Apple, are we on CPU architecture 3 now ?

4


Macs started out on Motorola 68k processors, then made the switch to PowerPC, then to x86, and now ARM.

To be fair to Apple those changes were done pretty cleanly and for good reason.


68k was cheap and plentiful. It had lots of competitors using it. They could learn from each others successes and failures too.


PowerPC performed much better and made design changes that made much more sense long-term. But then it wasn’t built for the mobile era. Apple tried to reel it in but the other titans behind POWER overruled them so Apple had to migrate away.


By this point, x86 had caught up with many of the advantages power had and had a better path for the mobile market ahead of it so Apple went that route.


Finally, intel’s x86 was just not going to keep up with the efficiency demands of mobile. It consumed too much power. It was expensive. It ran hot. Intel was not delivering on their promises. And Appel could see what was coming for Intel years before other admitted it.


Meanwhile they already had incredible ARM chips in their phones. The PAsemi boys they bought up were put to the task of making a more general purpose ARM chip and they pulled it off.


So now Apple is on ARM and it’s serving them very well.


Apple isn’t playing planned obsolescence here. They are evil in plenty of other ways but in terms of planned obsolescence Apple is one of the more reasonable companies. These migrations solved a problem for Apple each time. They are very expensive. They are incredibly risky. Honestly it was miraculous they pulled off the jump to ARM successfully.