Apple Dumping Intel For ARM Chips In Laptops?
There's talk that Apple is eying ARM for notebooks and desktops, ditching Intel.
On Friday, reports surfaced that Apple officials have decided to dump Intel processors for ARM-based solutions in its upcoming MacBooks and MacBook Pros-- and possibly even Mac desktops. The transition, stated as a "done deal" by unnamed insiders, won't take place immediately, but is expected to happen "as soon as possible"-- probably in mid-2013.
According to sources, Apple is waiting for ARM architecture to move beyond the 32-bit architecture, possibly holding off for the company's upcoming Cortex-A15 processor design which is expected to hit the market in late 2012 or later. Nvidia's own ARM-based Project Denver processor, which integrates the CPU and GPU onto one die, is expected to launch in the same timeframe and will also use a 64-bit instruction set. There's speculation that Apple's plan and Nvidia's release is not a coincidence.
For Apple, moving to ARM chips would mean it would have a consistent processor architecture across all of its products. Currently the company is using Intel chips in its desktops and laptops, but ARM-based solutions in the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad tablets. The move could also signify a possible attempt to follow Microsoft's footsteps and develop one operating system that can be used across different form factors-- to offer the same OS on the iPad, iPhone, MacBook and Mac desktop.
Then again, so far ARM chips have yet to prove themselves in the PC market, remaining the dominant solution only in the mobile sector. Yet research firm IDC recently stated that it expects ARM to own 13-percent of the PC processor market by 2015. That market shift is expected to be steered by Microsoft's modular Windows 8 which could be released as early as next year.
Speculation of Apple's move to ARM arrives just days after Intel revealed its Tri-Gate transistor design which will begin to appear in 22-nm "Ivy Bridge" chips later on this year, or in Q1 2012. The new 3D transistor structure will enable Intel to increase performance while decreasing the overall chip size, power consumption and leakage. These chips are expected to put Intel in a better position to aggressively compete with ARM in the mobile sector while retaining the x86 architecture.

what? haha. how many years have people been saying AMD is dead? they've been recording decent profits lately, I'm sure they'd appreciate you informing them there's no reason to come in to work any longer.
^^ this. I think apple wants to make a seamless transition between phone>tablet>notebook>desktop, and they don't mind losing programs and computational power to do so. Hell... they ran on RISC architecture w/o x86 before, why not now?
we will see though ....
Hate to say it, but Id agree. Apple, whom i dont really like, is all about "elegance, design, power efficiency, style......". Nobody in their right mind buys a Mac for heavy computational tasks, unless they are into the arts (rendering, CS5, so on), where Mac features do help. If Apple made all their mobile devices ARM based by say, 2013, think of how much easier coding things would be for them. If they made everything ARM by 2015, where it will likely start to catch up to x86 in performance,it would be a brilliant move. Not only are ARM systems incredibly cheap, they are (supposedly) easier to code for, and much more power efficient. This is incredibly important for laptops. What would you rather have, an Apple Laptop that can run for 2 days straight, but not score quite as high in Cine, Sys, and so on, or an x86 that last for 7 hours and can max out those synthetics? For the average person who uses a word processor, the internet, and a few apps here and there, the choice would be clear. Not only that but this can help Apple make more money for their greedy selves, ARM systems cost less, so im sure Apple will charge the difference for "saving the enviroment with ARM efficiency".
If it is true, I am rather surprised. One of their biggest selling points lately has been the ability to run Windows natively. But, having said that, Microsoft did announce ARM support on Windows 8, so maybe Apple took that into consideration.
Still, I'm surprised. I could easily see Apple switching to AMD's new Fusion chips, especially since their computers already run AMD GPUs. But didn't see the ARM thing coming.
As it stands right now, I would agree with you. But the borders between desktop, mobile, and gaming electronics is QUICKLY closing.
Eventually I think the market will be at a place where we'll see the decline of the x86 platform as RISC-based processors slowly take over. All of the current generation gaming consoles run Power-based RISC processors, and nearly every mobile electronic device runs a RISC-based processor. So really, the only market that is left is the desktop market. A couple more years of the development in the ARM platform and I think it is perfectly reasonable that we start seeing ARM chips in desktop PCs.
So no, not like it will happen tomorrow, but I can easily see it happening in the future.
In a bit of way-out speculation, analyst Gus Richard of Piper Jaffray this week said he thought that Intel was seeking to make ARM chips for Apple.
“Based on a number of inputs, we believe Intel is also vying for Apple’s foundry business,” he said in a note to investors, which was quoted in EE Times and elsewhere.
but hey fan boys be haters as usual