Apple Silicon M1 ARM != Microsoft ARM & != Android ARM

Apple critics the world over get it all wrong again. This time thinking that Apple’s ARM based Silicon M1, M1 Pro and M1 Max chips and the same ARM chips that Microsoft used or Android uses. Apple’s Silicon team is NOT QualComm, nor Microsoft, nor insert random Android device maker, nor Google… Shall I go on ?

Slow Down, Why So Wrong Kiddo ?

Wrong with all the wrongness, since June 2020 when Apple officially announced Apple Silicon for Macs.

As it so often has over the past decade, Windows offers a roadmap of where things could go awry for the Mac. Windows on ARM still has unacceptable compromises for most users when it comes to software compatibility and expectations.

What Windows can teach the Mac about the switch to ARM processors – Dieter Bohn, The Verge – June 2020

Said every clueless Apple critic and Windows, Intel, PC person ever.

Boy, OH BOY was that wrong. And so is this.

I’m just not so sure about this whole ARM thing.

Every clueless Windows, Intel, PC person EVER

Getting It Wronger Than Wrong With All Kinds Of Wrong Sauce

Steven Sinofsky has a long Twitter thread getting into some of the potential issues facing developers depending on what choices Apple makes. He knows of what he speaks when it comes to the difficulties of transitioning a platform to a new processor architecture.

What Windows can teach the Mac about the switch to ARM processors – Dieter Bohn, The Verge – June 2020

Steven (Wikipedia) was most certainly the man at Microsoft back in the day, but he and Microsoft made the same fatal mistake that so many do. Thinking Apple was constrained by the same rules and played the game the same way as Microsoft, or any other company. But, Steve-O is in good company.

The idea that Apple’s chips would be both way faster and way cooler seemed too good to be true. Like, not just having your cake and eating it too, but having your cake and eating it twice.

But, here we are. It turns out that Microsoft’s foray into ARM-based Windows machines was just an entirely different ballgame.

Microsoft’s Foray into ARM Processors with Windows – John Gruber, Daring Fireball

That’s not to say that John got it wrong, no, he’s one of the few that got it right. It’s to illustrate that Apple plays its own game, its own way, with its own rules.

Learning From Apple’s History of Big Advances

Look, Apple has almost never been comparable to other companies. People get Apple wrong when they try to do that. You get it right when you not only pay very very close attention to what Apple does over the decades, but you also have to truly understand that Apple’s DNA allows them to think different – yeah, I said it !!! – than everyone else does. So when someone applies conventional thinking to Apple, they get it wrong.

Apple plays the long game. This journey to Apple Silicon destroying almost everyone else, started back in 2008. When Jobs starts Apple’s work in designing their own silicon because he’s not satisfied with the chip in the iPhone. And as Apple does all the time, many times every year, they acquired a company to do that – P.A. Semi.

I thought the P.A. Semi acquisition was about talent, not specific silicon I.P. — and I could not have been more wrong. The idea — in 2008 — that this acquisition would take Apple to where it is today was just unimaginable. If Myslewski had written back then that he expected Apple to — in just over a decade — design chips that were both faster and far more power-efficient than Intel’s, we’d have thought he was nuts.

Looking Back on Apple’s Acquisition of P.A. Semi – John Gruber, Daring Fireball

Here is just some history of Apple innovations.

…the M1 Pro and M1 Max are very much the culmination of a vision that dates back to 2008. Tony Fadell, the ‘Father of the iPod’, had already convinced the late Steve Jobs that Apple needed to adopt Arm-based chips for both its iPhone and iPad. Jobs is said to have initially planned on using Intel Atom in the first iPad as he had an affinity with the company, but Fadell famously threatened to leave Apple if Jobs went ahead with his plans instead of using Arm-based silicon which Fadell favored.

Apple’s M1 Pro, M1 Max chips are the culmination of a vision hatched in 2008 – Notebook Check

These processors (finally) set the Mac on the same timeline for rapid innovation – like the iPhone, iPad, Watch, Apple TV & AirPods. Apple’s unique capability allows for incredible tech SH/HW leverage across every product.
Wonderful to see our vision from 2008 is in full bloom.

Tony Fadell on Twitter

Full bloom, indeed !!!