, Base 13” Pro and Base Mac mini, I think what the refresh cycle will look like might be important for people in knowing when they should or should not buy Macs.
Sites like MacRumours have had buyers guides in the past that tracked when each product was updated, when Intel had new chips expected and when appropriate graphics hardware was on the way. My hope is that these will be much more simple going forward.
Because of the way Apple is putting their Silicon together, I believe the Firestorm high performance and Icestorm efficiency chips are the same in all of a given generation’s SOCs. I could be wrong, but that seems to be the case. 2 Firestorm 4 Icestorm in iPhone and iPad Air’s A14, 4 and 4 in he M1 (and presumably A14X for iPad Pro), potentially 8 and 4 in the M1X that we expect to power the first iMac and higher end MacBook Pros.
Because Apple is creating families of SOCs based around the same cores, scaling should be relatively easy, and with 2-4 SOC styles, should be able to cover their whole range. That should also allow them to iterate annually and update every single Mac, every single year. Just think about that compared to what we’ve had in recent years, where Apple has been waiting for Intel chips to be ready, seen issues with Intel’s roadmap where the power consumption has had to increase in order to increase performance, delays have happened due to lack of progress, all stuff that has caused Apple big problems.
Now they have their own industrial design team creating the new Mac enclosures with new thermal envelopes, and their own chip team designing the SOCs to fit perfectly within the TDP of the cases, because they know exactly what that is. Plus they’re only updating their 2 cores annually, then slotting as many into the die as is needed for each platform. Of course there are other parts to the SOC, but the designers almost have a kit of Apple Features and can just add whichever they need for that year’s feature set.
So I think Apple will split their product cycle with new Consumer level M1, M2 M3 SOCs towards the end of each year, around iPhone season, then a Pro focused event in March with the M1X, M2X as well as A14X for the iPads Pro, and a Super Powered release around June at WWDC which has traditionally been software focused but also been where Mac Pros have debuted, so Mac Pro and iMac Pro would be most likely here.
Then each year we can rinse and repeat, with the previous year’s SOCs going into SE Macs, perhaps an iMac SE, but almost certainly a MacBook or MacBook Air SE and a Mac mini SE. Just as they have with iPhone SE and Apple Watch SE, (and lets be honest, the base iPad could just take the SE name too, the chip is a couple of years old), Mac SE Models would give an awesome value point that is still unique to Apple in its optimisation and design.
So annual updates across the board – what do you think, plausible? Let me know in the comments below!