There’s a number of reasons, all of which in concert create the appearance of a performance gap between the two:
* Apple has had decades optimizing its software and hardware stacks to the demands of its majority users, whereas Intel and AMD have to optimize for a much broader scope of use cases.
* Apple was willing to throw out legacy support on a regular basis. Intel and AMD, by comparison, are still expected to run code written for DOS or specific extensions in major Enterprises, which adds to complexity and cost
* The “standard” of x86 (and demand for newly-bolted-on extensions) means effort into optimizations for efficiency or performance meet diminishing returns fairly quickly. The maturity of the platform also means the “easy” gains are long gone/already done, and so it’s a matter of edge cases and smaller tweaks rather than comprehensive redesigns.
* Software in x86 world is not optimized, broadly, because it doesn’t have to be. The demoscene shows what can be achieved in tight performance envelopes, but software companies have never had reason to optimize code or performance when next year has always promised more cores or more GHz.
It boils down to comparing two different products and asking why they can’t be the same. Apple’s hardware is purpose-built for its userbase, operating systems, and software; x86 is not, and never has been. Those of us who remember the 80s and 90s of SPARC/POWER/Itanium/etc recall that specialty designs often performed better than generalist ones in their specialties, but lacked compatibility as a result.
The Apple ARM vs Intel/AMD x86 is the same thing.
Intel chose and stuck with backcompat as a strategy. They could, tomorrow, split their designs into legacy hardware and modern hardware. They didn’t, but Apple has done breaking generational change many times.
Apple also has a particular advantage in owning the os and having the ability to force independent developers to upgrade their software, which make incompatible updates (including perf optimizations) possible.
Intel also wanted to break backcompat and start fresh with Itanium but it failed.
So they abandoned it. Meanwhile Apple has powered through that problem how many times?
The price of Apple’s approach is that 3p developers have to dance to Apple’s tune. And that’s a tough road, as evidenced by the small set of really successful companies which have bet the farm on Apple.
Fair enough, but Apple Silicon is not a specialist chip in the way a SPARC chip was. It's a general purpose SoC & SiP stack. There is nothing stopping Intel being able to invest in SoC & SiP and being able to maintain backward compatibility while providing much better power/performance for a mobile (including laptop and tablet), product strategy.
They could also just sit down with Microsoft and say "Right, we're going to go in an entirely different direction, and provide you with something absolutely mind-blowing, but we're going to have to do software emulation for backward compatibility and that will suck for a while until things get recompiled, or it'll suck forever if they never do".
Apple did this twice in the last 20 years - once on the move from PowerPC chips to Intel, and again from Intel to Apple Silicon.
If Microsoft and enough large OEMs (Dell, etc.), thought there was enough juice in the new proposed architecture to cause a major redevelopment of everything from mobile to data centre level compute, they'd line right up, because they know that if you can significantly reduce the amount of power consumption while smashing benchmarks, there are going to long, long wait times for that hardware and software, and its pay day for everyone.
We now know so much more about processor design, instruction set and compiler design than we did when the x86 was shaping up, it seems obvious to me that:
1. RISC is a proven entity worth investing in
2. SoC & SiP is a proven entity worth investing in
3. Customers love better power/performance curves at every level from the device in their pocket to the racks in data centres
4. Intel is in real trouble if they are seriously considering the US government owning actual equity, albeit proposed as non-voting, non-controlling
Intel can keep the x86 line around if they want, but their R&D needs to be chasing where the market is heading - and fast - while bringing the rest of the chain along with them.
> Right, we're going to go in an entirely different direction, and provide you with something absolutely mind-blowing, but we're going to have to do software emulation for backward compatibility and that will suck for a while until things get recompiled, or it'll suck forever if they never do
For an example of why this doesnt work, see 'Intel Itanium'.
That's because the direction they took was awful. That does not mean other directions do not exist right now that they could raise money for and invest in.
The alternative is death - they do nothing, they're going to die.
Which option do you think they should take?
> The alternative is death - they do nothing, they're going to die.
Thats a subjective opinion. Plenty of people still value higher power multi core chips over apple silicon, because they are still better at doing real work. I dont think they need to go in a new direction personally, but I was just showing an example of why your provided solution is not a silver bullet.
It’s a bit unfair to say apple threw out backwards compatibility.
Each time they had a pretty good emulation story to keep most stuff (certainly popular stuff) working through a multi-year transition period.
IMO, this is better then carrying around 40 years of cruft.
This was absolutely not the case for 32-bit iOS apps, which they dropped from one year to the next like a hot potato. I still mourn the loss of some of the apps.
Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further. This in turn means you cannot install new software as the applications themselves require the newer versions of the OS. It has been this way on apple hardware for decades, and has laid the foundation of not ever needing to provide backwards compatibility for more than a few years as well as forcing new hardware purchases. The 'emulation story' only needs to work for a couple of generations, then it itself can be sunsetted and is not expected to be backwards compatible with newer OSes. It is also the reason it is pretty much impossible to upgrade CPUs in Apple machines.
> IMO, this is better then carrying around 40 years of cruft.
Backwards compatibility is such a strong point, it is why windows survives even though it has become a bloated ad riddled mess. You can argue which is better, but that seriously depends on your requirements. If you have a business application coded 30 years ago on x86 that no developer in your company understands any more, then backwards compatibility is king. On the other end of the spectrum if you are happy to be purchasing new software subscriptions constantly and having bleeding edge hardware is a must for you, then backwards compatibility probably isnt required.
> Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further.
A new major version of macOS comes out every year. The oldest Mac still supported by the upcoming macOS 26 is from 2019.
Wow, 6 years!
> Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further
"oh a post about Apple, let me come in and share my hatred for Apple again by outright lying!"
As stated already, macOS 26 runs on the M1 and even the 2019 Macbook Pro. So i think i know where you got the "3 new versions" figure, and it's a dark and smelly place.
Apologies I was under the impression that the major OS release was every 2 years, and so I equated 6 years into 3 releases. No need to be quite so rude when you could just factually correct.
However My parents 2017 Macbook pro can only upgrade to Ventura, which is a 2022 release. 5 years and that $2.5k baby was obselete. However rude you are about your defense of Apple, 5-6 years until software starts being unable to install is pretty shitty. I use 30 year old apps daily on windows with no issue.
Looks like defending Apple is the smelly place to be judging by your tone and condescending snark.
> My parents 2017 Macbook pro can only upgrade to Ventura, which is a 2022 release. 5 years and that $2.5k baby was obselete.
Meanwhile, in [Windows land], > Microsoft has provided the minimum and feature-specific device specifications required for upgrading to Windows 11. A number of devices will meet these requirements, however devices with legacy BIOS or without a Trusted Platform Module (TPM 2.0) are not compatible for the upgrade.
> Microsoft also provided a full list of supported Intel processors; however this loosely translates to compatibility with Intel's 8th-generation processors and newer, meaning devices produced within the last 6-7 years have a high chance of being compatible.
Sure looks like Apple's support of old machines is in line with Windows here.
[Windows land] https://www.rm.com/blog/2024/may/a-surprising-number-of-pcs-...
If you truly believed major releases were every 2 years, then i apologize, but i thought my "objectionable commentary" was fairly light on the snark. It's quite trendy to hate on Apple, so i assumed you were one of those. I don't honestly care, but what i do care about is when people lie about things to try to make a point. It's been happening more often lately it seems and i quickly respond when i think i see it.
It's a real trade-off.
I don't really know why windows is so very very bad, I just assume it has a lot to do with all the compatibility. If that's the case, then I prefer the Apple approach.
>Apple purposely make it so after 3 new versions of the OS you cannot upgrade the OS on the hardware any further.
This is false.
Apologies I meant 5-6 years, with a release every 2. Turns it its every year so I was wrong,
Apple has released every year for the last almost decade
> Apple has had decades optimizing its software and hardware stacks to the demands of its majority users, whereas Intel and AMD have to optimize for a much broader scope of use cases.
But as you mention - they've at multiple times changed the underlying architecture, which surely would render å large part of prior optimizations obsolete?
> Software in x86 world is not optimized, broadly, because it doesn’t have to be.
Do ARM software need optimization more than x86?
That sure sounds more like the reality of a performance gap than the appearance of one.
The broader audience/apples to oranges bit is fair. We're not choosing apple hardware for server. x64 is still dominant on the server with some cheap custom arm chips as an option, no?
Sure, but that’s very different than the context f the original question.
I don't think backcompat is that big of a deal, since old DOS programs also don't take any compute power to run too and apple has shown layers like rosetta work fine.
I generally agree but what's Qualcomm's excuse?
> Software in x86 world is not optimized, broadly, because it doesn’t have to be. The demoscene shows what can be achieved in tight performance envelopes, but software companies have never had reason to optimize code or performance when next year has always promised more cores or more GHz.
This is why I get so livid regarding Electron apps on the Mac.
I’m never surprised by developer-centric apps like Docker Desktop — those inclined to work on highly technical apps tend not to care much about UX — but to see billion-dollar teams like Slack and 1Password indulge in this slop is so disheartening.