This is just bad all around. Not just for intel, but for the entire industry. I always prefer companies doing well because their products are successful, not because their competitors fall down.
More and more, Apple's timing on their switch to in-house ARM designs seems perfectly timed.
I’m not so sure that not choosing to produce ARM based chips for the iPhone was such an obvious miss for Intel. Why would they want their business subject to the whims of a single company over which they exert zero control?
Just as an example, a couple of months ago Apple seemingly out of the blue, announced they would no longer be using Intel chips in future laptop models and the markets barely noticed. Were they more reliant on PC sales that would not have been the case.
Perhaps they are way behind AMD with respect to the latest chip designs, but even that is far from proven.
I think this article is attempting to make a company with a very complex history and product lineup sound simple.
I'm not saying what you think is wrong, but your view seems like it may be narrow, and missing the bigger ecosystem.
Intel has certainly dominated consumer computer sales over the past decade, and until 4 years ago they were largely still selling the best chips for most consumer use cases (outside of mobile.) Intel had several missteps, but I don't think their dominant position was the only source of their problems, or simply that they thought they didn't have to try. They legitimately had some bad decisions and engineering problems. While the management is now changing, and that might get their engineering ducks in a row, the replacement of Intel with Apple Silicon in Apple's products is not likely to be some kind of "waking up" moment for Intel, in my opinion. Either they'll figure out their problems and somehow get back on an even keel with other chip designers and fabrication, or they won't.
Meanwhile other competitors in x86 and ARM have also have a short-term history of success and failure, again regardless of what Apple is doing. And the timelines for these plans of execution are often measured in the scale of two to three years, and I'm not seeing how Apple successfully designing CPUs would change these roadmaps for competitors.
For everyone involved, particularly those utilizing TSMC, there are benefits over time as processes improve and enable increases in performance and efficiency due to process rather than design, and the increased density will benefit any chip designers that can afford to get on newer processes.
I guess if I'd attempt to summarize, it's not clear who is motivated and able to compete against Apple in ARM design. In other words, is there a clear ARM market outside of iOS/macOS and outside of Android (where chip designers already compete)? And in the Linux/Windows consumer computing space, there's going to be a divide. Those that can accept a transition to macOS and value the incredible efficiency of Apple Silicon will do so. Those that continue buying within their previous ecosystems will continuing comparing the options they have (Intel/AMD), where currently chips are getting better. AMD has been executing very well over four years now, and Intel's latest chips are bringing solid gains in IPC and integrated GPU performance, though they still have process issues to overcome if they wish to catch back up in efficiency, and they may also need to resolve process issues to regain a foothold in HEDT. But even there, where AMD seems pretty clearly superior on most metrics, the shift in market share is slow, and momentum plus capacity give Intel a lot of runway.
The only other consideration is for Windows to transition to ARM, but there's still a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. Will an ARM chip come out with Apple Silicon like performance, despite poor x86 emulation software in Windows when run on ARM? Or will Microsoft create a Rosetta-like translation software that eases the transition? I'm not clear on what will drive either of those to happen.
The funny thing is apple probably transitioned to their in house arm architecture in part because the intel chips ran too hot and throttled in the ultra thin ive products.
Part of this is probably Apple trolling Intel, but this one is pretty believable because Apple generally don't care about protecting their developers' investments, and because they can design ARM chips themselves.
I don't see how Motorola/Freescale and IBM having shifted focus from competitive consumer PowerPC chips to embedded applications reflects so badly on Apple. That platform remained competitive with Intel until the G5, which never hit its stride.
Apple learned from their mistake. They made a dramatic transition to Intel inside of a single year. The impact to consumers was nearly zero.
Compare this with Microsoft's recent efforts to switch to ARM.
How is intel in the way of "controlling an integrated experience for their customers"???
and apple never did #5. ever. well, maybe within their product line the new models are killers.
what they do is screw suppliers for price. just that.
They secure a great deal with companies that will go great lengths doing designs for them cheaply, in hopes that apple will be a recurring client. Hell, they even pulled that on IBM! They will probably pull that one on ARM too. Use the new arm design to exhaustion for a couple years, and then move back to whoever is willing to offer them a better price.
Competition is good for everyone. Having Intel dominate the market was never a good idea (clearly AMD is making some inroads). For Apple, control of all suppliers has always been a goal of hardware design. It only took 20 years...
I think Apple is more aware than Intel on their own status. They have more cash than the rest, I believe half their behavior is understanding that their field has been milked and their trying to keep it going the longest they can while thinking about alternative venues. I agree that half their behavior is lack of good sense (me too products, lesser build quality..)
Apple has been screwed by CPU manufacturers 3 times already, or do you think they changed architectures because they were having great fun doing that?
In the past 3 years I've seen more and more people asking not for an Arm Mac, but for an AMD Mac. Because AMD is again cheaper and faster than Intel.
But it appears Apple can now afford to build their own CPUs that are better and lower power than either AMD or Intel. Not to mention PowerPC, which is still around in some form at IBM :)
It's a no brainer for them. No one can screw them over now except themselves.
apple is moving on from intel because intel burned them badly with 10nm process chips. those were supposed to be out 5 years ago, when apple was readying the current design generation of macbook pros. apple finally had to give up hope and release the machine with hotter and less performant chips than they thought they’d be launching with.
that was the point that apple realized intel had become incapable of leading the industry any longer and started looking beyond intel.
All laptop manufacturers have relied on Intel for years. That was fine when Intel was competitive. But now all those manufacturers are massively behind. They can either wait for Intel to catch up (unlikely), switch to AMD, which is better, but still behind, or they can try to move to ARM. Though that's really hard since they're relying on Windows.
Really this is a massive miss from Microsoft and their partners that many saw coming years ago. It's obvious that this is precisely why Apple likes to bring tech in-house. To avoid depending on something that isn't competitive.
Intel is an Old baby who walks with crutches. Intel delivered the 10nm Processor just 2 months back after a decade of failure. Their 7nm is still broken and so is there 5 and 3nm in research. And they hope to catch up to the competition by 2025 is a funny joke. Intel isnt a reliable delivery partner which is why Apple moved away to its own processors.
The issue is this. Apple asked intel to make the chip for the iphone. If you partner with apple on this, then, together, and with billions of dollars, your entire ecosystem improves even if you were not originaly the best.
When you do this type of deal, you get to work with top class engineers and real major customer driving your power / efficiency story.Intel at the time had the process node advantage as well.
What's happened is Apple has SIGNIFICANTLY funded massive capital investment in the ARM ecosystem and in non-intel fab because now those non-intel providers are critical. Imagine all that money flowing to intel just on fab side.
Rumors around TSMC and Apple for iphones is that Apple funds some of the capacity at TSMC and pays for leading nodes. I'm not sure of the scale of Apple's orders, but they are going to be meaningful both in quantity and what apple is willing to pay.
This move genuinely surprised me. One can certainly argue that Apple's previous focus on the PowerPC was very detrimental in the long run. As you point out, they could not even keep up with IBM let alone Intel. I can't help but wonder if we'll see a repeat performance this time around with ARM and others outpacing the Ax chip line's development speed.
On the other hand, they're commoditizing Intel further and differentiating from the competition.
HP and Dell have gotten smarter and are making better devices. Apple has powerful resources in the ARM space that their competition cannot match -- they are 100% dependent on Intel, who are having issues shipping product.
I think this signifies that the management has failed the company. Taking safe bets instead of taking risks. There is no reason Intel shouldn’t have embraced both architectures. They had to know x86 is never going to be a low power device. Apple wasn’t the only company that saw mobile coming.
More and more, Apple's timing on their switch to in-house ARM designs seems perfectly timed.
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